Anonymous Good: Eyelash Photo

A friend of mine has this totally cool black and white photo of false eyelashes hanging in his bathroom (TMI?). He found it in a warehouse that was being emptied many years ago. I presume that it was for advertising, but there really is no clue as to age, purpose, or maker. And none of that detracts even one wink from its fabulousness.

I love how the length is exaggerated with those long luxurious shadows, and how there’s only one pair that is “open.”

PHOTOS BY JONATHAN GREENBERG

Public Service Billboards: Blasts From the Past

Fry Now. Pay Later.
The digital archive of outdoor advertising, part of the Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History at Duke University, contains over 27,000 images spanning the1920s through the 1990s.

These roadside messages use brevity, humor, catchiness, irony, shock—anything they can--to permeate our peripheral vision, often at speeds well over 60 mph, to embed themselves in our collective psychic landscapes. Here’s a small sample.

Keep an eye out for Columbus, Ohio billboards in particular. There are two ads for what I think is water conservation, and then there are billboards for both sides of the bullfighting-arena controversy. Who knew?

Jimmy took a "TRIP"


Can't stop smoking? Yes you can!


Nuclear War No Cure Only Prevention


Some Call Him Pig! Support Your Police Dept.


Voluntary Integration. Better Education by Choice. (1968)


Life Preservers. (1985)


Buckle-Up Arrive Alive! (1960s)


Leave Her Alone With Your Cologne (1965)


Let Him Skip His Bath Tonight (1964)


Call 1-800-COCAINE (1983)


Think Metric


A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste.


The Key is Knowledge


Smash the Axis Pay your taxes (1942)


Vote No! Tax


"What's An Orgy?"


Future Site of Columbus Bullfighting Arena


Keep Bullfighting out of Columbus


Site of New Phoenix Bullfight Arena


Care for your Car-for your Country (1942)


This is Your Country Conserve Energy (1974)


The Paris Peace Accords resulted in the signing of the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam on January 27, 1973.

Photo Graphics

Having grown up in the era of capturing moments (as opposed to the real-time 24/7 documentation that goes on today), the looming Kodak bankruptcy filing makes me a bit misty-eyed.

It’s amazing how much physical stuff beyond the camera itself, was involved in the taking and making of photographs. And each item came packaged with some representation of colorful optimism. At one end was the film. It was housed in a color-coded spool, which was safely ensconced in a lidded canister, which in turn was packaged in a trusty yellow box. At the other end were the printed images, which arrived in an elaborate system of envelopes and sleeves.

Here are just a few physical remains of the moment-capturing process, brought to us by Kodak and the others who packaged every step of the way. Just think, when Facebook files for bankruptcy in about a hundred years, there will be no clutter, at least of a physical nature, left behind.







I couldn’t find a year for this Brownie camera manual, but it is filled with
tips like “Hold the camera S-T-E-A-D-Y and press the exposure release
with a gentle squeezing action …” and “Be sure your finger
is not in front of the lens.”





These souvenir slide collections are promoted
as "Not From Postcards."










Order forms to send in for duplicate
Polaroid prints.

Master of Suspension

What a treat to come upon the lighter-than-air, suspended breaths of wire by sculptor, Richard Lippold. Having just gorged myself on the thick, lusciously brushed fare at MoMA’s de Kooning banquet, I fully appreciated the visual palette-cleanser thoughtfully provided at the show’s exit.



Lippold, who died in 2002 at age 87 was usually involved with constructions of a much higher order (literally). Working with architects like Walter Gropius and Philip Johnson, his work can be found suspended from the ceilings at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, the lobby of the MetLife Building (formerly Pan Am) and in the Grill Room of The Four Seasons restaurant.

And yet, however “public” Lippold’s art may be, very few people seem to have ever heard of him—which is especially surprising given the thorough and systematic rediscovery of all things mid-century.

Left: The Four Seasons, Grill Room
Right: 'Orpheus and Apollo,’ Philharmonic Hall, Lincoln Center. (via Carthalia)

Lippold’s LA Times obit describes the laborious production of the pieces and their dismissal by an imperious critical elite.

"The Sun," commissioned by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1953, used nearly two miles of wire filled with 22-carat gold, held together by 14,000 hand-welded joints. It took three years to create and caused a sensation, although not all authorities were impressed. "Not sculpture, but a kind of charade of sculpture which, while hinting at vast conceptions, makes its points very much as window decoration catches the eye," wrote critic Hilton Kramer in Arts magazine.

For more on just how little Hilton Kramer thought of the sculptor (and the patrons who commissioned him), read the New York Times piece from 1968, “The Phenomenon of Lippold, Our Foremost Public Decorator.”
In a 1959 design review of The Four Seasons, B.H. Friedman at first seems to enjoy the Lippold installation over the bar (along with the companion piece over the mezzanine). “At a distance, both have a surprising visual density-intensely illuminated, as they are … and almost invisibly supported by fine wires. When one walks closer, or sits at the bar, they become delicate and airy.

Then, clearly feeling guilty about the pleasure taken, Friedman quickly denounces them.

But neither up close nor at a distance do they work as sculpture. There is no sense of emotional content or of spacial conquest. They work, rather, as decor, and in this context they are overwhelmed by the scale and opulence of their surroundings …They become simply another "good design" appointment

The revival of his work by a younger generation has been hampered as well. It seems that the results of this painstaking construction requires a commensurate level of maintenance. In 2009, the Times reported on the restoration of a Lippold piece in Rhode Island with a budget of $475,000. Even works that come up for auction at low prices go unsold, due to the cost of ownership—restoration, installation, and maintenance.

And remember those two miles of wire used in the Met's “Sun?” Lippold was scammed by the supplier who delivered gold-plated wire instead of the gold-filled wire which was ordered. The result was an eventual corrosive interaction with the other metals and the piece now sits boxed in the Lippold Foundation awaiting replication.

I’m not sure how long the Lippold pieces are on display at MoMA, but the De Kooning show ends January 9th.

The plan for the Four Seasons piece is in the collection of MoMA. (Detail, below, via Haute of Control)

Vintage 2012 Scarf

Happy 2012 to all.

So if the year is less than a week old, how, pray tell, can this NYC 2012 scarf possibly be vintage? The Oscar de la Renta piece dates all the way back to 2005 and resides in the collection of the New York Historical Society.

While the NYHS lends any item a patina of age, to confer vintage status on something not even seven years old, is still a bit of a reach. Even for the fashion cycle. But consider that it was designed for New York’s bid to host the 2012 Olympics, and that scarf starts to look like really old news. There are no doubt events from 2005 which feel like they happened yesterday, but I remember how ridiculously far off into the future the idea of the 2012 Olympics seemed at the time. Perhaps "vintage" adheres to its own laws of relativity. And so much for telling the age of a scarf from the date printed on it.

The 100 members of New York's 2012 delegation were outfitted in Oscar de la Renta for the city-selection event that took place in Singapore. According to NY1, "The attire consists of a printed NYC2012 blouse with matching printed scarf, white blazer, and navy skirt for women while the men will be wearing a navy blazer and solid blue dress shirt, a printed NYC2012 tie and white pants."

Needless to say, the NYHS is a treasure trove of the city and of the country’s past. And they’ve got newly renovated digs.
Their online scarf collection isn't exactly extensive, but here are a few to get us in the mood for another kind of competition--the presidential election this fall!

The George McGovern scarf is from 1972, the year he lost
to Nixon in a landslide. The Nixon scarf, though,
is from 1968. It is described on the site as “designed in
the "groovy" aesthetic of the 1960s…”


Carter-Mondale, undated.

Eugene McCarthy's 1968 peace campaign.


Norman Thomas was a six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America. This kerchief from 1932, includes names of Socialist Party candidates for New York State governor and NYC mayor as well.


Constitution-preamble and 10 original amendments, 1941.