Mirror, mirror

I’m totally taken with this photograph by Bellocq which immediately reminded me of Il Bagno by Fernando Botero. Does anyone have an idea on the copyright status of the Bellocq pictures? As is evident from this page at Wikipedia, Bellocq’s photographs are in the public domain in the United States, but the information also states that “this image might not be in the public domain outside the United States.” The page where the first photograph I point to states that the copyright belongs to the estate of E. J. Bellocq/Lee Friedlander. Who has the complete story?

P. S. to circumvent copyright issues, I give you the Bellocq Google gallery.

P. S. #2 To round this post of, a post by Gatochy on the similarity of the said Bellocq photograph with an illustration by Bonfils. Gatochy is Mariana who runs a series of interesting blogs related to visual culture. Here is her Google gallery.

P. S. #3 Check Femme Femme Femme and the work of Delphin-Enjolras

Introducing The World of Kane

The World of Kane (founded in 2005) is a pop culture blog I happened upon this morning while researching Robert Bonfils:

Anna Karina sings “Roller Girl“

The World of Kane seems to be especially keen on French pop culture, his Serge Gainsbourg category testifies. His site is retro-futuristic. In his own words Will Kane says he”feels a nostalgia for an age yet to come,” best illustrated by his post on French designer Pierre Paulin (1927- ). Pierre Paulin is similar to Olivier Mourgue.

As a present to World of Kane:

Serge Gainsbourg-France Gall :: Dents de Lait/Dents de Loup

From the French tv show of 1967 directed by Maurice Dumay & Pierre Koralnik

Scherzo infernal

Scherzo infernal (1984) – Walerian Borowczyk

Scherzo infernal (1984) is a short animated French film by Walerian Borowczyk narrated by Yves Robert and produced by Anatole Dauman‘s Argos Films. Beware when watching the current Youtube version of this film, the descriptive text has gotten mixed up with the descriptive text of Michel Follin‘s Ligeti documentary. In reality, the score of this short was composed by Bernard Parmegiani.

Spread yourself over me

Gwen Guthrie – Peanut Butter (12inch)

Voiced by Gwen Guthrie, rhythm section by Sly and Robbie, keyboards by Wally Badarou, mix by Larry Levan. The mixes Larry does for Island with Sly and Robbie and Gwen Guthrie in 1982/1983 are among the most exciting records of that era. The Padlock mini-LP which was released in 1983 on the Garage Records label includes ‘Hopscotch’, ‘Seventh heaven’, ‘Getting hot’, ‘Peanut butter’ and ends with the brilliant title track ‘Padlock’. The sleeve of the German Island pressing was done by Tony Wright, who was also responsible for Lee Perry’s ‘Return of Super Ape’ cover art.

 

Proto-performance artists

‘Augmented’ Mona Lisa (1882) by Sapeck

Sapeck (Eugène Bataille) (born in Mans in 1854) was a French proto–performance artist who was known to travel the streets with his head painted blue. In the first show of the Incoherents in 1882, he contributed an ‘augmented’ Mona Lisa (Mona Lisa smoking a pipe) that directly prefigures the famous Marcel Duchamp image L.H.O.O.Q. of 1919.

Speaking of Duchamp, Ombres Blanches recently wrote Duchamp’s Dahlia or The Man Ray Mystery, an essay on the possible inspiration of Duchamp’s Etant donnés by the Black Dahlia murder.