Marko is a Slovenian in London who takes his own delectable photos. This series and others can be seen here. Via Kaiserin magazine.
Month: May 2008
Mark Beard’s artistic circle
The Fencing Team by Bruce Sargeant.
Artists in the 20th century used to be multifarious in their activities, often taking their work through different stages or periods of evolution; Picasso and Max Ernst are two good examples of this. In today’s inflated art market this is no longer a wise move. As Brian Eno has noted in the case of the polymathic Tom Phillips, the pressure is there to establish yourself as a person who does one thing only, to turn yourself into a brand.
American artist Mark Beard isn’t happy with that situation. In order to satisfy a desire to create in whatever styles he chooses, he’s developed a number of distinct artist personalities, each with their own detailed biographies and even photographs (below). This isn’t entirely unprecedented, Marcel Duchamp famously had a female alter-ego named Rrose Sélavy, and was photographed by Man Ray in feminine attire, but offhand I can’t think of another artist going as far as creating six distinct personas. The painting above is one of a homoerotic sports-themed series by artist Bruce Sargeant who died, we’re told, in 1938 as a result of a wrestling accident. Examples of Beard’s other influences follow. For the complete artist biographies, see the Mark Beard pages at the Carrie Haddad gallery.
The artists
top left: Mark Beard (b. 1956); right: Bruce Sargeant and model (1898-1938)
middle left: Hippolyte-Alexandre Michallon (1849-1930); right: Brechtolt Steeruwitz (1890-1973)
bottom left: Edith Thayer Cromwell (1993-1962); right: Peter Coulter (b. 1948)
Their works
Ideology: The Politically Correct Disdain the Frivolous by Mark Beard (1989).
Avant la Fuite by Hippolyte-Alexandre Michallon (1894).
Swimmer Drying Himself, Berlin Olympics (1936), Young Athlete by Bruce Sargeant.
On the Strand by Edith Thayer Cromwell.
Das Krakenhaus by Brechtolt Steeruwitz (At the Hospital) (1923).
Cabinet by Peter Coulter.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive
Laura Zindel’s ceramics
left: Small Hercules Beetle Vase, Large Harlequin Beetle Vase.
right: Small Lady Beetle Vase, Large Scarab Beetle Vase.
Ceramic art by Laura Zindel. Good to see that arthropods are no longer such a taboo for home furnishings.
Via Fabulon.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Jo Whaley
• Endangered insects postage stamps
• Robert Lang’s origami insects
• Lalique’s dragonflies
• Lucien Gaillard
• Wesley Fleming’s glass insects
• Insect Lab
Voice of the people
Voice of the people
| The indefatigable Gore Vidal.
Harpya by Raoul Servais
Classic animated short from 1979 which is funny and creepy in equal measure. Harpya won the Palme d’Or for best short film at Cannes that year and in its own small way could be seen as continuing the Belgian taste for Symbolism and Surrealism.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Bruges-la-Morte
• Short films by Walerian Borowczyk
• Taxandria, or Raoul Servais meets Paul Delvaux