A journal by artist and designer John Coulthart.
Miles Davis & Teo Macero, 1969.
Teo Macero, composer and visionary producer of one of the greatest albums ever recorded, Bitches Brew by Miles Davis, died last week.
• NYT obituary
• Teo talks about working with Miles Davis
• Jon Hassell explains why Bitches Brew is the best
Untitled from The Black Series by Derek Jarman.
The Serpentine Gallery hosts an exhibition of Derek Jarman’s work selected by filmmaker Isaac Julian from 23 February to 13 April, 2008.
The Derek Jarman exhibition will present a selection of work by the leading British filmmaker of his generation. Curated by the celebrated artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien, it will highlight Jarman’s work in film and painting, including his pioneering presentation of the moving image within the gallery context. Jarman was arguably the single most crucial figure of British independent cinema in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. He struggled for Gay Liberation and with the impact of AIDS and lived as a participant observer, recording all that passed before him, from punk to Thatcher, Hampstead Heath to film premiere.
This exhibition is a timely reappraisal of Jarman’s work, conceived as an immersive environment by Julien, featuring rarely seen films from the Derek Jarman Super-8 archive, an installation of his film Blue, 1993, as well as a selection of his paintings. Julien has also created a series of photographic lightboxes documenting Jarman’s cottage and garden in Dungeness.
The exhibition will mark the premiere of Julien’s new film about Jarman, Derek, the centre of which is a day-long interview Jarman recorded in 1990. The film includes a narration by Tilda Swinton and clips of Jarman’s films, juxtaposed with news and footage of the current affairs from the times that this life illuminated. It is a film of Jarman’s life as well as the story of England from the 1960s to the 1980s.
• The Serpentine salutes the unique genius of Derek Jarman
• Derek Jarman the painter
And another piece of Jarman-related news, cinematographer David Watkin died earlier this week. Watkin photographed The Devils for Ken Russell (among many other great films of the Sixties and Seventies), a film which also featured Jarman’s striking production design. Watkin was also gay, something I wasn’t aware of until I read the Guardian’s obituary.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive
Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Angelic Conversation
• The life and work of Derek Jarman
The Innocents.
A great British actress died this week. She was also something of a movie star in the Fifties, rolling in the surf with Burt Lancaster in From Here to Eternity (1953) and standing up to Yul Brynner in The King and I (1956). Prior to that she starred in two films for Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) (where she played three roles) and Black Narcissus (1947). But for me she’ll always be the (literally) haunted Miss Giddens in The Innocents (1961), Jack Clayton’s superb adaptation of The Turn of the Screw. Still one of the most effective screen ghost stories; try and see it this Halloween.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Freddie Francis, 1917–2007
Detail from La Havane by René Portocarrero; photo by C. Marker.
This week’s book finds are a pair of titles I hadn’t come across before in these particular editions, another haul from the vast continent that is the Penguin Books back catalogue. Labyrinths I’ve had for years in a later edition (see below) but the cover of this one seems more suited to Borges (as much as he can be illustrated) than the somewhat bland Surrealism of illustrator Peter Goodfellow. René Portocarrero (1912–1985) was a Cuban painter with a post-Picasso style who specialised in hallucinogenic profiles like the one here. And it’s a guess but I’d bet the “C. Marker” who photographed the painting is French filmmaker Chris Marker (who I compared to Borges last year), director of La Jetée and Sans Soleil. Marker worked as a photo-journalist for many years and made a documentary entitled ¡Cuba Sí! in 1961.
Continue reading “Penguin Labyrinths and the Thief’s Journal”