{occult} – Page 110 – { feuilleton }

The art of Hubert Stowitts, 1892–1953

Left: Stowitts photgraphed by Nickolas Muray, 1922.

Hubert Julian Stowitts had a number of careers, including dancer, film actor, painter, designer and metaphysician. As a dancer he worked with Anna Pavlova, who discovered him in California in 1915 and took him on tour around the world. His statuesque figure was used by Rex Ingram for the infernal scenes in The Magician (1926), an adaptation of Somerset Maugham’s rather limp roman-à-clef based on the exploits of Aleister Crowley. The scene with Stowitts as a satyr owed nothing to the book, however, being more inspired by the director’s fondness for the tales of Arthur Machen. Most photos that turn up from this film show Stowitts rather than Paul Wegener who played the sinister alchemist of the title.

Stowitt’s painting developed in the 1930s and included a series of 55 paintings of nude (male) athletes for the 1936 Olympics (see Ewoud Broeksma’s contemporary equivalents at originalolympics.com). Other paintings depicted dance scenes, costume designs, people encountered during travels in the Far East and, in the 1950s, a series of ten Theosophist pictures entitled The Atomic Age Suite.

Prince Suwarno in Mahabarata role (1928).

Briggs Hunt and William Golden (1936).

The Crucifixion in Space (1950).

• The Stowitts Museum and Library
• Stowitts at the Queer Arts Resource

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Nicholas Kalmakoff, 1873–1955

Voodoo Macbeth

In my obsession with all things Orson Welles, his 1936 production of Macbeth holds a special fascination, partly for being my favourite Shakespeare play, and partly for the curiosity of its production—an all-black cast that included genuine Haitian drummers who famously claimed to have drummed a Broadway critic to death after he gave the play a hostile review. The De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea is hosting an art event based on Welles’ production.

In 1936, whilst the UK was celebrating the new De La Warr Pavilion, and exciting artistic movement was reaching its close in New York—the Harlem Renaissance. A significant event within of this movement was an all-black African American version of Macbeth, presented by The Federal Theatre Project at the New Lafayette Theatre, Harlem and directed by writer and actor Orson Welles. This production became known as ‘Voodoo Macbeth‘.

There are many things that were remarkable about this unique and innovative project. The play was one of the first explorations of a modern and diasporic spin on the Shakespearian tale. It was also the point at which Welles was introduced to John Houseman, which then led to the formation of the Mercury Theatre Company that produced seminal works such as the War of the Worlds and Citizen Kane. Furthermore, the ‘Voodoo Macbeth‘ production displayed visual and aural motifs using lighting, stage design and overlapping sound which became signature elements to Welles’s later film projects.

The essence, spirit, and cross-artform experimentality of ‘Voodoo Macbeth‘ is the basis for a contemporary art, film and performance season at the De La Warr Pavilion and has been named after the production. This unique project looks at the historical and contemporary dialogue that Welles’s work had and still has with performance, film and visual art.

The curatorial concept of the De La Warr Pavilion’s exhibition Voodoo Macbeth focuses on the debate and the ideas around Welles’s unique and defining aesthetic which continues to attract much critical attention. The exhibition suggests that Welles’s approach has informed the work of many contemporary artists working in film today.

Both the historical and contemporary context of Voodoo Macbeth are explored within the exhibition and wider season of events. Original works by Orson Welles are presented alongside those of his contemporaries including Jean Cocteau, Jacques Tourneur and Lee Miller. These artists were working with film and photography during the period of the 1940s onwards and have a shared concern in exploring visual ideas and motifs around the idea of an ‘expansive frame’. As artists, they blurred the boundaries between visual art, theatre, literature and film, to produce lyrical and poetic visual works.

Work by contemporary artists within the exhibition have been selected on the basis that their work embodies the artistic narrative and the spirituality of Welles’s use of light, dark and spatial composition. The exhibition includes work by Phyllis Baldino, Glenn Ligon, Steve McQueen, Mitra Tabrizian and Kara Walker. In this context, Voodoo Macbeth explores how, for artists today, the genre and its relationship to installation practice in performance, film, sound and visual art is an important part of the process. Importantly, they do not mimic the formalist structure of film, painting and sound but endeavour to embed these works with elements of popular culture, critique and humour. Like Welles, who was a masterful story teller, these artists have developed works which take on the character of an intimate 21st century tale. Unlike Welles, these tales are tailor-made, for a gallery audience to explore and enjoy.

Produced by the De La Warr Pavilion in association with Brighton Photo Biennial and curated by associate curator David A Bailey in collaboration with BPB curator 2006 Gilane Tawadros.
The Galleries are open 10am–6pm except on Christmas Eve (closing
at 5pm), Christmas Day (closed all day) and New Year’s Eve (closing at 3pm). Free.

Voodoo Macbeth, Oct 7th–Jan 7th.

The Voodoo Macbeth exhibition is a part of the Brighton Photo Biennial, for more details on the BPB please visit their website www.bpb.org.uk, or contact them via the details below.
Biennial Office
University of Brighton
Grand Parade
Brighton BN2 0JY

Tel: +44 (01)273 643 052
Email: mail@bpb.org.uk

The art of Nicholas Kalmakoff, 1873–1955

Astarte (1926).

Kalmakoff’s beautiful paintings turn up most often (if at all) in collections of Symbolist art although most of his work comes after the Symbolist period which was pretty much killed off by the revelations of Cubism. Like Harry Clarke, Kalmakoff is one of those artists who evidently felt that the aesthetics of the 1890s required further exploration; like Clarke there’s also some interesting occult illustration going on. Unlike Clarke (whose work appeared in lavish illustrated books and stained glass window designs) he had to contend with an art world that had little time for imagination unless it was presented in a Surrealist package. Kalmakoff’s fascinating story is detailed here and there are three galleries of his paintings here.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Austin Osman Spare

The Major Arcana

Tarot designs proliferate at a seemingly unstoppable pace (you can see a selection of them here) so it’s probably fair to say that the world doesn’t need more of them. However, most modern designs are pastiches or fantasy-oriented works that tend towards an elaboration even more baroque than some of the older designs. My As Above, So Below poster was an earlier attempt at presenting traditional occult schematics in a modern setting. The challenge with this Tarot design was to try and create a Major Arcana set using nothing but international symbol pictograms or dingbat sets. It succeeds for the most part although I had to cheat a couple of times (creating a light bulb from scratch, for instance) and it’s debatable how recognisable these cards would be without their labels. I was following the Aleister Crowley scheme that renames a few of the cards, and some of his designs, especially The Aeon which replaces The Last Judgment, are rather resistant to simplification.

I would have uploaded this to a new CafePress shop as a poster design but their servers don’t seem to like my big jpegs just now. Maybe later.

Update: It finally uploaded. This is the shop.

How to make crop circles

The Field Guide: the Art, History & Philosophy of Crop Circle Making
by Rob Irving & John Lundberg.
Edited by Mark Pilkington

Three decades ago, two men in their fifties began flattening circles into the fields of Hampshire and Wiltshire. Little did they know that their Friday night antics would seed an international phenomenon that continues to change people?s lives to this day.

Now, in the first book of its kind—part history and part how-to guide—the secrets of the crop circle world are revealed, by the people behind the modern era?s most astounding artform. Whether you think crop circles represent a genuine mystery, a new kind of art, or an elaborate practical joke, The Field Guide is sure to leave a lasting impression.

The English landscape would never be the same again!

• How two men in their fifties “conned the world” and spawned an international phenomenon.
• Three generations of crop circle makers tell the stories behind the amazing crop formations, in the first book of its kind.
• Secrets of the artists revealed in a complete “how-to” guide!
• Inside the world of the “croppies”, the people who study the crop circles.
• Bizarre beliefs examined, bogus science exposed!
• In-depth interviews with Doug Bower, the man who started it all, and The Circlemakers, the team behind some of the most spectacular formations on record.
• From the team behind www.circlemakers.org and the editor and publisher of Strange Attractor Journal.

£8.99, Pb, 288pp, heavily illustrated. ISBN 0954805429
File under Art / Culture / Paranormal Phenomena
Available late August 2006 from all good bookshops
or from www.strangeattractor.co.uk and www.circlemakers.org
Strange Attractor Press
BM SAP
LONDON WC1N 3XX