German photographer and teacher Bernd Becher died this week at the age of 75. With his wife Hilla, Becher took beautifully systematic photos of industrial structures for more than 40 years. Becher was also an influential teacher at the Dusseldorf Academy, where he taught Andreas Gursky, Candida Hofer, Thomas Ruff and Thomas Struth. Here’s a pretty good collection of their water towers and blast furnace photos. And a nice long article on the Bechers and their influence on contemporary photography.
Here’s a great video of Grizzly Bear singing an acapella version of The Knife, improvis
You should go and print yerself an army of Gloo Men.
And then Google took over the road too. Working with PG&E, Google has launched an initiative to add extra batteries to store energy from the power grid and get double the mpg.
Orly Cogan embroiders vintage tablecloths with scenes of sex, daydreams, coke and cake. You can see more of her work at the Hammer Gallery in Chicago, Projects Gallery in Philadelphia, and on the walls of Steven Wolf Fine Arts in San Francisco through June.
To mark the twentieth anniversary of the death of Andy Warhol, the Tate Modern hosted The Long Weekend May 25-28. Museum goers were encouraged to bring sleeping bags to a 19-hour screening of Warhol’s film Sleep accompanied by a performance of Erik Satie’s Vexations played by 10 pianists (including composers Michael Nyman and Gavin Bryars)– repeated 840 times. And all this while visitors drifted in and out of sleep on the Tate’s cold, concrete floor. The Guardian’s Samuel Wigley has a first hand account of the Tate’s mass sleepover.
Neue Dutch activists say it’s time to return New York to its rightful owner- The Netherlands. Give us Back New York! has some photos and videos of what New Amsterdam City would look like. No more amnesty for the English immigrants in New Amsterdam!
That 60mpg you’re getting from your Prius just not good enough? Then slap some solar panels on it. SEV, a Southern California solar company has developed a system that improves the fuel economy of Toyota hybrids by up to 29% by putting high efficiency mono-crystalline photovoltaic cells on the roof of the car. The SEV system also qualifies for Federal renewable energy tax credits of up to $2,000.
