A fine art, film, history and literature site oriented to, but not exclusively for, the gay community. Please be aware that there is mature content on this blog. Information on images and links to sources will be provided if known. Enjoy your visit and please subscribe.
A Collection of Windows and Men
“He looked out of the window to think, because without a window he couldn’t think. Or maybe it was the other way around: When there was a window, he automatically started to think. Then he wrote, “When I grow up, I am going to be happy.”
― Guus Kuijer, The Book of Everything
Photographer Unknown, (Congratulations to the Victor), Computer Graphics
“Somewhere in the world there is a defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made small and mean by victory. Greatness lives in one who triumphs equally over defeat and victory.”
―
Hang Massive, “The Secret Kissing of the Sun and the Moon”, 2018, The first single from the Album “Luminous Emptiness”
The founding members of Hang Massive are Danny Cudd from the UK and Markus Offbeat from Sweden. Both seasoned global travellers they met on the shores of Goa, India where for many years they had passed the winter months. From India they travelled back to Europe and this is where they began to play music together, initially in the streets and then increasingly performing live at venues and festivals world wide.
Their first official collaboration release was in 2013 with Bristol based producer Bleeker and saw the resonant tones of the hang fused with high quality UK style house production resulting in an awesome four track EP. This was followed in 2014 by the release of their second live album “As It Is” which demonstrated a much evolved playing style, more developed compositions and a significant increase in production quality. 2015 saw the release of two more collaborative projects of very differing styles.
The EP “Many Rivers Ensemble” featured a small group of musicians with a range of acoustical instruments, who in one improvised recording session sculpted a beautiful and other worldly listening experience. The following EP “Marine Migration” was the first release from the new collaboration with Glastonbury based producer J Rokka and featured a breaks style single which was subsequently remixed by a range of well known artists such as Gaudi and Atomic drop.
Photographer Unknown, (The Prince), Photo Shoot
“Men nearly always follow the tracks made by others and proceed in their affairs by imitation, even though they cannot entirely keep to the tracks of others or emulate the prowess of their models. So a prudent man should always follow in the footsteps of great men and imitate those who have been outstanding. If his own prowess fails to compare with theirs, at least it has an air of greatness about it. He should behave like those archers who, if they are skilful, when the target seems too distant, know the capabilities of their bow and aim a good deal higher than their objective, not in order to shoot so high but so that by aiming high they can reach the target.”
―
Photographer Unknown, (Filtered Light)
“To photograph is to hold one’s breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It’s at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.”
―
Beatrice Cuming, “Chubb”, 1941, Oil on Canvas, Lyman Allyn Art Museum
The early 20th century in the United States was a time of rapid expansion and industrialization fueled in part by waves of immigration. A decade of exuberance followed World War I before the stock market crash of 1929 initiated the Great Depression of the 1930s. Abstraction and European modernism filtered into American art, while a realistic, regional style simultaneously held sway, resulting in a mix of subjects and styles.
Many artists were drawn to the energy and bustle of the modern city, awash in crowds and transformed by industry, skyscrapers and the automobile. Beatrice Cuming’s painting, “Chubb”, shows a submarine being built in the Groton, Connecticut shipyard during World War II. Cuming’s canvas affirmed New London’s long connection to the sea and celebrated industry at a time when the nation was consumed with the war effort.
Photographer Unknown, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, Milan, Italy
Reblogged with thanks to http://bandit1a.tumblr.com
A Year: Day to Day Men: 29th of August
The Trenchcoat
August 29, 1900 was the birthdate of artist and architect Oscar Ernest Nitzchke.
Oscar Nitzchke entered the Ecole des Beauz-Arts in Geneva in 1917 and the Atelier Laloux-Lemaresquier in Paris in 1920. In the years 1921 and 1922 he studied at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts in Paris and began working in the office of the Swiss-French architect and designer Le Corbusier. Nitzchke joined the Atelier du Palais de Bois in 1923 under Auguste Perret, the French architect who pioneered the use of reinforced concrete in architecture.
In 1936 Nitzchke made a set of presentation drawings for a building for a private client, Maison de la Publicite, that failed to reach completion. These drawings were later acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York and displayed at the Pompidou Center in Paris.
In December of 1938, Oscar Nitzchke came to the United States to become Associate Professor at the School of Architecture at Yale University, and to work with the architecture firm of Harrison & Fouilhoux in New York as head of design research. While working with Harrison & Fouilhoux, Nitzchke took part in the design of the Alcoa Building in Pittsburgh and the Los Angeles Opera House projects. During the time he was with the firm, he also worked on the design for the Mellon National Bank and Trust Company in Pittsburgh, and the United Nations Headquarters in New York City.
Nitzchke worked with the firm Harrison & Abromovitz for fifteen years. He left to become the head of design for Jim Nash Associates in New York, a position he held from 1958 to 1961. Nitzchke retired in the early 1970s. In 1981 Nitzchke’s architecture designs were shown at the Paris Exposition at the Pompidou Center; in 1985 at the Institut Francais d’Architecture in Paris, and at New York’s Cooper Union in 1985.
Despite becoming deaf in 1951, Nitzchke continued to develop imaginative projects for competitions such as the San Salvador Cathedral in 1953-1954, with its soaring concrete shell vaults. In 1970, he retired to Paris, preparing drawings for exhibitions of his work, living with his family until his death in 1991.
Although he built little and seldom appears in standard histories of modern architecture, Oscar Nitzchke was much admired among avant-garde architects. During his fifty years in practice, he consistently produce innovative designs that remain surprisingly fresh. His later work articulated form and materials in their marked legibility of functions. An example of this were Nitzchke’s designs for prefabricated buildings with the use of external corrugated copper and steel cladding, which made no attempt to imitate traditional materials as earlier prefabricated buildings had.
Neeraj Menon, “There’s a Pulse!”, Digital Art
Neeraj Menon is a freelance concept artist and illustrator living and working in Pune, India.
Spencer Means, “Balcony at Casa Calvet”, Barcelona, Spain
Casa Calvet is a building, built between 1898 and 1900, designed by Antoni Gaudi for a textile manufacturer which served as both a commercial property and a residence. It is located at Carrer de Casp 48, Eixample district of Barcelona.
Gaudí scholars agree that this building is the most conventional of his works, partly because it had to be squeezed in between older structures and partly because it was sited in one of the most elegant sections of Barcelona. Its symmetry, balance and orderly rhythm are unusual for Gaudí’s works.
However, the curves, the double gable at the top, and the projecting oriel at the entrance are almost baroque in its drama. Modernist elements are evident in the isolated witty details. Bulging balconies alternate with smaller, shallower balconies.
Finding Ten and Two
“Understanding what makes you ‘tick’ isn’t half as much fun as finding out what makes you ‘tock’!”
― Anthony T. Hincks
“Since I grew weary of the search
I taught myself to find instead
Since cross winds caused my ship to lurch
I sail with all winds straight ahead.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science
Nicholas Scarpinato, “The Helpers”, 2012
Reblogged with thanks to https://artfreyparis.tumblr.com
Nicholas Scarpinato is a twenty-four year old fine art photographer based in Los Angeles. He works digitally, with drawing or painting involved in the finished image. He was a Canon Project Imagination Winner.
Photographer Unknown, (Smoke Break)
Christian Schad, “Sirius”, 1915, Swiss Stone Lithograph
Christian Schad was a painter and printmaker who was preoccupied with Futurism, Cubism, and later, Expressionism. In 1915, Schad, along with his friend Walter Serner, published “Sirius: A Monthly Magazine for Literature and Art,” in Zurich. The magazine was forced to close after only seven issues. Schad designed the advertising posters and a full page woodcut for each issue.
Schad’s works of 1915–1916 show the influence of Cubism and Futurism. During his stay in Italy in the years between 1920 and 1925, he developed a smooth, realistic style that recalls the clarity he admired in the paintings of Rapael. Upon returning to Berlin in 1927 he painted some of the most significant works of the New Objectivity movement.
In 1918 Schad began experimenting with cameraless photographic images inspired by Cubism. This process had been first used, in the years 1834 and 1835, by William Henry Talbot who made cameraless images, that is, prints made by placing objects onto photosensitive paper and then exposing the paper to sunlight. By 1919 Schad was creating photograms from random arrangements of discarded objects he had collected such as torn tickets, receipts and rags. He is probably the first to do so strictly as an art form, preceding Man Ray and László Moholy-Nagyby at least a year or two.
