Not much to say about these but DAMN. Award-winning London illustrator Daniel Mackie has created a gorgeous series of animal images, all hand-rendered in pencil and watercolor on paper, an increasing rarity in this age of digital art. From a Tangled Fingers interview:

I abandoned Photoshop in 2010 having used it as my main illustration tool for over ten years. Photoshop was making me cut corners and it was driving me crazy with its flat colours. Once I started using watercolour it became instantly clear to me that one of the reasons I was becoming so frustrated with my work was that I never had to make a solid decision. I could always undo something. When you’re using watercolour, you can’t undo it. You have to be brave, and as a result your decision-making gets better.

His blog features copious work-in-progress photos that give evidence of his considerable skill, and prints are of course available.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Via I Am The Trend

 
You may have already seen this fantastical black sheep trimmed like a poodle, but I haven’t, so I thought I’d share with you all in case you missed it, too. Because, well, it’s a black sheep groomed to look just like a goddamned poodle!

The project was by Lernert & Sander for the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant. According to the groomer Marieke Hollander “it was a lot of work on the day of the photoshoot. It took 12 hours, including the grooming, to finally get the right pictures.”

Is it me, or does the sheep look slightly embarrassed by its new ‘do? I hope this doesn’t turn into some sort of new hipster pet trend.

Via Mudfooted and with thanks to Adam Parfrey!

 
One Sunday morning, probably about fifteen years ago, I got a call from Genesis P-Orridge inviting me over to help him sort through his archives, which were then kept safely in a locked room in the basement of the Brooklyn brownstone Gen shared with his late wife, Lady Jaye (or Jackie as I knew her).

As one of the world’s most ardent Throbbing Gristle fans—I wouldn’t be the person I am today without Gen’s influence during my formative years—this was not an opportunity I was going to turn down. We sorted through art work (the tampon sculptures from the notorious “Prostitution” exhibit, for instance), press clippings, several boxes containing hundreds of different Psychic TV tee-shirt printings of which one example of each was kept, 16mm film canisters, photographs, letters from people like William S. Burroughs, items from the “Mail Art” movement, videotapes, albums, posters, cassettes, CDs and so forth. It was big fun for me and naturally I got a private sort of “gallery tour” with the artist, albeit in a moldy-smelling basement with washing machines and stuff, as we sorted through the boxes and cataloged what was in them.

At one point, the conversation turned to the recent so-called “Beat Auction” at Sotheby’s—we’d gone together—where the personal effects of Allen Ginsberg were sold to the highest bidder, as well as artifacts related to, or that once belonged to, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Harry Smith, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and others. The cataloging of his past seemed almost wearying to Genesis that afternoon, and his attitude seemed to be “Oh, who’s going to care about all this old stuff?”
 

 
Whereas Genesis was not optimistic regarding the future value of his archive, I on the other hand, a book publisher, saw a potential goldmine from where I was standing. “Are you kidding me? Other than Patti Smith or Kenneth Anger [and Lawrence Ferlinghetti] you’re practically the last living link to the Beat Generation. Within no time at all, you’re going to be having museum retrospectives and people flying you all over the world to have you lecture. I can think of a gazillion ways to monetize the ephemera in this room. Books, documentaries, DVDs of these concert videos, CDs of the unreleased cassettes, all kinds of things. I mean, come on! The annuities that will support you in your dotage are in this room.”

Gen, being Gen, took this in world-weary stride, but of course I was right. Just this summer The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh held a three-month long retrospective of Gen’s art. There’s Thee Psychick Bible anthology of Gen’s writings on magick. Now London-based First Third have published a beautiful new high quality monograph coffee table book retrospective of Gen’s life with the title Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, as Gen—who these days prefers the feminine gender assignation “she”—has re-dubbed herself in honor of her late wife, Jackie Breyer.
 

Photo: Marti Wilkerson

There are two variants on the Genesis Breyer P-Orridge publication, a numbered “standard edition” limited to 990 copies worldwide and a “deluxe edition” of 333 signed books with a linen bound Japanese-inspired presentation box with a cut-out PTV logo and several other extras including an art catalog, three 45rpm records and a 51cm square poster of the erotic Polaroids taken by Gen and Lady Jaye (“not for the easily-shocked” according to the press materials.)

First Third‘s publications are slick, beautiful, heavy objects that look rather fetching on a coffee table. (I reviewed their—excellent—book of Sheila Rock’s punk era photographs here). They were kind enough to send me a review copy of the standard edition of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and as a longtime fan—forget that we’re pals—I must say that it’s quite a superb volume, offering a highly intimate glimpse into the public and private life of one of the most uncompromising artists of the past one hundred years, if not ever. (How many artists can YOU name who can boast of a worldwide occult network/cult? The entire idea of a cult band (Psychic TV) with an actual cult of followers (Thee Temple of Psychic Youth) is one of the greatest prolonged performance art pieces—one that scared the piss out of the British establishment, of course—ever in history. One day there will be serious sociological books and PhD dissertations written on the topic, mark my words.)
 

Photo: Sheila Rock

To be clear, this is not a cataloging of the life and work of Genesis P-Orridge, just the life part (the work slips in, too, in context, but it’s not the point). Genesis Breyer P-Orridge is an idiosyncratically themed, nearly purely visual autobiography—there is a very good interview by Mark Paytress that I wish I could read more of, but nearly all of the book’s 323 pages are devoted to photographs.

I’ve seen some of these shots before, but many of them are new to me, and they’re often quite illuminating or revelatory. Contradicting what I wrote above, seeing these photographs arranged in this way—there’s a definite art to it—the lifelong modus operandi of P-Orridge the artist, the man and now the woman, becomes much, much clearer. From the hippie gross-out performance art of COUM Transmissions through Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, Gen’s influence on the piercing, body art and tattooing subcultures, to the elaborate plastic surgery of the Gilbert & George meet Orlan pandrogeny experiment with Lady Jaye, a very definite narrative emerges. The reader (more the beholder, I suppose) also gets more than an eyeful of Breyer P-Orridge’s sex magick rituals, which are interesting, to say the least.

Some of the shots are just priceless. I love the ones of Gen as an incredibly mischievous looking kid and the one of him with FRANK ZAPPA. I’ve never seen someone—especially someone as loquacious as Genesis is—express themselves or “write” their autobiography so successfully in scrapbook form like this. It’s a unique and interesting publishing experiment on so many levels. (It’s also interesting to see who is pointedly missing from the book, but I’m not about to step into that one.)

My guesstimate of the potential worldwide buyers for Genesis Breyer P-Orridge is about 6000 people, but there are just 1323 copies. This book could make a boffo (certainly unexpected) Christmas present for “a certain person” on your list, or if you’re that certain person yourself, don’t snooze and lose because once these are sold, they’re gone.

You can order Genesis Breyer P-Orridge at www.firstthirdbooks.com.

Below, the mesmerizing and beautifully evil long version of Cerith Wyn Evans’ video for Psychic TV’s “Unclean.”
 

 
A 2009 interview that I conducted with Genesis upon the publication of Thee Psychick Bible. Part 2 is here.

 
On his 1989 album New York, Lou Reed sang, “No one here dreams of being a doctor or a lawyer or anything / They dream of dealing on the dirty boulevard….” And yet shortly before he died, Reed (along with John Cale) did employ the services of an attorney in order to sue their old chum Andy Warhol (well, sort of). To be precise, in 2012 the Velvet Underground sued the Andy Warhol Foundation for improper use of that famous banana logo that Warhol designed for the Velvets’ first album, The Velvet Underground & Nico.

It’s all kind of a sad coda to the uneasy partnership that Warhol and the Velvets struck way back in 1966.
 

The offending iPhone case
 
So in 2012 the Andy Warhol Foundation approved the manufacture of a bunch of iPhone and iPod accessories using the famous banana image, and John Cale and Lou Reed really didn’t like that the organization had sought to, ahem, “deceive the public” into thinking the Velvet Underground offered “sponsorship or approval” of the items, which included “a $149.95 shoulder bag and a $59.95 protective sleeve.” As stated in the lawsuit The Velvet Underground v. The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.,
 

VU’s use and application of the design to symbolize the group and its whole body of work has been exclusive, continuous and uninterrupted for more than 25 years. . . . Members of the public, and particularly those who listen to rock music, immediately recognize the banana design as the symbol of the Velvet Underground. . . . It is not merely the graphic reproduction by Andy Warhol of a piece of fruit: it is the ‘iconic’ VU banana.”

 
That was in January of 2012. But don’t get the idea that the Andy Warhol Foundation took the legal challenge lying down over the next few months. For instance, in September 2012 it was reported that in court papers filed in U.S. District Court in New York, the Foundation claimed that the band’s use of the famous image in licensing deals “constitutes unclean hands and illegal trademark use.” The Warhol Foundation claimed that it “enjoys priority of trademark use in the Warhol Banana Design” because the group “never made a bona-fide source-indicating trademark use” of the graphic.
 

 
Somewhat sensibly, the Foundation claimed that it owns the rights to Warhol’s name and signature, although given that the signature in question is a stylized font-representation of Warhol’s name, I’d be curious how the exact wording of the legal filing ran. In their counter-filing, the Warhol Foundation made the mirror image of VU’s original claim, stating that the group’s use of Warhol’s name “is likely to confuse consumers into believing that the Warhol Foundation or other authorized representative of Andy Warhol has sponsored, approved or authorized the good or service in question.” Exactly: there’s no lower blow than implying that the Andy Warhol Foundation would ever, ever authorize some cheesy Warhol “shoulder bag” or “protective sleeve”—which, let’s recall, was exactly what they did.

In May of this year, the two parties reached a settlement.

So thorny! Call me crazy (or Solomon), but it sounds like a situation where both parties have some claim over the copyright, so maybe a shared copyright is appropriate, if that’s even a thing. The details of the settlement, as is usually the case in such matters, have not been disclosed.

Here’s a brief clip about the origins of the Warhol/VU partnership from Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film from the PBS American Masters series:
 

Niagara during an early Destroy All Monsters show
 
I’m never quite sure how familiar folks outside the midwest are with Destroy All Monsters, but if you haven’t given them a listen yet, I highly suggest you do. There are no “real” albums, but in 1994 Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore released everything they recorded on a three-disc set called 1974-1976. Unfortunately, the Detroit punk outfit is most often mentioned in passing, usually as a reference to a more famous band; guitarist Ron Asheton of The Stooges and bassist Michael Davis of the MC5 were also members of Destroy All Monsters. The late Mike Kelley did his time in the band as well. Jim Shaw, too. Destroy All Monsters were an art/rock supergroup of sorts, albeit an awfully obscure one.

But not only did they produce some really interesting music, DAM boasted one of the great punk frontwomen in Niagara, who still performs in various projects. The only Punk Magazine centerfold besides Debbie Harry, Niagara has an incredibly compelling, raw presence, and she’s a total fox. It makes perfect sense that her paintings depict beautiful, brazen, dangerous women. In a 2010 interview, she said her work was a response to “women in art being treated like still life,” going on to say, “I wanted them to start saying what they are thinking, I wanted to see that mix of beauty and hardness in incredibly caustic women. And there is humor, you can see the humor.”

Niagara’s first exhibit was in 1996, with the fabulously misandrist title, “All Men Are Cremated Equal.” While her noir femme fatales are her most popular work, her most recent stuff evokes more of a “dreamy, druggy ladies in absinthe ads” kind of vibe. Still, the super-saturated colors, campy, menacing femininity, and an old school sign-painter’s instincts give Niagara’s canvases the same exciting and distinctive edge she brings to the stage.
 

 

 

 
More after the jump…
 

 
The patience that John Cage’s 1952 composition 4’33” asks of us and the apparent absurdity it entails—these things instill a desire to either lampoon it or (on the other hand) wax philosophical. I’ll resist both temptations and simply invite you to hit play (there’s a couple minutes of footage of the musicians gathering before the piece begins).
 

 
As a special bonus, here’s the Nic Cage version:

Jemima Proust, 1969

The rock and roll scene in Great Britain in the mid- to late 1970s produced so many indelible and arresting characters, but for my money, not a one of ‘em beats the great, dearly departed Ian Dury. He was always an odd figure in the new wave/punk scene, doggedly doing his own thing while the likes of Elvis Costello and John Lydon received greater acclaim and adulation—and hell, let’s even say deservedly so. I’m can’t come close to classifying his music, it’s pub rock/disco/punk/dancehall with a good dollop of who knows?

Whatever it was, it was irrevocably Ian Dury and it was irrevocably, irredeemably, unapologetically, unpretentiously, and very specifically British.

How a squinty little geezer like Dury could create music that was so compellingly, and simultaneously, funky/inert, expressive/stiff, joyous/crabby will always be an impenetrable mystery to me, but heaven knows I do adore it, especially his diverse and thumping first album New Boots and Panties!!.
 

Night Boy, 1966
 
If you’ve ever looked carefully at his album covers and other associated imagery, it’s always had a strong visual sense, so it was both a surprise and not a surprise that for several years in the 1960s, Dury studied at the Royal College of Art—and his paintings were damn good. I’m not an art expert by any stretch; it fits comfortably in the Pop Art idiom, which was all the rage at the time.

You won’t be surprised to hear that while Dury was at the Royal College of Art, he studied under the esteemed British Pop Art practitioner Peter Blake, who among other things collaborated with Jann Haworth to design the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album cover—eh, pretty good, what else is on your résumé? You can see traces of Blake’s mentorship all over Dury’s work (click here for a comparison); Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns are other obvious influences. (Blake designed the cover for Dury’s New Boots and Panties!! as well.)

Perhaps this is why Dury’s comment on his own art career was, “I got good enough to realize I wasn’t going to be very good.” Dury’s probably right, he was probably too derivative to succeed in the art world, but as far as I’m concerned, his paintings are pretty darn impressive anyway. And, as was ever the case with Dury, there’s something enduringly British about his works.

Just this past summer, his alma mater the Royal College of Art hosted an exhibition of Dury’s works under the title “More Than Fair: Paintings, Drawings and Artworks, 1961–1972.”
 

Lee Marvin, 1968
 
According to his daughter Jemima (note the use of that name in Dury’s painting above), who helped curate the exhibition last summer, Dury reminisced about his days at art school as follows:
 

I met Betty, my late first wife, at the Royal College of Art. She was at Newport College of Art. Her dad went to the Royal College of Art in the thirties. Getting into the RCA was the only thing I’ve aspired to in my life. I spent two years trying to get in. It’s the only achievement I’ve ever felt, a bit like going to the university of your choice. I’m really pleased I went there, I’m proud of it. I wouldn’t have been able to learn about how to live as a person doing what they want to do if I hadn’t gone there, allowing your determination and output to control the way things go - my nine and my five.

We’ve got more of Dury’s fine paintings below, but if you haven’t heard Dury’s music and are wondering what all the fuss is about, check out “Wake Up and Make Love with Me,” the opening track of New Boots and Panties!!, which in my view is simply one of the weirdest and greatest disco tracks ever released:
 

 
But you also have to see Dury in action to appreciate him. Here’s the video for “Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick,” complete with an unforgettable double sax solo!
 

 
Click on the link to see more of Dury’s youthful art…..

 
I was flipping through a recent issue of DAZED and my interest was piqued by an article about the shortlist for the Film London Jarman Award, something that’s been given out for the past five years in the name of the late artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman to experimental artist filmmakers working well outside of the mainstream. The £10,000 award was bestowed last month upon artist/filmmaker John Smith.

The image that really caught my eye though, was a small still (top) from Scottish artist Rachel Maclean‘s short film “Lolcats.” It sent me straight to Google to investigate further.
 

 
Maclean describes her work as “artificially saturated visions that are both nauseatingly positive and cheerfully grotesque.” She says her inspiration comes from the notion of unifying “the aesthetic of The Dollar Store, YouTube, Manga, Hieronymus Bosch and High Renaissance painting with MTV style green screen and channel changing cuts.” I’d add to that a hefty dollop of Lisa Frank, Mike Kelley, Pierre et Gilles, Leigh Bowery, Pee-wee’s Playhouse, Niki de Saint Phalle, The Mighty Boosh, and even Cindy Sherman, as Maclean portrays all of the characters in her freaky hallucinogenic menagerie herself. I suspect that Tom Rubnitz’s infamous “Strawberry Shortcut” (which became a viral video decades after his death) was another thing that inspired her singular aesthetic. Maclean’s work feels very fresh to me. She’s got a truly 21st century aesthetic.

Why would anyone want to sit through a boring four hour Matthew Barney movie when they could get stoned and watch Rachel Maclean’s “Lolcats” on YouTube instead? You know I’m right. She makes all the props and the costumes. She even designs the make-up herself. Matthew Barney farms that stuff out. I can think of all kinds of reasons why I prefer her work to his. I like how personal her vision is. Does he play all the roles in his films? Nope.

Look at the rich detail in this still (a larger version can be seen here). This sort of work would take an absolutely heroic effort to realize.
 

 
She’s really young, born in in 1987. If Maclean’s art is this fully-developed at the age of 26, and she’s willing to work as hard as she (clearly) does, she’s got an incredibly bright future ahead of her. If I was going to do a “top ten of 2013” thing, I think Maclean’s work would be at the top of the list. I’ve been waiting for something “new” like this to come along, I just didn’t know it. Maybe you have, too?

Rachel Maclean, you are my new favorite artist.
 

 

“The narrative centres on a young female protagonist, presenting her in moments of intrigue, fear, metamorphosis and decay. Journeying through this erratic environment she encounters a bejewelled Katy Perry discussing dental hygiene with an aristocratic cat, stumbles upon an army of hostile feline cyborgs and is surgically dissected by a gothic physician.”

“Germs” a three-minute short for Channel 4’s “Random Acts.” Dissects and distorts advertising aimed at women.
 

“Inspired by the Technicolor utopias of children’s television, “Over The Rainbow” (2013) invites the viewer into a shape-shifting world inhabited by cuddly monsters, faceless clones and gruesome pop divas. Shot entirely using green-screen the film presents a computer generated environment, which explores a dark, comedic parody of the fairytale, video game and horror movie genres.” (This is a short edit of a 40 minute piece)

“I Dreamed A Dream”: Susan Boyle gets a death metal make-over in this truly bonkers piece. This earlier video is somewhat cruder than Maclean’s later work and you can see the clear leap forward in quality when she was able to get funding, move into better working situations and find her collaborators.
 

The Skinny talks to Rachel Maclean about her art and you get to see her in action.

 
Okay, so these images are from the FrasacoUSA! 2013 calendar, but there has to be one for 2014, right?! I mean, I don’t think I can live without one now that I know of its existence. It’s a “good Lord, WTF am I looking at!” work of art.

Sadly, I can’t seem to locate a 2014 calendar on the FransacoUSA! site, but here’ a link to where you can contact them. Maybe if enough people demand ‘em, they’ll make ‘em? They.Just.Have.To.

 
More after the jump…
 

 
Don’t worry, I’ve got your holiday gift ideas covered this year: What about this delightful handmade taxidermy mice chess set by Etsy shop TheCurious13? There’s only one available and it’s retailing for $550.00.

According to the write-up on Etsy:

The set includes 16 light colored mice and 16 dark mice, in various sizes, pawns being the smallest. Set comes complete with wooden hand painted chess board, and storage case (not pictured).

Now I’m curious what the chess board and storage case look like.

 

 

 
With thanks to Gail Potocki!