Unica Zürn

I knew nothing of 1960's artist Unica Zürn until this posting of upcoming Drawing Center show Unica Zürn: Dark Spring opening April 17. Her delicate drawings don't translate well to digital, but from what I can see they are pretty fantastic. 

The Ubu Gallery's 2005 show offers more info and pics.

Adolf Wölfli, or, Start Drawing like You're Crazy

The 50 remaining drawings that "outsider artist" Adolf Wölfli (1864-1930) left for the world are amazing. Illustrated schizophrenia seems pretty crazy, and the intrigue here lies with looking at work that is, more or less, removed from not only the art world, but the regular everyday people world. For most of his life, Wölfli lived in a Swiss psychiatric institution. Now, in a fortunate turn of events,  he has his own Institution, The Adolf Wolfli Foundation, of the Museum of Fine Arts in Bern, Switzerland. 

A whole lot of art today strives to do this, I believe. I'm mostly speaking of drawing here, characterized by semi-autistic painstaking repetition. Forced naiveté is very appealing in current work, and by forced, I mean those with MFAs channeling their inner child. Which is really nice, but when its bad, it can be disingenuous and twee. Check out, for instance, a great art blog Fecal Face I look at a lot and you'll get the gist of the spectrum. Or, check out this piece by Aurel Schmidt, whose work I like and instantly reminded me a bit of Wolfli:

*Ergo, all you young things, start making stuff like you're batt-shit crazy.

Leonora Carrington, Giordano Bruno, and Hermetics

It's a bit of a shame that I never payed close attention to the English surrealist artist Leonora Carrington, one time lover of Max Ernst. Cause she's amazing! Some interesting tidbits: as a Mexican emigrant, Carrington worked with Alexander Jodorowsky in his visually stunning theatrical productions. She's into Robert Graves' The White Goddess, among many other things to do with myth, folktales, alchemy and the occult. She once showered with her clothes on. Take a look at Susan L. Aberth's Leonora Carrington: Surrealism, Alchemy and Art.

Garden What are You, White Vision?

The Magical World of the Mayas

The Burning of Giordano Bruno

Interested in alchemy and hermetics, Carrington painted the execution of Giordano Bruno, the Italian philosopher and alchemist whose "heretic" interests, including cosmology/astrology, mnemonics, Copernican science, and the relationship between images and signs, got him nicely burned at the stake.

Giordano Bruno

Thought Forms: Leadbeater + Besant

Here are some good vibrations from the astral plane brought to you by the wacky fin de siècle Theosophists, those New Age pioneers of clairvoyance and body auras. Despite their questionable analysis, these "thought-forms" are quite beautiful, and nice to think about forming around my head, or coming out of other places... these are a couple of my favorites. (the following captions by Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater's THOUGHT FORMS, downloaded via Project Gutenberg)

This is what my aura looks like when i'm mildly stimulated:

Vague Intellectual Pleasure.—Fig. 18 represents a vague cloud of the same order as those shown in Figs. 8 and 14, but in this case the colour is yellow instead of crimson or blue. Yellow in any of man's vehicles always indicates intellectual capacity, but its shades vary very much, and it may be complicated by the admixture of other hues. Generally speaking, it has a deeper and duller tint if the intellect is directed chiefly into lower channels, more especially if the objects are selfish. In the astral or mental body of the average man of business it would show itself as yellow ochre, while pure intellect devoted to the study of philosophy or mathematics appears frequently to be golden, and this rises gradually to a beautiful clear and luminous lemon or primrose yellow when a powerful intellect is being employed absolutely unselfishly for the benefit of humanity. Most yellow thought-forms are clearly outlined, and a vague cloud of this colour is comparatively rare. It indicates intellectual pleasure—appreciation of the result of ingenuity, or the delight felt in clever workmanship. Such pleasure as the ordinary man derives from the contemplation of a picture usually depends chiefly upon the emotions of admiration, affection, or pity which it arouses within him, or sometimes, if it pourtrays a scene with which he is familiar, its charm consists in its power to awaken the memory of past joys. An artist, however, may derive from a picture a pleasure of an entirely different character, based upon his recognition of the excellence of the work, and of the ingenuity which has been exercised in producing certain results. Such pure intellectual gratification shows itself in a yellow cloud; and the same effect may be produced by delight in musical ingenuity, or the subtleties of argument. A cloud of this nature betokens the entire absence of any personal emotion, for if that were present it would inevitably tinge the yellow with its own appropriate colour.

At a Street Accident.—Fig. 33 is instructive as showing the various forms which the same feelings may take in different individuals. These two evidences of emotion were seen simultaneously among the spectators of a street accident—a case in which someone was knocked down and slightly injured by a passing vehicle. The persons who generated these two thought-forms were both animated by affectionate interest in the victim and deep compassion for his suffering, and so their thought-forms exhibited exactly the same colours, although the outlines are absolutely unlike. The one over whom floats that vague sphere of cloud is thinking "Poor fellow, how sad!" while he who gives birth to that sharply-defined disc is already rushing forward to see in what way he can be of assistance. The one is a dreamer, though of acute sensibilities; the other is a man of action.

And my favorite--what the Music of Mendelssohn looks like. Just imagine this coming out of your heads:

Illuminated Architecture: Christopher Alexander

I've just recently (and most happily) been acquainted with Christopher Alexander's four part work "The Nature of Order: The Art of Building and The Nature of the Universe." It's a work that reaches beyond the realm of architecture--Alexander describes with great beauty the phenomenology of the man-made world and it's relationship with our individual consciousness. He attempts to reconcile the sometimes ugliness of modernity to find a structure's living center, the illuminating inner light, what he names as the identifiable "I" in a thing--in a bit of carpet, a tile, a painting, a garden, a bridge. His profound humanism is refreshing and unapologetic, and makes for inspiring urban planning and architecture. Check out his Pattern Language website.

In Living Color + Zoobilee Zoo: The Tender Years

This show makes me cry everytime...with happy magic tears.



This makes me cry as well, and shit my y-fronts a bit. The thing is, I was probably watching these two in one glorious day in 1991. I waked and baked with Mayor Ben Vereen and other grown up musical friends dressed as pigs, and set my head to rest not too long after Homey D. Clown. The world makes a little less sense nowadays, without these.

Bye! Bye! byee! Bi! Byenow! Byeee! bi! Biiiiiiiiiii! Byeeeeeeeeeeee! Biiibiiii! iiii!

Image du jour: White Snake + Rose

Garth Merenghi's Darkplace

I can't stop watching this, it's brilliant. This program stars Garth Marenghi: fabulist, shaman, ferryman, author, dreamweaver, class actor. They wield guns and battle terror all over, everyday.
This show is a dark parody of 1980's horror/doctor/crap shows, set in a hospital which sits upon the very mouth of hell itself. Patients turn into broccoli, monkeys by mysterious vapors, it's all in a days work for Darkplace.
The series isn't available in America as far as I know, so YouTube the episodes, dear pilgrim, and be sure you're sitting down or else you'll fall face flat with darkness.

Alfred Kubin

His show at the Neue Gallery in NYC is up September 25th

Picture of the Day: Alec Sloth

Elrond Hubbard + David St. Hubbins

Ye ole L. Ron

Vs.

David St.Hubbins/Lenny

*Thanks to Russ for pointing this out*

Murphy, Tuymans, Bunnys

I became familiar with Ciaran Murphy's paintings through an Artkrush posting on his solo show at Kavi Gupta gallery in Chicago. The posting led to a discussion on young painters' obsession over Luc Tuymans and his influence. Murphy's paintings elicit the same response as Tuyman's work-I am at the same time intrigued and annoyed with them, and this bothers me.

From Jordan Kantor's article on Tuymans:
"The idea that painting was somehow bound to fail--a presupposition that finds formal expression in the now-prevalent "deskilled" aesthetic--is also worked through in deeper conceptual terms in the canvases of Tuymans and those in his wake. That is, beyond using technique to thematize failure, these artists set tasks and projects for themselves that seem doomed from the beginning."

First off, I love much of Tuymans work, I think it's free spirited and majestic--

Some times it makes me go Meh in frustration, perhaps because it's "bound to fail".

Why? I think about painting a lot (the act and the history of)--and I force myself to think about it in the simplest terms possible. I think about it's cop-outs, it's complex simplicity, its self involvement. Why do I find this aesthetic annoying and pretty great at the same time?

It is made most apparent with Tuymans-- the push and pull tension of the painterly impression and the upfrontness of his cheeky "deskilled" technique, where anything goes, really. But I wonder if this type of thing is evocative for its novelty at the time (late 70's/80's-quiet figure painting not so big) or for it's stripped down aesthetic today (2000's--awesome Neon Hippy Art! ) or for the fact that it's in the camp of high art looking like naive-not-giving-a-fook .

I'm no curator, my craft at turning a phrase isn't model doctorate to be sure. But working through my misgivings as a painter leads me down a sticky road. I mean, I've actually said to myself looking at some of these "Ef, from far away that's pretty emotional, but, umm, is that it? That's it?!?"

At this point I just shut down and ask why/how/huh?, and why can't I bring myself do do this sort of thing, this effortless work, this koan of a painting, this little thing that is so hard and so meaningless.

I mean, how's about sticking some painting in there---or a bunny. Anything with a bunny is good, right?
xoxoxox

I forgot how great Turner is...

...when he shoots heavy on the abstract and watercolor. I was just browsing Andrew Wilton's Turner and the Sublime, which reminded me that I do like Turner after all when he doesn't get all National Gallery stormy seascape adventure, although that stuff is good too, but not repeatedly in large doses, like lollipops.

Yurts

Thanks again Corbis, with love.

So I've been blabbing to everyone about living in a Yurt for a while now. I mean, why can't I make this dream come true? It's a lot cheaper than buying a "condo" or even a fancy "house." I'll ignore that the city probably can't sustain one, or that it's pretty easy to brake into, or that I need to own a piece of country somewhere not-close to jobs or bars etc., but Fah! No dream is too small when it comes to yurts. If the mafia can construct "loft style apartments" in falling down boxes in Bushwick, why can't I stick a yurt on top of my apartment building?

Here's what my living room will look like, complete with guy and stuffed Eagle:




I'll whittle the frame with my swiss army knife, and the door with a jagged rock edge:




I'll paint packs of wolves on the exterior to intimidate my enemies, with a decorative border of pinks and blues to match my tea set and rug.

Pig Candy

This was sitting next to me briefly this morning, set down by the janitor:



Chocolate covered bacon, or "pig candy." After the first wave of nausea passed, I was intrigued, and now I think I may want to try one of these puppies. Yum, no?