Thelma & Louise of Poetry
If ever two female poets were going to clutch hands and drive off a cliff together, it would be Katharine Harris Bradley and Edith Emma Cooper.
...morePosts by: Julie Greicius
Richard Porter at the February Rumpus
Most people would be content to watch Richard Porter watching paint dry. But at the next Monthly Rumpus on February 8th, Rich—who is Hooping.org’s male hooper of the year—will storm the stage with his stunning talent as a hoopdancer. By day, Richard Porter makes a living as an architect, a career initially inspired by his […]
...moreThe Sexies
Most of the time, the topic of sex makes so many journalists spin moralistic, accusatory or just plain inaccurate. For those who are able to keep their wits about them, there are The Sexies. The Sex Positive Journalism Awards foster high standards of journalism by recognizing writing that is unbiased and accurate across the entire […]
...moreMatthew McCarthy’s Film/Art Gallery
Lisa Ano, in the New York Times Style Magazine, shares a few delicious images and some back story from Matthew McCarthy’s web-based Film/Art Gallery. McCarthy’s searchable collection contains more than 3,000 images, most of which are “rare and foreign posters, many of them far more avant-garde than the standard-issue Hollywood versions.” Check out Japanese Bowie, […]
...moreFilm Family Portraits
“All happy families are more or less dissimilar; all unhappy ones are more or less alike.” So explains Tolstoy in Anna Karenina (as translated by Nabokov in Ada). The multimedia artist Kirk Demarais captures some of these similarities in his portraits of film families. From the Torrences (The Shining), to the Griswolds (National Lampoon’s Vacation), […]
...moreVladimir Nabokov and Lionel Trilling Discuss Lolita
“I think it’s shocking. I’m glad it’s shocking.” (via The New Republic) Part two is here.
...moreCalvin Tomkins on William Kentridge
The January 18 edition of the New Yorker (online for subscribers) has a superb, in-depth profile of South African artist William Kentridge by Calvin Tomkins. Kentridge, who worked in drawing, print, film, theater production and direction, is best known for breathing life into his charcoal drawings through hypnotic animated films. They are poetic, personal stories […]
...more69 Love Songs, Illustrated
If your heart lingers well below the baritone range, then you probably love the music of The Magnetic Fields. You’re not alone. A collection of “mostly London-based comic-artists, illustrators and writers” have made it their mission to illustrate every song from the Magnetic Fields’ three-disc recording 69 Love Songs. The project, How Fucking Romantic, is […]
...moreEustace Tilley, Your Way
Eustace Tilley appeared on the first New Yorker cover, in 1925, and has returned for nearly every anniversary issue since. For the third year in a row, the New Yorker is inviting readers to create their own versions of Eustace. Entries should be submitted by January 18th (get crackin!). The winners will be featured in […]
...more“I draw on cups. Yes.”
Cheeming Boey does astonishing, finely detailed artwork on white Styrofoam coffee cups. For most, he draws freehand with only a black Sharpie pen. For others, he does painstaking pointillism. But for a very few, he engraves the cup with a tool gentler than a toothpick, making an almost invisible image. Then, sometimes, titles it after […]
...moreThe Fiction Project
When the Art House Co-op talks about making art accessible, they’re not just talking about viewing and consuming. They’re all about generating inspiration for artists of every kind by creating projects that will get people making, creating and writing. The Fiction Project is one of those. And it’s easy: send $18 bucks to Art House […]
...more64 by 64
Resisting the year-end, best-of list, Jeff Hamada at BOOOOOOOM has collected 64 photos by 64 photographers all discovered, though not necessarily created, in 2009. They are beautiful, strange, eerie, theatrical, funny, bizarre, sexy, and 57 other wonderful things. And if 64 isn’t enough, click on the artist name below each photo to see more.
...moreYue Minjun: It Is Funny
Almost everything that Chinese artist Yue Minjun paints, sculpts or prints includes at least one man—closely resembling the artist himself—locked in laughter. Minjun’s work is delightful, infectious and brightly ironic. His men laugh through any situation, in any state of dress, or cross-dress, piled in groups, embracing birds, mocking suicide, or standing in front of […]
...moreThomas Allen’s Pop-Up Pulp
The January 2010 Harper’s Magazine (print) features a few photographs from Thomas Allen’s “Epilogue,” the last in his long series of photographs of transformed pulp fiction book covers. This was the first I’d seen of Allen’s incredible work, even though he’s been carving up covers for the camera for at least five years. Allen’s work […]
...moreMikael Kennedy: Shoot the Moon
I think I’d like to make my second home inside one of the dreamy, grainy Polaroids shot by Mikael Kennedy. In his photos—a drifter’s gallery of people, places, moments—all light seems like radiance. The washed-out Polaroid colors give each image a feeling of impermanence, a memory fading. That bittersweet quality, along with the simple authenticity […]
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with Paul Madonna
“Even the things you love can take so much work that sometimes they bring you to the breaking point. So you might as well be in the most comfortable place possible to put yourself up against those tests, or else you’re making it harder for yourself. So it’s simultaneously finding the path of least resistance, […]
...moreElissa Bassist on Elissa Bassist
“On a more serious note, I don’t think women have enough space for expression. Some people like to believe women don’t poop. This is absurd. I poop an insane amount. I just pooped, in fact. Hear that men of the world? I poop. Get over it.” The Rumpus’s own Elissa Bassist, editor of the Funny […]
...moreThe Vision To Depict It Their Way
“’The exhibition is framed to be about limits and what can be done within them,’ said Lawrence Rinder, the director of the Berkeley Art Museum, who was a juror for ‘Insights’ this year. That thematic framing, he added, locates the show’s blind artists very much in the tradition of artists in general. ‘We all have […]
...moreArtaksiniya
The Russian artist Aksiniya, who makes a living as a fashion illustrator “for the moment,” is hardly confined by the fashion industry’s narrow view of female pulchritude. On one hand, her bony, macabre figures evoke Egon Schiele; they are fragile, mysterious and introverted, and look as if they might snap at any moment. But, fed […]
...moreDoctors Who Write
“Patients bring us stories,” Terrence Holt explains. “We drop into the middle of patients’ stories and try to change the plot for the better. First we have to understand it, however. The first thing that happens when a patient comes in is they start telling a story, and you try to figure what it means.” He […]
...moreGiant Squid Takes Michigan
In a 10,000 square foot art space in Grand Rapids, a sixty-foot squid floats above an antique desk that is covered with nautical books, prints, a tape recorder, life preservers, shells and other relics that convey a love for the ocean. The squid itself is a magnificent painting created in sections. The installation apparently has […]
...moreLearning to Fall: Jesse Hotchkiss at Thinkspace
Thinkspace gallery in Los Angeles is preparing for a December 11 exhibition that includes new works by Jesse Hotchkiss. Check out a sneak peek of the exhibit, “Learning to Fall,” but also take a minute to see the gorgeous paintings up on the artist’s website. Divided into four series—“Air,” “Land” “Love Lump” and “Water”—the paintings […]
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with Able Brown
Meet Able Brown: artist, New York City park ranger, body-surfing enthusiast and stand-up comedian. His drawings and paintings have been included in group shows at several galleries, including a show at the Fleisher/Ollman gallery curated by Will Oldham, aka Bonny Prince Billy. His illustrations also illuminate the disk jacket for Billy’s album “Summer in the […]
...moreRon English Remembers the Berlin Wall, 1989
“The Berlin Wall was interesting because there was this group of East Germans that were sitting, protesting. The wall is on the side of East Germany—or it was. So they can actually capture you if you’re within like 10 or 15 feet of the wall. They measured it out and they were, you know, camped […]
...moreThe Journal of Urban Typography
Such a simple concept: The Journal of Urban Typography is a digital collection of everyday, do-it-yourself signage. Normally you wouldn’t think twice about these signs, but taken together–curated even–they convey a kind of charming anthropology, a study of the real and disorderly, the thrown-together, this-will-do style that irreverently disregards any standard of grammar, language and […]
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