Stuffed Hummingbirds

commentary and criticism, pictorial arts

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OK, so this is one of those half-baked posts that are the bread-and-butter of most blogs, but I just cannot believe that there’s even a controversy over the miraculous appearance a few years ago in a gallery in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, of five cases of deeply personal, never-before-seen work by Frida Kahlo. The cases contain more than 1.200 items, including intimate diaries, love letters, and even stuffed hummingbirds that the painter would wear around her neck when posing for her self-portraits.

A lot of this material is apparently conspicuously signed with her name in a way rarely seen in any of her other work, its provenance is dubious, to say the least — resting as it does on the claim that the artist gave it to woodcarver who made the frames for her pictures — and it’s never been seen before by anyone in her family, or even by the photographer who photographed a lot of her work while she was still alive. Is it any surprise that most of the leading specialists on Kahlo dismiss the gallerist’s claim to its authenticity? Or that the family-run trust that administers her estate have filed a criminal complaint against him?

Picks of the Week

comics and cartooning, current affairs, film, tv, video, hype & linkage

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The picks of the week from around the web.

  • David Bordwell on Inglourious Basterds. A great piece on one of the year’s (surprisingly) great movies. Read it. Also, check out Jim Emerson’s somewhat rambling, but thoughtful comments and the interesting debate that follows them.
  • Michael Dooley on Harvey Kurtzman. Good essay introducing the master satirist/cartoonist, which makes a number of interesting points that I hadn’t encountered before, including one about Kurtzman’s aspirations to direct film.
  • Blagojevich on The Daily Show (part 1, part 2, part 3). Stewart somehow managed to rope in Blago, who evidently believes firmly in his own innocence. There’s something troubling — almost touching — about how unhinged he comes off. Fascinating TV.
  • (…in the entertainment department, however, it doesn’t hold a candle to Gaddafi at the UN)

    • Clowes og Ware til Komiks.dk

    comics and cartooning, hype & linkage

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    Store nyheder for dansk tegneseriekultur — næste års internationale tegneseriefestival i København, Komiks.dk, bliver gæstet af ingen ringere end Daniel Clowes og Chris Ware. Clowes er manden bag mesterværker som Ghost World, Ice Haven og “The Death Ray” — førstnævnte endda udgivet i Danmark af Aben Maler. Ware har skabt den paradigmesættende Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth, som er på vej på dansk, inden Komiks.dk, også fra Aben Maler.

    Der er tale om to af tidens absolut største tegneseriekunstnere — det bliver simpelthen ikke bedre. Sæt allerede nu kryds i kalenderen ved d. 21-23 maj 2010.

    Det tegner godt!

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    I mellemtiden kan du checke for, hvad vi her på siden og på hendegangne Rackham har skrevet om d’herrer gennem tiderne: Ice Haven og “The Death Ray” af Clowes, Jimmy Corrigan, ACME Novelty Datebook og ACME Novelty Library #19 af Ware. Læs også Clowes’ serie til New York Times Magazine, “Mister Wonderful”, her. Nåja, og check det her cool billede.

    Respect the Architect

    comics and cartooning, commentary and criticism

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    For this and other readers of David Mazzucchelli’s at the time almost revelatory work in Rubber Blanket and elsewhere in the rather meagre early- to mid-nineties, the wait for his Next Big Thing had become a thing unto itself, a running joke with undertones of rapt anticipation. It has been so long since we first heard of this project, since his and Paul Karasik’s better-than-the-original adaptation Paul Auster’s City of Glass (1994), that expectations could only have diminished. A few unpersuasive, short anthology pieces along the way did not help spur confidence, and neither did the fact that we saw such a proliferation of great comics by other creators in the interim.

    But now that it is here, Asterios Polyp cannot help but revive this sense of promise, especially since it makes no bones about its ambition to be a Great Work. It’s no coincidence that Mazzucchelli patterns his work on the Odyssey, or that he wears his modernist ambitions on his sleeve in a way that cannot but recall that of Joyce when he did the same thing in his medium of choice.

    Enter Sandman (Jump!)

    comics and cartooning, hype & linkage, music, performance


    This is just to note that the Hooded Utilitarians’ enlightening roundtable on Neil Gaiman’s Sandman (1989-1996) has now come full circle — hop over there to check the entries by Noah Berlatsky, Ng Suat Tong, Tom Crippen, Vom Marlowe and Kinukitty. There are lots of good thoughts there and the comments are also well worth it if you’re interested in this, one of the quintessential comics series of the 90s. If nothing else, they’ve instilled in me the fear of rereading the series, but also awakened my dormant enthusiasm for same. I hope I get around to sometime before this anniversary year is over, although that might not happen. (In the meantime, there’s my recent, somewhat meagre post on Coraline).

    Oh, and just to mark the occasion, check out the above video, shot at the recent Amanda Palmer (ex-Dresden Dolls) gig at the Union Chapel, London, last Saturday. There’s Neil, and he’s actually pretty hysterical (thanks to Richard for the heads up). Enjoy!!

    Mere Ragnarok!

    comics and cartooning, film, tv, video, hype & linkage

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    Peter Madsen og — formoder jeg — Henning Kure, der netop har afsluttet deres store Valhalla-projekt, vil i morgen, fredag d. 18 mellem kl. 16.00-18.00, være at finde i Fantask, hvor de vil signere det nye album Vølvens syner og deres andre tegneserier. Hvis du gik glip af seancen i Faraos i sidste uge, er her endnu en chance for at trykke d’herrer i hånden for endt arbejde.

    Og så har jeg i øvrigt modtaget denne pressemeddelelse fra Mads Bluhm — formand Komiks.dk, bestyrelsesmedlem Dansk tegneserieråd, Børne- og ungdomsbibliotekar Allerød bilbiotek — om et større Valhalla-arrangement i Allerød d. 24 oktober: