Architecture Strange Yet Familiar

Storm Crown Mechanism (2009) by David Trautrimas

At Bergamot Station, dnj Gallery is holding a group show featuring a number of artists that they represent, including Michael Eastman, Cynthia Grieg, Annie Seaton, and Bill Sosin. I can write at length about these excellent photographers, but today I feel like writing about David Trautrimas' futuristic architectural structures from his Spyfrost Project (2010), a few of which are on display in this show.

Trautrimas' works are based around household appliances imagined as architecture, specifically inspired by a techno-thriller Cold War militaristic aesthetic. Photographing numerous images of these vintage consumer goods and their component parts, Trautrimas reassembles them into fantastic military structures. They look like something out of a wild '50s era espionage comic book. Is the structure above a secret Soviet "Weather Control" facility or a mishmash of refrigerator parts? And how about this image?



Terra Thermal Inducer (2009) by David Trautrimas


Yeah, through the magic of a creative imagination and expert photomanipulation, Trautrimas has created a retro-futuristic Cold War environment out of the detritus of consumerist culture. The metal and chrome from the "House of the Future" has been reworked into military structures that never were. Yet, they feel so authentic. I can imagine a "Thermal Inducer" hidden in the Siberian wilderness.

Friday Flowers: It's Dahlia Season

Yellow Dahlia

Autumn

(By Amy Lowell)

They brought me a quilled, yellow dahlia,
Opulent, flaunting.
Round gold
Flung out of a pale green stalk.
Round, ripe gold
Of maturity,
Meticulously frilled and flaming,
A fire-ball of proclamation:
Fecundity decked in staring yellow
For all the world to see.
They brought a quilled, yellow dahlia,
To me who am barren
Shall I send it to you,
You who have taken with you
All I once possessed?

Yeah, that's a bit of a downer poem, considering how excited I am for the beginning of dahlia season. I love these big, bold blooms. They have such great exuberance and rambunctiousness. They are the loud Divas of Queen Flora's Court.

Master of the Ripped Bodice

Fabio Lanzoni promoting Old Spice Komodo

There has recently been an internet ad campaign featuring Fabio Lanzoni, star of countless Romance covers in the 80s and 90s, attempting to become the new Old Spice Guy. This brought him into competition with the current holder of the title, Isaiah Mustafa, the Man Your Man Could Smell Like. After a series of vids in which they threw miscellaneous object at each other, including a dinosaur bone, the Mano a Mano challenge has come to its conclusion.

It's kind of silly. Fabio is a painfully bad actor, but a pretty good buffoon. Back in the day, it seemed like he was the model for every other Romance novel. It was embarrassing to have to face the clerk working the book store register with a novel featuring his cheesy image. Oh, how I loathed Fabio!!! With on-line ordering and e-books, this is a humbling experience that has been lost to a savage past. Thank goodness!!!



Fabio on the cover of Brenda Joyce's Scandalous Love (1992)


Over the years, I've come to view the "Fabio era" of bodice ripping covers with nostalgia. Some of those books were pretty good reads. Since a Fabio cover would generate sales, that was savvy marketing put to good use.

The Spirit Is There in Every Boy

Detail of Rescue Breathing No. 2 (2010) by Abel Baker Gutierrez

Last Saturday, I attended the Luis De Jesus Gallery's opening of "Swimming", a solo show featuring the works of Abel Baker Gutierrez. The images are inspired by '50s era photos and films of Boy Scouts, specifically in regards to water-related survival training. From this source material, Gutierrez has contextualized the imagery within a dark, ambiguous but vaguely menacing setting. The technique and style of these oil paintings evoke a 19th century feel, part Realisim and part late Romanticism.

The overall effect is haunting. There is an incongruity between image and style. We imagine the boy scouts training in a bright, sunny setting, but these paintings are dark and mysterious. The style is associated with nude female bathers and naturalist wooded landscapes, but here we have energetic youths and rowboats. A subtle sense of wrongness pervades these works. Yet, the images are compelling compositions, with hints of narrative inspired by the clash of subject and style.



Above as Below No. 6 (2010) By Abel Baker Gutierrez


Gutierrez's exquisite painterly technique creates a rich surface texture and engaging play of light and shadow. All these elements combine to make this a fascinating show.

Like a Kick to the Back of My Head

Concussion: Cerebral Bruising

Alright. Hopefully this post will be coherent. I got into a really bad car accident yesterday and have a serious concussion as a result. Honestly, I'm content with that being the worst of my injuries. Freeway collisions have high probability for crippling and fatal injuries, especially when a small car is hit by an SUV at high speeds. My car was destroyed, but I made it out relatively unharmed.

But this concussion is somethin' fierce!!! My ability to concentrate is almost non-existent. I've got a headache like a bell-ringing constantly in my head. And although I love my family, if they ask me my name, date, location, etc. another time, I think I'm going to explode. But I'm trying to stay positive on the whole matter.

It easily could have been worse. I got hit totally by surprise, so my body was fairly relaxed, allowing the impact's force to rush through my body in a non-disruptive manner, with the exception of bouncing my brain around the interior of the skull. Moreover, although I got knocked into the next lane, I got lucky in that a secondary collision didn't occur. Yeah, all things considered this grievous concussion ain't so bad.



Concussion: Brain Trauma


But I'm can't say that I'm a fortunate man. I'm just not as unlucky as I might have been. Whenever you receive an impact so hard that you lose consciousness, it is de facto an unlucky situation!

Curiouser and Curiouser

"Golden Afternoon" scene from Disney's Alice in Wonderland (1951)

Today we're celebrating Alice in Wonderland. I would have done so on the publication date earlier this month, July 4, but I was on vacation. So the 1951 Disney movie release date is the next best thing. ;-)

To be honest, my first exposure to Alice in Wonderland was through the Disney movie. It caught my imagination and I read the book shortly thereafter. As a child, I was never big on fairy tales like Snow White or Cinderella. But Alice isn't a fairy tale. It's literary nonsense, a weird fantasy adventure. I was enthralled by this bizarre world of insane characters and illogical happenings.

Even after all these years, I still have to list Alice's Adventures in Wonderland as one of my favorite books. It had a lasting influence in my love for the fantastic and personal aesthetic of the strange. Alice has shaped my own approach to fantasy writing to an even greater degree than such classics of the genre as the Lord of the Rings or the various adventures of Conan the Barbarian.



Alice's Adventure in Wonderland (1866), illustrated by John Tenniel


My enthusiasm for Alice extends to the various remakes, sequels, and parodies that have been made. Alice is even my favorite Disney theme park ride!

We Travel the Space Ways

Detail of Fantastic Garveyite (2011) by Robert Pruitt

Back in May, I discussed my admiration for the music and style of Sun Ra. Well, imagine my enthusiasm when I saw the new exhibit at Koplin Del Rio, "Them from After the End of the World: Works by Robert Pruitt." The show features many of the same concepts of afrofuturism that can be found in Sun Ra's work, but given a contemporary expression in portraiture.

Rather than the glittery Egyptian-like headdresses and paraphernalia of Sun Ra and his Arkestra, Pruitt gives his subjects accouterments of technoscrap, reminiscent of neon signs, old fashion radio/television antennae, and early aerospace detritus. There is both a futurism and an obsolesce to these figures. They have a patient certainty in defiance to their abandoned state. They are not the sleek protagonists of standard Space Adventures, with shiny gadgets capable of conquering the challenges among the stars. No, Pruitt's subjects feel more like the determined survivors of a Post-Apocalyptic world, in which technology is resurrected from the junkyard of a failed civilization.



El Saturn (2011) by Robert Pruitt


There is no triumphalist afrocentrism in Pruitt's work, although there are plenty of African elements such as the various totems, fetishes, and headdresses that the subjects bear. And I think the lack of overt ethnic celebration is intentional. Afrofuturism and afrocentricism have often been used as forms of escapism. Pruitt's subjects are not drifting away into "the Mothership's" dreamspace. They are given a focused presence in the here-and-now, although they express a yearning for that escape into the stars.

The Surrounding Gloom

The Empty House

This week we'll look at that old standard of horror, the haunted house.

Algernon Blackwood wrote "The Empty House" in 1906. By this date, spending time within a "domicile of dread" was featured in countless ghost stories. For instance, J. Sheridan LeFanu's "An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street" was published in 1853 and was considered such an exemplar of the type that Bram Stoker used it as direct inspiration for his story, "The Judge's House", in 1891. Even last week's subject, M.R. James, tried his hand at this well-worn trope in "Lost Hearts", written in 1895, albeit with his signature antiquarian twists.

So, what makes "The Empty House" worthy of our consideration? First, it is an excellent read. Second, it is the iconic "It'll be a Thrill" haunted house story, in which the characters who experience the haunting are neither unknowingly residing in the accursed place nor are they conducting a "scientific" study. They are there purely for the thrilling experience. As such, it is the antecedent to many of our contemporary "ghost stories" in which we watch, via night vision cameras, some silly people freak out in a "haunted" location for our entertainment.

Third, in most haunted house stories prior to "The Empty House", the haunting is about a location in which a ghost resides. Consider other monster types and their lairs. In fairy tales, a bridge may have a troll lurking beneath it or a cave may house a dragon. Neither the bridge nor the cave are inherently terrible; it is the monster associated with them that makes the location baneful. And so it is with the haunted house. But "The Empty House" alters the paradigm. Yes, there are ghosts present in the house, but their malevolent and unnatural presence has tainted the essence of the location. Whether or not the ghosts are present, the House itself is a monster.



Algernon Blackwood


Consider this passage:

Stealthily, walking on tip-toe and shading the candle lest it should betray their presence through the shutterless windows, they went first into the big dining-room. There was not a stick of furniture to be seen. Bare walls, ugly mantel-pieces and empty grates stared at them. Everything, they felt, resented their intrusion, watching them, as it were, with veiled eyes; whispers followed them; shadows flitted noiselessly to right and left; something seemed ever at their back, watching, waiting an opportunity to do them injury. There was the inevitable sense that operations which went on when the room was empty had been temporarily suspended till they were well out of the way again. The whole dark interior of the old building seemed to become a malignant Presence that rose up, warning them to desist and mind their own business; every moment the strain on the nerves increased.

Stile Floreal

Detail of Poetry (1898) by Alphonse Mucha

On this day in 1860, the Art Nouveau master, Alphonse Mucha, was born. If you've been a frequent reader of this blog, then you know that I admire his works. I'll take any excuse to post one of his images on my blog. And his birth date is the perfect excuse!

So, here are my top three Mucha images. (Caveat: they are my top three right now. I might have another top three tomorrow. LOL!)

Number One, is the image above, Poetry. It's the first Mucha that I remember noticing and appreciating. In college, I would often walk by a reproduction of the image on the hallway wall of my dorm. So, she feels like an old friend.

Number Two is:



Reverie (1897) by Alphonse Mucha


Reverie embodies that daydream quality. The composition is gentle and captivating, like a sweet thoughtful pause on a hectic afternoon. I love her.

July Dance Party!!!

Rick James, Super Freak

It's time for our monthly celebration of popular dance music. Our eight song selection is pretty interesting this time around. In '81, and '91, the dance trends undergo radical changes following the featured songs of this month. Creative trends within the dance subcategories are featured in '86 and '96. Good stuff!

So, let's get to the music.



Jean Knight, Mr Big Stuff



Shivering in Solitude

Trouble Waters by Andrew Hem

My favorite art topics are loneliness and isolation. Therefore, I'm enthralled by Andrew Hem's haunting images in the exhibit "Cold Water" at LeBasse Projects. His child-like figures are wandering through a barren and forlorn terrain. The prevalence of pallid blues give this vision a frozen quality. Even the warm flesh tones are shifted grey, giving the impression that the figures are in some liminal state of being alive and active yet rendered somewhat insensate by the numbing solitude.

And there is a sense of sorrow. It's a vague presence that imbues the entire composition, from the dark landscapes to the troubled faces of the children. It is unclear whether it is the cause of the loneliness or caused by it. But the sadness clings to the children like sodden clothes. It is given form in the manifold images of wetness, be it in the tides of the frigid sea, ethereal streaks that hint of rain, or the cold drifts of snow.



Colder Than a Polar Bear's Toenail by Andrew Hem


It is a relentless and icy realm of pure loneliness. Yet, the figures generally seem to be enduring through it. They trudge up the frosty mountain. They wade through the icy waves. They persist in spite of the darkness.

Friday Flowers: Agapanthus Edition

Agapanthus - Blue Lily

The Plain Sense of Things

(By Wallace Stevens)

After the leaves have fallen, we return

To a plain sense of things. It is as if

We had come to an end of the imagination,

Inanimate in an inert savoir.

It is difficult even to choose the adjective

For this blank cold, this sadness without cause.

The great structure has become a minor house.

No turban walks across the lessened floors.

The greenhouse never so badly needed paint.

The chimney is fifty years old and slants to one side.

A fantastic effort has failed, a repetition

In a repetitiousness of men and flies.

Yet the absence of the imagination had

Itself to be imagined. The great pond,

The plain sense of it, without reflections, leaves,

Mud, water like dirty glass, expressing silence

Of a sort, silence of a rat come out to see,

The great pond and its waste of the lilies, all this

Had to be imagined as an inevitable knowledge,

Required, as a necessity requires.

Today's flower is the agapanthus. I like that name, which comes from the Greek words for "pure love" and "flower". Isn't that nice. :-)