The art of Patten Wilson, 1868–1928

wilson3.jpg

The Four Seasons (1897).

Typically gorgeous work from the unjustly neglected Victorian illustrator. There’s more scans of the Coleridge illustrations (shown below) at Dr Chris Mullen’s excellent Visual Telling of Stories site.

Continue reading “The art of Patten Wilson, 1868–1928”

Curtis Harrington, 1926–2007

harrington.jpg

Curtis Harrington, who died on Monday, was chiefly known as a director of low-budget horror films, the most acclaimed of which is his debut feature Night Tide (1961), a watery riff on Cat People (1942) starring a young Dennis Hopper. But Harrington should also be remembered for his associations with early American avant garde cinema, especially the productions of Kenneth Anger. Harrington was behind the camera for Anger’s Puce Moment (1949) and appeared in front of it as Cesare the Somnambulist in Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954). Harrington’s early films were similarly uncommercial experimental shorts, one of which, The Wormwood Star (1956), was based around the paintings and person of Marjorie Cameron Parsons Kimmel aka Cameron. Harrington and Cameron both appeared in Anger’s Pleasure Dome and Harrington featured Cameron again when he came to make Night Tide, where she appears as a mysterious, witch-like presence.

Night Tide is well worth a look, despite the limitations of its budget. Dennis Hopper had been ostracised from Hollywood after a fall-out with director Henry Hathaway and was hanging around with various artists and experimental filmmakers (including Andy Warhol’s crowd), acting in TV shows and generally biding his time. Harrington gave him a starring role and the opportunity to pull some Method faces, and he’s very impressive as he falls for a girl who may or may not turn into a murderous sea creature with the next full moon. Good use is made of the crumbling beachfront of Venice, CA, and there’s some sly camp humour to be found in Hopper’s appearance (he’s dressed in a sailor uniform most of the time, looking like an extra from Anger’s Fireworks), and in the scene where he goes for a (chaste) massage. Night Tide isn’t as strange as Carnival of Souls (1962) but both films share enough of the same atmosphere and period detail to make a perfect double-bill.

Previously on { feuilleton }
Alla Nazimova’s Salomé
Coming soon: Sea Monsters and Cannibals!
Freddie Francis, 1917–2007
The art of Cameron, 1922–1995
Kenneth Anger on DVD…finally

The Male Gaze

male_gaze1.jpg

Trunk (Jay Garvin) by James Bidgood (early 1960s).

The Male Gaze is an exhibition at the powerHouse Arena,
Brooklyn, NYC, from April 20th–May 27th, 2007.

male_gaze2.jpg

Untitled by Raymond Carrance (aka Czanara) (1960–70).

Sullen burger boys meet the effete cognoscenti in The Male Gaze: a group show including over 20 artists whose cultural explosions have rocked foundations across the world. With work spanning over 100 years of bloodless revolution, The Male Gaze features contemporary artists and their classic antecedents reinventing themselves, their world, and their media in savvy, bawdy, dreamy, and terrifyingly new ways. Artists include Stephen Andrews, Gio Black Peter, James Bidgood, AA Bronson, Raymond Carrance, Robert Filippini, Andrew Harwood, Christian Holstad, Scott Hug and Michael Magnan, Brian Kenny, Bruce LaBruce, Qing Liu, Ryan McGinley, Futoshi Miyagi, Slava Mogutin, J. Morrison, Will Munro, Joe Ovelman, Paul P., Jack Pierson, Ezra Rubin, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Lionel Smartly, and Wilhelm Von Gloeden.

male_gaze3.jpg

Two revisited portraits of John by Paul Mpagi Sepuya (2004).

The NYT interviews some of the artists

powerHouse Arena
37 Main Street
Brooklyn
NY 11201

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
The gay artists archive