ryan mcginley (en.wikipedia), born 1977, is a new york city-based photographer, short film-director and artist. »ann (slingshot)« is a piece of his taken in 2007 (from the series »i know where the summer goes«): it shows a girl being thrown into the air with a jumping sheet. the interest of ryan mcginley is to portray aspects of youth, life and love to the viewer. heavily inspired by icons like larry clark, terry richardson and wolfgang tillmans, mcginley’s artistic language is to capture moments of detachedness. for his works, mcginley usually gathers different close friends of his together and travels with them to earlier on scouted locations in the free nature. because of this, he predefines what might happen during the field trips, but not, what actually occurs.
in 2001 he was – at the age of 24 – the youngest artist to perform a solo exhibition at whitney museum of american art, new york. in 2007 he was awarded with the young photographer infinity award. 2008 sees the publication of »ryan mcginley«, a collection of 47 pieces of work plus essays by music journalist vince aletti and sylvia wolf, curator of photography at whitney. the 196-pages strong, multicoloured book can be preordered casebound at amazon. a recent interview with larry clark and ryan mcginley by ulrike knöfel can be found here (in german).
sigur rós, » gobbledigook«, dir. arni and kinski, 2008
sigur rós (en.wikipedia) is a 1997 formed icelandic post rock-quartett. similar to bjork, sigur rós defined a genre of their own, combining elements of classical music with field recordings, custom made instruments and the intimate falsetto voice of singer jón pór birgisson. their influence on pop music and modern culture is undoubted. in late 2007, sigur rós released a beautiful photographed band documentation (»heima«), shot entirely on location in iceland. their seventh studio album »með suð i eyrum við spilum endalaust« will see it’s release on june 23rd.
»gobbledigook« is the first single off this album, it is avaiable as a free mp3-download at sigurros.com. the video in question is directed by swedish direction duo arni and kinski. recent works of theirs include a documentary on icelandic electronic project gusgus, as well as commercials and music videos for sigur rós, dave gahan, placebo and editors.
the video for »gobbledigook« shows a couple of young, naked people in the free nature: beneath a lake, in the woods, climbing rocks and stones, jumping around the fireplace and taking baths in the sundown. the aesthetic is brilliant: youth, vulnerability and light heartedness are the key points of »gobbledigook«. we see people running, singing, drumming on trees, making out in the grass, falling from the sky, simply celebrating themselves. the photography of arni and kinski is brilliant and sharp, images are edited very fast next to each other, and though the tempo of the video seems very high, there are always some images, that have a very calming function. the music adds to the visuals: rhythmic handclaps, a straightforward bass-drum, soft guitar-pickings and soft vocals backed by hymnic chorals.
the opening credits of »gobbledigook« show the words »inspired by and in collaboration with ryan mcginley«, though it stays unclear, to which part sigur rós and/or the directors arni & kinski worked together with mcginley. the artist himself was also involved in »irregular regulars«, a portray of morrissey’s recent touring and the fans accompanying the moz. also, he shot a well-known commercial for puma clothing.
more information on the new sigur rós-album can be found here. i’d recommend to start watching this great video right now, wouldn’t that be nice?!
bobby van, »small town girl«, metro-goldwyn-mayer technicolor, 1953
bobby van (en.wikipedia) born december 6th, 1928, was an american singer, musical actor and »entertainer's entertainer«. in the 1953 lászló kardos-directed musical production »small town girl«, bobby van plays the character of ludwig schlemmer, whose »hippity hop«-dance performance with it's 8523 hops soon became very popular. more on »small town girl« is avaiable in the new york times' review.
goldfrapp, »happiness«, dir. dougal wilson, 2008
goldfrapp (en.wikipedia), is a 1999 formed british pop music duo concisting of singer alison goldfrapp and producer (i.e. »keyboarder«) will gregory. »happiness« is the second single off their fourth album »the seventh tree«, the video in question is directed by dougal wilson (videoville). recent works of his include videos for jarvis cocker, bat for lashes, four tet, lcd soundsystem and the latest goldfrapp-single, »a&e«.
in the video for »happiness« we see – once again – a kind of suburbia. alison goldfrapp is being shown in the opening scene, sitting on the stairs, singing. nice! but it's getting even better. a young man pops up, pops down, pops up and down, over and over until the end of the video. though it might seem as if it was being filmed in one shot, there are several cuts in the piece. but back to the jumping man again: he's dressed in a nice cut white suit, wearing white slippers and a black&white tie. the similarities in the imagery of »small town girl« and »happiness« are huge, dougal wilson's music video obviously is a deep hommage to the musical. we see alison consistently in different cameos (the nerdy girl at the bus stop, the rigid police officer, the flower girl), we see skipping children, bmx-bikes, the friendly postman, construction workers, a lovely old couple and – a dancing dog! crazyness!
a video: sigur rós's »gobbledigook«
