{art} – Page 336 – { feuilleton }

The Fool album covers

The Fool (1968).

Many people know the work of design collective The Fool even if they couldn’t tell you the name or the names of any of the individuals involved. The accelerated career trajectory of Dutch artists Marijke Koger and Simon Posthuma took them from a hippie enclave on the isle of Ibiza in 1966, to London and work for The Beatles throughout 1967 thanks to their distinctive brand of rainbow-hued psychedelia. Marijke Koger says the name The Fool was chosen after they met Crowley-obsessed blues singer Graham Bond who introduced them to the Tarot deck. Barry Finch and Josje Leeger later joined Koger and Posthuma. For The Beatles the group created the short-lived mural for the Apple boutique in Baker Street (removed after complaints), the decoration on John Lennon’s piano, and the inner sleeve for the Sgt Pepper album. The gatefold interior of the album was going to incorporate a Fool painting but Robert Fraser apparently persuaded the band to replace this with a group photo. The Fool themselves (and their decor) appear in the Beatles-produced feature film, Wonderwall (1968).

Proposed interior for the Sgt Pepper album (1967).

Given all this sudden visibility it’s surprising they weren’t more in demand for album cover designs although they were also busy producing florid outfits for other groups. The Beatles clothes on the All You Need is Love broadcast are Fool creations. Of the album covers, the one for The Incredible String Band is probably the most well-known. This small collection reminds me I still haven’t heard Evolution by The Hollies. The work on that cover led to a collaboration with Graham Nash on an album by The Fool (and session musicians) in 1968. The collective split up in 1969 with Marijke Koger and Simon Posthuma relocating to California.

• Marijke Koger-Dunham’s site
• Simon Posthuma’s site

Sgt Pepper inner sleeve.

The 5000 Spirits Or The Layers Of The Onion (1967) by The Incredible String Band.

Evolution (1967) by The Hollies. Clothes and design by The Fool, photo by Karl Ferris.

Picknick (1967) by Boudewijn De Groot.

Move (1968) by The Move.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The album covers archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Through the Wonderwall

Weekend links 168

Window to the Universe (1967) by Roberta Bell. From Summer of Love: Psychedelic Posters from SCMA currently showing at the Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA.

• Sympathy for the Shoggoth: China Miéville’s Revolution of the Weird Tale, an essay by Christina Scholz which features one of my Cthulhu pictures among its embellishments. Related: “‘New Strange’ stories hold a chilling mirror to life” says Rick Kleffel discussing Robert Aickman and others. And speaking of Aickman (so to speak), Reese Shearsmith has recently recorded Aickman’s Cold Hand in Mine for Audible.

• An erotic alphabet book from the Soviet Union circa 1931, created to promote adult literacy. Who says porn can’t be educational?

• Angelystor is a new 39-minute composition by Phil Legard which he describes as “often heavy, Saturnine and melancholic”.

• James Ward’s postcards of the Post Office Tower. Related: film of the revolving restaurant at the top of the Tower in 1967.

•You Might Never Find Your Way Back: Shirley Jackson’s Hangsaman by Nicholas Rombes.

Stone Garden (1967) by Wilfried Sätty.

• High Over Blue is “a mind-warping 20-minute freakout” by Moon Duo.

• Queer Visual Splendour: Jon Macy discusses his erotic comics.

• The Origin of the Pilcrow, aka the Strange Paragraph Symbol.

• Mix of the week: the Kranky 20th Anniversary Mixtape.

• Ten Amazing Cheeses and their Literary Counterparts.

• PingMag looks at the past and present of Ginza.

• Mind Gardens (1967) by The Byrds | The Garden (1981) by John Foxx | The Toy Garden (2006) by Helios

Fetish photographer Rick Castro

Photographs by Rick Castro.

Presenting another guest post from John Wisniewski who back in May contributed an interview with William E. Jones about gay film director Fred Halsted. The subject this time is Rick Castro, pioneering bondage/S&M photographer, and also the proprietor of the Antebellum Gallery in Los Angeles which bills itself as the only fetish gallery in America. Castro has worked with Joel-Peter Witkin and Bruce LaBruce, and also photographed subjects as diverse as the Dalai Lama and Kenneth Anger, neither of them in bondage, unfortunately. As before, John offers a list of ten questions. Read on to discover why hustlers always used to wear white jeans (I have wondered about this)…

* * *

John Wisniewski: When did you begin photographing?

Rick Castro: 1986…around June…. My first photo was of my longtime friend (and former GF!), Odessa. I was a wardrobe stylist at the time, so I dressed her like Morticia Addams. Very high contrast/high shadowed B&W.

My second photo was of Tony Ward. I cast him for his first “mainstream” photo shoot. Editorial for a now defunct men’s magazine, INSTYLE, (published by porn mag IN TOUCH). We were working for photographer Albert Sanchez at the time. Between takes I’d dressed him up in full leather fantasy—leather hood, harness, gauntlets, codpiece, boots and horsetail!

JW: Whom are some of your influences in photography and art?

RC: I like the dead guys: Brassai, Pierre Moliner, F. Holland Day, Julia Margaret Cameron, Otto Dix, Paul Cadmus, Egon Schiele, Tennessee Williams, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Gilles De Rais.

JW: When did you meet fellow photographer Joel-Peter Witkin?

RC: Also during 1986, I bought Joel’s first book. At the back of the book was a request: “I am looking for people with physical deformations, amputees. Quadriplegics, burn victims, persons into extreme S&M, a woman with three breasts, geeks, pinheads, a woman with severe skin disease that will pose in an evening gown, anyone bearing the wounds of Christ, Christ.”

Later that year the new annex of Book Soup on Sunset Blvd hosted the first LA photo exhibit for Joel. I attended, introduced myself and gave him a stack of photos I had taken of my potential “models.” He called me the next morning. From then I worked with Joel on 13 of his most iconic photographs as a wardrobe stylist, costume designer, location scout, model scout, casting director, photo assistant, art director, make up artist and all around assistant.

Continue reading “Fetish photographer Rick Castro”

The poster art of Frank McCarthy

The Venetian Affair (1967).

“Murder! Spies! Women!” If you added “guns” and “explosions” to that list you’d have the ingredients of the wild poster art of Frank McCarthy (1924–2002). I used to love posters like this when I was a boy, especially those from the everything-happening-at-once school which, by the look of these examples, was McCarthy’s specialty. Where action films are concerned the posters are often more exciting than the scenes they depict, in part because artists such as McCarthy were often working from their own imaginations as much as from any stills they’d been given.

The Caper of the Golden Bulls (1967).

McCarthy had a career painting Western scenes which explains why his horses are so good. Some of his posters are for very well-known films, including a couple of Bond pictures, but I prefer those where he evidently had more of a free reign. The painting for The Caper of the Golden Bulls is a great composition with a use of colour you wouldn’t see today. Below there’s an example of the colossal title lettering that Terry Gilliam used to enjoy parodying. I still wonder which film did this first. Was it Ben-Hur? See more of Frank McCarthy’s poster art here.

Genghis Khan (1965).

Around the World Under the Sea (1966).

Continue reading “The poster art of Frank McCarthy”

Weekend links 167

Poster by Luke Insect & Kenn Goodall.

In recent years I’ve had little patience for British cinema: too much dour “realism” with little of Alan Clarke’s vitality, too many comedies that aren’t funny, too many Hollywood calling cards, too much Colin Firth… So it’s been a pleasure to see Peter Strickland’s Berberian Sound Studio followed this month by Ben Wheatley’s A Field In England, a pair of films that stand out by daring to be different in a medium which seems to grow more creatively conservative with each passing year. A Field In England adds to the micro-genre of weird British films set around the time of the English Civil War. In place of witchfinders and devil worshippers we have magic, murder, madness, and a field of hallucinogenic mushrooms. Wheatley, like Strickland, takes risks that wouldn’t be allowed with a bigger budget which makes me excited to see what they’ll be doing next. A Field In England is already out on DVD & Blu-ray. The trailer is here. The director talked to Mat Colegate about the genesis of the film (spoiler alert). There’s more big hats and cloaks in this list of ten 17th century films.

• “I like to look at men…the way they look at women,” photographer Ingrid Berthon-Moine says about her pictures of sculpted testicles.

• Roger Dean has finally sued James Cameron over the designs for Avatar. Will be interesting to see how this one turns out.

• Google has taken its Street View cameras to Battleship Island, “the most desolate city on earth“.

• The strange fantasy novels of Edward Whittemore are available again in digital editions.

• Julia Holter talks about her forthcoming Gigi-inspired album Loud City Song.

• At Pinterest: Maneki-neko, the beckoning cat of good fortune.

• Beautiful Books: Decorative Publishers’ Cloth Bindings.

• The abstract paintings of Hilma af Klint (1862–1944).

• Lee Brown Coye illustrates August Derleth in 1945.

• Bill Laswell’s discography intimidates the collector.

• Mix of the week: Kit Mix #23 by Joseph Burnett.

• The Soundcarriers: Last Broadcast (2010) | Signals (2010) | This Is Normal (2012)