Sunday, October 29, 2006

"The Big Book of Breasts" (2006) by Dian Hanson (editor)

"The Big Book of Breasts" (2006) by Dian Hanson (editor), Hardcover, 30 x 30 cm (11.8 x 11.8 in.), 396 pages
"The Big Book of Breasts" (2006) by Dian Hanson (editor), Hardcover, 30 x 30 cm (11.8 x 11.8 in.), 396 pages
"The Big Book of Breasts" (2006) by Dian Hanson (editor), Hardcover, 30 x 30 cm (11.8 x 11.8 in.), 396 pages
"The Big Book of Breasts" (2006) by Dian Hanson (editor), Hardcover, 30 x 30 cm (11.8 x 11.8 in.), 396 pages

I had this book in my hands today and I went into my Top 3 Wish-list immediately. A very sexy item, from the shiny plastic covering to the exciting photos within. I had to constrain myself from buying it immediately, because now's the time to ensure there's something left for Santa Claus to buy. Highly recommended. Available from Amazon.com

The Golden Hills before the Silicone Valley: Three decades of the world's most spectacular natural curves

Some call it the American obsession, but men everywhere recognize the hypnotic allure of a large and shapely breast. In The Big Book of Breasts, Dian Hanson explores the origins of mammary madness through three decades of natural big-breasted nudes. Starting with the World War II Bosom-Mania that spawned Russ Meyer, Howard Hughes's The Outlaw and Frederick's of Hollywood, Dian guides you over, around, and in between the dangerous curves of infamous models including Michelle Angelo, Candy Barr, Virginia Bell, Joan Brinkman, Lorraine Burnett, Lisa De Leeuw, Uschi Digard, Candye Kane, Jennie Lee, Sylvia McFarland, Margaret Middleton, Paula Page, June Palmer, Roberta Pedon, Rosina Revelle, Candy Samples, Tempest Storm, Linda West, June Wilkinson, Julie Wills, and dozens more, including Guinness World Record holder Norma Stitz, possessor of the World's Largest Natural Breasts.

The 396 pages of this book contain the most beautiful and provocative photos ever created of these iconic women, plus nine original interviews, including the first with Tempest Storm and Uschi Digard in over a decade, and the last with Candy Barr before her untimely death in 2005. In a world where silicone is now the norm, these spectacular real women stand as testament that nature knows best.

The editor: Dian Hanson is a twenty-five-year veteran of men's magazine publishing. She began her career at Puritan magazine in 1976 and went on to edit a variety of titles, including Partner, Oui, Hooker, Outlaw Biker, and Juggs magazines. In 1987 she took over the '60s title Leg Show and transformed it into the world's best-selling fetish publication. Most recently, she authored TASCHEN's Terryworld, Tom of Finland: The Comic Collection and History of Men's Magazines six-volume set.

Editions:
ISBN 3-8228-3303-7 (German, French, English)

List Prices:
USD 49.99 | GBP 29.99 | EUR 39.99 | JPY 6900.00

Monday, October 23, 2006

"Danaë" and "Figura Serpentina" (2006) by Michael Najjar

This post has been removed on request.

Dear David Angelovich,

I have talked to the artist Michael Najjar and he prefers not to be mentioned in your blog. Please do keep him out of it. Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Karsten ***** com berlin.Agentur für Communication

Friday, October 20, 2006

"Sex Pictures: Untitled, #261" (1992) by Cindy Sherman.

"Electric Ladyland" (1968) by The Jimi Hendrix Experience [update]

Here's the fourth installment of Album Covers Featuring Boobs: "Electric Ladyland" (1968) by The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Bursting with ideas and energy, Jimi Hendrix's second album release of 1968 was a double-LP set that showcased virtually everything the guitar genius had to offer: blistering blues ("Voodoo Chile"), galaxy-patrolling space jams ("1983... A Merman I Should Turn to Be"), psychedelic soul ("Crosstown Traffic"), and skyscraping rock ("Voodoo Child (Slight Return)"). In the midst of all this was even a hit song--Hendrix's remarkable reading of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower," featuring a series of baton-passing guitar solos, all distinct and brilliant. Seemingly diffuse when first released; in hindsight, kaleidoscopically eclectic. --Billy Altman

Warning: judging by the album at Amazon the units of this album no longer shift with the original artwork. Fucking shame. If Hendrix was alive today he would rather piss on Wallmart than having his artwork changed to have it on their shelves.

This cover is from the UK edition. If you buy this album now it comes with a blurry head shot of Hendrix looking like he's about to come (or playing a high note during a solo), which according to the Hendrix estate is what he preferred.

The UK edition [..] came with a different and very controversial cover. With the artwork not reaching the UK in time to press the album, a cover of naked women lounging in front of a black background was issued in its place, causing considerable reaction. The US cover by Karl Ferris, which Hendrix had intended, has since become the official cover of Electric Ladyland internationally. Hendrix's family, who own the rights to the album and most of his catalogue, has stated that the original UK cover will not be used anymore since Hendrix did not himself like it.

Thanks to 'Anonymous' for pointing me here.

"Alison Lapper pregnant" (2005) by Marc Quinn

Quote from Marc Quinn:

The sculpture is a portrait of Alison Lapper when she was 8½ months pregnant. It is carved out of one block of white marble and stands 3.55 metres high.

At first glance it would seem that there are few if any public sculptures of people with disabilities. However, a closer look reveals that Trafalgar Square is one of the few public spaces where one exists: Nelson on top of his column has lost an arm. I think that Alison's portrait reactivates this dormant aspect of Trafalgar Square. Most public sculpture, especially in the Trafalgar Square and Whitehall areas, is triumphant male statuary. Nelson's Column is the epitome of a phallic male monument and I felt that the square needed some femininity, linking with Boudicca near the Houses of Parliament. Alison's statue could represent a new model of female heroism.

In the past, heroes such as Nelson conquered the outside world. Now it seems to me they conquer their own circumstances and the prejudices of others, and I believe that Alison's portrait will symbolise this.

I'm not physically disabled myself but from working with disabled sitters I realised how hidden different bodies are in public life and media. Her pregnancy also makes this a monument to the possibilities of the future.

(photo source)

"Turkish Bath" (1862) by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

Ingres aspired to Neoclassical perfection, but the pictorial traits which puzzled his contemporaries are now appreciated as evidence of a repressed sensuality, finding expression in Gothic arabesques of line and limpid skin tones, beneath immaculately painted surfaces.

"Birthday Boy" (1983) by Eric Fischl

Born in New York City in 1948, Eric Fischl grew up in the suburbs of Long Island , his parents having moved there shortly before his second year."Safer place to raise a family", they used to say. Against a backdrop of alcoholism and a country club culture obsessed with image over content, Fischl became focussed on the rift between what was experienced and what could not be said. Until the late 70's, suburbia was not considered a legitimate genre for art. With his first New York show at the Edward Thorp Gallery, epithets like "psycho-sexual suburban dramas" became velcroed to his disturbing images of dyfunctional family life.

"Dusk" (2005) by Jeff Bark

Abandon is Jeff Bark's first project to be exhibited at Michael Hoppen Contemporary, London and will open on the 10th November 2006.

Below is the ArtSpeak™ from the Michael Hoppen website. Has anyone had gorged and satiated moments of exhalation lately?

Abandon, by American artist Jeff Bark is a series of elaborately constructed photographs re-examining the relationship between painting and photography. Rich and seductive, the portraits in this series contain a solitary nude figure illuminated against a shadowy domestic backdrop. In the absence of direct narrative it is the introspective abandon of each subject that joins the separate tableaux. Models caught in near limbo; moments of respite and exhalation are presented in Bark's delicately allegorical work.

Turning on its head the instantaneous nature of photography, Bark painstakingly selects his models, and intricately sculpts details and tensions in his contemporary domestic set pieces. He constructs each environment from scratch tailoring the scenarios to draw out the individual abandon of each model - the time spent constructing each set is comparable to that expended by a painter in their studio. Working with a large format camera and a long exposure time these photographs are not of a climatic instant moment but of a conflation of time; moments of abandon past, present and future rolled into one. Bark's use of light and shadow are created manually and not digitally, and the results echo the work of the Dutch masters, revealing the contemplation of each figure in shafts of soft illumination. Bark's colour palate however, is more in keeping with the American 1950's adult 'cartoon' aesthetic. Soft dull greens and browns illuminated with dirty urban sunlight, drawn curtains filtering the chaos and noise of the asphalt jungle.

Like Ingres' La Grand Odalisque or Oedipus Explains the Riddle of the Sphinx, Bark infuses layer upon layer of information for the viewer to digest. Contemporary urban motifs are prevalent in each image amongst the debris of American consumerism - inflatable plastic swimming pools, telephones, cigarettes, and mass-produced furniture produce seams of narrative. Influenced by Norman Rockwell, Eric Fischl and filmmaker, David Lynch, Bark creates quiet erotic moods and spheres around his subjects with clues and hints but with nothing explicitly told. Whether gorged and satiated or lost in desire and abandon, the subjects of Bark's large works are shocking in their honesty, yet always infused with a tenderness and vulnerability.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

"Lustpumpe" by Claudia Böhm

Claudia Böhm (1964) is known for her extravagant pictures of death, birth, lust and the ecstatic visions of Catholic saints.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

"Black Lace" by Leah Macdonald

Leah Macdonald went to school in the Bay Area; she received her Masters in Photography from the California College of Arts. While in the Bay Area she worked as an assistant to the well-known anthropologist/photographer, Charles Gatewood. Her interest has always been in black and white, and especially fiber, gelatin silver printing. She practiced book arts while in graduate school as well as student teaching and leading workshops for troubled teens in Oakland. One of her books, The Name of the White Flower is Jasmine, was published in the Photo Metro.

"Untitled (Tongue)" by Terry Richardson

Born in 1965 in New York to a fashion photographer father and stylist mother and raised in France, Hollywood, Woodstock, Terry Richardson's childhood was far from average. Growing up in Hollywood with the punk scene in full swing, Terry began documenting his environment. The images of his friends and his life from this period show a generation lost to broken homes, sex, and beer. After completing his education, Terry made his way back to New York where he continued exploring documentary photography, this time recording the brutality of sexual abandon and the harsh, lonely reality of the early 90’s drug culture in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

It was during this period that Terry started working as a fashion photographer and his images started appearing in magazines such as The Face, I-D, Dazed and Confused, Purple, Harper’s Bazaar, W, British Vogue, GQ, and Index. Terry's provocative and energetic images in such campaigns as Sisley and, most recently Gucci, would help transform fashion photography.

Although his personal work stands separate from his commercial work, Terry continues to bridge the gap between the two by incorporating elements from one into the other. While Terry’s work in the fashion industry has been satisfying, he believes it has enabled him, more importantly, to continue exploring his fascination with the human condition. Since the mid-90's, Terry has had three books of his personal photographs published, Son of Bob (Little More, 1999), Hysteric Glamour (Hysteric Glamour, 1996), and most recently Feared by Men, Desired by Women published 2000 by Guiding Light of Shine Gallery, London. Taschen has released a book on his complete works.

(source)

"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I'm really really sorry." by Jans Muskee

Jans Muskee (1961, Nieuw-Amsterdam, Holland) is represented by Flatland Gallery.

"Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels" (1450) by Jean Fouquet

Amazingly, this painting is more than 550 years old. The red and blue angels strike me as very modern. And it looks like they already had silicone implants back then.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

"La Fornaria" (1518) by Raphael

The hand that lifts her veil also cups her left breast, a motion, the Frick argues, derived from a classical Venus Pudica rather than porn flicks. Her other hand, two fingers spread wide, covers the space between her legs while giving the illusion that her cloak may not. That left hand bears a ring, a bracelet on her left arm carries the artist's signature, and a pearl hangs down from a fashionably exotic black and yellow turban. These props could symbolize sexuality, purity, or the rites of marriage. Restoration, the Frick argues, shows that the plants behind her, too, have associations both with Venus and with marriage.

(source)

Three drawings by Mark Allen

"Torso Bondage" by Mark Allen
"Hippogirl" by Mark Allen
Three drawings from the "Bondage, Nudity, and Sex" series by Mark Allen who mostly works with performance, sculpture and installation.

"Nude Woman, Reclining" (1887) by Vincent van Gogh

Painted in Paris, this is one of three paintings of female nudes by van Gogh. The reclining nude pose and setting are traditional, but van Gogh's execution of the painting creates a compelling dissonance.

The oval shape of the canvas embraces the figure. The exaggerated contour line of the hip, and shape of the stomach complement the overall form. Similarity of feeling in soft luminous color and short, feather-like gestures of brush strokes, describe pillows and linens. A sliver of scarlet supports the bottom of the composition placing the floor of the scene in the viewer's space. Complementary vertical strokes of blue push the background away from the figure. Richly colored short strokes of paint describe the figure's shape while a contrasting quality of pointed and curved shapes describe it with a hovering tension. A weightiness in the downward curving contours of the bed creates dissonance while the line of the hip pulls upward. The viewer is drawn into the picture and simultaneously pushed away.

(source)

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Three paintings (2004-2005) by Agnieszka Sandomierz

"Untitled" (2004) by Agnieszka Sandomierz, 25x50 tempera żółtkowa, płótno.
"Untitled" (2005) by Agnieszka Sandomierz, 130x160 tempera żółtkowa, płótno.

Agnieszka Sandomierz (1978) studied in the Fine Arts Academy, Warsaw, with Professor Jarosław Modzelewski. In 2003, she took her degree with a mention from the Painting Department, under Professor Wiesław Szamborski. Since 1999, she has taken part in several group exhibitions, as has ten individual exhibitions to her credit.

For Agnieszka Sandomierz, as for several artists of her age, the starting point is a new pop-art. This can be seen in the frames of her paintings, in how substantive and ordinary they are. However, Agnieszka’s paintings exceed the limits of an impersonal pop-art. They tend to omit its rigours, rather than overcoming them. Instantly striking is the momentum and freedom with which they are painted. We can see how an ornament fills in the space anew, creating a decorative wallpaper. Intimacy squeezes out any ‘political’ commentaries there. The painter likes to improvise, and she can excellently feel the fetishist power of brands and erotic extras. She would show ‘the way young lovers do’ in dozens of ways; as if she wanted to get saturated with any and all tastes possible.

(source)

Friday, October 06, 2006

"Surfer Rosa" (1988) by Pixies

Here's the third installment of "album covers featuring boobs": "Surfer Rosa" (1988) by Pixies

Before the Breeders and Frank Black, there was this Boston quartet, playing hardcore's rush and terseness against the acoustic grit and the minor-key flourish of Latin pop. Their first full-length album is their starkest, harsh and trebly, with the drums right in your face, and songs edited to eliminate any note that's not absolutely necessary. Singer Black Francis yelping away about destroyed bodies and the river Euphrates, alternately acting cryptic and crazed. Kim Deal, then calling herself "Mrs. John Murphy," contributes the highlight, "Gigantic," a creepy anthem about childhood voyeurism. The playing is snarly and tricky but unfailingly tuneful, and the hooks come out of nowhere, hiding behind the noise, and bite down hard. --Douglas Wolk

"Chocolate and Cheese" (1994) by Ween

Here's the second installment of "album covers featuring boobs": "Chocolate and Cheese" (1994) by Ween

Those of us who worship at the Church of Ween (Hail to the great god Boognish!) know that skinny blond twerp Beck stole his whole shtick from New Jersey musical geniuses Dean and Gene. Always ahead of their time, the brothers Ween have responded by abandoning their traditional lo-fi four-track recording methods and giving us their lushest album yet, Chocolate and Cheese. Not that Ween's fourth effort is polished; that adjective could never describe an album that veers wildly from acoustic Mexican folk songs, to pure '70s disco, to the appropriately named single, "I Can't Put My Finger On It." But Chocolate and Cheese may come even closer than "Push Th' Little Daisies" to fulfilling Dean's goal of establishing Ween as the next Counting Crows. --Jim DeRogatis

"Ease" (2005) by Sharon Shapiro

Sharon Shapiro (Bluefield, West Virginia, USA) lives and works in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Images of women that I saw growing up shaped my personal idea of sexuality and simultaneously created a deep sense of unease. I paint mostly girls and women in an attempt to decode femininity, desire, and the push-pull between control and compliance felt as a female.

I work from found photos, ads from the 50’s and 60’s, images of my daughter and myself in order to raise the question: has our vulnerability to outside forces--such as fashion culture, media presentations, our peers, our mothers-- decreased or increased over time?

(source)

Monday, October 02, 2006

"Untitled (Nude)" (1935) by Paul Outerbridge

We've already covered the boobs for auction this October at Sotheby's, and now's the time for Christie's Oct 17, 2006 - Oct 18, 2006 auction.

This photo is estimated at $ 25,000 - 35,000.

"Art is life seen through man's inner craving for perfection and beauty--his escape from the sordid realities of life into a world of his imagining. Art accounts for at least a third of our civilization, and it is one of the artist's principal duties to do more than merely record life or nature. To the artist is given the privilege of pointing the way and inspiring towards a better life." --Paul Outerbridge

So wrote Paul Outerbridge, rather exaltedly, about his chosen profession. He was a designer and illustrator in New York before turning to photography in the 1920s. In 1925, having established himself as an innovative advertising photographer and graphic designer, he moved to Paris and worked for the French edition of Vogue magazine. There he met Edward Steichen, with whom he developed a friendly rivalry. Around 1930, having returned to New York, Outerbridge began to experiment with color photography, in particular the carbro-color process. He focused primarily on erotic female nudes, images that occasionally had menacing overtones and whose shocking, full-color realism resulted in a scandal, hastening the end of his photographic career. In 1943 Outerbridge moved to California, where he photographed only intermittently.

(source)

"Doll in White" (2006) by Emily Simek

Th press release of a joint show by Emily Simek and Madeleine Hellmers at Toronto's G+ Galleries is a feast of mumbo-jumbo ArtSpeak™:

Both artists share an interest in personal symbolism and archetypes, modes of representation and communication, and the subconscious. Each negotiates between chaos and order, between the rational and irrational. Dreamed/imagined reality and lived reality collide and are represented on the same plane. In playing with diametrically opposed opposites, the 'lines' between them begin to blur; the space that exists 'between' often materializes as banal objects or ubiquitous expanses of land, urban or otherwise. The works' contexts are occasionally extended by the use of fractured narratives or titles which relate to them indirectly. This marriage of disparate images is also reinforced by the sculptural use of string throughout a portion of the gallery which stands as a metaphor for the continuity of thought/experience, and represents the continuous attempt to resolve fragmented elements through their synthesis and association.

What I think? Tits + rope bondage + art = Welcome to Art Boobs!