Category Archives: uncanny

Dancing with death

via users.telenet.be Dansen met de Dood

A friend lent me her copy of the book above, an excellent compendium of visuals of the perennial favourite dance of death theme. Dansen met de Dood is a Dutch language book on the iconography of dance of death by Johan De Soete, Harry Van Royen and Dirk Vanclooster. Dance of Death, also variously called Danse Macabre (French), Danza Macabra (Italian) or Totentanz (German), is a late-medieval allegory on the universality of death: no matter one’s station in life, the dance of death unites all. La Danse Macabre consists of the personified death leading a row of dancing figures from all walks of life to the grave—typically with an emperor, king, pope, monk, youngster, beautiful girl, all skeletal. They were produced to remind people of how fragile their lives were and how vain the glories of earthly life were. Its origins are postulated from illustrated sermon texts; the earliest artistic examples are in a cemetery (Cimetière des Innocents) in Paris from 1424.

The book was based on a 2008 exhibition in the Flemish city of Koksijde. It featured manuscripts of the Great Seminary in Bruges and the Catharijne convent in Utrecht, objects and graphic work by Wim Delvoye, Pierre Alechinsky, Paul Delvaux, Frans Masereel, James Ensor, Käthe Kollwitz, Félicien Rops and Hans Holbein.

The images below were new to me.

via www.scherenschnitt.org Walter Draesner Ein Totentanz, nach Scherenschnitten von Walter Draesner mit Geleitwort von Max von Boehn. Berlin: B. Behrs. Max von Boehn - 1922

Walter Draesner Ein Totentanz, nach Scherenschnitten von Walter Draesner mit Geleitwort von Max von Boehn(1922). With a preface by Max von Boehn

La Marchande de Plaisir (1902) by Hermann Vogel

La Marchande de Plaisir (1902) by Hermann Vogel

Introducing Mr.Fox: Darker Deeper

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYN5fB_k-uw]

Mr.Fox: Darker Deeper[1][2] is an Anglophone visual culture blog with a focus on transgressive black and white photographs founded in May 2008.

As of May 2009, its most recent entries included Deus Irae Psychedelico [3], Robert Gregory Griffeth [4] , Rik Garrett [5] , Laurie Lipton [6] , Simon Marsden [7] , Sanne Sannes [8] , Jeffrey Silverthorne [9] , Edward Donato [10]

As of May 2009, the blog was connected with Blind Pony, EDK, Fetishart, Indie Nudes, Medieval Art, Morbid Anatomy, Ofellabuta, SensOtheque, With the ghost and Woolgathersome.

Nikolai Gogol @200

Poprishchin, protagonist of Nikolai Gogol‘s “Diary of a Madman” painted by Ilya Repin

Nikolai Gogol will be 200 tomorrow morning (that’s the day after tomorrow, I skipped a day here). Like so many of us of the internet generation, we stumbled upon Gogol via Mario Bava’s Black Sunday.

He is an icon of 19th century literature, Russian literature, grotesque literature and fantastic literature.

“What an intelligent, queer, and sick creature!” —Ivan Turgenev

“I don’t know whether anyone liked Gogol exclusively as a human being. I don’t think so; it was, in fact, impossible. How can you love one whose body and spirit are recovering from self-inflicted torture?” —Sergei Aksakov

Gogol wrote in the literary tradition of E.T.A. Hoffmann (The Sandman) and Laurence Sterne (Tristram Shandy), often involving elements of the fantastic and grotesque. In addition, Gogol’s works are often outrageously funny. The mix of humor, social realism, the fantastic, and unusual prose forms are what readers love about his work.

Georges Bataille’s Story of the Eye: the film

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daaKRAWTjJ8]

Georges Bataille’s Story of the Eye is a 2004 American film adaptation of the 1928 novel by the French writer Georges Bataille. The film, directed by Andrew Repasky McElhinney, takes place in a seemingly abandoned house where a group of people engage in wordless acts of passion. The film covers a period from evening to morning, and the sexual couplings among the members of the house becomes increasingly harrowing as daylight arrives.

Georges Bataille’s Story of the Eye began as a video installation before being reconfigured into a feature-length film. It had its New York theatrical premiere in September 2004, and its support was led by Dave Kehr of the New York Times, who wrote of the production; “This is transgression in a literal sense, an act of aggression that Bataille would no doubt have appreciated. This is not a movie for passive consumption, but a film that bites back.”

Musidora @120

Musidora in Les Vampires (1915)

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

Musidora in Les Vampires (1915)

Musidora (February 23, 1889 – December 11, 1957) was the stage name of a popular French silent film actress of the early 20th century. She is best-remembered for her vamp persona in the roles of Irma Vep and Diana Monti in the early motion picture crime serials Les Vampires (1915) and Judex (1916), respectively.

Poster for Les Vampires

Adopting the moniker of Musidora (Greek for “gift of the muses“) and affecting a unique vamp persona that would later be popularized in the United States of America by actress Theda Bara, Musidora soon found a foothold in the nascent medium of moving pictures. With her heavily kohled dark eyes, somewhat sinister make-up, pale skin (see the heroin chic aesthetic) and exotic wardrobes, Musidora quickly became a highly popular and instantly recognizable presence of European cinema.

Beginning in 1915, Musidora began appearing in the hugely successful Feuillade-directed serials Les Vampires as Irma Vep (an anagram of “vampire”), a cabaret singer, opposite Edouard Mathé as crusading journalist, Philippe Guerande. Contrary to the title, the Les Vampires were not actually about vampires, but about a criminal gang cum secret society inspired by the exploits of the real-life Bonnot Gang. The somewhat surreal series was an immediate success with French cinema-goers and ran in ten installments until 1916. After the Les Vampires serial, Musidora starred as ‘Diana Monti’ in another popular Feuillade serial, Judex, filmed in 1916 but delayed for release until 1917 because of the outbreak of World War I. Though not intended to be “avant-garde,” Les Vampires and Judex have been lauded by critics as the birth of avant-garde cinema and cited by such renowned filmmakers as Fritz Lang and Luis Buñuel as being extremely influential in their desire to become directors.

I’ve previously mentioned Les Vampires[1].

Alejandro Jodorowsky @70

Alejandro Jodorowsky (born 1929), Chilean artist and countercultural icon turns 70 today.

El Topo (1970) – Alexandro Jodorowsky [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Alejandro Jodorowsky (born 1929), Chilean artist and countercultural icon turns 70 today.

Like so many of us, we were first acquainted with Jodorowsky via a midnight screening of his psychedelic Western El Topo. In my case that must have been either at the Filmhuis Theater or at Cartoon’s. In fact, the film practically jumpstarted the genre of the midnight movie:

“In December 1970, Jonas Mekas was organizing one of his periodic festivals of avant-garde films at the Elgin, a rundown six hundred seat theater, not unlike the Charles, on Eighth Avenue just north of Greenwich Village. Although the program was laden with major avant-garde figures, the most widely attended screenings were those on the three nights devoted to the films of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The Elgin management took advantage of the hippie crowds to announce an added feature-Alexandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo to be shown at midnight because, as the first ad announced, it was “a film too heavy to be shown any other way.”” —Midnight Movies (1983)

El Topo[1]

El Topo (The Mole) is a 1970 Mexican allegorical, cult western movie and underground film, directed by and starring Alejandro Jodorowsky. Characterized by its bizarre characters and occurrences, use of maimed and dwarf performers, and heavy doses of Christian symbolism and Eastern philosophy, the film is about the eponymous character – a violent, black-clad gunfighter – and his quest for enlightenment.

El Topo was World cinema classic #28

Panic Movement

Researching Jodorowsky in the internet era, brought up the Panic Movement link.

The Panic Movement (Fr:Mouvement panique) was a collective formed in Paris in 1962 by Fernando Arrabal, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Roland Topor after casual meetings at the Parisian Café de la Paix. Inspired by and named after the god Pan, and influenced by Luis Buñuel and Antonin Artaud‘s Theatre of Cruelty, the group concentrated on chaotic performance art and surreal imagery.

In February 1962 Arrabal, Jodorowsky and Topor settle on the word panique. In September 1962, the word panique is printed for the first time: Arrabal publishes five récits “paniques” in André Breton’s periodical La Brèche.

The Panic Movement performed theatrical events designed to be shocking, as a response to surrealism becoming petite bourgeoisie and to release destructive energies in search of peace and beauty. One four-hour performance known as Sacramental Melodrama was staged in May 24 1965 at the Paris Festival of Free Expression.

Jodorowsky dissolved the Panic Movement in 1973, after the release of Arrabal’s book Le panique.

Introducing Yuka Yamaguchi

Yuka Yamaguchi

I found this image[1] by Japanese artist Yuka Yamaguchi yesterday. Artwork which features innards of bodies are a personal favourite, I first realized this after discovering Ferdinand Springer‘s Ecorché I[2] some years ago.

I can’t tell off hand who else belongs in this category from an artistic point of view, but from a utilitarian point of view there is the anatomical art by the lickes of Vesalius, Jacques Gautier d’Agoty [3] and John Bell [4]. Perhaps my first exposure to the subversion of inside and outside was David Cronenberg‘s Videodrome in which a videotape and a pistol are inserted in the belly of James Woods.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ytp69fBh0J8&]

Videodrome (belly insertion scene at 2:54)

More of her art can be found by clicking this[6] Google gallery. She also has presences on Youtube[7] and Flickr[8], as well as a blog[9].

She is a woman with excellent and adventurous tastes. From her Flickr profile:

Favorite Books & Authors: Mishima, Osamu Dazai, Mitsuo, Cyu-ya, Oliver Sacks, Murakami Haruki, Saki, Yourou Takeshi, Tsurumi Shunsuke, Kindaichi Haruhiko, Malcom Gladwell, Jan Wong,

Favorite Movies, Stars & Directors: Ozu, Kurosawa, Yamada Yoji, Wong Kar Wai, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, Coen Brothers, Wes Anderson, Michel Gondry

Favorite Music & Artists: Aeroplane, Superpitcher, Junior Boys, Jacques lu Cont, DFA, France Gall, Daniel Wang, Kelley Polar, Loo & Placido, Alpha, Satie, Kahimi Karie, Tom Waits, Stereolab, Yuzo, Fujiyama Ichiro

Most of the comments on Yamaguchi’s work focus on the fact that she transcends the “weird for weird’s sake” aesthetic found in many of her contemporaries (think many of the lowbrow Americans presented by Wurzeltod). Her work is an uncanny mix of cruelty and innocence, benign in spite of its undercurrent of disturbance.

Her closest percursor is probably Roland Topor.

Edgar Allan Poe @200

Edgar Allan Poe, American writer and poet @200

A photograph of a daguerreotype of Edgar Allan Poe 1848,

first published 1880

Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, and one of the leaders of the American Romanticism. Best known for his tales of the macabre and mystery, Poe was one of the early American practitioners of the short story and a progenitor of detective fiction and crime fiction. During his lifetime he was more popular in France (thanks to the translations of Baudelaire) than in his native country. After his premature death at the age of 40 he became internationally renowned. The Japanese writer Edogawa Rampo derived his pseudonym of his name. He came to the attention of 20th century audiences via the low-budget film adaptations by Roger Corman starring Vincent Price.

If you only want to read one story by Poe, read “Loss of Breath.”

“Loss of Breath: A Tale Neither in nor Out of “Blackwood” (1832) is a short story by Poe, first published on June 9 or November 10 1832. It concerns a man who suspects that his wife has stolen his breath.

David Ketterer describes the story as: “A surrealistic fantasy in which the idea that death involves not loss of life but merely loss of breath is combined with a whimsical but, for biographers of Poe’s psyche, revealing equation between loss of breath and loss of sexual potency on the narrator’s wedding night”.[1]

“Behold me then safely ensconced in my private boudoir, a fearful instance of the ill consequences attending upon irascibility—alive, with the qualifications of the dead—dead, with the propensities of the living—an anomaly on the face of the earth—being very calm, yet breathless.”

…

“The purchaser took me to his apartments and commenced operations immediately. Having cut off my ears, however, he discovered signs of animation. He now rang the bell, and sent for a neighboring apothecary with whom to consult in the emergency. In case of his suspicions with regard to my existence proving ultimately correct, he, in the meantime, made an incision in my stomach, and removed several of my viscera for private dissection. “

A History of Derision, wikified

A History of Derision

A History of Derision by way of Illusory Confections who wrote on its subject[1]:

“Be still my beating heart, this is practically everything I adore in one tidy 240 page bundle! But it isn’t referenced anywhere online and I couldn’t even find mention of it on the Atlas Press site. So I zipped an email to Atlas inquiring about it, and, sadly, its nonexistence was confirmed. Apparently it was a planned project that fell to the sidelines and “[1]

the website is the accurate source of what is available, the catalogue part bibliography and part fiction, if you like…

Here it is again in a wikified version,

A History of Derision is an aborted project by Arkhive, an Atlas Press imprint.

It builds on André Breton’s Anthology of Black Humour, but is more a history of French avant-garde.

French Romantics: Sade, Lassailly, Rabbe, Forneret, Nodier, Fourier

Bouzingos: Borel and O’Neddy

Hydropathes: Goudeau, Cros, Haraucourt, Lafargue, Richepin, Tailhade, Rollinat, Monselet, Sapeck, Allais.

Hirsutes and the Chat Noir: Salis, Moréas, Lorrain, Verlaine, Sarcey, Haraucourt.

Arts Incohérents: : Lévy, Rivière, Allais.

Zutistes: Allais, Cros, Nouveau, Rimbaud, Ajalbert, Haraucourt, Verlaine.

La Nouvelle Rive Gauche : Trézenick, D’Aurevilly, Verlaine.

Lutèce: Rall, Rimbaud, Corbière, Caze, Rachilde, Floupette (Vicaire and Beauclair).

Symbolists : de Gourmont, Jarry, Tailhade, Huysmans, Pawlowski.

Ecole de Paris : Apollinaire, Jacob, Salmon, Albert-Birot, Cami.

Dada : Aragon, Picabia, Ribemont-Dessaignes, Satie, Arp, Rigaut.

Surrealism : Desnos, Prévert, Péret, Topor, Magritte, Scutenaire, Daumal, Gilbert-Lecomte.

Situationists : Arnaud and Jorn, Dotremont, Mariën.

Daily Bul & Co: Bury, Béalu, Colinet.

Farcistes: Encyclopédie des farces et attrapes et des mystifications, François Caradec, Noël Arnaud.[2]

Oulipo.

Whither now, anarchitecture?

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4A5ybTAOWw&]

Some Office Baroque footage, Some footage similar to Office Baroque

Gordon Matta-Clark died thirty years ago today. He stayed in Antwerp for a while in 1977, just before his death, working with Florent Bex, creating Office Baroque, which he called anarchitecture. Pieces of his “building cuts” were sold around the world[1].

I like him, much as I like the near-contemporary and also short-lived Robert Smithson. Whither now, anarchitecture, and other visionary environments?

Jahsonic

Burgemeester van Dodenstad