I like Pure Evil‘s Darwin portrait made up from hundreds of stenciled barrel monkeys. The print is currently “not available,” but if you write Pure Evil at their website—they might bring it back. Who knows?
Dangerous Minds pal, super-talented photographer Austin Young is participating in a one-day sale of his art at Fab.com.
For just $100, you can buy an original Austin Young museum-quality giclee print of Leigh Bowery, Elvira, Prince Poppycock, Carmen Carrera, Squeaky Blonde, Fade-Dra, Lenora Claire and selections from his sexy series of New Wave girls. Each print measures 18” by 24” and are in signed and numbered editions of fifteen.
Prints of Austin Young’s work this size can sell for as much as $2500, so this is a great way to fool someone on your Christmas list into thinking that you spent an awful lot of money on them this year. Today only. You’ll need to register here, first.
Michael W. Dean and Kenneth Shiffrin’s 2005 documentary on writer Hubert Selby Jr. provides a wealth of insight on the author of Last Exit To Brooklyn and Requiem For A Dream from Selby himself as well as many of the artists he influenced.
Narrated by Robert Downey Jr., Hubert Selby: It/ll Be Better Tomorrow, features interviews with Lou Reed, Darren Aronofsky, Nicolas Winding Refn, Richard Price, Jerry Stahl, Nick Tosches, Gilbert Sorrentino, Henry Rollins, Amiri Baraka, among others.
Selby lived a hard life of drug addiction, poverty and debilitating illness, which he not only managed to survive but transform into writing that stands alongside William Burroughs Jr., Dostoevsky and Charles Bukowski. He engaged the muse right up to the end of his life. His story is stirring, inspiring and more than a little heartbreaking.
Saul Bass was a genius. His title designs for films have influenced graphic artists and fontists for decades.
Ian Albinson put together this montage of Bass’s indelible creations for films that have become classics and a few that are primarily memorable for their title sequences.
Nadja Sayej got the bottom of why the New Yorker didn’t use this art by Robert Crumb: They never told him...
Did the rejection offend you?
I’m in a privileged position because I don’t need the money. When you go to the cover editor’s office, you notice that the walls are covered with rejected New Yorker covers. Sometimes there are two rejected covers for each issue. I don’t know what the usual policy is, but I was given no explanation from David Remnick, the editor in chief, who makes the final decisions.
Has the New Yorker attempted to commission work from you since this cover?
Yeah, Françoise [Mouly, the art editor] keeps mailing me these form letters, which they send to various artists they like to use. It says something like, “OK, so here are the topics for upcoming covers.” They send it out a couple of times a year or something. But it’s a form letter, not a personal letter.
Did you receive an apology?
An apology? I don’t expect an apology. But if I’m going to work for them I need to know the criteria for why they accept or reject work. The art I made, it only really works as a New Yorker cover. There’s really no other place for it. But they did pay me beforehand—decent money. I have no complaint there. I asked Françoise what was going on with it and she said, “Oh, Remnick hasn’t decided yet…” and he changed his mind several times about it. I asked why and she didn’t know. Several months passed. Then one day, I got the art back in the mail, no letter, no nothing.
The Monster Brains blog recently posted some delightful high-resolution scans of Dark Shadows comic book covers based on the 60s gothic soap opera. I really like the top one from 1970.
Visit Monster Brains to view the rest of the collection.
Above, Brian Ferry’s then-girlfriend, transsexual model/pop star Amanda Lear poses for the second Roxy Music album cover with a panther.
Short documentary film about the making of those iconic and sexy Roxy Music album covers. This was made for a recent event honoring Bryan Ferry in France.
Yet another reason why I love the City of… Angels(!) so very, very much…
MOCA presents Kenneth Anger: ICONS, a showcase of the films, archives, and vision of one of the most original filmmakers of American cinema, on view at MOCA Grand Avenue from November 13, 2011, through February 27, 2012. A defining presence of underground art and culture and a major influence on generations of filmmakers, musicians, and artists, Anger’s films evoke the power of spells or incantations, combining experimental technique with popular song, rich color, and subject matter drawn equally from personal obsession, myth, and the occult.
MOCA’s exhibition centers on Anger’s Magick Lantern Cycle of films—Fireworks (1947), Puce Moment (1949), Rabbit’s Moon (1950/1979), Eaux d’artifice (1953), Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954/66), Scorpio Rising (1963), Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965), Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969), and Lucifer Rising (1970-81)—presenting the work across multiple projections in a unique gallery installation of red vinyl, designed in close consultation with Anger.
Complementing the films is an archive of photographs, scrapbooks, and memorabilia from Anger’s personal collection that illustrates the filmmaker’s unique vision of Hollywood’s golden era. The inspiration and source material for the filmmaker’s infamous celebrity “gossip” books Hollywood Babylon, (1975) and Hollywood Babylon II (1984), the collection centers on stars such as Rudolph Valentino and Greta Garbo, as well as now lesser-known icons like silent-film actress Billie Dove. Anger grew up in Hollywood. His grandmother was a costume mistress, and he is claimed to have appeared as a child actor in the Warner Brothers production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935). The world of the classic studios and the mystique of its major figures radiates throughout the photographs, press clippings, letters, and memorabilia on display, which Anger has gathered across many decades.
Technicolor Skull, a multimedia collaboration featuring Kenneth Anger on Theremin and Los Angeles artist Brian Butler on guitar and electronic instruments, will perform for the first time in Los Angeles at the exhibition opening on November 19. Technicolor Skull is a magick ritual of light and sound in the context of a live performance. The project premiered at Donaufestival in Austria, in April 2008, and has subsequently toured throughout Europe, performing at the National Museum of Art, Copenhagen, and the Serralves Museum, Portugal, and recently at the Hiro Ballroom, New York, for the Anthology Film Archives benefit.
Opening: Saturday, November 19, 7–10pm, Technicolor Skull will perform at 8pm.