L.A. gallery showcases photos of rocker Nikki Sixx (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – In March of 2009, when the Annenberg Space for Photography opened in Century City in Los Angeles, the most remarked-upon guest at the gala was David LaChapelle's date, Courtney Love.

I thought of Love during an unveiling of images late last week at the Annenberg -- all taken over the last two decades by Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx -- when he put up a photo of a homeless woman holding a sign reading, "I'm Not A Bad Girl, I Just Made Bad Decisions."

Anyone wondering about the wisdom of the Annenberg's decision to feature the art of Sixx was happily surprised. Not only was his camera work fascinating and its variety a bit dazzling, but the rocker's world view as he answered questions from moderator Kristine McKenna and the audience was quite compelling.

Sixx, 51, said he'd been fascinated by the medium since the late '80s, but his interest didn't truly flower until around the time he got sober in 2001, after a long series of addictions, including a near-death by overdose, chronicled in his book "The Heroin Diaries."

"I'm very passionate about what I wrap my hands around," Sixx said. "The recovery wants me to engage; the addiction made me disengage."

What recovery gives one, he added, is that "it allows your heart to soften."

He noted that the subjects of his images range all over because "my life isn't consistent. My life is chaotic. Rock 'n' roll is chaos."

Sixx -- who also has a new book and album out, both titled "This Is Gonna Hurt" -- alluded not just to his sobriety but to his struggle to show his individuality growing up, starting with a rough upbringing that included a "sorta" homeless delinquent stage.

"I was a gnarly little kid, a fighter," he told the crowd. "I try to hold on to that edge.

"If you're Bill Gates," he added, individuality "is okay -- in the beginning he was (called) a whack job."

His pictures, many of them in brooding black-and-white -- like a delicate study of a wet street in Prague at 3 a.m. -- were often grabbed on the run as he toured. He's asked for a portrait of many a prostitute in the world's capitals, but a certain gentleness emerges in the shots of the homeless -- or even of a shy hotel maid who said she was too ugly to photograph.

"I said, 'I'm gonna take a picture and show you you're beautiful.'"

The resulting image did just that.

"I'm an emotional terrortist," Sixx said. "If I see you have pain, I'm gonna pull it out of you."

Sixx's appearance was part of the Annenberg's "Iris Nights" lecture series and is linked to the gallery's "Beauty Culture" exhibit, which runs through November 27.

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American painter Cy Twombly dies aged 83: gallery (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) – American painter Cy Twombly, renowned for his large-scale scribbled canvases, died in Rome on Tuesday. He was 83.

Gagosian Gallery, which represented the artist, did not give the cause of his death, although media reports said that he had suffered from cancer.

Italy's Ansa news agency said he had been hospitalized in Rome for a few days and had wanted to be buried in the city.

"The art world has lost a true genius and a completely original talent, and for those fortunate enough to have known him, a great human being," Larry Gagosian said in a statement.

"We will not soon see a talent of such amazing scope and intensity. Even though Cy might have been regarded as reclusive, he didn't retreat to an ivory tower. He was happy to remain connected and live in the present."

Gagosian added that Twombly, who divided critics throughout his life and often refused to fit in with the trends of the day, never lost his sense of humor and always remained humble.

He settled permanently in Italy in the late 1950s, even as the art world was heading in the opposite direction -- from Europe to New York -- a move the New York Times called "the most symbolic of his idiosyncrasies."

Twombly never had an easy ride with art experts, who questioned whether his calligraphic style and use of words and graffiti in paintings were worthy of a place at the high table of 20th century abstract art.

But the figure who shunned publicity was a star of the contemporary art world by the time of his death. Less than two months ago a Twombly work from 1967, "Untitled," sold for $15.2 million at Christie's in New York.

Only last year he was invited to paint the ceiling of the Salle des Bronzes at the Louvre in Paris, only the third contemporary artist to be given such an honor.

The resulting work was an abstract composition on a blue background complementing Georges Braque's ceiling in the adjoining gallery.

On it appeared the names of the most celebrated classical Greek sculptors of the fourth century, underlining Twombly's fascination for classical art and history.

Twombly was born in Lexington, Virginia, in 1928. He studied in a number of U.S. art colleges before traveling extensively in Europe. He served as a cryptologist in the U.S. military in the early 1950s.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; Additional reporting by Silvia Aloisi in Milan, Editing by Louise Ireland)

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US artist Cy Twombly dies in Rome: French gallery (AFP)

MARSEILLE (AFP) – US artist Cy Twombly has died in a hospital in Rome, at age 83, the director of the Lambert collection in southern France told AFP.

The artist, who was living in Italy and had suffered with cancer for several years, was hospitalised a few days ago, according to Eric Mezil.

An exposition of his photographs opened last month at the Lambert collection in Avignon.

Mezil, who knew Twombly for 20 years, said he had bought a train ticket to visit him next week.

He last saw him in May, he added, when the artist "was doing fine."

A friend of fellow US artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, Twombly had lived in Italy for 50 years in a town between Rome and Naples.

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Live Nation, Guy Oseary launch online photo gallery (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – This week, Untitled Entertainment partner Guy Oseary and Live Nation are going live with a joint web venture RockPaperPhoto.com, an online art gallery selling largely unpublished, hand-signed, limited-edition prints of more than 1,000 singers and acts ranging from B.B. King and James Brown to Green Day and Gwen Stefani.

The site features the work of 70 photographers including such recognized names as Baron Wolman, Ian Dickson, Deborah Feingold and Michael Putland. RockPaperPhoto museum-quality processes include silver gelatin, archival chromogenic, platinum print and archival print, with entry prices at $250 running to a top-tier of $10K.

The website is a bit of a passion project for Oseary, who manages the careers of Madonna and Alex Rodriguez among others and is also the exec producer of "Last Call with Carson Daly." He was the architect of Madonna's landmark 2007 deal with Live Nation.

"I've been collecting photos for a long time, I mean since I started making money. But what you have had to go through to find a good photo is like a needle in the haystack sometimes. You'll drive from one gallery to the next gallery to the next gallery. It's not an easy process. It's a very ancient model that just hasn't caught up with the times," says Oseary. "So I really came up with this idea out of frustration."

Oseary first discussed the concept with Live Nation CEO/president Michael Rapino over dinner a few years ago. "We've been talking about it for a while and we finally said, 'Just go for it.' I really wanted to create a place where you could just sit back and be able to discover great photography instead of specifically going to a gallery to find one," says the manager.

He says his own collection of photos numbers around 200, including a number of shots of The Sex Pistols and John Lennon by Bob Gruen (who is not featured on the site). "Those were the ones that when I made my first dollar I decided to invest in," he says.

Says photographer Tom Murray, whose famous 1968 photos of the Beatles are on the site: "It runs the gamut from Frank Sinatra to Justin Bieber and it suits everyone's pocketbooks. It's all limited editions - they are interested in low numbers and high quality."

Among Murray's photos is his famous, or perhaps infamous, shot of John Lennon playing dead in a park while his three bandmates look on.

"We were taking other pictures and suddenly he dropped to the ground and pretended to be dead. Twelve years later when it actually happened it was very spooky. It's a very controversial picture. Beatles fans either love it or hate it," says Murray.

RockPaperPhoto shares profits 50/50 with artists, a traditional split in the bricks-and-mortar art gallery world.

The site is one of many recent forays into the digital world by Oseary. He was instrumental in developing GrouponLive, a discount-tickets joint venture, announced May 11, between Groupon (for whom he advises) and Live Nation.

Last year, he formed a digital investment partnership with Ashton Kutcher called A-Grade which has helped fund such recent start-ups as video-chat service TinyChat, anonymous-flirting hub LikeALittle and GrubWithUs, a website for finding like-minded people to dine with. "We are making a lot of investments," says Oseary.

(Editing by Zorianna Kit)

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Live Nation, Guy Oseary launch online photo gallery (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – This week, Untitled Entertainment partner Guy Oseary and Live Nation are going live with a joint web venture RockPaperPhoto.com, an online art gallery selling largely unpublished, hand-signed, limited-edition prints of more than 1,000 singers and acts ranging from B.B. King and James Brown to Green Day and Gwen Stefani.

The site features the work of 70 photographers including such recognized names as Baron Wolman, Ian Dickson, Deborah Feingold and Michael Putland. RockPaperPhoto museum-quality processes include silver gelatin, archival chromogenic, platinum print and archival print, with entry prices at $250 running to a top-tier of $10K.

The website is a bit of a passion project for Oseary, who manages the careers of Madonna and Alex Rodriguez among others and is also the exec producer of "Last Call with Carson Daly." He was the architect of Madonna's landmark 2007 deal with Live Nation.

"I've been collecting photos for a long time, I mean since I started making money. But what you have had to go through to find a good photo is like a needle in the haystack sometimes. You'll drive from one gallery to the next gallery to the next gallery. It's not an easy process. It's a very ancient model that just hasn't caught up with the times," says Oseary. "So I really came up with this idea out of frustration."

Oseary first discussed the concept with Live Nation CEO/president Michael Rapino over dinner a few years ago. "We've been talking about it for a while and we finally said, 'Just go for it.' I really wanted to create a place where you could just sit back and be able to discover great photography instead of specifically going to a gallery to find one," says the manager.

He says his own collection of photos numbers around 200, including a number of shots of The Sex Pistols and John Lennon by Bob Gruen (who is not featured on the site). "Those were the ones that when I made my first dollar I decided to invest in," he says.

Says photographer Tom Murray, whose famous 1968 photos of the Beatles are on the site: "It runs the gamut from Frank Sinatra to Justin Bieber and it suits everyone's pocketbooks. It's all limited editions - they are interested in low numbers and high quality."

Among Murray's photos is his famous, or perhaps infamous, shot of John Lennon playing dead in a park while his three bandmates look on.

"We were taking other pictures and suddenly he dropped to the ground and pretended to be dead. Twelve years later when it actually happened it was very spooky. It's a very controversial picture. Beatles fans either love it or hate it," says Murray.

RockPaperPhoto shares profits 50/50 with artists, a traditional split in the bricks-and-mortar art gallery world.

The site is one of many recent forays into the digital world by Oseary. He was instrumental in developing GrouponLive, a discount-tickets joint venture, announced May 11, between Groupon (for whom he advises) and Live Nation.

Last year, he formed a digital investment partnership with Ashton Kutcher called A-Grade which has helped fund such recent start-ups as video-chat service TinyChat, anonymous-flirting hub LikeALittle and GrubWithUs, a website for finding like-minded people to dine with. "We are making a lot of investments," says Oseary.

(Editing by Zorianna Kit)

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This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Live Nation, Guy Oseary launch online photo gallery (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – This week, Untitled Entertainment partner Guy Oseary and Live Nation are going live with a joint web venture RockPaperPhoto.com, an online art gallery selling largely unpublished, hand-signed, limited-edition prints of more than 1,000 singers and acts ranging from B.B. King and James Brown to Green Day and Gwen Stefani.

The site features the work of 70 photographers including such recognized names as Baron Wolman, Ian Dickson, Deborah Feingold and Michael Putland. RockPaperPhoto museum-quality processes include silver gelatin, archival chromogenic, platinum print and archival print, with entry prices at $250 running to a top-tier of $10K.

The website is a bit of a passion project for Oseary, who manages the careers of Madonna and Alex Rodriguez among others and is also the exec producer of "Last Call with Carson Daly." He was the architect of Madonna's landmark 2007 deal with Live Nation.

"I've been collecting photos for a long time, I mean since I started making money. But what you have had to go through to find a good photo is like a needle in the haystack sometimes. You'll drive from one gallery to the next gallery to the next gallery. It's not an easy process. It's a very ancient model that just hasn't caught up with the times," says Oseary. "So I really came up with this idea out of frustration."

Oseary first discussed the concept with Live Nation CEO/president Michael Rapino over dinner a few years ago. "We've been talking about it for a while and we finally said, 'Just go for it.' I really wanted to create a place where you could just sit back and be able to discover great photography instead of specifically going to a gallery to find one," says the manager.

He says his own collection of photos numbers around 200, including a number of shots of The Sex Pistols and John Lennon by Bob Gruen (who is not featured on the site). "Those were the ones that when I made my first dollar I decided to invest in," he says.

Says photographer Tom Murray, whose famous 1968 photos of the Beatles are on the site: "It runs the gamut from Frank Sinatra to Justin Bieber and it suits everyone's pocketbooks. It's all limited editions - they are interested in low numbers and high quality."

Among Murray's photos is his famous, or perhaps infamous, shot of John Lennon playing dead in a park while his three bandmates look on.

"We were taking other pictures and suddenly he dropped to the ground and pretended to be dead. Twelve years later when it actually happened it was very spooky. It's a very controversial picture. Beatles fans either love it or hate it," says Murray.

RockPaperPhoto shares profits 50/50 with artists, a traditional split in the bricks-and-mortar art gallery world.

The site is one of many recent forays into the digital world by Oseary. He was instrumental in developing GrouponLive, a discount-tickets joint venture, announced May 11, between Groupon (for whom he advises) and Live Nation.

Last year, he formed a digital investment partnership with Ashton Kutcher called A-Grade which has helped fund such recent start-ups as video-chat service TinyChat, anonymous-flirting hub LikeALittle and GrubWithUs, a website for finding like-minded people to dine with. "We are making a lot of investments," says Oseary.

(Editing by Zorianna Kit)

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This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.