Tura Satana, who is best known for her roll as Varla in Russ Meyer's 1965 cult film Faster Pussycat! Kill Kill!,has died. She lived fast, strange, and long; at one point even turning down a marriage proposal from Elvis Preseley. Bon voyage Tura Satana!
Little sis turned 25 today. A very very happy birthday to you.
Tattoo by the incredible Cris Cleen at Idle Hands - full story and photos coming soon.
Lorna Simpson: Gathered presents works that explore this Brooklyn-born artist’s interest in the interplay between fact and fiction, identity and history. Through works that incorporate hundreds of original and found vintage photographs of African Americans that she collects from eBay and flea markets, Lorna Simpson undermines the assumption that archival materials are objective documents of history. The exhibition also includes examples of Simpson’s series of installations of black-and-white photo-booth portraits of African Americans from the Jim Crow era and a film work. On view until August 21, 2011 at the Brooklyn Museum.
Hans Memling - First Two in "Triptych of Earthly Vanity and Divine Salvation" 1485 - Musée des Beaux-Arts, Strasbourg
Shot by Lily Harris
"One of those bizarre works of fiction and fact whose haunting details live with the reader forever. This diabolic novel is an encyclopedia of venery, a kaleidoscope of perversions, a jungle of horrors. Historic realism appealing only to people with mature, shock-proof tastes -the love and hate of a white woman for a black Mohammedan chief forms the overtone of this historic novel whose background paints the native tribes in the Valley of the Nile before the turn of this century." Jean de Valliot was actually the failed pornography writer Georges Grassal de Choffat, or Hugues Rebell, depending on who you ask. Black Lust was published in 1931 and only 2000 copies were printed "for private collectors." In my library is edition no. 1967.
From Narre Tod, Mein Spielgesell (Fool Death, My Playmate), a series of portraits of a necromancy between a female model and a skeleton, by eccentric photographer Franz Fiedler, 1921.
Left: Klee in 1911, by Alexander Eliasberg Right: Flower Myth (1918), Watercolor on pastel foundation on fabric & newsprint mounted on board
Paul Klee in His Studio
Maria Shneider, who was paid $4,000 dollars to star opposite Marlon Brandon in Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris, has died at the age of 58; she will be buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
Artist Devendra Banhart picks up where native cave painters left off 20,000 years ago. There is a shamanistic catharsis in the pure forms, lines, and colors against stark simple backgrounds that give Banhart's art an almost talismanic quality. I should also say that there is a common misconception that cave art is primitive - the Lascaux cave drawings, for instance, (which were discovered in 1940 by four teenagers and their dog in southwestern France), upon closer observation, are actually incredibly complex. For example, they have found evidence of mathematical star charts, dimensional perspective not seen in art for centuries and intricate spiritual iconography. Inside Banhart's art one can find the same cosmic complexity. Banhart's art is a return to the id - as if there was ever a magic tab to dissolve on your tongue to return you there. Banhart has been more widely recognized in other mediums, but his art has touched hallowed museum walls. In 2004 Banhart exhibited exclusively next to the art of Paul Klee, at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Banhart has also had many solo shows in galleries around the world. The newest revelation is that Banhart has bought some tattoo supplies and has started tattooing his friends and family. Banhart's tattoos are brilliant little mementos that don't stray too far from the style of his artwork. They hover moderately within the confines of traditional tattooing - albeit, with a lot less shading. His tattoos are currently an altruistic enterprise, and he has graciously offered to give me one the next time I stop through his neck of the woods. Coming up in March Banhart will be having a show in Milano along with Adam Tullie of Cavern Collection and bonkers conceptual artist Keegan McHargue. More info about the show here.
Text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper for Pas Un Autre
Photography by Abbey Meaker
Photography by Oliver Maxwell Kupper
'untitled' 1939 Portrait: The Photographs of George Platt Lynes 1927-1955
"Toilet Paper is a new magazine directed by Maurizio Cattelan and photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari. Following in the wake of Cattelan’s cult publication ‘Permanent Food’, Toilet Paper is a new generation magazine that combines commercial photography, twisted narratives and surrealistic imagery to create a series of powerful visual tableaux." You can buy an issue here. www.toiletpapermagazine.com
"I stopped when I was driving to take this photo of the two crows for you..."
Text & image by Adarsha Benjamin
New Covherlab collection by designer Marco Grisolia." From the press release: "Sartorial ties and embraces, open, allowed to decant with hems kept raw and an obsessive succession of paneled sections declined in different chromatic solutions, in various weights, textures and rigidity that doubling the main piece with gauze, georgette, micro net and chiffon, opaque it with glaze and, thanks to the superficial cut outs, build a silent dialogue of “chiaroscuro” and layered geometries.
"Dark: two perfectly identical human mouths kiss each other to death." R.G-L
"[He] is one of the rare poets of this century to cultivate such a form of violent, tortuous, oppressive lyricism, a lyricism made up pf the screams of a man being flayed alive...," writes Antonin Artaud in a review, and reprinted as an introduction to Black Mirror, a selection of discovered writings by little known, anti-surrealist poet Roger Gilbert-Lecomte. With a life mired by tragedy and drug addiction (he died from tetanus as he was prone to shooting up morphine through a pair of dirty trousers), Lecompte managed to leave behind a dark and incendiary selection of writings, collected in the book Black Mirror: The Selected Poems of Roger Gilbet-Lecomte.
