I need sticky things. Ideas that are flexible, malleable, with plastacine qualities; things that can keep sticking to other things, that can be used to build SCULPTURES, not structures

What  is the difference between a structure and a sculpture? forms we can mold, assemble improvisationally–forms with feeling. I want to make flexible sculptures that can mold into/onto places, that can mold around corners, that can mold into the parts of the city I care about, that can become real in the world in a particular way—that can take the shape of the world.

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Who needs realism?

Luckily, the nature of fashion is anti-realistic and the perfect place to park one’s own understimulated, grey realistic everyday life. This is a place of dreams, a place where almost impossible beauty is created; a place where curiosity, wonderment and fiction thrive–all things that block out the sneaky boredom of mediocrity that threatens to take us down.

–Uffe Buchard, DANSK magazine, S/S 2010, editorial note.

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One day last winter, I noticed this interesting exhibit/display in the windows of Macy’s Department Store. These images grabbed me immediately: The drawings and posters of Josephine Baker as a fashion icon, and the mannequins, with their expressive hand gestures, and the colorful printed text, of (real? and) imagined “Baker-isms”

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“Maman” Josephine       Beyonce you can have my costume
No, I have no regrets   A certain smile!    Ah. Those Bananas!     Me, a diva?

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All of this imagery is meant to help us in ”Rediscovering Josephine Baker” during Black History Month. We are also to meant to “discover” the great items on sale at Macy’s.

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Like Betsey Johnson Handbags on [Floor] 1.

What can we make of this as an archival practice? I think the use of images, original posters, and fashion drawings “on loan from the Jean Claude Baker Foundation and the Jean Rennert Collection,” is a traditional museum practice. But paired with the mannequins advertising the latest fashions on sale in the store, and the colorful fictional utterances, the Baker archive changes from a document of the past into an image of contemporary urban sophistication. But not without raising some disturbing issues… (more…)

I am not sure what exactly this has to do with the theme of urban research, or archiving the city, but I must mention the greatest (urban?) youtube phenomena of 2008: copying Beyonce’s music video for her song “Single Ladies.” My two  favorite “repeat performances” are by these fabulous men.

What I love about these performances is the precision, the attention to detail, the sheer perfection of the copy. At the same time, each of these performers infuses the song with personal soul, attitude and humour, in the style of the jazz greats, giving a new meaning to the otherwise trite, (hetero)sexist sentiment of single ladies having to “put a ring on [that special finger].”

And, of course, you gotta love the fashions!

To more love and beauty in the new year. Happy 2009!

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I grew up in Lagos, Nigeria during the oil boom of the 1970′s and 80′s. Fashion reflected the city’s exuberant modernism and futurism. There were great hairstyles, which all the fancy ladies wore. The city was changing and growing fast. New structures seemed to be going up everyday. The new hairstles were intended to simulate the forms of the urban structures they were named after. Like the hairstyle pictured above was called “Eko Bridge,” after the new bridges built to link the city’s islands. There were also styles like the skyscraper, the stadium, etc.

As you can probably tell, hair for Lagosians, and many other Africans, is a big deal. Look here for more about the significance of hair and the head in West Africa.

I think hair done like this could be a way of archiving the city, don’t you?