“Can desire, the anticipation of pleasure, ever truly be photographed? No one has done it as well as Chas Ray Krider, and no one has equaled his blend of salaciousness and subtlety.” — Esparbec, writer, Paris 2007
A new book by “Motel Fetish” Chas Ray Krider
Chas has a blog with photos like this one. His latest book, Do not Disturb, was published by French imprint/bookseller La Musardine. For a good Esparbec cover, click here.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4wyQCD70sQ&]
Truman Capote/Andy Warhol with the Rolling Stones
Yesterday evening, after visiting friends who provided me with a Joe Sarnoesque [1] experience of suburban want and need in the Antwerp district of the Tentoonstellingslaan, I finished my viewing of Capote, which sheds light on the nature of fiction and modern writing. The key to the film is in its final five minutes where Truman Capote contends that there was nothing he could have done to save the life of the murderers, but as Nelle (Christine Keener, who I recently admired in Friends with Money, a portrayal of American depression) responds, he did not want to do that. Implied is that he did not want to save the murderers for the sake of his book In Cold Blood and in fact, put his own life to a perverted use subjugated to the pursuit of writing fiction. (see semi-autobiographical and autofiction.)
Madam Satan American poster
I love apparent antonyms and verbal incongruities combined in one little phrase, tucked close to each other as tiny juxtapoems.
Two examples that come to mind are Madam Satan and Monsieur Vénus.
I’ve mentioned Monsieur Vénus before.
Today, a little about Madam Satan.
The film came first my attention via the French poster depicted at the now offline French site Fantasfilm.com dedicated to “le fantastique” in film. The superb dress was designed by Adrian.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMjAhtsqxvw]
Watch out honey, you’ll get burned.
Don’t worry, my heart is made of asbestos.
Sensuality (1891) – Franz von Stuck
Although a mediocre painter at best and deservedly one of the minor figures in European fin de siècle Symbolism, there are two paintings by Franz Von Stuck that I like: Salome, which I “exhibited” here, and Sensuality (pictured above) . In Sensuality, the image of the serpent as phallus is left in little doubt and shows an enormous python-like creature passing between the legs of a nude woman. The serpent’s head rests on the woman’s right shoulder; both the serpent and the woman gaze at the viewer. There are obvious connections to the tentacle eroticism trope.
Previous entries in Icons of Erotic Art here, and in a Wiki format here.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwaPJUtZBYc&]
Tokyo Decadence (1992) – Ryu Murakami
This is a film I chose in the mid 1990s at the video store because of its cover, not being familiar at the time with the work of Murakami (Coin Locker Babies). The key scenes are four sex scenes (see more at the wiki). Three out of these heavily feature drugs. The most exquisite one, featured in the Youtube remix above, is soundtracked by Xavier Cugat music. The audio used in this particular Youtube remix is not included in the original film. I wonder what the music is. Anyone? (De temps en temps is a song (André Hornez / Paul Misraki) voiced by Josephine Baker.)
The film’s only rival in terms of my favourite film of the 1990s is the Japanese film Audition, which is also written by Murakami.
Previous “World Cinema Classics” and in the Wiki format here.
Zygotic Acceleration, Biogenetic, De-Sublimated Libidinal Model (Enlarged x 1000) (1995) [1] is a sculpture by Jake and Dinos Chapman. It depicts lifesize fibreglass mannequins of children with genital organs of both sexes attached to their faces. It was shown at the Sensation exhibition in 1997, along with Great Deeds Against the Dead.
Sexual organs attached to faces is something I have been pondering on for as long as I can remember. What would have been the solution of the human race if this had been the case? How would we have covered the “pubic” area? How would lovemaking have looked like? This work by the Chapmans is remarkable, as is much of their other work. No doubt they are one of the most interesting contemporary artists.
In case you have been wondering why I only link to the pictures in this series, instead of showing the artworks in-line, the answer is that I keep a strict copyright policy after having had a run-in with my local copyright enforcement agency, SABAM, about two years ago. Since then, I only publish artworks by artists who have been dead for more than seventy years. Such is the law in Belgium. Belgian copyright law is even so strict that it prohibits to show photographs of buildings.
I find the use of mannequins in contemporary art very appealing, other works which have used this form are Chair, Table and Hat Stand by Allen Jones and Great Deeds Against the Dead, also by the Chapmans.
Previous entries in Icons of Erotic Art here, and in a Wiki format here.
The Eroticist (Image sourced here)
The Eroticist is a 1972 Italian film by Lucio Fulci about a government official who suffers from frotteurism. Lucio Fulci (1927 – 1996) was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is best known for his directorial work on some of the goriest horror films ever made, although he made films in genres as diverse as erotic films, giallo, western, and comedy. He is also known for his use of enigmatic titles such as Don’t Torture a Duckling.
Previous entries in this series.
Pornokrates (1879) – Félicien Rops
Few things are sexier than a blindfolded woman. I was 20 or 21, I was in Brussels with Ilse and her friends. We were — I think — in the Agora galleries. Suddenly I spotted this painting on a poster on a shop door. I was stunned. The blindfold, the stockings, the shoes, the pig, the gloves. As I mentioned in my previous post, few works of erotic art can be used for masturbatory purposes. Neither can this painting, but its theatricality sets a mood, engenders expectations and hints at hidden desires. Painted 128 years ago, this work set standards which few other paintings will transgress.
Rops in a letter to a friend:
“My Pornocratie is complete. This drawing delights me. I would like to show you this beautiful naked girl, clad only in black shoes and gloves in silk, leather and velvet, her hair styled. Wearing a blindfold she walks on a marble stage, guided by a pig with a “golden tail” across a blue sky. Three loves – ancient loves – vanish in tears (…) I did this in four days in a room of blue satin, in an overheated apartment, full of different smells, where the opopanax and cyclamen gave me a slight fever conducive towards production or even towards reproduction”. –Letter from Rops to Henri Liesse, 1879.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=791oBsaXEk4]
Via sensOtheque comes the above vintage style series of risqué photos by Bob Carlos Clarke from a version of the book Delta of Venus, set to “You Do Something To Me” by Marlene Dietrich recorded in 1939.
Bob Carlos Clarke was good friends with the artist Allen Jones. They shared the same interest in rubber fetishism and sexual objectification [1] and Clarke also re-interpreted the table sculpture of Jones’s 1969 Chair, Table and Hat Stand in 1987 with Many Nights and in 2004 with the piece Total Control.
Also check the Allen Jones category at the excellent blog “lemateurdart”.
To conclude, a 2002 photograph [3] of Allen Jones’s table sculpture.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfSdXK5sMM4]
The Night Porter (1974) – Liliana Cavani
The trailer features the bunker-cabaret scene with Greta Keller’s ‘Wenn ich mir was wünschen dürfte’ [Youtube] played in the background and Charlotte Rampling in a strange striptease. It’s the most memorable scene of the film. Greta Keller’s song is one of soothing melancholy.
Update: SensOtheque elaborates.
![[3]](http://www.sudsandsoda.com/notes/allen_jones.jpg){kind=link}