[Editor's note: While your Flavorwire editors take a much-needed holiday break, we'll spend the next two weekends revisiting some of our most popular features of the year. This post was originally published September 28, 2011.] The historically minded artist Mike Stimpson lends a tinge of childhood innocence to legendary moments in a collection that uses LEGOs to recreate famous photos (and one famous painting). By placing the original pictures side-by-side with his versions, he simultaneously pays homage to and updates these classic images, including the soaring Lunch Atop a Skyscraper, the darling kiss in V-J Day Times Square, and John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Bed-In. Page through Stimpson’s playful LEGO remixes after the jump.
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Now that The Flaming Lips have released an EP in the form of a seven-pound gummy skull and put out a 24-hour song called “7 Skies H3″ packaged in an actual human skull, they’ve decided to end 2011 on a more festive, less death-obsessed note. Wayne Coyne and co. have put up a website called Atlas Eets Christmas, where they’re streaming various holiday songs. The most notable of these is a new collaboration with Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band, an update of a tune that surfaced in instrumental form in 2007 and is also titled “Atlas Eets Christmas.” Considering that it’s The Flaming Lips and Ono we’re talking about, the track is surprisingly easy on the ears, featuring the requisite seasonal bells and a melody that, despite the intense vocal layering, will remind you of just about every Christmas carol you’ve ever heard. Hear it after the jump. Read More »
A post Jenny Craig (sorry, Jenny) Mariah Carey paid The Rosie Show a visit yesterday. The pop diva opened her talk show appearance by arriving on a giant, suspended disco-glittery moon. This is the same woman who played her own 1995 live performance of “Fantasy” during the birth of her new twins Moroccan and Monroe so they would be born to the sound of applause. (Yes, really.) The singer’s awkward lunar landing calls to mind many celebrity talk show appearances where the stars veered off topic — sometimes avoiding it completely — and humiliated themselves in front of the world with oddball behavior and confusing conversation. Click through to revisit some seriously weird celebrity talk show moments, and let us know who you’d add to the list below. Read More »
Some art is not meant to last; rather, it’s meant to melt, rot, blow away, disintegrate, disappear… We find these works fascinating. Perhaps its their self-destruction mechanism and their brief life-span that makes them so precious, or maybe it’s their curious, ephemeral materials — ice, butter, singed lit candle wax, festering meat. All these works come with an expiration date, leaving behind withered, deflated corpses and puddles. From Peiro Manzoni to David Lynch, take a gander at some of art’s most “temporary” works in their prime moments. Hurry! Time-sensitive stuff here! Read More »
After running features on the childhood photos of both famous writers and rock stars over the past few weeks, it might seem like we’re a bit youth-obsessed at Flavorwire lately. But we promise that that’s not the case. We just think that there’s something fascinating about images of cultural icons snapped long before they’d become household names. It humanizes them a bit. And so, today we turn our focus on the art world — specifically, some of the most influential talents of the past 100 years. Click through to peep photos of everyone from a dashing young Andy Warhol (pictured here) to a breathtakingly adorable baby Yoko Ono.
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A Florida-based artist is railing against Yoko Ono, accusing the wife of the late John Lennon of making the English musician’s artworks “cut-and-paste mashups” by altering them. The Japanese artist and activist has been selling Lennon’s art over the years, raising money for charities. What many people apparently didn’t know is that she’s also been adding color to various pieces, changing their compositions, and pasting “counterfeit John Lennon chop mark/signatures” on them. Not all the images have been tampered with, but four definitely show signs of alteration. The $5,000 Herd Moving seems to be the most changed, taking ” … a giraffe and a rhino from In His Own Write and [multiplying] them, [flipping] them, and [coloring] them, placing three of each figure in a new work also filled with snakes copied from another composition, three identical elephants (evidently taken from yet another composition), and a monkey swinging from a tree.”
Ono has apparently posthumously forged other works in the past. In 2010, she told some “professional people” in regards to one of Lennon’s pieces that they should ” … at least let [her] color it, because John probably would not have minded it if [she] did it.” Is this compromising the authenticity of Lennon’s work, or merely applying an artistic license the late Beatle would have endorsed? Check out a few of the images in question after the jump.
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Lady Gaga in drag? Meh. Kanye and Jay-Z bro-ing it up live? Not that groundbreaking. Justin Bieber’s pet snake, Johnson? Blech. Last week’s MTV Video Music Awards didn’t do much for us, but there was one redeeming moment — when we found out that Beyoncé was pregnant. Even those of us who don’t live vicariously through the tabloid-chronicled personal lives of pop stars couldn’t help but be excited for hip-hop’s first couple. Of course, they’re hardly the first pair of musicians who have spawned. Our brief history of kids with two rock-star parents, from Chaz Bono to Kelis and Nas’ son, is after the jump.
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Just in case you need something to do today: Yoko Ono has posted Bed Peace, a 70-minute documentary about the famous 1969 Bed-Ins she staged with John Lennon to protest the Vietnam war, on YouTube for free viewing this weekend only. To be honest, we’re not sure why the time limit has been enforced, especially in an age when so much is available for free on the internet all the time, albeit perhaps via suspect channels. However, if you’ve got an extra hour on this rainy Sunday morning, we think this is a good opportunity to watch the film and maybe stay in bed just a little longer. Click through to read Yoko’s letter to her viewers and see the video, and be sure to let us know what you think of the film and of the stunt in general in the comments!
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Depending on which side you take in the “She killed the band” debate, it’s every Beatles fan’s dream or nightmare to get a letter from Yoko Ono. We don’t know how Mike Craig of Dundee, Scotland felt about her up until now, but we’re guessing he’s not big into Ono these days. Craig, you see, is the owner of Lennon’s Bar, a pub that is not only named after John Lennon but is also decorated with Beatles memorabilia. As the photo to the right shows, Lennon and his band mates also feature prominently in the establishment’s signage. This did not please Ono’s lawyers, who recently accused Craig of copyright infringement and gave him 14 days to change the pub’s name and get rid of his (apparently quite costly) tchotchkes. “It’s ridiculous,” he told Jam Showbiz. “The pub’s been called Lennon’s for about five years, but the signs will be removed this week.” Who do you think is right, readers? Is Ono being greedy, or is she simply protecting her husband’s memory from exploitation? [via NME]
Linda McCartney was the first woman to land the coveted Rolling Stone cover with her portrait of Eric Clapton. Her photographs captured the Beatles kicking it at Brian Epstein’s house, Mick Jagger hanging back with Brian Wilson and everyone from Hendrix to Twiggy, completely unguarded. Over 200,000 photos by accomplished music photographer and Paul McCartney’s late wife were sorted to compile the 288-page Taschen tome Linda McCartney: Life in Photographs. Those photographs are now on view at New York City’s Bonni Benrubi Gallery through the end of July. See a selection of the images here, including personal, revealing shots of the McCartney family.
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