Edvard Munch

        Edvard Munch is most well-known for his painting The Scream, which everyone reading this should recognize (it's one of the most recognized images in art). Though he is often written off as a one-hit-wonder, The Scream was only one painting in his series Frieze of Life, which examined life, love and death.
        Munch's works are most often known for their level of anxiety, which has lead to false claims throughout history that he may have had a mental disorder, but Munch was said to have had a good hold on his career, and a stable mind. This becomes clear when looking at his complete works, much of which is as innocuous as pigeons, boats by the shore, and many, many portraits. It is more than anything because his anxiety-driven pieces are so much more interesting and simultaneously alarming that they are all that is ever talked about or stick in our minds. It is these darker, more macabre images that are my favorite as well (I have also found that I am particularly drawn to his depictions of women in these environs, but that does seem to fit my interests). He chose his subject matter well, life, love and death being topics that will strike a heavy chord with just about everyone. The same figures and compositions arise again and again in his work, always slightly altered, making it clear that Munch was trying to work something out, whether that be the concepts or simply the right image.
        Munch is also often assumed to have only been a painter (again, because our common recognition of The Scream overwrites much of our knowledge of the man), however a good portion of his work is prints (etchings, lithographs, drypoint, and woodcuts) - which in my opinion are even better than his paintings. Their aesthetic better reflects the rawness of the topics he often examined. After taking an etching class, I have become really taken with this aesthetic, and Munch has the perfect subject matter (in much of his work) to grab my attention and the talent to back it up.

To see Munch's "complete graphic works", take a look at the Munch Museum website, which has almost 750 images!!!!!! (I almost died when I found this.)




images: munch.museum.no

Robert & Shana ParkeHarrison

        "My photographs tell stories of loss, human struggle, and personal exploration within landscapes scarred by technology and over-use…. [I] strive to metaphorically and poetically link laborious actions, idiosyncratic rituals and strangely crude machines into tales about our modern experience."
-Robert ParkeHarrison

        Both in their early forties, Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison are collaboratively responsible for some of the most awing photographs I have seen. Taking on the heavy topic of the environment and its slow destruction at the hand of human monotony, the ParkeHarrisons make a strong argument for the power of art to address current issues and effect change. Though the photographs are staged, they bring to light a harsh potential future, which brings a certain unease to the images that cannot quite be matched with documentary work on the subject. The photographs are at the same time both immensely beautiful and terribly distressing.
        In their most well-known series, The Architect's Brother (named one of 'the Ten Best Photography Books of the Year' by the NY Times in 2000), Robert poses as the self-described "everyman", in images conceptualized and executed by the pair. The series, the look of which is enhanced by the use of paper negatives and collage, shows Robert in a seemingly post-apocalyptic environment of desolate landscapes and pieces of makeshift technology.
        The pair's two more recent series, Gray Dawn and Counterpoint explore the same issues, with a change of aesthetic, moving to color (which they apply to the large prints by hand using pigments) and a more modern look. This abandons much of the apocalyptic feel of their earlier work, but is possibly even more disturbing as an element of surreality has been removed and the images appear alarmingly real. In their most recent work Counterpoint new models (a small girl and a woman- which may be Shana though I am unsure) are introduced as well, creating a little more room for creativity with compositions and sometimes creating more of a contrast between poetic, innocent and alarming.
        I cannot urge you enough to look at their images, as I believe they are not only beautiful and haunting but also very important to photo history and culturally relevant.

For extensive galleries of their images, here is their website
and the full The Architect's Brother series.




images: parkeharrison.com

Andrea Marshall

        I am currently really digging Andrea Marshall's series Witch A BOOK OF BANANAS FORKS SPOONS + HEARTBREAK. Witch features self-portraiture photography, collage and painting, and involves what Marshall herself best describes in her artist statement;
"My work consists mainly of self-portraits that explore the Self in relation to traditional archetypal concepts of the nature of womanhood. I attempt to visually render this juxtaposition through a symbiotic dialogue between history and contemporary culture. Through a range of media, including both painting and photography, I examine internal psychological conflict through Personas reflecting the idealistic and tragic nature of the prototypical female. Through self-portraiture, syncretized with symbolic female Personae, I strive to connect, rather than isolate, the female experience and contribute to evolving, yet eternal, female imagery."

        Her Witch book is not only visually stunning, but wildly interesting. The recurrent imagery; bananas, the sexualized female form, birds/feathers, Egyptian and Christian imagery (the list goes on), begs the viewer to question everything they know historically about witches and their connection to the female identity. She hints to some of these answers in the title and last page (which is all text), but most are hidden within the images themselves.

        I believe the series is extremely effective, fitting her statement to a T and making me really think; about the female identity, history, current culture, symbolism. As an artist deeply interested in the female identity, I think I could learn a lot from her.

To see the full Witch book, as well as more of her work, take a look at her website.
and for a brief interview check out the bit BlackBook mag did on her.




images: andreamarshall.com

Julia Hetta

        To take a break from the few more involved posts I've done recently, here is some photography that I just find particularly lovely.
        I was looking at past collections by fashion designer Lovisa Burfitt, and fell in love with the images for her autumn/winter 08 collection. I discovered that all of her collections (six seasons) have been shot by the same photographer, Julia Hetta.
        Hetta's website does not reveal much (it has contact information and a scrollable list of enlargable photographs) but she is represented by Agent Bauer, which hosts a more extensive collection of her work as well as a short bio. From this I learned that she is a Swedish photographer who graduated recently (2004) and has been featured in magazines as well as shown in exhibitions worldwide.
        There are many things I admire about Hetta's work, a brief list including; her effective use of high or low contrasts, light leaks, and visual tone. The images are both beautiful and lonely at the same time. Her distinctive color palette (described by Agent Bauer as "nearly renaissance") certainly adds to this. Her takes at the Burfitt fashion line are also very interesting; the images of the fashion itself are often coupled with landscapes or images of objects that mirror the textures, patterns, or colors of the fashion piece (and everyone knows I'm a sucker for a good diptych). I always get excited when fashion images stand out to me, as it is something I find myself pretty saturated in.
        In any case, her work is beautiful, and I think you should check it out.
The best place to do this is her Agent Bauer profile
but you can also check out her website
and the Burfitt website (which I would also recommend looking at, because the diptychs made of Hetta's images are really great)




images: agentbauer.com

Henry Darger

        Henry Darger is one of the most well-known "outsider artists" today. Born in 1892, Darger was not known during his lifetime as anything other than a janitor. It was not until after his death, in 1973, when his 15,145 page manuscript and accompanying watercolor paintings were discovered that he was skyrocketed to underground art world fame.
        I was told about Darger by my college mentor, knowing I would take great interest in his work. I quickly set to finding everything I could about him via the internet, and rented the documentary In the Realms of the Unreal (titled after his manuscript; The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion).
        Before I get into Darger, I have to add that this documentary is awful. In short, it made me mad. Not only did it give so minimal information on Darger that they could have credited all their information to Wikipedia, but they made the horrid decision to animate Darger's illustrations. This made them impossible to examine in their intended manner (the illustrations were constantly zoomed in on with the characters moving around in a slightly alarming way) and was in some ways offensive.
        If you would like to learn about Darger or see his work, you're honestly better off researching him on the web, or better yet finding a library that carries one of the few books with large selections of his manuscript and illustrations (there's one at MassArt that I can't wait to get back to Boston and check out).

        Darger's manuscript and paintings (what little I've read/seen) are so surreal that it is difficult to wrap my head around, let alone describe. The story follows the lives of the Vivian Girls, seven princess sisters who lead a child rebellion. It is imagined that some of the largest aspects of the story have been taken from Darger's own life and the things that influenced it.         Darger's mother died when he was very young, and following his father's illness and eventual death, Darger was placed in a Catholic boy's home at age eight, and later moved to an institution in Illinois (the reasons for this move are vague), from where he escaped at age 16, to work odd jobs and janitorial work for the remainder of his life.
        His story contains many religious themes (the Vivian girls are Christian along with most of the Earth) and the army they are fighting much resembles the Confederate army (both Darger and his father were civil war buffs). There are also scenes of extremely graphic child abuse, which it has been speculated Darger witnessed the effects of as a child (the place where he was institutionalized was under investigation during the latter part of his stay). Darger became compelled to write the manuscript (which he had been working on beforehand, but only in drafts) when he lost a photograph of a murdered child, Elsie Paroubek. Darger had been in the habit of collecting news stories relating to abandoned or abused children (this particular one had gotten a lot of news coverage) which is believed to be because he cared for them very deeply, and related to the children due to his personal experiences. Her murder had not seemed to have a large effect on him, but once he lost the photograph he became consumed with her story and immersed in his story, in which the war begins with the murder of a child laborer.        Darger's illustrations are extremely graphic, sometimes with scenes of the little girls tied to trees or with their innards spilling onto the ground, but something about them grabs hold. Darger was never trained as an artist, in fact many of his illustrations are results of tracing images he found in newspaper clippings (including such well-known figures as the Coppertone girl). This gives his paintings an innocent quality that contrasts the violence in them in an alarming way. Despite his methods of creating the figures, Darger's imagination shows through not only in his creation of this story, but in the paintings as well. He invents "Blengigomeneans", winged and horned creatures that often come in the form of little girls. The image is one difficult to forget. Many of the female characters when shown naked also have penises, the reason for this unknown, though there have been several speculations (ranging from influences of images of christ to Darger's belief that women were superior to men, or even that he simply was unfamiliar with female genitalia).
        His sense of composition and color is amazing, each of his illustrations colored with watercolor paint sets. The paintings are otherworldly, in every sense of the term. They serve as a flicker of a view into the mind of a man who lived by night in his own world. There is really no fair way to describe them.

For more:
Edlin Gallery (which represents Darger's estate, a few images + a bio)
and I can't stand to not give a good link with lots of images of his work, but they seem to be scattered. So though I hate to recommend this, if you just go to google images you really do get a nice taste of his work (in reality there are hundreds of illustrations for this story, but you can find quite a few online). If anyone knows of a good link I will most certainly post it. I, again, recommend picking up one of the books that has been assembled of his paintings and manuscript.



images: various sources, all credit Henry Darger

Grayson Perry

        I mentioned in my last post that I would talk consecutively about Grayson Perry and Henry Darger, because they're two of my favorite artists and also because they are very much in conversation with one another. I'm going to talk about Perry first, because I knew of his work a year or two before Darger's.
        I studied Grayson Perry for an independent project in my sculpture class a few years back and absolutely fell in love with his work. Known lovingly as "The Tranny Potter"; Perry won the Turner Prize in 2003 (he was 43), the first time it had been awarded for ceramic work (Claire, his alter-ego, accepted the award).
        Perry's vessels, which feature scenes of sexuality, violence, drug abuse, and war coupled with seemingly innocent characters, flowers and activities such as sports, seem entirely unobtrusive before further inspection. This is completely intentional, and a big piece of why ceramics and earthenware are the chosen medium for Perry, who has described his method of presenting so innocuous an object with such strong imagery as a "guerilla tactic".
        Perry's work is often autobiographical, particularly referencing his upbringing and sexuality. His alter-ego Claire makes appearances in his pieces as well (Perry, who has a wife and daughter, identifies as a transvestite).
        I go back and forth between which I think is cooler, the topics of and concepts behind Perry's work (particularly his reasons for making vessels) or the visual quality of the pieces. Perry does not use a wheel, rather the method of coiling clay into the desired shape, which I remember reading (but can not back up with an actual quote as this was years ago and I cannot find where I read it) is very intentional and important to him. His pieces have layers and layers of imagery, with detailed illustrations, text, multiple glazings, photo transfers, and gold leaf. His style of illustrating is also extremely appealing to me (and one of the ways I relate him to Darger, along with his content, which will become apparent once I have written about Darger as well).

To see a good collection of Perry's vessels (and other work) along with an extensive amount of information on him, visit
The Saatchi Gallery's website (they collect him)
The Victoria Miro website (they represent him).

"I like the whole iconography of pottery. It hasn't got any big pretensions to being great public works of art, and no matter how brash a statement I make, on a pot it will always have certain humility"



images: saatchi-gallery.co.uk

Amanda Smith

        While perusing the internet a few days back for something completely unrelated (I can't even remember what) I stumbled upon the ceramic work of Amanda Smith, and was quickly reminded of both Grayson Perry and Henry Darger, both of whose work I love dearly. So as an introduction to the two of them, (their posts will come next) here is Amanda Smith, who I believe has been influenced by (or at least falls in line with) both of them.
        I can't find a whole lot on her, but she's a recent graduate (BFA Bowling Green State University '03 and MFA San Jose State University 2008). Her ceramic pieces feature mainly young girls, with a few (more recent ones) seeming to have notable political undertones while some seem just strange (in an extremely pleasant way mind you). Many of them feature multiples, frequently miniature multiples, which are extremely eerie, an unexpected quality when approaching a ceramic piece. All of her work is pretty bizarre, and really interesting. And despite my instant connection to Darger and Perry, her work has a real voice to it. There is definitely a theme of the female identity, and each of her pieces has a lot going on in it. They're truly narrative and intriguing. I liked them all so much that I had an impossible time choosing which ones to put here, so I urge you all to check out her website! I only wish I could see them in person!

Amanda Smith's website
If anyone knows or finds out anything else about her, please leave a comment!



images: amandamichellesmith.com

Compagnia della Fortezza

        To finish off the run of Alice in Wonderland posts I've got going on here, I'd like to present you with this gem........ images from "Alice in Wonderland, a Theatrical Essay on the End of a Civilization", which debuted this week, the most recent show by the inmate-theatre group Compagnia della Fortezza, out of Volterra Italy. The work is loosely based on Alice in Wonderland but includes soliloquies from other famous writers such as Shakespeare and Chekhov.
        A friend sent me this article from The New York Times website, and before even realizing that these were convicts parading around in Wonderland-themed drag I was squirming with excitement. Only in Europe, I sighed to myself. It is stated that both prison and prisoners declined to say what they were in for, but around fifty are involved on a regular basis, both on stage and behind the scenes, and they take this opportunity very seriously (they are trusted with chainsaws and the like while building sets, and once while touring in 1995 several actors robbed banks in between shows and were "ostracized by fellow inmates" - as well as sentenced to more prison time).
        In any case, the schematics and politics of this theater are extremely interesting, so I would read the article for that, but at the very least take a look at the slide show- the costumes are FABULOUS!

"Maximum Security and a Starring Role"




images: nytimes.com

Anna Gaskell

        On the note of Alice in Wonderland, I recently received (this) book of one of my favorite photographers, Anna Gaskell, who (I believe I mentioned in my post on Svankmajer) has done some really amazing work on Alice.
        Alice in Wonderland is probably one of the most reworked pieces of literature in the art world, photographers, film artists, illustrators- the story is so relatable, clever, and well known that it's difficult to not want to get your hands into it. Because of the well known factor (many since Disney's animated release in 1951 seem to have that version ingrained into us the same way we know the story of snow white and the seven dwarves) many artistic interpretations of Carroll's story seem cliched or just register as something we have already seen.
        My interest in artistic renderings of Alice lie in where the artist is using Carroll's same wit and intent, but has either taken the story in a different direction (a la Svankmajer) or is using the classic story and characters to say something different or stretch ideas alluded to in the book.
        Much (if not all) of Gaskell's work is about, or featuring, young girls. Hide is her interpretation of the Grimm fairytale The Magic Donkey, in which a girl creates a costume for herself of animal hides in order to escape the advances of her father. In By Proxy a group of (varying aged) girls are dressed as nurses in the snow, representing both Rudolf Erich Raspe's Saly Salt and Genene Jones, a nurse convicted in 1984 of killing her charges. Both her series Wonder and Override revolve around Alice, including inspirations from various old films and texts as well.
        The idea of multiples is introduced in Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, the companion to Alice in Wonderland, in which she travels through a mirror rather than a rabbit hole, and suggests that perhaps there are two of her, one on each side. In both her series Wonder and Override, Gaskell uses more than one Alice (in Wonder a pair of twins, and in Override five girls dressed as Alice, often in poses that transform them into one large, mal-formed girl.        The compositions are jarring, and the actions of the girls are so ambiguous that it is often difficult to decipher what exactly they doing, leading to a plethora of questions Gaskell's work is quite familiar with, including good v. evil, issues of sexuality and the innocence (or lack thereof) of children.
        Gaskell, while including Carroll's ideas, has visually transformed images that I have seen a thousand times over, and I have fallen in love with them (as well as the story, all over again). Gaskell is one of my favorite photographers, and I urge you to spend some time looking at her work. Much of it is not online (or at least I've been unable to find it, reason that I got one of her books), though there is still quite a bit if you spend some time on google, but if you find yourself at a good library or bookstore you should take a look through something of hers. (The book I have also features illustrations in pen and ink, which are really cool and definitely reflect who Gaskell would seem to be as an artist and woman.)

Hide Series
The Guggenheim's online collection


images: guggenheim.org

Alice

        Tim Burton has always been one of my favorite artists. i believe the first time i saw The Nightmare Before Christmas i was about six or seven, and i was absolutely entranced by it- if anything i believe he gave me my early appreciation for beauty in darkness. since then i have seen most of his films (give or take a "planet of the apes" or two that i couldn't bring myself to watch) and poured over his writing and drawings, and have never ceased to be inspired by his style and spirit.
        i'm sure by now that most people have heard that he has taken a swing at Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, which if you have read my previous post on Jan Svankmajer, you will know i have seen many (and been impressed by few) film versions of. anyway, promo pictures have been out for a while, but today a trailer was released, so i figured i would share it. i will say, that he does not seem to be staying particularly true to the book, but then again Disney's last whack at it was (albeit cute) pretty distant from the book as well, and my favorite film version really only mirrors the book in feel and mood. (and on a similar note i'll add that i'm disappointed that this is being footed by Disney, as I'm sure Burton could've pushed things much further with another company, but Disney is sure to make bank with Burton + Depp, so it was a smart move on their part and i'm sure they gave him a huge budget because of it)
        Burton's Alice at the very least promises to be exciting and visually striking, the trailer is enough to make you salivate. so take a look, and i'm sure i'll have more to say once i've seen the entire film! (which, fyi, comes out March 5 2010)

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland Trailer



images: imdb.com

Jean-Michel Basquiat

        I recently watched Downtown 81, a film featuring Jean-Michel Basquiat, chronicling the early 80's downtown NY art and music scene. While I had trouble staying 100% involved with the film, it gives a really interesting taste of not only the scene but also of Basquiat's personality.
        When I was little, my dad's parents had a small collection of children's books in their family room for me and my cousins to read, and I only remember three of them. One was a pop-up murder mystery book that had three different endings, one was a very strange Dr. Seuss book that I can't for the life of me remember the title of, only that it involved travel and extremely odd creatures (it was not Oh the Places You'll Go), and the third was the illustrated version of Maya Angelou's poem Life Doesn't Frighten Me. This one I had completely forgotten about until watching the film, but immediately remembered being transfixed by Basquiat's odd paintings.

        Cut short at the young age of 28 (only eight years after he began to gain recognition), Basquiat was not only an amazing artist, but an important person in art history.
        His paintings are absolutely beautiful, but also erratic in a nature that perhaps reflected Basquait himself, who was addicted to drugs and a few years before his death described as "increasingly paranoid". His images are extremely dense, often with scribbled text, skeletal figures and collage (though, two years before his death his style changed to figures on plainer backgrounds, which is attributed to his being inspired by close friend Warhol as well as a reflection of the stark reality of his addictions).
        In any case, Basquiat's paintings speak much more clearly about not only themselves but Basquiat himself than I can, so I strongly urge you to take a look at them if you are not already familiar with his work. And if you're interested in the world he was inspired by (in 1980-81) and a glimpse of his personality, check out Downtown 81 (which if you have netflix is currently available on instant view).



images: amazon.com & brooklynmuseum.org

Lis Timpone

excuse the long lull in posts. i was feeling uninspired and took a much needed break. i am back.


        i've been stalking the FP blog lately (for reasons i will not get into, but that i promise exist) and was TOTALLY grabbed by today's post on Lis Timpone. FP usually posts on pretty and cutesy things, which i enjoy looking at, but rarely go anywhere from the blog itself. Timpone's work however jumped out and immediately appealed to me. i was almost taken aghast when i saw that one of the first images on Timpone's blog (they didn't include a link to her website, only her blog) was a red riding hood illustration! i couldn't have found a better artist right now had i been staking her out intentionally...
        her clearly native inspired images have the most astonishing line control, something that i envy greatly, as well as beautiful movement. i am also greatly attracted to their narrative quality. i'd love to see one of her pieces translated onto a body (preferably mine?), which is something that infrequently pops into my mind. they're just so simple and complex at the same time. definitely worth spending some time oogling, i had an impossible time picking which to use.

Timpone's blog
Timpone's website



images: http://listimpone.blogspot.com/

Frida Kahlo

"I paint my own reality."

        i couldn't even begin to speak coherently about so amazing a woman, but today is her birthday, so it seemed only appropriate to post some favorites in her honor.




images: artchive.com