Three Heads Six Arms by Zhang Huan

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A new sculpture by Chinese artist Zhang Huan which was officially dedicated in San Francisco’s City Hall Plaza last week. The photo is by Flickr user David Dasinger and similar views can be found in this Flickr pool. Huan’s copper figures may be intended to evoke Buddhist serenity but I can never see that plaza without remembering the horrible ending of Philip Kaufman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Three Heads Six Arms is part of a series of monumental works depicting the fragmented extremities of Buddhist statues. The series was inspired by Zhang’s discovery of religious sculptures that had been destroyed during the Cultural Revolution for sale in a Tibetan market. (More.)

Via Erik Davis.

Previously on { feuilleton }
The art of Arnaldo Pomodoro
Sculptural collage: Eduardo Paolozzi
Dead monuments
The art of Igor Mitoraj

New things for April II

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Another work-related update. This HP Lovecraft collection is published by Barnes & Noble next month and features my colour rendering of the rising monstrosity on its cover. Nice to have something decorating an actual Lovecraft book, the second time this has happened (first time was for a French volume). B&N also sell my own book, of course (with, er…the same cover pic).

And another shout-out, for a preview of Arik Roper‘s new book, Mushroom Magick: A Visionary Field Guide, at Abrams. Read an extract from Erik Davis’s introduction here.

Via Further.

Previously on { feuilleton }
The art of Arik Roper

Welcome to Mars

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Arriving today—and barely surviving the postman’s attempts to cram it through the letterbox—is the latest volume from Strange Attractor, Welcome to Mars by Ken Hollings. I’m really looking forward to reading this since it touches on areas of interest which span the development of Cold War technologies to pulp science fiction, examining the interconnections between these disparate zones; most histories of the period prefer to stay in one area or the other. A glance at the chapter titles immediately pushes my buttons: “1947 Rebuilding Lemuria”, “1951 Absolute Elsewhere”. If all that wasn’t enough there’s an intro by Erik Davis and the first 250 copies come with a CD of “classy analogue Outer Space exotica” by Simon James. Order from the SA Shoppe and get a free postcard!

Welcome to Mars is a map of the post-war Zone, a non-fiction Gravity’s Rainbow that follows the arc of Germany’s V2 rocket to the end of the rainbow – to America.’ Erik Davis

Welcome to Mars is an iconoclastic, penetrating and darkly humorous history of America from 1947-1959, the decade in which the nation defined its image and created the blueprint for the world we live in today.

Welcome To Mars draws upon newspaper accounts, advertising campaigns, declassified government archives, old movies and newsreels from this unique period when the future first took on a tangible presence. Ken Hollings depicts an unsettled time in which the layout of Suburbia reflected atomic bombing strategies, bankers and movie stars experimented with hallucinogens, brainwashing was just another form of interior decoration and strange lights in the sky were taken very seriously indeed.

Seamlessly interweaving developments in technology, popular culture, politics, changes in home life, the development of the self, collective fantasy and overwhelming paranoia, Hollings has produced an alarming and often hysterically funny vision of the past that would ultimately govern all of our futures.

“Ken Hollings shows brilliantly how the extraordinary web of technologies that drove the Cold War have shaped not just our culture but the very way we think of ourselves as human beings. Welcome to Mars offers a rare and fascinating glimpse of the roots of the strange humanoid culture we live in today.” Adam Curtis

‘Ken Hollings has placed his critical focus at the precise point where the high technologies of information control and social manipulation intersect the passionate search for scientific ways to probe the human mind. Welcome to Mars is a searingly accurate and deeply disturbing exposé of the fantasies of American modernism that have inspired the many nightmares and the few hopeful visions of our new Millennium.’ Dr Jacques Vallée

Previously on { feuilleton }
SAJ again
Strange Attractor Journal Three
How to make crop circles

Arthur #31

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Cover photography by Lisa Law, design by Alia Penner.

It was only a few months ago that Arthur Magazine was struggling to stay afloat in a nation swimming in inflated wealth. How quickly things change… Arthur #31 is available right now as a free PDF download while those in the US can pick up the paper edition (free!) at the best kind of record stores, coffee houses and Wall Street soup kitchens. Or be the envy of your friends by taking out a subscription. Douglas Rushkoff’s take on the credit crisis can also be read here.

Author Trinie Dalton traveled into the wilds of New Mexico to live with psychedelic earthers BRIGHTBLACK MORNING LIGHT for two days. Sublimity ensued. Here’s what happened. With photography by Lisa Law.

Douglas Rushkoff: The mortgage and credit crisis wasn’t merely predictable; it was predicted. And not by a market bear or conspiracy theorist, but by the people and institutions responsible. Illustration by Arik Moonhawk Roper.

Dave Reeves: Having doubts about Iraq? America’s victory is Infinite. Just have a look at Vietnam…

Molly Frances on all sorts of delights in, from, or about Los Angeles—from Wallace Berman, Velaslavasay Panorama and Lily Tomlin in The Late Show to Show Cave, Nite Jewel and the new Flying Lotus album. Plus other, non-geographically specific stuff.

On May 10, 1968 SLY & THE FAMILY STONE opened two shows for THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE at the Fillmore East in New York City. Artist/scholar Plastic Crimewave reports on this extraordinary, little-known moment in American countercultural history.

Greg Shewchuk: What is it about skateboarding that makes kids willing to break laws in order to do it? Illustration by Joseph Remnant.

Nance Klehm: What to do with the nuts, seeds and berries you can find while foraging in the urban jungle. Illustration by Makeswell.

The Center for Tactical Magic: Do the ends ever justify the magic(k)? Illustration by Cassandra Chae.

Erik Davis: Is the “planetary consciousness” of neotribal psytrance gatherings like Portugal’s Boom festival just window dressing for the same old hedonism and escapism—or could it actually be what it says it is?

A centerfold of new ARTHUR COMICS by Jeffrey Brown, Charles Burns, Al Columbia,

P.W.E., Simon Evans, Matt Furie, Tom Gauld, Lisa Hanawalt, Joseph Hanks, Tim Hensley, Ted May, Anders Nilsen, Laura Park, Helge Reumann, Souther Salazar, Julia Wertz and Dan Zettwoch. Edited by Buenaventura Press.

STYLE: Annakim Violette, glampire vamp, tells an arachnid tale from a rainbow’s underbelly. Styled by Miss KK, with photography and design by Alia Penner.

BYRON COLEY & THURSTON MOORE review choice finds from the deep underground.

C and D let it rip about the Fela! musical, Hacienda, Megapuss, Little Joy, Kasai All-Stars, Grouper, Natacha Atlas, Matt Baldwin, Mercury Rev, Desolation Wilderness, Gang Gang Dance, Raglani, Jonas Reinhardt, Apse, and Eagles of Death Metal.

New things for November II

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It’s always nice when something you’ve worked on turns up in the post and there’s been a double helping of that this week with the arrival of the Chaoticum CD and the catalogue for the Maison D’Ailleurs exhibition. Since both of these are either partly or wholly connected to HP Lovecraft, their simultaneous arrival is fitting.

The CD is a digipak on textured art paper and another quality production from Horus CyclicDaemon. The exhibition catalogue manifested as a small hardback book which was a pleasant surprise, with the skull maze design blocked in silver on the cover. Each artist is allotted a single page and the book also includes some original fiction based on Lovecraft’s story notes by a number of well-known writers. My picture is rather shrunken the way it’s positioned across the centre of a page (would have been better running vertically) but then it was my decision to make it so wide in the first place.

The Chaoticum CD is limited to 500 copies and can be ordered here. The catalogue is available from Maison D’Ailleurs or the Payot Libraire bookstore for CHF 37.00 + p&p (or 38, depending on which page you look at).

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Also arriving this week is my illustration of ex-Sun City Girls guitarist Sir Richard Bishop for an Arthur Magazine interview by Erik Davis. Arthur #27 will be hitting the stands in the US and Canada shortly but for now you can download it in PDF form here.

Previously on { feuilleton }
Lovecraftian horror at Maison d’Ailleurs
New things for October