GQ Magazine at Stoli Hotel

On Tuesday night, Stoli propped up a mock hotel with all the amenities of a real high-class hostel. The event was one in a series, were Stoli teams up with magazines to throw parties.

They start by setting up their traveling hotel, complete with rooms, a spa, and a woefully inadequate bathroom setup, in otherwise raw spaces. GQ just happen to know of a garage in Chelsea. Then they added freely flowing vodka, the misshapes, and a crowd that is mostly there to look for that career bolstering meeting.

Oper8tor and I soaked in some of fine men and women that attended from the best spot to see it all, the middle of it all. We tried our best to capture and present a glimpse of the pageantry.

Go Here for more of the pictures.

Wild Yaks and Apollo Heights @ The Charleston

Read the write up by Mikelisoper8tor here.
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"How to hunt"

Trine Søndergaard and Nicolai Howalt, with “How To Hunt”, are not only paying reverence to prey and hunter, but also to the photographic traditions of view camera photography. They also embrace photographic manipulation software and digital printing advancements as a means of more easily disseminate their concepts. The lush Dutch countryside setting severs as a comforting stage, a blanketing of beauty to contrast the acts of implied violence.

When hunting is mentioned, most people immediately think of the vulgarity of the act…as a sport. What of its attributes in the aid of survival? If you enjoy avian meat, and you what to have some stores of it for winter, it used to be you’d get a good hunting dog, train him well. Then, teach yourself how to track birds in flight with a rifle. All the while, training yourself to shoot accurately and consistently. Then, you’d have your stores. Not easy. (Things worth doing are usually hard).

Technology has served to make life much easier. By reminding ourselves of these direct relationships between food and prey, it can awaken those feelings of a deeper connection to ones environment. Rather than a mere act of survival modern hunting mimics these traditions, reverent of the hunter and prey throughout the ages, while practicing the act with all the know-how of modernity.

Showing at Silverstein Photography 535 W. 24^th Street, until January 12, 2008

"Kids with Cameras" at Soho Photo

SohoPhoto is not in Soho. It is south of Houston, but it’s also in the triangle below Canal. So really it’s Suchitra, 14 "Girl on a Roof"
in Tribeca, I’m splitting hairs. Did make me wonder if they had to move for rent increases in Soho, though. The gallery has been around since the early seventies and has monthly portfolio review for prospective members. They’re most famous for their “Krappy Kamera” competition that only allows for images taken with cameras that have a plastic lens, or pinhole, or a cell phone image, you get the idea. They exhibit and promote members work monthly throughout the year. On display currently on the second floor of gallery is Zana Briski’s “Kids With Cameras”. The children’s pictures are the last things I saw at this gallery. If they were first I may not have bothered with the rest. I found myself being incredibly moved by the free, uninhibited nature of the children’s photographs. I spoke with one patron who stated, “Well, they obviously aren’t thinking, I mean you wouldn’t expect them to”; I didn’t disagree with him then and there. I instead thought to myself how pompous of an ass do you have to be to say something like this. The children that photographed these striking images may not have the education of this man, but they have most likely experienced much more in their lives that would make for some strong photographic expressions. One young photographer, named Gour, was quoted in the flyer as saying “...that’s why I like photography, I want to put across the behavior of man.” This statement doesn’t sound like a statement someone would make that was not thinking about his or her craft. These kids are from the brothels of Calcutta. They see all kinds of despicable behavior. This 13-year-old boy seems to what to show men their behavior in pictures, so that maybe they will step back and see their misdeeds as just that. That’s a pretty lofty goal for such an ‘unthinking’ photographer.

Jamel Shabazz at Powerhouse

There was a tinge of excitement rousing folk at powerhouse books the other night...was it Shabazz himself arriving? No, he was present in his argyle glory. It's the 'retro' crew...mad disappointing, well there is free beer. What was even more disappointing was the fact that no one (myself included) asked the 'retro' boys if they saw the inherent irony of them getting props for vamping styles that my man Shabazz made available through the proliferation of his vision.
I mean really, these kids are rockin' a stylo they were not around to witness firsthand. So they use ebay and what have you, great. Why is all the cool gear from 15-20 years ago? Make your own way. I realize that every generation builds on the last but to straight take the same styles and just do it again...weak. I will admit in my day the 60's and 70's were really popular references, vintage pieces were coveted, and some went as far as to copy photos of the day. They were lame too. Adaption, my friends, is the key to making it your own.
The rest of the photos from Powerhouse can be found here

Remembering Terror is so Romantic

The romanticizing of the acts of terror that befell us all on 9.11 started almost immediately preceding the attacks: "the day that will be etched in the American physique forever", "the day the world changed", "heroes which shall never be forgotten"...the news media was quick to quantify the days event into neat phases strangely remittance of marketing phrases or movie tag lines. The media wasn't the only ones cashing in on this new market demographic...the 9.11 patriot or the scared shitless citizen. To cater to this new customer, almost overnight, bomb sniffing dog training schools popped up, the tall tower evacuation parachute was unveiled, new terror prevention security agencies formed, and American flags along with trash bags and duct tape were flying off Wal-Mart shelves. The unthinkable was coming true, America was uniting(under the roof a of the local mega store only), and it's still happening six years later...just on a much smaller scale, on the banks of the east river.

Jezebel's Howl

In the soon to be debunked Galapagos Art Space the "Jezebels" of the Jezebel Music Dot Com's "Consignment" event sang, strummed, and beat their immoral promiscuous hearts out. This reporter missed the opening act by a bit...but I did catch their name Low Lustre the fellas made a good show of it for certain. They were followed by the quirking duo of BobbyBlue.

This decidedly soprano singer has an eclectic mix of traditional Latin songs and cheery upbeat originals that he belts out to the beat of his standing drummer.

What What Where headlined, this sextet of electro somethings rocked a hard six song set to the gleeful appreciation of the crowd of onlookers. As with any good "Jezebels" the acts were dripping with sweat, going hard, and not stopping until we were all done, thanks for the good time, Jezzies.