5 Minutes With Chris Wainwright

Chris Wainwright is an artist, curator and currently the Head of Colleges of Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon, University of the Arts London. He is also President of ELIA, ( The European League of Institutes of the Arts ) and Acting Director of ICFAR ( The International Centre for Fine Art Research ).

His recent group exhibitions include Gandhi Group, Museum of Modern Art, Santiago, Chile and Donna Beam Gallery, Las Vegas USA. His work is currently being shown as part of the UK touring exhibition Fleeting Arcadias - Thirty Years of British Landscape Photography from the Arts Council Collection.

Recent one-person exhibitions include Emergency Lighting, an exterior installation at the Photographers Gallery in London. His time based work Capital, with David Bickerstaff, has been shown at File 2002 in Sao Paulo and the Institute for Interactive Media and Learning at UTS, Sydney, Australia.

Other recent works include Channel 14 a video projection at the Champ Libre Festival of Electronic Arts, Montreal, 2004. In 2005 Channel 14 was selected for the Media and Architecture Biennale, Graz, Austria. His photographic work is held in many public collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London: Arts Council of England: Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris and the Polaroid Corporation, Boston, USA.

Q1. What was the first record that you owned that had a life changing effect on you?

CW: The first Record I ever bought at Chesterfield Market, Was Gerry & The Pacemakers “Ferry Across The Mersey”. It has t be The Beatles “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window”, my youth in Sheffield. Aesthetically, Frank Zappa’s “Hot Rats” was probably one of the first pieces of music that stood out as being very different.



Frank Zappa - Willie The Pimp.



Gerry & The Pacemakers - Ferry Cross The Mersey (1965).

Q2. When did you first become interested in the medium you work in and what prompted you to go into the arts as a career choice and vocation?

CW: It probably sounds a bit corny but I always did art. From when I was a little kid and my parents were brilliant at saying “Just do it”, because they enjoyed watching me do it they enjoyed me giving them really naïve pictures. My dad was a farmer and I just used to paint pictures around the farm and they just loved it. That progressed through school and my parents never discouraged me from being an artist. A lot of my peers when I would speak to then, they almost made art despite what their parents wanted them to be; accountants or politicians or doctors, something that was going to pay back in later life. I guess my parents never expected anything from me other than wanting me to be happy.

It was an easy run in that sense, to go through school and develop something that I felt was being supported. And art school just happened. I think I had a bit of a reputation at school for being good at art in earlier years and I guess when I was in ‘big school’ it became more formalized in exams and I always did quite well and I got on pretty well with art teachers. I got good recognition early on. I was probably really lucky in having really good teachers and that can’t be underestimated. That important phrase that someone says at a certain time can make or break a career for you.

I’m really rubbish at French, not because I am bad at French but because I had a complete bastard of a French teacher who said I was useless! I didn’t like him and he didn’t like me and that set it up-I thought French is not for me. There are some points in your life when someone can say something unbelievably empowering or a real turn off. My art teachers just kept saying really positive things and that makes a big difference when you are at that impressionable age. You take it to heart-so teaching is really important.



Q3. You joined Cape Farewell on the 2008 Disko Bay Expedition, visiting the spectacular Disko Bay area of West Greenland with a group of international artists, journalists and scientists. Can you tell me about that expedition?

CW: Cape Farwell has been going since 2002 and it takes artists, musicians, scientists and creative people to the Arctic region to basically engage with and witness what is fairly well accepted as the front line of climate change. You can see what is happening there much more easily than in other parts of the world.

I got involved in 2005/2006. Eventually David Buckland who is the director said “You should come along on one of the voyages”. So in 2008 he invited me to go with 35 people altogether to Disko Bay in Western Greenland. He wanted me to go for 2 reasons; one was he thought the work I’m doing is relevant and second I knew something about ships and I might be quite useful and thirdly he wanted to put a show together at some point and he asked me if I would be interested to curate work for an exhibition that was done on that trip, form the previous trip in 2005 and also from a trip to the Andes.



Chris Wainwright with the Cape Farewell expedition.

So when I got back off that voyage I started to work with a group of artists to put work together, and over time we amassed and exhibition of 25 artists and that has been touring around the world ever since. It started in Vienna, it’s been to London, Chicago, New York and it now in Liverpool and is going off to Beijing, Seoul so it’s a big production that seems to be rolling endlessly. We do seminars and projects and concerts. In Chicago last year we did a couple of concerts. Robin Hitchcock came over and we did things there that coincided with a tour he was doing with Joe Boyd. When we were in Chicago Robin and I did some things together, talks and a couple of visual things so it continued that process of bringing people from different art forms into close proximity. That’s the ethos of Cape Farewell-make bridges between art and science.

On the expedition we found ourselves in this hotel in Umanak, when I say ‘hotel’ that is stretching the definition a bit! We just all set up a concert in the bar of this hotel which was full of locals getting blind drunk. That’s what the local people do-there’s not much entertainment in the winter so people drink a lot.

Robin Hitchcock, Martha Wainwright, Jarvis Cocker, KT Tunstall, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Leslie Feist and Laurie Anderson. We set up this little concert and it was amazing. These guys were thinking “ aliens have landed” but then they realized “we recognize these aliens!” It was great fun.



KT Tunstall - Hold on - live Cape Farewell 1 Oct 2008.

Q4. You were a trustee of ‘SPACE’ (one of the largest artist studio providers in the UK). Can you tell me about that project.

CW: I stood down form the advisory board but I am still involved with the project. ‘SPACE’ takes buildings which or often derelict or semi derelict and offers them to artists as studios. They are often perfect for artists because they’ve got ‘character’. Putting buckets to catch the rain or plastic over the windows.

They’re a really important provision for artists because when you leave art school, what do you do? You’ve had these studios and suddenly that all disappears. So ‘SPACE’ at the moment has about 600 artist studios around London and quite a big waiting list. I was on their board for about four years just helping to basically acquire new buildings. Every year you get more and more people wanting studios.

But also the practice has changed quite a lot, often artists don’t want a white cube next to another white cube. People are working more collaboratively and are using studios in a different kind of way and a more flexible way. So we were looking for different kinds of support structures for artists. Maybe for five months you just want a desk because you’re working on a project that might happen for a month, in a huge space. So the research side of working is often more important and you don’t need to occupy huge spaces you can just hire it for a month. So I am still involved but had to stand down from the board because of other commitments.

Q5. Being the Head of Colleges of Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon, University of the Arts London must be a huge responsibility. How do you maintain a creative pace with your own work and balance that alongside the demands of academia?

CW: I have a really simple answer for that-I don’t see a distinction. Those definitions of private life and professional life and artistic practice. Because my life and relations ships are very different to segregate. My wife is an artist and so that bits easy. I often do work as an artist and curator that involves education. If I am touring the 'Unfold’ show around the world I am touring it to places where we have institutional links as well.

By taking the show to Beijing it kind of creates an interest and benefits the Universities as much as it benefits the public. So I try wherever I can to do things that bring those elements together. For einstance Cape Farewell as an organization, is a partner of our graduate school. We bring those guys in and they do talks and then students work with them on placements. You try and keep some kind of permeability between those things. Of course that means you only sleep four hours a night!

http://www.chriswainwright.com/



http://www.capefarewell.com/

5 Minutes with Mike Ruiz

Pretty Masculine. Photos by Mike Ruiz.



"If it isn't fun. It's not worth doing."


Mike Ruiz is a world-renowned photographer, who also happens to be a TV personality, former model, actor, spokesperson, creative director and director. With his wide array of experiences and interests, it's no wonder Mike lives by these words.
Mike was born and raised in Montreal, Canada, and at the ripe age of 20, he moved to the States with just $300 bucks in his pocket and a desire to be in the entertainment world. After working for more than a decade as a successful model, his true calling came into focus one Christmas morning, when he received a gift of a lifetime: his first camera. Wide-eyed, he took the camera out of the box, and in the blink of an adept eye, his whole life was about to change. With focused determination, Mike immediately took to his new present--taught himself the intricate mechanics of the camera and to this day, he hasn't stopped clicking away. Perhaps it's only when you might hear him say, "we got it!", that there is but the slightest of pauses to an otherwise very hectic shooting schedule. Sharing with the world the images that he captures is tantamount to poetry. Whether it's Kim Kardashian, Betty White, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry or Prince, Mike has seen and shot them all.



Q1. What was the first record that you owned that had a life changing effect on you?

MR: The B-52's released in 1979. I was obsessed and played it until the grooves were gone. I still listen to on my iPod.



B-52's Rock Lobster.

Q2. When did you first become interested in photography and what prompted you to go into it as a career?

MR: I became interested in photography when I got a camera for Christmas in 1992. It became the spicket for everything creative I had been bottling up inside of me. After about a year of photographing everything in sight, I realized that there wasn't anything else I ever wanted to do professionally so I put every ounce of my being into making a career out of it.



Q3. Can you tell me a little about your latest book "Pretty Masculine"?

MR: Pretty Masculine began with my desire to portray masculinity out of context, a sort of deconstruction of what society deems to be "Masculine" and I compiled images for a book which I released in Oct of 2011. It was a philanthropic effort as well with 100% of the profit going to GMHC.



Q4. You often featured on TV shows like "The A-List," "America's Next Top Model," and "RuPaul's Drag Race"...What's the craziest thing you've seen happen on one of those shows?

MR: The craziest things that I have been witness to have only come from me watching the final cut of the episodes on TV. The way that hundreds of hours of footage are whittled down to less than an hour of programming is astounding to me. Needles to say, it would seem that most reality show cast members are perpetually having meltdowns, panic attacks and hysterical fist fights!!!





Mike Ruiz interview on ETalk News.

Q5. Any good/outrageous celebrity stories from your career that you can share, maybe without naming names?

MR: The best story is not outrageous as it is inspiring. There have been a small handful of people who have inspired me creatively over the years and most of them were at their pinnacles in the 80's. One of which was Prince. I had the good fortune to work with him on more than one occasion and it was just spellbinding for me to be collaborating creatively with someone whom I see as a creative genius. Times like those are what make me realize how incredible fortunate I have been and how grateful I am for all of the decisions I have made for myself.

http://www.mikeruiz.com/

Budgie with Adam Faith

Budgie was a popular British television series starring former popstar Adam Faith which was produced by ITV company London Weekend Television and broadcast on the ITV network between 1971 and 1972. The series was created by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall . The show was produced by Verity Lambert, Rex Firkin was the Executive producer.

Each episode was a complete story, usually depicting Budgie's involvement in some harebrained scheme to make money, usually somewhere on the wrong side of legality. However he was continually the victim of circumstance, or of the sharper, more experienced underworld operators he tried to emulate.



London Weekend Television's " Budgie", Titles with Adam Faith.





BUDGIE (SERIES 1, EPISODE 13, PART 2)



BUDGIE (SERIES 1, EPISODE 12, PART 2)

Kraftwerk at Museum of Modern Art, NYC

Kraftwerk – Retrospective April 10–17, 2012.

Over eight consecutive nights, MoMA presents a chronological exploration of the sonic and visual experiments of Kraftwerk with a live presentation of their complete repertoire in the Museum's Marron Atrium. Each evening consists of a live performance and 3-D visualization of one of Kraftwerk's studio albums—Autobahn (1974), Radio-Activity (1975), Trans-Europe Express (1977), The Man-Machine (1978), Computer World (1981), Techno Pop (1986), The Mix (1991), and Tour de France (2003)—in the order of their release. Kraftwerk will follow each evening’s album performance with additional compositions from their catalog, all adapted specifically for this exhibition. This reinterpretation showcases Kraftwerk’s historical contributions to and contemporary influence on global sound and image culture.




Kraftwerk - Das Model.




Kraftwerk - Computerliebe (1991).



Kraftwerk - Radioactivity.



Kraftwerk - "Pocket Calculator" (1981).

5 Minutes with Rachel Felder

Rachel Felder is a New York based writer and expert on style, trends, and travel. Her work has appeared in publications including People, Rolling Stone, The Financial Times, Travel and Leisure, New York and many more. She is author of Manic Pop Thrill, a book examining the connection between music and style, and co-author with Coach’s Reed Krakoff of the book Fighter: The Fighters of the UFC. She is currently working on a novel about her days working and playing in the music industry.



Q1. What was the first record that you owned that really had a life changing effect on you?

RF: The first record that deeply changed things for me was the first Clash album, which is still my favourite record ever. (I actually wrote my college thesis on that record, years later.) That album -- the lyrics, the swagger, that glorious sound -- just became an obsession. And it pointed me towards so many great bands from the same era (like the Ramones, Pistols, and the Jam) that have been my soundtrack ever since.

The Clash - London's Burning (live) 1978.

Q2. How did you become involved in the music industry?

I went to university in New York City and basically cared about three things: fashion, music, and writing. So my college years were essentially spent living at CBGB's, looking for cool clothes, and writing for anyone who'd publish me. By the time I graduated, my work had appeared in Rolling Stone and Spin, so I skipped journalism school and worked full time as a music journalist right away, eventually managing a few bands at the same time. After a few years, I started writing a weekly column for HITS Magazine -- the bible of the music industry at the time, and still widely read. That lead to job offers from record labels, and I ultimately took a job at Columbia Records doing a&r: finding new bands, signing them to the label, and overseeing the making of their records.

Manic Pop Thrill.

Q3. Your book 'Manic Pop Thrill' documents the phenomenon of Alternative Music and the rise of Grunge. Do you think we will see guitar based musical movements of this type in the future?

RF: The whole experience of consuming music is so different now: file sharing and walking around with headphones on has made following bands a more internalized experience. But there are still great guitar-fueled artists out there, and ultimately there's nothing more powerful that a memorable song sung passionately with the intensity of loud guitars in the background.

Rachel Felder and Alan McGee - A Discussion on the Music Industry.

Q4. What part did you play in the development of the documentary 'Upside Down-The Creation Records Story' ?

RF: I've stayed close friends with Alan McGee, the brilliant founder of Creation Records, since we first met when I interviewed him for a story in the late 1980's, so I was aware of the film from its inception. After the director filmed an interview with me, we remained in touch and I helped wherever I could, particularly in America. It really is a wonderful documentary, capturing the spirit of the label, the bands, and the era -- in other words, many years of my misspent youth! -- perfectly.

Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine.

Q5. After a long career in the music industry you decided to leave. What prompted this and can you ever really leave it behind?

RF: I worked at Columbia Records for 8 years -- an eternity in record company years! -- and always felt that once that stint was over, it would be time to move on. And, of course, I was pregnant when I left, making my job -- staying out late hanging out with rock bands -- not exactly ideal. I'm glad not to be in that business anymore, which has been truncated thanks to downloads, plus I love what I do now….but you can't take the music lover out of a true fan. To be honest, it's much more fun to go to gigs now, simply as a fervent fan.

Follow Rachel Felder on Twitter: @rachelfelder

Alan Moore - An Extraordinary Gentleman

Alan Moore Discusses WATCHMEN: The Mindscape Of Alan Moore.



Alan Moore is an English writer known for his work in comic books, a medium where he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and popular series, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell. Frequently described as the best comic writer in history, he has also been described as "one of the most important British writers of the last fifty years". He has occasionally used such pseudonyms as Curt Vile, Jill de Ray, and Translucia Baboon.



Alan Moore - The Simpsons.



Moore started out writing for British underground and alternative fanzines in the late 1970s before achieving success publishing comic strips in such magazines as 2000AD and Warrior. He was subsequently picked up by the American DC Comics, and as "the first comics writer living in Britain to do prominent work in America", he worked on big name characters such as Batman (Batman: The Killing Joke) and Superman (Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?), substantially developed the minor character Swamp Thing, and penned original titles such as Watchmen. During that decade, Moore helped to bring about greater social respectability for the medium in the United States and United Kingdom, and has subsequently been attributed with the development of the term "graphic novel" over "comic book". In the late 1980s and early 1990s he left the comic industry mainstream and went independent for a while, working on experimental work such as the epic From Hell, pornographic Lost Girls, and the prose novel Voice of the Fire. He subsequently returned to the mainstream later in the 1990s, working for Image comics, before developing America's Best Comics, an imprint through which he published works such as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the occult-based Promethea.



Moore is a Neopagan, occultist, ceremonial magician, vegetarian and anarchist and has featured such themes in works including Promethea, From Hell and V for Vendetta, as well as performing avant-garde spoken word occult "workings" with The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels, some of which have been released on CD.



Alan Moore - V for Vendetta.

Despite his own personal objection to them, his books have provided the basis for a number of Hollywood films, including From Hell (2001), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), V for Vendetta (2005) and Watchmen (2009). Moore has also been referenced in popular culture, and has been recognised as an influence on a variety of literary and television figures including Neil Gaiman, Joss Whedon, and Damon Lindelof.

5 Minutes With David J

David J, is a British alternative rock musician. As well as being an accomplished solo musician he was the bassist for the gothic rock band Bauhaus and Love and Rockets. He has also appeared on releases by Porno for Pyros and Jane's Addiction.


Q1. What was the first record that you owned that really had a life changing effect on you?

DJ : T Rex - 'Hot Love'. It came out in 1971 when I was 14 and hit me like a lightening bolt. I was in a hospital ward when I first heard it on the radio. I had a badly broken leg and torn cartilage, the result of a vicious two legged flying tackle in a soccer match. That music made the pain go away. The effect was only intensified when I saw Marc Bolan and his band on Top Of The Pops. From that moment on I was obsessed!



David J "Candy on the Cross"

Q2. You describe 'Not Long For This World' as an ‘accidental concept’ album about the Grim Reaper. You raised funds to finish this project via Kickstarter (over one and a half times the original goal). I loved the ‘pitch’ video you made for this-do you think the online community has created a viable future for funding all creative endeavors in this way?

DJ : Yes. People really like the sense of involvement and personal contact that results from that kind of patronage.
It also encourages the artists to be creative in the way that they garner that support. We're all in this together, let's make magic happen!



Q3. The album has a very ‘filmic’ quality and lyrically contains a lot of dark humor, particularly ‘Dress Sexy At My Funeral’. When did you start piecing together these songs into a concept and could you see this being turned into a film narrative?

DJ : The genesis for the album was a two night stand that I played at a wonderful little subterranean theater called The Cavern in LA.
I came up with the idea of having a theme for the shows which was 'Bouquets, Wreaths and Laurels' ( The title of an old song of mine ) The set was divided into three sections. 'Bouquets': Love songs, 'Wreaths': Death songs and 'Laurels': Songs of glory. Following the shows I recorded some of the death songs and gradually realized that I had a little concept album on my hands. ( The Cavern shows were filmed and a DVD will be released later in the year. )

I know what you mean about the album being 'filmic' but I would prefer that those movies just play in the listener's imagination.



David J. and Rene Halkett - Nothing


Q4. The limited pieces of original art hand-made art that you created to commemorate tracks of the album are fantastic. What is the medium that you created them in and have you always had a parallel life as a visual artist?

DJ : They are basically collage pieces based around a kind of painted rorschach. I did them all at the same time. Moving from one piece to another. They were created very quickly. In a couple of days. Yes, I've always made visual art. Until music took over ( Hello Marc! ) I wanted to be a painter.



Bauhaus - Ziggy Stardust : Old Grey Whistle Test.

Q5. I met you in the tiny dressing room of a very sweaty club in Leeds in late summer 1980, with your cohorts in your first band (and you were all very friendly towards me, despite possible post gig dehydration). At that time did you imagine that a long career of creativity lay ahead of you and what advice would the David J of today give to your younger self if you could beam back in time?

DJ : From as far back as I can remember I knew that I would be some kind of artist.

I would tap that rather intense young chap on the shoulder and advise him to loosen up and not sweat the small stuff.

http://www.davidjonline.com/