To be an original. Leonard Cohen knows. He published Beautiful Losers in 1966, and creative types have been falling for his wistful phrase ever since. Bob Seger recorded Beautiful Loser in 1975; Aaron Rose’s 2008 documentary (above), Beautiful Losers, revisited New York’s early ’90s countercultural art scene; and the independent film, Beautiful Loser, is currently playing somewhere. Losing never looked (our sounded) this good.
Maybe only in Marilyn Monroe’s hands could a red magic marker wield such visual panache and poignancy. In June, 1962, at the Bel Air Hotel in Los Angeles, Bert Stern photographed Marilyn over the course of three days for a spread in Vogue magazine. Later, she reviewed the contact sheets, and branded with an “x” any photo she didn’t like. Six weeks later, Marilyn was dead. The photos from The Last Sitting? Like her–and her red marker: magic.
Some recent photos of my neighborhood. If walls could talk…
Long before the iconoclastic New York artist Dash Snow died on July 13–at 27, alone, in an East Village hotel room–he’d inexplicably managed, despite a savage descent into drugs and despair, to make some pretty good art. His text-based collages and other mixed-media works, like Skin Tight, are amongst his finest.
Barcelona-based Studio M’s simply brilliant concept & identity solution for a candy store is irresistibly…sweet.
Very pretty (and distinctly erotic) identity package for the NYC creative agency The Apartment by Peter Crnokra.
Whether first-year design student or venerable design guru, the graphic designer, I believe, remains forever vulnerable to the esthetic seductions of the ampersand. Sarah France has projected her particular ardor onto a canvas tote bag.
Managing to be at once primitive and modern, this lovely ink and gouache work on paper is by Shaun O’Dell.
