L E G M O U N T A I N

restaurant run by Undertakers.

plat du jour “let’s meet in Paradise”

lets go to Ukraine.

James Unsworth’s work is carnal and appears in full realism, there is no mystery and a lot of seduction. Every work seems to hold sincerities and pure truths about force, attraction, desire, degradation, and self-destruction. I interviewed him a while ago. He said this.

’The first time I started using the grotesque, taboo subjects and disgusting things was when I did an inversion of a Jophovars Witness pamphlet which was describing this perfect world and harmony where every one was working together, and were abundant, rich and happy.  Which was a complete lie.  So I inverted it and made it disgusting and horrible. - My work is always generated by drawing.  There is some nice about how easy it is to draw.  Something so simple.  It is from my imagination, which gives me the license to do whatever I want, but it always tied down to this.’

‘This always grounds it a little bit.  People have this conception that this kind of work is new, the vulgarity of it and sexuality of it but if you do a bit of research you realize that is got a complete popular print history tradition that goes back to the beginning of print, since images were accessible.  I have a great respect for the history of print especially the way it made images more accessible and more democratic.  All of my drawings are based on the history of popular print and political charactertures, and things like Hogart and James Gillray.  I reference a lot from Hogarth, Gillray, and Cruickshank.  My exciting days off are at the Library to look through the microfilms.  I went out the Paris for a couple of days and plundered the Library out there.  I find they are the best place.  They seem to be very organized out there.  It is must easier to go to the Bibliotheque in France than to go to the British Library.  I’ve done a lot of research on the grotesque image of the body and charactertures of grotesqueries.  I also do a lot of visual research on alternative nightclubs documenting performance and transgressive behaviour.’

His website

samuel fosso portraits

/ now at jean marc patras galerie, paris

I find a passport photo every few months. These are some of my favorites. The young black lady and the bleached out photo of an older woman are the same person. The back of the later reads “I am a catholic. Incase of accident please notify a Priest. D.O.B 16.11.39″

A few things found and learned in Paris…

Early lesser known sculptures and installations from Paul Thek. Thek was a Fluxus/process artist (if you were to classify) during the 19960’s-70’s when he made his most infamous ‘Meat Pieces’ made of wax and plexi-glass, and ‘Tomb- Death of a Hippie’ ‘67, a plaster cast of the artist suited and booted in pink. His traveling installations in Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and Amsterdam were often poorly documented, more ritualistic in their construction, exhibition and habitation than anything else. A nomadic artist, Thek walks apart from the rest. I regret not buying the book.

Anne Deleporte. Figure 1. Covers walls with newspaper and carefully paints out particular sections to create and expansive canvas of pale blue dotted with hovering isolated figures and shapes… Her exhibition at Deyrolle taxidermy shop in Paris is particularly quaint; videos online are worth a look. Fig 2.Bullets project.

wood relief, museum of modern art (paris)

objets

carpet. that grows monkey. and plants.

A wrote a review on Alexander Heaton for a magazine a while ago. here’s a section of it.

Heaton who was mountaineering in the Valais region of Switzerland, saw his group leader turn and point at the morning light which was revealing the beautiful Matterhorn and announced ‘The horn that matters’ (the title of one of his recent shows). Heaton now paints using oils that come from minerals found within the great mountains producing sincere, narrative scenes that evoke feelings of wonder and childlike fragility. Apart from making you want to enter the painted scene, you are made to feel quite at ease in the company of the painting. The lucid colours and striking compositions are surprisingly un-daunting, probably because of the fondness and respect in which they were painted. And although hinting at catastrophe they are a calm progression from some of his earlier unreal, apocalyptic works, a progression I hope he pursues, as aside from travelling the Alps work like this prove a kind escape from our hectic city lives. His work depicts a scene of complete solace. Water mills and homes built into the mountains; with the daunting Alps lurking ominously in the background, whilst goats graze in the foreground, implying a feeling of complete contentment in an epic landscape.

I have a new art crush. I can get enough of this.  
You can see the images bigger - here 

“Automatic Camera situated 7 miles from blast with 10 foot lens. Shutter speed equaled 1/1000,000,000 of-a-second exposure.” Early instances of an atomic explosion.

The photos are by Harold Edgerton aka “Papa Flash” who is famed for using Stroboscopic photography to photograph discrete instances of the everyday - balloons bursting, divers diving into pools, milk drops. These photos were taken using another of Edgerton’s inventions, the Rapatronic camera - capable of taking photographs with exposure times of 10 nanoseconds and are far from everday occurences. 

Since they evolved trees have had a great influence on the shaping of the ecology of our planet and in determining the present arrangements of life on earth. Of particular importance for us has been the role of trees in the evolution of mankind and the development of human cultures and communities.

The origins of man

Some 65 million years ago, just after the demise of the dinosaurs, a small rat-like species of mammal (now known as a prosimian) left the ground and took to life in the trees. Eventually after 50 million years had passed, this creature returned to the ground as the ancestor of man.

The period spent in the environment of the trees was of great formative importance because it promoted many physical changes. These changes included a massive increase in body size, the development of paws into hands and 3D colour vision. The physical changes were mapped by an increase in the size and the capability of the brain. Thus prosimian developed into simian.

The increase in stature led to changes in posture which enabled some simians to stand upright. Eventually one of these species was able to walk on two legs.

It was these changes which led to the descent from the trees and eventually to homo sapiens. So it can be seen that without trees the evolution of prosimian into man would never have taken place. Without trees we would not be here.

The development of human civilization

The development of civilization has been dependent on wood based technologies. Where would we be without such aspects of our culture as fire, agriculture, the wheel, the use of metals, spinning, weaving, water and land based transport, building, and printing? Our technological culture could not have developed without wood.

The wonder and the mystery

On many people trees exert a powerful emotional influence. To many of us a tree is a thing of spiritual sustenance and renewal. The tree is the embodiment of mankind’s condition: birth, life, death, regeneration and rebirth. The rising sap is the spirit of life and seeds and fruit are the symbols of fertility.

The importance of trees

Trees are the largest and longest living organisms on earth. To grow tall the tree has become a miracle of engineering and a complex chemical factory. It is able to take water and salts out of the earth and lift them up to the leaves, sometimes over 400 ft above. By means of photosynthesis the leaves combine the water and salts with carbon dioxide from the air to produce the nutrients which feed the tree. In this process, as well as wood, trees create many chemicals, seeds and fruit of great utility to man. Trees also remove carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, from the air.

Trees are of continued importance to the environment. Tropical rain forests have of particular significance; although they now occupy less than 6 per cent of the land surface of the earth they probable sustain more than half of the biological species on the planet.

Notwithstanding the debt we owe to trees, their emotive power, and their importance to other forms of life, the forested area of the earth is steadily being depleted. This is leading to the degradation of the environment and the extinction of many species. There is now a real danger that in the not very distant future man will destroy a large proportion of the present population of species on earth, create an uninhabitable environment, and then die out himself. If this happens it will not be the first time that a large proportion of the species on the earth have been extinguished. 

Image 1 - Hedi Slimane  | Image 2 - Sanford Wurmfield ‘E-Cyclorama‘ | Image 3 - Jaime Martinez | Image 4 - Emily Graham