{surrealism} – Page 69 – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 33

Blue Sky Noise (2010) by Esao Andrews.

• Franz Xaver Messerschmidt is the first exhibition in the United States devoted exclusively to the 18th-century sculptor. Related: an earlier post about the artist’s work.

• How are the team behind War Horse planning to follow up their smash hit? With a gay love story performed by puppets. Related: Achilles (1995) by Barry JC Purves.

• More great posts at A Journey Round My Skull: Czechoslovakian Expose VI and Black Cradle of Bright Life, fifteen works by the Macedonian artist Vangel Naumovski (1924–2006).

• Top 10 Anti-Gay Activists Caught Being Gay. Related: “Fuck your feelings,” in which columnist Dan Savage gets righteously impatient when a correspondent complains. As Savage says, people who use their faith as a stick to beat gay people contribute to an atmosphere of intolerance in which kids are bullied for being gay (or appearing to be), or transgender, or merely different, and kill themselves as a result. Over the past couple of weeks there’s been an upsurge of US media attention to the most recent suicides; Savage inaugurated the It Gets Better project in order to help. Also related: God Loves Poetry.

Meigh (2010) by Esao Andrews.

• Antony Hegarty enthuses about Shoot Yer Load, one of the scurrilous 12″ singles released by my Savoy colleagues in the 1980s. Antony and the Johnsons have a new album out, Swanlights, on Secretly Canadian.

• When the future of music was a rainbow hued parabola: book designer John Gall collects old synthesizer manuals.

• Fantastic Memories (1944) by Maurice Sandoz, illustrated by Salvador Dalí.

• Urban optometry: life as a London crane operator at BLDGBLOG.

• Today is 10/10/10 which means it’s Powers of Ten Day.

• These New Puritans: a band like no other.

• Art Nouveau: a virtual exhibition.

• Diaghilev: Lord of the dance.

• Flaming Telepaths (1974) by Blue Öyster Cult; Flaming Telepaths (2005) by Espers.

The art of Ignacio Goitia

Pasión por Canaletto (2005).

Ignacio Goitia is a Spanish artist whose depictions of opulent aristocracy manage to be subversively homoerotic thanks to the addition of figures we can interpret as boyfriends, sex slaves or wish-fulfilling phantasms; Ludwig II would no doubt approve of the sentiment even if he disagreed with some of the decor. Goitia’s art increases the Surrealist incongruity in other paintings with a preponderance of giraffes, although none of them appear to be burning à la Dalí. You’ll have to browse his galleries to see how he uses them.

Another Thombeau tip—thanks Tom!

Royal couple (2010).

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Schloss Neuschwanstein

Yuri Yakovenko bookplates

Yet more bookplates, discovered whilst browsing the wealth of material at this Japanese site recommended by Andy Paciorek. Belarus artist Yuri Yakovenko’s name is given a number of spellings on various sites so I’ve gone with the one from a Belarus art page since they can be presumed to know best how to label their fellow artists. Yakovenko’s hyper-detailed, occult-inflected brand of Surrealist imagery is so striking you have to wonder why his work hasn’t gained more visibility. Is it because the contemporary Ex Libris print world appears to be a self-contained zone within the wider art market? Whatever the answer, this is a region worthy of further investigation.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The etching and engraving archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Tranquillo Marangoni bookplates
• Book-plates of To-day
• Louis Rhead bookplates
• Pratt Libraries Ex Libris Collection
• The Evil Orchid Bookplate Contest
• The art of Oleg Denysenko
• David Becket’s bookplates

Weekend links 28

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The Expansion of the First Great Ornamental Age: 3 Distances (2009) by Seher Shah.

• Great Female Artists? Think Karachi. “One reason for the unusually high ratio of female artists in Pakistan has to do with the fact that the art industry has not traditionally been viewed as a lucrative business by men, says South Asian art historian Savita Apte, who administers the internationally renowned Abraaj Capital Art Prize. Until very recently, creatively inclined males tended to focus on fields such as advertising or illustration, leaving the art field wide open for some very talented women.” Related: artist Seher Shah (and also here).

• Hardformat looks at the luxury/collectors/whatever edition of the forthcoming Brian Eno album. “What’s the music like?” Colin asks. Indeed.

• Strange Flowers is “a celebration of the most extraordinary, eccentric and unfairly forgotten figures of the past 200 years”.

• Warsaw Warble: Illustration and design in Poland, 1917 to 1938. More marvels from A Journey Round My Skull.

• Strange Attractor hosts talks at London’s Little Shoppe of Horrors throughout the autumn.

• Barney Bubbles in Mojo and more details of the new edition of Paul Gorman’s BB book.

• A blog devoted to all things having to do with Howard Pyle (1853–1911).

• Erik Davis on Dreaming, Writing, Philip K Dick and Lovecraft.

• 10 Reading Revolutions Before E-Books.

• Secular Exorcisms by Evan J Peterson.

• RIP Jean Benoît.

• Street haikus.

• I Put A Spell On You (1965) by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins; I Put A Spell On You (1965) by Nina Simone; I Put A Spell On You (2001) by Natacha Atlas.

Naked Bodies, Naked Souls and Mind Pixels

Pictures by Daniel Barkley (left) and John Dugdale (right).

Two exhibitions worthy of note for those in the New York area. Jan Kapera of JKK Fine Arts notified me about a new show he’s curated, Naked Bodies, Naked Souls, currently running at the Loft Gallery in the Delaware Arts Center,
Narrowsburg, NY.

The realm of ‘Naked Bodies, Naked Souls’ is a very private, personal world; a world of artists’ secrets, dreams, feelings, and deepest emotions,” says curator Kapera. “They have expressed the unexpressed—they have found the way to show spiritual and mystical states of soul in dream-like, symbolic images.

This exhibit features the work of 16 international artists: Daniel Barkley (Canadian), Luigi Casalino (Italian), Joanna Chrobak (Polish), John Dugdale (American, NYC), Barbara Falender (Polish), Michel Henricot (French), Michael Kuch (American, MA), Tom Misztal (American, OR), Aleksandra Nowak (American, NJ), Darek Nowakowski (American, NYC), Egidijus Rudinskas (Lithuanian), Krzysztof Skorczewski (Polish), Lubomir Tomaszewski (American, CT), David Vance (American, FL), Damian Wojtowicz (Polish), and Piotr Woroniec (Polish). (More.)

Naked Bodies, Naked Souls runs to September 4, 2010. Thanks to Jan for the photos!

Water Spike (2003) by Daina Krumins.

And by chance this weekend I happened to see news of a forthcoming exhibition of work by artist and filmmaker Daina Krumins, Mind Pixels, at the Barron Arts Center, Woodbridge, NJ.

The Barron Arts Center is located at 582 Rahway Avenue in Woodbridge. Admission is free and everyone is welcome to attend. The “Mind Pixels” exhibition features photomontages, sculpture and films by surrealistic artist Daina Krumins. The exhibit opens on Aug. 21 and runs until Sept. 15. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday 2-4 p.m. The public is also invited to attend the opening reception on Sunday, Aug. 22 from 2-4 p.m. Light refreshments will be served and reservations are suggested. (More.)

As part of the exhibition three of Krumins’ very strange animated films will be given a rare screening this Thursday, August 26. One of the three is Babobilicons, her epic filming of the activity of slime moulds and stinkhorn mushrooms. I’ve been intrigued by the sound of this for several years (see an earlier post about the film) but have yet to see it so anyone in Woodbridge is in a fortunate position this week.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Babobilicons by Daina Krumins
• Saint Sebastian in NYC