A journal by artist and designer John Coulthart.
There’s no place like home (2006).
Now here’s an artist—Italian, works in NYC—who makes most painters look like they’re slacking. No need to post more tiny jpegs when you can go to his site and see his extraordinary tempest-tossed cowgirls at a larger size. And there’s more oil-on-canvas mayhem at the Stux Gallery, New York.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The fantastic art archive
Title by John Dee, words by William Shakespeare, narration by Judi Dench and music by Coil; Derek Jarman’s oneiric film/poem is released on DVD, along with two other works.
The BFI releases three Derek Jarman films together—Caravaggio (1986), Wittgenstein (1993) and The Angelic Conversation (1985)—all digitally restored and re-mastered for DVD and each with extensive and illuminating extra features.
The films were made with the BFI Production Board, whose aim was to foster innovation in British filmmaking, thus providing a natural home for Jarman’s artistic sensibility. These three films represent highpoints in his career and are perhaps the most enduring in their appeal and relevance to contemporary audiences.
Intense, dreamlike, and poetic, The Angelic Conversation is one of the most artistic of Derek Jarman’s films. With his painter’s eye, Jarman conjured, in a beautiful palette of light, colour and texture, an evocative and radical visualisation of Shakespeare’s love poems.
Of the 154 sonnets written by Shakespeare, most were written to an unnamed young man, commonly referred to as the Fair Youth. Here, Judi Dench’s emotive readings of 14 sonnets are coupled with ethereal sequences; figures on seashores, by streams and in colourful gardens. The disruption of these magical scenes with images of barren and threatening landscapes echoes perfectly the celebration and torment of love explored in the sonnets.
Shot on Super-8 before being transferred to 35mm film, the unique technical approach results in a striking aesthetic, with Coil’s languorous soundtrack completing the intoxicating effect.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• James Bidgood
• Kenneth Anger on DVD…finally
• Un Chant d’Amour by Jean Genet
Topple (2006).
Mate (2006).
American artist Thomas Allen constructs witty and clever dioramas using figures cut from the covers of old pulp paperbacks. Probably not the future James Avati and co. anticipated for their paintings but it certainly gives their art a new lease of life. Things have come full circle since Allen’s constructions have been used to decorate a series of James Ellroy reissues. Allen’s prints are currently on display at the Foley Gallery, New York, until March 3rd.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The book covers archive
Monocle is Tyler Brûlé’s international news magazine which launches today, although it wasn’t available in Sainsbury’s or at the mundane newsagents of South Manchester. Maybe they’re only stocking it at the airport.
I like the cover layout. Black is a surprising choice and the decision to feature a cover photo uncluttered by stray type and a barcode is very welcome. The design is carried over to the equally elegant website whose creation was overseen by Dan Hill of City of Sound.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• 100 Years of Magazine Covers
Attempting to solve one problem with the WordPress theme has only succeeded in raising several others. For now commenting is possible but your comments will be rendered invisible for reasons I’ve yet to resolve. Your indulgence is requested. Thanks.
Update: So the moral of that episode was don’t try and fix anything that isn’t (too) broken. The problem—the front page occasionally needs reloading to render properly—was solved by upgrading to the latest version of the theme. (K2 is updated regularly.) Unfortunately this raised considerable, and far worse, problems involving the inability to post comments using either Safari or Opera. Firefox was okay but considering that 14% of visitors here are Safari users (not least myself!) that was an unnacceptable state of affairs. So I’ve returned to the older version and will update when they have something available that isn’t a flaky point release.
One final thing: I’ve disabled the comment spam catcher plugin as this was causing problems for some people when posting comments. The built-in WordPress spam filter is now running in the background which should make things more user friendly.
Update 2: Page loading delay was possibly caused by a faulty plugin which I’ve now disabled. We’ll see.