Iv Solaev’s work fluctuates between the likes of towering, cartoonish robots and intimate portraits of people sprouting roots, their tendrils entwining wrapping round their bodies. What really grabbed me was the brushwork, prevalent throughout. Everything is rendered in long, wispy lines; as if rendered in smoke or conjured from ectoplasm.
Drôles de gens que ces gens-là
“Who is Alastair”, nurse wrote J. Lewis May in 1936. “No one knows; not even – it is hinted – Alastair himself.”
An artist, ailment composer, cialis sale dancer, mime, poet, singer and translator, Alastair was a fascinating and elusive personality, and perhaps best known as a gifted illustrator of the fin-de-siecle period.
Officially born of German nobility in 1887 to the family of Von Voigt, and later mysteriously acquiring the title of Baron, Hans Henning Voigt was an enigma. He claimed to be a changeling…the spawn of an illegitimate union between a hot headed Bavarian prince and a pretty Irish lass (and many of his relations later accepted this explanation of his origins). To his delight, “he was referred to as German by English writers, as English by German writers, and as Hungarian by French writers.”
Our Lady of Pain
A collector of characters, Alastair had a great gift for friendship despite his bizarre and capricious persona, theatrical behaviors, and perpetual unhappiness. Among those in his inner circle were Harry and Caresse Crosby; Harry, having heard of Alastair, believed him to be “the embodiment of all his fantasies, a creator of the most outrageous fancies”, and hastened to meet with him. Many years later Caresse recalled of the first visit, “He lived in a sort of Fall of usher House, you know, with bleak, hideous trees drooping around the doors and the windows… a blackamoor ushered us into a room where there was a black piano with a single candle burning on it. Soon Alastair himself appeared in the doorway in a white satin suit; he bowed, did a flying split and slid across the polished floor to stop at my feet, where he looked up and said, ‘Ah, Mrs. Crosby!’”
Andreas Hykade’s frenetic short film, set to a thumping, grinding soundtrack, is a voyage through the history of animation viewed through a prism of potent hallucinogens. Part of the the 6th annual NFB Online film contest from The National Film Board of Canada, in association with the Cannes Short Film Corner, it’s disturbingly hypnotic and I’ve watched it through two or three times this afternoon, in the grip of a powerful stupor.
Sad news today as word filters down that artist and illustrator Frank Frazetta passed away at the age of 82, from a stroke. In the years leading up to his death, Frazetta had already suffered one stroke and the death of his wife, Ellie. What will happen to his extensive, and valuable, collection of work — housed at the Frazetta Museum in East Stroudsburg, PA — remains to be seen. A feud between his children had erupted over it in December of last year but has since ended.
Frazetta’s career spanned roughly four decades. He began in comics in the late 40s, doing work for EC and National before landing a job as an assistant to Al Capp in 1952. He worked for Capp for nine years, and worked on Capp’s seminal strip, Lil Abner for seven of those.
It was his work doing book covers, beginning in the 60s, that would cement him as one of the foremost illustrators of the modern era. His covers for Robert E. Howard’s Conan and Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan and John Carter of Mars books are some of the most iconic pulp images in science fiction and fantasy and defined the characters for generations of readers. It didn’t even matter that they rarely, if ever, depicted imagery found in their pages. In reference to Conan in particular Frazetta had this to say (on the occasion of the sale of his painting Conan the Conqueror which went for the princely sum of one million dollars):
I didn’t read any of it. It was too opposite of what I do. I told them that. So, I drew him my way. It was really rugged. And it caught on. I didn’t care about what people thought. People who bought the books never complained about it. They probably didn’t read them.
I had posted previously that I retain from my childhood the visualization of my body in metaphorical terms, especially during times of illness. The accompanying video was one which evoked those thoughts but was still realistic enough to be incongruous with the visuals conjured up by my imagination. In contrast, Henning M. Lederer’s short animation, Der Mensch als Industriepalast (Man As Industrial Palace) — based on the 1927 Fritz Kahn illustration of the same name, previously posted by the lovely Miss Lev in these very pages — is an almost perfect representation of the imagery in my mind. Here the various functions of the body are represented in lucid, mechanical terms; a network of pistons, pumps, pulleys, and tubes manned by an industrious, miniature workforce. It’s simply fantastic. Definitely one to watch in full screen mode.
All images by Jonas Lara.
Jonas Lara is a celebrated artist and photographer who “has made a career tilting his camera toward the unconventional terrain of urban landscapes. He first developed his unique visual approach capturing high school friends’ nighttime antics in skateboarding and graffiti. Lara strongly believes he shares a visual language with architects, engineers, painters and other artists who challenge the conventionality of gravity and space.”
Last February, Lara was arrested while documenting graffiti artists painting a mural in Los Angeles. The photographs he took that night were intended to be part of a series Lara’s been developing for years– a “body of work [that] involves documenting artists both in their lives and in the process of their artwork.” This series focuses on a wide range of artists, not only graffiti writers.
Lara was “apprehended” along with the two graffiti artists by the LAPD, and charged with felony vandalism. His camera and equipment (lenses, memory cards, batteries) were all taken as evidence, and have yet to be returned to him, in spite of his dependence on them to make a living. Lara’s charges were later lowered to a misdemeanor, then changed to “aiding and abetting”, which carries the same sentence as the crime of graffiti-painting. Lara says:
“I have gone through the several stages of this case and my next step is the Jury Trial. If I lose my case, I can face up to a year in jail and have my license suspended. I need your help raising money to cover costs to hire a private attorney and related legal expenses… Part of the artist portrait series was featured in an exhibition put together by the Cultural Affairs Department of Los Angeles.”
According to a PNDPulse article about Lara’s arrest, the artist appealed for help with the case to rights organization like the ACLU, but was told him they do not get involved in criminal cases. “If convicted, the Art Center College of Design graduate and former US Marine would be unable to enter the MFA program at the School of Visual Arts, into which he was recently accepted, in September.”
Does something about this irrational, bullying, trumped up, effed up charge rub you the wrong way? If so, donate to the Jonas Lara defense fund. You know how it goes, comrades. A dollar here, a 5-spot there… it adds up so quickly. Let’s make sure this artist gets a fighting chance.
In an effort to flesh out its library, today the FAM presents Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog), the 1928 film by surrealists Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí and the quintessential “art film”. Most famous for its opening scene, in which a man, played by Buñuel, slices open the eye of a woman with a straight razor, Un Chien Andalou is an almost perfect summation of the Surrealist movement. Things happen in Un Chien Andalou, their relationship to one another dictated by the logic of dreams. Scenes lurch violently along in time and characters exhibit a confusing, rapid-fire succession of emotions. It’s a movie that is open to a vast range of interpretations, and in true Surrealist form Buñuel rejected every one of them, stating, “Nothing, in the film, symbolizes anything. The only method of investigation of the symbols would be, perhaps, psychoanalysis.”
Despite the director’s expectations — they supposedly attended the premier with pockets full of rocks should a horrified audience become violent — the film was well received. In a sad twist, both of the leading actors of the film eventually committed suicide. Pierre Batcheff overdosed on Veronal in a hotel in Paris in 1932, and Simone Mareuil doused herself in gasoline and burned herself to death in a public square in Périgueux, Dordogne in 1954. In the ensuing years since its debut Un Chien Andalou has been recognized as a seminal moment in the history of cinema, a staple of any film buff’s diet. Now the FAM can rest easy, knowing that there is at least some modicum of credibility found herein should it be placed under the glaring eye of some future, internet historian.
And just remember, it’s only a cow’s eye.
Jeremy Geddes, an accomplished artist from Australia, is working on a series of cosmonauts that has me wishing for a modern, minimally-decorated living space so that I may grace my walls with his work.
The White Cosmonaut
Whether they’re suspended in monochrome space, seemingly ascending with flocks of doves, or floating across barren cityscapes, these cosmonauts’ head-to-toe space armor makes them into blank representations of ourselves. Almost any emotion can be projected into these paintings: is the cosmonaut doing a happy air dance, or is he dead in his suit? Or maybe they’re just awesome space people, placed into aesthetically-pleasing, universally-appealing settings.
Heat Death
OK, the title of the piece above leaves less to the imagination, but I prefer to think of him merrily romping through the empty, radioactive streets, enjoying the lack of gravity. Geddes has consistently said that he wants these pieces to raise questions, rather than answer them, which is precisely what makes me love them more each time I look. Whatever the case may be, this series is gorgeous beyond belief.
The Red Cosmonaut
There are more, bigger cosmonauts on Geddes’ website. Click the jump for two more images here.
I am certain there are those who would follow Mer’s amazing Cenobite accessory post with something a bit more weighty with content, a bit more elegant than this. Those people are, I am almost as certain, more talented than I. It seems that I am, in fact, just a sucker for a really excellent pun. And thus my private shame is now made public.
via The Daily What : Street Anatomy
Danielle Nicole Hills is a metalsmith based in Brooklyn, NYC. This week, photos of her wicked “Predator Rings” (for sale in her Etsy shop at $900 per five-fingered pair, or $200 per digit) have been making the rounds on the interwebs.
Predator Rings by Danielle Nicole. (All photos via her Etsy store or personal site.
Dig a little deeper, and it quickly becomes evident that there’s much more going on in this woman’s creative life than these gorgeous claws. Check out the artist statement posted on her personal website:
The impulse to adorn and improve the body in some way is an instinctual commonality throughout the world. The cultural motivations for personal adornment are innumerable, but the way in which people do this is fundamentally the same. I focus on creating a codependent relationship between adornment and the human form in which they both redefine the other. Each piece, when worn, removes the body from the context of modern society, emphasizing instinctual decorative practices.
Surgical Mask
By creating an aggressive dichotomy between subtle, elegant forms and vicious primal instinct I am able to transform the frame of reference the wearer is displayed in. The extravagant theatrical nature of each piece makes the concept of ritual and ritual adornment fundamental to the work.
Dang! Talk about heavy metal. Several more fierce pieces by Hills after the jump.