yesterday i made my first visit to the smithsonian’s museum in anacostia — across the anacostia river from the rest of the district and in many ways a pretty different place from The National Mall where the other smithsonian museums are.
The Walking Exhibit by BK Adams I Am Art
it was the final day of the “Exercise Your Mynd” exhibit by BK Adams I Am Art, a local artist whose work i had seen around. but this was the firs time i saw such a large body (over 50 pieces) of his art, and it really blew me away. he advocates “100% mynd use” to achieve our full creative potential and works with themes of flying, bicycles, scuptures from found stuff, and incredibly detailed colorful paintings.
Fascinating People by BK Adams I Am Art
the pieces are fantastic, so i’ll let them speak for themselves, and urge you to see BK Adams I Am Art if you’re ever able to do so. actually, here’s a somewhat old video of him talking about his work and collaboration with other artists in dc:
Commandeering the kitchen at Subsuelo/Gnawledge HQ in LA (thanks G-Notes!) ( foto x Farah Sosa)
8 tomatoes
1 Roasted Red Bell Pepper
1 Roasted Green Bell Pepper
15 Kalamato Olives
1 Tsp Italian Herb Tomato Paste
3-4 Sprigs Thyme
3 Garlic Cloves
2 Olive Oil Drizzles
6 Tilapia
Cilantro
Lime
I invited some friends to eat in exchange for a bread-breaking data swap. I’m definitely not on a culinary level with my dude DJ Rajah over at SoulCocina but this is really what meetings should be like. Exchanging in currencies that don’t depend as directly on the dollar really has an intrinsic value in making people connect. It leads to better less guarded conversation and reminds us that if we work together, there’s always more to eat on the table. Here’s my TOP 5Â Things I won in the West Coast Data Swap
First up, G-Notes, the guitarist and beatsmith behind the hybrid flamenco act Granada Doaba and all around Gnawledge famalam hit me with a few remixes and edits
[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/g3kojones/Dame Lo Gnotes Remix.mp3]
and this touch up of Gotye’s anti-love jam caught me off guard…
[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/g3kojones/Somebody That I Used To Know Gnotes Remix.mp3]
Now my homie, Santero in the Bay Area has been holding me down for a few years now. I was happy to crash at his this time around and spend some time getting to know what he’s been up to. I learned he has been working with our homie Boogat up in Montreal.. Notice how the cover art is Boogat with the fam all around at a BBQ or somn… home cooking how we do !
(Incidentally, since that convo I’ve been rocking Dos Cervesas (prod by Poirier) off the PURA VIDA EP like its my job)
Santero also just put out a brand new mixtape a couple days ago for Los Rakas’ homegirl FAVI called Flor de Azahar (orange blossom – really the best smelling flower in the world for my money)
Santero also put me on to this Goapelle/Los Rakas Remix I had admittedly been sleeping on. It was featured on Fader and Rcrd Lbl months ago. Be sure to check them out on November 19th with me and Dre Skull at SOBs
Do you have an old boombox? The rectangular kind that is big, boxy, held together with real screws? With large dials and analog push-buttons? If YES, then I’m interested in it & will pay (non “vintage” prices) for it. If you’d like to donate your crappy old boombox to a very good cause (more on this later, I promise you will not be disappointed) well, that’s cool too.
Dutty Artz newcomer Sam is based in NYC and will help scoop it up, and if you live outside of NYC then we can talk about shipping it.
give us a shout: boombox @ duttyartz dot com
On behalf of myself, my crew, anyone who has ever sported a high-top fade, and the entirety of the 1980s & early 90s, I salute you.
MATT SH∆DETEk
UPROOT ∆NDY
GEKO JONES
CHIEF BOIM∆
L∆MIN FOF∆N∆
∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆
LIVE VISUALS from NES.AVI
∆˚∆˚∆˚∆˚∆˚∆˚∆˚∆˚∆˚∆˚
FRIDAY, MARCH 18
10-2AM
∆˚∆˚∆˚∆˚∆˚∆
NES.AVI
Flamingo Cantina
515 East 6th Street
Austin, TX 78701
∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆
˚˚˚˚FREE˚˚˚˚w/ wristband.  Tickets available at the door for under $10, SXSW will tell us price tomorrow around 7PM, follow @mattshadetek and @duttyartz on twitter for final ticket price
Because it’s an official showcase there’s no guest list, sorry.
Questlove + I will be DJing at Pittsburgh’s Warhol Museum’s 15th anniversary gala party this Saturday. Big times! Free zombie facepainting! Big tunes! Seriously, I’m a huge Warhol fan and ?uestlove is a living legend who also embraces weird punctuation in his name and Halloween means you can dress extra crazy, so let’s end with a choice Andy quote:
I have to go out every night. If I stay home one night I start spreading rumors to my dogs.
…followed by a picture of me and a video of Joanne watching some guy watch Andy Warhol eat a hamburger (there are a lot of these ):
So there’s this thing called the Internet but here at Dutty Artz we are mostly focused on bodies. Preferably sweaty ones. What moves them, what brings them together or forces them apart, trying to create spaces where we can melt our boundaries or learn useful ways of navigating each other and The World Around Us, which is part Mr + Mrs Internet but part walls and metal and dirt and apartments and streets and jet fuel and mostly plastic products which is why we’re doing a ZINE. To spread this talk into a physical format, the kind of thing you can leave behind or fold up and take with you, because everything circulates differently offline — call it distributional aesthetics — and nowadays it’s not knowledge so much as vectors of connection, context, and collapse, plus or minus corporate sponsorship and/or access to potable water. Like I tweeted: the future will be bad. but its music will be good. #CrisisManagement.
The zine will be out in time for Kwanzaa/Christmas/Reyes/Hanukka and if you’d like to submit a piece of “content” for it, email it to zine@duttyartz.com. If your “content” is, like, physical, email us and we’ll send a passenger pigeon to pick it up.
Guidelines? Nope. But there is a theme. And that theme is PIRACY. Or maybe it’s a method. There is a deadline for submissions: 4 weeks from now. End of November.
I am kinda occupying the editor position and Taliesin is kinda occupying the graphic designer position & that’s about all for now. The Dutty Artz Zine will be available as a PDF for our disembodied massive but the physical thing will come with an audio CD containing some of the best music you’ve ever heard. But this is not about the music. It’s about killing trees & inking up the world. Xerox sponsors, holler.
[Rocio Rodriguez Salceda – untitled 2010, courtesy of Caption Gallery]
Dutty Artz family member and general superstar Rocio Rodriguez Salceda has her debut solo show in New York City, opening this Thursday at Caption Gallery in DUMBO.
The show contains photographs and an animation. The photographs inhabit a provocative space between psychological portraiture, fashion, and creepyland. Powerful! “Though RodrÃguez Salceda ultimately blacks out the individual faces of her models, a gesture that lends them both anonymity and universality, all of the women that she picks as subjects are close friends, often artists or performers themselves. Taking stereotypical ideas of femininity as her jumping off point, RodrÃguez Salceda proposes a psychological alter ego for each model…”
Join us at the opening this Thursday! It’s open gallery night across DUMBO and in the building at Water St., so there’s much to see.
Caption Gallery is pleased to present Art Fight,
an exhibition of new work by RocÃo RodrÃguez Salceda.
September 30th- October 21st
Opening Reception October 7th, 6:00-8:00pm
Caption Gallery. 55 Washington St., suite 802, Brooklyn NY.
[Rocio Rodriguez Salceda – untitled 2010, courtesy of Caption Gallery]
This was originally posted at mattshadetek.com
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUl_a45-vek[/youtube]
Check out a little viral video I just made for the song Funny Cats off my album Flowers. It’s got a bunch of LOLcats images and funny cat videos from YouTube cut to my song.
There were two inspirations for this video. 1) I actually like these stupid cat videos on the internet and feel like the effervescent silliness of them fits the song well 2) they get 40 Million hits on YouTube. So the idea here is to see if combining my song with this kind of viral content can make it get more hits and more importantly reach people who aren’t blog-reading, social-networking music nerds but instead regular people who watch funny cat videos on YouTube. I’ll let you know how it works.
If you already know (you know) Mariana “Meteoro” Camberos art, it’s likely through her work for ZZK. She is one of the artist’s responsible for codyfing the visual vocabulary of Zizek/ZZK branding; which is how I first became familiar with her. But that’s just one mirror-facet of her diverse output, or as she put’s it, “someone once said my work was very Zizek…. but I said, Im not zizek… zizek is all the artists.”
Meteoro Painting
Her neuva-tropical psychedelic day-glo works and styling jobs are right on the palm frond edge of the tropical communities (does that exist… maybe it does.) collective unconscious. Seriously fresh-2-death designs evoking modern day icons like Carrie Mundane, early MIA styling, NYstreet style Keith Harring/ Basquit iconography pushing up against sacred ayuwasca geometries and jungle fractals. Her custom hand painted tees, hoodies, and zapatos are being rocked by some of the dopest kids outs (check the aviary shirt she did for Uproot Andy next time you see him), and her styling and 2-d work is equally stunning. Over a couple days of endless tea, empanadas, and tasty chino delight- we discussed inane visa regulations, liminal space, our shared love of cumbia sung by little girls and a party called drum&boxx that put young contenders (rocking her custom fur-lined robes) boxing on the floor in a ring made of jungle-stepping ravers. (The interview that followz is the first of a series I’ll be upping and posting, along with photos, flipcam and musings- while I travel as a Watson fellow… it took me a while to finish this post- im now in Rio)
Fresh Shipment of Meteoro's shoes ready to go to Paris
T: Your palette is focusing alot on day-glo/neon vibes- ur using all of these crazy brazillian fabric paints…. but day-glo has been moving onto clothes since the 1930’s– so what exactly is there left to say using this palette?
M: PUES ES FLUORECENTE Y FLUORESCENTE SIGNIFICA ILUMINADO POR DENTRO ESTO YA ME LLAMA MUCHO LA ATENCION
LA COSA DE BRILLAR CON LUZ NEGRA Y EN MEXICO SE DICEN QUE SON COLORES QUE CHINGANÂ (JODEN) LA PUPILA Y AMO ESO
T: you push a psychadelic vibe- but from a distinctly latin american approach…. im seeing these sorts of fractal designs all over your apartment- but with none of the new agey shit that kills alot of western hippy psychadelic stuff- where do you see the convergence of european /american and latin approaches to these forms.
M: MMM ES INTUITIVO Y NO ES ALGO QUE VEA SALE SIMPLEMENTE SON LAS COSAS QUE ME LLAMAN LA ATENCION Y ADENTRO HAGO UNA SINTESIS, SON COSAS EN LAS QUE CREO Y OTRAS QUE ME VIENEN SOLAS COMO MUSAS.
T: youve been in Argentina for 5 years- what has it done for your work- why here- what wasnt working for you in mexicO- or why did you have to come here.
M:DESDE SIEMPRE QUISE ESTUDIARR FUERA DE MI PAIS PARA TENER OTRA PERSPECTIVA Y COMO PRETEXTO DE VIAJE, Y ARGENTINA POR QUE ALGUIEN ME CONVENCIO QUE ERA UNA BUENA OPCION Y MUY AJUSTABLE A MI PRESUPUESTO
Y ASI LO HICE.. ME DEJE LLEVAR .. AL PRINCIPIO SEGUIA SIN ENTENDER POR QUE ACA PERO LAS COSAS Y LA GENTE QUE HE CONOCIDO ME CONFIRMAN QUE ASI DEBIA SER.
T: what does tropical mean to you?
M:TOPICAL SIGNIFICA BUENA VIDA YO VIVI EN UN LUGAR TROPICAL Y ERA PURA ABUNDANCIA SOL FRUTAS MUSICA MAR ESO ES LO QUE LLEVO DENTRO Y LO QUE ME MUEVET
T:where do you see the visual intersecting with music? whats to be gained by understanding this relationship
M: POR QUE LA MUSICA NO SOLO ES UN DJ ES SU IMAGEN, LOS VISUALES EL STAGE Y LA ESCENA EN GRAL. ASI QUE UNÂ BUEN VESTUARIO ES INDISPENSABLE PARA TERMINAR DE CONCRETAR LA IDEAÂ DE LO QUE SE ESTA MOSTRANDO LO QUE SE QUIERE DECIR Y EXPRESAR. ES LLEVAR ESE RITMO A TODOS LOS NIVELES ESTETICOS Y ESCENICOS
Fresh Tour Shirt(s) for Cumbia Duo Frikstailers
T: your selling these dope handpainted shoes- but i know you really want a whole fashion and arts line/house….is there a master plan at all?
M: YEAH DO ALOT OF METEORO LUCHY CHARMS STUF LIKE OBJECTS TOYS CLOTHES,.. MORE KIND OF SHOES.. UN MURAL QUIZASÂ Y COSAS PARA GENTE QUE LO NECESITA
T: ok- top literature influences, top musical influences, top artist influences, top designer influences…
M: KANDINSKY, CHARLES BUKOWSKI, JODOROVSKY, cLOUDDEAD, M.I.A, BRAZILIAN GIRLS, ALL CUMBIA, YMA SUMAC, matt w moore, AJ Fosik, HIHO AOSHIMA, YOSHITOMO NARA, MOTOMICHI, walter van beirendonck, TSUMORI CHISATO, Vivienne Westwood.
T: i know you love chocolate, can you recomend any of your favorite chocolates?
M:CARDUBY DE YOGURTH, Y UNOS COLOMBIANOS QUE TIENEN TUCANES EN EL EMPAQUE, Y.. UNOS ALEMANES QUE TIENEN MEZCLA DE FRUTAS TROPICLAES CON PICANTE ESOS SON INCREIBLES!
T: anyything else u want a bunch of blog readers to know about?
M: SERIA QUE HAY QUE PONER MAS ATENCION A LA FUSION ENTRE MUSICOS Y DESE;ADORES POR JUNTOS PODEMOS DAR UN GRAN MESAJE
NO SUBESTIMAR LO QUE LLEVAS PUESTO YA QUE POR MAS SIMPLE QUE SEA ESTA DICIENDO ALGO Y QUIERES QUE DIGA LO QUE SEAÂ O PONERLE TU TU PROPIO MENSAJE DE BUENA ONDA
“creativity was the ability to bring to life an image or idea regardless of resources”
– Chief Boima, Interviewed by Eddie Stats
Eddie Stats has a great interview with Dutty Artz familia Chief Boima and Vamanos from Ghetto Bassquake over at his blog Ghetto Palms for the Fader (linked below). Â In it came the above quote which Boima mentions in the context of film theory.
I love this idea and it brings me back to a concept that I try to bash my friends and students over the head with all the time.
Creativity is what happens IN SPITE of things like equipment, time and resources. Â A lot of people I know cling to the idea that as soon as they get this next plug-in, keyboard, piece of software, money, time or whatever it is that they don’t currently have that they’ll be able to accomplish their creative goals.
I am sorry to report that this is absolutely not the case.
This post is cross-posted from the brand spanking new blog at mattshadetek.com. In addition to my usual stuff here at Dutty Artz I wanted a place to call my own and talk about some of my less dutty, more clean artz that I am up to. Expect a lot more wordz.
photo by the author in Flatbush, Brooklyn
I assume if you’re reading this blog that you’re someone familiar with my musical output. If not, please get familiar here at my soundcloud page.
Generally speaking I am pretty cagey about my new projects until they’re nearly done. I want to try an experiment this time in going through the process of making an album completely in public. Transparency! Throwing stones in a glass house!
