Topics | Dangerous Minds (2024)

08.03.2017

11:08 am

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Photographer Cindy Sherman has undertaken a sustained and acclaimed critique/exploration of the nature and construction of identity, Western self-representation, the male gaze, and the presumed documentary nature of photography that’s still ongoing after forty years, by using as her subject only herself, in various disguises. In 1977 she became prominent with a series called “Untitled Film Stills,” in which she cast herself in scenes that strongly resembled classic Hollywood tropes, but which were derived from no specific films in particular. The strength of that series and her early ‘80s work made her one of that decade’s art stars, making her a key figure not just in the so-called “Pictures Generation,” but in postmodern photography overall, and she became a MacArthur Fellow in the mid ‘90s.

Sherman’s generation of artists took a lot of heat for their appropriation-happy ethos. The artists themselves saw the tactic as a means to critique the increasingly image-saturated culture of the ‘80s, but some drew accusations of merely copying work and using conceptual art as a smoke screen. In some cases that seemed justified, as in the yeah-we-get-it-already oeuvre of accomplished forger Mike Bidlo, and Richard Prince has recently been savaged for selling other people’s online photos for six figures, without seeking permission or compensating the original photographers.

But since Sherman’s appropriations were of tropes rather than of specific works, she was never really a part of that fray, and because American culture has only become MORE image-saturated, the work of her generation of artists has only become more relevant, and seems more like prophecy than theft (hell, “PROPHECY IS THEFT” sounds a lot like a slogan Barbara Kruger would proffer), and fittingly, Sherman’s new work is a series of garishly saturated and disturbingly manipulated self portraits, published to that great asylum for performative selfies, Instagram.

Via Artnet News:

Before the age of social media and its painstakingly sculpted personae, Pictures Generation artist Cindy Sherman had already established herself as the art world’s reigning queen of self-reinvention, using the camera to morph into one character after another. Though her works are technically not self-portraits, Sherman’s method of turning the lens onto herself is uncannily appropriate to our times, in which the stage-managed selfie has become so ubiquitous that it’s now fodder for exhibitions and often cited as an art form in itself.

What we see here is somewhat of a departure from the artist’s traditional model: the frame is tighter and closer to her face, in what is clear use of a phone’s front-facing camera. Plus, the subject matter is decidedly intimate in comparison to her usual work—the latest posts document a stay in the hospital. She may even be having fun with filters.

The last hospital image was posted only three days ago, so DM wishes Ms. Sherman a speedy and comfortable recovery.

Back from the gym!

A post shared by cindy sherman (@_cindysherman_) on May 13, 2017 at 10:48am PDT

Oops!

A post shared by cindy sherman (@_cindysherman_) on May 15, 2017 at 5:05pm PDT

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08.03.2017

10:32 am

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Glenn Danzig’s Los Feliz home is for sale. The listing price is $1,199,000. Sadly, there’s only one photo of the home’s the exterior. I’d love to take a peek inside. Perhaps the relator will add more photos to the listing?

The home boasts 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and it’s 1,544 sqft.

From the MLS:

Located in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. This 1907 Craftsman home is awaiting your imagination and creative talents. In the rear of the property is a 2 bd.+1ba. additional unit. Many original accents are still intact. Two story home with hardwood floors, leaded glass, and storage units. This is a property that should be returned to its glorious past. Property is to be sold “as is”.

I noticed in the listing there’s no cooling but you do get four parking spaces.

Click on image to enlarge.

h/t to everyone who’s sharing this on Facebook.

08.03.2017

09:59 am

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I’ve never owned a Chia Pet before, but if I was going to, you better bet it would be a Bob Ross one. If you’re going to have a Chia Pet, what better subject than a soft-spoken white man with a permed afro and a long-running show on PBS? Imagine my delight when I discovered this wonderful creation existed! It’s just perfect. I must own one. Now.

Wanna hear a great factoid about Bob Ross? Of course you do. The reason he always spoke so quietly is this: Before becoming a TV painting instructor, Ross held various jobs in the military that required him to be, as he put it himself, “tough” and “mean.” Ross was “the guy who makes you scrub the latrine, the guy who makes you make your bed, the guy who screams at you for being late to work.” Tired of all of that agro, Ross vowed that after he left the military, he would never scream again.

The Bob Ross Chia Pet is available here for $19.99.

via Geekologie

08.03.2017

09:42 am

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Do the Grateful Dead and Steely Dan occupy opposite poles of some optimist/skeptic spectrum? I’ll allow that they just might. The two bands definitely have little in common aesthetically, what with the Dead’s trademark move being the lengthy improvised guitar jam and the Dan opting for a much tighter method that might just involve importing several seasoned sessionists in order to nail down a difficult solo, as famously happened with “Peg.”

If you picked lyrics from the two bands at random and presented them in the form of a quiz, most knowledgeable music fans would have little trouble telling the two apart.

Which brings us to the official Steely Dan website, which has an unusual status among such entities for two reasons: its existence runs back very nearly to the very dawn of the World Wide Web, and Becker and fa*gen clearly perceived it as a potential venue for their own personal expression.

According to the Internet Archive, Steely Dan’s website first surfaced no later than April 11, 1997, which is two years after the accepted inception of the WWW but remarkably early for an act as established as Steely Dan. The site is so old that it was was and running several years in advance of Steely Dan’s return to presenting new studio material to its audience, namely Two Against Nature, released in 2000, and Everything Must Go, released in 2003, both of which events it duly documented and promoted, as well as the many tours the Dan has undertaken over the years (remember when Steely Dan didn’t tour?).

The website has an unmistakably personal touch. As stated, whoever is running the website is expansive and expressive, with all sorts of pages dedicated not only to their albums and tours but also to such matters as the Dan’s tongue-in-cheek letter campaign to get set the terms of the band’s inevitable induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which didn’t last long because it happened in 2001 (the Dead beat them by seven years).

Amusingly, much of the website is in straight HTML, enough so to make one positively nostalgic for an Internet without any way to spread the word to LinkedIn or whatever. One such page is an amazing guide for music lovers who aren’t yet sure if they can handle Steely Dan, with detailed instructions on how to make the leap from Grateful Dead fandom to Dan fan status.

The “Deadhead/Danfan Conversion Chart” offers detailed illustrations of how to shed the “rectangular granny glasses” favored by Deadheads in favor of the “LA Eyeworks clipons” that are more typical of the puss*hound/drugrunner characters one might encounter in Steely Dan songs. In each case there is a transitional item named, occupying the creepy and simultaneous “Deadfan/Danhead” category—in the aforementioned example of eyewear, “rayban knockoffs” occupies that slot.

There are 20 such triads (Deadhead—Deadfan/Danhead—Danfan) and nary a weak one on the list. As a kicker, the final entry offers the Grateful Dead and Steely Dan themselves as start and end points, but I won’t name which artist they picked to be the transitional figure. But it’s kind of genius.

Here it is, but you can see the original version here:



Thanks to Sydney Aja Peterson for the find.

08.03.2017

09:11 am

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Salvador Dali, ‘Impressions of Africa’ (1938)

The rambling plot of the movie Salvador Dalí made for West German public TV in 1976, Impressions of Upper Mongolia (Homage to Raymond Roussel)—whose title has also been translated as Voyage in Outer Mongolia, and which more precisely concerns the region of Occidental Upper Mongolia—takes in golden circuit boards that replicate the painter’s brain, the giant, hallucinogenic, fictitious mushroom champlinclis histratatus domus biancus, and “the cruel mouth of Hitler.” Inspired by the writer Raymond Roussel’s Impressions of Africa, the film does not lend itself to a one-line summary; I would love to see the TV Guide entry.

José Montes Baquer, who directed the movie (though it’s “a film by Salvador Dalí,” of course), provided this useful synopsis in a 2007 interview with Tate Etc.:

The story was: in ancestral times, in order to deal with a wave of starvation, the princess was forced to administer hallucinogenic powders from a gigantic soft mushroom to her subjects. This substance produced a collective madness among the inhabitants of her principality, who created rock paintings that were discovered on boulders by a Dalínian expedition to this dreamland.

In the same interview, Baquer recalled that the collaboration began with a gift from Dalí, who spoke these words as he handed the filmmaker a plastic pen from the Hotel St. Regis with a specially treated metallic band:

In this clean and aseptic country [i.e., the USA], I have been observing how the urinals in the luxury restrooms of this hotel have acquired an entire range of rust colours through the interaction of the uric acid on the precious metals that are astounding. For this reason, I have been regularly urinating on the brass band of this pen over the past weeks to obtain the magnificent structures that you will find with your cameras and lenses. By simply looking at the band with my own eyes, I can see Dalí on the moon, or Dalí sipping coffee on the Champs Élysées. Take this magical object, work with it, and when you have an interesting result, come see me. If the result is good, we will make a film together.

I love a happy ending. Baquer got a half hour of footage out of magnifying the band on Dalí‘s magic piss pen, and the two men turned it into this cinematic act of blunt force head trauma. If you persevere, you will see the pen from the Hotel St. Regis, and you will see Dalí lament that, “in this dreadful time of p*rnography,” Standards and Practices won’t let him whiz on it on camera.

Continues after the jump…

08.03.2017

09:05 am

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Franz Kafka c. 1911

So here is something I learned wallowing in London Review of Books’ digital archive: Franz Kafka had enough of an interest in Theosophy to visit Rudolf Steiner at his hotel and ask whether to devote his life to study of the occult sciences. Kafka wrote about the meeting in his diary. It’s just like one of his short stories.

In March of 1911, Steiner, who had not yet founded the Anthroposophical Society, delivered a series of lectures in Prague, later published as An Occult Physiology. The date of Kafka’s first diary entry on the lectures, March 26, puts him in the audience for the sixth talk, “The Blood as Manifestation and Instrument of the Human Ego.” Two days later, Kafka met Steiner at the Victoria Hotel on Jungmannstrasse:

In his room I try to show my humility, which I cannot feel, by seeking out a ridiculous place for my hat, I lay it down on a small wooden stand for lacing boots. Table in the middle, I sit facing the window, he on the left side of the table. On the table papers with a few drawings which recall those of the lectures dealing with occult physiology. An issue of the Annalen für Naturphilosophie topped a small pile of the books which seemed to be lying about in other places as well. However, you cannot look around because he keeps trying to hold you with his glance. But if for a moment he does not, then you must watch for the return of his glance. He begins with a few disconnected sentences. So you are Dr Kafka? Have you been interested in theosophy long?

But I push on with my prepared address: I feel that a great part of my being is striving toward theosophy, but at the same time I have the greatest fear of it. That is to say, I am afraid it will result in a new confusion which would be very bad for me, because even my present unhappiness consists only of confusion. This confusion is as follows: My happiness, my abilities, and every possibility of being useful in any way have always been in the literary field. And here I have, to be sure, experienced states (not many) which in my opinion correspond very closely to the clairvoyant states described by you, Herr Doktor, in which I completely dwelt in every idea, but also filled every idea, and in which I not only felt myself at my boundary, but at the boundary of the human in general. Only the calm of enthusiasm, which is probably characteristic of the clairvoyant, was still lacking in those states, even if not completely. I conclude this from the fact that I did not write the best of my works in those states. I cannot now devote myself completely to this literary field, as would be necessary and indeed for various reasons. Aside from my family relationships, I could not live by literature if only, to begin with, because of the slow maturing of my work and its special character; besides, I am prevented also by my health and my character from devoting myself to what is, in the most favourable case, an uncertain life. I have therefore become an official in a social insurance agency. Now these two professions can never be reconciled with one another and admit a common fortune. The smallest good fortune in one becomes a great misfortune in the other. If I have written something good one evening, I am afire the next day in the office and can bring nothing to completion. This back and forth continually becomes worse. Outwardly, I fulfil my duties satisfactorily in the office, not my inner duties, however, and every unfulfilled inner duty becomes a misfortune that never leaves. And to these two never-to-be-reconciled endeavours shall I now add theosophy as a third? Will it not disturb both the others and itself be disturbed by both? Will I, at present already so unhappy a person, be able to carry the three to completion? This is what I have come to ask you, Herr Doktor, for I have a presentiment that if you consider me capable of this, than I can really take it upon myself.

He listened very attentively without apparently looking at me at all, entirely devoted to my words. He nodded from time to time, which he seems to consider an aid to strict concentration. At first a quiet head cold disturbed him, his nose ran, he kept working his handkerchief deep into his nose, one finger at each nostril.

More after the jump…

08.02.2017

11:42 am

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Mamie Van Doren with NFL player Jim Sears, 1954.

“I’ve always taken care of my health—never been much of a drinker, never smoked cigarettes, never done drugs much, except smoking pot occasionally, and that’s been decades ago. I’m NOT an 80-year old virgin. Good sex really does help.”

—Mamie Van Doren

If you’ve heard better health advice from someone, and I mean anyone—take it. As of this writing, actress Mamie Van Doren is 86 and still looks like this. The pinup powerhouse has done pretty much everything, even getting into the musical arena putting out a few albums including a campy, rockabilly-esque compilation back in 1986 called The Girl who invented Rock ‘n’ Roll and a 2011 digital-only release, Still a Troublemaker. She also carried on love affairs with some of Hollywood’s most covetable men such as Steve McQueen and Frank Sinatra. She’s done tons of films and has even written a book. Join me DM readers as I celebrate Mamie Van Doren.

At the age of seventeen, and still going by her birth name of Joan Olander (a nod by her parents to actress Joan Crawford), Van Doren married her first of five husbands, Jack Newman, a sportswear mogul. Less than a year into the marriage Van Doren split after realizing that Newman’s unpredictable and often violent behavior was going to get her nowhere fast. She would then catch the eye of Howard Hughes and the pair dated for several years. Hughes introduced Van Doren to Peruvian pinup painter Alberto Vargas who hired her to pose for his upcoming calendar for Esquire magazine. Soon Universal Studios came calling with an offer of a film contract, and Joan Olander would change her name to the sexier-sounding Mamie Van Doren. The actress and timeless beauty has dedicated most of her life to animal rights activism after developing a deep empathy for animals and their welfare while growing up on a farm in South Dakota. Her experiences visiting troops during the Vietnam war and her disgust with Ronald Reagan helped shape her mostly liberal political beliefs.

If you’d like to learn more about Van Doren’s remarkable life, I highly recommend picking up her 1987 memoir Playing the Field: Sex, Stardom, Love, and Life in Hollywood. To help reinforce how impossibly cool Mamie is, I’ve posted some equally remarkable images of her doing everything from kicking a football in a pair of hot pants and heels (pictured at the top of this post), to a photo of the platinum blonde bombshell in an impromptu jam session with Eddie Cochran during rehearsals for the 1957 film Untamed Youth. They don’t make ‘em like this anymore kids. Dig it.






Posing for the costume designer, Edith Head.

More Mamie after the jump…

08.02.2017

11:14 am

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‘Dream Girl.’

In an alternate universe based solely in my imagination, artist Penelope Gazin is in charge of Marvel Comics where she publishes lurid monthly titles of wanton goddesses and many-eyed superwomen from outer space. These sexy day-glo characters inspire outrage and adulation across the globe. In this fantasy world, Ms. Gazin is also in charge of Disney, where she has put to rest the reign of white, passive maidens who only live for their square-jawed prince to come along.

Thankfully, I don’t have to imagine too hard, as Penelope Gazin has a staggering array of paintings, badges, jewelry, and comic strips featuring such awesome creations. She may not yet run a Marvel or a Disney but she’s gettin’ there.

Gazin is a genuine powerhouse of talent who has worked as an animator for Fox ADHD and HBO, as well as producing illustrations for VICE, Spin, and Burger Records, among many, many others. If that weren’t enough for an impressive resume, Gazin also co-founded (with Kate Dwyer) Witchsy—“a curated marketplace for artists”—where she hawks her own work.

Coming from an artistic family—her mother’s a painter as was her grandfather—Gazin takes her influence from horror movies, psychedelia, vintage p*rn, and trippy memories from childhood. Check more of this brilliant artist’s work here and here.


‘It’s not a sexual thing I just don’t like breathing.’


‘slu*t.’


‘Always a Lady.’

See more of Penelope Gazin’s art, after the jump…

08.02.2017

10:10 am

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“OMG.” A painting by artist Femke Hiemstra.

One of my great passions is art, though I would never claim to be a scholar in the subject by any means. However, I do spend an awful lot of time immersed in the process of discovery and exploration of old and new artists from all around the world. I mean, just when you think you know everything about Salvador Dali, you wake up one day and realize you just don’t and perhaps never will, which is actually pretty cool if you ask me. Now let me do you a huge favor by turning you on to the work of Amsterdam-born artist Femke Hiemstra.

I was lucky enough to get to see a few of Hiemstra’s fantastic animal-themed paintings at Seattle’s Roq La Rue gallery about five years ago. A favorite of Roq La Rue, Hiemstra was also a part of the very last show held at the legendary gallery before it sadly closed its doors last year. The never-ending news concerning the erosion of vital Seattle cultural spots aside, I was really thrilled to see that Hiemstra has been keeping busy creating more of her weirdly whimsical paintings of animals in strange situations.

In her nifty FAQ over at Femtasia (the artist’s official site), she lists a few things that inspire her such as vintage Little Golden Books and the way animals behave. That last bit gets me, as after looking through her vast portfolio I need to know if Hiemstra has witnessed a group of kitties praying to an image of a giant cat face that has just emerged from a watermelon (pictured at the top of this post).

In case you’re interested in adding some of Hiemstra’s captivating artwork to your collection, you can purchase various giclée prints here.





More after the jump…

08.02.2017

10:10 am

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An early photo of Southern Death Cult. Vocalist Ian Astbury is pictured to the far left.

“I was a devotee of Crass, and it had a huge, huge influence on me. I saw those guys 36 times. I used to follow them.”

—Vocalist Ian Astbury of The Cult reflecting on his youth.

While the statement above from a young Ian Asbury of The Cult sounds like the ideal formative punk rock experience, it left the then eighteen-year-old Astbury homeless and dependant on dole checks which amounted to around 40 U.S. dollars each week. While he was obsessively following Crass around on tour, he met up with a group of punks from Bradford, a town in the north of England, who offered him a room to stay in anytime he found himself there. With little going for himself and tired of sleeping in bus stations, Astbury headed off to Bradford. When he arrived, he found their squat was inhabited by all kinds of counter-culture types—writers, painters, and of course, musicians. At the time, Astbury had cultivated quite a striking look for himself which was reminiscent of Adam Ant’s Native American war paint persona only tougher (and a bit lower rent.) Astbury’s mohawk and unique style impressed the band that was rehearsing in the basem*nt of the Bradford squat. In need of a vocalist, they asked Astbury to join them and Southern Death Cult was born.

The band started making music immediately, and their first live gig would take place less than a year after Astbury’s arrival in Bradford, at the Queen’s Hall in 1981. In 1982 the band would finally release their first studio recordings—a three song seven-inch that hit number one on the UK Independent Singles Chart. Following this success, Southern Death Cult took to the road touring with several bands including Bauhaus. The group seemed to have everyone’s attention including the legendary BBC disc jockey John Peel. Peel would record a live session with Southern Death Cult that was broadcast on the BBC on June 10th,1982. Sadly, the band would call it quits when Astbury pulled the plug on SDC in February of 1983.

After they disbanded, the groups only record, The Southern Death Cult, was released by Beggars Banquet which included everything from the 1982 seven inch and the Peel sessions from 1982. Following their breakup, Astbury joined forces with Theatre of Hate guitarist Billy Duffy, who was once in a band called the Nosebleeds with Morrissey. Duffy was also longtime pals with future Smiths’ guitarist Johnny Marr. The two spent their younger days as kids listening to punk rock and learning how to play the guitar together. In fact, we have Duffy to thank for introducing Marr to Mozzer at a Patti Smith gig in 1978. You can probably figure out how that all played out without too much effort.

Once Duffy and Astbury got together, they would change the band’s name to Death Cult hoping for some residual notoriety left over from Astbury’s previous band. They would put out some well-received singles, and their loyal fans would pack any room the band played. Then, in 1984, Death Cult officially became The Cult announcing their new name when they appeared on The Tube in January. And the rest, as they say, is history. I’ve posted some cool ephemera from The Cult’s early days below including video footage of the band before Astbury fully transitioned his look to be more in line with a goth version of El Topo.


A photo of a twenty-year-old Ian Astbury on the cover of NME magazine, October 2nd, 1982.


Southern Death Cult.

More after the jump…