Category Archives: French culture

Icons of erotic art #9

Princess X, used here on the cover of Peter Webb’s The Erotic Arts (1975).

Constantin Brâncuşi‘s Princess X (1916) [1] is a representation of a phallus, although the artist – similar to a ploy used by Magritte in The Treachery Of Images when he said: “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” – himself always contended that it depicted the “eternal feminine”. Brancusi’s contribution to the Paris Salon des Indépendants of 1920, it provoked a quite a furor and had to be withdrawn following the intervention of the police.

Please excuse the uneroticism of this work, it seems the realm of “erotic art” is littered with unerotics. To make it up to you, let me give you some new Yoshifumi Hayashi from the excellent blog Banana Hole (this NSFW post is ambiguously amusing/disturbing), and a previously published one of the same artist by the ever reliable @mateurdart.

Lastly, some eye candy by Hajime Sawatari here from this series by this blog.

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

World music classics #17

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iju1_DhH2Qs&]

“Je pense a toi” (19__) Amadou & Mariam

Amadou and Mariam are a musical duo from Mali, composed of the couple Mariam Doumbia (vocals) and Amadou Bagayoko (guitar and vocals). The pair, known as “the blind couple from Mali” met at Mali’s Institute for the Young Blind, and found they shared an interest in music. They first came to international attention at the beginning of the 2000s via radio stations such as Radio Nova from Paris.

Please also enjoy “Dimanches a Bamako (c’est le jour du mariage)”, “Sundays at Bamako, (it’s the wedding day)” below.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuwAzh1b8CA&]

Previous World Music Classics.

Carnography #4

No particular narrative …

A.-A. Préault, Tuerie (Slaughter)

Preault_Tuerie

 Antoine-Augustin Préault‘s  La Tuerie (The Killing) (1834) is a relief sculpture first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1834. Its thematic violence and stylistic daring shocked conventional taste at the Salon, one of whose visitors characterized the work as an “incredible farrago of every horror, wretchedness, misery, extravagance, monstrosity.” Tuerie was supposedly admitted to the Salon of 1834 at the insistence of the academician Jean-Pierre Cortot. Since no particular narrative was associated with the work, it was perceived by contemporaries as gratuitous carnography.

See previous carnographies

Hear it and weep

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

Elevator to the Gallows (1957) Louis Malle

The Miles Davis score to Elevator to the Gallows was recorded 50 years ago. It has been described by jazz critic Phil Johnson as “the loneliest trumpet sound you will ever hear, and the model for sad-core music ever since. Hear it and weep.”

Previously on this blog: As she stalks through the night …

Reflections on the Novel by Sade: first English translation?

The Crimes Of Love (1800) – Marquis De Sade [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Reflections on the Novel (French: Une Idée sur les romans) is an essay by Sade first published in 1799 in Les Crimes de l’amour. Its preface features a history of the novel and Sade’s theories on the ‘modern novel‘:

“The modern novel is born with Richardson, Fielding, Rousseau and Prévost. It then procedes to the The Monk and Ann Radcliffe“

Sade goes on to note that “It is Richardson and Fielding who have taught us that only the profound study of the heart of man . . . can inspire the novelist.” And goes on: “If after twelve or fifteen volumes [of Clarissa] the immortal Richardson had virtuously ended by converting Lovelace and having him peacefully marry Clarissa, would you . . . have shed the delicious tears which it won from every feeling reader?”

The essay exists in translations by Geoffrey Gorer and David Coward.

I have been looking for a public domain English translation of this text. Can anyone point me in the direction of the first English language translation?

Update: Wolf’s Hollow: The Marquis de Sade in English.

Lowell Blair seems to be have been the first English translator of Crimes of Love. No mention is made if he also translated the prefatory essay I mention.

Deleuze on Wittgenstein: a ‘massive regression’ of all philosophy

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt24h_Ia2UA]

L’Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze (recorded in 1988, first broadcast in 1996)

An abecedarium is a a means to learn the alphabet. It is also used to denote an A to Z of a certain subject. Such as David Toop‘s A to Z of Dub and A to Z of Electro, and Gilles Deleuze’s A to Z of his thought, as interviewed (for seven and a half hours) by Claire Parnet.

On W, Wittgenstein, Deleuze says:

« Pour moi c’est une catastrophe philosophique […] c’est une régression massive de toute la philosophie […] S’ils l’emportent, alors là il y aura un assassinat de la philosophie s’ils l’emportent. C’est des assassins de la philosophie. Il faut une grande vigilance. »

In English:

« ‘a philosophical catastrophe’, a ‘massive regression’ of all philosophy »

Update: A summary to be found online says:

Parnet says, let’s move on to W, and Deleuze says, there’s nothing in W, and Parnet says, yes, there’s Wittgenstein. She knows he’s nothing for Deleuze, but it’s only a word. Deleuze says, he doesn’t like to talk about that… It’s a philosophical catastrophe. It’s the very type of a “school”, a regression of all philosophy, a massive regression. Deleuze considers the Wittgenstein matter to be quite sad. They imposed <ils ont foutu> a system of terror in which, under the pretext of doing something new, it’s poverty introduced as grandeur. Deleuze says there isn’t a word to express this kind of danger, but that this danger is one that recurs, that it’s not the first time that it has arrived. It’s serious especially since he considers the Wittgensteinians to be nasty <méchants> and destructive <ils cassent tout>. So in this, there could be an assassination of philosophy, Deleuze says, they are assassins of philosophy, and because of that, one must remain very vigilant. <Deleuze laughs>

The Kingdom of Tenderness

  La Carte du Tendre

The above is not a somatopos, i.e. an instance of somatopia.

It is a Map of tenderness featured in the first volume of the Madeleine de Scudéry novel Clélie, published in 1654. The map details the distractions and pitfalls—depicted as towns and landmarks—that lovers encounter along their journey from New Friendship (the town at the bottom center of the map) to intimacy in the Kingdom of Tenderness.

At the moment, I am trying to stay clear of the lake of indifference.

Icons of erotic art #2

The Guitar Lesson [1] (French: La Leçon de guitare) is a 1934 painting by Balthus. It depicts a a young girl nude from the waist down and her teacher who has one breast exposed. The work was lovingly re-interpreted by Japanese photographer Naoto Kawahara in 2007 [2]. In the same vein Kawahara does a Mollinesque interpretation of Lucretia [3]. Kawahara (1971, Tokyo) recently exhibited at the Antwerp Zeno X Gallery, see zeno-x.com.

Previous entries here, and in a Wiki format here.

World cinema classics #22

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stth1IlAMk8]

Je t’aime… moi non plus (1976) – Serge Gainsbourg

I’m not sure Je t’aime… moi non plus would work if it was made today. I saw at the local art house cinema in my mid twenties. At the time I was as much in love with the yellow truck as with the decadence of the film, the performances of Jane Birkin, and Joe Dallesandro and the cameo by Gérard Depardieu. As a fan of Serge Gainsbourg, I’m glad to showcase it here today. The striptease scene at the beginning is very typical of this film. Towards the end of this Youtube clip, the footage is underlit.

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