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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.

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Muto Manifesto, volume 7

In which Muto Manifesto, the photo-magazine created by ace French photographers Exterface, celebrates a year of publication with a new edition that’s available in two print editions (one of which is already sold out). The model is the splendid Matthieu Charneau who featured in the first issue. See page samples here and in the online version at Issuu. Via Homotography.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Muto: The Exterface Manifesto
• Exterface

Weekend links 120

• More Nabokov: The University Poem by Vladimir Nabokov, translated by Dmitri Nabokov and read by Ralph Fiennes. And Breitensträter – Paolino, a short story from Nabokov’s Russian period that’s only just been translated into English.

• More LSD: “For decades, the U.S. government banned medical studies of the effects of LSD. But for one longtime, elite researcher, the promise of mind-blowing revelations was just too tempting,” says Tim Doody.

• More Marker: The Guarded Intimacy of Sans soleil by Jonathan Rosenbaum, The Revolutionary Cinema of Chris Marker by Patrick Higgins, and Chris Marker’s Faces by Brian Dillon.

• “A private realm, not easily penetrated, from which emerged music that would give rise to so much of the music we know today.” Guy Horton on Kraftwerk’s Kling Klang studio.

• A narrative from the swamps of Borneo: BLDGBLOG on the mephitic enigma of London’s sewers.

• At Coilhouse: The Incredibly True Adventures of Gerda Wegener and Lili Elbe.

• “What some people call idleness is often the best investment,” says Ed Smith.

• Book cover design: Rick Poynor on Pierre Faucheux and Le Livre de Poche.

• Metaphysical psychedelia: Erik Davis on Rick Griffin: Superstar.

• Diamanda Galás discusses her 13 favourite albums.

• Rudy Rucker’s Memories of Kurt Gödel.

• The Men of the Folies Bergère

• Olympics or gay porn?

• Smoketography

• The songs of bowhead whales | Another Moon Song (2009) by Espers | One Thousand Birds (2012) by Six Organs of Admittance.

Visionaries: The Art of the Fantastic

Curandera (2011) by Martina Hoffman.

Another US art exhibition, Visionaries: The Art of the Fantastic has been running since mid-July at the QCC Art Gallery, New York. I’d have mentioned this sooner but last month has been rather hectic, work-wise. A great opportunity for anyone in the NY area to see original works by artists such as Ernst Fuchs, HR Giger and the late Sibylle Ruppert, plus many works by newer artists. It also shows how fantastic art (as opposed to fantasy art) continues to pursue its parallel course and draw fresh talent despite never attracting attention from the art critics with the largest megaphones. Not everything in the show is to my taste—I’ve a low tolerance for saccharine, New-Agey things—but the quality and range of the exhibition is impressive. Visionaries: The Art of the Fantastic runs to 20th September, 2012.

The Revelation of the Turtle Pond (2010) by Isaac Abrams.

Chant de Mald (1978) by Sibylle Ruppert.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The fantastic art archive

Cum In Your Eye by Scott La Force

American artist/photographer Scott La Force sent the above details of a show of his work at the suitably named Cock Gallery in Portland, OR which will be running throughout this month. There’s more work like the examples below on his website, while the gallery itself has a Facebook page apparently, but I can’t access it since I’m not a member of that particular walled garden. I like the photos from La Force’s Minutia series which place printed enlargements of pop-up windows from gay dating sites in everyday settings.

Minutia.

Pornshop.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive