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# Required Reading
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/required-reading-52/
- Published: 2012-03-11T16:21:55.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:46:14.000Z
- Description: This week is an ALL VIDEO Required Reading. From the GIF to Dali, from Cindy Sherman to the anthropology of YouTube, this is the way to spend a leisurely Sunday.
- Author: Hrag Vartanian
- Tags: Opinion, Weekend, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 06:51 (2012, 2013, part 1)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2012/03/meet-me-at-the-bar-600.gif)

A Cinemagraph (aka fancy Animated GIF) titled "Meet Me at the Bar" (via fromme-toyou.tumblr.com)

This week is an ALL VIDEO Required Reading. From the GIF to Dali, from Cindy Sherman to the anthropology of YouTube, this is the way to spend a leisurely Sunday.

![](http://c2771442.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/H-12.png)

 A very short [history of the Animated GIF](http://youtu.be/vuxKb5mxM8g?ref=hyperallergic.com), courtesy PBS.

![](http://c2771442.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/H-12.png)

 Ever wonder about the story behind the Second World War Keep Calm and Carry On posters? Check [this](http://youtu.be/FrHkKXFRbCI?ref=hyperallergic.com) out, it’s amazing that something can go viral 50 years after it was made.

![](http://c2771442.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/H-12.png)

 Artist [Faith Ringgold explains](http://www.5min.com/Video/FAITH-RINGGOLD-DEFYING-AN-EDITORS-REJECTION-517274714?ref=hyperallergic.com) why she started writing in her paintings. It all started when a literary agent rejected her biography in 1980.

![](http://c2771442.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/H-12.png)

 MoMA recently released a [short video](http://youtu.be/lxxvGRW2wog?ref=hyperallergic.com) about Cindy Sherman as narrated by Douglas Crimp, Marilyn Minter, Marina Abramović and others.

![](http://c2771442.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/H-12.png)

 For those who can’t make it to New York for the Sherman retrospective, James Kalm offers you his grainy [video tour](http://youtu.be/hzdwxSBpcOI?ref=hyperallergic.com) of the major show.

![](http://c2771442.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/H-12.png)

 Reuters finance blogger Felix Salmon and Citi Private Bank Art Advisor Jonathan Binstock [debate whether artists should be treated like stocks](http://www.reuters.com/video/2012/03/02/reuters-tv-banks-now-following-art-like-stocks-is-g?videoId=231160725&videoChannel=117757&ref=hyperallergic.com) and if this will cheapen the art world.

![](http://c2771442.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/H-12.png)

 Berlin film collective Polacos has created a “[visual haiku](http://vimeo.com/37779671?ref=hyperallergic.com)” commemorating the one year anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The video is for the “No Give Up” single by dub rock/soul artist J-San of J-San & The Analogue Sons. I was told that the work is inspired by the “geiger meter like textures of the song.”

![](http://c2771442.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/H-12.png)

 You may already know that Hollywood director Alfred Hitchcock ask Surrealist Salvator Dali to design the dream sequence for his 1945 movie *Spellbound*. It’s classic Surrealism gone mainstream. I recently [encountered a clip on YouTube](http://youtu.be/Hsuj5N3cDJY?ref=hyperallergic.com) where Hitchcock discusses the collaboration. (h/t @museumnerd)

![](http://c2771442.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/H-12.png)

 Another classic that you should watch is [An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube](http://youtu.be/TPAO-lZ4%5FhU?ref=hyperallergic.com) by anthropologist Michael Wesch, who delivered this lecture at the Library of Congress in 2008.

![](http://c2771442.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/H-12.png)

 And finally, here’s a [lovely piece of animation](http://vimeo.com/37617460?ref=hyperallergic.com) about a smokestack.

[*Required Reading*](http://hyperallergic.com/tag/required-reading/) *is published every Sunday morning-ish, and it is comprised of a short list of art-related links to long-form articles, videos, blog posts or photo essays worth a second look.*