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Pan II (2012) by Fredrik Söderberg. • “Aubade was a surprise success, selling some 5000 copies and going into a second printing and an edition published in America.  Martin was immediately a minor celebrity, being interviewed for articles that couldn’t mention what his book was actually about.” Rediscovering the works of Kenneth Martin. • “I [...]

Christ Church, Spitalfields, London, in 2001. A photo I took with a disposable film camera. And so let us beginne; and, as the Fabrick takes its Shape in front of you, alwaies keep the Structure intirely in Mind as you inscribe it. First, you must measure out or cast the Area in as exact a [...]

Untitled art by Yang Yongliang. There’s more at But Does It Float. • “Newly unearthed ITV play could be first ever gay television drama“. Writer Gerald Savory, incidentally, also adapted Dracula for the BBC in 1977, still the version that’s closest to the novel. • Craig Redman and Karl Maier‘s poster designs for the Bavarian [...]

Until watching Antoine Bourseiller’s film, the only interview I’d seen with Jean Genet was the one filmed by the BBC in 1985 in which a tetchy and evidently irritated Genet made a fool of interviewer Nigel Williams, and compared the whole experience to a police interrogation. (Williams and his interview are memorialised in Iain Sinclair’s [...]

Gratifying this week to see album cover art under discussion even if the heat-to-light ratio was as unbalanced as it usually is when pop culture is the subject. Jonathan Barnbrook, who also designed the Heathen (2002) and Reality (2003) packaging for David Bowie, wrote about the thinking behind the new cover on his blog. (And [...]

Sarah and Writhing Octopus (New Wave Series, 1992) by Masami Teraoka. Strange Flowers continues to push all my buttons. For a while now I’d been intent on writing something about the strange (unbuilt) temples designed by German artist/obsessive naturist Fidus (Hugo Höppener) but I reckon James has done a better job than I would have [...]

Can Carnacki make any claim to be taken seriously as a detective? If he solves anything it is by force of will, rather than the application of deductive powers. He is no Sherlockian ironist, no high-domed mental traveller. He stands as close to Holmes as Mike Hammer does to Philip Marlowe. His methods are enthusiastic [...]

Transmitter Crowbar Discharge Unit, Bates Linear Accelerator. Photo by Daniel Jackson from his Dark Machines series. The language we use for writing about art is oddly pornographic: We know it when we see it. No one would deny its distinctiveness. Yet efforts to define it inevitably produce squeamishness, as if describing the object too precisely [...]

A suspended fluid photograph from Demersal, a series by Luka Klikovac. • “Soon, Mr. Lachman was writing occult music. His song “(I’m Always Touched by Your) Presence, Dear,” which appeared on Blondie’s 1977 album Plastic Letters, was an example.” Gary Lachman: from Blondie to Swedenborg. • Neil Krug’s cover art for the new Scissor Sisters [...]

Flannery O’Connor with one of her many peacocks. When the peacock has presented his back, the spectator will usually begin to walk around him to get a front view; but the peacock will continue to turn so that no front view is possible. The thing to do then is to stand still and wait until [...]

The Arcimboldo Effect again. An undated postcard from the image section of A Virtual Wunderkammer: Early Twentieth Century Erotica in Spain. “I took George Clinton and Bootsy Collins to the Battle Station for the first time, and they left feeling like they’d just had a close encounter,” said the bassist and music producer Bill Laswell, [...]

Sin título (monstruas) (2008) by Marina Núñez.    • Salon asks Christopher Bram “Is gay literature over?” Bram’s new book, Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America, is reviewed here. • Robert Montgomery is profiled at the Independent as “The artist vandalising advertising with poetry.” In addition to aesthetics, McCarthy noted a deeper link [...]

Another new piece of illustration and design. Somnium is an occult novel by Steve Moore being published this month by Strange Attractor. Some readers here may know Steve’s work as a comics writer, ex-editor of Fortean Times and also the subject of Alan Moore’s recent Unearthing text and recording. I’ve not seen the book yet [...]

Efflaration (1952) by Austin Osman Spare. The Austin Spare revival continues with another exhibition, Murmur Become Ceaseless and Myriad at Flat Time House, London, curated by Mark Titchner. Unless I’ve missed something this is a significant moment since it’s the first time Spare’s work has been paired with that of a more contemporary artist, the [...]

Peacock Apocalypse (detail) by Julie Evans in collaboration with Ajay Sharma. Here at { feuilleton }, home of the curly bracket affectation, your correspondent is still surprised to find his postings the subject of a critique by Rick Poynor in the latest edition of Eye magazine, the international review of graphic design. I haven’t seen [...]

Neutron Drip (2011) by Amrei Hofstätter. • The Lavender Scare is “the first feature-length documentary film to tell the story of the U.S. government’s ruthless campaign in the 1950s and ’60s to hunt down and fire every Federal employee it suspected was gay”. A film by Josh Howard based on the book by David K [...]

From Light Beyond Sound, a new series of works by Tatiana Plakhova. “The invasion philosophy of the Olympic Park strikes me as just like the invasion philosophy behind going into Iraq,” he says, “or anywhere else that you blast into, put up the fence, establish the Green Zone, explain everything, put it all into this [...]

Ad Astra (1907) by Akseli Gallen-Kallela. • Andres Serrano’s works are photo prints so you can’t damage an exhibition item the way you can with a painting. That didn’t stop Catholic protestors in France attacking a copy of Piss Christ on Monday. By coincidence, Dave Maier had posted an essay about Serrano’s work a few [...]

From the Ornamental Age series (2009) by Seher Shah. Seher Shah has recently updated her website giving us a better view of her extraordinary art. • The Demon Regent Asmodeus, my short film of Alan Moore’s reading from the first Moon & Serpent CD, has been posted to YouTube. In other self-promotion news, Mahakala, a [...]

Poster by Will Bradley for Victor Bicycles (c. 1895). • G. Wayne Clough, chief exective of the Smithsonian Institution, finally admits that he made a hasty decision in removing David Wojnarowicz’s video from the Hide/Seek exhibition of gay art. Related: “Finland’s cultural gifts to the world include Sibelius, the Moomins and an artist that the [...]