Via Boing Boing, we are treated to a delightful animated overview of Satan and his tripartite forms, counterweight of a righteous god, trickster spirit and rebel, forms in this TED-Ed short from priest and historian Brian A. Pavlac and how we limn our experience and understanding of evil and temptation in art, theology and scholarship.
Saturday 12 June 2021
Friday 11 June 2021
london international surrealist exhibition
Held at the New Burlington Galleries off Savile Row in Mayfair from this day through 4 July 1936, the organising committee hosted works from several popular and influential artists of the movement, including Alexander Calder, S. H. Tauber-arp, Victor Brauner, Gala and Salvador Dalรญ, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Joan Mirรณ, Pablo Picasso, Len Lye, Renรฉ Magritte and Paul Klee and attracted a thousand visitors per day with Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, the US, the UK, New Zealand, Italy, Roumania and Czecho-Slovakia represented and distinguished presenters delivering a series of lectures to large assembled audiences. Salvador Dalรญ wore a diving helmet whilst giving his seminar on fantรดmes paranoรฏaques authentiques and nearly suffocated at the dais and had to be rescued by poet David Gascoyne with a spanner.
6x6
lp: an over-sized mural of well-used record sleeves adorns a corner of a Reno brewery
it’s impolite to point: helpfully finding one’s cursor with an array of candid photos—via Things Magazine
kokedama: an installation of a floating forest (ๆ นๆดใ, root wash—no pot) by Nomad Studio
zeckenalarm: Ze Frank (previously) delivers true facts on the dangerous little tick
the amusement park: a long-lost 1973 public service announcement from Dawn of the Dead creator George Romero about the nightmare of ageing in America
bierdeckel: various graphic designers create coasters capturing historic moments from the UEFA European Football Championship
Thursday 10 June 2021
w.a.n.d.
Since organisers at the Budapest Museum of Applied Arts put together the first events in 2013, World Art Nouveau Day has grown into an annual, international observance to celebrate the style and influence of the movement and its affiliate, Secessionist periods. The date was chosen to honour the anniversary of the death of two major architects of art nouveau, Antoni Gaudรญ (*1852 - †1926) and the tragically lesser-known รdรถn Lechner (*1845 - †1914), prolific Hungarian artist behind among many other iconic buildings the sponsoring museum compound.
catagories: ๐ญ๐บ, ๐จ, ๐ , antiques, architecture
Wednesday 9 June 2021
mallorn
Via Dark Roasted Blend, we are directed to the extensive archives of the J.R.R. Tolkien Society and their periodic journal—the above titled in reference to the mellyrn trees of Nรบmenor that grow to immense sizes—whose issues include peer-reviewed scholarship, editorial, art work and academic essays on the legendarium of Middle Earth and related topics. Some of the manual typesetting and formatting, illuminated scripts really, of the earlier instalments, like this coda to an argument about the physics of Gimli’s armaments and fighting style with the contributor having developed his own Fรซanorian glyphs to render their by-line, are especially worth a read through.
Tuesday 8 June 2021
american venus
Here pictured in 1915 with Buzzer the Cat, born this day in 1891 (†1996, aged 104), Audrey Marie Munson was considered to be the USA’s first super model, inspiring sculptural works and engravings across the country whose likeness graces many public institutions and endowments.
Discovered whilst window shopping on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan by hobby photographer Felix Benedict Herzog who invited Munson to his studio and introduced her to artist friends, she was immortalised in statuary in courthouse, museums and libraries in New York and was even the model for a commission of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands for an armed Venus de Milo. Modelling led to four starring roles in silent movies, one appearance was fully nude.
Lecherously, the landlord of the boarding house where Munson lived with her mother was madly in love with her and murdered his wife so they could be together. Requited or otherwise, this episode compelled Munson to quit her career in 1922 and having attempted suicide herself (the landlord hanged himself in prison awaiting his execution), Munson’s mother had her committed to an insane asylum in upstate New York where she remained for the next six and a half decades, forgotten and with no visitors until a distant relative found her in 1984.
Monday 7 June 2021
9x9
glass menagerie: a Murano bestiary on display in Venice
glow up: beauty tips from Ancient Roman—via Strange Company’s Weekend Link Dump
coconuรritter: a short about Foley artists and creating soundscapes
happy little clouds: explore a relaxing gallery of Bob Ross paintings (previously), via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Linksculaccino: a database of words that do not readily translate succinctly, like this Italian term from the mark left on a table by a cold glass—via Swiss Miss
electrobat vi: antique electric forerunners side-by-side with modern EVs
the perils of everybody: a ‘mistake waltz’ that illustrates the pratfalls all ballet recitals are prone to
where the buffalo roam: restoring the ecosystem of the North American Great Plains by reintroducing charismatic megafauna
kitchenette: re-examining Liza Lou’s beaded exhibits
Thursday 3 June 2021
non-fungible intangibles
As Futility Closet relates, artist Salvatore Garau has auctioned off his invisible sculpture (entitled I Am—Io Sono) for a rather princely sum, recalling the works of Yves Klein and other more contemporary phenomena. According to the sculptor’s instructions, the piece is to be be displayed free from any obstruction in a one and half square metre space. Because the object is immaterial and does not exist, however, there are no special lighting or climate-control requirements.
Wednesday 2 June 2021
shadow-casting
Though previous acquainted with the ukiyo-e master Utagawa Hiroshige (ๅฎ่ค ๅบ้, 1797 – 1858), we were unfamiliar with this form of expression in his repertoire in the form of these “play prints” (omocha-e, ็ฉๅ ท็ตต—see also) in this series of diagrams on making shadows puppets—quite superior to these, which prefigured the magic lantern and all the development and exchange (many of the incremental steps superseded and quite forgotten despite the intermediate value of the artefacts, fashions and temporary obsessions) of technologies that led to film, animation and animรฉ and whatever is to come. Much more to explore at the links above.
Friday 28 May 2021
8x8
pier 54: Thomas Heatherwick’s Little Island on the Hudson off NYC’s Meatpacking District opens to the public
al fresco: limited edition Rolls-Royce Boat Tail to take picnickingcosmism: the cosmic religion of Nikolai Fyodorov that inspired and informed Soviet space-faring aspirations
astronomicum cรฆsareum: a beautifully illustrated scientific text from 1540
circle of friends: a visualisation of the intimates that one can socially maintain—see previously
rollercoaster tycoon: an engineer explains the different types of amusement park rides
pole of inaccessibility: plotting when the ISS crew are one’s closest neighbours when one lives near Point Nemo
project plywood: non-profit Worthless Studios transforms discarded materials used to board up storefronts from inclement weather and civil unrest into art
Wednesday 26 May 2021
zones of immaterial pictorial sensibility
Tuesday 25 May 2021
triptych
Via friend of the blog Everlasting Blรถrt, we thoroughly enjoyed pouring of the details of Carla Gannis’ 2014 digital art project that replaces the religious allegory and iconography of Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights (see previously here and here) with a more secular and contemporary vernacular, the collage exploring modern vanities and consumerism. Much more at the links above and the short video on the exhibition below. Check out all three panels compared with the original and let us know your favourite emoji substitutions.
catagories: ๐ณ๐ฑ, ๐จ, ๐ฃ, networking and blogging
Thursday 20 May 2021
notorious rgb
Via ibฤซdem, we are directed towards a campaign to name every colour (see also) in web space, approaching seventeen million shades, sourced from all contributors. With only about fifteen percent assigned a particular appellation, suggestions are accepted so long as they are descriptive, useful and non-offending. Some recent ones include Orange Bruno, Pearlescent Lavender and Every Whale Mascot Ever.
Tuesday 11 May 2021
7x7
caption this: a celebration of strange, out-of-context vintage photography—via Boing Boing scroll + click: an elegant paintbrush diversion via Kottke’s Quick Links
mudlarking: more trash and treasures dredged from Amsterdam’s canals—see previously here and here—via Messy Nessy Chicstille orte: a travelogue of scenic rest stops in the Swiss Alps
laundry day: a clever stop-motion dirty clothes brawl
this is a stub: a list of lists on Wikipedia—via Swiss Miss
down in bedrock: antique snapshots of people posing with dinosaurs
Monday 10 May 2021
a cautionary tale
Though exploitative and terribly, predictably misogynistic, via Super Punch, we enjoyed learning about the popular late medieval trope of the Frankish thirteenth century story le Lai d’Aristote / Aristoteles und Phyllis depicted in numerous media in art and artefacts spanning into the modern era and upheld to a degree in academia. The conceit, with some significant variation depending on the version, is that the seductive can over take the greatest intellect, countering a dominatrix with the great philosophical mind with their attendant gendered roles—see also Socrates and Xanthippe. Caught by the royal retinue undergoing the humiliation of being ridden, Aristotle excuses himself with Amour vainc tot, & tot vaincra / tant com il monde durea—Love conquers all and all shall conquer as long as the world lasts.
catagories: ๐ซ๐ท, ๐, ๐จ, ๐ญ, Middle Ages
Sunday 9 May 2021
jpeg image, 512x512 pixels
Via Boing Boing, we are afforded a very exclusive peek in a very elite gallery with a inimitable exhibition which you and you (most likely) alone get to experience with This Art Work Does Not Exist—see previously here, here, here and here—created spontaneously through an artificial intelligence using a generative adversarial network. Refresh the screen to get another one-of-a-kind—quite unique but in a different way than a non-fungible token—piece of art, once again begging the question what it means to copy, up-sample, create and own the creative process.
Saturday 1 May 2021
smoking dogs
Admittedly we were unaware of this motif and the religious iconography behind it and were rather blind to the profusion of details of sedate hounds in the corners and margins of high Renaissance to the early modern period of Spanish colonial paintings portrayed apparently as fetching a fat joint. Thanks to Strange Company’s Weekend Link Dump for educating and disabusing us of this trope which rather references the hagiographical tradition built up around Saint Dominic and the Dominican Order. The eleventh century Juana de Aza (Blessed Jane or Joan of Aza), it is related in some of the earliest accounts, was near to term in her pregnancy and dreamt, prophetically that a dog carrying a lit torch (not a marijuana cigarette unfortunately) leapt from her womb to set the world aflame. A monk of the Abbey Santo Domingo de Silos called Dominic interpreted this dream for Jane, who decided to give her son that name. Establishing his first brotherhood of six followers in a donated house in the city of Toulouse, Dominic adapted his organisation to urban living and the promoting the education and pastoral care of people where they live rather than being cloistered communities apart. I don’t think I cannot in the future be tempted to look for pyromaniacal dogs in future artworks on this subject.
Wednesday 28 April 2021
midden-aarde
First spied by Super Punch, we are referred to a nice appreciation of the recently departed, prolific Dutch artist Cor Blok (*1934), particularly well known in the Netherlands for illustrating J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (In de ban van de Ring) in the early 1960s.
Later creating a tapestry out of Middle Earth’s characters to showcase his repetoire, Blok went on to become docent of the school of modern art at the University of Utrecht from 1977 to 1999, retiring as professor emeritus at the University of Leiden.
Friday 23 April 2021
twenty skies
Usually when taking a picture of clouds or the sunset, the last things one wants to see is the fimbriation of power-lines breaking up one’s vista but after seeing this clever collage, like a stained-glass window, building on such disruptions from Alex Hyner, I feel inspired to go out and look for a utility mast with cables breaking up the frame and add in some composite firmament (see also) from other times and places. More to explore at the links above.
Thursday 22 April 2021
9x9
carbon footprint: mining is a dirty business
kiki.object: a feminist manifesta for block-chain
bat stuck in hell: recently departed songwriter Jim Steinman’s unproduced Batman musical
the gates of paradise: William Blake’s (previously) perpetual cycle of birth and re-birththe singing, ringing tree: not to be confused with this other etherial perennial, panoptica in the Pennine Hills of Lancashire
the hawking index: an unscientific survey of popular titles’ rate of abandonment by the clustering or spread of their highlighted text
this is the type of errant pedantry up with which i will not put: a proposal that the past particle of choose should properly be corn
project ceti: ground-breaking attempt to decode whale language—see also—via Slashdot
fourth rock from the sun: Martian rover Perseverance extracts breathable oxygen from the planet’s surface soil