"In the Realm of the Senses"- True erotica-brilliant film

Prince and the King

Bruuuuuuuuuce!

DAMN

    "I adore Buster Keaton." — Luis Buñuel

    "Just thinking about him moves me. He is one of my witnesses when I say that some of the very best filmmakers were athletes. He was the quintessential athlete, a real acrobat." — Werner Herzog

    "My favorite director of all time is Buster Keaton, and it goes deeper than just being a comedian, because he is a great director and actor and funny in an extremely human way." — Jim Jarmusch

    "Keaton had a great influence on me. A lot of his moves I intuitively copied in doing some numbers. I know I was thinking of him when I did a dance with a squeaky board and a newspaper. I didn’t look like him, but I often wish I did. He was a complete genius, and there was a lot of dance inherent in his movements." — Gene Kelly

    "Bach is timeless. So is Masaccio. So is Buster Keaton…" — Satyajit Ray

    "Keaton was beyond all praise, a very great artist, and one of the most beautiful men I ever saw on the screen. He was also a superb director. In the last analysis, nobody came near him." — Orson Welles

At the Prado...OH MY GOD

Uncanny

"In his essay on the uncanny, ‘Das Unheimliche’, Freud said that the uncanny is the only feeling which is more powerfully experienced in art than in life. If the [horror] genre required any justification, I should think this alone would serve as its credentials."
— Stanley Kubrick, discussing The Shining with film critic Michel Ciment

Francisco Goya Still-Life with Three Salmon Steaks, 1808-12

It has taken me decades of discarding my formal, academic training as a painter to actually see Goya. He really did create the Twentieth Century for the rest of us. No one is more painstakingly simplistic.

THE RAGE AND THE VOMITING

 "Intimacy cannot be expressed discursively. The swelling to the bursting point, the malice that breaks out with clenching teeth and weeps; the sinking feeling that doesn’t know where it comes from or what it’s about; the fear that sings its head off in the dark; the white-eyed pallor, the sweet sadness, the rage and the vomiting … are so many evasions."
— Georges Bataille, Theory of Religion

HAPPY TO BE ON EARTH

Tarkovsky was sitting in the corner of the screening room watching the film with me, but he got up as soon as the film was over, and looked at me with a shy smile. I said to him, “It’s very good. It’s a frightening movie.” He seemed embarrassed, but smiled happily. Then the two of us went to a film union restaurant and toasted with Vodka.

Tarkovsky, who does not usually drink, got completely drunk and cut off the speakers at the restaurant, then began singing the theme of Seven Samurai at the top of his lungs. I joined in, eager to keep up.

At that moment, I was very happy to be on Earth.
"
— Akira Kurosawa

Huh!?

ca. 1855, [daguerreotype portrait of a mother hiding behind her child]

They're both still with us, aren't they

Hand Silhouette from Chauvet Cave, c. 30,000 BCE

4 approaches to one topic...

Poetic Porn?

My Fucking Childhood!

This is not exactly the Art school I had in mind starting in Upstate NY...

1960’s, Concord Hotel Art Classes

Kiamesha Lake, New York

Nothing like simple, silly erotica

The last true time that I ever made art-art that encompassed my whole being-that lifted me from the moment and gave me a reason for living the next few moments -was probably in my early teens-13,14 thereabouts. Since then- since feeling it all mattered more than anything else- I devoted my entire life to making and sharing those moments. To teach and in great times lift others to feel as I did as a young artist was glorious-beyond any other joy. Now I see that the attempt was a failure of reality.  This country cares so little for the up lift, the challenge of art that it chooses instead to give it pandering lip service -to seem as if creativity mattered. I contributed to that farce, that pandering hypocrisy willingly-just to be settled and admired. I cannot continue to do that anymore. The lie of arts education disgusts me now. It physically becomes impossible to pretend it matters. I must and desperately have to take whatever time I have left to return to those precious few moments of art making that captivated me from the beginning. This farce has to stop. Issues of comfort and health and security are irrelevant. I'll get through this somehow. That is my vow that is my prayer. Friday November 8th at 10:15 pm est

I’ll affect you slowly
as if you were having
a picnic in a dream.
There will be no ants.
It won’t rain.


"I’ll Affect You Slowly"

by Richard Brautigan

This never gets old...reason to be cheerful

PLEASE,PLEASE,PLEASE SOON!

Reasons to be cheerfully dubious

Well?

Chiaki

Makin Bacon

NEW YORK (AP) — A 1969 painting by Francis Bacon set a world record for most expensive artwork ever sold at auction.
"Three Studies of Lucian Freud" was purchased for $142,405,000 at Christie's postwar and contemporary art sale on Tuesday night. The triptych depicts Bacon's artist friend.
The work sold after "6 minutes of fierce bidding in the room and on the phone," Christie's said in a statement. The price includes the buyer's premium. Christie's did not say who bought the painting.
The price surpassed the nearly $120 million paid for Edvard Munch's "The Scream," which set a world record when it was sold at Sotheby's in a 2012 sale.
The previous record for Bacon's artwork sold at auction was his 1976 "Triptych." That sold for $86 million in 2008.
Among other highlights scheduled to be auctioned at Christie's is a bright orange-yellow and white oil painting by Mark Rothko. Reminiscent of a radiating sunset, the 1957 large-scale "Untitled (No. 11)" could fetch up to $35 million. In May 2012, Christie's sold Rothko's "Orange, Red, Yellow" for $86.8 million, a record for any contemporary artwork at auction.
Christie's also has an iconic Andy Warhol, "Coca-Cola (3)," estimated to sell for $40 million to $60 million. The Warhol auction record is $71.7 million for "Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I)," sold in 2007.
On Wednesday evening, Sotheby's is offering Warhol's "Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster)," a provocative double-panel painting that could bring as much as $80 million.
Warhol produced four paintings in the "Death and Disaster" series. The other three are in museums.
Measuring 8 feet by 13 feet, the 1963 silver work captures the immediate aftermath of a car crash, a twisted body sprawled across its mangled interior. It has been seen in public only once in the past 26 years.
Other blue-chip offerings at Christie's on Tuesday include Jeff Koons' whimsical "Balloon Dog (Orange)," a 10-foot-tall stainless steel sculpture resembling a twisted child's party balloon. It is expected to sell for up to $55 million. It is one of five balloon dogs Koons has created in different colors. All are in private hands. It is being sold by newsprint magnate Peter Brant to benefit his Brant Foundation Art Study in Greenwich, Conn.
Also on tap is a masterpiece by German painter Gerhard Richter from the collection of Eric Clapton. Painted in gold and orange hues, the 1994 "Abstract Painting" is estimated to bring as much as $20 million. Richter's photo-based "Cathedral Square, Milan" brought $37 million at Sotheby's in May, setting a record for any living artist at auction.
Roy Lichtenstein's "Seductive Girl" could bring up to $28 million. The artist auction record is $56 million for "Woman With Flowered Hat," sold at Christie's in May.

Diego Rodriguez de Silva Velázquez (1599-1660) The Infanta Don Margarita de Austria Oil on canvas, c.1660 83 3/8 x 57 3/4 inches (212 x 147 cm) Museo del Prado, Madrid

The lengths Velazquez had to go to make the royal family members NOT look laughable is an amazing feat in and of itself. I just keep thinking about the pressure he must have worked under.

Klaus Nomi aka SHIVA