Show & Tell: 10.2

 There are lots of books about psychedelic art, but a recent one called The Electrical Banana is a favorite of mine because it's one of the few who recognized Marijke Koger as being a monumental influence upon the style of the time. She was a founding member and creative director of the Dutch design collective known as The Fool, a group who made a huge splash in the British music scene in the late1960s. With Koger at the helm, they designed numerous album covers, worked with the Beatles to design and decorate their London Apple Boutique, designed and manufactured outrageous clothes for all the then-famous rock wives, painted murals and musical instruments for George Harrison and John Lennon, and somehow found time to record their own musical endeavors. Although much of the photography that documents these works makes Koger and her peers look as though they were leading opulent, affluent, and lavish lives, they worked extremely hard and for very little money. Koger in particular was extremely prolific at that time, and I think of her as being an unsung hero in the lexicon of psychedelic visual innovators. She admits to doing a fair amount of drugs in her youth and attributes the seemingly endless array of rainbows in her work to the effects of LSD. Although I don't feel a burning desire to experiment with hallucinogens, I would love to have a better understanding of the things that influenced her visual sensibility.  I also want desperately to raid her closet, but that's neither here nor there....

Chimera Cat

This is Venus, and she's what's known as a chimera cat. 

In her mother's uterus, this cat started out as a set of twins, and then the cells fused together to create a single animal with two entirely different genetic profiles. She's not a calico, with several fur patterns randomly appearing in her fur, but her face is literally split straight down the middle, one green eye, one blue. She is, in essence, her own fraternal twin.

A Chimera is a mythological beast, a mish-mash of several different animals. Obviously, Venus is all cat, but I can understand how the term applies. I heard a veterinarian once say that Mother Nature doesn't like straight lines, but apparently that's not always the case.

Show & Tell 10.0: Universal Inspiration

I spent 2 hours looking at this on Wednesday instead of finishing my draft on time:

Scale Of The Universe 2

This is a to-scale representation of of items in the universe, ranging from sub-atomic particles, to the estimated size of the universe.

When I feel overwhelmed by life, this helps put things in perspective.

Show & Tell 9.0: I don't think we're in Oslo anymore, Toto

What is it that makes metal Black Metal? One much-argued-upon criterion is that it must be Norwegian, but there are now many American Black Metal bands who would care to disagree.

In a purely sonic sense, the general stipulations for Black Metal (as opposed to Thrash, Death, Speed, Grindcore, Doom, etc.) include distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, fast tempos with blast beat drumming, shrieked or growled vocals, and raw or lo-fi recording styles. Even with this set of standards in mind, there is an awful lot of room for diversity among musical styles. This is perhaps why the point of origin becomes important.

Although it grew out of an eclectic European mix of Thrash Metal bands (Venom from England, Bathory from Sweden, and Celtic Frost from Switzerland), the so-called second wave of Black Metal was comprised almost exclusively of Norwegian artists. This coterie of bands was a tight one which championed exclusivity, elitism, and (in more than one unfortunate case) Nationalism to the point of Fascism.

Given this, it shouldn't be a surprise that many a true Norwegian Black Metal fan has a difficult time swallowing the idea of a Black Metal movement in the United States. When American metals bands first began borrowing the term, the backlash was immediate and the refrain simple: "They're all a bunch of Copycats." Accusations of musical thievery were rampant, and even the most eloquent nay-sayers could do little more than argue that Norwegian Black Metal was just somehow "More authentic sounding."

Despite the theory that US musicians just don't have the elusive "je ne sais quoi" to make it happen, there are more than a handful of Americans getting it done. Here are two groups whose music I enjoy: Lurker of Chalice, an obscure and now defunct San Francisco group; and Liturgy, originally just Hunter Hunt-Hendrix and now a 4 piece from Brooklyn, NY. Check out the music below:

Lurker of Chalice



Liturgy

See Jane get pissed....

I just read Stephanie's blog entry from yesterday, and it inspired me to post a famous campaign that always made me furious. Anybody remember this anti-aids/pro-condom advert from the late 1980s?:

I'm sure the Grandma in Stephanie's Fox News story would take exception with the term "dick," but that's not my issue with this campaign. I first saw it when I was in high school on a field trip to Washington D.C. I'm pretty sure we were in Georgetown at a funky shop called Commander Salamander (now unfortunately closed) when I saw this poster on the wall, and it immediately filled me with ire.

Created by the generally forward-thinking Global Protection Corp, this supposedly humorous ad intends to encourage safe heterosexual sex by borrowing the most ubiquitous children's book couple on the planet.  The only problem is that "Jane" is conspicuously missing from the picture. Instead, we have an utterly dehumanized "fox" . . . she has no name, no agency, no personhood, and no narrative purpose other than to be a disease carrying vector and the cause of poor Dick's untimely demise. I was all of 15 when I saw this, and I remember thinking, how is it that a simple stick drawing could make me feel so utterly alienated?

Disappointing on so many levels..... I'd like to get all the "foxes" of the world to unite and launch their own anti-dick campaign. If anyone has any ideas for copy or stick drawings they'd like to share, please do so below.

Show & Tell 8.0: An Exquisite Corpse

Participants in different musical subcultures usually have a distinctive style, and the more underground the culture the more far-out the uniform. In the beginning (late 1980s), Norwegian Black Metal was not about clothes, props, or make-up, but now the image of a long-haired barbarian in leather, spikes, and corpse paint is inextricably linked to the genre.

I imagine the way this came to be is similar to the time Marc Bolan of T. Rex impulsively put glitter on his face before a TV appearance. Soon after that night, everyone was doing it, and the aesthetic of Ziggy Stardust, Gary Glitter, Queen, Slade, and countless others gave shape to what became known as Glam Rock.

I'm certain a story like this exists with Black Metal, but with decidedly less light-hearted results (see below). This narrative, along with some other bigger and more important ones, will be the subject of my project 7. Stay tuned for more Mayhem.....

Darkthrone via

Gaahl from Gorgoroth via

Emperor via

Burzum via

Immortal via

A horse is a horse, of course of course.....

... unless it's a collection of kitchen utensils, that is.

I've always loved horses, and they've appeared in my art for as long as I can remember--crayon scribbles on construction paper to a multi-canvased painting thesis at MICA. Naturally, I have always been a great appreciator of equine art, so I was truly tickled to come across this last week:

While searching for alternative uses for household items (yes, I Googled it . . . out of sheer desperation), I uncovered this article on epundit about a Japanese-American sculptor, Sakaya Ganz. Because she could not bear to throw away depleted household items (she was worried they'd be sad and weep in the trash), Ganz began turning them into a menagerie of three dimensional work. Besides being ecologically responsible, these sculptures are also incredibly beautiful. The Brave Little Toaster would be so proud!