A captivatingly atemporal silver gelatin print from 1995:
“Hall of Thirty-Three Bays” by Hiroshi Sugimoto
(Our 400px column width definitely ain’t doing the composition any favors; it’s worth taking the time to view this stunning image as large as possible.)
The work of Tokyo/NYC-based artist and photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto reflects a lifelong fascination with infinity and eternity. He has “spoken of his work as an expression of ‘time exposed’, or photographs serving as a time capsule for a series of events in time. His work also focuses on transience of life, and the conflict between life and death.” (via)
The story behind this particular image: these are the fiercely protected, rarely viewed 1001 statues of the Sanjusangendo, a 390-foot-long wooden temple in Kyoto containing thirty-three bays, also known as Sea of Buddha. Sugimoto was determined to show the statues as they were meant to be viewed during the Heian Perod (794-1185). It took seven years for Sugimoto to get permission to enter the “Hall of Thirty-Three Bays” with his camera equipment and capture the eight-hundred-year-old Armed Merciful Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara figures just as the early morning sunlight hit them, simultaneously illuminating one-thousand-and-one haloes. The resulting imagery is both ancient and somehow futuristic, infinite and immediate.
Gaze in awe upon the majesty of the Bennie Railplane, designed and built by Scotsman George Bennie (more details about which can be found linked below). Capable of producing a a steady 60 brake horsepower, it was projected it would be able to reach sustained speeds of 120 mph. By 1930, a prototype of this weird not-a-monorail was running on a 130 yard test track at Milngavie near Glasgow, transporting thrill-seekers from one end to the other. By 1937, however, Bennie had gone bankrupt (no doubt due to the fact that his machine only traveled 130 yards) and, in 1950, the line was demolished for scrap, thereby closing this ridiculously impractical great chapter in land-based, propeller driven transportation.
Not long after the Railplane began its brief service, another strange wonder emerged from Europe: Germany’s Air Torpedo. Developed by Richard Pfautz, it was meant to transport mail from one side of the country to the other. The claim was that such a trip could be made in 40 minutes, the sleek, propeller driven bullet riding on rails (you can see a larger image here). The cost? Six cents. And here we are, sending our mail by truck and plane when, instead, we could be building air torpedo rails. Shameful.
HUGE congratulations to our darling, dollfaced Angeliska Polacheck! She and her consummately scrumptious partner-in-parties, Amelia Foxtrot, are gracing the cover of the current Austin Chronicle, representing their Vintage Vivant shindig for the Best of Austin 2011 awards:
Vintage Vivant is a beautifully presented monthly celebration of Jazz Age culture in Austin, Texas. “A night for glamourous anachronists to dance, drink and delight at the bevy of 1920′s and 30′s themed entertainment. Join us on the last Sunday of each month as we celebrate with vintage cocktails, vintage or vintage-inspired attire and free dance lessons.”
VV regularly compiles 8Tracks mixes to get their attendees in the mood, pre-party. Here’s an addictive assortment of saucy 1920s/30s innuendo songs, presented for their Storyville Bordello party earlier this year:
Angeliskittenhead, who has written multiple pieces for Coilhouse (both in print and on the web) over the years, is also the co-creator of Gadjo Disko and Tranarchy! Amelia helms the Austin chapter of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School. Then there’s DJ Shorty Stump, and Westen Borghesi, who both spin musical selections from the 1920s and 30s.
Austinites, if you aren’t already, join them all at the Swan Dive on the last Sunday of each month to celebrate with vintage cocktails, vintage, or vintage-inspired attire. Plus, free dance lessons!
“Robert Cornelius, the original daguerreotype boyfriend. (1839 self-portrait of Robert Cornelius, one of the first photographs of a human to be produced.)”
“In 1981, here three-time Academy Award-winning composer Giorgio Moroder began a three-year endeavor to restore the science fiction classic, Metropolis. During this process, Moroder made the controversial decision to give the film a new, contemporary score, and added a pop music soundtrack featuring songs from some of the biggest stars of the early MTV era, including Pat Benatar, Billy Squier, Freddie Mercury, Bonnie Tyler, Adam Ant, Jon Anderson and more. In addition to the new score, missing footage was re-edited into the film, intertitles were removed and replaced with subtitles and sound effects and color tinting were added, creating an all new experience…and an all-new film! But for more than a quarter century, this version of Metropolis has remained out of print – until now. A new HD transfer was created from one of the few remaining prints available, and Kino Lorber is presenting the film in the best possible quality – just as it was seen in its original release in August 1984.”
Seen it? Love it? Hate it?
No matter what, these current screenings are sure to be lively, campy, fun gatherings. (If any of our good readers up going, please report back!)
Generals, marines, lawyers, coach drivers, politicians, and even artists! These were “Les Femmes de l’Avenir,” or “Women of the Future,” as imagined in a series of 20 postcards from the turn of the last century. Above is the wasp-waisted, tattooed General; below, the smartly-dressed, attentive Journalist with a post-modern duck on her hat. Despite some of these being a proto-version the whole “Sexy (fill-in-the-blank)” thing, which can be problematic, there is a sweetness and feeling of empowerment to these that modern costume equivalents (i.e. today’s “sexy general“) often lack.
“Mrs de Florian never returned to her Paris flat after the war and died at the age of 91 in 2010. Behind the door, under a thick layer of dust lay a treasure trove of turn-of-the-century objects including a painting by the 19th century Italian artist Giovanni Boldini.”
“Entering the untouched, cobweb-filled flat in Paris’ 9th arrondissement, one expert said it was like stumbling into the castle of Sleeping Beauty, where time had stood still since 1900.”
“‘There was a smell of old dust,’ said Olivier Choppin-Janvry, who made the discovery. Walking under high wooden ceilings, past an old wood stove and stone sink in the kitchen, he spotted a stuffed ostrich and a Mickey Mouse toy dating from before the war, as well as an exquisite dressing table…”
George Stavrinos was a fashion illustrator who lived from 1948-1990. Not much is written about him on Wikipedia at the moment, but according to illustrator Thomas Heller Buchanan, “his softly modeled pencil drawings were a mainstay of Bergdorf Goodman and Barney’s fashion ads, though Stavrinos did not consider himself a fashion illustrator. He was an artist, photographer, commercial illustrator, and filmmaker.”
A graduate of RISD, Stravinos was known for his representational style and strong draftsmanship that “created an arresting new look that set the pace for his contemporaries and still continues to be an influence,” according to his bio in the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame. A huge fan of J. C. Leyendecker, Stavrinos crafted striking illustrations that mixed time periods and transcended the world of fashion. He died from pneumonia complications at the young age of 42.
Despite the bizarre scarcity of information available about Stavrinos on the web, one unlikely source turned up to give a glimse into his life: this auction website. In describing a rare book of Stavrinos illustrations printed in Japan, a person who may have known Stavrinos writes:
When my dear friend George Stavrinos arrived in New York in November 1973, he had but five hundred dollars in his pocket and a portfolio of dreams tucked under his arm. At that time Fashion was the almost exclusive province of the photographic image. Fashion Illustration, which had once flourished under the magical touch of Lepape and Benito, or much later, under Gruau, had devolved into bland, linear sketches of half hearted ads. … Into this vacuum enters Mr. Stavrinos whose illustrations for Bergdorf Goodman and Barneys New York, brought back a lushly representational style of Fine Art Illustration not seen since the days of Charles Dana Gibson, Howard Chandler Christy, J.C. Leyendecker and Antonio Lopez. The Stavrinos style was characterized by a great attention to detail, an exactness and a symmetry normally associated with classical works. His work revolutionized fashion illustration in much the same way that Bruce Weber, Herb Ritts & Scavullo revolutionized fashion photography. For while his work is highly representational, it’s imagery evokes those tender, tingling feelings of Romance & Longing. Memories of a time that never may have never existed, except in our imaginations.
In addition to his contributions to the fashion world, Stavrinos also has a place in the history of LGBT art. He created a smoldering cover for first edition of The Deformity Lover, a book of queer poems by Felice Picano, his illustrations ran in Christopher Street and Blueboy, two seminal gay magazines of the 1970s, and he may have contributed an uncredited cover for Paul Monette’s “Taking Care of Mrs. Carroll.” His most overtly homoerotic works, The Bather and Lifeguard, appear in the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art.
Via Morbid Anatomy/BoingBoing/Jessica Joslin, here’s the British Pathe‘s splendid ’65 tour of the now sadly defunct Walter Potter Museum in Bramber, UK, which, until recently, housed all of the famed anthropomorphizing taxidermist’s weird and whimsical work.
Yesterday, after several difficult and painful production months, the final revisions to Issue 06 of Coilhouse Magazine were logged in. It is visually and thematically unlike anything we’ve attempted before– as beautiful and as sharp as a blade. Printing is imminent. If you, cherished readers, enjoy poring through its pages even half as much as we have, we’ll consider it a great success.
In addition to putting the finishing touches on #06, our crew is slowly recovering from the Category 5 whirlwind of throwing a massive fundraising ball in another city with less than a month of planning. (Wow… that was… did that actually happen?! One week later, it all feels like a deliciously manic, sweaty dream.) We’re working on a big ol’ shout-out post that will have all kinds of B&W&RAOB links and pictures in it, but that might take a wee bit.
In fact, more generally, it may take Coilhouse Blog a while to get back up to its usual puttering speed. If you see a tumbleweed or two blow across this screen, don’t worry. We’re just getting all of the international auction item shipments and Issue 06 stuff sorted first, and then taking some much-needed time to recharge after one of the most grueling time periods in Coilhouse history.
Meantime, here’s a lolling, lazy Sunday song about those aforementioned moorless diaspores, courtesy of The Sons of the Pioneers. Enjoy!
