baby art blog

out today! - the eagerly awaited new issue of the deviant culture handbook: “timeless” - the infamous miss nana rape blossom painted by loulou picasso gracing the cover - i’m not actually sure if i’m included myself in this volume - but, besides the 300 regular edition copies, there is a special boxset limited edition of 50 with signed prints by me alongside sydmead, sleazy and slocombe, plus “a special gift” - all infos here

excellent book, published for their recent london exhibition, filled with colour pix documenting every detail of their insane bigger’n'better “hell” masterpiece - possibly sold out already - it’s been listed as “out of stock” on the gallery’s web site (even the 500 specially burnt copies at £175 each?)…

and out today, also fitting my subject line and also sure to sell out, a new mark ryden book (of sorts) - a picture book to accompany a short film made with marion peck - it’s on youtube being praised highly but i tend to agree with most of the comments on the boingboing thread

and my alice #11 painting finished today (more or less) - the cheshire cat - no details no nothing to give you, sorry

hottest and coolest pick of this bunch is the leila cd

sneaker pimps - splinter
iamx - kiss and swallow
iamx - the alternative
wire - chairs missing
leila - blood looms and blooms
jean-philippe goude - rock de chambre
bionic sheep - conflict resolution
sub swara - coup d’yah
tuu - the frozen lands

i previously professed uncertainty regarding this artist - partly due to petty jealousy (mis)believing her book had sold out before even being published - anyway, the gorgeous deluxe edition of her book is now finally out and in my hands - and i’ve warmed to her much more after discovering she’s a fan of my work! - heh heh! - well, i find that difficult to believe actually, but apparently she was very happy to learn that i was buying her book after my/our shared publisher took a copy for a personal dedication - and at least it does dispel the snooty image i had of her

the book published as two regular paperback editions or a combined hardback edition signed and boxed and with some extra content (sketchbook drawings) - the paintings fully documented with many detail images and working drawings - and of course there’s the mandatory essay by some drivel writing art critic or whoever (a university professor actually) - made all the more obnoxious in this case by an offensive male-hatred agenda, to whit:

Matsui’s women suffer injury, fouling, rape, and agony. A female viewer will feel infected by their pain. A male viewer will visually rape them and feel pleasure in their agony? A woman’s abuse is always a man’s pornography.

yikes! - annoying and unnecessary as fuyuko matsui herself provides more credible and sufficient intellectual analysis of her own work, painting by painting - and my own scholarly observation: i wonder why all the figures in her paintings (be they female or animal), unless prostrate, all face left? (regardless even if the body faces right)

book can be ordered here - by price tag, i’d say the austere deluxe version is a better deal over the not that cheapo paperbacks …but it’s big and very heavy so postage liable to be similarly forbiddingly weighty

piero manzoni - merde d’artista (artist’s shit)

mentioned in the previous post’s comments, i thought this deserved a post of it’s own - art history lesson with tb : )

In the month of May 1961, I produced and tinned 90 tins of ‘artist’s shit ‘ (30 grams each) naturaly preserved (made in Italy)

the cans of crap are signed and numbered on the lid and the label printed in italian, english, french and german - as a reference to alchemy, the shit was sold at the same price as it’s weight in 18-carot gold - it’s unknown how many actually were sold but many have since ended up in museums being bought for increasing sums now in excess of their weight in gold - it’s amusing to think that all over the world piero’s poop is proudly displayed in the middle of big glass cases mounted on pedestals, as something to be revered - or at least oogled at by bemused art patrons

i wonder how much it was done as a juvenile joke, acting on some whimsical idea the artist had while sitting on the bog, and how much he was aware of it’s brilliant and unsurpassable metaphoric poignancy - it is quite certain it was done as a spit in the face of the whole art world - and, for some reason, the joke/work wasn’t too appreciated at the time - indeed it appears to have lost the artist faith even in himself, within two years he had drunk himself to death at the age of only 29

besides the stories, or myths, of cans exploding due to corrosion and the build up of gases, there’s also some speculation as to whether the cans do in fact contain what they say - but i think irrelevant as it’d only increase the conceptual validity if they didn’t - the joke is still on the art market paying through the nose (haha!) for what are potentially just cans of plaster (according to one of piero’s friends) - erm, has no got a can opener??? - adding to the confusion, an x-ray curiously revealed what appeared to be a smaller can inside the outer can…?

for me, part of the success of “artist’s shit” is that it’s such a spiffy neat little object - especially in comparison to “cloaca”, the shit machine made by artist wim delvoye (mentioned previously in this blog) which synthetically reproduces the human digestion system - and produces perfect logs of faeces, which are tastefully packaged and sold to collectors of course - intriguing idea, and doubtless inspired by manzoni, but the thing unfortunately actually looks (as well as sounds) more like a cumbersome scientific experiment than a visually impactful work of art

an “artist’s book”, published on the year of manzoni’s death, titled “piero manzoni: the life and works”, consisted of 100 transparent plastic pages bound in sheet metal - the title is the only text, the rest of the book is blank - despite that, the legacy of shit in art forever holds reverence to piero manzoni

next topic: warhol’s piss paintings? - oh, no doubt just coincidence, but warhol’s cans of campbell’s soup came a year after manzoni’s cans of crap

this blog is getting way too wordy!

a mini drama in my eternally empty email box - i’m being berated by a young person asserting the above painting glorifies six million dead - as a jew she is most offended by the title - how can i “claim” being starved to death or being experimented on is sexy - obviously i do not understand the magnitude of using nazi imagery, as if it were just a minor issue

altho i don’t agree at all with the allegations and conclusions made from the painting, i wrote back and apologised if she regarded it as trivialising - the title is of course ironic - it actually came from something said by a certain miss jinx malone (to name the guilty), a big fan of my work several years ago - and she was simply referring to a fetishism for nazi uniforms - the (poetic?) phrase stuck in my mind and i deemed it an apt title for my li’l swastika emblazoned cosplay girl

personally i find it incredulous the symbol is still banned in germany - wanting no one to ever use nazi imagery, or only permitting it’s use according to strict rules, is resorting to exactly the same fascism they are supposedly opposed to

my indicter now condemning jinx malone as a co-conspirator in the “pattern of hatred” disarming the evil the swastika represents - err, in japan the symbol represents a buddhist shrine! - and speaking of japan i’m also now getting the unit 731 atrocities thrown at me - no different between that and my painting apparently - her presumed hypothesis being that by choosing to live in japan i’m complicitly guilty of all japanese crimes against humanity throughout history? - i could argue hiroshima (and probably get 9/11 in retaliation) but, i withdraw - the leaps of logic have become unmanageable for me - it’s inane and has nothing whatsoever to do with li’l miss sticky kiss

anyway, contentious blogworthy issue

a gallery of my favourite disrespectful boys and girls follows

mark ryden at his peak

lolicon hentai manga

shirley temple reveals her true nature in a crispin glover film poster - i occasionally get accredited for this painting which is flattering but sadly not true

hatemonger trevor brown reveals his true nature in this detail of “schoolgirl biker”

thanks to gea* (again) for bringing these to my attention and giving me something else to rave, or rather, rant about on my blog - these little darlings based on the paintings of fafi and published in the may issue of vogue nippon angels - and of course far cuter by virtue of not being anything like the dumpy little sassy brats with huge breasts that fafi actually paints - yep you guessed, i’m not much of a fafi-fan (i don’t get the phenominal priceless artistic genius of painting hearts on cheeks, sorry) - but seems EVERYONE else loves her stuff so who cares what i think - well, perhaps not entirely everyone - searching around i found these pix on quite a few blogs, typically attracting comments of “adorable!” etc - save for one sole voice among the fafi-infatuated declaring “these are sick” - heh! - i think they maybe do (unintentionally) owe more to the spirit of trevor brown (particularly the lil miss sticky kiss visual style of the bottom four) than fafi?!