{architecture} – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 820

Lust, from the Seven Deadly Sins (circa 1550–55) by Léon Davent, after Luca Penni.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Bill Hsu presents…High Anxiety: tense, dark films from 2010–2019 (for fans of Robert Aickman and Brian Evenson) (restored).

• New music: Ever No Way by Seefeel; In A Few Places Along The River by Abul Mogard; Displaces by Francesco Fabris.

• At Inconspicuous Consumption: Paul Lukas investigates a Frank Lloyd Wright typographic mystery.

In the late 19th century, Rops created a vast oeuvre of drawings, etchings, prints and paintings of such breathtaking fruitiness—often laced with satanic elements—that even Picasso responded to him in awe (in homage, the Spaniard drew a cartoon of a man in the form of a pig performing cunnilingus on a woman). Rops’ works depicted naked witches riding brooms, voyeurs in top hats and courtesans riding penis-shaped bicycles. The French art critic Félix Fénéon called him an artist “who paints phalluses the way others paint landscapes”.

Christian House on a new exhibition, Laboratory of Lust, showcasing the erotic art of Félicien Rops

• At Public Domain Review: Wayang Kulit: Raden Soelardi’s Illustrations of Javanese Puppets (1919).

• At Criterion Current: David Hudson explores the fantastic realism of Georges Franju.

• At Unquiet Things: The Nocturnal Visions of Nona Limmen.

• Steven Heller’s font of the month is Curve Display.

• RIP TV producer Kenith Trodd.

• Exploratorium

• Lust (1954) by Les Baxter Featuring Bas Sheva | Monster Lust (1989) by Helios Creed | Keine Lust (2004) by Rammstein

Weekend links 819

Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992), poster art by Noriyoshi Ohrai.

• At Wormwoodiana: Douglas A. Anderson on the first English translation of The Luminous Fairies and Mothra, a multi-author serial that formed the basis for Ishirō Honda’s film about the giant moth.

• At the Library of Congress: “Lost 19th century film by Méliès discovered at the Library“. 45 seconds of Gugusse and the Automaton (1897).

• At Public Domain Review: The Blinkered Flâneur: Walking with Franz Hessel in 1920s Berlin by Paul Sullivan.

• At Juno Daily: Kevin Richard Martin lists ten albums that shaped his Sub Zero album.

• New music: And All The Clocks Ran Dry by Andreas Voelk & Scott Monteith.

• “Behold Belgium’s beauty in these 15 scenic photographs.”

• A Spoon and Tamago Guide to Tohoku.

• The Strange World of…Shane Parish.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Occults.

• RIP Éliane Radigue.

• Mothra’s Song (1961) by Yuji Koseki | Mothra (1984) by Frank Chickens | Mothra (2014) by The 5.6.7.8’s

Weekend links 818

The Bookworm (no date) by Arthur Paunzen.

• New Cabaret Voltaire: Nag Nag Nag (Live 2025 Single Edit). Good to hear they’ve reinstated the Patrick Moore dialogue sample, something that’s on the studio version but usually missing from live recordings. The single is a trailer for a forthcoming album based on the group’s recent anniversary tour.

• The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians (1981), a wacky Czech comedy, one of many directed by Oldřich Lipský. With a story by Jules Verne, music by Luboš Fišer, and steampunk props by Jan Švankmajer.

• More new music: Butch’s Guns by Sunn O))); Sidings by Craven Faults; Frequencies In The Fog by Rod Modell.

What strikes me most is the difference between people who’ve learned to construct what I call “containers for attention”—bounded spaces and practices where different modes of engagement become possible—and those who haven’t. The distinction isn’t about intelligence or discipline. It’s about environmental architecture. Some people have learned to watch documentaries with a notebook, listen to podcasts during walks when their minds can wander productively, read physical books in deliberately quiet spaces with phones left behind. They’re not rejecting technology. They’re choreographing it.

What we think is a decline in literacy is a design problem, says librarian Carlo Iacono

• At Colossal: “Striking photos by Peter Li capture the soaring majesty of sacred spaces.”

• At Public Domain Review: The Eight Horses of King Mu, Son of Heaven (ca. 1300).

• At the BFI: Brogan Morris selects 10 great political thrillers.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Roland Topor’s Brain.

• RIP Robert Duvall and Tom Noonan.

• The Book Lovers (1997) by Broadcast | Tiny Golden Books (2000) by Coil | Library Of Solomon Book 2 (2011) by Demdike Stare

Weekend links 815

A photograph by FR Yerbury of St George’s-in-the-East, London. From Nicholas Hawksmoor (1924) by HS Goodhart-Rendel.

• “Sixty years later, the Spectacle saturates us in ways the Situationists never imagined. Online platforms structure our personal relationships; algorithms nudge us toward the platform owners’ preferred choices. ‘Intelligence’ is embedded into everything from our phones to our kitchen appliances. But back in the Sixties, the Situationists saw the physical environment of the city as an expression of the mass society created by consumerism and governed by the Spectacle, and they felt power closing in around them: ‘All space is occupied by the enemy. We are living under a permanent curfew. Not just the cops—the geometry.'” Hari Kunzru takes a psychogeographical dérive through the streets of London, encompassing the Hawksmoor churches, Iain Sinclair’s own peregrinations, Alan Moore’s Sinclair-influenced script for From Hell, Arthur Machen and more. (No mention of Alan’s ongoing Long London series, however, the first book of which is a deep dive into Machen territory.) Kunzru could be accused of being 30 years too late with his piece but for younger readers and many Americans these paths are worth retracing.

• Enemies from Venus!: “The only surviving fragment of a Dutch science fiction series for children from the mid-sixties (that never was).” CGI animation by Ernst-Jan van Melle in the style of black-and-white puppet shows like Fireball XL5, Space Patrol, etc.

• “If this is a horror story, it’s a horror story about being desperate for love, and about the vulnerability, loneliness, and difficulty in understanding other people that might drive this state.” Olivia Laing on Jonathan Glazer’s second feature film, Birth.

• At the BFI: Rory Doherty selects 10 great British heist films.

• At The Daily Heller: Posting Posters about Fellini.

• RIP Sly Dunbar; James Sallis; Catherine O’Hara.

• At Dennis Cooper’s it’s Peter Whitehead’s Day.

• The Strange World of…Toumani Diabaté.

• New music: Errata by WF 98.

• Birth (1971) by Keith Jarrett | Birth (1995) by Howie B | Birth (2013) by Roly Porter

The art of Benvenuto Disertori (1887–1969)

L’arco di Tito (1918).

Benvenuto Disertori was an Italian artist with a parallel career as a musicologist. I forget how his prints came to my attention but they’re just the kind of thing I like to see: meticulous monochrome views with an emphasis on architecture and eroded mineral surfaces. Some printmakers tend to concentrate on a single medium—wood engraving, for example—but Disertori embraced a wide range of etching and engraving techniques. Once again, the influence of Piranesi is discernible in some of these views (another point in their favour), especially those that depict Roman ruins or older Italian buildings like the medieval towers in San Gimignano.

Il Pensatore (1909).

L’edera (1911–13).

Gubbio. La Campanella di S. Giovanni Battista (1912-13).

La Nicchia (1913).

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