{art} – Page 310 – { feuilleton }

Kusama’s Self-Obliteration, a film by Jud Yalkut

Yayoi Kusama’s art has often been classed as psychedelic—some of her mirrored rooms were featured in the travelling Summer of Love exhibition in 2005—but this is more a consequence of her activities meshing with the interests of the late 60s than anything else; her preoccupations always seem a lot more personal and obsessive. Jud Yalkut’s short film shows Kusama and various friends cavorting in typical underground-movie fashion in 1967, the main indicator of the artist’s involvement being her sticking polka dots (and leaves) onto everything: trees, people, cats, horses, even a river. Later on there’s more polka-dotting at some kind of body-paint happening inside one of her mirrored rooms. The film itself is pretty psychedelic in the second half, looking like outtakes from Roger Corman’s The Trip. The of-the-moment score was provided by The CIA Change, whoever they were. Watch it here.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Infinite reflections
• Yayoi Kusama
• The art of Yayoi Kusama

Weekend links 206

Nova Express (2014) by Paul Komoda.

• Last week it was Kraftwerk, this week it’s Can in another astonishing 70-minute TV performance from 1970. For those who know where to look in the torrent world there are copies of these recordings circulating there.

• JG Ballard: five years on. Extracts from introductions by John Gray, Hari Kunzru, Robert Macfarlane, Deborah Levy, James Lever, China Miéville and Michel Faber for a new series of Ballard editions.

• Mix of the week: Needle Exchange 147 by Inventions. Also at Self-Titled Mag: Suzanne Ciani on her Buchla beginnings, talking dishwashers, and why no one got electronic music in the ’70s.

• At Dangerous Minds: It’s So Far Out It’s Straight Down, a Granada TV documentary from 1967 featuring Paul McCartney, Allen Ginsberg, International Times, Pink Floyd et al.

• The Wonderful World of Witches: Portraits of English Pagans. A photo-special from the 1960s at LIFE. Related: From 1974, the US TV ad for Man, Myth and Magic.

• Suspicious Minds: Adam Curtis on Stephen Knight, Jack the Ripper, squatters, heists, From Hell, and why people no longer trust those in authority.

• Here be men with beards and syntezators: Andy Votel‘s Top 10 Early Patch-Bay Polymaths From Eastern Europe.

• The New York Public Library has made 20,000 maps available as free, high-res downloads.

• An oscilloscope video by Vincent Oliver & Steve Bliss for Riff Through The Fog by Clark.

• Anne Billson interviewed Alejandro Jodorowsky in 1990.

• At BLDGBLOG: When Hills Hide Arches.

• Do gay people still need gay bars?

• Pixelord Dreams

• I’m So Green (1972) by Can | Nova Feedback (1978) by Chrome | Gay Bar (2003) by Electric Six

Lovecraft’s Monsters unleashed

I posted my illustrations for this anthology back in December, after which Tachyon also asked me to create a cover for the book, something that hadn’t been planned at the outset. Lovecraft’s Monsters, edited by Ellen Datlow, is in the shops this month so here’s the cover and a few of my page layouts from the interior. I’m very pleased with this one so it’s been good to hear it’s been selling well already, and picking up positive reviews. My illustrations may be seen at large size here while the book itself should be available via all the usual outlets. If you insist on shopping in a river filled with piranhas then here’s a link. (That fish head on the cover is based on a piranha as it happens.)

The big Lovecraft collection from Centipede Press, A Mountain Walked, was also supposed to be out this month but the release has been bumped (again) to May 2014. It’s a huge volume so I’m not surprised if it’s taking longer than expected.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The Lovecraft archive

Gigapixel ArtZoom

This is a few months old but I just discovered my bookmark of the page. The view is a panorama of Seattle but with a difference since this one encourages you to play hunt the artist. The streets are scattered with many of Seattle’s artists and performers, some of them easier to find than others. Michael Cohen, the director of the project explains:

We first sought out the perfect rooftop location from which to shoot such a panorama. We were lucky enough to find the Bay Vista condominium building, and thanks to the gracious owners, get access to amazing 360-degree views that include the Seattle Center, the Olympic Sculpture Park, and Seattle’s stadiums, as well Mount Rainier, Puget Sound, and Lake Union. We also discussed the project with John Boylan, who has deep roots in the Seattle art scene. He helped us attract great interest from the arts community to come out and help create this celebration of the arts in Seattle. John introduced us to Elise Ballard, who coordinated the efforts of everyone involved in producing the entire piece. And finally, videographer Kris Crews helped us assemble a team to shoot video footage of the artists and performers from the ground.

Art aside, the panorama is detailed enough to be able explore many of the otherwise hidden details of city life such as rooftop gardens and the mechanical paraphernalia that accumulate on the tops of buildings. Nice view of the Space Needle as well.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The panoramas archive

Weekend links 205

King’s Cloak (2012) by Alice Lin.

• The week in Finnegans Wake: illustrations by John Vernon Lord for a new Folio Society edition; The Guardian‘s review from 1939; Christina Scholz explores Joyce’s use of the Ant and the Grasshopper fable; Sheng Yun wonders when Dai Congrong will compete the first Chinese translation of the book; Stephanie Boland on riverrun, the latest theatrical adaptation.

• It’s Robert Aickman‘s centenary year so Faber are reissuing several volumes of his peerless “strange stories”. And it’s good to see the great Clark Ashton Smith finally receive the blessing of Penguin Classics.

• The Teenage Boyfriend of the Beat Generation: Marcus Ewart slept with Allen Ginsberg (who showed him how to give a proper blowjob), and had an eight-year relationship with William Burroughs.

Yet another advocate of shorter work time was JS Mill. He dismissed the ‘gospel of work’ proposed by Thomas Carlyle in part because it drew a veil over the real costs of work, including slave work that Carlyle sought to defend. Instead, Mill advocated a ‘gospel of leisure’, arguing that technology should be used to curtail work time as far as possible. This stress on technology as a means to shorten work time was later to feature in Bertrand Russell’s 1932 essay, ‘In Praise of Idleness’.

David Spencer on The Case for Working Less

• More Steve Moore memorials: Mitch Jenkins put the pages from Unearthing online, while Pádraig Ó Méalóid posted a personal appreciation at The Beat.

• Linda Marsa on how psychedelics are helping cancer patients deal with their illness.

• The Weird Album: art by Enrique Alcatena (including some Lovecraftian pieces).

• Didgeridoom: Director Ted Kotcheff talks to Robert Barry about Wake in Fright.

• The Jealous God (1985), a comic strip by Alejandro Jodorowsky & Silvio Cadelo.

• The Dune in Your Head: Ethan Gilsdorf on the greatest SF film never made.

• 50 minutes of Kraftwerk on Rockpalast in 1970. Astonishing.

• At 50 Watts: Sheet-music covers from Sweden in the 1920s.

• Harvard discovers old library books bound in human skin.

• Same-sex marriage is now legal in England and Wales.

• Wyrd Daze has reached issue 5.

• Kaleidoscopes at Pinterest.

• Flight From Ashiya (live on TV! 1967?) by Kaleidoscope (UK) | Lie To Me (1969) by Kaleidoscope (US) | Kaleidoscope (1984) by The Rain Parade