If you don't who Lee "Scratch" Perry is or what his music is about, you need to start with the Lee Perry station on Pandora for a quick education (it's a good one). He basically began reggae music defining its sound in the late '60s. He began the career of a young Bob Marley producing many of his biggest hits. Perry's prolific career includes beginning the sound of DUB music and could argue much electronic music and hip hop as well. He's an energetic creative force that at times during the 70s, in his home studio "Black Ark Studios", produced an astonishing 20 songs a week.
The film isn't your traditional VH1's Behind the Music where other musicians and critics rant and rave about Perry's genius and his importance in modern music history. Instead, the film takes you inside the mind of Perry (or attempts to) by focusing a lot of screen time to Perry's long winded monologues where his stream of conscious religious/ poetry rants are intriguing in illustrating his talent at word play and musical mastery. Some may find the film focuses too much on Perry's ramblings, but I found it refreshing and a way to get inside Perry's head and thought it helped to truly illustrate how creative and interesting the man is. Scrawling words and phrases spray painted on his home walls. Burning gasoline in his snowy driveway. Dancing and seemingly truly being himself, it's nice to see someone so mentally free of any self restriction or those imposed by society. He lives within the space of his own mind.
The film follows Perry's rise through the music scene in Jamaica to the present day where he lives in Switzerland with his wife and children. It tracks him at his highest peaks to the lowest of lows of an artist refusing to compromise- pushing those around him away for what Perry calls parasites reeling about his consciousness sucking his energy and creativity for profit and fame. At times Perry's a self described Mad Man, as those believed he was, but he pondered if it was too many years with the smoke (he's since stopped smoking ganja). He is no mad man but a creative force who deserves not only this spotlight on him and his music but so much more. Following a life of true creativity and focusing his energy on his music rather than a chase at fame and money, it's this reason why Lee Scratch Perry will be remembered in musical history while those around him seeking rich and fame will be enjoyably forgotten.
This video was made as an installation element for my show at Thinkspace Gallery in Los Angeles titled: This is Forever, opening April 9th 2011. I wanted to showcase things that inspire me and things I collect: old things, colorfull things, wooden things, childrens books. I'm really just a big kid, and I'm not afraid to say I like to play with toys.
James Mustico (via Portland) emailed over this film addressing triangles persistence in the art world... But I found myself enjoying the one below more. Get some snowboarding in before winter is done people.
When Dugan O'Neal isn't making funny haha videos like this one & this one, he's making music videos like the one below for TV on the Radio. Great work, Dugan.
Composite Identity / Badalona
A project by Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada that consists of 3D facial scans of 34 people, one person from each of the 34 neighborhoods of Badalona, Spain. These 34 scans were combined using an algorythm program to create a composite/average face.
Programing and 3D scanning: Jorge Rodriguez Gerada, Enric Marti and his team at the Department of Computer Science at the Autonamous University of Barcelona.
Artist Assistant: Joachim Castañeda
Selection and interviews of protagonists by Albert Jódar (photographs) and Arcadi Poch (contents)
34-1 Exhibition - Photographs of 34 people, one person from each of the 34 neighborhoods of Badalona Spain by Albert Jodar.
IDENTITY(S)
This was one of a number of projects that were created for IDENTITY(S), a project based on creating social cohesion through art that was developed by the Kognitif platform for the city of Badalona in July 2010.
Identity(s) Directors: Arcadi Poch and Sara Compte
Identity(s) Project Producers: Sara Compte, Arcadi Poch and Cristina Roca
Director of Photography: Rafa Guerao, Isak Férriz and Albert Brescó
Edition: Albert Brescó and Isak Férriz
Postproduction: Albert Brescó
Music: Filastine
JR exhibits his photographs in the biggest art gallery on the planet. His work is presented freely in the streets of the world, catching the attention of people who are not museum visitors. His work mixes Art and Action; it talks about commitment, freedom, identity and limit.
Video on London based David Shillinglaw who, besides blogging some London-ness for Fecal Face from time to time, is also an accomplished artist himself. Listen/ see what makes him tick.
Shillinglaw’s work moves between street and studio, from small hand made books, to paintings on canvas, and large scale wall murals. David has enjoyed applying his fine art practice to a number of other contexts, which range from theatre set designs, to album cover design. Past commissions include illustrations for The British Council Annual Report.
We've been a fan of Adam Hashemi's shorts for years, and this one may be the best. Filmed for the Danish Road Safety Council. Yeah, it never made it to TV. I think you'll know why after watching it. So f-ing great.
In Silicon Valley we have the highest concentration of aggressive people in the United Sates. And it's a place where all life has been reduced to working in a cubicle and then after work going out to have a Merlot at the Fromage bar. I'm kind of looking for something a little more primitive, a little more basic, something that appeals to the essential nature of a man. -- Gints K., Software Engineer & Founder, Gentlemen's Fight Club
A documentary film on art and the artists behind it. Directed by Isaac Niemand, it was all filmed on the heat of the live action at ®Nova Contemporary Culture which happened in July and August 2010, in the Museum of Image and Sound, São Paulo, Brazil. This trailer features the arts and words by Tofer Chin, Rebecca Ward, Krink, MWM, Koen Delaere, Mulheres Barbadas, Cristopher Cichocki, Yochai Matos, Lucy McRae, Quayola, Kit Webster, Mark Jenkins, DEFI, B.Fleischmann, MOMO and Sin Fang Bous. Music by Bradien
Great film making and great art, of course. Worthy of your time. Crack a beer or warm some tea and sit back to enjoy.
--- Crossing Lines is a short film that documents Irish artist Conor Harrington’s trip to Tel Aviv, Israel and Bethleham, Palestine in May 2010.
Thank you to KnowHope, Zero Cents, Wisam Salsaa to whom
this trip would not been possible and to all the people we
met along the way, without their help this trip would not
have been possible.
A Telling Production Presents ’ Crossing Lines ‘
Camera, Edit & Score - Andrew Telling
Grade - Chloe Hayward
Audio Mix & Master - Andrew Telling & Dave House
Our buddy and long time Fecal Pal, Dan Wolfe, traveled to Brazil w/ Adidas to film and then edit this short. If you don't skate or haven't skated or don't care about skateboarding, this may not be for you... All others, please enjoy.
A love triangle between God, the Earth and Mankind. - Progeny of the 2010 Animator in Residence program - Thanks to the students at the University of Wales for animation assistance. - Also Charlie Piper for a perfect score and Roger Wooster for his unrivalled gravelly pipes.
By Tony Comley who also made the short below entitled Abigail
As the gap between the ground and a burning airplane gets smaller, one passenger has other things on his mind...
Created at the Royal College of Art, Abigail has screened at 80 festivals worldwide and won recognition from Annecy 2006, Creative Review and The Animation Show.
Directed by Ralph Arlyck in 1970... This kid was only 4 & 1/2 years old at the time and lived with his parents in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco...
Filmmaker Ralph Arlyck interviews his neighbor, Sean Farrell, a 4-year-old living on San Francisco's Haight Street in 1969. Sean gives his thoughts on life in his home, a hippie crash pad, and casually mentions that he smokes pot, which caused this short film to become a national sensation.
I don't think at this point it needs to be written since the last update to Fecal Face was a long time ago, but...
I, John Trippe, have put this baby Fecal Face to bed. I'm now focusing my efforts on running ECommerce at DLX which I'm very excited about... I guess you can't take skateboarding out of a skateboarder.
It was a great 15 years, and most of that effort can still be found within the site. Click around. There's a lot of content to explore.
Hit me up if you have any ECommerce related questions. - trippe.io
I'm not sure how many people are lucky enough to have The San Francisco Giants 3 World Series trophies put on display at their work for the company's employees to enjoy during their lunch break, but that's what happened the other day at Deluxe. So great.
SF skateboarding icons Jake Phelps, Mickey Reyes, and Tommy Guerrero with the 3 SF Giants World Series Trophies
When works of art become commodities and nothing else, when every endeavor becomes “creative” and everybody “a creative,” then art sinks back to craft and artists back to artisans—a word that, in its adjectival form, at least, is newly popular again. Artisanal pickles, artisanal poems: what’s the difference, after all? So “art” itself may disappear: art as Art, that old high thing. Which—unless, like me, you think we need a vessel for our inner life—is nothing much to mourn.
Hard-working artisan, solitary genius, credentialed professional—the image of the artist has changed radically over the centuries. What if the latest model to emerge means the end of art as we have known it? --continue reading
"Six Degrees" opens tonight, Friday Jan 16th (7-10pm) at FFDG in San Francisco. ~Group show featuring: Brett Amory, John Felix Arnold III, Mario Ayala, Mariel Bayona, Ryan Beavers, Jud Bergeron, Chris Burch, Ryan De La Hoz, Martin Machado, Jess Mudgett, Meryl Pataky, Lucien Shapiro, Mike Shine, Minka Sicklinger, Nicomi Nix Turner, and Alex Ziv.
"[Satire] is important because it brings out the flaws we all have and throws them up on the screen of another person," said Turner. “How they react sort of shows how important that really is.” Later, he added, "Charlie took a hit for everybody." -read on
As we work on our changes, we're leaving Squarespace and coming back to the old server. Updates are en route.
The content that was on the site between May '14 and today is history... Whatever, wasn't interesting anyway. All the good stuff from the last 10 years is here anyway.
Opening tonight, Friday May 23rd (7-10pm) at Park Life in the Inner Richmond (220 Clement St) is Again Home Again featuring works from the duo Jacob Mcgraw-Mikelson & Rachell Sumpter who split time living in Sacramento and a tiny island at the top of Pudget Sound with their children.
Jacob Magraw will be showing embroidery pieces on cloth along with painted, gouache works on paper --- Rachell Sumpter paints scenes of colored splendor dropped into scenes of desolate wilderness. ~show details
NYC --- A new graffiti abatement program put forth by the police commissioner has beat cops carrying cans of spray paint to fill in and cover graffiti artists work in an effort to clean up the city --> Many cops are thinking it's a waste of resources, but we're waiting to see someone make a project of it. Maybe instructions for the cops on where to fill-in?
The NYPD is arming its cops with cans of spray paint and giving them art-class-style lessons to tackle the scourge of urban graffiti, The Post has learned.
Shootings are on the rise across the city, but the directive from Police Headquarters is to hunt down street art and cover it with black, red and white spray paint, sources said... READ ON
Los Angeles based Alison Blickle who showed here in San Francisco at Eleanor Harwood last year (PHOTOS) recently showed new paintings in New York at Kravets Wehby Gallery. Lovely works.
We haven't been featuring many interviews as of late. Let's change that up as we check in with a few local San Francisco artists like Kevin Earl Taylor here whom we studio visited back in 2009 (PHOTOS & VIDEO). It's been awhile, Kevin...
If you like guns and boobs, head on over to the Shooting Gallery; just don't expect the work to be all cheap ploys and hot chicks. With Make Stuff by Peter Gronquist (Portland) in the main space and Morgan Slade's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow in the project space, there is plenty spectacle to be had, but if you look just beyond it, you might actually get something out of the shows.
Fifty24SF opened Street Anatomy, a new solo show by Austrian artist Nychos a week ago last Friday night. He's been steadily filling our city with murals over the last year, with one downtown on Geary St. last summer, and new ones both in the Haight and in Oakland within the last few weeks, but it was really great to see his work up close and in such detail.
Nate Milton emailed over this great short Gator Skater which is a follow-up to his Dog Skateboard he emailed to us back in 2011... Any relation to this Gator Skater?
Congrats on our buddies at Needles and Pens on being open and rad for 11 years now. Mission Local did this little short video featuring Breezy giving a little heads up on what Needles and Pens is all about.
In a filmmaker's thinking, we wish more videos were done in this style. Too much editing and music with a lacking in actual content. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
Matt Wagner recently emailed over some photos from The Hellion Gallery in Tokyo, who recently put together a show with AJ Fosik (Portland) called Beast From a Foreign Land. The gallery gave twelve of Fosik's sculptures to twelve Japanese artists (including Hiro Kurata who is currently showing in our group show Salt the Skies) to paint, burn, or build upon.
FFDG is pleased to announce an exclusive online show with San Francisco based Ferris Plock opening on Friday, April 25th (12pm Pacific Time) featuring 5 new medium sized acrylic paintings on wood.
Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne played host to a huge group exhibition a couple of weeks back, with "Gold Blood, Magic Weirdos" Curated by Melbourne artist Sean Morris. Gold Blood brought together 25 talented painters, illustrators and comic artists from Australia, the US, Singapore, England, France and Spain - and marked the end of the Magic Weirdos trilogy, following shows in Perth in 2012 and London in 2013.
San Francisco based Fecal Pal Jeremy Fish opened his latest solo show Hunting Trophies at LA's Mark Moore Gallery last week to massive crowds and cabin walls lined with imagery pertaining to modern conquest and obsession.
Well, John Felix Arnold III is at it again. This time, he and Carolyn LeBourgios packed an entire show into the back of a Prius and drove across the country to install it at Superchief Gallery in NYC. I met with him last week as he told me about the trip over delicious burritos at Taqueria Cancun (which is right across the street from FFDG and serves what I think is the best burrito in the city) as the self proclaimed "Only overweight artist in the game" spilled all the details.
Ever Gold opened a new solo show by NYC based Henry Gunderson a couple Saturday nights ago and it was literally packed. So packed I couldn't actually see most of the art - but a big crowd doesn't seem like a problem. I got a good laugh at what I would call the 'cock climbing wall' as it was one of the few pieces I could see over the crowd. I haven't gotten a chance to go back and check it all out again, but I'm definitely going to as the paintings that I could get a peek at were really high quality and intruiguing. You should do the same.
The paintings in the show are each influenced by a musician, ranging from Freddy Mercury, to Madonna, to A Tribe Called Quest and they are so stylistically consistent with each musician's persona that they read as a cohesive body of work with incredible variation. If you told me they were each painted by a different person, I would not hesitate to believe you and it's really great to see a solo show with so much variety. The show is fun, poppy, very well done, and absolutely worth a look and maybe even a listen.
With rising rent in SF and knowing mostly other young artists without capitol, I desired a way to live rent free, have a space to do my craft, and get to see more of the world. Inspired by the many historical artists who have longed similar longings I discovered the beauty of artist residencies. Lilo runs Adhoc Collective in Vienna which not only has a fully equipped artists creative studio, but an indoor halfpipe, and private artist quarters. It was like a modern day castle or skate cathedral. It exists in almost a utopic state, totally free to those that apply and come with a real passion for both art and skateboarding
I just wanted to share with you a piece I recently finished which took me 4 years to complete. Titled "How To Lose Yourself Completely (The September Issue)", it consists of a copy of the September 2007 issue of Vogue magazine (the issue they made the documentary about) with all faces masked with a sharpie, and everything else entirely whited out. 840 pages of fun. -Bryan Schnelle
While walking our way across San Francisco on Saturday we swung through the opening receptions for Kirk Maxson and Alexis Mackenzie at Eleanor Harwood Gallery in the Mission.
Jeremy Fish opens Hunting Trophies tonight, Saturday April 5th, at the Los Angeles based Mark Moore Gallery. The show features new work from Fish inside the "hunting lodge" where viewers climb inside the head of the hunter and explore the history of all the animals he's killed.
Beautiful piece entitled "The Albatross and the Shipping Container", Ink on Paper, Mounted to Panel, 47" Diameter, by San Francisco based Martin Machado now on display at FFDG. Stop in Saturday (1-6pm) to view the group show "Salt the Skies" now running through April 19th. 2277 Mission St. at 19th.
For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to quit my job, move out of my house, leave everything and travel again. So on August 21, 2013 I pushed a canoe packed full of gear into the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, along with four of my best friends. Exactly 100 days later, I arrived at a marina near the Gulf of Mexico in a sailboat.
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