{ feuilleton }

Ralph Koltai’s contrasting of panels of corroded metal with smooth objects makes for some attractive combinations, reminding me of similar rough and smooth juxtapositions by artist and designer Russell Mills, notably on one of his Samuel Beckett covers and his design for Harold Budd and Brian Eno’s The Pearl. Koltai’s site also includes a gallery [...]

Alla Nazimova as Salomé (1923).
I wrote a while ago about Alla Nazimova’s luscious silent film production of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, a suitably Decadent affair with an allegedly all-gay cast, and costume and stage design based on Aubrey Beardsley’s celebrated illustrations. The film is currently touring England and Wales with a new score for four musicians [...]

Skull Vision by Michael Ayrton (1943).
The Dark Monarch: Magic and Modernity in British Art: great title for an exhibition, a shame that it’s all the way down in Cornwall at Tate St Ives.
This group exhibition takes its title from the infamous 1962 book by St Ives artist Sven Berlin. It will explore the influence of [...]

It’s taken me years but the recent obsession with UK psychedelia led me to finally watch Joe Massot’s piece of cinematic fluff from 1968, Wonderwall, a film distinguished primarily for its score by George Harrison (with Ringo Starr and Eric Clapton playing pseudonymously), and its title which was swiped years later by a bunch of [...]

Le Bout du monde by Leonor Fini (1948).
Yes, I’ll definitely be going to see this one.
The first major exhibition of women artists and Surrealism to be held in Europe, Angels of Anarchy, opens this autumn at Manchester Art Gallery.
Featuring over 150 artworks by 32 women artists, the exhibition is a celebration of the crucial, but [...]

Sometimes petitions work. A few weeks ago one such was launched by computer scientist John Graham-Cumming on the UK government website requesting a public apology for the terrible treatment accorded mathematician and wartime codebreaker Alan Turing in 1952. Turing was prosecuted after admitting a gay affair to police investigating another matter and given the choice [...]

Out again to Trinity Church in Salford for an evening of musical performance from the Miasmah label. “Miasma” was a fitting word for this event since all three artists proved very adept at filling the humid air with great clouds of treated guitar chords, loops and electronic noise.
The aural miasms created by The Sight Below, [...]

Seed (2007).
It was my intention to post something about Peter Randall-Page’s sculptures earlier this year but never got round to it, so the opening of an exhibition of his work at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park this month provides the perfect opportunity. The park’s website has details of the works on view while the artist’s own [...]

Ave Pan by the amazing J Allen St John. Via.
In the spirit of basic human generosity I try not to be too anti-Christian here, especially when so many churchgoers these days feel themselves rather beleaguered; after centuries persecuting much of the world, the world has finally pushed them back and it hurts the poor things. [...]

Ralf Hütter: I got a new head, and I’m fine | Rare interview with Kraftwerk’s last original Man Machine.

An example from this Flickr set.
Hell is a City is a Hammer melodrama from 1960 directed by Val Guest, mentioned here recently for his earlier The Day the Earth Caught Fire. This one doesn’t succeed quite as well, being a misguided attempt to do a film noir in Manchester. The poster tries to disguise the [...]

No sun–no moon!
No morn–no noon!
No dawn–no dusk–no proper time of day–
No sky–no earthly view–
No distance looking blue–
No road–no street–no “t’other side this way”–
No end to any Row–
No indications where the Crescents go–
No top to any steeple–
No recognitions of familiar people–
No courtesies for showing ’em–
No knowing ’em!
No travelling at all–no locomotion–
No inkling of the way–no notion–
“No [...]

Maquettes from which the final works will be produced.
Given the choice between Thomas Heatherwick’s B of the Bang sculpture—a vast bundle of metal spikes situated near the City of Manchester Stadium—and Andy Scott’s proposal for The Kelpies, a pair of giant horse heads due to be erected in Falkirk, Scotland, I’d probably prefer the latter [...]

Last in Line is the debut album by Manchester band Light Syndicate and the CD packaging is something I put together after being asked to rescue a design which wasn’t quite working. I kept the band’s original idea of black trees on a red background but substituted their drawing with an adaptation of a 1910 [...]

1 Top Class Manager is a book bearing the subtitle “The notebooks of Joy Division’s manager, 1978–1980″ published this week by Anti-Archivists, Manchester. I’ve been working on the design for this on and off since March although we actually started putting it together this time last year.
Rob Gretton, manager of Joy Division and later New [...]

The Hireling Shepherd by William Holman Hunt (1851).
Holman Hunt and the Pre-Raphaelite Vision is an exhibition of Victorian paintings at Manchester’s City Art Gallery which they describe as “the first international exhibition in over 40 years dedicated to the life and work of Pre-Raphaelite master William Holman Hunt.” It helps that they own some prime [...]

Balloons in Bloom Street.
Another day of the Pride weekend and despite my gloomy predictions the sun shone all day. Amazing.

After eating little and walking/standing around all day I didn’t feel like waiting for Roisin Murphy’s set. Sorry Roisin. But I did watch Australian Abba copyists Björn Again who were great fun and went down really [...]

The Cruz bus flaunts its giant flag.
It’s that time of year again as Manchester gives over its city centre to the flamboyant hordes. I was surprised that the afternoon weather—which has been singularly dismal this year—managed to be bright and even slightly warm while the Parade was in progress. Yes it’s August but this summer [...]

“Oldest” computer music unveiled
| Recorded in Manchester, 1951.

Sam and ensemble.
“Bedroom Community, possibly the best label in the world right now” was my earnest declaration back in March after seeing Sam Amidon play for the first time. A few months earlier I’d put Valgeir Sigurðsson’s Ekvílibríum album on my best of 2007 list for Arthur magazine. Tonight’s event at Trinity Church confirmed [...]