August 2012 – Page 5 – { feuilleton }

The art of Ismael Álvarez

Sangre Virgen.

Yeah, trust me to pick the gore-drenched teen out of a gallery of otherwise wholesome drawings… Ismael Álvarez is a Spanish artist with a nice clean line, a sense of humour and an imagination that can encompass comic imagery like the pictures below or run to full-on erotica. Of the latter there’s a separate gallery replete with the Enormous Cocks that now seem de rigueur for a certain kind of gay art in the same way that Enormous Breasts are a feature of much straight erotica. I’m not complaining—heaven forbid!—merely acknowledging a trend. In addition to his art, Señor Alvarez also maintains a blog and creates his own YouTube broadcasts, all of which are of course in Spanish.

My boy is a monster (cock).

Oh My Cock.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive

Hysterical Literature

Male sexuality receives more than enough attention on these pages so here’s something from the opposite end of the spectrum, albeit with an unusual twist. Hysterical Literature: Session One is a seven-minute video by photographer Clayton Cubitt which shows just how enthralling a film can be when its content is nothing more remarkable than an attractive young woman sitting at a table reading from a book. The subject is Stoya, self-described on her Tumblr pages as “International Porn Superstar”; the book she chose to read is Necrophilia Variations (2005) by Supervert, “a literary monograph on the erotic attraction to corpses and death”. (I designed one of Supervert’s more recent titles, Horror Panegyric (2007), which was published by Savoy Books under the author’s more mundane byline, Keith Seward.)

What gives Cubitt’s film its frisson is that all the time the splendid Ms Stoya is reading from the book she’s being subjected to the attentions of an unseen Hitachi vibrator. This only becomes evident at about the halfway point but it creates considerable tension. If an occasional buzzing noise didn’t give the game away a viewer unaware of this single explanatory detail might believe that the prose Stoya is reading is having a powerful effect. The result is sexy, funny, riveting, delightful and maybe even a little cathartic. Watch it here. Stoya describes the experience here while Supervert offers his own thoughts here. You can also buy copies of Supervert’s books while you’re at his site although if you do you’ll have to supply your own vibrator.

Mars panoramas

“Greeley Haven“, Mars (2012).

This is the latest panorama released by NASA July 2012. It was assembled from 817 images taken between Dec. 21, 2011, and May 8, 2012, while Opportunity was stationed on an outcrop informally named “Greeley Haven”, on a segment of the rim of ancient Endeavour Crater.

Probably the only time panoramas from another planet will be featured here, these have been around for a while but they’ve only impinged on the wider internet consciousness this week thanks to the arrival on Mars of the Curiosity Rover. Particularly impressive if you’re fortunate enough to have a large monitor. I’m looking forward now to seeing what panoramic images NASA’s new explorer delivers.

Eagle Crater, Mars (2004).

“Larry’s Lookout“, Mars (2005).

“Independence“, Mars (2005).

“Everest“, Mars (2005).

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The panoramas archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• A Trip to Mars
• Signals from Mars

Robert Hughes, 1938–2012

Read this book. Revised edition, 1991, no designer credited.

“Robert Hughes”: those were the first words I wrote in the first post for this blog, six years ago, referencing a piece Hughes had written about Rembrandt for the Guardian that week. Re-reading his polemic Culture of Complaint: The Fraying of America earlier this year I was feeling guilty about not having read more of his books; in slight mitigation I did watch every appearance of his on British television following The Shock of the New, and still have his American Visions series imprisoned on VHS in a box somewhere, along with The Fatal Shore, The New Shock of the New, some one-off things he did about Barcelona and Goya, and Visions of Space, a series of three films about European architects: Albert Speer, Mies van der Rohe, and Antonio Gaudi. Thanks to YouTube many of these exceptional documentaries can be given a fresh viewing; follow the links. Hughes used to write for the Guardian regularly so it’s no surprise they’ve filled several pages with memorials:

• Obituary by Michael McNay
• “Robert Hughes was Australia’s Dante,” says his friend Peter Carey
• Robert Hughes on art
• Robert Hughes quotes: 20 of the best

Elsewhere:
• NYT obituary by Randy Kennedy
• “Robert Hughes: The art critic with a dash of the streetfighter”: Judith Flanders at the Telegraph
• At Open Culture: Remembering Robert Hughes, the Art Critic Who Took No Prisoners

A Trip to Mars

A floating Martian city from Letters from the Planets (1890) by WS Lach-Szyrma. Illustration by Paul Handy.

In honour of the remarkable landing on Mars of the Curiosity Rover, a handful of random illustrations from the vast stock of imagery generated by the Red Planet over the past century-and-a-half. When it comes to Mars I’m afraid you can keep your terraforming and geodesic domes, I prefer the more fanciful scenarios involving air-boats, cloaks and actual canals. Paul Handy’s illustration above shows what I believe is a Venusian vehicle sailing past a Martian city, Lach-Szyrma’s book concerning a journey through the solar system. I only have small copies of these pictures in a book, so far they don’t seem to have turned up online.

A Trip to Mars (1909) by Fenton Ash. Illustrations by WHC Groome.

Fenton Ash was the nom de plume of British author Francis Henry Atkins. A Trip to Mars concerns another exploratory journey taken this time by a pair of Edwardian schoolboys.

Continue reading “A Trip to Mars”