SUSO

Obama On The Streets

Safe to say Barack owes writer Juse One a drink or two.

Read More (0 comments)

Categories Art Politics Tags Art Politics

By on 31/3/08

An Eclectic Rose

Aaron Rose has an interesting take on street art. It’s like Blues or Jazz, he says: initially frowned upon but increasingly understood. It’s a neat comparison, and right now, with the emergence of urban art auctions and the great celebrity of Banksy, it seems we’re in the midst of that mainstream acceptance. But Rose has been involved since the very beginning, since he was 19, when he found himself alone in New York having recently moved there from the San Fernando Valley in LA. A woman he met there offered him a rundown store space:

“It was very cheap in a bad area of town. The neighborhood was just heroin and crime etc. We opened this art gallery not knowing what we wanted to do. I never wanted to be an art dealer. I didn’t have any art world experience. I just had a space and so we started putting up shows and we called the gallery Alleged after these (alleged) good luck candles that they sold in the Puerto Rican grocery stores. It was an Alleged gallery, not a real gallery.”

Read More (0 comments)

Categories Art Culture Tags Aaron Rose Art Skating Street Art

By on 31/3/08

Daley Star

Think back to Linford in Barcelona, Kelly in Athens, Thompson in LA and Redgrave, well, everywhere. The Olympics are back this year, and we have a national treasure ready for his first act.

British gold medal hopes are a rarity, but that’s not the only reason we get so excited by sports like curling once every four years. In the main it’s due to the stupendous, behemothic and magnificent gravity of the whole occasion. Footballers can screw up but then make up for it when next Saturday comes. But if a sprinter doesn’t ‘go on the B of Bang’, as Colin Jackson puts it, he has to live with failure for another four years; and what’s more, if an athlete has a ten year career, then they may only get two shots at glory. That’s why the Olympics are so huge: it’s the ultimate test, the culmination of four years work in one moment of exertion.

Read More (0 comments)

Categories Sport Tags Beijing determination diving london 2012 olympic games Olympics Sport tom daley

By on 31/3/08

Exclusive Obscurity

There are few things in this world that are at once insanely eccentric, staunchly traditional and devoutly practical. In most circumstances there is no room for tradition while technology and design are forging new and improved paths, especially in an environment that is obsessed with innovation - the motor industry. From the moment Henry Ford rolled out his Model T, the race has been on to be the most modern, the most advanced, the quickest, the safest.

How extraordinary, then, that a small, privately owned British car company, Bristol, has for 60 years turned its nose up at fashion and convention in favour of what some might see as archaic practices in car design. The styling is discreet, penned by aeroplane engineers rather than car designers. Bristol cars are an acquired taste:

Read More (42 comments)

Categories Design Tags bristol bristol cars Cars creativity Design determination model T

By on 27/3/08

The Operators Interview

They met on the Isle of Wight in 2007 and self-released their first album "What You See Is What I Sell" earlier this year. The Operators are made up of Owen Taylor on Vocals, John Stevens on Bass, Charlie Westropp on Synths and Guitar and Ben Athey on drums.

I have managed to see them live a couple of times so in exchange for my sweat, well trodden-on feet and mild whiplash I thought they owed me answers to some tough and probing questions. Luckily Owen and Charlie could spare a moment:

Read More (2 comments)

Categories Music Tags band ben charlie creativity Imagination john Music owen the operators unsigned

By on 26/3/08

Rightfully Red

So ‘Grand Slam Super Soccer Sensational Sublime Stupendous Sunday’ has been and gone.

And the Premier League continues to insist that all fixtures are drawn at random using some special machine they keep at HQ. Oh look, would you believe it, the Big Four have been drawn against each other on the same day. Oh and look again, it’s on Easter Sunday. Of all the days eh? Wasn’t that the second ‘G.S.S.S.S.S.S.S’ we’ve had this season? Random? Hardly.

Read More (0 comments)

Categories Sport Tags creativity Football

By on 25/3/08

The Live Performance Problem

ROBERT HENKE'S MONODECK OFFERS A WELCOME ALTERNATIVE TO THE LAPTOP EXPERIENCE.

I was at Bloc Weekend last, err, weekend. It was a strange experience to say the least: three nights at Pontins, that enduring luminary of British holidaying, with three arenas playing host to the cream of electronic music, both past and present. All in all it was a memorable trip and well worth the large fee, but one thing struck me, and I wasn’t alone: watching a guy in specks standing motionless behind a laptop isn’t always conducive to dancing.

Read More (0 comments)

Categories Music Tags Monolake Music Techno

By on 21/3/08

Right You Are

Someone once asked OS GÊMEOS, the identical twin brothers and original pioneers of Brazilian graffiti, what makes them want to write. Why do what you do, was the question, and this their response:

“Hate and love, living in a country where you have to survive, the simple look of a child asking for money in the street, living in a country where the government doesn't care about you, where there are no laws, where people are paid miserable salaries and are still smiling, waking up sometimes and realising it was only a dream. Idolatry, lack of union, vanity, ego, jealousy, people who need others to be somebody, people who use the others. Love. We are proud to be Brazilians from São Paulo, to know that what we believe in exists, to write incorrectly in Portuguese, to live some moments that seem eternal, to use firecrackers in the street, to build fires in those streets, to tell lies to the police, to know that our family loves us, to do things without thinking, using latex and rollers, to paint in the street with out clothes dirty from the paint, to go up on a ladder without a shirt, to be from South America, to use the city, ugly things, to know we fly in the fog, and to float paper boats in the rain.”

Good enough for us.

Read More (12 comments)

Categories Art Graffiti Tags Brazil Graffiti Os Gemeos

By on 19/3/08

Tour Of A Lifetime

This is the most philanthropic time of year. We tend to be a bit introspective about our lives as we see sportsmen and comedians ‘doing their bit’ for charity. We’re soon back at work though, maybe having made a donation, safe in the knowledge that the fractured world is being healed by our efforts.

For some people though, philanthropy is a way of life. A children’s charity called Touraid has been set up by Andy Berry and Nick Avery to give children from third world countries the chance to establish educational and social links to children and schools in England. A bold mission statement that really comes to life when you realise that sport is the catalyst for all of this.

Read More (239 comments)

Categories Sport Tags Charity children determination rugby Sport

By on 17/3/08

Beautiful Losers

Beautiful Losers is a new feature documentary film, just premiered in the States, that celebrates the independent and DIY spirit that unified a loose-knit group of American artists who emerged from the underground youth subcultures of skateboarding, graffiti, punk rock and hip hop - the likes of Ed Templeton (above), Shepard Fairey (whose art was recently shown in London - see below), Harmony Korine and Mike Mills.

Directed by Joshua Leonard, it explores the remarkable impact that this group of influential outcasts have had on contemporary culture. How, for instance, does a young guy learning to skate become an internationally renowned photographer?

Read More (6 comments)

Categories Art Film Photography Tags Art Photography Skating

By on 13/3/08