Akseli Gallen-Kallela – { feuilleton }

Tom of Finland postage stamps

Finland’s most famous writer and female artist was a lesbian so it’s perhaps fitting that Tom of Finland is now firmly established as its most famous male artist. At one time you could have argued that Akseli Gallen-Kallela had more of an international profile but the rising visibility of gay art, and the pioneering erotica of Touko Laaksonen aka Tom of Finland, has changed all that. Tove Jansson’s Moomin characters have already appeared on a commemorative coin but later this year Tom of Finland’s beefy clones expose themselves to a wider public when they appear on postage stamps for the first time. The stamps have been designed by Timo Berry and Susanna Luoto. Even with all the recent social changes in the UK I can’t imagine anyone getting away with a stamp design featuring such a prominent pair of buttocks, however lovingly rendered. It’s also a sign of changing attitudes that many people today would be less likely to object to sight of a bare bum than they would to a picture of somebody smoking. There’s more about the stamp designs, including links to larger images, here.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive

More Art Nouveau

The Poetry of József Kiss (1897), design by Nándor Gottermayer.

There’s always more Art Nouveau. Searching for term at the Google Art Project turns up a surprising number of paintings, drawings and other objects which are nothing of the sort, as well as many things which are, of course. These are a selection of the latter (mostly), and a reminder that it’s worth returning to the site every so often to look for new additions. Nándor Gottermayer’s book cover is a gorgeous design I’ve never seen before.

Vase (before 1890) by Émile Gallé.

Flower of Death (1895) by Akseli Gallen-Kallela.

The Offering of Mephistopheles (c.1930) by Roland Paris.

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The weekend artists

Flower Me Gently (2010) by Linn Olofsdotter.

Yes, this is one of those lazy end-of-year retrospectives, a look back at all the artists whose work was highlighted in the weekend posts for 2011. Thanks to BibliOdyssey, Form is Void and 50 Watts for so often pointing the way.

Blasphemous Rumours (2009/2010) by Ryan Martin. The artist now has a dedicated site for his paintings.

DG-2499 (1975) by the fantastic (in every sense of the word) Zdzislaw Beksinski (1929–2005). See the Dmochowski Gallery for a comprehensive collection of the artist’s work.

Continue reading “The weekend artists”

Weekend links 56

Ad Astra (1907) by Akseli Gallen-Kallela.

• Andres Serrano’s works are photo prints so you can’t damage an exhibition item the way you can with a painting. That didn’t stop Catholic protestors in France attacking a copy of Piss Christ on Monday. By coincidence, Dave Maier had posted an essay about Serrano’s work a few hours earlier, and with a reminder that the notorious photograph was part of a series, a detail which is often forgotten or conveniently ignored.

• The Avant Garde Project which made available deleted experimental audio works (see this earlier post) ceased activity a while ago so it’s good to see that its archives will now be hosted at Ubuweb.

…African Head Charge again was a studio name I had to start with, and it evolved into a band about eight years later. That started out again I read an interview in a newspaper where Brian Eno talked about he’d made an album called My Life in the Bush of Ghosts with another musician—that Talking Heads fellow [David Byrne]—and he said “I had a vision of a psychedelic Africa”. And I thought, “Oh, that’s pretentious”. But then I thought about it, and thought “No, what a good idea! Make really trippy African dub”.

Adrian Sherwood on thirty years of On-U Sound.

• Related: Brian Eno has a new album out in July, Drums Between The Bells, a collaboration with Rick Holland.

“Do you think Lord Leighton could by any chance have been a homosexual?” enquired Richard. “It says here,” I replied, consulting a laminated information card, “that there is no evidence one way or the other.”

“Rent boys leave no evidence,” said Richard.

A private view of Lord Leighton’s home in Holland Park, London, which opened to the public again last year.

• Passengers, an exhibition of urban transit photos by Chris Marker at Peter Blum, NYC. For a different kind of rail transport there’s this exploration of London’s disused underground Post Office Railway.

• Reappraising the recent past: Jon Savage on Taxi zum Klo, Christiane F, David Bowie and the seedy attraction of Berlin in the 70s and 80s; Iain Sinclair on the Festival of Britain sixty years on.

• Stella Steyn’s illustrations for Finnegans Wake as seen in transition magazine, 1929. And speaking of literary magazines, the return of New Worlds has been announced.

• Clive Hicks-Jenkins is an art monograph published next month by Lund Humphries. Clive enthused about the book’s arrival.

• 50 Watts announces the Polish Book Cover Contest.

• 4th June, 2011 is Radiophonic Creation Day.

• Americans: has your state banned sodomy?

• Stardust (1931) by Louis Armstrong | Stardust (1940) by Artie Shaw | Stardust (1957) by Nat King Cole.