{art} – Page 441 – { feuilleton }

Fred Holland Day revisited

St Sebastian with wounded chest (c. 1906).

The work of American photographer Fred Holland Day (1864–1933) has featured here in the past but it’s only recently that I came across the archive of prints at the Library of Congress. Not all the works there are digitised yet, and some are still unavailable for viewing, but the LoC prints one can view are always quality scans. Day would have been a significant photographer whatever his subject but his work has additional interest today for its overt homoerotic dimension; he manages to play the usual evasive games with Biblical themes or Classical mythology whilst maintaining a pictorial quality through soft focus and heavily-grained paper. The mood of some of these shots makes them seem far in advance of other work of the period.

St Sebastian in loincloth, tied to tree with rope, arrows in stomach and side, hands behind back (1906).

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Vultures Await

From a Void City to what might be a Vulture City, this is an illustration I produced last September for San Jose psych rock band Vultures Await. I would have mentioned it sooner but the following months were very busy and I was also waiting for the band to make the artwork public. Stylistically, this is another piece of collage Surrealism à la Wilfried Sätty, an illustration approach I’d like to keep developing for a while yet. The forthcoming Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities will have more Sätty-inspired pieces, although my contributions there tend towards the decorative. There is, however, a connection between this piece and the Cephalopod Bride.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The album covers archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Wilfried Sätty: Artist of the occult
• Nyarlathotep: the Crawling Chaos

Weekend links 47

DG-2499 (1975) by the fantastic (in every sense of the word) Zdzisław Beksiński (1929–2005). See the Dmochowski Gallery for a comprehensive collection of the artist’s work. Thanks to BibliOdyssey for the tip.

• More ICA events: From Animism to Zos: Strange Attractor Salon will be “a series of weekly events, consisting of a talk and a film, exploring some lesser-known intersections of culture, history, mind and nature” running from 10 March–12 May, 2011.

• And on May 10, the London Word Festival presents a Dodgem Logic evening with entertainment provided by contributors to that magazine:

Alan Moore’s reinvigoration of the underground fanzine, Dodgem Logic, comes alive in the non-conformist surroundings of Hackney’s Round Chapel. A night of art, comedy, comment and put-something-back localism. (…) With Robin Ince heading up a colossal stand-up bill, artists Steve Aylett, Savage Pencil, Melinda Gebbie and Kevin O’Neill panel-up to talk about their comic work, while music comes from hyperactive racketeers The Retro Spankees. With an exhibition of artwork from the magazine, and conducted by editor-in-chief Alan Moore.

• Taschen publishes a collection of Dennis Hopper’s photographs this week. The Independent has a small selection here. Also new from Tachen, Alex Steinweiss, The Inventor of the Modern Album Cover.

• Bass Notes: The Film Posters of Saul Bass at the Kemistry Gallery, London.

DG-2507 by Zdzisław Beksiński.

While riding through the bustling streets of London from 1603 to 1621, one was liable to hear the shout “Long live Queen James!” King James I of England and VI of Scotland was so open about his homosexual love affairs that an epigram had been circulated which roused much mirth and nodding of the heads: Rex fuit Elizabeth: nunc est regina Jacobus—”Elizabeth was King: now James is Queen.”

There’s more about the private life of the man who gave his name to the King James Bible here.

• Addams and Evil, a Tumblr devoted to the great Charles Addams.

• Hannes Bok again at Golden Age Comic Book Stories.

• Caravaggio’s crimes exposed in Rome’s police files.

• Deserted City, photographs by Kim Høltermand.

• The blue sand dunes of the planet Mars.

• A map of the ghost signs of Chicago.

• The movie title stills collection.

• The pitfalls of e-book buying.

• Life On Mars? (1971) by David Bowie | Uncle Sam’s On Mars (1979) by Hawkwind | Eyes On Mars (1980) by Chrome | Cache Coeur Naif (1997) by Mouse on Mars.

The art of Ron Rodgers

Century of Progress.

While the web has given many artists a visibility they wouldn’t have had in the past, too many artists’ sites are blighted by the dreaded “Artist’s statement” in which people who express themselves visually are forced to try and articulate for the paying customers what it is they’re doing with all this art stuff. Nowhere will you find anyone saying “I don’t know what I’m doing” or “I do this because I’m compelled to but don’t know why” or even “I do this to make a living”. All too often what you get is a rifle through the favourite jargon phrases of the social sciences where the polysyllabic words seem important but are as worn out and redundant as any of the examples George Orwell complained about sixty years ago in ‘Politics and the English Language‘.

All of which is a very long-winded and polemical way of saying I loved Ron Rodgers’ artist’s statement:

“That’s what his stare has been saying to me all this time:
‘At least I galloped – when did you?'”
– Peter Shaffer, from “Equus”

Here’s hoping more artists follow his example. There’s more of his art at the Glass Garage Gallery. Via Monsieur Thombeau who has a knack for finding good things.

Phoenix.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Geoffrey Haberman’s brass insects
• The art of Arnaldo Pomodoro
• The art of Sergei Aparin
• Sculptural collage: Eduardo Paolozzi
• The art of Igor Mitoraj

Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration #8

Continuing the delve into back numbers of Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, the German periodical of art and decoration. Volume 8 covers the period from April–September 1901 and continues to use the ornamental capitals by Karl Lürtzing featured in the previous volume. In this edition the emphasis is predominately upon the Darmstadt Artists’ Colony, a remarkable venture in which many of the artists involved designed and decorated their own houses, the intention being to create living examples of the Jugendstil, or German Art Nouveau, style. This is explored in greater detail in the next volume but for now I’ve chosen a selection of work by Darmstadt artist Paul Bürck. As usual, anyone wishing to see these samples in greater detail, or the rest of the edition, is advised to download the entire volume at the Internet Archive. There’ll be more DK&D next week.

These peacock border designs are uncredited but they show how flexible the ubiquitous fin de siècle bird could be. The last page gives us something unique: an ape in peacock finery.

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