Doing a quick search I found Chip Kid lamenting their end as well.

http://grainedit.com/tag/modern/

Wow a fantastic repository

http://bookcoverarchive.com/

One of my most vivid memories of 2008 were election night. On a giant screen in one of my city’s most beautiful old theaters I got to join the jubilant celebration of hundreds of Obama volunteers watch the digital representation of the electorial college talley votes cast that very day. As the final mathmatically impossible to beat  configuration of blue and red states gave the network anchor the confidence to call Obama our next president a triumphant cheer rose up out of every person in that theater. The energy level was unbelievable, hundreds of people cheering, hugging, crying. It was an iconic event, a culmination of not just that November day when we universally make our voices heard at polling stations but a culmination of generations of people who had fought for equal rights for all citizens. It resonated deeply with me as some of my first vivid memories of the outside world were during the turbulent tragic days when Martin Luther King was assassinated. On that day school was cut short and the next day as well. There were whispers, saddness and unease emanating from the grown ups who didn’t know what to tell us. And for weeks and months after the tragedy with the lives of icons being cut short by violence it weighed heavy in my young world. This is the culmination of that history that no doubt helped shape Barak Obama into the icon he is now at this moment.

Four years before, on another chilly November night, at a downtown gallery opening I was dazzled by the iconic work of this then little know artist and poster raconteur Shepard Fairey. He’d made his bones with guerilla installations of one singular image of Andre the Giant with the words Obey. It had become a ubiquitous part of my art ghetto neighborhood. But there was definitely something more here where I could see a whole body of work with such a singular style. Mocking while reverential of the power of symbols and icons in propaganda imagery. It’s not that wrist slitting blood-shedding art, but it winks longingly at it’s commercial base origins in propaganda art. In 2004 no one was thinking about Angela Davis Bobby Seal and Chairman Mao, but here they were on the walls of the Gallery. This kid was not just reminding us about the power of art to influence for good and bad, but the art of it.

I spoke for a few minutes to simply say how much I like the show and how powerful the work was. He was very nice, very personable, very genuinely engaged and focused about his work. Somehow I was not surprised to hear he was the artist behind the iconic Obama imagery. The image was so genuine that it rose above being regurgitated over and over again in the media — testament to Fairey’s talent to recognize and translate symbolic images. Imitators now abound.

Ironically Fairy who was at the DNC for a gallery show and filming of a documentary was arrested outside the democratic convention with the posters in hand, wheat pasting them to areas around the convention. Riot cops came guns drawn. The police after finally convinced he meant no harm released him for $500 in bail. In an interview he said the sad thing was once they understood he had created the Obama image their automatic response was to assume he got a lot of money for it. Fairey donated all the money from the poster to the campaign.

It would seem a cycle has been completed, the United States finally has another iconic leader and the imagery that will be most remembered was created by iconoclast who started his art with guerilla tactics born of a new generation whose dissent and angst shapes their own generation.

I hate winter in my hometown more every passing year - when the light goes and the frigid temperature extinguish the last growing thing more efficiently than a fire I feel like abandoning hope it will ever return. This year with an overloaded end of year work schedule, unexpected family crisis and the onslaught of frozen precipitation of all kinds, hope is an extremely dim thing. So to make it through the darkness some my extra projects got thrown aside and blogging was one of the first to go. But something popped in my mailbox from an Urban Culture Project email blast that reminded me green and growing is around the corner.

These folks whomever they are, are here to raise a torch in this the season of artificial light to mark the shortest day which is fast approaching and I for one can’t wait to get to the other side of that astronomical event. It’s easy to understand why it is so celebrated buy Pagans, Christians and almost every culture that wasn’t based at the equator.

From the Urban Culture Project email blast: Carnal Torpor hosts MANAFEST: THE WINTER SOLSTICE

la Esquina / 1000 W 25th, St. Kansas City, MO 64108
Sat, Dec 22, 6:08 am - midnight

It is astronomically inevitable and geographically correct that on December 22, 2007, artist collective Carnal Torpor will host MANAFEST: THE WINTER SOLSTICE within a new iteration of the CalmDome at La Esquina.

Beginning at 6:08 AM and continuing each hour until midnight, the solstice will be celebrated in a multitude of transdenominational forms, taking on abstractions of all types. There will be ritual feasting, gift giving, light therapy, caroling and a guided meditation upon the omni-point perspective embedded within the sacred geometry of the Metatron’s Cube. There will be performances of both formal compositions and spontaneous revelations by numerous participants. A 20 foot diameter geodesic model of the CalmDome containing an interior tent structure held in tension within will be the stage for the activities.

Hummm

“Amazing” were the unprompted words of the people spilling down the stairwell of the West Bottoms Loft as I climbed them for the 2nd show of Night Moves, last Saturday night. Having made a the effort to be sure I was at this spot that night along with talking two like minded designers into joining me, for something I knew little more than it was supposed to be a happening, those were promising words.

The event was billed as performance art, music, dance, art exhibit, fashion show and opera all inspired by the 1979 architectural renderings of Bertrand Goldberg. It centered on a two night showing at Foundation, an architectural reclamation center (store) of Goldberg’s original renderings. Patrick Ottesen, the evenings host, organizer and Foundation’s main man was the proud owner of this collection of a never built adult wonderland in Orlando. The intricately detailed rapidiograph inked drawings were the backdrop for a performance by Los Angeles’ String Theory Production. Described on the Foundation’s web site as an avant-garde ensemble that transforms architecture into giant musical instruments, creating a unique landscape to each installation and performance.

Indeed it was amazing, I wished I’d brought a bus load of people. String Theory were a visual and sonic journey outside of what we normally expect. Having worked with clients who were avant-garde dance and chamber ensembles I have great respect for these collaborative events that intertwine the disciplines, and even more for those artists that are devoted to that mission. Bravo

I knew little when I settled into the set at the Nelson Atkins for the Otto Piene lecture. The title was “Art and Technology, Image and Architecture — A Personal View.”, not necessarily a an attention grabber. But when you put the words art and technology together a designer is going to be a bit intrigued.

A diminutive man of advanced age carefully walked to the podium. Not sounding particularly like a powerhouse or a revolutionary he launched into an hour long review of a mere sliver of his career. Completely relevant and timely, his creative philosophies that art and science were extensions of human expression and completely intertwined were powerful ideas at the horizon the birth of the word media. His early work with light and dependence on technology seemed to reinforce that those disciplines were, when fused of the same dynamic as the earth itself.

Extract from “Sky and Space Artists’ Manifesto”
Our reach into space constitutes an infinite extension of human life, imagination and creativity. The ascent into the sky is mirrored by the descent into inner space as it reflects the cosmos. Our release from gravity represents a fundamental shift in human consciousness - flight and release which open a new dimension of humanity. From the ancient past, artists have formed images and dreams, fired the imagination, built structures of aspiration to give the world wings to fly, and the vision to see new societies in the sky. We live in their cumulative light. Not only here on earth but there in space we must see, touch, feel and think in order to transport soul and spirit. Thus a threshold is crossed where the radiance of art brings expanded awareness into reciprocity with the earth.

Along side founder Gyorgy Kepes, Piene helped establish MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS), as the definitive and indeed the only academic institution to so deeply commingle art and technology in a collaborative think tank of creativity and science.

As I watched him speak it was as if to see a man who was ahead of his time see the world catch up with him. There is much on the internet on his career but it seems to be mostly to have originated from Germany, very few English translations.

It’s already happening, i’m sitting contemplating too many things to write about at once. I can see you just have to do this every day. To catch up i’ll start at last Friday. It was barely light when i drug myself out of bed and down to Coffee and Magazines for a 7:30 a. m. meet up with an offshoot of the American Copywriter blog. Everyone was very welcoming and it was great to meet folks doing this longer than I. No one gaffawed at my newbie query, about general etiquette. It was really nice to start the day with a genuinely nice bunch of people with a shared avocation. Celeste Lindell, had extended the invitation from a yahoo board posting. Her blog Average Jane stays true to it’s name and is snapshot’s of life that i could relate too.

But that am every week time is hellishly tough on a person who often feels like they’re just getting cranked up at 12:00 am. But wow, you can get in quite a day. Think i saw on the AC site they were moving it to the pm.