It's True, What You've Heard About Us

We have never really heard a better title for an exhibition showing the work of a bunch of Finnish artists than "Arctic Hysteria: New Art from Finland," now showing at PS1 in Brooklyn. Where to even start? Well, how about here?



Why is this artist, Markus Copper, hiding his left hand in this photo taken at an awards ceremony, you ask? Well, thanks to Harri's dad being a hand surgeon, we know the answer. It's because he chopped off the hand and microwaved it! Was it ART, ala Lucas Samaras? We're not sure, but he and his girlfriend brought the hand into the hospital and asked if it could be reattached. They were sad to learn that it could not, in fact, be put back on, as it was now cooked and had been rendered meatier than usual. Oops. On the plus side, he now apparently has a cool robot hand. Anyway.

Moving on, TG will be visiting the exhibition tomorrow. It looks promising. Some works by featured artists:


"ILO" by Pekka Jylhä (ilo means joy)


"I would like to understand" by Pekka Jylhä (he has lots of bunnies in his work)

Veli Granö's film "Meet You in Finland Angel / Tähteläiset" -- TG has no idea what this is about but it is supposedly a documentary and this still looks totally insane. A must see!!!

Tea Mäkipää attached a specially made video camera to the head of a reindeer named Petteri and documents his life as he runs around Lapland in the film, "Petteri - My Life as a Reindeer." OK!


Anni Rapinoja has made couture from nature. We love these amazing puolukka leaf shoes. Check out the entire collection.


Ilkka Halso's 3D renderings of future environments. Harri and KW went to school with this guy. He is nice.


And finally, we come to TG's favorite, the Mieskuoro Huutajat -- a group of ever changing crazy Finnish dudes that just scream out songs dressed in formal wear. Our favorite is when they scream out legal papers or stuff like that, but we couldn't find that on youtube. So here is the Star Spangled Banner for you. Enjoy!


This documentary will be screened at PS 1. Yay!

Best. Table. Ever.

By french designer John Nouanesin.

Hang in There

These aren't those kitten crazy "hang in there" posters we all grew up with, but they are inspirational and we love them all the same. Made for creatives by graphic designer Frank Chimero.

Who says vinyl is dead?

We don't normally endorse products here on Book Report but TG is in love with this necklace by awesome Brooklyn designers WRecordsByMonkey. In addition to making super cool stuff, they also support NYC artists with a portion of the proceeds from certain projects, as well as help fund music and art programs in Brooklyn schools. TG hearts the Monkeys! (these dudes, NOT the band. yuck.)

They have a blog too. Don't we all!

Fashion is Racist

Nick Night's short film about racism in fashion

From Show Studio: Having addressed the tricky, tricksy and often veiled subject of body size hand-in-hand with the equally inflammatory subject of feminism in his first Political Fashion film, Nick Knight now chooses to tackle the outright taboo subject of racism in the fashion industry. Despite increasing diversity throughout contemporary society, is is undoubtedly true that black models feature in fashion far less than their white counterpoints. Nick's film not only questions this, but as a fashion 'insider' takes the industry to task over one of the last arenas where racism is apparently a tacitly-accepted fact of life.

TG finds the film a bit hacky, but obviously important and something that needed to be said. Nick was brave to do it.

Team Genius is on Team Ilona

Image by Team Genius yesterday

Some of us on TG have been working with Ilona @ Major for awhile, however she recently returned from Paris and all of us had the pleasure of working with her yesterday on a multi-tier project. She is now our favorite model ever. Smart, hilarious, fun, a good sport and knows exactly what to do for each shot. Ilona = A+!

And this little piggy...

It takes a lot for an image to stop TG in their tracks but this one might have done it. We're not sure if it's just our love of animals or what, but something about this work is crazy and different and we can't stop staring at it. Yes, we are a little bit horrified (after all we don't work with fur and certainly not dead pigs) but we also kind of love the insanity here. If only it were a fake dead pig head we would be 100% on board. At any rate, we'll think we'll keep examining this image for awhile.

Check out the rest of Joachim Lapotre's work.

Ilona Ilona

Ilona this morning in our studio.

I'm Interested in Home Delivery of the Sunday Times

Those ads are so annoying. "I enjoy the Style section while my husband likes Sports!" Anyway, today's Saturday NYTimes delivery contained the Sunday magazine, which contains some great articles and images that we will now link to. 

First off is a revealing photo essay on FLDS women and children by Stephanie Sinclair. View it Here: Inside Their World

Second, the NYTimes Magazine's weekly interview feature, Questions For... this week talks to Doris Lessing, TG's favorite all time Nobel Prize winner and cranky older lady. She is amazing! Lessing is frank, to the point and takes no crap. When told she won the Nobel prize she commented, ""Oh Christ. I couldn't care less. If I may be catty, Sweden doesn't have anything else. There's not a great literary tradition, so they make the most of the Nobel."

In today's NYTimes interview, Lessing comments:

"I don’t think that the feminist movement has done much for the characters of women. I mean, we have produced some monstrous women. What has happened is that given the scope to women to be critical and unpleasant, by God they have taken it...."

Sadly, TG tends to agree. And we are all ladies.

Lastly, Zoe Cassavetes has photographed a lush menswear story for the magazine. Check it out here

Buy Buy Buy

image by Howard Schatz

Photographer's Limited Editions is an online gallery selling (and yes, actually selling in this market) the work of top fashion photographers today. Arthur Elgort, Guy Aroch, Marc Baptiste, etc. We just have one question -- where are the ladies? At any rate, it's a great concept and apparently a very good business model -- check it out.

One for the Road

From today's shoot on location at the Fraunces Tavern Museum, it's Hawa @ Trump (GORGEOUS) and Ms. Not Russell Simmons. ;) Too much junk food was eaten and many laughs were had. Hawa is definitely a match for the team's brand of crazy. Who sneezes like that?

No, we did not shoot the entire story with a phone camera. 

Everybody's Workin' For the Weekend

All of TG has been swamped this week, George concert notwithstanding (it was AMAZING, btw). We'll be m.i.a. until the middle of next week, working on a shoot for Codigo mag, another shoot with our friend Jana @ Vogue and our first fashion film project. While the super 8 film goes to processing and transfer, a few of us will head off south for a few days of rest, relaxation, sauna, swimming and the best Burmese food outside of, well, Burma. Then it's back to work for a couple ad campaigns and more editorials. Phew. Whoever said fashion takes the summer off?

Cat Mcgrath on Fashion Does it Better

Our girl Cat McGrath @ Next is featured today on Fashion Does it Better. Check it out!

image by Team Genius

Randy's Namesake

TG has a light often mentioned here and used at location shoots. The light has been dubbed Randy, after the old video piece by William Wegman shown below. Imagine our joy when said video was located on youtube, purveyor of all things amazing. William Wegman's early work is basically the only "video art" TG can stand, a viewpoint which is mostly based on the frequent appearance of cute dogs in said videos, as well as the whole laissez faire quality of the production values. Anyway, TG now has Randy, as well as Randy II: The Terminator. But now, we present to you fair viewer, the ORIGINAL, the best, the Old Skool Randy:

Sadly Randy is only in the first 30 seconds or so. But come for Randy, stay for cute dogs learning to spell!

Accidental Pornography

Faffing around w/ a 4x5 with a very long bellows extension, TG's KW shot these images. What do you think they are of? No, they are not people porn, even though it looks that way. We promise.

TG's New Rules

1. Ass, Gas or Grass -- nobody rides for free.

2. Be Cool.

Stupid Steps Out

Tonight, selected TG members and one of their favorite splinter factions are going to see George Michael in concert. Yeah yeah, stop giggling. George is great! TG paid top dollar for some hot ass seats. Anyway, we are wondering why lately George has been masquerading as a blind man. Witness this cover of his latest compilation album, 25:

Doesn't it look an awful lot like the images always used to sell cds by famous non-sighted opera singer, Andrea Bocelli?

We are guessing a bad eye job or some such is the culprit here, but it's still odd that the CD or AD or whoever was in charge here didn't notice the similarities and choose a different shot. We have been seeing the George promo posters and billboards all over town and always have a giggle at his expense. And obviously, Mr. Michael is a man who needs to be taken seriously.

See? Man's Isolation... On a vast sea of... Emptiness...

Best. Thing. Ever.

A fake DVD commentary by a fake Matthew Barney (aka goat boy) joined by "Bjork" on DR9. 

Wasted Youth, That's What We See in You

TG just realized that their new life philosophy is not only unoriginal, but was also first espoused by one Lloyd Dobler:

"I don't want to sell anything, buy anything or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed... or buy anything sold or processed... or process anything sold, bought or processed... or repair anything sold, bought or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that."

Great. So we've been reduced to stealing ideas from John Hughes movies. That's just sad.

PS - 10 points to whoever can name the song or band the misunderstood subject header lyric is from! Old goths should apply first.

Finnish Dance Lessons

Even if you don't speak Finnish, you can still speak the universal language of dance. Fast forward to around 2:25 if you have no patience. The moves are stellar. Get that "disco feeling."



And wouldn't you know it, Diesel appropriated this old classic from Finnish learning TV and made it into an ad. Go marketing!



This one has really, really, really amazing dance moves. Enough said.

The Future of Fashion... Oooohhh! Swish!

With all this futuristic/alien inspired fashion, one has to wonder is this the natural progression of clothing or did we get caught up in what the future was "supposed" to look like?

It's all very chicken and egg.

One day soon we will all be wearing silver jumpsuits with white "V's" down the middle, white boots, and white gloves, but until then, let's have a look at what the people of the 1930's thought WE'd be wearing by now:

Ground Glass interview

Ground Glass' and Women in Photography's Cara Phillips, all around awesome lady, has posted an interview with TG's Kristiina to her blog here:

http://caraphillips.wordpress.com/2008/07/21/person-of-the-week/

Learn all about beets (hatred of), Canon digital rigs, dog patting and women in fashion.

Woooooooooo

This video is cracking us up right now. Yanked from The Imagist, it's by Janine Rostron, a Berlin based conceptual artist and musician in a band called Planningtorock. The video features many of the things TG loves -- smoke, evil, Prokofiev, eye patches -- it's just missing a banana phone. It's so over the top with the perfectly timed thumb sucking we can't stop giggling. Heehee.

Photo Roundup

From our Staten Island rock cairn story, out this month:

Alice @ One rocking another amazing pose -- a different one made the story.

Alice in the cute portable changing room that Linda brought.

Andy with his stick. He looked like a hardcore camper/beach dude the whole shoot.

From our trip to the coal mine last month, we present:  

Cynthia is still the best model EVER:

Harri and Randy share a quiet moment of reflection by this pool of water, which somehow contained tadpoles. Nature, you are so mysterious.

When You are Engulfed in Flames

No silly, it's not a ghost -- it's just Harri with a little tick protection. Yesterday we met several deer and lots and lots of bugs. We were shooting extra pages for Stimuli Mag, bringing our story up to 20 pages (phew!), and almost set Cynthia on fire in the process. More behind the scenes action to follow once we've doused ourselves appropriately.



Harri and Randy, our fabulous little flash unit that Harri builds amazing accessories for. In this shot Randy is wearing a lovely softbox fashioned from things collected from ebay and banged into life in the studio's metalshop. Let's all hear it for Randy! (Randy II, the Terminator, not pictured.)



Morgan, our little dynamo from One. She put up with the heat, smoke, bugs and all the annoyances that went along with this shoot -- including all of TG singing "Lighten Up It's Just Fashion" 500 times and subjecting her to the Mr. T video. Go Morgan!

I Need More (Blank) In My Life

Today's answer: chill PR girls/boys

Dealing with showroom PR can literally make or break a stylist's day. They are that all-important middleman, the keymaster (or was it gatekeeper? it's been awhile since i've watched ghostbusters) to the coveted clothes, the ultimate decision-maker of what caliber of fashion you can get your grubby little hands on. It could be so easy to say "yes," but why would you when you don't have to?

Getting through to PR is like winning the damn lottery sometimes: you want to jump up and down for joy when you get what you want, and when you don't, you wish you had the floor plans to the joint so you can bust in with a ski mask.

The fashion world would be a nicer place if the showrooms were filled with nicer people. Sun shining, birds chirping, that sort of thing. I KNOW I KNOW, they're just doing their job... but do they have to be so smug/evil? Not all of them of course- and that is what this entry is about.

I have been insanely lucky to deal with a few GREAT GREAT CHILL PR girls/boy recently. You know who you are. Some of you have literally saved TG's shoots - otherwise the model would just be naked and we'd have to pass it off as a "The Emperor Has New Clothes" story.

And to the others- you know who you are: lighten up just like that much (i'm holding my fingers a millitilligillimeter apart). Chant this mantra with me:

"I love my job. I love my job. I love my job."

Don't you feel better already?

Beep Beep, Who's Got The Keys To the Jeep?

The team is off on a field trip to exciting New Jersey. No, not quite the New Jersey depicted on this card, but perhaps - if we're lucky - what we make will be half as scary when all is said and done. Viva La France! Enjoy your weekend, everyone.

The Camera Loves Her

Yeah yeah, Nigel Barker says it every other sentence on America's Next Top Model, but sometimes it's true. It is definitely true in the case of Abby @ Code, who Cynthia and Kristiina shot a few weeks ago for this upcoming beauty editorial. She can pull off gorgeous straight beauty shots, or amazing and hilarious crazy faces. A+! Look for it on newsstands in November.

Georgie Greville

Is a genius! She has directed some of our favorite models and friends in films and shorts (Pernilla @ Mc2 and Jessi @ Code) and today we discovered her amazing postcards. But first, check out Jessi in an ad for a production casting company here.

When she's not making fabulous films, Georgie creates postcards to send through NYC to her friends and family. She was kind enough to post some to her website, and we found these two particularly inspiring.





And how could we not comment on this lovely undoctored (unfortunately) depiction of the homeland of one TG member? Ahh, Helsinki in the 70s. (Moi means hello).



We look forward to whatever you do next, Georgie!

Sneak Peak

This extreme closeup of a butterfly's eye brought to you by Harri Kallio, artist, TG husband and as one TG member put it (in the nicest way) "practically one of the girls." From his upcoming Aperture book and gallery exhibition at Bonni Benrubi Gallery focusing on portraits and sculptures of butterflies and moths.

You may also know Harri from other projects such as The Dodo and Mauritius Island, shown at Bonni's, ICP, George Eastman House, in South Korea, Greece, France, Italy and on a limited edition coffee mug in the ICP bookshop. No kidding. 

Out Now

Glass House in Kitten Magazine.

Photographed by Kristiina, styled by Liz Crecsi, hair by Andy Starkweather and makeup by Souraya Hamdi. Model is Victoria Britto @ Trump. Home courtesy Philip Johnson and Corcoran Group.

Atong is The Contestant in Glitterati Magazine, on newstands near you!

Photographed by Kristiina, styled by Signe Yberg, hair and makeup by Souraya Hamdi. Model is Atong @ Trump.

TRAVESTY

Imagine TG's shock when Jerry from FORM NYC was one of tonight's competitors on Project Runway V. The NYC fashion crowd must have collectively gasped when he appeared on screen. Whatever for? FORM is well established and one of TG's favorite design houses. Imagine our utter shock and horror when he was the first to go, instead of the makers of a garbage bag gown or a picnic tablecloth/doggie bag mess. We actually loved Jerry's evil killer raincoat getup, circa Clockwork Orange, especially when accessorized with those dishwashing gloves. Honestly, it was brilliant. Maybe not so wearable for the everyday person, but it was certainly fresh and interesting and scary in a fun way. At the very least, wasn't it better than this?

Could they have picked a worse image of Jerry's creation? The model is so over it and the garment is blown out. Way to justify your call, PR producers.