traversing through the land of the mind

Basquiat started off as a graffiti artist in NYC (1977-80), tagging the work as ‘SAMO©’ — a self-declared ‘sophomoric’ or juvenile art meaning ‘Same Old Shit.’  It was clear from the start that this young man was a kind of genius with a refreshing perspective and intelligence, despite him calling this street poetry “just teenage stuff.”

Some of the early SAMO© works include:

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING IS OMNIPRESENT?
[ ] LEE HARVEY OSWALD
[ ] COCA-COLA LOGO
[ ] GENERAL MELONRY
[ ] SAMO©…

SAMO© SAVES IDIOTS AND GONZOIDS…

SAMO©…
4THE INDIRECTLY INVOLVED,
THE EASILY CONVINCED
& THE BAFFLED…

Art critic Jeffrey Deitchcalled it “disjointed street poetry” and remembered that “Back in the late seventies, you couldn’t go anywhere interesting in Lower Manhattan without noticing that someone named SAMO had been there first.” 

His collaborator Diaz noted: “The stuff you see on the subways now is inane. Scribbled. SAMO was like a refresher course because there’s some kind of statement being made. It’s not just ego graffiti.”

Just finished watching the Basquiat documentary “Radiant Child.”  Here are some images of the work of Rammellzee, whose album Basquiat produced and did the cover art for. 

xavier dolan on exactly how i feel right now — in terms of wanting a fresh new start in my mind.

Stills from Montreal-based filmmaker Xavier Dolan’s “Les Amours Imaginaires (Heartbeats).”  If you haven’t seen any of the three feature lengths directed by this (gasp!) twenty-four year-old Quebecois filmmaker then you really should add it to your list of things to see.  While admittedly somewhat self-indulgent (both visually and durationally — my partner who edits video was envisioning ‘editing the shit!’ out of what was admittedly an unnecessarily long film, “Laurence Anyways”) Dolan’s work entrances me: his propensity for melding a (what might call “hipster”) aesthetic of what i dare might call the NEW french new wave with magic realist inclinations.  Indeed, Monia Chokri (a recurring actor in Dolan’s films — namely as the brash and endearing gloomy sister of Fred in “Laurence Anyways”) looks like a contemporary Anna Karina in the stills featured here: both her casually immaculate French style and that cigarette smoke shrouded gaze of existential indifference set her beside Godard’s ‘original muses’ of La Nouvelle Vague.

Recent appearances in the media is an excellent excuse to post some Barbara Kruger.