The Philosopher of Fightin', Fuckin' 'n' Fartin'

'Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man...and give some back.'

Al Swearengen (Ian McShane), Deadwood

Möbius Strips Of Dreams And Desires

Eraserhead, d. David Lynch (1977)


'Absurdity is what I like most in life, and there's humour in struggling and ignorance. If you saw a man repeatedly running into a wall until he was a bloody pulp, after a while it would make you laugh because it becomes absurd. But I don't just find humour in unhappiness - I find it extremely heroic the way people forge on despite the despair they often feel. Like the character in Eraserhead - he's totally confused, yet he struggles to figure things out and do what's best. Isn't that fantastic?'

David Lynch

Dittomania

Sherrie Levine - Fountain (after Marcel Duchamp: A.P), 1991

'Since the early 1980s, Sherrie Levine has made a career out of re-using - or appropriating - famous works of art, often by making new versions of them and placing them in different contexts. Throughout her career, Levine has created art based on works by prominent male artists from the early 20th century in order to underscore the relative absence of women in the art world at that time. Her sources have included Walker Evans' photographs and Constantin Brancusi's sculptures. Levine's piece, entitled Fountain (after Marcel Duchamp: A. P.), is inspired by Marcel Duchamp's Fountain (1917).

When Levine's Fountain is compared with Duchamp's sculpture, it is apparent that it is not an exact copy. Most notably, Duchamp's piece was an actual urinal, turned upside-down and unaltered except for his signature. He believed he could transform such mass-produced, everyday objects into artworks merely by proclaiming them so, and called them "readymades." In contrast, Levine's sculpture is a contemporary urinal cast in the sculptor's traditional precious metal, bronze. Polished to a brilliant shine, this piece is no longer a common, store-bought item; it has been transformed by the artist into a unique object.'

Walker Art Centre

'I try to make art which celebrates doubt and uncertainty. Which provokes answers but doesn't give them. Which withholds absolute meaning by incorporating parasite meanings. Which suspends meaning while perpetually dispatching you toward interpretation, urging you beyond dogmatism, beyond doctrine, beyond ideology, beyond authority.'

Sherrie Levine

Ming-Zhu has tagged me with a so-called Thinking Blogger Award, "in most part for the wonderful, bold career/life choices he's been engaging with recently". This is flattering, not least because not everyone has deemed to call my recent career/life choices wonderful or bold. As for the Award itself, here's the lowdown:

The origin of this award is The Thinking Blog.

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (you have a choice of a silver version or a gold one).

I would in turn award (read: tag) Austin's Disposable Words, for the remarkable photographs; Edward's Wino sapien, for its flights into the olfactory; Ed's Tomato, for being the nexus between mainstream food writing and amateur food blogging; Sarah's Prima la musica, poi le parole, for its passion; and Voltaire's Monkey, for its pseudonymed blogger and his Benjamin-esque approach to our cultural history.

Meanwhile, Ming is taking a break from blogging, with good reason. Ming's not only one of my favourite bloggers, but one of my favourite people, too, and my thoughts are with her.

Matt Clayfield, Esoteric Rabbit

The Velvet Muse: Part Three

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) - A Vision of Fiammetta, 1878

The Velvet Muse: Part Two

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) - La Ghirlandata, 1873

The Velvet Muse: Part One

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) - Venus Verticordia, 1864

If You Haven't Failed, You're Not Trying Hard Enough

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) - Samuel Beckett, 1964


'Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail Better.'

Samuel Beckett

The Argument For Artifice

Inez Van Lamsweerde (b. 1963) and Vinoodh Matadin (?) - Kirsten, 1997


'Art is not a mirror held up to nature, but a hammer with which to shape it.'

Bertolt Brecht

One Man's Delinquent Is Another Man's Deity

Alberto Giacometti (1901-66) - Jean Genet (1910-86), 1955


'[At his trial in 1943] Genet faced life imprisonment as punishment for his recidivism, but Jean Cocteau, who had discovered Genet and arranged to publish his first novel, Our Lady of the Flowers, submitted a statement read in court: 'He is Rimbaud, one cannot condemn Rimbaud.' He suggested that the judge might go down in history as a philistine if he made the wrong decision. Not for a moment did Cocteau argue that Genet was innocent, simply that he was a genius. His testimony got Genet off scot-free.'

Edmund White

Leprosy Of The Soul

Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) - The Chasseur in the Forest, 1813


'Let us frankly admit it - for us, the landscape is a stranger and one is frightfully alone among the trees that bloom and the brooks that flow past us. Being alone with a dead person, one feels far and away not so abandoned as being alone with trees. For as mysterious as death may seem, even more mysterious is a life that is not our life, that does not participate in our life and, without giving any notice to us, celebrates its own festivities, which we observe with a certain embarrassment, like guests who have arrived by accident and speak another language.'

Rainer Maria Rilke

Primitive Piety: Part Seven

Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts - Parisian Book of Hours, 1405-10

Primitive Piety: Part Six

Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts - Vision of the Throne of the Lord (The Paris Apocalypse), c. 1400

Primitive Piety: Part Five

Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts - Legend of Saint Ladislas (from the Anjou Legendarium) - c. 1330s

Primitive Piety: Part Four

Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts - Libro del Biadaiolo, 1325-50

Primitive Piety: Part Three

Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts - Weingarten Missal, c. 1216

Primitive Piety: Part Two

Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts - Ingeborg Psalter, c. 1195

Primitive Piety: Part One

Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts - St. Albans Psalter, 1120s

A Body Of Truth: Part Four (Robert Mapplethorpe)

Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989) - Man in Polyester Suit, 1980

A Body Of Truth: Part Three (Egon Schiele)

Egon Schiele (1890-1918) - Seated Male Nude, 1910

A Body Of Truth: Part Two (Patty Chang)

Patty Chang (b. 1972) - Doll, 2001

A Body Of Truth: Part One (Vanessa Beecroft)

Vanessa Beecroft (b. 1969) - VB 45, 2001

The Dead Can't Dance

Andres Serrano (b. 1950) - The Morgue (Homicide Stabbing), 1992


'Hate is always a clash between our spirit and someone else's body.'

Cesare Pavese

Bruised, But Not Beaten

Nan Goldin (b. 1953) - Nan one month after being battered, 1984


"Purity is the power to contemplate defilement."

Simone Weil

The Ghouls Of Gothabilly

Poison Ivy (Kristy Wallace) of The Cramps


'You know, I always say that a day without an autopsy is like a day without sunshine.'

Buffy (the Vampire Slayer)

The Downside Of Knowing Thyself

Théodore Géricault (1791-1824) - Study of Truncated Limbs, c. 1818


"Biography lends to death a new terror."

Oscar Wilde

Nightfall In The Forest Of Philosophy

Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) - Evening, 1820-1


'An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.'

Albert Camus

The Court Jester Of Kitsch

Jeff Koons (b. 1955) - Michael Jackson and Bubbles, 1988


"I'm a messenger."

Jeff Koons

The Memories That Last The Longest Are Also Our First

Mary Cassat (1845-1926) - The Boating Party, 1893-4


'Genius is the recovery of childhood at will.'

Arthur Rimbaud

The Art Of Seeing With Someone Else's Eyes

Robert Doisneau (1912-1994) - Sidelong Glance, 1948


"Irony gives us, at little expense, the impression that we are experienced psychologists."

Gaston Bachelard

Intoxicated By Images

Edgar Degas (1834-1917) - Absinthe, 1876


'Art isn't what you see, but what you make others see.'

Edgar Degas

Day Dream Believer

Gillian Wearing (b. 1963) - Dream Mask, 2004


'The necessity of dreaming should already be beyond question by the very fact that we dream.'

André Breton

The Clown Of Colour

Joan Miró (1983-1983) - The Harlequin's Carnival, 1924-5


'I try to apply colours like words that shape poems, like notes that shape music.'

Joan Miró

To Awaken, Perchance To Dream

Henri Julien Félix Rousseau (1844-1910) - The Dream, 1910


'The eye which dreams does not see, or at least it sees with another vision.'

Gaston Bachelard

The Girl With Looking-Glass Eyes

Édouard Manet (1832-1883) - A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1882


'Detail contradicts sentiment.'

Robert Hughes

Brought To You By The Number 5 (May Special)

Charles Demuth (1883-1935) - I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold, 1928

Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
fire truck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city.

William Carlos Williams

Savouring The Arrows Of Outrageous Misfortune

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) - The Little Deer, 1946


'Autobiography begins with a sense of being alone. It is an orphan form.'

John Berger

Criminal Injustice

Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) - The Third of May, 1808


'War does not determine who is right - only who is left.'

Bertrand Russell

Icarus On A Leash

Louis Michel Eilshemius (1864-1941) - Afternoon Wind, 1899


'Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.'

Immanuel Kant

Time In A Bottle

Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964) - Bottles, 1916

'Humility is attentive patience.'

Simone Weil

See Paris And Sigh

Brassaï (1899-1984) - Foggy Paris, 1934


'A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.'

Oscar Wilde

The Ripples Of Being Have No Alpha Or Omega

Jasper Johns (b. 1930) - Target, 1958


'Nature is an infinite sphere whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.'

Blaise Pascal

The Lazarus Machine

Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945) - Falling Stars, 1995


'I'm interested in reconstituting symbols. It's about connecting with an older knowledge and trying to discover continuities in why we search for heaven.'

Anselm Kiefer

He Sang The Body Electric

Jaques-Louis David (1748-1825) - Patroclus, 1780


'Man is an intelligence in servitude to his organs.'

Aldous Huxley

Life After Gravity

Edgar Degas (1834-1917) - Mlle La La at the Circus Fernando, 1879


'The greatest danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.'

Michelangelo

The Mother Of All Virgins

Damien Hirst (b. 1965) - Virgin Mother (10.7 metres), 2006


'What I really like is minimum effort for maximum effect.'

Damien Hirst

Déjà Lu

Gregory Crewdson (b. 1962) - Untitled (from the series 'Twilight'), 2001


'Literature is the question minus the answer.'

Roland Barthes

The Doyens Of Damnation

Hieronymous Bosch (c. 1450-1516) - The Temptation of St. Anthony (central panel), 1500


'Saintliness is also a temptation.'

Jean Anouilh

Sex Is Not The Enemy

Tom Wesselmann (1931-2004) - Great American Nude, #92, 1967


'I don't know the question, but sex is definitely the answer.'

Woody Allen

The Heart Is A Lonely Punter

Caspar David Friedrich (1770-1840) - Man and Woman Contemplate the Moon, c. 1824


'We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone.'

Orson Welles