Month: July 2015

Yeong-Deok Seo

 

Sculptures by Yeong-Deok Seo, Human Figures from Bicycle Chains and Industrial Steel Links

The human body is a complex system and yet Korea-based artist Yeong-Deok Seo’s figurative sculptures manage to capture its intricacies. His realistic models are comprised of bicycle chains and industrial steel links carefully sculpted and welded together to mimic the human body.

The figures have a definite, recognizable silhouette from a distance. However, up close, the sculptures have a cold, textured surface because of the chains are completely hollowed out. Seo purposely constructed them this way to make a poignant message. His work is in response to the growing obsession with the mechanical world. According to Seo, everyone is consumed with their arbitrary devices and themselves, resulting in a race of incomplete humans that lack emotion. It’s a dark interpretation of the modern day human.…

Daniel Edwards

Daniel Edwards, “Allegory of a Teen Sex Symbol (Justin Bieber)”

Daniel Edwards (born 1965, La Porte, Indiana) is an American sculptor whose pieces address celebrity and popular culture in ways that have often stirred controversy.

Daniel Edwards’ artwork, “Allegory of a Teen Sex Symbol (Justin Bieber), shows the hidden private parts of Bieber atop a Canadian maple leaf in a manner inspired by renaissance painter Giuseppe Acrimboldo and sixties rock star groupie Cynthia Plaster Caster.  “The Bieber genitalia are artistically symbolized, not depicted,” says Allen.  “Daniel wanted to create a work that opens a dialogue about the inevitable exploitation of teen sex symbols as they grow from child stars to adults, like we’ve seen with past celebutantes Lindsay, Miley, and Britney.”

Mustafa Sabbagh

Mustafa Sabbagh, “Savages”

Born in Jordan, Amman, of Palestinian-Italian family, Mustafa Sabbagh  moved to London where he trained under Richard Avedon as his assistant. He now resides in Ferrara, Italy and travels as a lecturer in photography workshops. Since 2005, his photography has centered on the figurative art with a focus on the skin as a “diary of the uniqueness of the individual”.  His photographic scenes are designed to show contemporary allegories  similar to the Flemish and Baroque paintings of the masters. According to art historian, Peter Weiermair, Sabbagh is “one of the hundred most influential photographers in the world”.

Hermann Lismann

Hermann Lismann, “Badende Knaben (Nude Boys Bathing)” 1920

Born in 1878, Hermann Lismann was a lecturer in the art of painting and Art Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt. He studied in Rome and Paris in 1904 and belonged to a group of artists who met regularly at the Cafe du Dome in Paris. Because of his being Jewish, he was banned from teaching by the Nazi’s in 1934 and fled to France.
Lismann’s post-impressionist works at the Staedelsches Museum in Frankfurt and at the Museum Wuppertal  were confiscated and ultimately disappeared. In 1943 he was arrested by French authorities and deported to the Concentration Camp Majdanck where he died in 1943. A memorial by the Frankfurt Kunstuerein was held in 1959 and surprisingly, some 132 examples of his works went on exhibition.

Gaston Bachelard: “In the Forest I Am My Entire Self”

 

Photographer Unknown, (Waiting by the Tree)

“Now I am traversed by bridle paths, under the seal of sun and shade…I live in great density…Shelter lures me. I slump down into the thick foliage…In the forest, I am my entire self. Everything is possible in my heart just as it is in the hiding places in ravines. Thickly wooded distance separates me from moral codes and cities.”

― Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

Franze and Andarie

Black Wade: The Wild Side of Love by Franze and Andarie

Dreaded pirate Black Wade has a cruel mind and an explosive sexuality. His mercilessness is legendary, but it wavers when he encounters the young and warmhearted English officer Jack Wilkins. These two absolutely different men are prisoners to their fate. Overwhelmed by their passion, they unite in a fight for freedom and love.

Great gay comic: not quite like Disney’s Aladdin

Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum

Tomb Painting of Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum

Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum were ancient Egyptian royal servants. They shared the title of Overseer of the Manicurists in the Palace of King Niuserre during the Fifth Dynasty of Egyptian pharaohs, c. 2400 BCE, and are listed as “royal confidants” in their joint tomb.

The tomb of Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum was discovered by Egyptologist Ahmed Moussa in the necropolis at Saqqara, Egypt in 1964, during the excavation of the causeway for the pyramid of King Unas. It is the only tomb in the necropolis where men are displayed embracing and holding hands. In addition, the men’s chosen names (both theophorics to the creator-god Khnum) form a linguistic reference to their closeness:

Niankhkhnum means “joined to life” and Khnumhotep means “joined to the blessed state of the dead’”, and together the names can be translated as “joined in life and joined in death”

In a banquet scene, Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep are entertained by dancers, clappers, musicians and singers; in another, they oversee their funeral preparations. In the most striking portrayal, the two embrace, noses touching, in the most intimate pose allowed by canonical Egyptian art, surrounded by what would appear to be their heirs.

Critics argue that both men appear with their respective wives and children, suggesting the men were brothers, rather than lovers.

Kelly Fearing

Six Etchings by Kelly Fearing

Kelly Fearing was one of the first Texas painters to reject the bluebonnets, cowboys and secondhand Impressionism that had been the mainstays of the state’s artistic output since the end of the 19th century. Along with the other members of the Fort Worth Circle, Fearing introduced Texas to European Modernists like Picasso and Miró. He helped introduce the Texas population to abstraction, surrealism and cubism, all new forms of art not previously promoted in the area.

Even in the 1940s, Fearing lived as an openly gay man. Like the later work of gay artist David Hockney, Fearing’s subjects were often pretextual reasons to introduce the subject of homoeroticism into the contemporary art world. One example of this is his 1950 “Male Bather”, an emerging, transitional work influenced by the work of Paul Klee, which exemplifies tthe  theme used by many artists of the time.

In a 2000 interview, Fearing said in reply to a question about the Fort Worth Circle: “We were considered way out at the time. But we were just doing what we liked.” This individualism made Fearing into one of Texas’ most important Modernists.