Clarence John Laughlin

I do regret being so negligent of this here little corner of the internet. But it's mine and I do enjoy it when I pay attention to it.

I stumbled across Clarence John Laughlin a while ago and it came from one of the most unlikeliest sources, from an interview with Phil Anselmo (it's probably not that one) and even a Down song is named after Laughlin's most famous book 'Ghosts Along the Mississippi'.

Reading up on him feels kind of familiar, we share a love of language and, I delusively think, had a large vocabulary, what's more he had early aspirations to be a writer, my current fair now, but then developed a keen interest in photography, same here on all counts. So it is interesting to see this familiarity around his person and his direction of photography.

His photography feels evocative, like an echo of infused memories emerging as one image. It is ghostly, phantasmal even, starker in the grainy black and white.

Join me in buying the prodigious Ghosts Along The Mississippi

See more HERE

And see even more HERE

Love it.

Hey! I've a Photo

Also I have some more HERE. They're super cool so, yeah, GO FOR IT, or don't. Or head here, that's super cool too.

Joan Miro

As you probably guessed it, I went to the Miro exhibition at the Tate Modern today and I went not really expecting much as my father had been before and he didn't get along with it, but I should have guessed he wouldn't go along with a surrealist because that's probably the area of art he is most confused by, but I went in sceptical, but I left a lover. Catalonia's Joan Miro is the man.

I loved how complexly simple his Constellations were, and the vastness of his triptychs, Miro admittedly inspired by the American Abstract Expressionism, my boy Rothko! and bros., the minutely detailed his early works were with form and placing thrown to the wind. Fantastic.

There's only twelve days left of the exhibition, so if you're on the neighbourhood it is definitely worth it.

MORE MIRO

Kate Boxer

So whilst wondering around Shaftesbury with Cherub the Great I encountered a chair on a corner of a street with a pile of the magazine [Evolver], who also have a penchant for parentheses and whirly-gigs, and as I am a fan I snatched one up immediately, because I'm a curious creature and free stuff is normally better and more satisfying than anything that needs exchangement of paper with queens heads printed on them.

I discovered Kate Boxer's work whilst browsing and became immediately intrigued, her animal pictures in print and paint were striking and used big block colours which I do love so, and a bleak, melancholic atmosphere, especially with that serene green background in that top picture up there.

So yeah colour me a fan of Kate boxer, great work. My favourite though, contradicting my love of colour is that snake image, it's strong and bold, composed and writhing, I don't know exactly why, it hits me just right and would love it on my wall.

If you're interested to see more, check out her website, lots of good quality images there

And, uh, more information than just me rambling, is available here

Oh Man....

So, July may not be as fruitful as June was, what with it's singular post, as I'm roadtrippin' down to Rome and then Bloodstockin' when I get back so July may be another neglectful month. However, before I go on the 17th, I hope to put up at least one or two posts about artists that have caught my eye in the meantime.

I don't know why I put that image there, I quite like it but don't know who did it....

Seldon Hunt

Seldon Hunt has a healthy obsession of skulls. An obsession I share. Hunt's work is vibrant, hectic, packed with colour and well, quite skully. The bottom image is of Master Musicians of Bukkake's record Totem One and it's one of my favourite record artworks.


Hit up Seldon's website for more cool prints and illustrations: here.

Richard Serra

Richard Serra's work terrifies me. Huge sheet metal sculptures that loom above and curl around you, his works are expansive and intimidating, they make the viewer, lo the person who is experiencing them, to feel very insignificant. Something grander, something lifeless yet will live forever, something alien. Serra's work is ominous but he is probably my favourite living sculptor.

He also seems to be my kind of guy, in this interview he sums up his attitude as 'I don't give a shit but I care quite a lot.' Which is something I can relate to.

Richard Serra also had some trouble concerning a site-specific work in Manhattan:

'In the early morning hours of March 15, 1989, the culmination of an eight-year struggle between government bureaucracy and the artist Richard Serra took place. Serra's site-specific structure, Tilted Arc,1981, was removed from 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan, despite overwhelming local and worldwide support for its remaining at that site. The General Services Administration (GSA) established a complex arrangement of checks and balances with the selection and commission of this work, but the response from civil servants and others working in and around the Plaza was uncompromising: Tilted Arc would have to go. William Diamond, the GSA's New York Regional Administrator, had recommended (after three days of hearings that seem to suggest a solution other than the one implemented) that the sculpture be relocated, with a panel selected by the GSA and including Serra himself. This ruling outraged Serra. He claimed that because the sculpture was site-specific, to remove it would be the equivalent of destroying the piece. In addition Serra filed a $30 million lawsuit against the GSA to prevent the government agency from removing the sculpture. He cited as his defense breach of contract, trademark violations, copyright infringement and the violation of First and Fifth Amendment rights (Serra, May 1989, 137). Unfortunately, after months of legal wrangling, the courts stayed the original decision, and Tilted Arc was no more.'

You can carry on reading: here, it is truly facintanating.

So, head over here to find the irritating Gagosian Gallery website.

Head here to view with friendly Google.

Quayola

THIS IS SO AWESUM.

Quayola is a visual artist who experiments with video, photography, design and live performance mediums and I find some of his works to be stunning. An emphasis on some mind. A good example is his project 'Partitura', a video of which you can see above.

Partitura is a custom software to generate realtime graphics aimed at visualising sound. The term “Partitura” (score) implies a connection with music, and this metaphor is the main focus of the project. Partitura aims to create a new system for translating sound into visual forms.

I do find this to be incredible, and something I want immediately. We have all experienced the crappy visualisers of audio on our media players and I for one can see no correlation of what is projected visually in relation to whatever I play. It doesn't actually transform the audio, there is no visual actualisation. What is cool is Quayola has seemed to have created something that does generate the audio into something visual.

I always imagine a film that is imbued by music, I always feel music has a story to tell. Sometimes the film isn't always a narrative, sometimes it is just shapes and colour and abstract form, a good example of this is Electric Wizard's 2010 record 'Black Masses' which in my head is a giant black ball of sludge.

I like this a lot, I would buy the 'Partitura' software if I could. I've already watched that video three times.

Hit up Quayola's website to read up on his works, they are very interesting: here

Henri Cartier Bresson

I feel like we've been neglecting great photographers of late and so here is the fantastic Henri Cartier Bresson.

The big thing I love about Bresson's black and white photography is his ability to tell an engaging narrative. His images display emotive stories that are relative to the viewer. Panic, anxiety, loneliness, whilst also able to capture great images of warmth and love.

Bresson held the ability to reveal emotion in an encapsulating black and white photo.

My personal favourite image is the one at the top of the post. A man sharing a moment of loneliness or despair on the step of a pavement with a stray cat, framed by huge forbidding walls. It has it's own melancholic beauty.

I do also very much enjoy the second image, all those children peering down in a curiosity spiral. It too is rather beautiful.

You can check out Henri Cartier Bresson's offical site: here

View more exceptional photographs: here

The Adventures of Tintin

I fucking LOVED Tintin when I was younger, I had all of the books and read them constantly when on holiday. I loved the fantastic yet rooted in reality storylines, Snowy the little fox terrier dog who had thoughts of his own, the vibrant colourscapes like that huge blue sky above.

Georges Prosper Remi, probably more known by his pen name Hergé, is most likely the best known Belgian having written and illustrated the most excellent adventures of Tintin. It is quite fascinating to read up on Tintin's author, who lived through the occupation of Belgium by the Nazis, and at one point of being falsely accused of being a Nazi sympathiser, that the man has an asteroid named after him is pretty neat and is now one of my life's goals. What's more there apparently is an unfinished Tintin comic floating around somewhere entitled 'Tintin and Alph-Art' which would be interesting to see the light of day.

Anyway, I'd thought it'd be cool to honour Hergé by means of a dedicated post, he was a dearly talented illustrator and a genuine auteur. You can engross yourself with Hergé: here.

Hit up the official Tintin website and you can find out about a tour through Brussels where you can follow Tintin, I am excite!: here. It also fun facts too.

Did you guys read Tintin?

(Or Asterix actually, but I mean to have a future post on his greatness too...)

Louise Bourgeois

I feel bad for being so negligent towards (((Hyperpower))) over the past week so I've decided to come up with a good'un for this here post.

Louise Bourgeois has been acclaimed as a key contributor to contemporary art, and nothing is more revealing of her contribution than her awesome 'Maman' (1999) sculpture, which to me is horrifying to say the least. Spiders are goddamn horrible.

The sculpture, resembles a spider, duh, is over 30ft high, with a sac containing marble eggs. The title is French for Mother. Which is interesting considering it's a huge spider taking on the unexpected motherly role.

It is with sadness to report that it is nearly a year since Louise Bourgeois' death at 98, I hope you guys find something interesting about her astounding body of work.

Find some surprisingly good info: here.

And as there isn't a good online archive of her works, Google is your friend: here.

Hapshash and the Coloured Coat

If you haven't already guessed, I'm a bit of a psychedeliphiliac (making up words is fun!) when it comes to posters. That and mythology wins me over every time.

Hapshash and the Coloured Coat are an artistic partnership between Englishmen Michael English and Nigel Waymouth from way back in the 1960s, having produced in that decade two psychedelic and proto-prog records and a hamper full gorgeous posters. You can read a review of one of their 'freaky' records at this endearing little site: here. Apparently it's "It’s wayward, repetitive, freaky, and VERY 1967." Interesting.

If one is paying attention you can definitely see the influence of Alphonse Mucha on Hapshash and the Coloured Coat, the vibrant and playful colours are telling an excellent, spacey in this case, tale. Other artists I'm feeling in Hapshash...'s works are Hieronymus Bosch and Max Ernst, mainly because I just lifted those names directly from their Wiki page.....

Anyway, I am really digging Hapshash and the Coloured Coat, it's the intricate detail and the excessive vivid colouring makes me want to sit and absorb it for hours. You can see more of 60s twosome in the odd place of The Who Museum website. Which is very odd thinking about it. Hit it up: here

If you also want to pretend you know everything hit their wiki page for info: here

INSA

That top image is just awesome. I know nothing about, mainly, street art artist INSA, but I spied this on Juxatpoz's website and I thought I had to reblog it. It's also nice that INSA keeps a cool little blog, and that he is quite successful, after some quick reading I see he's been doing some recent visual work for Nike, so if you're a fan of Nike you may know more than me.

The bottom image shows our man has a 'Heel Fetish', and is wonderfully colourful. Streaky abstract colour acting as a backdrop to the refined and toned, and tanned, calf and heel. I do like that image.

Anyway, hit up his blog: here.

EDIT: Blogspot is irritating me again. The top image is a .Gif and is meant to move, but blogspot seems to disagree. Hit here to Juxtapoz to see it properly. Grrrr.

Virgil Finlay

I know very little about Virgil Finlay. According to the insightful Wiki page he was an American pulp fantasy, science fiction and horror illustrator, and from these images the horror aspect is definitely shining through. These images are goddamn sinister. He liked to work with pen ink and paper, which is quite a time consuming art, so it makes it absolutely remarkable that he produced over 2600 images in his 35 year career. Astounding.

If your interest is picqued don't bother trying to find an official website or fan website, they're useless. Hit up that Wiki page for info, for more quality images hit: here.

That top image is suitable for the time of night I'm writing this (00:07). I half expect to see it rise up and gaze through my window. Creepy.

Good ol' Google.

Sunn o)))

This music is the blackness that is depicted in it's record art. The thick, sludge-like blackness which sticks to you and burns you. This music is dearth and fire, emaciation and immolation.

Around here are the borderlands; bleak, barren and bitter.

This is Sunn o))) and the time is 23:49, I am at home, in my room, at my desk. Safe.

Paco Pomet

I don't normally include three pictures, too cluttery-ish, but Paco Pomet is just too good and I couldn't just pick two. Taking fine art traditional realism and infusing it with striking abstract details, conveying a rather off-kilter image. A feeling of something is not quite right. And, of course, a little humour helps.....

COOOOOKIE!

I insist you take a look at Pomet's excellent body of work which is rather comprehensively stored on his pleasingly simple website: here.

Florian Bertmer

I love poster art. I have actually blogged a few times elsewhere, thematically with High on Fire here and again focusing on the great Frank Kozik here, and yet I keep on finding more and more cool artists. The latest one being Florian Bertmer.

I unfortunately know very little about him apart from the fact that he does some very cool art. And that I am tired and that I can not be bothered to look. However,n what I do know is that the bottom image is beyond way cool, the intricacies and vibrant colour, the beautiful tattooed woman holding a spear(!) juxtaposed to a symmetrical shrieking squirrel lurking behind her is not something you see every day. I love it.

I do sincerely urge you to check out his other works at his blog: here

More images can be found: here

Alphonse Mucha

Alphonse Mucha illustrations are remarkable, his beautiful lithographs feel way ahead of it's late 19th century time. The excruciatingly detailed women detailed in his paintings have influenced countless of pretenders, one of the most obvious contemporary artists off the top of my head is John Dyer Baizely, whose work I am a big admirer of, albeit Baizely has more of a fascination with flowers and dismemberment. It is the warm, perky, natural colours which enamour me to Mucha's work, and it complements the gorgeous subject matter. Amazingly, it is Alphonse Mucha, a name which I indeed love saying, no one's called Alphonse anymore, who was the pre-curser for the French art movement Art Nouveau, which you can read about on good ol'wiki: here.

Moreover, you can read up more on Alphonse Mucha: here. He is indeed an interesting fellow as it seemed he had an internal struggle between his fine art aspirations and his commercial successes.

Alphonse Mucha is a popular guy so you can:

Hit up his official site to read up on the man: here
See a comprehensive list of his works: here
If you feel really good about yourself you can buy his posters: here

After the jump a photograph of the man himself.

Urs Fischer

Urs Fischer is an installation artist and sculptor with big ideas.

Today I'm focusing on his big and scary installation artwork. In my mind's eye his work is quite cinematic, the concave beaten wall looks like a monster is about to burst through whilst the hole looks like a trench or a IED has exploded in the middle of a gallery. Instead of being inward looking and creating a thing, Fischer looks outward to his environment.

Fischer gained my attention when his sculpture of a giant teddy bear is expected to fetch $10 million at auction next month, it is quite a sight to behold, story and image: here.

Unfortunately Urs doesn't have an official site but.....

More images of Urs Fischer's work can be found: here.

Aaaand some more: here.

William Henry Fox Talbot - The Pioneer

I will always have great love and respect for Fox Talbot! He is considered one of the first ever photographers and one of the first people who discovered it. He is the inventor of the Calotype process, which is a process which bares the same principle as Photograms.... to expose a piece of photo - sensitive material to light and but objects in its way to create a opposite-shadow type thing.



(This image reminds me of an image which you uploaded Sean... the one of the tree!)


The idea of photography came to WH Fox Talbot whilst on holiday at Lake Como in Italy, using the camera obscura and camera lucida as aids to drawing. Beginning in 1834, Talbot experimented with a process which he called photogenic drawing, coating drawing paper with salt solution and after it had dried, adding a solution of silver nitrate. By placing a leaf, or fern, or a piece of lace, on the paper's surface and exposing it to the sun, he obtained an image.



In August 1835, Talbot made the earliest known surviving photographic negative using a camera, a small photogenic drawing of the latticed window in the south gallery of Lacock Abbey. This rare item is now in the collection of the Science Museum at the National Media Museum at Bradford.



When ever I think about Fox Talbot I think of a plantive, wholesome man who simply was keen on the flora of his time and who simply wanted to document. Like other pioneers of photography such as Muybridge, Talbot used Photography as a tool to show his interest and to communicate the beauty of the World he lived in.

The End

Gillian Wearing - 'Signs That Say What You Want Them to Say and Not Signs That Say What Someone Else Want you To Say'

A business man with slick hair and a slick suit may seem to be happy and to have it 'made'. But underneath there is something sinister, he is desperate. Just look under the surface and you dont know what you will face. Gillian Wearing is more of an artist than a photographer. She is a concept artist and a good one at that. She simply uses photography as a tool for communicating her mind. The work which I am focusing on is 'Signs That Say What You Want Them to Say and Not Signs That Say What Someone Else Wants you To Say'. This is an extroadinary piece of work focusing on the inner-self. No body is who they seem and Wearing knows this well. Wearing walked down a street and asked people to write how they feel, there truths, aspirations and wants, also what is on their mind on a piece of white card, then hold it up to be photographed. This pioneering piece of work i think is incredible. It is something which was not thought of before and is soooo simple but soooo easy to empathise with. I have things which I have under the surface and which i will never tell anyone and which i dont want anyone to know but Gillian Wearing breaks down this wall, she abolishes secrecy and allows these people to really express themselves. She is someone who every keen photographer and artist should know. For her work on the Tate website click here.

Some O' Mine Photographs....

(click each image to enlarge, the top image does look much better when clicked on)

So in Bath it has been glorious weather recently, absolutely beautiful sun, and it is the first day of the year where I've only gone out in a t shirt. Obviously with trousers too, not just the shirt.

On campus at Bath Spa we have a stunning lake which is brilliant for lounging around on a sunny day under a tree, which is just what I did for three hours yesterday reading Ernest Hemmingway. It was good. Then I found a spider had crawled onto my collar which was not cool. Not cool at all.

The bottom image was at a ruins of a mill by a stream which is also on campus and I had to climb through some thicket to get there. It's the view through what I guess was once a circular window.

Fursy Teyssier

'Écailles de Lune'

'Septembre et ses dernières Pensées'

(click either image to enlarge)

I really enjoy French artist Fursy Teyssier's distinct ability of composition. the positioning and placement of colour and figures really lend well to the overall image.

The top image is the record art for Alcest's 2010 record 'Écailles de Lune'. I love the extensive use of blue, the skeletal fish swimming with the moon, the natural flow of the mermaid's hair is wonderful. Whereas the bottom image, Les Discrets 2010 record art for 'Septembre et ses dernières Pensées', shows an odd juxtaposition compared to the top image. Even though this painting is dominated by a towering shadowy giant with a long pointed beak, there is a silhouetted couple holding hands, with one holding an arm up in seeming awe. Looking closer, the hooded giant looks like it's bending down to see what the couple have to say.

I find each image to be really quite sweet, the Alcest one portraying care and intimacy, whilst Les Discrets conveys a closeness of the couple and a trust of the giant.

You can check out more of Fursy Teyssier's interesting artwork: here.

Fursy Teyssier is also the man behind Les Discrets' music, you can check their brand of Shoegaze Black Metal: here.

Ulver

Ulver's 'Shadow of the Sun' is one of the most stunning records I've ever listened to. It is so achingly melancholic, gorgeously warm and just beguilingly simple! Nothing here is conventional yet nothing here is out of place. As a vocal performance, Kristoffer 'Garm' Rygg is probably the hands down best at making grown metalheads weep with joy.

So it is perfect for midnight listenings! The above track is a cover of Black Sabbath's Solitude, but not in the way we're used to it. It is painfully beautiful, so try it out.

You can hit up the rest of the record on Youtube, or if you know how to fiddle with .rar files, well you know where to find them: here.

A note on the record art: It is simple but has powerful elements at work, showing two works of nature coincidentally forming a frame and an image.

Stephen Kasner

'Khlyst'

(click either image to enlarge)

Immediately Stephen Kasner's art is a haunting sight to behold. The dark and brooding images project a moving stillness, there are moving parts but they are dead and are laid in their natural positions. It is extremely bleak art.

The 'Khylst' image is an especially frightening viewing, something so beautiful like a swan, yet it feels cold and lifeless.

Unfortunately, Stephen is actually seriously ill and that he needs to sell his artwork fin order to pay hospital bills, which is an very sad situation to hear about for such talent. You can read more about his problems here. You can read a very insightful interview with Stephen about his art here.

There isn't an official website, so see what Google has to offer: here.