Michael Leonard – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 600

My kind of window. From a collection of machine-learning images by Unlimited Dream Co. Via Bruce Sterling.

• “I will never call myself a queer. That word is one of the things that I detest that has happened, and it’s almost being forced now. For me, you cannot separate that word from the hatred and violence that once accompanied it. When I read it being used in The New York Times, I think, ‘It’s their word and they can fucking have it all they want.’ I will never use ‘queer.’ It’s an ugly word.” John Rechy, still active at the age of 90, talking to Jeff Weiss about hustling, social opprobrium, and his pioneering books.

• “At a time when we are being constantly told that humanity is destroying the planet, it is somehow comforting to see nature not merely outlasting, but triumphing over humanity’s constructions—as nature does in many of Piranesi’s Views of Rome.” Alasdair Palmer on Piranesi’s peerless renderings of Roman ruins.

• “The magical aspect of Get Back is its total refusal to adhere to the standard tropes of music documentaries. There are no talking heads commenting on the Beatles’ greatness, no continual barrage of quick edits and highlights.” Geeta Dayal on Peter Jackson’s resurrection of the Fab Four.

But men are not traditionally meant to be objects of art. “Men look at women,” John Berger wrote. “Women watch themselves being looked at.” When men look at men, however, they break rules. “I didn’t set out to be radical,” says Miller. “But I was at a fair and I had a huge nude on a stand by Michael Leonard. I’d only been open ten minutes and a woman started having a go and saying it’s filth. What I found fascinating is she’d walked past a whole span of female nudes. I think society is just immune to female nudity. People don’t see it. If you take this to the straight world of an art fair, it provokes reactions other dealers don’t get. There isn’t anyone else like me.”

Tony Wilkes talks to Henry Miller, owner of an art gallery devoted to the male form

• “I imagine men with starched collars, horrified by an animal with no hard edges to grab onto, no solidity to venerate. Something low, lateral, creeping.” Fiona Glen on “Devil Fish”, Cthulhu and cephalomania.

• I like glowing things so Brian Eno’s glowing record turntable has an immediate appeal. A shame it’s a very limited production which is almost certainly sold out by now.

• The next release on the Ghost Box label will be A Letter from TreeTops by Pneumatic Tubes.

• At Dangerous Minds: A Sight for Sore Eyes Vol. 1, a visual history of The Residents.

• At Wormwoodiana: Mark Valentine on the supernatural thrillers of Archie Roy.

• Mix of the week: A reflection on 2021 at A Strangely Isolated Place.

• Swan River Press looks back over a year of book production.

• New music: Spherical Harmonics by Joseph Hyde.

• Octopus’s Garden (1969) by The Beatles | The Kraken (2006) by Hans Zimmer | Kraken (2017) by Dave Clarkson

Claudio Bravo’s packages

Before the Game.

(Sorry, but that pun was unavoidable.) Claudio Bravo was a Chilean hyperrealist painter who died last year. I don’t recall having come across him before but it’s a hazard of a photographic style that your work may superficially be taken for the output of other artists. Looked at more closely his painting went through distinct phases with an increasing interest in the study of wrapped-paper packages. These trompe l’oeil paintings allow the meticulous detail to remain while giving an impression at a distance of colour field abstraction. I’m rather taken with the later pictures but then I’ve always been partial to hyperreal techniques.

Another recurrent theme is the male body in various states of dress or undress, and rendered with as much presence as the paintings and drawings of British artist Michael Leonard. One of the drawings below could almost be one of Leonard’s. Bravo painted woman as well so we can’t read too much into this, but he did live in Morocco for many years, and one of his paintings from the 1970s depicts a swimming pool at Fire Island. Make of that what you will. (Thanks to Paul for the tip!)

Homage to St Theresa.

Noureddine.

Blue and Beige Package.

Nude (Portrait of Mr Couchez).

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The art of Michael Leonard

Against the Glass.

British artist Michael Leonard received a passing mention here some time ago for his work as an illustrator in the 1970s. Since that time he’s concentrated on establishing himself as a portraitist of considerable repute, with a painting of the Queen and Spark the Corgi hanging in the National Portrait Gallery. These fantastic pencil drawings show a more homoerotic side of his work, part of a large series of nude (or near-nude) studies in which beautiful men (and also a number of women) are perfectly rendered. I’ve always liked pure pencil drawing, the challenges of doing it to this standard are considerable, as are the pleasures of seeing such a successful application of the simplest of media. The compositions work really well, tight and often cropped to concentrate the attention. Leonard applies a similar approach in his paintings, some of which replicate or echo the pencil works. I prefer the pencils but then I have a predilection for monochome art. You can judge his paintings for yourself here.

Twisting Torsos.

On the Steps.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive

Cain’s son: the incarnations of Grendel

Beowulf wrestles with Grendel, Lynd Ward (1939).

There’s nothing new in pointing out Hollywood’s crimes against literature, the film business has been screwing up book adaptation since the earliest days of silent cinema. But sometimes the wound is so grievous you can’t help but speak out, in this case against Roger Avary’s Beowulf which is released next month. This is another CGI-heavy confection along the lines Polar Express, with the actors being given digital bodies via motion-capture, and it’s something I’d probably have ignored until I saw this picture of Grendel, the story’s principal monster. Beowulf is one of the earliest surviving Anglo-Saxon poems and Grendel, the bloodthirsty creature which Beowulf battles, is one of the ur-fiends of English literature, along with his equally monstrous, lake-dwelling mother and the dragon which fatally wounds the hero. The trio give us a peek back into the dark imagination from a time before recorded history and Grendel especially has always had something raw and primal about its character. So when you see a beast with such a history portrayed as little more than a diseased muppet you wonder what’s going on. Are the creators inept? Ignorant? Were studio restrictions at work? How does an industry with the talent to give splendid life to the trolls and Balrog of Lord of the Rings, or Davy Jones and crew in Pirates of the Caribbean, screw up so badly?

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