August 2004 Blog
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_2004
One of the [bliki] pioneers was apparently the incredibly extensive www.jahsonic.com: basically a huge Wiki-like site. Its author, Jan Geerinck, also has a blog page (however without RSS or Atom feed). The blog was started back in 2001. --Peter http://www.forret.com/blog/2004/08/blogs-and-wikis-how-about-bliki.html [Aug 2004]
Blogs I Frequent
http://www.sauer-thompson.com/conversations/ Philosophical conversations between two Australians Trevor and Gary, covering a wide range of philosophical topics. http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/~aabb/plus9.html A daily, art-related, weblog from Osaka, Japan. http://www.mixoftheweek.com Pre-recorded, weekly mixes of soul, house, techno, dub and other groovy sounds. Consistent high quality. http://www.novaplanet.com/radiolive/novalive.asp radio-station, broadcasting from Paris
2004, Aug 31; 16:06 ::: The Ethics of Sexual Acts (1934) - Rene Guyon
The Ethics of Sexual Acts (1934) - Rene Guyon [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
About the Author
René Guyon was born at Sedan, France, in 1876. He studied at the University of Paris, which awarded him a Doctor of Law degree in 1902. Primarily a jurist, he began his writing career with treatises on French legal problems. He has also written fiction and poetry. Between 1924 and 1931 he published three examinations of materialistic philosophy – in the fields of metaphysics, biology, and psychology. Then came Osiris, Deionysus, Prometheus and Eros, a tetralogy of inquiry into the soundness and value of human conventions and traditions. During these active years, Guyon was collecting material for his magnum opus, Etudes d’ethiques sexuelles (ten volumes), of which the present book is the first volume. He also traveled widely, visiting much of Europe, North Africa, the Sudan, Siberia, China, Indo-China, Malaya, and Indonesia. Invited by the Siamese government to draft and codify a new legal system, he rose to chairmanship of the commission, which finished its labors in 1919. Thereafter he became legislative adviser to the Ministry of Justice in Bangkok and a justice of the Siamese Supreme Court.Product Description:
It is not unreasonable to assume that in a future society, less benighted by the shadow of past ages, Guyon will rank among the immortal emancipators of the human race. His valiant efforts may eventually accomplish in the sphere of sex what the advanced thinkers of Voltaire's day achieved in the realm of political freedom. The present volume contains many building stones upon which to rear a happier world, the world of tomorrow, although it may take generations before the edifice is completed.Unquestionably The Ethics of Sexual Acts was years ahead of its time when it was first published in 1934. During the years since 1934, scientific and statistical workers have produced a body of that shores up Guyon’s conclusions. The day for Guyon to reach his proper audience would seem to have arrived.
The scientific study of sexual phenomena and of the relations between the sexes has long been hampered by the censorship that has weighed so heavily on sex. It is only since the dawn of the twentieth century that the question has been seriously raised as to whether the anti-sexual moralists have not been the victims of some strange delusion.
The reader must not lose sight of the fact that this volume is essentially a physiological or, to use the current expression, a psycho-physiological study. He must expect, in the following pages to find observations drawn without restriction from all physiological phenomena which are capable of throwing light upon our subject.
2004, Aug 30; 16:19 ::: The School of Whoredom (1500s)- Pietro Aretino
The School of Whoredom - Pietro Aretino [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Hesperus Press, as suggested by their Latin motto, Et remotissima prope, is dedicated to bringing near what is far—far both in space and time. Works by illustrious authors, often unjustly neglected or simply little known in the English–speaking world, are made accessible through a completely fresh editorial approach and new translations. Through these short classic works, which feature forewords by leading contemporary authors, the modern reader will be introduced to the greatest writers of Europe and America. An elegantly designed series of genuine rediscoveries. --From the Publisher
Bawdy and thoroughly risqu&#eacute;, this 16th–century masterpiece is the work of Pietro Aretino, widely regarded as the originator of European pornographic writing. With a Foreword by Paul Bailey. Determined that her daughter should not be ignorant of the ways of men and love, Nanna seeks to “educate” the naïve Pippa. She tells of women—whores, housewives, and nuns all being essentially the same; and of how to win men—discreetly and with good manners. But mostly, she reveals to Pippa the secrets of her art as a courtesan. The ensuing dialogue, laden with satiric twists and naughty puns, offers a fresh and lively example of the harlot’s world, displaying a frankness that confides in today’s reader as shrewdly as it was intended in 16th–century Rome. Italian satirist and poet Pietro Aretino (1492–1556) was one of the most versatile writers of the 16th century; the author of plays, poetry, and letters, he is now principally remembered as the originator of European pornography. --Book Description via Amazon.com
If you want to read a work that is literally pornography, you are in luck. Remember, pornography literally, etymologically, is "whore writing", or writing about or by prostitutes. Of course we have grown away from this literal standard, but _The School of Whoredom_ (Hesperus Press) by Pietro Aretino meets it. It consists of a classic dialogue (from the time when dialogues where the choice way of explaining ideas in astronomy and philosophy) between a whore and her daughter who will become a whore. This makes it sound quite a bit coarser than it really is. While the book is not without frankness and the translator has not spared four-letter words, it is a sophisticated satire on the morals of men and women. It is full of jokes, robust humor at the expense of courtiers, clerics, men, women, and different ethnicities of the sixteenth century. It has some advice to a daughter that works just fine in modern and less meretricious settings.
_The School of Whoredom_ (written around 1535) is not a work like Aretino's famous _I Modi_, called the world's first "stroke book". While it treats of the erotic endeavors of men and women, it could hardly be called an erotic work itself. Basically, it is instruction more on how to be a courtesan than how effectively to engage in coitus. As such, it is more about manipulation of the emotions of men than of their anatomy, and might be read as a prescient call to feminist solidarity. Whoring, mother Nanna reminds daughter Pippa, isn't easy: "So, you see, becoming a whore is no career for fools, well I know it..." She also advises, "You'd need more skills than a doctor to be a courtesan." There is plenty of other advice, some proverbial. "Never mock at the truth and never do harm with a joke." "Don't take pleasure in upsetting friendships by reporting gossip; avoid scandals; and whenever you can make peace do so." By such means, Pippa is to ensure her position of relative esteem in society, but always she is to be mindful of the bottom line: "... a courtesan whose heart pounds for anything other than her purse is like a greedy, drunken tavern-keeper..." who eats his own fare instead of selling it.
While the liveliest parts of the book are the descriptions of ruses for parting punters from their extra cash, there are many pictures here of a vibrant society, one which valued good food and entertainment. Aretino's work shows they also liked satire. There is much here to expose those in power, and plenty that makes fun of the sexual peccadilloes from cardinals to monks and nuns. Nanna discusses the merits (or lack thereof) between Frenchmen, Spaniards, Romans, Florentines, and Germans, giving pride of place to the Venetians ("If I said everything they deserve to have said about them, people would tell me: 'Love has blinded you.'"). Nanna has triumphed over men for years, and is delighted with Pippa's prospects: "My heart swells so much with pride at seeing you at home in these affairs that I'm in raptures." Careful reading, though, almost five centuries later, shows she has instructed about far more than the ways of whoredom. --R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" via Amazon.com
2004, Aug 29; 17:21 ::: Open City (1945) - Roberto Rossellini
Open City (1945) - Roberto Rossellini [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
The Allies had barely driven the Nazis out of Rome when Roberto Rosselini went to work on Open City, considered by most to be his greatest work. Shot on bits and short ends of scavenged film, this film helped define Italian neorealism. Audiences were convinced that the actors were all amateurs (they weren't) and the whole film was improvised (it wasn't; the three screenwriters included Federico Fellini). With its semidocumentary camera style and use of actual locations, the film does feel very real. Of course, so does the opening half-hour of Saving Private Ryan, and like that film Open City is at its heart a classic war yarn any Hollywood studio would feel at home with. The story involves members of the Italian underground trying to smuggle badly needed cash out of Nazi-occupied Rome to partisan fighters in the mountains, while the Nazis are hunting down one of the underground, a notorious freedom fighter and seditionist. Anna Magnani (an actor well established in her own country who became an international star with this film) is often singled out for her portrayal as the pregnant, unwed woman who gets caught up in the action on her wedding day, but the entire cast is topnotch. The sparse subtitles are both a blessing and a curse--there is less to read, which allows the viewer to concentrate on the visuals, but there are times when non-Italian-speakers will feel like they're missing out on some juicy dialogue. --Geof Miller, Amazon.com
The stars play an impoverished mother-to-be and a parish priest whose loyalties are tested by the sinister German forces that occupy their homeland during World War II. --Description
2004, Aug 29; 15:21 ::: Experimental Cinema, The Film Reader (2002) - Wheeler Winston Dixon, Gwendolyn Audrey Foster
Experimental Cinema, The Film Reader (In Focus: Routledge Film Readers) (2002) - Wheeler Winston Dixon, Gwendolyn Audrey Foster [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
This volume provides a comprehensive guide to the long tradition of American avant-garde cinema, from its origins in the 1920s to the work of contemporary film and video artists. It addresses major movements and key figures of the avant-garde, including filmmakers.--Synopsis
Experimental Cinema, The Film Reader brings together key writings on American avant-garde cinema to explore the long tradition of underground filmmaking from its origins in the 1920s to the work of contemporary film and video artists. The Reader traces the development of major movements such as the New American Cinema of the 1960s and the Structuralist films of the 1970s, examining the work of key practitioners and recovering neglected filmmakers. Contributors focus on the ways in which underground films have explored issues of gender, sexuality and race, and foreground important technical innovations such as the use of Super 8mm and video. Each section features an editor's introduction setting debates in their context. The book concludes with a valuable filmography of key films available.--Product Description
2004, Aug 29; 13:34 ::: In the Mirror of Maya Deren (2002) - Martina Kudlácek
In the Mirror of Maya Deren (2002) - Martina Kudlácek [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Born Eleanora Derenkovskaya on April 29, 1917, Maya Deren was an American avant-garde filmmaker and film theorist of the 1940s and 1950s.
Deren was born in Kiev, Ukraine. In 1922, because of her father's sympathies for Leon Trotsky, the family fled to Syracuse, New York. By 1935 she was very active in various socialist causes in the New York City.
In the early 1940s, Deren used some of the inheritance from her father to purchase a used 16mm Bolex camera. She used this camera to make her first and most well-known film, Meshes of the Afternoon (1943). Meshes of the Afternoon is recognized as a seminal American avant-garde film. It was in 1943 that she adopted the name Maya Deren.
Upon her return to New York City in 1943 her social circle included the likes of Andre Breton, Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, and Anais Nin. She continued making 16mm films such as "At Land" (1944) and "A Study in Choreography for Camera" (1945). In 1946 she was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship for "Creative Work in the Field of Motion Pictures." In 1947 she won the Grand Prix Internationale for 16mm experimental film at Cannes for Meshes of the Afternoon.
During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Deren became heavily involved in Haitian voodoo. Not only did she film many hours of voodoo ritual, but also partipated in them.
Deren passed away in 1961, at the age of 44, from a brain hemorrhage. Some have speculated that her death was the result of a voodoo curse.
In 2001, Martina Kudlacek released a documentary about Deren, titled In the Mirror of Maya Deren. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Deren [Aug 2004]
2004, Aug 29; 13:21 ::: Film als Kunst/Film As Art (1932) - Rudolf Arnheim
Film als Kunst/Film As Art (1932) - Rudolf Arnheim [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
This is a book of standards, a theory of film. The greater part of it is an adaptation of Film als Kunst, first published in 1932 in the original German and in English by Faber and Faber in 1933
2004, Aug 29; 12:49 ::: Visionary Film: The American Avant-Garde in the 20th Century - P. Adams Sitney
Visionary Film: The American Avant-Garde in the 20th Century - P. Adams Sitney [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Critics hailed previous editions of Visionary Film as the most complete work written on the exciting, often puzzling, and always controversial genre of American avant-garde film. This book has remained the standard text on American avant-garde film since the publication of its first edition in 1974. Now P. Adams Sitney has once again revised and updated this classic work, restoring a chapter on the films of Gregory J. Markopoulos and bringing his discussion of the principal genres and major filmmakers up to the year 2000.--Editorial Review
2004, Aug 29; 11:54 ::: The New American Cinema (1998) - Jon Lewis
The New American Cinema (1998) - Jon Lewis [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Deliberately eclectic and panoramic, THE NEW AMERICAN CINEMA brings together thirteen leading film scholars who present a range of theoretical, critical, and historical perspectives on a rich and pivotal time in American cinema--that from the mid 1960s to the present. With its range of topics and breadth of critical approaches, this anthology illuminates the volatile mix of industrial process and artistic inspiration that comprises American moviemaking. 46 photos --Ingram
2004, Aug 29; 11:30 ::: Jonas Mekas: Just Like a Shadow (2000) - Jonas Mekas
Jonas Mekas: Just Like a Shadow (2000) - Jonas Mekas, Patrick Remy, Michel Mallard, Jerome Sans [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
As editor of Film Culture and founder of the Anthology Film Archives, and through his own films, Mekas shaped an art form that had a wide influence on mainstream movies, video art, and web design. His own works are visual diaries in a staccato style, fully edited within the camera. This book consists solely of about 150 pages of enlarged frames from Mekas's films, along with a brief interview in which the 78-year-old Lithuanian-born artist reflects on his career. Presented as static images, the frame blowups at times resemble fuzzier, less-evocative iterations of Cindy Sherman's pictures. There are numerous familiar faces repeated throughout (John and Yoko, Taylor Mead, Lee Radziwill, and, ad nauseum, Andy Warhol), the cumulative effect of which isAsomewhat inaccuratelyAto circumscribe Mekas within very specific cultural terrain and make this book little more than a scrapbook. At best, this book lets film/video artists see a little of an early master's films; at worst, it's a record of some pretty unmemorable imagery and a catalog of Mekas's circle of friends during his relatively brief heyday. Useful only for those libraries specializing in film or video art. --Douglas F. Smith, Oakland P.L., CA Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Film critic and experimental filmmaker Jonas Mekas has been a central figure in the New York avant-garde almost since arriving there from Lithuania soon after the end of World War II. He documented and was associated with the Fluxus movement, Warhol's Factory, and the Living Theater, and as the founder of the Filmmaker's Co-Op and Anthology Film Archives he has been a tireless and essential advocate of avant-garde film and performance. During all this time he has never been without his Bolex camera, which he has used to write a long, intimate film from which the photograms in Just Like a Shadow were extracted. As Mekas himself sees it: "The cinema is nothing but a photogram, one single photogram!" And indeed the cinematic quality of this collection is unmistakable. Journeying through Mekas' story, we encounter a great many of Mekas' fascinating friends, such as Andy Warhol, Nam June Paik, Robert Frank, the Kennedy family, Salvador Dali, Yoko Ono and John Lennon, Nico, Gerard Malanga, Allen Ginsberg, Henri Langlois, Stan Brakhage, Jack Kerouac, Lou Reed, Miles Davis, and many others, witnessing all those moments, happy or not, which he captured with his camera and his irreverent eye. --Product Description
2004, Aug 28; 12:18 ::: Martin Luther King Jr. - I Have a Dream (1963)
Martin Luther King Jr. - I Have a Dream (1963) [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
One of the greatest and most memorable moments in the civil rights movement occurred when 200,000 people marched on Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963. Not only was the gathering of so many united people extraordinary, but that day Martin Luther King Jr. stood before the marchers and delivered his most eloquent and inspiring speech. This video offers the "I Have a Dream" speech in its entirety, as well as footage of the opposition the protesters faced, such as the fire hoses the police in Alabama used to disperse the crowds. The narrator explains that the hoses shot 700 pounds of pressure, enough to strip the bark off a tree. However, the grimness of this era is not the only focus in this video. Dr. King had so much hope and faith in the success of the civil rights movement, and the greatest demonstration of this is in the famous speech. He uses modern metaphors and poetry to get his message out clearly, as when he describes the capitol as having given blacks a check marked "insufficient funds," but he reminds us that they will refuse to believe the bank of justice is bankrupt, that they will cash their check for riches of freedom and security of justice. Throughout the speech he emphasizes his mission: nonviolence as a method of overcoming ("Soul force against militant force") and the importance of walking together as a unified group, and never walking alone. Although the video ends with his death, it still leaves the viewer feeling uplifted with Robert Kennedy's memorial address, pleading with Americans to hold on to Dr. King's views and adopt them as their own. A concise video with one of the greatest speeches of our time. --Samantha Allen Storey, Amazon.com
2004, Aug 28; 10:49 ::: BlikiBlogs and Wiki's: how about a bliki?
Wikipedia.org is awesome. Who would have thought that building a knowledge system based on voluntary contributions from just about anyone who wants to, would work?
So what would happen if one would combine the Wiki concept with the other superstar of social software, blogging? Wouldn't it be nice that you could have the chronological posts, but also clickable keywords, and the possibility to easily edit them - and let them be edited by others? And then find a catchy name for the combined concept, like a 'bliki'?
Unfortunately I am not the first person to think of the concept, nor the name: perl.com mentioned bliki's in Dec 2003, Martin Fowler talked about it in May 2003, and David M Johnson already in Sept 2002. One of the pioneers was apparently the incredibly extensive www.jahsonic.com: basically a huge Wiki-like site. Its author, Jan Geerinck, also has a blog page (however without RSS or Atom feed). The blog was started back in 2001.
Some products that implement Blog/Wiki hybrids are: YACS, Fromage, Bloki, SnipSnap and Roller. SnipSnap was developed by someone from the Fraunhofer Institute (DE) and looks very promising. Roller is used by Sun Microsystems for the employee blogs. --Peter, http://www.forret.com/blog/2004/08/blogs-and-wikis-how-about-bliki.html [Aug 2004]
2004, Aug 28; 10:33 ::: Le Sexe qui parle/Pussy Talk (1975) - Claude Mulot
Le Sexe qui parle/Pussy Talk (1975) - Claude Mulot [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
You might think this film to be a comedy but in fact it's not very funny at all. The flashbacks from our heroines sex life range from rape to murder and in her current predicament her 'talking' vagina urges her to visit an adult theatre where an on screen rape is being shown and she ends up being gang banged in the grimy cinema toilets. So not many laughs here! The American dubbed version is horrific, crude and grating on the ears, with the leading lady sounding like Elizabeth Taylor but her vagina sounding like Nancy Walker. There are a couple of scenes that produce an erotic frisson but overall this is a ropey ragbag of a movie. --Greensleeves, via imdb.com
see also: Pussy Talk (1975)
2004, Aug 25; 10:47 ::: Creepshow (1982) - George A. Romero
Creepshow (1982) - George A. Romero [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Inspired by the controversial E.C. Comics of the 1950s--which also provided the title and inspiration for the popular Tales from the Crypt TV series--director George Romero and screenwriter Stephen King serve up five delightfully frightful stories. Utilizing comic-book panels, animated segues, and exaggerated lighting and camera angles, Romero and cinematographer Michael Gornick come very close to replicating a horror comic in film format. The results mix fine acting with the morbid sense of humor and irony that made the E.C. books so popular in their heyday. Actors such as Leslie Nielsen, Hal Holbrook, Ted Danson, Adrienne Barbeau, Ed Harris, E.G. Marshall, and even King appear in the stories, which include tales of a sinister father's day celebration, a mysterious meteor, seaweed-draped zombies, a monster in a crate, and a cockroach-phobic millionaire. Fiendishly fun fare from one of horror's most famous directors. --Bryan Reesman, Amazon.com
Five spooky stories, written by Stephen King, are shown in a format based on the popular horror comics of the 1950's. --Description
2004, Aug 24; 10:07 ::: The Making of a Counter Culture (1969) Theodore Roszak
The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition (1969) Theodore Roszak [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
When it was published twenty-five years ago, this book captured a huge audience of Vietnam War protesters, dropouts, and rebelsand their baffled elders. Theodore Roszak found common ground between 1960s student radicals and hippie dropouts in their mutual rejection of what he calls the technocracythe regime of corporate and technological expertise that dominates industrial society. He traces the intellectual underpinnings of the two groups in the writings of Herbert Marcuse and Norman O. Brown, Allen Ginsberg and Paul Goodman. In a new introduction, Roszak reflects on the evolution of counter culture since he coined the term in the sixties. Alan Watts wrote of The Making of a Counter Culture in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1969, "If you want to know what is happening among your intelligent and mysteriously rebellious children, this is the book. The generation gap, the student uproar, the New Left, the beats and hippies, the psychedelic movement, rock music, the revival of occultism and mysticism, the protest against our involvement in Vietnam, and the seemingly odd reluctance of the young to buy the affluent technological societyall these matters are here discussed, with sympathy and constructive criticism, by a most articulate, wise, and humane historian." --Product Description via Amazon.com
2004, Aug 23; 20:16 ::: Andy Goldsworthy's Rivers & Tides (2001) - Thomas Riedelsheimer
Andy Goldsworthy's Rivers & Tides (2001) - Thomas Riedelsheimer [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
I think you should stop filming now and go grab some stones and make yourself useful. --Andy Goldsworthy
Portrait of Andy Goldsworthy, an artist whose specialty is ephemeral sculptures made from elements of nature.
2004, Aug 22; 01:12 ::: Pearl: A Journal of Facetive and Voluptuous Reading (1879) James Jennings
Pearl: A Journal of Facetive and Voluptuous Reading (1879) James Jennings [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Among the first "Journals of Voluptuous Reading" to be spawned by the Victorians, this novel shows them as vastly different from their public image--beneath the facade of respectability and sexual repression there existed the strongest urge for sexual experimentation and enjoyment. First published in London in July 1879, it provided unrestrained erotica for every taste. --Ingram
Lewd, bawdy, and sensual, this cult classic is a collection of Victorian erotica that circulated in an underground magazine known as The Pearl from July 1879 to December 1880. Now dusted off and totally uncensored, the journal of voluptuous reading that titillated the eminent Victorians is reprinted in its entirety. The 18 issues of The Pearl are packed with short stories, naughty poems, ballads of sexual adventure, letters, limericks, jokes, gossip, and six serialized novels including "La Rose d'Amour," filled with inventive and exotic lovemaking scenes; "Miss Coote's Confession," with graphic descriptions of initiations into pleasure; and "Young Beginners," a collection of exuberant sexual adventures. Scatological and scandalous, The Pearl is definitely not for the straitlaced or pure of mind. --Product Description
2004, Aug 21; 13:39 ::: Evguenie Sokolov - Serge Gainsbourg
Evguenie Sokolov - Serge Gainsbourg, John Weightman, Doreen Weightman [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
"Serge Gainsbourg is one of the world's great eccentrics. His kinky obsessions, smothering fashion with tastelessness, have catapulted him into super-stardom in France." --John Zorn
Fiction. Music. This is the one and only novel by the 20th century provocateur of French pop music and film - the legendary Serge Gainsbourg. Evguenie Sokolov is a novel about an artist who uses his intestinal gases as the medium for his scandalous artwork. Translated by John and Doreen Weightman. --Product Description
2004, Aug 21; 13:12 ::: Writings of the Vienna Actionists - Brus, Muehl, Nitsch, Schwarzkogler, Malcolm Green, et al. (1999) - Hermann Nitsch
Writings of the Vienna Actionists - Brus, Muehl, Nitsch, Schwarzkogler, Malcolm Green, et al. (1999) - Hermann Nitsch [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
The Vienna Actionists were indeed unique — at the very outset of post-war performance art they trod a path very different from the "Happenings" in the USA or the belated neo-Dada pranks of many of their contemporaries. They not only established a new territory for art but they explored it so thoroughly as to make most subsequent "body art" simply irrelevant.
Brus, Muehl, Nitsch, Schwarzkogler: four artists who, during the Sixties, became notorious for pushing the definition of art to an extreme which has yet to be surpassed. Variously fined, gaoled, and forced into exile, they were ignored by the art establishment of the day, only to be hailed in recent years as one of the most outstanding and unique contibutions to post-war art in Europe. Exaggeration and myth still obscure their activities, however, and their actual motives for an art centred on the examination of taboos, the "hidden" secrets of the body, the aesthetics of destruction and the possibilities of regeneration have remained elusive. Subsequent generations of artists have claimed them as their forefathers or unscrupulously borrowed their ideas (but without approaching the intensity of their actions), and while international exhibitions have reclaimed their work for the visual arts, their writings have remained largely unpublished since they first appeared! in small mimeographed editions, or are long since out of print.
This anthology of photo-documentation and writings — which includes manifestos, theoretical texts, action scores, even police and psychiatric reports — has been assembled in collaboration with the three surviving artists. It provides the first comprehensive survey of their work, and for the first time illuminates their differing intentions. These texts employ humour and vitriol to elaborate a position in total opposition to contemporary social, political and aesthetic mores. A lucid narrative emerges of a determined exploration of these conditioning factors, by means of an art that used life itself as material. --Product Description
2004, Aug 21; 12:44 ::: Paris, Capital of Modernity (2003) David Harvey
Paris, Capital of Modernity (2003) David Harvey [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Drawing on essays written over the last 30 years, Harvey brings one of the most fascinating and confounding periods of French-or for that matter, European-history into sharp relief. He asserts that two conceptions of modernity were nurtured in Paris in the years after the First Empire-one bourgeois, and the other founded on the idea of the "social republic" geared toward benefiting all classes of citizens. Harvey traces these conflicting movements over the decades leading up to the Revolution of 1848 and charts their reverberations through the final days of the Paris Commune. The book is richly illustrated with over a hundred period photographs and cartoons by Daumier and others, which serve to reinforce the notion of Paris as a city of contrasts in a period of profound change. And Harvey is as comfortable and adept at quoting pertinent passages from the romantic novelists as he is offering detailed economic analyses of real estate and labor market dynamics. By making use of primary sources from diverse disciplines, he offers a thorough examination of the period: he explores, for instance, the role of women and class strictures and the consequences of urban planning and public transportation. The worst that can be said of this exhaustive investigation into the complicated and turbulent era of the Second Empire is that Harvey presupposes an intermediate knowledge of many of the important actors and events. As he weaves the humanities, philosophy, economics and sociology into a detailed tapestry, the author leaves remedial explanations of Parisian and French social movements to the authors listed in a well-annotated bibliography. This is not a problem in and of itself, but readers expecting a breezy history of the "City of Lights" may find themselves overwhelmed by the complexity and depth of this book. --Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Collecting David Harvey's finest work on Paris during the second empire, Paris, Capital of Modernity offers brilliant insights ranging from the birth of consumerist spectacle on the Parisian boulevards, the creative visions of Balzac, Baudelaire and Zola, and the reactionary cultural politics of the bombastic Sacre Couer. The book is heavily illustrated and includes a number drawings, portraits and cartoons by Daumier, one of the greatest political caricaturists of the nineteenth century.--Product Description, Amazon.com
2004, Aug 21; 12:27 ::: The Dreamers (2003) - Bernardo Bertolucci
The Dreamers (2003) - Bernardo Bertolucci [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
A love letter to movies (and the French new wave of the 1960s in particular), Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers starts with a 1968 riot outside of a Parisian movie palace then burrows into an insular love triangle. Matthew (Michael Pitt, Hedwig and the Angry Inch), an expatriate American student, bonds with a twin brother and sister, Isabelle (Eva Green) and Theo (Louis Garrel), over their mutual love of film--they not only quote lines of dialogue, they act out small bits and challenge each other to name the cinematic source. Matthew suspects the twins of incest, but that doesn't stop him from falling into his own intimacies with Isabelle. As the threesome becomes threatened, Paris succumbs to student riots. The Dreamers aspires to be kinky, but the results are more decorative than decadent; nonetheless, the movie's lively energy recalls the careless and vital exuberance of Godard and Truffaut. --Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com
Though The Dreamers is rife with naked flesh, the DVD extras focus more on history and politics--one featurette describes the student unrest of May 1968, which led to national strikes (at one point, 10 million workers were on strike); Gilbert Adair, who adapted the screenplay from his novel, describes the lingering smell that hung over Paris from uncollected garbage and residual tear gas. A making-of featurette is impressively in-depth, richly exploring the intersection of cinema, ... --Amazon.com
2004, Aug 20; 21:20 ::: Sexual anarchy: Gender and culture at the fin de siècle (1990) - Elaine Showalter
Sexual anarchy: Gender and culture at the fin de siècle (1990) - Elaine Showalter [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
A history of the sexes and the crises, themes, and problems associated with the battle for sexual supremacy and identity, this work draws striking cultural parallels between the end of the 19th century and the end of the 20th century. Showalter explores the history and attitudes toward homosexuality, unmarried men and women, the concepts of masculinity and femininity, sexual fears and fantasies, sexual surgery, and sexual epidemics as represented in psychological, medical, and literary texts, visual art, and film. Fascinating and provocative, this book reflects the realities of history repeating itself and the impact of gender crisis on culture.--From Library Journal
2004, Aug 20; 21:17 ::: Romantic Agony - Mario Praz
Romantic Agony - Mario Praz [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Mario Praz seems to disapprove of much of the late Romantic and Symbolist, mostly French, writing from the late nineteenth century. It astounds me that Mario Praz would take the trouble to write an entire book about authors he doesn't seem to like very much. But he was at least thorough about it, and we can share in the fruits of his labours even if we cannot share in his judgments.
In fact, as in all works of this sort, a commentary telling us how decadent, sadistic, and depraved all of the sorts of fantastic fiction he collects is just the thing to whet a reader's interest. He condemns major authors like Flaubert, for his -Temptation of St. Anthony.- But he also introduces us to relatively less well known writers like Jean Lorrain; and to minor poets like Maurice Rollinat, the Alice Cooper or Marilyn Manson of fin-de-siecle France. Without Mr. Praz to tell me how eeeevil they are, I'd never have heard of 'em; and I'd be the poorer for it.
Works like this also serve the purpose of anthologising the more intriguing excerpts from these writers. Mr. Praz's work is no exception. Fortunately, entire poems are often quoted, and extensive passages from short stories, in both the original (usually French) and in English translation.
I can't entirely -endorse- this, but it is a fun and informative read, that you should have a look at if you have any interest at all in the period. --S. Gustafson "Holy Roman Emperor" via Amazon.com
2004, Aug 20; 14:53 ::: Endstufe (2004) - Thor Kunkel
Endstufe (2004) - Thor Kunkel [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
The latest novel of Germany's hot young writer Thor Kunkel exposes the Nazis' previously unknown trade in pornographic films. Sounds like a guaranteed bestseller. So why has the book's publisher cancelled it and kicked up a literary storm? Luke Harding investigates --http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,2763,1146257,00.html [Aug 2004]
The scandal over the so-called "Saxon Wood Films" Nazi porn movies has taken a new twist. The films, exposed by author Thor Kunkel in his controversial novel "Endstufe," were alleged to have been made during the World War II and sold or exchanged for goods to aid the war effort. But new reports on Wednesday claim that the films could not have been made by the Nazis. Experts analysing the filming techniques used in the movies say that the porn flicks were likely made in the 1950's or 1960's, and not in the late 1930's as previously claimed. Also, the firm Sachsenwald GmbH which is credited with producing the movies is not known by experts who have a wide knowledge of production companies operating during the Nazi era. --http://www.dazereader.com/24000229.htm [Aug 2004]
Einen über weite Strecken "durchaus unterhaltsamen und wirren Trash- und Kolportage-Roman", der den "eigenen Irrsinn gegen den Irrsinn des Nationalsozialismus setzt", hat Gerrit Bartels gelesen. Thor Kunkels Roman, den der Autor wohl in einem "Anflug von Größenwahn" unter anderem Jesus und Nietzsche gewidmet habe, folge dem Angestellten des SS-Hygieneinstituts, Sozialdarwinisten und Erotomanen Karl Fußmann ins Pornomilieu zur NS-Zeit, umreißt der Rezensent die Handlung, wobei sich Kunkel mitunter in "Penthouse-Fortsetzungsroman-Sätzen" und in Pornoszenen verliere. Der Vertrieb der entstehenden Filme führt schließlich nach Nordafrika und dort endet, wenn wir den etwas unentschieden wirkenden Rezensenten richtig verstehen, in einer "abenteuerlichen Verbrecherklamotte" auch der unterhaltsame Teil des Buches. Selbiges gerate nämlich mit der Darstellung des Einzug des Krieges in Deutschland und stärker noch mit der Besetzung durch die Rote Armee in "Schieflage", meint Bartels und zitiert empört, was Kunkel zufolge nach der russischen Besetzung Berlins ablief: eine "gnadenlose Fließbandarbeit von samenden Automaten". Damit stimme der Autor in die Leier von den "armen, verführten Deutschen" und in den derzeitigen Trend "Deutschland einig Opferland" ein, kritisiert Bartels.
2004, Aug 20; 14:42 ::: The Secret Paris of the '30s (2001) - Brassai, Richard Miller
The Secret Paris of the '30s (2001) - Brassai, Richard Miller [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
"During my first years in Paris I lived at night, going to bed at sunrise, getting up at sunset, wandering about the city from Montparnasse to Montmartre. And even though I had always ignored and disliked photography before, I was inspired to become a photographer by my desire to translate all the things that enchanted me in the nocturnal Paris I was experiencing." --Book Description
Alone, or in the company of friends, Brassaï discovered and recorded the forbidden Paris of the 1930s, its brothels, whores, pimps, opium dens, and transvestite cafés—the sordid yet fascinating bas-monde where high society mingled with the underworld. The Secret Paris of the '30s is one of the most remarkable photographic memoirs ever published: like his predecessor Toulouse-Lautrec, Brassaï chose to portray a hidden and daring subject matter. His photographs reveal a milieu previously known only through books such as the novels of Henry Miller (a frequent companion of Brassaï's nocturnal rambles), the seamy, grimy, yet infinitely exciting reality that tourists still think of when they seek "Paris by night." These unique pictures are accompanied by an immensely interesting text in which Brassaï reminisces and describes the extraordinary conditions under which he took his photographs. 150 b/w photographs.
2004, Aug 20; 10:49 ::: Salome & Under the Hill - Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley
Salome & Under the Hill - Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
This joint centennial edition of Salome and Under the Hill, united by seventeen of Beardsley's unsurpassable drawings, is a timely rehabilitation of these two all-too-often ignored fin-de-siecle texts, and constitues a volume of unadulterated Decadent Erotica which must surely stand as the apogee of its kind.
Censored, banned, and ridiculed upon publication, Oscar Wilde's Salome, written in 1892 in the French language, must now be viewed as one of the greatest of all Decadent texts; an aesthetic masterwork which has seldom been accorded due respect.
Salome is an evocation of biblical horror in which blasphemies abound. More than this, its atmosphere seethes with a dangerous erotic charge from the very outset. Relentless, hypnotic repetitions in the words, arranged in fugue candences, the tale unfolds with the inexorable acceleration of an orgasmic nightmare.
Aubrey Beardsley's Under the Hill, a short work commenced in 1894, but left unfinished at the time of Beardsley's premature demise, nonetheless achieves the quintessence of Decadence, an evocation of a synaesthetic pleasure dome. A unique and indispensable text for any who seek the uttermost extremes of the manifest imagination. --Amazon.com
2004, Aug 19; 13:48 ::: Critical Terms for Art History - Robert S. Nelson, Richard Shiff
Critical Terms for Art History - Robert S. Nelson, Richard Shiff [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
This companion volume to Critical Terms for Literary Study contains scholarly essays that explore 22 terms commonly used by contemporary art historians. Terms such as representation, originality, appropriation, gaze, and commodity are treated within a historical context, and their influence on art criticism and aesthetics is shown. Here, critical visual theories that utilize the terms are applied to key visual images and objects. The diverse artworks cited include the bronze statue of "The Four Horses of San Marco," Manet's "A Bar at the Folies-Bergere," Walker Evans's photograph "Annie Mae Gudger," and Jeff Koons's "Vacuum Cleaner." Assuming a sophisticated level of art history scholarship, the erudite essays contain numerous bibliographic references. The essays are intended to promote research and debate. Recommended for academic and comprehensive art history collections.?Joan Levin, MLS, Chicago --From Library Journal
The nature of the visual has, over the past decade, moved to the center of debates in the humanities. No longer simply the study of timeless masterpieces, art history as a discipline is now addressing some of the most basic questions about cultural production, questions such as how images function and how expectations and social factors mediate what we see. The new scope of art history has required a major expansion and reassessment of methods and terminology.
Edited by Robert Nelson and Richard Shiff, Critical Terms for Art History is both an exposition and a demonstration of contested terms from the current art historical vocabulary. In individual essays, scholars examine the history and use of these terms by grounding their discussions in single works of art, reading each work through current debates and methods. This instructive combination of theory and practice allows readers to examine the terms as they are seeing them employed. In its wide representation of contemporary discourse, Critical Terms for Art History is a comprehensive effort to map historical and theoretical debates over the visual environment.
Like its companion, Critical Terms for Literary Study, this book will prove an invaluable resource both for those beginning to learn about the visual theory and for scholars and historians. --Product Description:
2004, Aug 19; 12:37 ::: Paris
La Vie Parisienne (2001) - Richard Manton [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
These extracts represent the cream of banned fiction from La Vie Parisienne: passionate nymphs in exclusive finishing schools, shuttered rooms of lesbian “amourettes,” and the whip-wielding jealousies of circus girls. The imperious demands of masters and mistresses are matched only by the sly and perverse sensuality of the girls who serve them.
2004, Aug 19; 11:17 ::: 1860s
Manet's Modernism: Or, the Face of Painting in the 1860s - Michael Fried [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Our current understanding of the paintings of Manet is so heavily filtered through the lens of Impressionism that in many ways, his contributions to art history have been obscured. Called the "first modernist," his paintings marked a break with the past and paved the way for what we've come to accept as modern art in the treatment of the canvas as a flat surface. But during his time, Manet's modernist innovations were the object of ridicule. "It's flat, it isn't modeled," said Courbet of the nude in the painting Olympia. "It's like the Queen of Hearts after a bath." In Manet's Modernism, Michael Fried has set out to see Manet as his contemporaries would have seen him and to gain a more accurate reading of Manet's place in history. --Amazon.com
Manet's Modernism is the culminating work in a trilogy of books by Michael Fried exploring the roots and genesis of pictorial modernism. Fried provides an entirely new understanding not only of the art of Manet and his generation but also of the way in which the Impressionist simplification of Manet's achievement had determined subsequent accounts of pictorial modernism down to the present. Like Fried's previous books, Manet's Modernism is a milestone in the historiography of modern art. --Product Description:
2004, Aug 18; 14:37 ::: Corydon (1924) André Gide
Corydon (1924) André Gide [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Considered by Gide to be the most important of his books, this slim, exquisitely crafted volume consists of four dialogues on the subject of homosexuality and its place in society.
Published anonymously in bits and pieces between 1911 and 1920, Corydon first appeared in a signed, commercial edition in France in 1924 and in the United States in 1950, the year before Gide's death. The present edition features the impeccable translation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Richard Howard.
In spirited dialogue with his bigoted, boorish interviewer, Corydon marshals evidence from naturalists, historians, poets, and philosophers to support his contention that homosexuality pervaded the most culturally and artistically advanced civilizations, from Greece in the age of Pericles to Renaissance Italy and England in the age of Shakespeare. Although obscured by later critics, literature and art from Homer to Titian proclaim the true nature of relationships between such lovers as Achilles and Patrocles--not to mention Virgil's mythical Corydon and his shepherd, Alexis. The evidence, Corydon suggests, points to heterosexuality as a socially constructed union, while the more fundamental, natural relation is the homosexual one.
"My friends insist that this little book is of the kind which will do me the greatest harm," Gide wrote of his Corydon. In these pages, contemporary readers will find a prescient and courageous treatment of a topic that has scarcely become less controversial. --Book Description
2004, Aug 18; 12:55 ::: Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1782) - Choderlos De Laclos
Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1782) - Choderlos De Laclos [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
The complex moral ambiguities of seduction and revenge make Les Liaisons dangereuses (1782) one of the most scandalous and controversial novels in European literature. Its prime movers, the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil--gifted, wealth, and bored--form an unholy alliance and turn seduction into a game. And they play this game with such wit and style that it is impossible not to admire them, until they discover mysterious rules that they cannot understand. In the ensuing battle there can be no winners, and the innocent suffer with the guilty.
This new translation gives Laclos a modern voice, and readers will be able to judge whether the novel is as "diabolical" and "infamous" as its critics have claimed, or whether it has much to tell us about a world we still inhabit.--Book Description
Revenge is a dish best served cold. - pointing to the ellaborated planning of some revenges. The earliest well-known example of this proverb in print is "La vengeance est un plat qui se mange froid" from the play Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1782) by Pierre Ambroise Francois Choderios de LaClos. The saying exists in many cultures, including Sicilian, Spanish and Pashtun, making its ultimate origin difficult to determine. The modern English wording is attributed to Dorothy Parker. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge [Aug 2004]
2004, Aug 18; 10:52 ::: pinup
Pirelli 1963 - 2001 [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
In 1963, the Pirelli tire company created a calendar featuring pin-up models as a promotional piece. Each year since, the company has called upon the photographer of the moment to portray "the beauty of the world" through images. For over thirty-five years, the calendar has been the talk of Italy and Europe because it is available only to a privileged list of corporate customers and VIPs, giving it an air of exclusivity and contributing to its success. In addition, the subtlety of the images and the quality and creativity of its photographers have established the calendar as a paradigm of its genre and a coveted collector's item.
Never before have these images been published in such an affordable and accessible format, or been available to such a wide audience. This book contains the full calendar for all of the years through 2001. The years 1999 and 2001 have never been published in their entirety before, and the 2001 edition is by Mario Testino, one of the most celebrated fashion photographers of today. Past photographers include Norman Parkinson, Bert Stern, Joyce Tenneson, Arthur Elgort, Herb Ritts, Richard Avedon, Bruce Weber, and Annie Leibovitz. The book is a must for fashion aficionados, photography buffs, and advertising and design professionals.
2004, Aug 17; 23:27 ::: Paysage Fautif (Wayward Landscape), 1946 - Marcel Duchamp
Paysage Fautif (Wayward Landscape), 1946 - Marcel Duchamp
seminal fluid on Astralon
2004, Aug 17; 22:41 ::: Bicycle Wheel Ready-made (1913) - Marcel Duchamp
Bicycle Wheel Ready-made (1913) - Marcel Duchamp
Vous ne connaissez peut-être pas Michel Gaubert, pourtant cet homme est une star de la mode que les créateurs les plus renommés (Chanel, Balenciaga, Jeremy Scott....) s'arrachent pour les bande son de leurs défilés. A cet engouement quelques raisons simples : notre homme possède une collection de disques incroyable, une culture de la mode encyclopédique et surtout un feeling hors pair. Ses bandes sons sont de véritables hallucinations sonores provoquant une collision esthétique permanente entre les époques, les genres, la pop et l'avant-garde, l'underground et l'overground. Conversation. --http://www.d-i-r-t-y.com/index2.html?first=http://www.d-i-r-t-y.com/textes/int_gaubert.html [Aug 2004]
2004, Aug 17; 21:59 ::: Michel Gaubert
2004, Aug 17; 21:42 ::: Harri Peccinotti
Pirelli 1969 - Harri Peccinotti --http://www.miaumbria.it/Pirelli.htm [Aug 2004]
Harri Peccinotti Biography
Harri Peccinotti (born 1938, London, UK) is revered as a photographer, but has been an industry 'multi-tasker' since he began his professional career during the 1950s as a commercial artist and musician, with notable skill as a bass trombonist. At this time he designed record sleeves for 'Esquire', book jackets for 'Penguin', and later became an art director and photographer in advertising. Peccinotti was the original art director for 'Nova' magazine, where he and editor Dennis Hackett helped establish it as one of the most influential magazines of the 1960s by introducing ground breaking concepts in typeface, format and photographic direction. He also art directed Flair, Vanity Far, Rolling Stone and Vogue. He quit art-directing to become a full time photographer, still creating content for many of the same magazines his list of regular magazine commissioners grew to include Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire, Town, Queen, and Rolling Stone. Peccinotti is also renowned for his collaborative design of French daily newspaper 'Le Matin', with David Hillman, and he achieved particular renown for his erotic imagery for two Pirelli calendars, 1968 and 1969, with designer Derek Birdsall. The 1968 calendar, shot in Tunisia, pioneered non-traditional pin-up images, which focussed details such as a wisp of hair against the neck or a profile bathed in light. The imagery for the1969 calendar was shot in California without the use of professional models. Peccinotti continues to have his work in French Vogue, Russian Vogue, Gloss, Delciae Vitae and 10 Magazine working with such fashion editors as Charlotte Stockdale and Antje Winte and has been revered by receiving a number of awards in England and America for both art direction and photography. --http://www.showstudio.com/projects/res/res_bio_peccinotti.html [Aug 2004]
2004, Aug 17; 20:45 ::: modernism"Has Modernism Failed?" the critic Suzi Gablik asked. Yes and no. There is a strain within modernism -- its most absolute, nihilistic and Manichaean strain, its quintessential one -- that denies the value of art itself. It is found playfully in dada, elegantly in Duchamp, scarily in those pure varieties of futurism that exalted war because it made life into a work of art. And this part of modernism -- which was really postmodernism avant la lettre -- did fail. It had to, because it had nowhere to go. It led to the extreme, self-canceling gestures with which we are all too familiar: dice-toss art, silent art, readymade art -- all those cute, nihilistic table-trimmings for what Kermode called a "farcical apocalypse." --Gary Kamiya http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2001/05/16/manifestos/index4.html [Aug 2004]
2004, Aug 17; 20:15 ::: Paula Rego
Paula Rego: The Complete Graphic Work - T. G. Rosenthal, Paula Rego [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
About the Author
T. G. Rosenthal is the former art critic of The Listener and of The New Statesman. Among his books are The Art of Jack B. Yeats and Sidney Nolan.Paula Rego, one of today's leading figurative artists, was born in Portugal and studied at the Slade School of Art in London from 1952 to 1956. She took up permanent residence in England in 1976 but has never severed her Portuguese roots.
This is the first monograph to deal exclusively with Rego's graphic work: over two hundred etchings, aqua-tints, and lithographs from 1954 and her student days to the Jane Eyre series in 2002, including several that were never editioned but only proofed. For many painters, etching and lithography are merely an adjunct to their art, and the graphic images are simply copies of their paintings in another medium. Rego is unique among highly acclaimed contemporary artists in that her graphic works are mostly original in theme as well as execution, and she makes use of this different medium to project the disturbing and subversive power seen in her paintings.
The text, written by Rego's friend the art critic T. G. Rosenthal, provides the background to each series and analyzes each work. It quotes extensively from the artist's own commentaries and conversations with the author, which provides intriguing insights into the art. A fully illustrated catalogue raisonné, a description of Rego's techniques by Paul Coldwell, a comprehensive list of exhibitions, and a bibliography make this an essential survey of a major aspect of Rego's work. 445 illustrations in color and duotone.--Product Description:
2004, Aug 17; 19:52 ::: Alice en Mendiante (1858) - Lewis Carroll
2004, Aug 17; 19:36 ::: Le Cauchemar (The Nightmare) - (1781) Henry Fuseli
Being in the grips of a nightmare is a common occurrence that we can all relate to, but we may never experience one exactly as a particular artist depicts it. Here Fuseli conjures up a terrifying image filled with mystery, panic, and yet with a vague and disturbing familiarity. It suggests the way the woman feels in the grip of a demonic nightmare, not what she sees. The Nightmare was reproduced as an engraving; a copy hung in Sigmund Freuds apartment in Vienna in the 1920s.
2004, Aug 16; 22:42 ::: VB 35 (1998) - Vanessa Beecroft
Vanessa BEECROFT
VB 35. SHOW, Performance, 1998
Photographed by Mario Sorrenti
2004, Aug 16; 15:46 ::: Egon Schiele (1890 - 1918)
Egon Schiele - Magdalena Dabrowski, Rudolf Leopold, Egon Schiele (Editor)[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Austrian Expressionist painter Schiele (1890-1918) broke away from the decorative Vienna Secession style, especially that of Gustav Klimt, and developed his own technique using simple lines and bold colors to express intensity of emotions, suffering, and isolation. Schiele's obsession with sexuality and death is seen in the artist's self-portraits and nude female studies characterized by grotesque grimaces, contorted limbs, exposed genitals, and sorrowful, often corpselike expressions. Schiele's final work, a chilling drawing of his wife on her deathbed, exemplifies his superb draftsmanship. This catalog for a recent exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) presents the most extensive collection of Schiele's work, held in the Leopold Museum in Vienna. The collector who founded the Austrian museum, Leopold contributes insightful textual notes for the 152 color plates, while MOMA curator Dabrowski provides the clear introduction. Strongly recommended for general and modern art history collections.?Joan Levin, MLS, Chicago --Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The art collection of Rudolf Leopold, displayed in this volume, well represents the brilliant draftsmanship, idiosyncratic color, and intense, often neurotic power of Schiele's work. Ms. Dabrowski's introduction tells enough about the painter's family background to account for his sexually morbid self-portraits and enough about turn-of-the-century Viennese society to account for his épater le bourgeois female nudes. Schiele was under thirty when he died in the flu epidemic of 1918. One... read more --The Atlantic Monthly, Phoebe-Lou Adams
Egon Schiele, the Austrian painter, draftsman, and printmaker, was one of the major figures of Austrian Expressionism. This beautiful book discusses and reproduces 150 of Schiele`s paintings, watercolors, gouaches, and drawings from the Leopold collection, which can now be seen in the new Schiele Museum in Austria. --Book Description
2004, Aug 16; 18:58 ::: The Monotone Symphony (March 9, 1960) - Yves Klein
On a clear night in March, at ten pm sharp, a crowd of one hundred people all dressed in formal black tie attire, came to the Galerie International d' Art Contemporain in Paris. The event was the first conceptual art piece to be shown at the gallery by their new artist, Mr. Yves Klein. The gallery was one of the finest in Paris.
Mr. Klein in a black dinner jacket proceeded to conduct a ten piece orchestra seated on one side of the gallery. The orchestra was to play Mr. Kleins' personal composition of The Monotone Symphony first written by him in 1949. This symphony consisted of one note.
As the music played three female models entered the room. They were all very beautiful and totally naked. The models were conducted as if instruments by Mr. Klein. Everything had been planed and composed to go perfectly.
The music played for twenty minutes as the models painted each other from the buckets of IKB Blue paint - gently pressing each other against the paper that had been placed on one wall of the gallery. Mr. Klein wearing white gloves, never touched the paint - or the models.
When the symphony stopped, it was followed by a strict twenty minutes of silence - a time in which everyone in the room willingly froze themselves in their own private meditational space.
At the end of the performance everyone in the audience was fully aware they had been in the presence of a genius at work. Mr. Klein had triumphed!
The performance had unquestionable poetic beauty, and Mr. Kleins' last words that night were the myth is in art. --http://members.aol.com/mindwebart3/page2.htm
2004, Aug 16; 18:21 ::: Marcel Broodthaers
http://www.mcachicago.org/search/detail.asp?ID=16 [Aug 2004]
Marcel Broodthaers created the work The Manuscript in 1974. It shows a wine bottle made of clear glass engraved with the words "The Manuscript" standing next to the box it came in. The words on the bottle and the title of the work refer to The Manuscript Found in a Bottle, a story by Edgar Allan Poe that the author published in 1833. With this object, which in fact only simulates a found object, Broodthaers connects fiction and reality in a complex interplay of references to time and content, a play of contradictions between signs and the things they describe. By presenting the definition of a subject from everyday reality in literal terms, the artist transforms it in an ironic distance of alienation, making a reference to the broken relationship between perception, definition, and meaning. -http://www.apexart.org/exhibitions/block.htm [Aug 2004]
2004, Aug 16; 15:46 ::: Mike Kelley
Foul Perfection - Mike Kelley, John C. Welchman (Editor)[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
The 17 essays of this collection may prove the most significant set of artist’s writings since Robert Smithson’s posthumous Collected Writings appeared in 1996. Kelley, a Los Angeles-based artist, is best known for his ironic, politically acidic, often hilarious reconfigurations of cultural tropes, particularly as they have filtered through art and commerce (as when Kelley added breasts to the Native American icon of Land O’ Lakes butter). From the brilliant juxtaposition of a still from On the Waterfront with one from Blade Runner to a trenchant discussion of Douglas Huebler’s riff on Edward Hicks’s early 19th-century painting The Peaceable Kingdom, Kelley is rarely short of inspiring in his willingness to follow the consequences of artistic choices, formal and otherwise, into unexpected places. For example, in his essay "Death and Transfiguration," Kelley declares that Paul Thek’s "amazing wax effigy of himself: a striking hippie in permanent fixed decay" is "a pink raspberry shitsicle" made in response to the "porcelain-white vanilla bar" of Walt Disney’s own frozen corpse. A theory of the Uncanny; commentary on everyone from Marcel Broodthaers and Öyvind Fahlström to Baby Huey and the New York Dolls; an analysis of the use of Pepto-Bismol in the work of Korean-American artist Cody Hyun Choi; a comparison between what he sees as the art world’s control of art history and the Reagan/Bush capture of the corporate media—with 34 black-and-white illustrations to help support these and other arguments, this collection makes a strong case that the best art is "not interested in what’s not us." --From Publishers Weekly
2004, Aug 16; 10:53 ::: William Klein
Broadway and 103 rd Street. New York (1955) William Klein
William Klein is well known as an innovative fashion photographer (who began with Vogue in 1954) and a groundbreaking, often confrontational chronicler of urban life. He has also been a successful filmmaker, with numerous titles to his credit including the widely admired documentary "Muhammad Ali, The Greatest." Klein's photographs have been extensively exhibited at galleries in Europe and the United States since early in his career, and he has been featured in solo exhibitions at museums such as the Stedelijk in Amsterdam, the New York Museum of Modern Art, and the Centre Beaubourg in Paris. --http://www.jacobsonbest.com/william_klein_gun1.htm [Aug 2004]
Currently showing at the Antwerp Photography Museum
2004, Aug 16; 00:09 ::: lust
Lust - Simon Blackburn [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
A distinguished thinker offers an unabashed defense of everyone's favorite sin, part of Oxford's series on the seven deadlies. Blackburn (The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy; Being Good) defines lust as acute sexual desire, untrammeled by any other elements that might make it, well, sinfullike aggression, selfishness or (though he doesn't mention it) self-destructiveness. This premise, along with the unquestioned secularism of modern philosophy, leave him free to consider a broad historical range of ideas about lust-from Plato and the Stoics through Augustine and "the Christian Panic" to Sartre and Martha Nussbaum-with care and discernment, but with no real vulnerability to their arguments. Because lust is broadly condoned in our culture, most readers will find that Blackburn's condescension comes across quite sympathetically. He is a witty writer and a canny reader, particularly adept at pitting temporally disparate thinkers (e.g., Hume and Stephen Pinker) against each other. A juicy group of illustrations, all works of fine art (including the torso of Mick Jagger), add to the book's allure. But Blackburn is so confident of being on the side of the angels that he creates devils that aren't really there, like the feminist concept of "objectification," which he conflates with lust itself. And since he insists that lust is a holiday from moral constraints, it turns out not subject to judgment. "So everything is all right," he concludes cheerily; it is only the inhibition of lust "by bad philosophy or ideology, by falsity, by controls, by corruptions and perversions and suspicions" that we need fear. This book is not so much a defense of sexual desire as a comprehensive excuse for it, like a note from the doctor. --From Publishers Weekly via Amazon.com
2004, Aug 15; 23:13 ::: T.E. Lawrence
The Complete 1922 "Seven Pillars of Wisdom": 'The Oxford Text' - T.E. Lawrence [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
From the Inside Flap
Seven Pillars of Wisdom - the complete 1922 textThe shortened revision of Seven Pillars of Wisdom published after Lawrence's death quickly became a world classic. Far more than a war memoir, it is remarkable for its descriptions of people and scenery and its insights into a leader's mind.
'The story I have to tell,' Lawrence once said, 'is one of the most splendid ever given a man for writing.' Yet at its heart are profound dilemmas about personal responsibility, patriotic duty and imperial rule.
Before the First World War, Lawrence was an Oxford-educated archaeologist working in the Middle East. In 1915 he was posted as an intelligence officer to Cairo. The following year, the Sherif of Mecca rebelled against the Turks. Lawrence then found himself working as a liaison officer with the rebel forces, often far behind enemy lines.
He knew from the outset that the Arab Revolt might not, as the British had promised, be rewarded with self-rule. Nevertheless, as British representative he had to repeat the promise, and he witnessed the consequences. He developed tactics that minimised Arab casualties. Later, he would refuse to accept honours for his wartime role. At the post-war Peace Conference he did everything in his power to advance the Arab cause.
This 1922 'Oxford' Seven Pillars is a third longer than the shortened text which became so famous. It contains numerous incidents, descriptions and reflections omitted from the abridgement. Neither Lawrence nor his literary friends could decide which version was better. He gave the manuscript of this fuller text to the Bodleian Library in Oxford. It was first published in a limited edition in 1997, seventy-five years after it was written.
From the Back Cover
Master-text of a world classicThis 'Oxford' Seven Pillars was the source-text from which Lawrence abridged the book for a fine-press volume issued to subscribers. After his death, the subscribers' abridgement was published in English and in numerous translations. Its success was so huge that, despite pleas from critics and historians, no one would risk printing the fuller version.
'The work is a masterpiece: one of the few best of its kind in the world' - Bernard Shaw, 1923, writing about the Oxford text to Stanley Baldwin.
'...the "Oxford" is in the judgment of several critics even superior to the version offered now, and it is good news that a reprint of it may eventually be made.' - E.M. Forster, 1935, in a review of the subscribers' abridgement.
'If Seven Pillars interests you as history, or travel literature or autobiography, read the Oxford text. It's a third longer than the subscribers' abridgement and contains all kinds of things you won't find there.' - Jeremy Wilson, T.E. Lawrence's authorised biographer and editor of this edition.
2004, Aug 15; 19:03 ::: Philosophy of Sex
Philosophy of Sex - Alan Soble [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Now in its third edition, this fascinating book illustrates how a philosophical approach to sexuality can shed light on various sexual phenomena, such as pornography, prostitution, sadomasochism, homosexuality, masturbation, sexual perversion, and adultery. A definitive work on a provocative topic.
Philosophy and Sex - Robert Baker, Frederick A. Elliston, Kathleen J. Wininger, Robert B. Baker [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
A classic sourcebook that has, for two decades, helped thousands rethink their views of ethics and human sexuality, now all new and totally revised for the challenges of a new century. It features essays on adultery, monogamy, perversion, homosexuality, pederasty, sex without love, sexual equality, and much more.
2004, Aug 15; 17:29 ::: The Decalogue (1987-1989) - Krzysztof Kieslowski
The Decalogue (1987-1989) - Krzysztof Kieslowski [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Superlatives abound when describing Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Decalogue, a series of 10 one-hour dramas originally made for Polish TV between 1988 and 1989 and seen throughout the world in film festivals and cinematheque and museum programs. Though each episode is inspired by one of the Ten Commandments of the Bible, these are not Sunday school fables illustrating some simplistic moral lesson--the connections to the individual commandments are not always obvious and are often downright curious--but powerful, profound stories of love and loss, faith and fear. Kieslowski explores ordinary people flailing through inner torments, hard decisions, and shattering revelations, grounding his stories in the faces of their deeply human characters.
Each episode is self-contained, from "Decalogue I" ("I Am the Lord Thy God"), the touching story of a boy who starts asking the hard questions of life from his rationalist father and religious aunt, to "Decalogue X" ("Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Goods"), a comic tale of estranged brothers who bond through a winding ordeal involving their father's priceless stamp collection. There are stories of tragedy and triumph, both expansive and intimate, some profoundly moving and others delicately shaded--but all are warmed by Kieslowski's sympathetic direction and his eye for resonant, fragile imagery. Initially drawn together by location--the series is set in a dreary Warsaw apartment complex--a web of associations forms as characters pass through other stories, sometimes only briefly, and themes reverberate through the series. The Decalogue is ultimately a personal spiritual investigation into the soul of man, a work of quiet attention and deep emotion marked by astounding images and vivid characters. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com
2004, Aug 14; 19:18 ::: art
“In the illusory babels of language, an artist might advance specifically to get lost, and to intoxicate himself in dizzying syntaxes, seeking odd intersections of meaning, strange corridors of history, unexpected echoes, unknown humors, or voids of knowledge… but this quest is risky, full of bottomless fictions and endless architectures and counter-architectures… at the end, if there is an end, are perhaps only meaningless reverberations.” --Robert Smithson, A Museum of Language in the Vicinity of Art (1968), in: Jack Flam (red.), Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London, University of California Press, 1996, p. 78.Als we de taalproductie van de S.I. vergelijken met de teksten die rond dezelfde tijd in kringen van de Amerikaanse minimal en land art geschreven zijn, dan valt op dat het zwaartepunt daar veel meer bij fictie lag. In een tekst uit 1968, getiteld A Museum of Language in the Vicinity of Art, behandelt Robert Smithson op onnavolgbare wijze de relatie tussen taal en beeldende kunst aan de hand van de teksten van een aantal van zijn collega-kunstenaars. De tekst begint met een waarschuwing: “In the illusory babels of language, an artist might advance specifically to get lost, and to intoxicate himself in dizzying syntaxes, seeking odd intersections of meaning, strange corridors of history, unexpected echoes, unknown humors, or voids of knowledge… but this quest is risky, full of bottomless fictions and endless architectures and counter-architectures… at the end, if there is an end, are perhaps only meaningless reverberations.” Vervolgens blijkt echter dat dit precies de weg is die Smithson wenst te gaan: “The following is a mirror structure built of macro and micro orders […] a shaky edifice of fictions that hangs over inverse syntactical arrangements […]. Here language ‘covers’ rather than ‘discovers’ its sites and situations. Here language ‘closes’ rather than ‘discloses’ doors to utilitarian interpretations and explanations.” -- Jeroen Boomgaard, De Witte Raaf, Juli, Augustus http://dewitteraaf.stylelabs.com/web/flash/showfile.asp?file=WR%20110%20Jeroen%20Boomgaard.htm [Aug 2004]
2004, Aug 12; 01:46 ::: Janine Reynaud
2004, Aug 11; 22:54 ::: sixties design
Sixties Design [Taschen] - Philippe Garner [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
During the decade many associate with the Beatles, hippies, and flower power, designers in Europe, Asia, and the Americas were fundamentally rethinking modernist principles. Sixties Design is a documentation and analysis of that era during which belief in modernist design began to crumble. As modernism--the foremost design mode of the 20th century--reached its golden years, it came to be considered by many an autocratic, almost fascistically impersonal movement that strove to raise the standards of large groups by ignoring the peccadilloes of individuals. At the same time, the modern era and its designers are responsible for remarkable innovations that have forever changed the way we live, work, and play. The book captures an interesting moment during which modernism and its refutations began to coexist.
Author Philippe Garner breaks the book up into five sections. In each he addresses a different aspect of the designed '60s, and his insights add dimension to the hundreds of illustrations. He makes connections between the cold war and Jane Fonda's erotic antics in a fur-lined spaceship from the movie Barbarella--with photo-documentation to boot--and he provides a startlingly lucid and economical analysis of Swedish modern furniture design in the context of minimalist principles and the craft revival. From Florence Knoll's office designs to Oscar Niemeyer's unparalleled "master plan" city, Brasilia; from Richard Avedon's fashion photography to Neal Armstrong's space walk, Sixties Design offers countless vistas from which to rethink a decade too long associated with paisleys and free love. --Loren E. Baldwin for Amazon.com
2004, Aug 11; 13:49 ::: David Hockney
Like Eggleston, Bourdin was fond of bright blood-red, super-green grasses, blinding oranges and blue-blue swimming pools reminiscent of Hockney.
2004, Aug 11; 10:47 ::: aesthetics of power
Walter Benjamin and the Aesthetics of Power - Lutz Koepnick [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
"Walter Benjamin and the Aesthetics of Power explores Walter Benjamin's seminal writings on the relationship between mass culture and fascism. The book offers a nuanced reading of Benjamin's widely influential critique of aesthetic politics, while it contributes to current debates about the cultural projects of Nazi Germany, the changing role of popular culture in the twentieth century, and the way in which Nazi aesthetics have persisted into the present."--Card catalog description
John Armitage: But what about the cultural dimensions of chronostrategy? For instance, although modernist artists such as Marinetti suggested to us that 'war is the highest form of modern art', Walter Benjamin warned us against the 'aestheticization' of war in his famous essay in Illuminations (1968) on 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction'. Additionally, in your The Aesthetics of Disappearance (1991 [1980]), you make several references to the relationship between war and aesthetics. To what extent do you think that the Kosovo War can or should be perceived in cultural or aesthetic terms?
Paul Virilio: First of all, if I have spoken of a link between war and aesthetics, it is because there is something I am very interested in and that is what Sun Tzu in his ancient Chinese text calls The Art of War. This is because, for me, war consists of the organisation of the field of perception. But war is also, as the Japanese call it, 'the art of embellishing death'. And, in this sense, the relationship between war and aesthetics is a matter of very serious concern. Conversely, one could say that religion — in the broadest sense of the word — is 'the art of embellishing life'. Thus, anything that strives to aestheticise death is profoundly tragic. But, nowadays, the tragedy of war is mediated through technology. It is no longer mediated through a human being with moral responsibilities. It is mediated through the destructive power of the atomic bomb, as in Stanley Kubrick's film, Dr Strangelove.
Now, if we turn to the war in Kosovo, what do we find? We find the manipulation of the audience's emotions by the mass media. Today, the media handle information as if it was a religious artefact. In this way, the media is more concerned with what we feel about the refugees and so on rather than what we think about them. Indeed, the truth, the reality of the Kosovo War, was actually hidden behind all the 'humanitarian' faces. This is a very different situation from the one faced by General Patton and the American army when they first encountered the concentration camps at the end of the Second World War. Then, it was a total and absolute surprise to find out that what was inside the concentration camps was a sea of skeletons. What is clear to me, therefore, is that while the tragedy of war grinds on, the contemporary aesthetics of the tragedy seem not only confused but, in some way, suspicious. --http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=132 [Aug 2004]
2004, Aug 10; 22:50 ::: fashion photography
Sarah Moon: Coincidences (2001) - Sarah Moon, Robert Delpire[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Born in England in 1940 (as Marielle Hadengue), Moon made her name in haute couture fashion photography with luxurious and mysterious compositions. This gorgeous volume brings together that work with her other images in an exciting first retrospective. In the fashion work, her models are studious and disengaged, often turned away or intentionally blurred themselves transformed to a compositional element. Images of animals, portraits, still lifes, and wonderful landscapes both rural and urban fill out her oeuvre. In her black-and-white images, Moon (also a filmmaker) masterfully tends the edges of darkness where the merest hints of light create detail, texture, and form. Her tasty color work is highly saturated and grainy. Innovative, witty, and seductive, Moon's photographs draw the viewer into a dream world, at once soothing and vaguely troubled like the opening of a storm. Everything a great art book should be, this volume makes apparent Moon's original contribution to photography over the last 30 years. Highly recommended for large public and academic photographic departments, the book may be of special interest to clothing design/fashion collections. Debora Miller, Minneapolis --Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
A fashion and commercial photographer since 1968, and also a filmmaker, Sarah Moon is known for her dreamlike images and her representation of femininity as free from time and context, as living in a fairy world. Although Moon has been a major participant in the world of fashion for more than three decades, she has carefully carved out her own niche -- a signature style that dispenses with the erotically suggestive poses favored by many of her male counterparts in favor of the emblems of luxury and nostalgia. Mystery and sensuality are at the core of Moon's work, whether she's photographing haute couture, still life, or portraiture. In this book, Moon's first major retrospective, viewers will be treated to a visual tour-de-force, showing all the genres she has explored in her rich and diverse career. --Book Description
2004, Aug 10; 22:50 ::: rape
Images of Rape : The 'Heroic' Tradition and its Alternatives - Diane Wolfthal [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Images of Rape: The "Heroic" Tradition and its Alternatives is the first in-depth exploration of rape as it has been portrayed in Western art from the twelfth through the seventeenth centuries. Examining the full range of representations, from those that glorify rape to those that condemn it, Diane Wolfthal illuminates the complex web of attitudes toward sexual violence that existed in the medieval and early modern society. She makes her case using a range of visual documentation, including picture Bibles, law treatises, justice paintings, war prints, and the manuscripts of Christine de Pizan. --Book Description
Wolfthal examines depictions of rape during the medieval and Renaissance periods, and reveals tellingly and thoughtfully how complex and varied the attitudes towards rape were from around 1100-1700. In contrast to the more simplistic views with which we are often presented, her essay points out that rape was by no means always glorified, but frequently viewed with the disapproval which it deserves; and she makes her case compellingly and fascinatingly, using a wide range of illustrations from several countries and all sorts of spheres. This is a learned book, but, though thought-provoking and demanding, never heavy or ponderous. It is sure to become a classic on its subject, and should be read by all who are interested in rape and attitudes to it. I have found it one of the best scholarly books I have read during an academic career that spans more than four decades. --Joost Daalder via Amazon.com
2004, Aug 10; 21:23 ::: rape
Transforming a Rape Culture (1993) - Emilie Buchwald, Pamela R. Fletcher, Martha Roth [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
The contributors to this invaluable sourcebook share the conviction that rape is epidemic because our society encourages male aggression and tacitly or overtly supports violence against women. Cumulatively, these 34 essays by such figures as Gloria Steinem, Andrea Dworkin, Ntozake Shange, Michael Kimmel and Louise Erdrich situate rape on a continuum extending from sexist language to pornography, sexual harassment in schools and the workplace, wife battering and date and marital rape. Most of the selections were written for this volume. Highlights include a proposal to make rape a presidential election issue, an analysis of the churches' ambivalent response to societal violence, guidelines for raising boys to view themselves as nurturing, nonviolent fathers and inspirational visions of personal or institutional change. Buchwald is publisher/editor of Milkweed, Fletcher an English professor at North Hennepin Community College in Minnesota and Roth edits the feminist quarterly, Hurricane Alice. --From Publishers Weekly
Well-edited, worthy compendium of writings about sex and violence in our culture. In 34 essays--some reprinted, many published here first--well- known feminist activists, university professors, theologians, novelists, editors, and politicians diagnose and prescribe remedies for a society that daily demeans and circumscribes women with the threat of rape. Andrea Dworkin's famous ``I Want a Twenty-Four Hour Truce'' opens the collection: It's a 1983 speech to a ``men's movement'' seminar in which... --From Kirkus Reviews
Originally published in 1993, this pioneering anthology is a powerful polemic for fundamental cultural change: the transformation of basic attitudes about power, gender, race, and sexuality. This edition adds new pieces on Internet pornography, the role of sports in sexual violence, and rape as a calculated instrument of war. The diverse contributors, which include bell hooks, Andrea Dworkin, Michael Messner, Yvette Flores, and Ntozake Shange, are activists, opinion leaders, theologians, policymakers, educators, and authors of both genders who tackle such hot-button issues as pornography and the intersection of race and rape. The book's statistics have been thoroughly updated, as have essays about sexual violence in K-12 schools and in the church. New pieces from within America's immigrant communities depict struggles with domestic violence, sexual harassment, and community stigmas against reporting rape. This violence, not limited to one race, creed, or nationality, has its roots in cultural biases that are still much in need of change. --Book Description
2004, Aug 10; 00:22 ::: Guy Bourdin
Exhibit A: Guy Bourdin (2001) - Luc Sante, Michel Guerrin, Samuel Bourdin, Fernando Delgado [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Guy Bourdin's surreal and erotic imagery filled the pages of international fashion magazines in the 1970s. His revolutionary ad campaign for Charles Jourdan shoes fascinated readers with photographs as provocative and edgy today as they were almost three decades ago. Bourdin's influence on modern photography is sweeping and far-reaching-yet he died in 1991 without ever having published a collection of his work. Now his son, Samuel Bourdin, working with creative director Fernando Delgado, has created this gorgeous overview of some of the finest images from his father's legacy. The powerful images are accompanied by a foreword by writer and critic Luc Sante, and a biographical essay by Michel Guerrin, photography critic of Le Monde.
2004, Aug 02; 15:49 ::: Charles RembarCharles Rembar celebrated his victory in a book strikingly titled, The End of Obscenity. Published in 1968, it gave us the aphorism that pornography is "in the groin of the beholder.". --Charles Rembar, The End of Obscenity
The End of Obscenity: The Trials of Lady Chatterley, Tropic of Cancer and Fanny Hill - Charles Rembar [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Twenty-five years ago, it was a crime to sell Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy in Massachusetts, or Edmund Wilson's Memoirs of Hecate County in New York, or Lady Chatterley's Lover anywhere. Henry Miller's works could come into his native land only in the hands of smugglers.
The End of Obscenity describes the exciting trials of Lady Chatterly, Tropic of Cancer, and Fanny Hill, leading all the way to the Supreme Court, which cleared the way for their publication in this country. Charles Rembar's analysis of the legal background and strategy of each case is insightful and lucid. And the excerpts from the trial transcripts are often gripping, especially the excerpts from the expert witnesses who were called by the defense: Malcolm Cowley (who, in speaking of Lady Chatterley's Lover, said to a not particularly literary-minded examiner, "Sir, I will have to explain that the whole book is directed toward what doesn't happen in the book") and his fellow critics Eric Bentley, Alfred Kazin, and many others, joined by such political figures as Senator Edward Brooke, judges, postmasters and the writers themselves.
Rembar's book deals not with the why of obscenity laws but with the how, and as a result often has a freshness that little recent writing on this subject can match. --via Amazon.com
2004, Aug 02; 15:23 ::: biomorphism
http://www.monsterdesign.co.kr/history_content
2004, Aug 01; 11:53 ::: Dream of the Fisherman's Wife c. 1820 - Hokusai
Dream of the Fisherman's Wife c. 1820 - Hokusai
Tentacle rape is a concept found in some erotic horror hentai titles, where various tentacled monsters violently rape or otherwise impale young women (or, less commonly, men). The most well-known title in the "genre" is the 1987 title Urotsukidoji.
The genre supposedly exists because of Japanese censorship regulations which prohibit the depiction of the penis but apparently do not prohibit showing sexual penetration by a tentacle or similar (often robotic) appendage.
Tentacled creatures have appeared in Japanese erotica long before animated pornography appeared; among the most famous of the early instances (and perhaps the first) is a Hokusai woodcut called The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife, depicting a woman entwined and sexually molested by a pair of octopuses.
One early appearance of tentacle rape was in the computer game Maniac Mansion, which was released in 1987. It was possible to kill a character by making him/her play tentacle mating call to Green Tentacle. Green Tentacle then started approaching the character - and the next picture showed his/her tombstone. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tentacle_rape [Aug 2004]
2004, Aug 01; 11:13 ::: Odalisque c. 1745 - François Boucher
Odalisque c. 1745 - François Boucher
Odalisque (detail) c. 1745 - François Boucher
An odalisque was a female slave or concubine in the harem of the Turkish sultan. The origin of the word appears to be French, from the Turkish odaliq, meaning a chambermaid, from oda, a chamber or room. The word is also written as odahlic, odalisk, and odalik.
The word has also been used loosely to mean a mistress, concubine or paramour of a wealthy man. The odalisque was a common 19th century Western fantasy figure in the artistic movement known as Orientalism, and features in many erotic paintings from that era. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odalisque [Aug 2004]
2004, Aug 01; 10:43 ::: erotic art
The Erotic Arts (1975) - Peter Webb [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Bought it at De Slegte today, a second hand bookstore in Antwerp, Belgium. Very well referenced and I like the early seventies point of view. The version on Amazon is a revised edition of 1983. Has an interview with Hans Bellmer. Recommended. The US has the cheapest version, although they may not ship to America. Available in France for 60 Euro.
Even one of the most liberal advocates of the freedom to read and see sexually explicit art, Peter Webb, author of The Erotic Arts (1975), completely loses his case when he accepts one definition of "pornography" by saying that it is linked to "obscenity" rather than to "eroticism." As I see it, the adjective "erotic" is simply used to describe an obscenity more than a hundred years old. It is very much a matter of the hallowed past, and a game with words that operates on the principle by which "second-hand" furniture eventually becomes "antique." At least in popular usage. --Rictor Norton, http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/pornogra.htm [Aug 2004]
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