The Next Day

"Oblivion shall own you-death alone shall love you"
You feel so lonely you could die-David Bowie


That's a detail from the piece "What's past is prologue".
The visage of a Bowie emerging from a bloodied scar could be a pretty apt summation of this year.

Why? Because if 2013 has seemed an endless tide of diminishing returns and fuck you affrontary, one beacon in this annus horribilis was the unexpected release of The Next Day. 

It couldn't have come at a better time frankly.

It's the sound of an aging artist, fully aware of less time ahead than behind, refusing to go quietly.

When I hear it, I think of Goya's painting-"Fight with Cudgels" or even late Picasso daubing images of sirens pissing into the Bay of Biscay.
 
At times if there has seemed little hope than the visual echoes on canvas, the album has been a welcome companion.

For a year that's felt like merely marking time, that much bares witnessing.

Farewell 2013-fare better than I ever did in your care.

Here's to the next day. 

A very Bruegel Yuletide

For my money (what little I have), no artist portrays seasonal salutations better than the elder Bruegel with his 'Hunters in the snow.' The three ragged peasants and dog pack emerging from the spindly wooded glade, to behold the unraveling icy spectacle below, could be likened to a modern day parable of shoppers scavenging for last minute holiday bargains. 
Parables are a big thing this time of year after all.

It could also be just my way of wishing you all a very merry feast of Saturnalia.

Sharon Tate and the daughters of Joy

One of the most tremendous and extraordinary happenstances to come in the wake of the Man/son show last year, was my introduction to David Herrle, whose opus Sharon Tate and the Daughters of Joy, has just been released. 
Expounding a similar trough, Davids prose is a fascinating rhythmic riff on an eternal arc of the goddess, femme fatal and eviscerated muse through history,and I was honored then to be asked to contribute my 2010 piece-the Valley-as the frontispiece. That aside, I make no bones when I say that I believe Herrles work is as profound as Ginsberg's "Howl" and every bit the master painter with epigrams, I'll leave you with a selection of his remarkable prose, and the hope that you will click the  following link and fill someones stocking: 

check out Sharon Tate and the daughters of Joy


UNTITLED, or UNTAINTED
 
Scatalogicians say “we’re born between urine and feces”
and evolutionists reduce human births to fishy non-events.

I rebut that we burst from Zeus’ head and correspond
to true love as the moon reflects the sun.

We are one part piss and shit, three parts magic.
There is a vast heaven between the hole and the hole.

REVERSE GALATEA

 I stand against genetic egalitarians, insisting — and proving —
that there are perfect tens among us, that the streets, malls,
schools, slums and cubicle lands teem with females that shame
Playmates, Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, Gibson Girls, Miss USAs.

Physical beauty and limbic dope can't make us righteous or
inspire peace (those darling pinups on bomber noses: all femmes
fatales) so we must abstract delectable flesh into concept, Muse,
trickle-up aesthetics: unveil the Sublime, inform the world of Forms.

This is the Reverse Galatea, an unreification, a Cocochanelism.
Let's piss off gender-feminists and Left and Right ascetics.

My radical subversion compels me to saturate the social sphere
with post-Pre-Raphaelite cream women, hot ebon lovelies and
supermodels, conflate proto-Soviet Plato with Marie Claire, shine
pop culture's flooziest swan-sired Helens into Nurse Ratcheds' eyes.

Offend puritan Hitlers, Marlene Dietrich! Toss your bra at social
realism, Dita Teese! Muffle Rembrandt noses, Courbet bushes!

The Aesthetes were right in praising scopophilic and olfactory
bondage: arresting style and images, powder, blush and perfume,
Prada over Pravda, because curative visual frottage stimulates a
sugary ooze to gum up utilitarian machines and appall soul-police.

Mary Poppins is Julie Andrews (not the marm of the books), Gypsy Rose
Lee frees, Trudy Stein jails, Joplin's a jalopy, and Katy Perry's a Ferrari.

We need gorgeous gargoyles to repel drab demons, a return to pulp
magazines' dichotomous depictions: an aesthetic equivalent to war-
propaganda art that defends the pure genius of being good-looking.
Who's afraid of Naomi Wolf? Not us! Beauty is an ever-expanding box!

Pin-up artists Vargas and MacPherson are high-treasonous.The centerfold is a revolutionary act.

Serial Killer Culture world premiere screening date

It's in Chicago, the day after festivus which might as well be the Moon for me, but at least it feels like reaching that far. No real inkling as to the amount of face time for my contribution, but my hope is fifteen minutes, because it's as close as I'll get to mine.

 Details as follows:

SERIAL KILLER CULTURE WORLD PREMIERE SCREENING DECEMBER 26

Doors open at 6pm, film begins at 6:30pm. Stay for the performance by MACABRE after the film!

HOLIDAY OF HORROR 2013
Thursday, December 26th
at Reggies 2105 S. State Street in Chicago, IL 60616
doors at 6pm 17 & over show

HOLIDAY OF HORROR 2013
The 16th annual Holiday Of Horror
featuring

MACABRE
www.facebook.com/OFFICIALMACABRE
www.murdermetal.com

CARDIAC ARREST
www.facebook.com/pages/Cardiac-Arrest-US/92250701414

ELBOW DEEP (record release show)
www.facebook.com/pages/Elbow-Deep/142644572431991

and

World Premiere screening of SERIAL KILLER CULTURE by filmmaker John Borowski (Filmmaker of H.H. Holmes, Albert Fish and Carl Panzram).

Serial Killer Culture examines the reasons why artists and collectors are fascinated by serial killers. Through music, painting, filmmaking, writing, and collecting, thirteen individuals are interviewed about creating art and searching for murderous artifacts. Featured in the film are: Joe Coleman, MACABRE, Rick Staton, Hart Fisher, The Dahmer Tours, Joe Hiles, Sam Hane, Stephen Giannangello, Sparzanza, Matthew Aaron, John Borowski, David Van Gough, and The World Famous Crawlspace Brothers.

Official Site: serialkillerculture.com
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Sg85xdzHjM

BUY TICKETS HERE NOW
http://www.ticketfly.com/purchase/event/280303

presented by
The Chicago Metal l Factory
www.facebook.com/THECMF
www.theCMF.com

REGGIE'S
reggieslive.com

REBEL RADIO
rebelradio.com

MP SHOWS
mpshows.com

CHICAGO METAL ALLIANCE
www.facebook.com/ChicagoMetalAlliance

Darkness falls

"The night will always win.
The night has darkness on it's side"

Elbow


You can't see it yet, but I never had a painting defy me so much before. Shall I tell you, that we've had the most torturous, tempestuous, taciturn, tantrums together. A veritable Tempest in fact, which-given the theme and adjunct velocity of recent events-is as close to tapping the vein as nicking an artery with a straight razor.

 I think of Manson whenever I hear "straight razor", along with "boxcar" and "jug of wine", which-given my inclination to the latter-means he's constantly in the shadows, even when he isn't making the news for pending nuptials to a 20 something Mansonoid.

 I digress.

The shadows is certainly why then, the new one is behaving so precociously willful, since my every intention with the last series was to exorcise black from my palette...in more ways than one might imagine. 
Naturally, the dark is a constant periphery for me, the oily slug of lamp black-an oxymoron if ever there was-my default. Why that is I could attribute as much to some unfathomable predisposition as much as the dark pockmarks stung by life, but there you have it.

It took the faux Frieda Kahlo exhibit at Liberty Station to shake me of my doldrums, shine a beacon and all that cliche jive. My word-all that pain and bitter disappointment, embellished by other hands in garland hues, light dancing in every corner, vivid brilliance illuminating sharper than a boxcars glass shards. Misery by proxy.

Except, afterwards, I scrawled something on a dogs ear, about her legacy seeming like the suffering theater of female empowerment in the face of misogyny, but it felt misogynistic to even pursue the trains thought.

It struck me that in all things, it's too easy to cast shadows. 

In that light, Vincent begins to almost make sense.

Final trailer for Serial Killer Culture

Dropped today, the latest trailer for John Borowski's Serial Killer Culture-the documentary I was interviewed for about my Man/son showcase. Featuring as it does, Joe Coleman, the Crawlspace Brothers, Hart Fisher, Matthew Aarronn, Macabre and a host of others,  I appear briefly at around the 1.15 mark.

No word on a release date, but I have it on good authority that it should be available at select screenings soon, as well as on general release through Netflix streaming in the new year.

All Hallows sneak peak trick or treat

 The feast before Samhain is with us once again, the Danse Macabre for the fabled Aos Sí. Not for me some anecdote on a haunted gallery theme night. Anything relative to 'darker' art's is relegated as tacky as year old candy in a rotten Jack o Lantern this time of year at any rate. Much to my cost and chagrin.

Still, the spirits run freely through the studio, dark corners move and spells are cast with the wave of a sable.

 And I revert to my natural state.

Happy All Hallows.