Tag Archives: artist
Mon Ami, Mekas
Filmmaker, poet, critic and philosopher Jonas Mekas passed away on January 23 at the age of 96. The wildly creative and willfully cantankerous Mekas was a champion of experimental cinema and a film critic whose taste and style was ahead of its time. Mekas is credited with getting Andy Warhol to try his hand at [...]
Bye Bye, Berger
Art critic, novelist, painter and poet John Berger died on Monday. Berger celebrated his 90th birthday last year and a BBC special and a very good documentary film marked the occasion. Here’s some of my Burnaway review for The Seasons In Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger. It’s followed by a YouTube playlist I made [...]
Warhol ’65
1965, 50 years ago, was a big year for Andy Warhol, the filmmaker: He met Edie Sedgwick who starred in one of his best films, that year’s Poor Little Rich Girl. He also began collaborating with Paul Morrissey who helped Warhol take his cinematic ambitions to another level. Things were going so well behind the [...]
The Witch of Kings Cross
This year we’re remembering the passing of Rosaleen Norton, 35 years ago in 1979. The infamous Australian occultist and artist lived the bohemian life of an artist in the red light district of Kings Cross, Sydney. Norton lived openly as a witch and created then-shocking paintings that found her demonized in the tabloids and targeted [...]
Mapplethorpe Still Matters
Controversial photographer Robert Mapplethorpe’s work is still catching eyes 25 years after his death in March, 1989. Mapplethorpe was practically the subject of Patti Smith’s outstanding memoir, Just Kids and the artist’s work is currently featured in two new exhibitions. In an article titled “The Resurgence of Robert Mapplethorpe,” T explains: Two high-profile exhibitions are [...]
Hermanos de Sangre
I’m planning to cover the Nashville International Film Festival for a variety of papers and blogs again this year. One of the films I’m most excited about is The Voice Thief by Alejandro Jodorowsky’s son, Adan who played the young boy in Santa Sangre. Here is a profile of Adan who is a musician in [...]
Alan Moore on Austin Spare
On this episode of the BBC’s The Culture Show, graphic novelist Alan Moore takes us on a personal tour of magician/occultist Austin Osman Spare’s old neighborhood — stopping in the pubs where the artist showed his magical/grotesque works, and strolling a gallery exhibition of Spare’s mysterious portraits, nudes and still lifes. Stay Awake! Please subscribe [...]
