Category Archives: experimental

The tragedienne of strippers

Rita Renoir 2

Rita Renoir, stripteaseuse and intellectual

Rita Renoir was/is a French nude model, actress and ‘art’ stripteaseuse, known in Paris as the “tragedian of strippers.” She was mainly active in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s along with an ‘elite’ of European stripteaseuses with exotic names as Lady Chinchilla, Rita Hymalaya, Rafa Temporel, Dodo d’Hamburg, Poupée la Rose, Bonita Super, Véronique, Truda, Lova Moor, Bettina Uranium, Sofia Palladium, and Rosa Fumetto.

Her first ‘serious’ work was with the happenings and mise-en-scènes of Jean-Jacques Lebel (Picasso‘s Le désir attrapé par la queue), and her first critical success was in the film Les Immortelles by Bourgeade. She also starred in Pierre Koralnik‘s film Cannabis.

She also worked with Michel Simon and starred in The Red Desert as Emilia.

She played herself in Sois belle et tais-toi.

Freddy de Vree wrote an article about her, so did Julio Cortazar (Homenaje a una joven bruja).

Any extra info is more than welcome.

Genetologic Research, Very Short Novels and Cinema 299

I am not particularly a fan of “internet memes“, the internet equivalent of chain letters. The “Thinking Blogger Award” is a case in mind which was analyzed most satisfactory by Surreal Documents. However, the current meme started by Broken Projector in response to the work of David B Dale is too good to ignore. Apparently, Gautam of Broken Projector discovered Very Short Novels, an experiment in constrained writing by David B Dale, and liked it so much that he decided to write a 299-word piece on cinema, called Cinema 299. David D Bale responded by writing Surprise Ending, a “very short novel” on cinema, making the circle complete.

From memes to genes is a small step, I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce the work of Maarten Vanden Eynde and Koen Vanmechelen.

Genetologic Research is a blog by Belgian/Dutch artist Maarten Vanden Eynde, subtitled “The Science of First Things”. Randomly picked, interesting posts include Mice and Men, Black Hole House, and The Cosmopolitan Chicken, a work by Belgian artist Koen Vanmechelen who cross-breeds chickens. His work is currently on display at the Verbeke Foundation.

P. S. Although I stated that I am not a big fan of internet memes, I was very proud and honored to receive the “Thinking Blogger Award” in the past from Tales from the Reading Room, Beyond Groovy Age and Tim Lucas.

On whimsy and monochromatics

Combat de nègres dans une cave pendant la nuit

My previous post on Cohl led me to the French avant-garde of the 1880s and 1890s. Above is what is now generally held to be the first monochrome painting, rendered here in an appropriated version by Allais.

Here is the background:

Paul Bilhaud (born in Allichamps, December 31, 1854 – Avon, 1933) was a French poet and dramatist who belonged to the avant-garde group the Incoherents. He is the author of an all-black painting called Negroes Fighting in a Cellar at Night.

On October 1 1882 the “Exposition des Arts Incohérents” in Paris featured a black painting by the poet Paul Bilhaud titled Combat de nègres dans une cave pendant la nuit, which was appropriated in 1887 by the French humorist Alphonse Allais, in an album of monochrome pictures of various colors, with uniformly ornamental frames, each bearing a comical title. Allais called his all-red painting Tomato Harvest by Apoplectic Cardinals on the Shore of the Red Sea.

Negroes Fighting in a Cellar at Night predates Malevich‘s, Black Square on a White Field by 31 years.

Compiling this documentation, I stumbled on Il Giornale Nuovo’s post on Allais: Primo-Avrilesque and on Monochrome (une enquête) by L’Alamblog.

Wet Dream Film Festivals

Poster for first the Wet Dream Film Festival (1970) in Amsterdam

At the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s, Amsterdam was somewhat of a countercultural capital. It was where Suck, The First European Sex Paper was published. Around this time two Wet Dream Film Festivals were organized. The first took place in the autumn of 1970, It had an international jury consisting of Germaine Greer, Jay Landesman, Richard Neville, Michael Zwerin, Didi Wadidi and Al Goldstein. The first prize went to Bodil Jensen in A Summer Day. The “Blast from the Past” award went to Jean Genet‘s film: Un chant d’amour. The Walt Disney Memorial Award went to Christie Eriksson‘s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Other prizes were awarded for Peter Flemming, Walter Burns and Falcon Stewart. The Second Wet Dream Film Festival was held in 1971 between October 20 and October 25, again organized by Jim Haynes. Festival jury included Germaine Greer, Al Goldstein, William Holtrop, Didi Wadidi, Anna Beke and Michael Zwerin plus new-comers Mama Cass, Roland Topor, Heathcote Williams, William Burroughs, Carlos Clarens, Tomi Ungerer, Betty Dodson, Marie-France and Miss Angel. Jens Frosen (“Quiet Days in Clichy”) documented the event. Lou Sher, president of Sherpix, who picked up “Adultery For Fun and Profit” at the first festival, put up $1,000 for the first prize this year plus a promise of U.S. theatrical distribution. Organizer Haynes told Variety: “What most people don’t understand about last year’s Wet Dream Festival is that we are not concerned with pornographic aspects primarily, but with the libertarian concept. It is an attack on paternalism because it asks why people can’t see any image they want.”

This post is dedicated to the work of Earl Kemp.

Eno on Can

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

Although once described as not requiring real effort in a Curt (Groovy Age) interview, the practice of choosing Youtube clips requires knowledge and patience. So it is with great pleasure I present you this brilliant clip of musician/artist/theorist Brian Eno on German Krautrock band Can. The source of this clip is as of yet unestablished.

Speaking of Groovy Age, guest editor Jaakko is doing a series of posts on Terror Blu, a previously unknown (to me at least) Italian fumetti series. Jaakko has also what appears to be the largest online collection of fumetti available.

Fuses by Carolee Schneemann

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeeFKXnQST0]

Fuses (1967) by Carolee Schneemann

Carolee Schneemann (b. 1939) is an American performance artist, known for her discourses on the body, sexuality and gender. She received a B.A. from Bard College and an M.F.A. from the University of Illinois. A member of the Fluxus group, her work is primarily characterized by research into visual traditions, taboos, and the body of the individual in relationship to social bodies. Her most famous works include Eye Body: 36 Transformative Actions (1963), Meat Joy (1964), Fuses (1967), and Interior Scroll (1975)

She has published widely, producing works such as Cezanne, She Was a Great Painter (1976) [2] and More than Meat Joy: Performance Works and Selected Writings (1997) [3].

Carolee Schneemann Google gallery