The Quay Brothers re-imagine Leeds for 2012 Cultural Olympiad

Yorkshire's swishest shopping streets, and the mysterious Dark Arches, will turn into strange and different places for the next three days.

Leeds Canvas and the Quay Brothers. The Dark Arches are one of the most atmospheric corners of the city centre, hidden below the train station and above the river Aire Photograph: Tom Arber

Residents of Leeds have woken up to find a boat lodged in a tree in the middle of Briggate, the handsome pedestrian-only street at the heart of the city's shopping district. The unexpected shipwreck, 14 metres across and four tall, is the first major public installation to mark the beginning of the Overworlds and Underworlds event.

The internationally-acclaimed artist filmmakers, the Quay Brothers, have designed this temporary installation as part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad. Overworlds and Underworlds, happening from tomorrow, Friday 18 May until Sunday night, will see the pair, plus a group of carefully selected fellow-artists, using the city centre of Leeds as their canvas.

This is the first project by Leeds Canvas, an arts consortium chosen three years ago as the Yorkshire region winner of a commission forArtists Taking the Lead. The commission is one of 12 across the UK which are celebrating the 2012 London Olympics and Paralympics.

Steve Dearden, associate producer for Leeds Canvas, explains:

Initially the arts council invited proposals for a large piece of public art in all the English regions. That's when the consortium came together and made a very basic invitation. We would say to an artist, here's our city, our people, our buildings, make a piece of art which explores and celebrates that.

The free event will include three days of public performances and installations involving light, live music, dance and film. However, specific details of the event are being kept secret until closer to the weekend. Dearden says:

What we want is for people to suddenly be surprised by happenings in their own city or visitors seeing things in the city that have never been seen before.

All along with the brothers what we want to make is a piece of art based on the city. Based on themes in city life, the flow and movement of people and of water around the city. So the day-to-day activities in the city suddenly becoming strange with strange interventions being made, whether by physical objects or moving objects or people.

The Quay Brothers are working in collaboration with eight of the city's key arts organisations; Northern Ballet, the West Yorkshire Playhouse,Opera North, Yorkshire Dance, Phoenix Dance, Leeds Museums and Galleries, Leeds Met Studio Theatre and Leeds Art Gallery.

Briggate in Leeds. Now it's got a shipwreck in a tree. Photograph: Richard Klune/Corbis

Leeds Canvas said they chose the Quay Brothers because of their previous work in Leeds creating art installations for Leeds Art Gallery. They also knew that the brothers had always had a fascination for the Dark Archesunder the city's main train station.

Dearden explains why Canvas is hosting a fleeting public art event rather than a lasting installation.

By choosing the Quay Brothers we always knew we weren't going to get a monumental sculpture. They work with light; they work in that ephemeral way. We knew it would be an amazing thing that came out of the city that would be there for a period and then disappear again. But hopefully it is one of those interventions where it is something that becomes part of peoples' memories or the way they talk about the city.

Overworlds and Underworlds will begin on Briggate in Leeds city centre, including the illustrious late 19th century arcades and leading down to the mysterious underworld of the Dark Arches. Dominic Gray, projects director at Opera North says:

The idea of Overworlds and Underworlds is that we've got these very mysterious atmospheric worlds, one underneath and one above.

There are subterranean movements going on underneath our feet that are historical as well as physical, the movements of people over hundreds of years. Overworlds is the angels and the things we aspire to, the things that are in the air that we glimpse out of the corner of our eye. The project is about how us, the living people, walk between one or the other and negotiate our map through a city where those things are going on.

The Dark Arches. No place to be in a power cut. Photograph: Tom Arber

Dearden hopes that the event will leave a lasting legacy of collaboration between the artists.

It's important to mention that it has not just been about the core team of chief executives or artistic directors. People from different levels have been working together, including the education and marketing teams who have collaborated for the first time. So hopefully the legacy of this, apart from the artistic legacy, will be a much closer relationship between those key organisations in the future.

He has also enjoyed his time with the Quay Brothers:

It's been fantastic working with them, it's been wonderful to go and meet them in their studio. In this very unique working space, you knock on door in the south of London, open it up and suddenly you are in this junk room of a Russian monastery, lots of icons, books, decanters, you could spend years in there exploring. And at the other end there is this high-tech editing suite where they are making films with the newest equipment.

Leeds Canvas expects Overworlds and Underworlds to be an event that will be remembered for years to come. Dearden says:
I think when people see some of the set pieces there will be a sense of wonder and fun. I expect that on Friday and Saturday night people will be taking photos of themselves in front of these amazing things and it will become part of the photographic record of the city and part of the way people talk about the city in the future.

Here's a clip of Steve Dearden and Dominic Gray, filmed by Joe Bream talking to Marishka about the weekend's excitements in Leeds.

Beautiful Japanese Manhole Covers

MRSY documents beautifully designed manhole covers all over Japan.

 

462photoblog.net

Chuck Brown, Pioneer of ‘Go-Go’ Funk Music, Dies at 75

Chuck Brown, who styled a unique mix of funk, soul and Latin party sounds to create go-go music in the nation's capital, has died after suffering from pneumonia. He was 75. Breaking news about the arts, coverage of live events, critical reviews, multimedia and more. Go to Arts Beat » A sortable calendar of noteworthy cultural events in the New York region, selected by Times critics. Go to Event Listings » Brown, widely acclaimed as the "Godfather of go-go" for his pioneering sound, died Wednesday at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore. Hospital spokesman Gary Stephenson confirmed Brown had died after a hospital stay that began April 18. Thanks to Brown and his deep, gravelly voice, go-go music was uniquely identified with Washington. That's where he continued to play the city's club circuit to a loyal audience late in life. Mayor Vincent Gray said the nation's capital will be a different place without him. Mournful admirers of the musician were called Wednesday evening to an impromptu candlelight vigil in Washington, where a sound truck was to blast a special Chuck Brown music mix to the crowd before a prayer session for him. "Go-go is D.C.'s very own unique contribution to the world of pop music," he said. "Today is a very sad day for music lovers the world over." In 2007 Brown told The Associated Press that go-go was influenced by sounds and fast beats he heard early in life, growing up in North Carolina and Virginia, combined with his experience later, playing with a Latin band. "Go-go is a music that continues on and on, and it's a call and response communication with the audience," Brown said. Go-go was heavy on percussion with drummers as lead players, accented by guitar riffs, keyboards and horns. Sometimes the musicians would play for two or three hours without stopping. In between tunes, Brown would keep the thunk of percussion going and talk to the crowd. Brown's hit "Bustin' Loose" with his group, the Soul Searchers, helped define go-go's sound. It spent several weeks atop the R&B chart in 1979. Rapper Nelly later sampled Brown's "Bustin' Loose" in 2002 for his massive hit "Hot in Herre," which won Nelly a Grammy. Brown didn't get credit at first, though, and "had to go through some legalities to get it right, but we knew, once we heard the song, that's Chuck Brown," said Gregory "Sugar Bear" Elliott, lead singer of the go-go band EU (Experience Unlimited.) In 2007, rapper Eve sampled Brown's song, "Blow Your Whistle," in her hit single "Tambourine." Brown told the AP he admired such artists. "Go-Go had some influence on rap because a lot of rap musicians come to my shows," he said. "Some of them were students at Howard University. People like Puff Daddy, he's been to see us when he was a young Howard University student." Spike Lee, a fan of Brown's, used go-go for his movie "School Daze." "Chuck Brown Will Always Be 'Bustin' Loose' — the Godfather of Go-Go," Lee said through a spokeswoman. Elliot said Brown had been a father figure since he was a teen when he aspired to be a rocker like Jimmy Hendrix but realized he wouldn't make it that way as a young black man. When he saw Brown perform, he said he "instantly knew" what he wanted to do. "Chuck Brown is going to live on forever. I'm going to make sure of that," Elliott said. "When they see me, I want them to see a reflection of Chuck because he inspired me so much." He added: "The go-go sound is still going strong." When Brown was younger, he spent some time in jail. While behind bars, he traded five cartons of cigarettes for his first guitar. After he was freed in 1962, Brown played with several bands and then formed the Soul Searchers. To comply with terms of his parole, they couldn't play where alcohol was served, so they went to churches, recreation halls and youth centers. Brown's daughter, Cherita Whiting, said he had died from complications with pneumonia and was gone too soon. "I just want to tell all his fans, thank you, for lovin' our dad," she said. "He had the best fans in the world." During the crack epidemic of the 1980s, violence in some clubs affected go-go's reputation. Brown said "we can't blame the go-go for that," though. More recently, he said he had seen more grandparents at his shows, with an audience ranging in age from 18 to 60. In 2005, he was named a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts. Washington was always his most loyal fan base, Brown told the AP, and he was happy to play here the rest of his life.

The Banksy rat, punched through to make way for a drainpipe

. Photograph: EPA

A Melbourne builder has inadvertently destroyed a valuable piece of street art by the British graffiti artist Banksy by drilling a hole through it to put in a bathroom pipe.

Melbourne resident Tina McKenzie told Australia's Network Ten she had lived above Banksy's Parachuting Rat for almost a decade.

"Anybody that understands street art and recognises it as more than just vandalism understands that it is something we need to preserve," she said.

It is the third work by Banksy in the city to be destroyed in the past two years, including one that was painted over in 2010 in a council cleanup.

Jacqui Vidal, a local gallery owner, said the council needed to be more careful in avoiding the destruction of graffiti artwork.

"There should have been something noted on the planning permit that that Banksy work had to somehow be avoided," she said.

Banksy, whose identity is unknown to the public, first drew attention in the early 1990s with stencilled graffiti seen by some as subversive and by others as satire.

Wearing These Penis Leggings

 

The other day, I was sitting in the window at a cafe when a girl walked by wearing these muscle leggings paired with super high heels and a leather jacket. You could tell she thought she looked amazing, but the sight of her apparently skinless legs had everyone doing double takes of sheer horror. I did a complex mental calculation and concluded that they were the worst leggings that had ever been worn. Well, the universe has today proven me wrong, as it so often does, by putting forth a new, more terrible legging. Introducing, the penis legging. This revolting and totally NSFW product allows you to do what you've never longed to do: cover your legs in tiny penises. Sure, they don't look quite as appalling from afar as the muscle leggings, but once you get up close, your eyes are in for a world of hurt. The only place to go from here is for us all to start wearing flesh covered leggings that have an extremely detailed vagina printed on the crotch. Though it'd probably be easier and cheaper (if a bit chillier) for us all to just start walking around without pants on.