On the night of Saturday, December 6th, two Special Guards of the Greek police clashed with a small group of young men. The exact details of what took place are still unclear, but it is known that one of the Guards fired three shots, and one of those bullets caused the death of 15-year-old Alexander Grigoropoulos - whether the injury was made by an accidental ricochet or deliberate shot remains to be determined. The two Guards are now in jail awaiting trial, the shooter charged with homicide. This incident sparked an immediate and widespread response in the form of angry demonstrations and riots in many Greek cities that have continued at varying levels to this day - though dimming in intensity recently. Alexander's death appears to have been a catalyst, unleashing widespread Greek anger towards many issues - police mistreatment of protesters, unwelcome education reforms, economic stagnation, government corruption and more.
ART; Secondhand Emotions in Varied Media
By VIVIEN RAYNOR
Published: August 5, 1990
LEAD: THE main event now at Wadsworth Atheneum is ''Robert Longo.'' But first, the superlatives and demi-superlatives: the 12-year retrospective is billed as ''the primary contemporary art exhibition in New England this summer'' and as the vehicle for ''some of the largest works ever mounted'' at the Hartford museum.
Mr. Longo himself is advertised as ''one of the most significant figures of the generation that came to prominence during the 1980's'' and as ''one of the world's most heralded young artists'' (a title for which the competition is fierce). He is also called ''poet of urban life,'' a title that has a familiar ring.
As for the exhibition, it originated in slightly larger form at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where it was organized by the curator of contemporary art, Howard Fox, and A.T.&T. is its angel. Accompanying the event is a catalogue containing essays by Mr. Fox and other authorities, with lots of photographs in black and white and color.
The tale of the artist's life makes chaotic reading. Having been graduated from Plainview High School, on Long Island, he spent about a year at North Texas State University, in Denton, then took to the road in a Volkswagen. Upon arriving in New York City, he worked in survival jobs and studied briefly with the sculptor Leonda Finke. Receiving a grant in 1972, Mr. Longo, then in his 19th year, proceeded to Italy, where he applied himself to learning art history and painting restoration. After that, more traveling, but a visit to the Rodin Museum, in Paris, clinched the idea of becoming an artist, and by the end of 1973, he was in Buffalo, at the State University College's art school.
In Buffalo, Mr. Longo began making the contacts that have been so crucial to his career - with the film makers Hollis Frampton and Paul Sharits, the photographer Cindy Sherman and a host of other talents, emerging and emerged. In company with some of these new friends, Mr. Longo set up the alternative space, Hallwalls, inviting the attention of Vito Acconci, Sol Lewitt, Lucy Lippard, Richard Serra and other notables, including the new curator of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Linda Cathcart.
So far, the artist's own work had been largely experimental, but in 1976, he staged his first performance, ''Artful Dodger.'' This caught the eye of Helene Winer, who invited him to Artists Space, her own territory in Manhattan, where he did another performance, this time with the help of several Buffalo friends. There followed an encounter with Jonathan Borofsky and, as a result, Mr. Longo's first reliefs in clay. Cast in aluminum and painted, the one called ''Seven Seals for Missouri Breaks'' made it into a group show at the Albright-Knox, and it is the earliest piece in the present display.
By 1977, the artist was very much in the Manhattan swim, sharing quarters with Ms. Sherman, working as Mr. Acconci's assistant, going to avant-garde movies, hanging out at the Mudd Club and other nightspots, organizing and participating in exhibitions. Of course, there were hard times, including a stint as a cabdriver. But Mr. Longo's star was rising, and in 1981, he made his first solo appearance in a commercial gallery, the aptly-named Metro Pictures. He had already acquired his collaborator, Diane Shea, a professional illustrator who ''improves'' his drawings.
Thanks to the ground broken by Pop, art had completed its metamorphosis from a solitary, sometimes dowdy occupation enlivened by the occasional eccentric to a highly charged collective activity that depends as much on the media as on its own media for success. Not that there is anything inherently wrong about that. Still, it goes a long way toward explaining Mr. Longo's way of alternating between naivete and slickness, solemnity and emptiness. There is angst in this art, but it is a secondhand version, an offset reproduction of the emotion.
The first piece to greet the visitor is a bank of four steel cylindars covered with gold leaf. It looks like a giant gold mangle hanging on the wall, and, every so often, the rollers rotate at high speed, making the gallery resonate like a Laundromat. Dated 1988 and titled ''Dumb Running: The Theory of the Brake,'' it could be the last object touched by Midas. To Mr. Fox, it suggests ''an absolute power that exists to serve itself and operates on all things external with equal indifference.''
Indifference, absence, alienation, indolence - these are Mr. Longo's themes, and he expresses them in many different forms. One is the large figure that is half-Samurai, half comic-book robot but all scales, chains, machine parts, bandoliers and guns cast into bronze. A creature with, among other things, two densely fanged mouths and a single female breast, it stands against a painted backdrop of opera boxes, holding a flagpole in one hand, a broken guitar in the other and emitting from its naked rump a bunch of thunderbolts. The figure symbolizes a fallen angel, possibly Beelzebub himself, and the title, ''All You Zombies: Truth Before God,'' has a moralizing tone. Nevertheless, the awe it inspires is strictly ''special effects.''
Though much concerned with the evils of the world, Mr. Longo is less than sophisticated when making his big points. ''Pressure,'' for example, is a painting of a young man in clown makeup who, literally, is under pressure from the relief above of office buildings painted pale gray. Yet this kind of thing is catnip to the literal minded. Mr. Fox likens the piece to Rodin's carving of Pallas Athena crowned with a diminutive Parthenon, and who but an esthete can gainsay him?
There are images that are heavy with meaning but work well as abstractions, like ''Joker: Force of Choice,'' an upended cross that is the sum of four right-angled chevrons of Corten steel. But the strongest punch comes from the black-and-white drawings of life-size figures in arrested motion, the men wearing business suits, the women dresses. Well-dressed nonentities with neither a past nor a future, they inhabit a perpetual freeze frame. The reviewer never sees them without thinking of the people who dance alone at discos, perhaps hoping to be caught as Mr. Longo catches them but in gorgeous grainy photographs.
As mediocre drawings these images are more memorable than they ought to be. The same can be said for ''Corporate Wars: Walls of Influence,'' an aluminum relief of office workers kicking, shoving and wrestling each other, which is flanked by two black shapes symbolizing corporate architecture.
Then again, the secret of Mr. Longo's success may be his very ingenuousness. Bizarre as it may seem, most of his work is as easy to ''read'' as Norman Rockwell's vision of Thanksgiving dinner.
The Robert Longo retrospective, which also includes videotapes, will remain at the Wadsworth Atheneum, 600 Main Street, Hartford, through Sept. 1.
Jim Morrison's Father Dies[Source: http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2008/12/03/jim_morrison_s_father_dies]
December 3rd, 2008
Late Doors star Jim Morrison's father has died, aged 89. Rear Admiral George Morrison died of natural causes on November 17. A veteran of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Morrison was largely disowned by his rock star son, who insisted his parents were dead in early interviews.
In 1990, Morrison visited his son's grave in Paris, France and had a plaque installed.
Shortly after the Morrisons moved to Coronado, California in 2002, the admiral's wife died, and reports suggest he has been i n declining health ever since.
Rear Admiral Morrison's private memorial service was held last Wednesday at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego, California.
The feeling was mutual - the seaman rarely discussed his son as he rose up the ranks.
Image of Morrison aged 65 unveiled[Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5jxBJ82YdxxDJ9ZPNpWFQBsDjbYvg ]
Scientists have revealed what legendary rocker Jim Morrison may have looked like were he still alive now.
Researchers at the University of St Andrews used the latest technology to create a computer-generated image of the singer and poet.
The Doors' frontman, who died at the age of 27 in Paris in July 1971, would have been 65 now.
The image, put together by the university's perception laboratory, shows the singer as a greying pensioner, with familiar piercing eyes.
The team used an image of Morrison in his mid-20s as a starting point.
Professor David Perrett, of the university's school of psychology, said: "We used 'ageing' software to reproduce the natural effects of ageing, taking into account changes in skin texture, hairline and hair colour.
"The process of ageing was mimicked by changing the texture and shape of the original image to simulate the changes in the skin that would occur between the ages of 40 and 70."
The perception lab team has previously created images of Hollywood stars Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, who also died suddenly at a young age. Images of Elvis Presley aged 70 and John Lennon at 64 have also been developed.
It is hoped the software being developed at the lab could be used for assisting with missing person inquiries, particularly those who have not been seen for many years.
The same software can also be used to change sex and race.
"creationism, for people who think their god is too stupid to come up with evolution."
"...Wolfe is an expert not only at creating visually arresting images, but of layering her subjects so that you always have to look twice. In each photo, despite its saccharine veneer, there is always something more devious rippling beneath the surface."
