Openings: Artist, Syd Barret, Man of Letters, Acid Casualty?

Despite what you've heard about Syd Barret if you bet against your life it was all true you would certainly lose. If you asked Syd Barret why he was famous he probably couldn't answer you - despite the fact that he was the founding member of the legendary band Pink Floyd. But who is the real Syd Barret? If you asked Syd, who is now dead, he would certainly say artist before musician. A new show opens today at the Idea Gallery in London that explores the enigmatic inner life of Syd Barret. For the first time, the largest collection of unseen photographs, personal love letters and original artworks will go on display offering an unprecedented insight into the inspired life of this rock legend. gallery.ideageneration.co.uk

Required Reading: Lautréamont's Maldoror

"The deadly uses of this book will lap up his soul as water does sugar." In 1917 French writer Philippe Soupault discovered a copy of Comte de Lautréamont's manuscript Les Chants de Maldor in the mathematics section of a small Parisian bookshop, near the military hospital to which he had been admitted.. Lautréamont, which was the pseudonym of Isidore Lucien Ducasse, born in Uruguay 1846 and died in Paris in 1870, was immediately canonized as a surrealist god - in the pantheon of Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Mallarme.  "Chants de Maldoror unveils a world, half vision, half nightmare, of angels and gravediggers, hermaphrodites, and homosexuals, madmen and strange children."  Right now at the Galerie Anais in the Bergamont art space in Santa Monica, California a small exhibit of inspired drawings by the the similarly morbid artist Hans Bellmer - The Songs of Maldoror and Erotic Series is on view until March 31st. www.galerieanaisla.com

[ The Will to Power as Art ]

drawing of Friedrich Nietzsche by Hans Olde

"Beauty is for the artist something outside all orders of rank, because in beauty opposites are tamed; the highest sign of power, namely power over opposites; moreover, without tension: - that violence is no longer needed: that everything follows, obeys, so easily and so pleasantly - that is what delights the artist's WILL TO POWER."

~ Friedrich Nietzsche - IV "The Will to Power as Art"

Joan Jett Flips Me The Finger

1977: Joan Jett is not pissed off at me. She is just being Joan! We were all hanging around backstage waiting for Joan and the rest of The Runaways to take the stage. In a thousand years when a historian finds this photo they will be able to pinpoint the exact location by looking at the hieroglyphics on the wall of The Whiskey.

Photo and text by Brad Elterman

The SIP Interviews Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Adarsha Benjamin + Shot by Oliver Maxwell KupperPhotography by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

A wonderfully fascinating institute, The SIP "a research institute that aspires to facilitate, promote, initiate research, open debate and creative work in the field of photography and related media," conducted an interview with Oliver Maxwell Kupper, publisher of Pas Un Autre. View interview here.