ALVO NOTo - CaRSTen NIkolai Unitxt

WOF love this.

THE CAMOUFLAGE MAN

Known as the 'invisible man', artist Liu Bolin camouflages himself against different city locations, from China to the UK. Each of his photographic artworks takes up to 10 hours to complete, with an assistant helping to paint him into the background. Can you spot him in these pictures?
Painted patriotism ... Liu sees his work as a protest against the Chinese government's persecution of artists
Keeping it street ... Liu has said that his art is influenced by his sense of not fitting in with modern society. (Source - The Guardian)

BREAKDANCING ROBOT

Something nice for a Monday morning. A breakdancing robot. Enjoy.

JAYDIOHEAD

Like Radiohead. Like JayZ. Like free albums? Jaydiohead is a mash-up album combining the vocals of Jay-Z and the music of Radiohead. It is produced by NYC DJ and producer Max Tannone. It's free and reminiscent of Dangermouse's "Grey Album".

Here's the link

http://www.thefwa.com/

KRIMINAL

A moment from the 60's today. The wonderful posters from the Itlaian made fims "Kriminal' with Glenn Saxon as the anit-hero. Wht we love about these posters is the blend of cop story, mysticism and horrorr. They really were casting out in the genre pool. But the strange blend and the choises of placing the many Buddhas with the skeletons and the cops on their bikes made for intrigue and a kitschy fascination.

A little below in case you would like to see these wonderful films. Or buy the poster to impress your friends.

A mastermind thief known as Kriminal narrowly escapes execution. He always manages to stay one step ahead of the law with each new crime he commits. Will Kriminal be able to pull of his biggest score yet or will a double cross lead to his demise?
The origins of the Kriminal character can be traced back the 1964 fumetti (comic book) created Roberto Raviola and Luciano Secchi under the pseudonyms Magnus and Max Bunker. Kriminal is a mastermind thief who effortlessly seduces women and when in danger he is not above killing anyone who gets in his way. Kriminal (1966) is the first of two films. It was followed two years later by Il marchio di Kriminal (1968).

SEX! SEX! SEX!

Ed Kienholz was a pioneer of assemblage, or "funk" art, in the 1950s and 60s, a movement dedicated to collecting society's debris from flea markets and junk shops to make artworks that provoked our social conscience. He expanded the form to installation scale and many works – State Hospital, for example, which showed two abandoned inmates on a bed in a psychiatric unit and was inspired by his time as a hospital attendant – were based on his own experiences.

Nancy and Ed's biggest environmental sculpture, The Hoerengracht (Whores' Canal) – a garish, life-size depiction made over five years in their Berlin studio of a 1980s Amsterdam brothel district – will stand alongside paintings from the gallery's permanent collection of Dutch masters depicting prostitution scenes from the 17th century. It will be the first time that the gallery has exhibited a modern installation. "It's as good as it gets," says Nancy. As a point of interest one of our dear WOF colleagues lived in the same street no. 133 Herengraght and regularly saw and spoke to the selfsame ladies, though strictly in a neighbourly fashion.

When the letter from Nicholas Penny, the director of the National Gallery, arrived earlier this year inviting her to exhibit The Hoerengracht – whose name is a pun on the elegant street Herengracht or "Gentleman's Canal" – because he wanted to compare it to the Dutch old masters such as Vermeer and De Hooch, Nancy thought it must be a joke.

Nancy and Ed started making the installation in 1983. They paid the sex workers 50 guilders a head to be allowed to enter and photograph their rooms to gather information. She is tickled that their work is now being seen as a historical document of the red light district of the 1970s and 80s.

The Hoerengracht is going to be shown alongside paintings by Steen, Van Hoogstraten, De Hooch and Vermeer, pictures which at first glance appear to show gentle Dutch townscapes or serene Delft interiors, but on closer inspection depict tableaux of prostitution and sensual pleasure.

"Unlike the old masters, The Hoerengracht has nothing to do with good taste. It's a sleazy piece of art with dirty surfaces and tacky artefacts."

Kienholz: The Hoerengracht opens at the National Gallery, London WC1 on 18 November

ED RUSCHA AT THE HAYWARD

Loved by many and a friend of WOF, Ed was part of the 'cool school' of artists in California. He made LA his home from Omaha, Nebraska and although he maintains that LA never affected or influence his work, his proselyte, David Lynch, feels just the opposite.“Ed has said California hasn’t influenced him one little bit, but I disagree. I like to think the California sun has burnt out all unnecessary elements in his work.” Lynch, who also adopted LA as his home, has offered his own interpretations of it in films such as Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire. The bigger truth is that you can’t look at a lot of Ruscha’s paintings without thinking of LA, “with its sign-filled streets sprawling like dispersed and diffused flows of random information”, as Rugoff notes in his catalogue essay. (Ruscha, by the way, once had business cards printed to aid in the pronunciation of his name: “Ed-werd Rew-shay”. And how would Lynch describe Ruscha, as a human being? “Clean!” he immediately shoots back. CLEAN. Is that a Ruscha word painting? CLEAN. The exhibition at The Hayward London until Jan 10th 2010

NOAH TAKES A PHOTO OF HIMSELF EVERYDAY FOR 6 YEARS

A fantastic feat of discipline and endurance. Respect to you Noah. See how how his sideburns grow. And his hair goes from short, longer, unkempt and in-between. As we grow, we change, we decay. We are the ultimate eco-friendly compost.

If you look carefully see how he changes into the young Al Pacino.

GOLF IN THE STREETS OF PARIS

What's your handicap?

OH POLAROID!

WOF likes Polanoid.net. An asian guy with a Long Beach tattoo fades away like
he's from a dream world, same with the flower and the donkey. They evoke a sense of nostalgia and wonderment. A remembrance of things past. What's the point of ever
turning on your television again.

BY CHANCE NOT DESIGN - FRANCIS BACON

In an early Southbank Show an inebriated Francis Bacon spoke to an equally inebriated Melvyn Bragg about his life and work as an artist. The ex interior designer and self self-taught artist, said to be one of the world's greatest modern painters. When asked how he came to paint on the wrong side of the canvas, used medical books, wrestling photographs, Muybridge experiments of movement etc, Bacon spoke thus:

Bacon: I lost all my money in Monte Carlo and I had used up all my canvanses so the only way to paint was to reverse the canvas and paint there. And, you know, I liked it. Much better than the traditional side. I like the way the paint soaked in. It was quite by chance. And so I started to work this way all the time"

On conscious intellect v the unconscious. Bacon came out firmly in favor of the unconscious. "Why?" asked Bragg. "Because I've made images the conscious mind could never make!"

In 'Painting 1946' Bacon tried to paint a bird falling from the sky into a field of grass, but then something else began to appear. A man, face obscured by an umbrella sitting down and a huge carcass of meat stretched behind him like a butcher's shop.

Bacon, clearly fired up by subject matter and booze ranted on a bit: It happened to come about (Chance). It happened to evolve. How it happens I don't know.

When asked about the 'randomness' of things and the oblique contrast between the existential intensity counterpointed by his own description of himself as a very optimistic person Bacon answered: "What is life but sensation, what happens at the moment?'

Bragg asked about Bacon's strange definition of optimism "What it is exactly, given that life to you has no meaning, what is it you're optimistic about?" Bacon replied "I'm optimistic about nothing. Absolutely nothing."

TOKYO PLASTIC FOOD

Most people will agree that Japan is ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to technology, but perhaps a lesser known fact is that Japan also excels when it comes to making plastic models of food. These days any restaurant worth it's salt will have it's whole menu carefully crafted in plastic, displayed in a special window for your viewing pleasure. And with the technology of making fake food being so advanced now, you'd be forgiven for trying to eat or drink some of the creations if a waiter happened to place them in front of you. Each noodle in plates of spagetti seem to have been crafted seperately, grease on steaks glistens like it was just fried, and mugs of beer have tiny beads of condensation covering them. Below you can see a bowl of chinese style tofu and noodles ready to be eaten. It's not real!? Looks good though.

AMERICAN TRAVEL DIARY

Very well structured travel diary of trip to the USA. Thanks to Tognazzi for finding it.

BETWEEN THE FOLDS ORIGAMI DOCUMENTARY

Ineresting documentary on the art of origami. Thanks to Wired for this.

I LIKE AMERICA AND AMERICA LIKES ME

Joseph Beuys- I Like America and America likes me from zazie on Vimeo.

Beuys invokes the idea of social sculpture every woman every man an artist, infiltrate science art economics, environment, architecture politics.

He saw the same sicknesses in America as he saw in Germany. But in a way he is the artist who pushed the nature and the environment to the forefront of the art-world by spending time with a wild coyote and living peacefully with it. Or his work in establishing the German Green party. Or see his 7,000 oaks as both social sculpture and social action. In his work as with much of the Fluxus group Beuys was redefining just what Art was as well as what it could be. And this was something that had very firm foundations in everday life.

Yet Beuys had refused to enter America until the Vietnam war had come to an end

In 'I Love America And America Loves Me" we see Beuys in action. A puzzled audience talk about his art as all encompassing and holistic but cannot understand where the boundaries are to which he responds that he is interested in the healing of society and the reorganization of values.

In many ways he did that through the a shamanistic art fusing environmental and conceptual thinking. His belief system was a direct challenge to the state of the world as he saw it and not, as now, mere conceptual playfulness or self-referentialism. Art in tune with the zeitgeist, not the dollar.

For your interest. Joseph Beuys http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Beuys

DOZOR NIGHT GAMES

They stalk abandoned building sites and industrial wastelands by night yet in the day work in the humdrum offices and jobs throughout Russia. And some of them have no jobs.

Tying together sets of codes and encrypted messages, tens of thousands of young men and women venture to remote places they have never seen before hooked on the excitement of Dozor, the game sweeping Russia and soon to come westwards.

Using only mobile phones, maps and fast cars they are sent information leading to hidden clues buried under water, in abandoned cars, underground. Dozorites are intrepid code-crackers, fearless in their roles so diametrically opposed as Clark Kent is to Superman.

Check the link. See action. And organize your own game of Dozor in your neighborhood.

It promises. City .Night. Andrenalin and an unforgetable experience



Or on the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8309999.stm

10 WARHOL'S STOLEN $1,000,000 REWARD

Have you seen these?
Do you have any information that might help them being returned?

Do thieves actually like Warhol?

What steps could be taken by the public to help out?

Why not organize The Great Warhol Art Hunt in your neighborhood.

Get together a group of adults and children, decide to share the money
and learn about art at the same time.

If you have other ideas on this. Feel free to post them in the comments below.

THE WIZARD OF OZ IS 70

From a one-room shack on the Kansas prairie with her defeated and joyless Uncle Henry and Aunt Em, Dorothy is in many ways a symbol of hope in hard times.

Dorothy's "little black dog" Toto kept her out in the storm, and together they were whisked to Oz, a place she had longed to discover but on discovering was instantly feverish to leave.

Oz was a strange and unsettling place and all that she dreams for is not what she really wants. It is a place full of inadequacy and longing to be human again.The Tin Man rusts and is cursed by the witch. And the Lion seeks a heart. And Dorothy just wants to get back to Kansas. She never really knows that all she has to do is click the heels of her red shoes and say the words "There's no place like home"

Dorothy, was a "well grown child for her age" – although not, perhaps, as well grown as her MGM incarnation who, generations on, still reigns as a symbol of hope in hard times.

Dreams Come True, if by dreams we mean standing on a stage, holding a microphone like the Wizard, while little people across the land look up at us in rapture. In the context of the film, Over The Rainbow means nothing of the sort, of course. The best and oddest thing about The Wizard Of Oz is its power as a critique of what it's supposed to be striving for.

The producer, Mervyn LeRoy, nearly invented postmodernism 20 years before Derrida by suggesting an opening shot of Dorothy reading a copy of The Wizard Of Oz in bed. Director George Cukor lasted just three days before huffing off in protest at the trashy material. ("I was brought up on grander things," he sniffed. "I was brought up on Tennyson.")

Oz has been turned into books on philosophy ("Was Oz the dream or was Kansas?"), Jungian therapy ("Psychological healing through the archetypes of Oz")

Inadequacy is ok. Dorothy learns of suffering of the world and that brings compassion and an appreciation that, disaffected youth lose until they make their own journey.

"If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I'll never go further than my own back yard."

This line is open to interpretation. It can be genuine home, the home of inner peace and the heart, a reconciliation of the fractured psyche of a paradigm for hard economic times. There are many more.

Because as we know "There's no place like home".

WORLD OF FOUND LIKES. 1. HELVETICA MOLESKIN

W0W !

WOF LIKES W0W.

GOD'S HOTLINE

Dutch artist Johan van der Dong chose a mobile phone number to show that God was available anywhere and anytime, Radio Netherlands reported.

He says people these days almost cannot live without a telephone any longer.. And he's dead-serious when he says that he believes that praying could becoming as meaningful as it was in humanity's distant past, if people could also speak their prayers and thoughts into God's Hotline voicemail.

God's Hotline on 7 March at 4pm at Groningen city's Northern railway station - where the entire stairwell has been turned into a free public art gallery, the Kunstruimte. The mobile phone for God is just an ordinary prepaid Vodaphone without any fancy bells or whistles except a voice-mail facility, he said.

People leaving messages can place their thoughts on this voice mail, and it becomes another form of prayer,' he says. He believes in a God but is not of any formal denomination, he says.

"A long time ago, in humanity's long-distant past, people started praying to God for many things, normally holding up their hands or folding them in prayer, asking God for deliverance and to help them."

Now, he feels, prayer can reach a similarly high level of devotion if people could pray to God on His own personal hotline.

"REACH OUT AND TOUCH FAITH"

UPDATE CHINESE RABBIT CHINESE RAT

A Chinese man who won a high profile auction for two bronze artworks claimed by China says he will not pay for them.

The sculptures, which sold for 15m euros ($19m; £13m) each in Paris last week, were originally looted from Beijing in 1860.

Cai Mingchao, who has identified himself as the bidder, is an adviser to China's National Treasures Fund, which seeks to retrieve looted treasures.

He said his decision to bid for the bronzes had been a "patriotic" act.

Page last updated at 12:13 GMT, Monday, 2 March 2009
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China 'patriot' sabotages auction

Chinese bidder explains why he is not paying

A Chinese man who won a high profile auction for two bronze artworks claimed by China says he will not pay for them.

The sculptures, which sold for 15m euros ($19m; £13m) each in Paris last week, were originally looted from Beijing in 1860.

Cai Mingchao, who has identified himself as the bidder, is an adviser to China's National Treasures Fund, which seeks to retrieve looted treasures.

He said his decision to bid for the bronzes had been a "patriotic" act.

"What I want to stress is that this money cannot be paid," Mr Cai told a news conference.

"I believe that any Chinese person would stand up at this time... I am making an effort to fulfil my own responsibilities," he said in a statement released by the fund.

"But I must stress that I do not have the money to pay for this," he said.

Christie's auction house, which sold the pieces, said it was aware of the reports.

"As a matter of policy, we do not comment on the identity of our consignors or buyers, nor do we comment or speculate on the next steps that we might take in this instance," it said in a statement.

Legal questions

The two bronzes, in the shape of the heads of a rabbit and a rat, were auctioned by Christie's in Paris last week as part of the estate of the late French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and his partner.
The bronze rat and the bronze rabbit
China says the bronzes were taken abroad illegally 150 years ago

They had been originally taken by British and French troops from the imperial Summer Palace in October 1860, towards the end of the Second Opium War.

China had tried to stop the sale, and later threatened the business of Christie's in China for having gone ahead.

But Christie's said the sale was legal, a position backed by a French court.

The plot thickens.

BILL HICKS 15th ANNIVERSARY

Yesterday was the 15th anniversary of Bill Hicks' death. For some, he was
abrasive, outspoken and too close to the edge. For his family he was serious,
not really that funny, and very compassionate. It's necessary to add to that list.
Hicks was also the indignant voice of resistance to power. Power of advertising
which creates so many false myths and archetypes of sexiness, wealth, prosperity
that many of our lives are irrevocably influenced by it. .Especially the young susceptible to images of "cool" and outsider paradigms. Power of the Church which
gives for all the hope takes away by doubling guilt. And Power of the State which
gives false promise. We too believe that everyone should be given the right to education, health and a pair of x-ray glasses which sees through language and concepts. Bill was wearing them all the time.

"BIll Hicks - Slight Return" plays at The Soho Theatre London

CHINESE RABBIT CHINESE RAT

On Feb 23, Christie's International in Paris will begin a much-hyped three-day auction of furniture and art from the various homes of Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Berge. To give potential American bidders a close look, last year Christie's shipped some of the choicer items for a brief display at its New York showroom.

A pair of bronze animal heads, a rabbit and a rat, that were once part of the famous zodiac fountain clock at Beijing's imperial Summer Palace. In 1860 the palace was looted and burned by French and English troops, the fountain clock destroyed and its brass animal heads, which were water spouts representing beasts in the Chinese zodiac, were scattered.

Chinese foreign ministry is asking Saint Laurent's estate, which is directed by Berge, to return the heads. Christie's has replied that the heads both have a long, well documented ownership history, and of course they left China long before 1970, the year that's increasingly accepted as a cut off for repatriation claims.

Let's see it from the animal's point of view. Well in Chinese horosscopes, rat's are
Smart, Magnetic, Well-liked, Affable, Quick-witted, Surreptitious, Selfish, Protective, Calculating. Rats think Rabbits are boring. Rabbits love to be out and about. You will only frustrate each other. Rabbits are very ambitious and can be quite crafty in their dealings with others. Emotional and Passionate the consume themselves doing what they Love. Rabbits get depressed if Home and Enviroment do not contain the necessary things to make them feel comfortable.

By the way Yves Saint Laurent was a Rat!

THE LAST SAMURAI

Last night WOF visited the Last Samurai Exhibition in Palazzo Reale Milano. This gives the feel of authentic Samurai lives. The costumes are detailed and stunning pieces of art in themselves. You can almost sense the warriors staring out at you from dark holes in their masks. Waiting silently for the right moment to come.

The warriors operated under the Budokan code The Way Of The Samurai and Pure Land Zen Buddhism. They had become so impressed many years earlier when under orders from the Emperor to cull religious power the attacked and burned a Zen monastery only to find zen masters sitting in meditation engulfed in flames.

Many years later the learned the teaching. Do not worry about the sword. Concentrate on the space it uses, of its movement through the air. Of the change of energy and force it uses.

See this if you can.

BEUYS FACE TO FACE

BEING FRANK

There's a nice interview with Robert Frank on the new Saatchi tvsite: http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/blog/art/robert_frank_in_conversation_with_howard_norman/5217

He was asked a simple question from a member of the audience and this is what he said:

You have all of our ears, what would you like us to know before
you go back where your next journey takes you?

(laughter)

ROBERT FRANK: That's a very big question. I'd like you to have open eyes, you know. I mean, I
think it's very important to look around carefully, and knowing. I got to know by reading and by
looking--that's your choice what you--how you find it, you know? I always--when I used to lecture or
to go to schools, you know, I said to them, "All you have to do is look at me. Look at this wreck of a
man, or look at me as an inspired something." I mean that's how you learn something, from looking at
the guy, and, "Boy, it's too hard," that's what you learn from him or from me. And that's wonderful. You can be in New York and see many different people that to come to present themselves. How do you
learn?

HOWARD NORMAN: Same way, Robert. Read, read, read, just sit and stare at people. (laughter)
Something happens.

ROBERT FRANK: Yeah, I saw that film on Andy Warhol. And it's very good, when he says he just
stared at something for a long time and then he really came up with the answer. (laughter) Well, there
are different ways to find out. For me it was a lot about looking, you know. I mean, it was moving and
looking or standing still. I think there was a book of mine, Hold Still, Keep Moving, yeah.

EVEN WHEN THERE IS NOTHING TO SAY THERE IS SOMETHING TO SAY

"Great indeed is the sublimity of the Creative, to which all beings owe their beginning and which permeates all heaven."

Lao Tzu

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MUSIC

It is is seldom that we decide to feature a piece of music here. It was very sweetly presented to us through Alex Ross's the rest is noise blog.

But this was so perfect precise and beautiful in every way. It brought a tear to our eye.

We are happy to share it with you and hope you find it just as sublime.

It is from Georgy and Marta Kurtag. It is Kurtag's transcription of the first movement Sonatina from Bach's Cantata BWV 106, "Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit," arr. György Kurtág; G. and M. Kurtág.

DO WE END LIKE THIS?

We bring to your attention something that we saw and liked very much. Something mysterious and sublime. Andrea Galvani is a young italian photographer who lives and works in both milan and new york. while not shooting, galvani is a professor at the academia carrara di belle arti di bergamo.


Galvani’s work is very minimal and surreal. most works feature a single subject or group of like subjects. some feature people and many features animals such as horses, rabbits and other wildlife. one of the other major subjects in the work is balloons. these are spotted floating through space or grouped together and attached to horses in other shots.

When we open the zip of reality we see it was not what we though at all. We look again and for a moment we are somewhere else. Seeing it all as if with new eyes. Galvani brings us such moments

1ST JANUARY 2009

Love is the capacity to take care, to protect, to nourish. If you are not capable of generating that kind of energy toward yourself – if you are not capable of taking care of yourself, of nourishing yourself, of protecting yourself – it is very difficult to take care of another person.

Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh

A LITTLE LIGHT

Gerhard Richter brings a little light to the dark northern winter in Edinburgh. He achieves a modernity in deceptively simple images that when examined seem symbolic of something just beyond our reach. If you have a chance, go see his work. The candle is reminiscent of the masters

THE FACE OF OBAMA

As you know WOF believes that life is change and to know that will help us in everything we do. And Change is the platform message on which Presidential candidate Barak Obama stands.

It's apt then that we mention a massive project taking place in Barcelona right now.

The artist Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada plans to create a gigantic face of Obama sculpted from gravel and sand, which will cover nearly 2.5 acres (1 hectare) of Barcelona beachfront before the U.S. elections.

"The size of the piece is intrinsic to its value," the artist, Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada, said Saturday.

He hopes it will be big enough to be seen on Google Earth.

The portrait of Obama's face will be 445 feet long by 264 feet wide (139.28 by 82.67 meters) and the artist hopes to have it done by late next week or no later than November 3, the day before the U.S. elections.

The materials have been donated, along with bulldozers and their drivers. The crews will initially spread the materials along white lines, and other markers that will be laid out according to the sketch.

Then, the artist's technical team will direct volunteers with garden rakes to put the final touches on the materials, making sure the various colors are spread properly on the ground in order to depict Obama's eyes, hair, cheeks and collar, according to the plans.

Rodriguez-Gerada said he'll need to raise about $18,700 (15,000 euros) for other costs, such as rakes and gloves for volunteers, documentation, even portable toilets for the crew.

He said it's his "biggest work ever, in scale and complexity."

Oc course the portrait won't last forever but serves as a timely remember that we must change and change again.

Of course we shall be voting for Obama for president too.

BANKSY JT LEROY AND THE CULT OF ANONYMITY

So The Mail On Sunday has outed Banksy. He's been JT Leroyed in fact. The story is a breaker tonight. In fact in features on the front page of the BBC. So it must be true! They disclose that, wait for it, Banksy is none other than "34-year-old former public school pupil called Robin Gunningham." Remember that guy at school who was shy but good at art? Well, he's Banksy. His New York agent has categorically denied this is his client but a local screw who has been on Banksy's case for years thinks it could be.

Take it from us: Banksy is a posse passing the baton. He is a clue what they, Banksy might look like. Remember WOF is the anonymous persona and WOF received a letter from JT LEROY before the actuall storty broke. Just deck it on the site.

Seen them in your hood?

CHURCH OF THE NEON GOD

Even religions are marketed as products and brands these days, so they too have to grab the attention of easily distracted passersby.
'The Church of Lord' in Akasaka needed the same flashy LED animation like the restaurant next door to lure the flock with godly words in Japanese, Korean and English. The sign invites you up to the fourth floor. And here salvation awaits.

NEW MOVIES AT WORLD OF FOUND - THE VELVET UNDERGROUND BASQIUAT WARHOL EATS A HAMBURGER GUY MAADEN SOMBRA DOLOROSA

We have a lot of of new movies on World Of Found.
See Andy Warhol eat a hamburger. We also have The Velvet Underground and Nico with
'Femme Fatale", .Guy Madden's fantastic 'Sombra Dolorosa and some rare footage of Shunryu Suzuki (some of you may know him as the guy that wrote the famous "Zen Mind Begginer's Mind. We hope you enjoy them.
And here they are are to give you a taste of the cool things going down at Wold Of Found. Movie below : Te fantastic Cuban Legends El Trio Matamoros.

MIND EXPANDER 1968 - WORLD OF FOUND

You probably know that 1968 was a major turning point in culture, politic, art and ideas. If not, check out the new WOF tees and the explanations to go. Or send us a mail for a text.

In our research we also came across many wonderful things from 1968. And so World Of Found presents to you. THE MIND EXPANDER 1968. After the ORGASMATRON and Barbarella it is indeed something to see. A little description below.

The seat shell fixes two persons in a certain position. The lower seat allows one person to sit with their legs slightly open. The thigh of their right leg rests against a step forming the transition to a second seat area that is higher by the thickness of a thigh.

A helmet-like balloon that is connected with the seat can be tilted over the heads of the two people seated. Their heads thus are enclosed a narrow cylindrical space that is covered by a glass-clear plastic dome above which a transparent balloon hovers. A series of lines and stamped-out shapes made of reflective foil are placed on both the dome and the surface of the balloon in such a way that, depending on whether you concentrate on the level closer or further away from you, the elements constantly overlay each other to form new patterns.

WHAT IS THE PAINTING ?

Ok so take a careful look at the painting.

Notice the brilliant colours, the harmony, the wonderful spontaneous brush-strokes, the solid yet free sense of composition. All the qualities of great Abstract art.

Now guess the painter? Can you? No, not Jackson Pollock. Cy Twombly? Mmmmm, still a little of the mark. Gerhardt Richter? Understand where you're coming from but you know better than to think WOF would be so obvious. OK, take a deep breath.

This is, in fact one of the works of the great abstract painter Koko. Some of you may already be familiar with her work, for others who aren't, Koko is probably the most fanous gorilla around at the moment. Not only is she a fantastic abstract painter but she s drawing on a vocabulary of more than 1,000 words which help her communicate like none before her.

Please look at her work, it is very very good and deserving of your attention. You may, perhaps, like to purchase it, which you can. we have some of it ourselves. To us Koko s indeed a genius in her own right and a World Of Found hero.

KAFKA AND NABOKOV

Nabokov Improves On Kafka's 'Metamorphosis'

Well, not of interest to everyone, but this is the corrected text of master writer Fraz Kafka's 'Metamorphosis' by the Russian master writer Vladimir Nabokov.

WOF loves both these writers and we think that maybe, just maybe, Nabokov is correct is saying that his work has improved on Kafka.

We shall, as always leave the final decision to you, dear readers.

Click to zoom image.

THE MAN WHO PAINTED TODAY

What would you think of an artist who spent much of his life painting "today"? And if for some reason he can't finish the painting of today, he destroys it and starts again next day.

This is exactly what the Japanese artist On Kawara has been doing for many years.

Working, usually on a black canvas which he works with layers full of subtle texture. Then he begins to paint the day the date and year in the same fashion usually in white. The process of painting the day normally takes the whole day as he works the canvas meticulously.

When we examine these canvases we realise that they are in fact a perfect record of history, of his being and time. As the minutes seconds and hours passed, Kawara stood before his canvas painting exactly that - the day. And continues to do so.

In this way Kawara is the man who paints today.

Collection 1968!

The new collection is here! Titled1968, the t-shirt designs inspired by the revoulutionary year of 1968. To see the whole collection click here and add as to your friends on Myspace.

BREAST & EGG

Mieko Kawakami, a former bar hostess was just another wanabe singer - until she started a blog.

Initially this was a way of attracting more attention to her music but her poetic, street-wise writing satrted to make ripples then waves among internet diaries in Japan.

The 31-year-old won this year's Akutagawa Award -- named for Rashomon author Ryunosuke Akutagawa -- which is Japan's most prestigious honour for a new writer.

The bones of the story began with the chance hearing that some rich Japanese women were buying lambs for extortionate prices thinking they were poodles.

Now a best selling novelist it t shows that paying attention to 'by chance' incident can lead to unexepcted fortune.

Ms Kawakami, a Björk-loving 31-year-old, began blogging five years ago and her style quickly won admirers with, at one stage, 200,000 hits a day. The book has sold 110,000 copies, and there are plans for a movie. True to her origins, Ms Kawakami has little time for stuffy literary language. When she won the Akutagawa Prize, she said in her regional dialect, "Mesanko, ureshii": "I'm dead chuffed."

WORLD OF FOUND TRACK: 'New Groove' 12.12.07

you were going
you were going
hi and lo
hi and lo
up and down
round and round
up and down
round and round
without a sound
life is short
its like a dream
banging all thats in between
its yours
taking up
and smoking
fucking up
making ash
safety crash

hit up it
hit upon it
a new groove
a new groove
let's groove

EVEL THE LAST JUMP

They started out watching me bust my ass, and I became part of their lives,"

He treid to jump Snake River Canyon in Idaho.
The fountains at Ceasar's Palace.
He was in a coma for 29 days.
Broke every bone in his body
Jumped over sharks and greyhound buses.
He was an icon, an American Hero.
Life is filled with small possibles but it is the impossible
that we dream of.
Evel showed us jsut that. To go without fear.
To demand the impossible....

Now for the jump that no-one can ever know.

GO EVEL GO!!

Check our tribute song 'Evel Jump'

http://www.myspace.com/worldoffoundcom?id=19837

SONY BRAVIA RABBITS WORLD OF FOUND

Not often that we bring a commercial to your attention but in this case we think you might like it. The new Sony Bravia offers colored plasticine rabbits hopping around the streets of New York. But look closely. We know that many art directors and artists visit World Of Found
as a place for inspiration and creativity.

Any similarity from Sony and their creative agency in this case is purely incidental and proves that we are after all part of the same
consciousness.

World Of Found nows plan to shoot WOF girl in a set of Bravia tv's in the streets of Rio for the
WOF 2008 campaign.

Shooting begins Dec 2007.

TIME CAPSULE 21

Deebstar wrote a nice little piece about writing to yourself in the future. it reminded us of a project by Warhol called Time Capsule 21 (also going to be a new WOF song).

A.W. put a number of things into boxes (over 600 boxes!) only to be opened sometime in the future. Here you will find a collage portrait of Debbie Harry in 1980. Which brings us to Edwin Land the inventor of the Polaroid camera, another 'time-machine' and which Andy used to make many of his personality pix from the early 80's. And recorded so many 'time-memories' in our world.


There is also a cut-out of a cat and a drawing of a shoe....Something like a dream life...

World Of Found was begun by a gift of a photo of a small girl taken by a time-machine in a far off land and left in a market stall then above a desk for many years. All the people involved made a contact somewhere and passed on, yet they are all connected. Just are you are today while reading this.

There's a story with the headline "HUNT MAN IN FREAK KILLING" or Antonio Frasconi's 'Kaleidoscope In Woodcuts'. Or a postcard featuring a jester on a horse.
The reverse side begins with the sentence that..... "IT IS CHRISTMAS AND I"M STILL HERE. I SOMETIMES FIND IT HARD TO BELIEVE WE WILL EVER SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN..."

Everyone should try to remember all their moments and be like a time machine for themselves, seeing everything clearly, nothing escaping.

How beautiful then Life would be.

SEE MORE MEMORIES = JUST LOOK AT YOUR LIFE EVERYDAY...

OR...

http://www.warhol.org/tc21/

FUTURE ME

Who will I be in the future? Will I remember what it was like to be ME now? Remember when you were a kid and you made time capsules? You would write a letter to yourself in the future reminding yourself what life was like, put in a cutting from a newspaper, wonder about where you would be...

Well, now you can do it online. Write an email to yourself that will be sent to you in the future. Wish yourself a happy birthday in the year 2020. Or just read what other people have sent to themselves.

It's funny, a lot of people seem sad in their lives and hope their future self will be skinnier, richer, have a better job and more sex! Who do you want your futureme to be?

Who do you want your now me to be?

Do you have to wait?!

DEATH OF THE PARIS ART-SQUAT SCENE?

'Le Generale' like dozens of other illegal arts venues in Paris - empty factories, warehouses and parcel depots have been used for many years with the support of communities to provide a new outlet for artists either to research and develop their work or to provide a useful antidote the the current trend of culture as defined by the city.

Now this has been put to a halt with police moving in on art-squatters, evicting them, then the city swiftly and purchasing the buildings.

La Generaleis the biggest art squat in Paris with 3 exhibition spaces, a cinema and a photographic lab. It has been called by the newspaper 'Le Parisien' "an ideal city of art". Now the city wants to turn it into an asylum.

Who knows what will happen next? - but the art-squat is a hub for creativity and a real autonomous space in the Paris scene and we hope that, should the worst occur, a new space will be found and the spirit of free autonomous art space is available to the young and not so young creatives of Paris.

Vive L'Art!!!!

MR 155 TSHIRTS

World Of Found presents its Gold star to Matt mc Allister who broke the world record for wearing 155 tshirts.

In the future, our cats will fight our wars for us

Are you familiar with cat-helmet construction techniqes?