Category Archives: art

Guy Peellaert (1934 – 2008)

Guy Peellaert (April 6 1934 in Brussels, Belgium, 17 November 2008, Paris) is a Belgian artist, graphic designer, painter and photographer, best-known for his vinyl album cover designs of the 1960s and 1970s, such as Diamond Dogs by David Bowie.

He debuted as a theater set designer but first made his mark as comic book creator. His style was evidently inspired by the psychedelic and Pop art aesthetics celebrated in the 1960s (see Hapshash and the Coloured Coat in the UK).

From : Rock Dreams, Albin Michel, Paris,1974

[Amazon.com]
[FR] [DE] [UK]

His graphic novel Les aventures de Jodelle appeared in Hara-Kiri. Éric Losfeld published it in book version in 1966. The heroine protagonist Jodelle was styled after French singer Sylvie Vartan). Peellaert followed up with a second version, co-written with Pascal Thomas for a new heroine, Pravda, la survireuse (this time the French singer Françoise Hardy served as a model). 35 years later, the couturier Jean-Charles de Castelbajac would use the imagery of Pravda and Jodelle for his collection Physical graffiti in 2001.

Most recently, Peellaert did a series of photo-collages on Belgian popular music for Belgian magazine Focus Knack.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmtD6dkwZqI]

Jeu de massacre by Alain Jessua

He also designed the French Pop art film Jeu de massacre film by Alain Jessua, with music by The Alan Bown Set.

Joris Ivens @110

Misère au Borinage

Joris Ivens (1898–1989) was a Dutch documentary filmmaker and devout communist. He is internationally known as a foremost documentarist of the early twentieth century, noted for his co-direction of the political film Misère au Borinage, which I had the pleasure of screening in class last year.

Borinage is noteworthy in media theory because it proves the inherent ficticiousness of the documentary film.

Like most documentaries, it mixes reality and fiction, and in this case, contrary to authorial intention. For the film, the two directors had arranged a manifestation with extras from the Borinage. The miners were to walk behind a portrait of Karl Marx. The police mistook it for a real manifestation, they intervened and the “protest” was dispersed. This was filmed by Ivens and Storck.

It would cause Walter Benjamin to write in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction:

“Similarly, the newsreel offers everyone the opportunity to rise from passer-by to movie extra. In this way any man might even find himself part of a work of art, as witness Vertov‘s Three Songs About Lenin or Ivens Borinage.”

Foretelling Andy Warhol’s famous 15 minutes dictum, Benjamin added that “Any man today can lay claim to being filmed.”

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4mvpRDp6wk&]

Rain, accompanied by unknown beats.

If Borinage is a Blakean dystopian “and did those feet” anti-industrialization document, Ivens also made Rain, a much more impressionist affair, generally considered a “city symphony,” a loosely outlined genre typified by Manhatta (1921) and Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt, (1927).

There was a tremendous fascination with the metropolis, the big city during the 1920s and 1930s, dubbed fittingly for this context, as the Machine Age. Mostly associated with visual culture such as the decorative style Art Deco, the arts movement Cubism, Streamline Moderne appliance design and architecture and Bauhaus style; there were also the films including Chaplin’s Modern Times and Lang’s Metropolis.

Often overlooked are the “city novels,” mostly labeled a modernist subgenre but in reality as old as the novels of Charles Dickens. For our purpose I include Rainer Maria Rilke’s The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (1910), John Dos Passos‘s Manhattan Transfer (1925), Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929), James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) and T. S. Eliot’s vision of London in The Waste Land (1922). Especially John Dos Passos‘s Manhattan Transfer (1925) is of importance here as it offers the most positive view of the dynamics of speed, the modern way of life and the unavoidable fragmentation of existence.

While writing this post, the painting below was constantly on my mind. Paris in the rain. That why Paris invented arcades, and Benjamin could write about the romantic mediatic aspects of the city.

Gustave Caillebotte: Urban Impressionist (1995) – Anne Distel
[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

François Caradec (1924 – 2008)

François Caradec is dead. “Oh no,” shouts Jane Avril

“We’ll see about that,” says the café concert visitor

“It’s not a farce,” says the book that ought to know

François Caradec (Quimper, 1924 – November 13, 2008) was a French 20th century writer, biographer and historian of French popular culture and the history of the comic book in particular. He was a member of the Oulipo and a regent in the Collège de ’Pataphysique. He is the co-author of the history of farces, Encyclopédie des farces et attrapes et des mystifications.[1].

He wrote biographies on Lautréamont, Alfred Jarry, Raymond Roussel (translated by Ian Monk for Atlas Press), Alphonse Allais, Henry Gauthier-Villars, Le Pétomane and Jane Avril.

Mitch Mitchell (1947 – 2008)

RIP Mitch Mitchell

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmFhgpL_rQY]

“Voodoo Child (Slight Return)“

John “Mitch” Mitchell (July 9, 1947 November 12, 2008) was an English drummer, best-known for his membership in The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Mitchell was known for his work on such songs as “Manic Depression” (a 3/4 rock waltz that finds Mitch playing a driving afro-cuban inspired beat), “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)“[1], “Fire” and “Voodoo Chile” (a deep blues groove with subtle hi-hat). Mitchell came from a jazz background and like many of his drummer contemporaries was strongly influenced by the work of Elvin Jones, Max Roach, and Joe Morello.

Mitchell pioneered a style of drumming which would later become known as jazz fusion. Alongside Hendrix’s revolutionary guitar work and songwriting, Mitchell’s playing helped redefine rock music drumming.

Electric Ladyland cover, photo by David Montgomery

The death of Mitch gives me the opportunity to discuss the photo on Electric Ladyland, one of my alltime favourite record covers. The photo depicts nineteen nude women lounging in front of a black background.

“The cover was put together by Chris Stamp and Track Records art director David King while Hendrix was in the US. Stamp sent King and photographer David Montgomery down to the Speakeasy to round up some girls, with the brief to make them look like “real people. At £5 a head (or £10 with their knickers off) this sounds like authentic Stamp.” —33⅓ on Electric Ladyland by John Perry [2].

One of the 19 girls, Reine Sutcliffe, told the music paper Melody Maker:

“It makes us look like a load of old tarts. It’s rotten. Everyone looked great but the picture makes us look old and tired. We were trying to look too sexy, but it didn’t work out.”

British visual culture connoisseur Stephen Bayley adds:

“The concept was fully in accordance with the spirit of the Sixties: at the same time Harry Peccinotti and David Hillman had done a memorable photo feature for Nova magazine” –The Independent on Sunday, July 16, 2006 by Stephen Bayley [3]

I’m afraid I can’t agree with miss Sutcliffe on this matter. I find the realism in this photo not enticing but more than fascinating nonetheless, though I also admit I empathize about denying her five minutes of glamourous fame.

Introducing Adventures in the Print Trade

Introducing Adventures in the Print Trade [1] by British writer Neil Philip, who currently has a post on Degenerate Art during Nazism, a fave subject of mine, illustrating the beneficial side effects of censorship best illustrated by Lichtenberg:

“The book which most deserved to be banned would be a catalogue of banned books.” —Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Aphorisms (G 37 in R. J. Hollingdale‘s translation and numeration)

Neil, author of Adventures in the Print Trade, begins his post thus:

“In 1929, the artist Richard Lindner, whose work can be considered the bridge between Cubism, Surrealism, and Pop Art, was appointed art director of the Munich publishing house of Knorr and Hir. Lindner remembered, “I saw Hitler every day in Munich at the Café Heck, a small café with about ten tables and thirty seats… Hitler used to sit there every day at his usual table. Our table was beside his and we knew each other because we avoided direct contact… He always wanted to be with artists.”[2]

The Window, 1958 Original lithograph by Richard Lindner [3]

Child’s Head, 1939 Original lithograph by Paul Klee [4]

Le Jardin d’Amour, 1981 Original silkscreen by Herbert von Arend [5]

Aus de Walpurgisnacht, 1923 Original woodcut by Ernst Barlach [6]

Woodcut for 10 Origin, 1942 Original woodcut by Wassily Kandinsky [7]

Untitled, 1979 Original lithograph by Boris Herbert Kleint [8]

Maschinenwerkstätte, 1921 Original lithograph by Lili Réthi [9]

Fabulously original, my only and usual gripe is that, art blogs should use Flickr or a similar service.

Introducing Henri/y Gerbault

Introducing Henri Gerbault

I’m just a jealous guy

Henry Gerbault (June 24, 1863– October 19 1930), also spelled Henri Gerbault was a French illustrator and poster artist. He was a student of Henri Gervex. He was the nephew of Sully Prudhomme.

Poster for the Théatre Libre

The Théâtre Libre (French, Free Theater) was a theater founded by André Antoine that operated from 1887 to 1896 in Paris, France. Théâtre Libre was also the name of a European theatrical movement which celebrated Naturalist theatre and defied theatre censorship by founding subscription-based theatres. In London there was the Independent Theatre Society, which debuted the plays of George Bernard Shaw; and Germany had the Freie Bühne. Henrik Ibsen‘s Ghosts was the landmark play for all of these theatres. —Sholem Stein

His œuvre was dedicated to humourist drawings and illustrations. He illustrated authors such as Félicien Champsaur, Charles Perrault and Marcel Prévost.

He worked for numerous illustrated journals of the Belle Époque: La Vie Parisienne, Le Journal amusant, Le Rire, L’Amour, where he was noted for his voluptuous women.

Nobrow manifesto #3

A day at De Slegte and I like Stupid Things

French Undressing – Naughty Postcards from 1900 to 1920,

L’age d’or de la carte postale and

Kaarten.

I went to De Slegte and found French Undressing by Paul Hammond, along with the previously acquired L’age d’or de la carte postale and Kaarten, a good start for a bibliography regarding postcards, and certainly naughty postcards.

Paul Hammond is a cultural critic on a pair with Colin Wilson, Ado Kyrou and Greil Marcus, to name but a few. He wrote The Shadow and its Shadow (2000) and Marvellous Méliès (1974).

On the first page of French Undressing Hammond quotes from Rimbaud‘s A Season in Hell (“The Alchemy Of The Word“), possibly the earliest defense of popular culture/mass culture. Such a defense always comes from an intellectual, and thus qualifies as a nobrow manifesto, possibly the first of its kind (see prev. once below). I include it here as Nobrow manifesto #3.

“For a long time I boasted that I was master of all possible landscapes– and I thought the great figures of modern painting and poetry were laughable.

What I liked were: absurd paintings, pictures over doorways, stage sets, carnival backdrops, billboards, bright-colored prints, old-fashioned literature, church Latin, erotic books full of misspellings, the kind of novels our grandmothers read, fairy tales, little children’s books, old operas, silly old songs, the naïve rhythms of country rimes.” –Translation Paul Schmidt

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWrFUR_CF6c]

Here is a spoken word version of “The Alchemy Of The Word.”

What else did I buy at De Slegte? A silly volume on Baudrillard (pictured below) and an issue of Le Magazine Littéraire dedicated to drug lit, entitled La littérature et la drogue[1] and The Quincunx (I’ve enjoyed this one while on holiday in Malaysia (Tioman Island) twenty years ago).

I did not buy A Humument, Will Self‘s Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys, Le Fantastique dans l’art Flamand by Paul Fierens, Catalog of Unfindable Objects by Carelman, Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavic and Eros du dimanche by Anatole Jakovsky.

P. S. Previous nobrow manifestos included Sontag’s The Pornographic Imagination [2] and Fiedler’s “Cross the Border — Close the Gap” [3]

On the nature of guilty pleasures

Mondo Cane (1962) – Paolo Cavara, Gualtiero Jacopetti, Franco E. Prosperi

Having recently received comments by Lichanos and o. h. about the validity of guilty pleasure as a separate cultural category I show the film above, Mondo Cane (1962), by Gualtiero Jacopetti and his colleague whose name escapes me at this time.

I always feel tempted instead of arguing to cite a collection of words and concepts which will tautologically exlain the concept. I will not resist the temptation now. Here they come:

bad taste – camp – kitsch – “low culture” – trash – taboo

I continue:

See also: “body” genres” – bread and circuses – “low” art – lowbrow (American art movement) – working class culture – culture – folk culture – popular culture

Related by connotation: artificial – bad taste – basic instinct – camp – cheap – commercial – conventional – common – derivative – entertaining – ephemera – exploitation – formulaic – low budget – lurid – mass – ordinary – pop – popular – proletariat – prurient – sensationalism – scatology – shocking – stereotype – trash – under-the-counter – underground – vulgar

Contrast: “high” culture

See also: low modernism

In film: B-movies – exploitation films – grindhouse films – paracinema – television – video nasties – violent films

In print: comics – escapist fiction – dime novels – genre fiction – men’s magazines – paraliterature – popular fiction – pulp fiction – yellow journalism

In music: disco – house – music hall – popular music – pop music –

In the visual realm: advertising – applied arts – caricature – decorative arts – design – graffiti – kitsch

In performing arts: burlesque – circus – peepshow – striptease – vaudeville –

By genre: adventure – “body” genres – carnival – comedy – horror – melodrama – pornography – romance

Perhaps one day I will put all of the above words in the right order, divide them into chapters, add adjectives, conjunctions, phrases and clauses and page numbers.

Furthermore, guilty pleasures are marketing categories (see the Foute CD products in the Dutch-speaking region), and marketing categories are the strongest indication of genre identity.

Notice that all links go to Jahsonic.com pages, a project which was from the outset a “guilty pleasure” in nature and purpose.

Questions of color fidelity on the internet

One often does not have a clue of the colors of painted artworks if one is an internet connoisseur. By internet connoisseur I mean someone who has gained most of his/her expertise from the internet rather than traditional media. Questions of color fidelity on the internet should be raised here.

Before October 30, 2008 the only version known to me of Géricault’s Kleptomaniac was this one:

Kleptomaniac, 1822 painting by Théodore Géricault

Compare this photo taken at its current location here:

Kleptomaniac

The detail of the painting was taken with a Sony Ericsson K770i on last Thursday.

The Sony Ericsson is notorious for picking up an excess of blue, but still is a rather faithful reproduction.

Day of the Dead

Calavera de la Catrina (before 1913) by Posada

Fitting events on this day in history:

Day of the Dead
1755 – Lisbon earthquake: In Portugal, Lisbon is destroyed by a massive earthquake and tsunami, killing between sixty thousand and ninety thousand people.

250 anos #2 by bruce grant

Engraving of the Lisbon earthquake

1962 – Diabolik first published with the title Il re del terrore (in English: “The King of Terror”).

Cover of the first issue of Diabolik, start of the genre “fumetti neri”.