Jeremyville will be showcasing his new SPROUT UP! concept; an art pop-up installation that features a mashup wall of Jeremyville fine art editions, with original pieces, 3D figures and products. The concept will also sprout up later like a mushroom, at other spaces around the world for a fleeting moment, with new editions & new original work.

Expect to see screenprints, giclees, new ceramic figures & risograph prints, plus Jeremyville open edition products such as sketchel bags, plush toys, t-shirts, totes, inflatables, stickers, skate decks, books, sneakers, toys, Community Service Announcements, and some original drawings & paintings.

Jeremyville will also be launching issue #3 of Jeremyville RAW, which is a New York based street art newspaper, distributed around the places he likes to hang out.

Cotton Candy Machine
235 South 1st Street, Brooklyn, NYC corner of Roebling.

New York, a city like no other, has been celebrated many times in many different ways, and now Taschen have added a thoroughbred of a tome to the stable. Reuel Golden tells the tale of this quintessential modern metropolis in plain, elegant prose, and illustrates his story with a stunning gallery of photographs from the 1850s right up to the present day.

The text comes in short, article-sized snippets (there’s less than there seems at first because it’s in English, German and French) to introduce each chapter, and then the photos take over. And what a glorious gallimaufrey of images they are, covering just about every aspect of New York life you could think of, and snapped both by named professionals and anonymous amateurs. It’s this that gives them such life, a huge variety not just of subject matter but of style, bringing a human warmth to the collection and reflecting New York’s own diversity.

If that were all there is to it this would still be a beautiful book, but there’s even more. After the main part comes an end section of splendid appendices, with the usual index, credits and bibliography as you’d expect, but also recommended viewing, listening and reading, giving you a well chosen list of films, music and novels. And that’s what helps to set this volume apart. Let’s face it, there’s no shortage of beautifully produced books on New York giving you a visual and historical perspective, but this one allows you to gain the complete cultural lowdown on the city and get as close as you can to inhabiting it without actually moving there.

New York, Portrait of a City
Reuel Golden
Taschen
£44.99

The super-stylish Thompson LES  hotel is Located on Manhattan’s Allen Street, where the East Village meets the Lower East SideSide and has amazing sweeping views of downtown Manhattan (especially from it’s members and residents only roof top terrace bar).

The hotel is sleek and modern with spacious loft-like rooms and features an array of artwork by some of the most influential names in art. Pieces by Stephen Shore adorn the walls,each room has it’s own individual black-and-white illuminated photograph by Lee Friedlander and you even get to take a dip in the pool with a giant portrait of Andy Warhol taken by Gerard Malanga peering up at you. It really is the perfect place for those who appreciate the Lower East Sides hip, anything-goes energy

As well well as being complemented by the works of some of America’s most influential artists. There is a fine dining restaurant with celebrity chef Susur Lee at its helm and a private outdoor bar providing sweeping views of downtown Manhattan.

www.thompsonhotels.com

A small select witnessed a valuable performance from The Walkmen on Wednesday night at Birmingham’s Barfly.  They were utterly convincing from the outset, combining the ghostly undertone of their slower material with controlled and professional musicianship.  This set reiterated their movement away from a punk fuelled past (and the success of ‘The Rat’), and showed them to be a far more controlled collective.  Perhaps married life and New York suburbia has changed them as a group and as individuals, with positive results.  Now they have assumed attributes of early Pavement, and the packed out venue reiterates their value as cult figures that have the potential to enrapture crowds wherever they go.

Each member (apart from lead singer Hamilton) took to the stage donned in inconspicuous knitwear and slacks – get up which concealed the expressive music that would follow.  The first part was dedicated to new material, a special treat considering how few shows they are doing in this part of the world this year.  It infected the bulging crowd when they realised Matt Berrick’s precise drumming would propel the sound beyond expectations.  The numbers shifted between the lonely despair and frustration of ‘On the Water’ to the harmonic perfection of ‘In the New Year’, and each time the direction changed we followed suit, lamenting with the slower material and bouncing with the faster.  Hamilton’s performance was professional and convincing.  With the guitar in hand he balanced the more experimental efforts of the band, tying the movement of the sound together with constantly controlled rhythm.  He particularly excelled when he was given the chance to express his similarity to Bob Dylan on the microphone, something he played off against a darker side that was really refreshing.  

As the gig progressed, most of the crowd knew that they were in the presence of a superior movement.  There were no quirks to undermine them, instead The Walkmen stayed true to the strengths that make their recent album You & Me a success.  ‘Four Provinces’ was probably the highlight, because the quality of the performance summed up the whole evening: Unpretentious and engaging.  This performance really stands out as a marker, and justifies their place supporting the Kings of Leon US tour this summer.

Jon Watson