BlackBook Magazine

American documentary photographer Peter Beste is a good-looking guy, an everyman. He has blondish hair. All the more remarkable then, that he was able to ingratiate himself into the hyper-violent, ultra-exclusive Norwegian Black Metal subculture. For the last eight years, Beste has chronicled the group, known for its ties to Satanism, punk, slasher movies, violent outbreaks, arson, Pagan mythology, and man makeup. To celebrate the release of his first book, True Norwegian Black Metal (Vice Books, out today), the Steven Kasher Gallery has unveiled an exhibition of the same name, featuring 30 haunting photographs that depict scenes of fire-breathing, excessive bleeding, and really scary painted faces. These kids are definitely not alright. (Just kidding, guys. You're great. Please don't hurt me.)

Who better to ask what the future has in store for us peons than forward-thinking Japanese designer Issey Miyake? The man known for his marriage of technology and fashion has directed the third exhibition at Tokyo's 21_21 Design Sight, "XXIst Century Man." In addition to photographs from his sartorial oeuvre—is this perhaps the most pretentious pairing of two words ever?—the exhibition features installations from a number of local Japanese artists, best among them, Naoto Fukasawa's Chocolate Box Tower, which looks just like it sounds.

The Diesel Denim Gallery is set to unveil "Arrojadoa" on May 19th, a collaborative exhibition created by artist Jaime Hayon and design firm Moooi. The title of the show means "audacious" in Spanish, but it also refers to a cactus. As such, the theme of verticality is thrust into the foreground, with totem sculptures made from stools, tables, and mirrors. The exhibition coincides with the release of Hayon's first monograph, Jaime Hayon Works.

In 200 years of internet existence, this is one of the most inspired videos we’ve ever seen. It’s called MUTO: An Ambiguous Animation Painted on Public Walls, and it was done by the artist BLU. The only thing more amazing than the video itself is what it must have taken to make it.

In the 1970s, performance artist Chris Burden (pictured left) ordered his assistant to shoot him in the arm with a loaded rifle. It was an experiment that positioned pain and personal expression as bed partners. Almost three decades later, Johnny Knoxville made a name for himself by betraying his balls, and those of his idiot friends. Despite the masochism inherent in both of their performances, Burden and Knoxville are incongruous. Gallery owner Susan Inglett, however, might not agree.

"I love Robert Downey Jr.! He was the perfect choice for Iron Man," said Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and comic book junkie Michael Chabon, after this morning's press conference for "Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy" at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Sponsored by Giorgio Armani and Condé Nast Publications, the exhibition pairs Batman with Balenciaga, Mystique with McQueen. At the conference, Armani and Anna Wintour sat together while designer Gabi Asfour looked on from the crowd. Of the show, Armani says, "Fashion, like the superhero, allows you to dream and escape into a world of unfettered imagination."

Ten years ago, at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, Netherlands, Professor Strot made a few very talented enemies. These students, who would go on to form the collective Antistrot, began to draw together. Their work, which first appeared in the form of a cut-and-paste style magazine, garnered critical acclaim for its embrace of aesthetic diversity, wide-ranging cultural references, and irreverent take on high art. Ten years later, with their first American solo exhibition at the Sara Tecchia Roma gallery in New York, the Dutch ne'er-do-wells are bringing their brand of pop art stateside. Click the jump to watch the madness behind their method.

For the next three nights, the cyber-Gods over at Google are hosting an art event in New York's Meatpacking District to celebrate their new iGoogle application. Google commissioned over 70 artists—Jeff Koons, Philippe Starck, and Diane Von Furstenberg among them—to design their own unique iGoogle themes, which will be presented "in a very unique way" throughout the Gansevoort Plaza. (We tried to Google what "unique" really means in relation to the Google event, but our computer had a stroke.) The installation gets underway tonight at 8-ish p.m.

A self-taught photographer, Mike McCartney (brother, Paul—maybe you’ve heard of him?) has spent the better part of an era snapping endearing portraits of some of Liverpool’s most famous rock stars of the '60s. The black and whites, ranging from intimate and informal candids to backstage snapshots of rock-star life, present not only an image, but a story—a glimpse into the true heart of 1960s Liverpool. Unveiling his latest exhibit, “Liverpool Life,” to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, McCartney provides an inspired perspective on an otherwise familiar history of rock 'n' roll. With subjects like Graham Nash, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and the Hollies, each image unearths, as McCartney puts it, “the story behind the story of that magical era.”

In 1989, celebrated scribbler Keith Haring said, "It was pretty disgusting, rat infested, almost a garbage dump, and an eyesore in a neighborhood where an eyesore wasn't a problem. We're talking about the corner of Houston and the Bowery, which was a desolate area to begin with, so we decided that we didn't have to ask permission because the wall was covered with garbage and we thought that if we cleaned up the garbage then no one was going to ask us whether we had permission to paint it." Even though his mural lasted only through the summer of 1982, Haring came to represent everything the Manhattan art scene stood for at the time: unpolished DIY rebellion, spirited urban uprising, and neon.