Michael Ayrton – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 698

Contained Maze (1966) by Michael Ayrton.

• At Public Domain Review: Skeletons (1692) by Ikkyu, a Japanese monk, whose book is “a mixture of poetry and prose that comes down to us in printed editions supposedly replicating a manuscript, now lost, by the monk’s own hand. The text describes a series of visions of animated skeletons that Ikkyu had when he visited an abandoned temple. The lively illustrations testify to their maker’s sardonic sense of humour: he images skeletons dancing, drumming, drinking sake, having sex.”

• At The Daily Heller: Victor Moscoso’s Psychedelic Valedictory Exhibit. The exhibition will be at the Instituto Cervantes in New York City which has an accompanying 224-page catalogue of Moscoso’s posters and other designs.

• More Moscoso: Color (1971) and Moscoso Comix (1989), free to download at the Internet Archive. Moscoso’s underground comics experimented with the form in a manner that still looks radical today.

Drone and ambient metal is often invoked in elemental terms. There is something antediluvian and beyond about it. Pierce the earth’s crust, and there is liquid fire, ever so slowly shifting the tectonic plates we inhabit. Such music is envisaged as massive and totally beyond our control. It infuses the foundations of civilization. As Attila Csihar intones on Sunn O))) track ‘Aghartha’, named for a legendary subterranean kingdom: “Into the memories of the consciousness of ancient rocks/ Nature’s answer to eternal question”.

Stripped of the trappings of modern pop and rock, ambient metal invites a search for answers to the bigger questions. Ancient musical modes are resurfaced to get us closer to a putative godhead.

Dan Franklin on Earth 2, the deceptively-titled debut album by Earth. The album’s 30th anniversary has prompted a collection of remixes, Earth 2.23, by various artists

• At Spoon & Tamago: Download over 30 butterfly designs by Meiji-era artist Yuho Tanaka.

• New music: HYbr:ID II by Alva Noto, and The View From Vega by Benge.

• The winners of the Landscape Photographer of the Year 2023.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Guy Maddin Day (restored/expanded).

• A happy 20th birthday to Swan River Press.

• Industrial Landscape (1980) by Marc Barreca | Desolate Landscape (2012) by John Zorn | Primordial Landscape (2013) by Patrick Cowley

The Dark Monarch: Magic and Modernity in British Art

Skull Vision by Michael Ayrton (1943).

The Dark Monarch: Magic and Modernity in British Art: great title for an exhibition, a shame that it’s all the way down in Cornwall at Tate St Ives.

This group exhibition takes its title from the infamous 1962 book by St Ives artist Sven Berlin. It will explore the influence of folklore, mysticism, mythology and the occult on the development of art in Britain. Focusing on works from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day it will consider, in particular, the relationship they have to the landscape and legends of the British Isles. (More.)

Artists featured include Graham Sutherland, Paul Nash, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Ithell Colquhoun, Cecil Collins, John Piper, Leslie Hurry and John Craxton. Among the contemporary artists there are Cerith Wyn Evans, Mark Titchner, Eva Rothschild, Simon Periton, Clare Woods, Steven Claydon, John Stezeker and Derek Jarman. Austin Osman Spare is notable by his absence but then that’s no surprise, the major occult artist of the 20th century never rates more that a passing mention from the art establishment. One nice surprise is seeing Ithell Colquhoun (1906–1988) featured in her second major British exhibition this year. (Her work is also present in the Angels of Anarchy exhibition running at the Manchester Art Gallery.) Colquhoun was a contemporary of Spare’s whose work turns up in occult encyclopaedias or overviews of the minor current of British Surrealism but she’s still largely unheard of outside those circles.

The Tate exhibition may be awkward to visit but there’s an illustrated catalogue available featuring contributions from quality writers including Brian Dillon, Philip Hoare, Jon Savage, Jennifer Higgie, Marina Warner, Michael Bracewell, Alun Rowlands and Martin Clark. Michael Bracewell has a piece about the exhibition at Tate Etc while Brian Dillon has an excellent essay in the Guardian connecting John Dee’s mysterious obsidian scrying mirror with some of the works on display.

Untitled by David Noonan (2009).

• Artist of the week: David Noonan
• Ithell Colquhoun at A Journey Round My Skull

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Angels of Anarchy: Women Artists and Surrealism
• A=P=P=A=R=I=T=I=O=N
• In the Shadow of the Sun by Derek Jarman