‘Ultra Minion’ by Kowalczuk and Czapiewski: Episode Ten
The final episode of a dark sci-fi tale by Łukasz Kowalczuk and Maciej Czapiewski…
Zapped with Energy: Keith Haring’s Flying Saucers, 1980 – 1985
Artist, activist, and philanthropist Keith Haring produced most of his “flying saucer” drawings well before his work became an international pop culture touchstone. In the summer of 1980, Haring was at a crossroads, and his life and art, he said, “went totally berserk”…
The Incredible Is the Truth: UFOs in ‘Duda’ Magazine, 1971 – 1979
Devoted to investigating the paranormal and the supernatural, the debut issue of Mexican weekly magazine Duda—“doubt” or “question”—was released in March 1971. It would prove to be a popular and influential publication, and a surprisingly long-lived success for its Mexico City publisher Editorial Posada…
‘UFOs Are Real’: A Childhood Close Encounter
I’m finding it oddly difficult to write about UFOs Are Real, a low-budget UFO documentary from 1979. Not because there’s not a lot to say about it, but instead, thanks to the outsized role it played in my formative years, there’s ultimately far too much…
‘Ultra Minion’ by Kowalczuk and Czapiewski: Episode Nine
Episode nine of a dark sci-fi tale by Łukasz Kowalczuk and Maciej Czapiewski. Ultra Minion runs every Friday at We Are the Mutants…
No Powerful Idea Lasts Long: The Memphis Group and the Look of the ’80s
Of the many cultural tributaries that flowed together into what we now think of as the visual aesthetic of the 1980s, one of the most prominent must be the Memphis Group…
“A Happy Metaphor”: Julio Le Parc’s ‘La Longue Marche’, 1974
La Longue Marche (The Long March) was completed in 1974, two years after Le Parc refused a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris (according to legend, the decision was based on a coin toss). The work consists of 10 separate but integrated panels featuring interweaving braids of vibrant prismatic color, and stretches to more than 65 feet in length…
The Meaning and the Drama: ‘U&lc’ Magazine, 1973 – 1999
The International Typeface Corporation was a private company founded in 1970 to take typesetting out of the physical, metal-setting world and into more “virtual” spheres like filmsetting and the nascent world of computer typesetting. For a quarter-century starting in 1973, ITC released its own print journal, called Upper & Lower Case, or U&lc…
“Darndest Thing You Ever Saw!”: BEST Products and Houston’s Indeterminate Facade
Drive down a fairly benign, suburban road in southeast Houston, Texas, and you’ll pass the parking lot that once housed the BEST Products showroom known as Indeterminate Facade. Located at 10765 Kingspoint Road, the still-hanging-in-there Almeda Mall is nearby, along with a shuttered public library building…
‘Ultra Minion’ by Kowalczuk and Czapiewski: Episode Eight
Episode eight of a dark sci-fi tale by Łukasz Kowalczuk and Maciej Czapiewski. Ultra Minion runs every Friday at We Are the Mutants…
We Are the Mutants 