Category Archives: fantastique

Stunning work by Slavko Vorkapić

The Furies (1933)
music: Ludwig von Beethoven
score synchronized by Slavko Vorkapić

“Vorkapich hade complete creative freedom in writing, designing, directing and editing his montage sequences for feature films, his work was often reduced to its bones in the released productions. Here is the filmmaker’s original version of one of his outstanding efforts”

Thus reads the Youtube blurb to this wonderful clip; strange that I cannot find reference to this film over at IMDb.

Slavko Vorkapić (March 17 1894 – October 20 1976), was a Serbian–American film director and editor, university professor and painter, one of the most prominent figures of modern cinematography and film art, best-known for The Life and Death of 9413: a Hollywood Extra.

See surrealism and film

World cinema classics #40

Today’s World Cinema Classic is Glen or Glenda Youtube, sorry embedding disabled, a film on transsexuality directed by Ed Wood, Jr. and released in 1953. I only saw this a couple of years ago. Since the arrival of the VCR, the film has been marketed as one of the worst ever. I would have to disagree with that statement, it’s very enjoyable. There is a dream scene in this film (a bit similar to the one shown in the clip) which ranks way up there with “genuine” surrealist films such as Un Chien Andalou. By all means, see it.

The defining sentence is “Pull the stringk!”

Caveat emptor: There is the slightest of chances that I liked the soundtrack (I cannot identify it, does anyone have the details?) so much that it prejudiced me in a favorable way.

Previous “World Cinema Classics” and in the Wiki format here.

Introducing Paul Rumsey

Two Bodyheads (2003) by Paul Rumsey

Two Bodyheads (2003) by Paul Rumsey

Regular readers may have noticed the informed comments of Paul Rumsey, so I thought it was time for a proper introduction.

I discovered the work of Paul Rumsey in December 2005, when I was researching The Waking dream: Fantasy and the surreal in graphic art, 1450-1900 (1975).

Anonymous Flemish print, end of the 17th century, from The Waking Dream book.

Anonymous Flemish print, end of the 16th century,
from The Waking Dream book; please notice thematic similarities
in Rumsey’s work such as this.

I’ve always been an obsessive Googler and searching for certain terms from “The Waking Dream,” I stumbled upon an essay by Rumsey in which he cited the The Waking Dream as an early inspiration and also quoted 20th century names partly already familiar to me:

“In the twentieth century this type of imagery has permeated culture, and is found everywhere, in diverse art forms including: the satiric installations of Kienholz, the drawings of A. Paul Weber, the cartoons of Robert Crumb, the animated films of Jan Svankmajer, photographs by Witkin, plays by Beckett, science fiction by Ballard, fantastic literature like Meyrink’s The Golem, Jean Ray’s Malpertuis, the art and writings of Bruno Schulz and Leonora Carrington, films by David Lynch, Cronenberg and Gilliam; all are part of a spreading network of connections, the branching tentacles of the grotesque.”

This quote – as well as the preceding passages – were so dense with names of artists I admired that I decided to investigate further and to find out what it was that gave me a certain frisson in these artists which I found lacking in others admired by established art criticism; a frisson that could be summarized as fantastic, as in fantastic art.

Paul Rumsey’s work fits squarely into this fantastic art tradition: buildings growing on people’s heads[1], humans who have their faces on their bellies, horrifying animals [2], human-animal hybrids [3], polymorphous objects shaped out of breasts [4] and imaginary structures [5] are some of the themes to be found in his work.

Rumsey’s work calls for a revisionist approach to art history. An art history which starts with Bosch rather than Da Vinci (born just two years later), with Odilon Redon rather than Monet (born in the same year) and which prefers Kubin over Picasso (born four years apart).

If you are interested in this kind of art history, here is a list of books that give an extensive overview of the field:

Also visit Rumsey’s official page and the site of the Chappel Galleries, which has Rumsey’s work on display.

Icons of erotic art #18

Via the newly discovered blog aileron comes the film The Lost Secret of Catherine the Great by Peter Woditsch and Sophie Schoukens.

I had first heard about the erotic furniture of Catherine the Great a couple of years ago and even traced the existence of the documentary by Woditsch, but had never actually seen the pieces of furniture that presumedly belonged to Catherine before the collection was destroyed during WWII. Catherine was a strong and independent woman (it helped that she was an empress) who throughout her long reign, took many lovers, often elevating them to high positions for as long as they held her interest, and then pensioning them off with large estates and gifts of serfs. She also cultivated Voltaire, Diderot and D’Alembert — all French philosophes encyclopedists who later cemented her reputation in their writings.

Note: In the erotic furniture category belong art works such as Chair, Table and Hat Stand by Allen Jones and Les Krims‘s Heavy Feminist with Wedding Cake [1] (1970).

Previous entries in Icons of Erotic Art here, and in a Wiki format here.

Introducing Praxis

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

It’s actually strange that I’ve never actively come across this band besides of having heard of them. I am a big fan of Bill Laswell and all P-Funkiana, both are canonical to my encyclopedic work. Praxis introduces a whole collective of adventurous culture, from cutting edge music to exciting graphics, rebellious texts and tetsuoesque performances (is the life-size doll by Rammellzee?).

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUL_gcHv0EA]

“Animal Behavior” (1992) from the Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis) album.

Praxis is the name of an ever-changing Bill Laswell musical project. Praxis combines elements of different musical genres such as funk, jazz, hip-hop and heavy metal into highly improvised music. First appearing in 1992 with the critically acclaimed Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis), Buckethead, Bill Laswell, Bernie Worrell and Brain have defined the direction of the band over the last 15 years.

Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis) is the first album by Bill Laswell‘s everchanging “supergroup” Praxis. This first album features Buckethead on guitar, Bootsy Collins on bass and vocals, Brain on drums, Bernie Worrell on keyboards and DJ AF Next Man Flip on turntables and mixer.

Transmutation features a wide range of musical styles, all mixed together to make a very diverse and unique album. Styles such as heavy metal, funk, hip hop, ambient, jazz and blues are blended together to form a strange style of avant-garde, with extended guitar and keyboard solos, and highly improvised passages.

The artwork is by James Koehnline, photography by Thi-Linh Le and liner notes by Hakim Bey.

 

Icons of erotic art #17

Sensuality (1891) - Franz von Stuck

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.

Eye candy #6

Pinson, Femme Assise, on the cover of Monsieur Vénus by Rachilde

I had been intrigued by this cover of French decadent author Rachilde’s Monsieur Vénus for a while, and I always wondered what the cover was, even asking the blog Morbid Anatomy, which specializes in this kind of material, what it was.

Pinson, Femme Assise

It turns out that this is the origin of the photograph. The anatomical sculpture was produced by André Pierre Pinson (1746-1828), a French ‘medical artist’, who made the sculpture called La Femme assise (the seated woman). Voila. Case closed.

Previously on Eye Candy.

Introducing Anton van Dalen

Anton van Dalen is a Dutch illustrator residing in the United States. He was during a period of 30 years the “secret” assistent to Saul Steinberg. His style is unique but reminds of Bracelli‘s work in the 17th century and its somewhat distanced pov feels a bit like Glen Baxter‘s absurd illustrations.

Here is a set of motor vehicle impressions via Bibliodyssey: [1] [2] [3] [4]

Bibliodyssey brought this set to my attention, if you are not already subscribing to his feed, you should. Since the demise of Il Giornale Nuovo, Bibliodyssey is the best hang-out for your daily dose of vintage visual culture.

For those of you unfamiliar with Bracelli’s work here is an example of his proto-surrealism:

From the Bizzarie di varie figure (1624) by Giovanni Battista Braccelli

From the Bizzarie di varie figure (1624) by Giovanni Battista Braccelli

Here is perhaps a better example, showcasing Bracelli cubism comparable to the one of van Dalen.

When word becomes flesh or “I don’t know how to kill Harold Crick.”

“I don’t know how to kill Harold Crick.” –Emma Thompson

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

I watched the American film Stranger than Fiction tonight, a good piece of metafiction but not as good in its mix of lightheartedness and tragedy as Waiter by Warmerdam, which premiered a month earlier in 2006.

If you’re into Kaufmanesqueness, Stranger Than Fiction, Waiter and von Trier’s The Boss of It All have been must-see films in 2006/2007.

I mentioned Waiter here and Boss here.