Salt Mountains

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Via Cool Hunting:

A helping of bread crumbs has fourteen times more sodium than potato chips? Good Magazine helps answer such questions with a surprising look at the salt levels in some of America’s favorite eats in an infographic by Next Generation Food. As expected, fast food burgers rank among the worst offenders—three of the four included are loaded with around 1,500mg of salt—but canned soups like chicken noodle and cream of mushroom don’t lag far behind, hovering around 1,000mg per serving. More worrying, the average American consumes 4,500 mg of sodium daily, over double the recommended amount.

While the infographic looks beautiful, the figures don’t, and the FDA plans to evaluate thousands of processed and packaged food items, placing caps on how much sodium they can legally contain.

posted by: Brent Carter

Watch: Above x Blek Le Rat x White Walls Preview Video

After more than 12 years activity in the streets around the world, Above was persuaded by fellow artist Blek Le Rat to slow down long enough to make a duo show. White Walls gallery (835 Larkin SF, CA) will house Transitions, Above’s first ever indoor show on May 1. This video is a sneak preview of the show.

“Over three decades ago, Blek le Rat was a young French artist painting his portrait around Paris in pursuit of fame. He now stands unchallenged as the grandfather of stencil art, a medium pioneered by Blek and carried on by all subsequent generations. In the past few months, Blek le Rat’s studio has swelled with 16 paintings ranging from 24 x 30 inches to 78 x 51 inches, three print editions, and ten photograph editions. These works are currently en route from France to our own gallery in San Francisco, where both Blek le Rat’s Faces in the Mirror and Above’s Transitions will be shown on May 1, 2010. Take a look at what’s to come with this short video shot by Blek le Rat and his wife, Sybille Prou. Look out for the infamous rat stencil, Blek drawing an androgynous ballerina, the iconic sheep, a redefined Mona Lisa, and a red, white, and blue rat.” (source: White Walls)

Both shows will be on display through June 5, 2010.

side note: Banksy has been quoted as saying, “Every time I think I’ve painted something slightly original, I find out that Blek Le Rat has done it as well. Only twenty years earlier ….”

“Migration” by Blek le Rat

posted by: Harold Johns III

Go See: “We Are Dust” by Monica Canilao

We Are Dust
Monica Canilao
April 30 – May 30
Opening Reception Friday, April 30 from 7-10pm
Cinders Gallery (103 Havemeyer St. Store#2 Brooklyn, NY 11211)

Artist Statement:

The past is not something you can choose to leave behind. It guides your hand and sways your gaze, it is blood and tears and bliss. Paint chip trails and ghost images are left behind in abandoned places, lived in to death and pieces. Every life leaves an imprint. Plants  shoot out roots and break through foundations, found under the floorboards. You rub your eyes clear for the first time and see the war paint that has always been there, running rainforest colors across your cheeks.

These past histories unearthed are not a thing that you’ve lost, it’s a veil sitting just behind your eyes, weaving, running, somewhere just beyond the treeline. These Old faces are your faces, and Your hands have built things without permission. Every tiny effort feeds and is recycled… The universe is so large that all we can do is hold on and take care of one another… because In the end We are just dust and more dust.

Monica Canilao hails from Oakland, CA where she spends her days stitching, painting, printing, and breathing life into the refuse that dominates our time and place. She received a BFA from California College of Arts and Crafts and has shown in galleries, community spaces, and abandoned places worldwide.

Read and see more about the show here
See more of Canilao’s previous works here

posted by: Brent Carter

Chris Ware’s Rejected Fortune Cover Keeps it a Little Too Real

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According to Media Bistro:

Chris Ware, the brilliant comic-book artist behind the Acme Novelty Library, designed a May cover for capitalist-cheerleader magazine Fortune, only to see it killed. We can sort of see why. A high-res version of the image reveals tiny figures celebrating with wine and music on top of the golden skyscraper. One helicopter shovels money out of the Treasury building while another dumps bills on the rooftop revelers. Greece’s Treasury, meanwhile, is empty; orange-clad prisoners sit in Guantanamo Bay; and in Mexico, workers sit cramped in a “Fabrica de Exploitacion.”

It’s a hilarious, beautiful, meticulous design. Shame it won’t hit newsstands, but we’re glad the Internet gives us a chance to look.

We couldn’t agree more. Which begs a question, given Ware’s exploration of themes like social isolation, broken families and emotional pain, why would Fortune even approach him for the cover in the first place?

From: “Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth”

posted by: Harold Johns III

New Music Video: M.I.A. “Born Free”

The Romain Gavras-directed video for M.I.A‘s latest song “Born Free” features nudity, graphic violence and a plot where ginger kids are rounded up by American SWAT teams in an armored van, driven to the desert and either shot or made to run through a minefield.

M.I.A.’s third album, which has yet to be titled, will be released released on June 28.

For those who are easily offended by old lady boobs avert your eyes at the 1:50 mark.

side note:  Suicide’s “Ghost Rider” was sampled by M.I.A. for “Born Free”

posted by: Harold Johns III