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Art in its Blackest form

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Japanese Charcoal Skulls for Metal BBQs

March 1, 2019 by Jan F. Lindsø Leave a Comment

Skull charcoal

Japanese artist Sekisadamu has specialized in making pieces of charcoal shaped as skulls. He made some of these for the Wonder Festival, which is festival for sculptors and modelers held in Chiba, Japan. According to the artist the skulls are made of 100% plant based materials.

16倍タイムラプス撮影しました。
30分以上燃焼します。 pic.twitter.com/BHkeXfa4qK

— セキサダム@WFお疲れさまでした。 (@gorovodka) February 17, 2019

When he posted a picture of them on Twitter they started to go viral. Eventually he even put up a webshop to sell them, and is currently working on a full size charcoal skull. Unfortunately according to the website he won’t do international orders yet.

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

May 19, 2015 by Line Evensen Leave a Comment

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is the brainchild of filmmaker and graphic designer John Koenig, who says his mission is “to harpoon, bag and tag wild sorrows then release them back into the subconscious”.  Koenig aims at all those nameless feelings words – until now – has not been able to define, making this dictionary one of my favourite sites ever. When I first came across it, it struck a chord with me, making me read every definition and watch every video. Every definition is so thoughtful, and every invented word sounds real. 

onism
n. the awareness of how little of the world you’ll experience. Imagine standing in front of the departures screen at an airport, flickering over with strange place names like other people’s passwords, each representing one more thing you’ll never get to see before you die—and all because, as the arrow on the map helpfully points out, you are here.

altschmerz
n. weariness with the same old issues that you’ve always had—the same boring flaws and anxieties you’ve been gnawing on for years, which leaves them soggy and tasteless and inert, with nothing interesting left to think about, nothing left to do but spit them out and wander off to the backyard, ready to dig up some fresher pain you might have buried long ago.

 vemödalen
n. the frustration of photographing something amazing when thousands of identical photos already exist—the same sunset, the same waterfall, the same curve of a hip, the same closeup of an eye—which can turn a unique subject into something hollow and pulpy and cheap, like a mass-produced piece of furniture you happen to have assembled yourself.

moledro n. a feeling of resonant connection with an author or artist you’ll never meet, who may have lived centuries ago and thousands of miles away but can still get inside your head and leave behind morsels of their experience, like the little piles of stones left by hikers that mark a hidden path through unfamiliar territory.

You can find The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows here. They also have a Facebook page.

Lykanthea & Hunter Gatherer Jewelry – The Musician and the Maker

September 17, 2014 by Line Evensen Leave a Comment

If you have wandered in the dark world of Instagram, I’m sure you have come across the two creative ladies Laura Prieto-Velasco known for her Hunter Gatherer Jewelry, and Lakshmi Ramgopal also known as the musician Lykanthea. After they got to know each other and since became friends, they found it only natural to join creative forces when Lakshmi was to release her solo debut Migration this summer. Now they are launching a jewellery collection together. In that regard, we wanted to get to know the two dark artisans, and hear some more on what inspires them – and what to expect in near future. 

Laura on the left, Lakshmi on the right.

Laura on the left, Lakshmi on the right.

 

First off, could you tell us a bit about yourselves, and how you got to know each other as artists?

Lakshmi: I’m a musician in Chicago, IL. I’ve been a member of various bands in Chicago for a decade or so, but I’ve only recently begun writing and performing under the solo moniker Lykanthea. I learned classical South Indian music, flute and violin as a child, but I came to music seriously only as an adult when I realized it was the best form with which to communicate my ideas.

I discovered Laura’s work on Instagram in summer 2013. Her work spoke to me right away, since it conveys a stark, strong beauty that was consistent with the themes I was developing for the EP. I got in touch with her to see if she could loan some of her pieces for photo shoot I was organizing, since I needed some press photos for the EP. I hadn’t written a note of the EP at that point, but her response to my ideas was warm and supportive. It was through that shoot that we became friends and collaborators. Laura’s ideas about the creative and destructive, which are drawn from her long experience as a metalsmith and which were shaping her Exitium collection, helped me to think more clearly about the EP’s visual world. Working with Laura quickly became more than styling photo and video shoots, and became instead an artistic and intellectual exercise about how physical objects can become records of the process of acquiring self-knowledge and provide new meaning and context to sound.

Laura:  I’m an artist and educator based in Chicago with a background in metalsmithing and design. I’ve been involved with several facets of these fields over the years and recently began making ready to wear leather and metal accessories under the label Hunter Gatherer.

Lakshmi initially contacted me though my Instagram page and asked if I might be interested in styling a shoot for her upcoming solo album. We began by exchanging visual inspiration in a shared board on Pinterest and found that our work intersected conceptually in some really interesting ways. At the time I was developing work for “Exitium” which was inspired by the brutality of physical and conceptual death as a necessary part of living processes. After meeting Laks and learning more about her expertise of the ancient world’s interpretation of these same concepts I realized this connection was really special and knew in my gut I had to work with this amazing human being. We also really clicked as friends, and have been relentlessly supportive of each other. I don’t know, I just believe in her and I think she believes in me too.

Migration tape wrapped in Hunter Gatherer custom packaging.

Migration tape wrapped in Hunter Gatherer custom packaging.

 

What was Lakshmi’s inspiration when making her solo debut Migration? How did you come to choose the goddess Inanna as a concept for your music?

Lakshmi: I knew last winter that I had an album in me that needed to be written and shared, but I didn’t know what would be its marrow, its narrative backbone. Then I discovered Inanna’s story, which is inscribed as a series of hymns in cuneiform script on four-thousand-year-old tablets from the kingdom of Sumer in ancient Mesopotamia, soon after the death of the folklorist Diane Wolkstein. I had met Diane briefly at a wedding in Dallas a few years ago, but what I did not learn until her passing was that she had collaborated with a Sumerologist to translate and arrange these cuneiform tablets for a project that culminated in her book Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth. I had an epiphany as I read about Wolkstein’s book: this was the story I was looking for.

The hymns she translated and arranged describe the life of Inanna as she grows from a girl into a powerful goddess and queen, dies, and returns from death. Her journey to and from the underworld was compelling, since she is described as struggling to enter it, finding herself trapped there, then ultimately escaping. At each stage of this journey, she undergoes physical transformations that reflect personal change and new insights into herself. The complexity of the text, the descent into and out of darkness it described, and its triumphantly thoughtful narrative, struck me as a challenging and rewarding way of exploring ideas about change. Interestingly, Inanna’s life-altering descent into darkness came to mirror a number of difficult experiences I underwent in the year I spent writing and recording the EP, so the choice of text was fruitful in many, many ways.

Behind the scenes on Lykanthea's music video.

Behind the scenes on Lykanthea’s music video.

I wrote much of the EP while I was in Greece last fall doing dissertation research and, in particular, on the mostly uninhabited island of Delos. While I was there, I was cut off from the rest of the world – I had no phone or internet access. The quietness of the island and the roar of the waves around me put me in a unique, meditative state that is reflected in the EP’s ambient, dreamy tones. While in Greece, I also made time to visit exceptionally ancient places, like Mycenae, to see if I couldn’t recapture the knowing silence that the ruins there seem to have.

Migration is the first of several releases based on these texts about Inanna. Something I’ve learned over the course of researching my doctoral thesis is that one comes to new and different understandings of texts and art by revisiting them over time. I also experienced this while working on the EP. Random life events would unexpectedly illuminate parts of the hymns which had made no sense to me or which I previously had not found interesting. As my understanding of the tablets grew, so did the sense that I didn’t understand them at all. So my goal is to return to Inanna’s story intermittently to see how I respond to it and the idea of personal transformation in song form. My guess is that my reaction to this powerful text will change in tandem with my own growth and development as a person. That said, I don’t think my next release will be based on Inanna’s story, since I want to return to the text with fresh eyes. Nor am I sure how many Inanna-related releases there will be in total. But the texts exert a hold on me that I’m sure will last a long time.

Cuffs from Lykanthea + Hunter Gatherer collaboration called Capsule Collection.

Cuffs from Lykanthea & Hunter Gatherer Jewelry’s Capsule Collection.

 

Laura, could you tell us about the jewellery you have created earlier? How was the creative process with Lakshmi towards the finalization of the collaboration collection? 

Laura: The jewellery I created was a mix of one of a kind cast bronze and hand hammered sheet metal designs with a matte black powder coat finish paired with whip-like accessories made out of salvaged leatherwear collected throughout Chicago. My creative process usually starts with something or someone that deeply inspires me. I start by creating a set of abstract personal goals to keep me motivated and interested in the work as it is created. In this case I was initially inspired by cycles of creative and destructive processes intrinsic to social and natural phenomena; which are more evident during Chicago’s harsh winters. My overarching goal was to develop a ready to wear unisex collection that allowed me to explore one of a kind processes through a limited production series.

Migration Tape Collaboration Rings used in the packaging of the EP.

Migration Tape Collaboration Rings used in the packaging of the EP.

Previous to Exitium, my first collections were designed in a very linear way. I would begin with a set concept, develop sketches and finalize these ideas in finished products. I found this approach to be extremely limiting and often times I would become frustrated and disenchanted with the outcome and want to destroy everything and start again because it did not meet my standards.

For my own practice and teaching I think it is crucial to allow for the creative space to respond to the work as it was being created including editing the work as it is being made. Over the years I have destroyed many pieces due to this critical nature, but it is all part of the process. Having been working as an independent creative professional for over a decade, inviting others into my personal vision during the formative stages is certainly not an easy thing to do. However, I have found that when the collaboration is a good fit, the other person’s influence and objective perspective significantly strengthen the work. Special individuals, such as Lakshmi and a few others, have a particular kind of creative energy that is so intoxicating and inspiring that I can’t deny that my creative shell needs penetrating every now and then. They have become extremely important agents in the development of my work by contributing to and contextualizing my ideas in ways I would never have expected.

Currently we are working on a collaboration of limited edition pieces incorporating interpretations of lyrics from Migration into unisex cuffs in a small capsule collection. We recently released a test collaboration which featured the creation of limited edition cassettes of Migration wrapped in custom Hunter Gatherer Packaging. Though we have worked together on visual projects before, I would say this is our first attempt to fuse our practices together in a physical object that people will hopefully connect with as well as incorporate into their personal styles. We plan to release them in early October, 2014 via Hunter Gatherer’s online shop.

Migration Cuffs from the collaboration named Capsule Collection

Lykanthea + Hunter Gatherer Jewelry – The Capsule Collection

Thanks to Lakshmi and Laura for letting us get a glimpse into their creative minds, and for giving us some really interesting views on a collaboration process. I’m so glad there are small independent and dark artisans to drape the world in their beautiful shadows – just like Hunter Gatherer Jewelry and Lykanthea. Be sure to support them!

You can find them here:
Lykanthea’s website
Hunter Gatherer Jewelry’s shop
Lykanthea on Facebook
Hunter Gatherer on Facebook
Lykanthea on Instagram
Hunter Gatherer on Instagram

You can listen to, and download Lykanthea’s Migration EP over at Bandcamp!

Marina Abramović – Entering the Other Side

July 7, 2014 by Line Evensen Leave a Comment

My friend, do your wounds hurt?
If they don’t, they would not be called wounds.

~ Traditional serbian folksong.

Portrait of Marina Abramovic | © Knut Bry and Ekebergeparken Oslo, 2013

Portrait of Marina Abramovic | © Knut Bry and Ekebergeparken Oslo, 2013

When we heard that The Kistefos Museum were to host Marina Abramović’s first solo exhibition i Scandinavia, we knew we had to visit. We are after all proud co-founders of the Marina Abramović Institute in New York. Never been to Kistefos before, we were not sure what to expect, but when the first sight to greet us was an Elmgreen & Dragseth installation, we knew we would appreciate our stay. The large outdoor park is filled with contemporary sculptural art and installations, and so is the river besides the old wood pulp mill.

Abramović’s exhibition is called Entering the Other Side, and came to place when she visited The Kistefos Museum last year. Inspired by the hard lives of the workers at the mill, and relating it to her own childhood in former Yugoslavia, she created a sound installation specially for Kistefos with the themes life and death. It can be heard in every corner of the old, industrial mill, as if the walls were chanting.

The Kistefos Museum | Photo: Jan F. Lindsø, Black Forest Magazine

The Kistefos Museum, the Art Hall | Photo: Jan F. Lindsø, Black Forest Magazine

Walking through this retrospective exhibition, which contains some of Marina’s most famous works presented on video installations, photographs and sound, we really see how she have circled around the themes life, death and sexuality through her 40 year long career.

If you’re a fan, you have probably seen most of the artwork presented, but for those who are new to this fantastic artist, Entering the Other Side is a great way to get to know her work. Actually, most of the time she IS her work, presenting her mind, body and history to us, reminding us what it means to be human.

Entering the Other Side presents photographs of Lips of Thomas (1975) – a performance where Abramović drove her body and mind to the extreme, depicting the Yugoslavian people’s pain

We also got to see one of our personal favourites, The Balkan Baroque (1997). After the brutal war and ethnic cleansing on Balkan back in the early 1990’s, Marina drove it even further in depicting the pain of her people at the Venice Biennale in 1997. For five days she sat on a mountain of 1500 ox bones, washing them clean with a metal brush, continuously singing sad folk songs from her childhood.

Balkan Baroque II (1997) Chromogenic print presented at Entering the Other Side | © Marina Abramovic

Balkan Baroque II (1997) Chromogenic print presented at Entering the Other Side | © Marina Abramovic

Some other of our favourites were also presented; Nude with Skeleton (2005), Carrying the Skeleton (2008) and Cleaning the Mirror I (1995). Being a magazine for ‘art in its blackest form’ we surely love how Marina uses skulls and skeletons as a powerful symbol in her work. In the first mentioned of her works, which is a performance, she is literally embracing death in a video. The only sound in the room is her calm breathing. In the second mentioned work, she is carrying the skeleton. Maybe it is a burden, but still we are fascinated by Marina’s ability to accept death as a companion in life. In Cleaning the Mirror I we sit in silence watching a video of her performance, which involves metodically cleaning a dirty skeleton – for 3 hours. 

 

Cleaning the Mirror I (1995) video installation presented at Entering the Other side Photo: Jan F. Lindsø, Black Forest Magazine

Cleaning the Mirror I (1995) video installation presented at Entering the Other side | Photo: Jan F. Lindsø, Black Forest Magazine

 

Marinas (in)famous screaming perfomances were also presented, both alone and with her ex-boyfriend and artist Ulay. One of the things we were really excited about, was to finally see the result of a big Norwegian performance Marina did last summer in Oslo. She and her film team gathered almost 300 citizens in Ekebergparken, Oslo, at the excact point we believe is Edvard Munch’s view when he felt Skrik/The Scream (1893). Then Marina thaught the participants to find their own scream, which is probably quite challenging, since we Norwegians are a tad quiet and modest people. But the result was emotional and really interesting. Old ones and your ones, women and men, artists and the girl next door. All presenting us with their scream. Wow.

AAA-AAA (1978) video installation presented at Entering the Other Side | Photo: Jan F. Lindsø, Black Forest Magazine

AAA-AAA (1978) video installation presented at Entering the Other Side | Photo: Jan F. Lindsø, Black Forest Magazine

The Scream (2013/14) video installation presented at Entering the Other Side | Photo: Jan F. Lindsø, Black Forest Mag

The Scream (2013/14) video installation presented at Entering the Other Side | Photo: Jan F. Lindsø, Black Forest Mag

We highly recommend you to visit The Kistefos Museum in Jevnaker, Norway and their Marina Abramović exhibition Entering the Other Side this season. They’re open until October, and it is such a beautiful place hidden away on the Norwegian countryside, about one hour drive from Oslo.

Carrying the Skeleton (2008) C- Print, Courtesy Marina Abramovic and Sean Kelly Gallery New York

Carrying the Skeleton (2008) C- Print, Courtesy Marina Abramovic and Sean Kelly Gallery New York

Nothing is Something – The gravitational art of Jólan Van Der Wiel

March 29, 2014 by Jan F. Lindsø Leave a Comment

© Jólan Van Der Wiel

© Jólan Van Der Wiel

When we discovered the art of Jólan Van Der Wiel from Amsterdam in the Netherlands, we were simply amazed. His combination of art and science isn’t just fascinating, but even beautiful handcrafting. As his work tool, Jólan uses the gravitational force to create his art pieces.

In our fascination, we had to contact Jólan to learn more about his work. First of all we wanted to know where he got the ideas for his art:

– Departing from the idea that everything is influenced by gravity, a force with a strongly shaping effect, I intended to manipulate this natural phenomenon by exploiting its own power: magnetism.
My research was titled ‘Nothing is Something’. The aim was to explore and visualize what was always already there, but invisible to the human eye. In search of a means of visualization gravitation caught my attention; as an invisible but omnipresent power, gravity offers the possibility to manifest itself visually within the realm of the material. From the beginning of the project, I intended to take a step back and let the natural phenomenon itself determine the final shape of the object. My role as a designer should be nothing but a supporting one, determining only the conditions under which the object could take shape.

Until now we have only seen his method being used to create furniture-sized objects only, but we can’t help imagine larger scale sculptures being made. Jólan even confirms that this is something he’s already working on:

– My goal is to bring my techniques into many disciplines, we are working on architectural pieces right now.

We can’t wait to see what he comes up with next, and if you’re around Milano next week, Jólan can reveal that he will be there with a new project. For more information about his work and upcoming events, visit his website at jolanvanderwiel.com.

See a video of the making process:

© Jólan van der Wiel

© Jólan van der Wiel

© Jólan van der Wiel

© Jólan van der Wiel

© Jólan van der Wiel

© Jólan van der Wiel

BlackCraft – Coffin Book Shelf on Etsy

March 9, 2014 by Line Evensen Leave a Comment

This week we bring you Black Willow Gallery and their Coffin Book Shelf.

Hand crafted by Saided Garcia, this lovely morbid book shelf will definitly lift some eyebrows. Alltough, we would personally prefer it to be black (or white), we must say it looks pretty cool anyways. Check out this weeks Etsy gem:

© Saide Garcia / Black Willow Gallery

© Saide Garcia / Black Willow Gallery

Etsy_uke9_2

© Saide Garcia / Black Willow Gallery

 

 

 

Vincent Price – The Elegant Side of Evil

March 2, 2014 by Line Evensen Leave a Comment

We have great news! Some of you probably know of the legendary Vincent Price. But for those of you who does not, he was one of the most awesome actors ever to portrait dark and evil characters in horror films and film noir. Now his daughter, Victoria, has launched a website to keep his legacy alive on the Internet. And it’s really awesome!

Vincent Price also did Batman.

Vincent Price also did Batman.

Our first meeting with Vincent was at the end of his career (and his life), in his last feature film which was Edward Scissorhands. Vincent played the role as The Inventor, a role Tim Burton wrote specially for him. The Inventor creates Edward, a human-like boy, and teaches him how to be a loving and reflected human being. But before Edward is physically finished, The Inventor dies, leaving Edward alone with a broken heart, and scissors for hands. The movie is one of our  all time favourites by the way, and if you have’nt seen it, you really should!

Screenshot from Edward Scissorhands.

Screenshot from Edward Scissorhands.

But I digress. Vincent Prices’ daughter recently launched the new website which gives her fathers fans a really personal look into his life, his personality and career. The daughter can tell on her blog that his two favourite aphorisms were

A man who limits his interests limits his life

and

If you are always curious, you will never be bored.

Victoria vividly describes her extroverted fathers curiosity for technology, and she is certain that he would have loved interacting with fans on social media. So her goal is to follow in his footprints and interact with his fans through the site and at horror conventions. He would have wanted it, she tells Fearnet.com. The best of it all, is that this is just the beginning of what she wants to give fans in the future. Sounds really promising!

© www.vincentprice.com

© www.vincentprice.com

A really fun fact we discovered is that Victoria is not a horror fan! But when she describes on the blog why, it’s not so hard to understand her;

Imagine you’re a little kid who absolutely adores your dad. You think he’s the kindest, gentlest, sweetest, most loving person you know. And then imagine that you see him doing horrible things to people–like really horrible–killing them and dipping them in vats of wax! And even worse, you have to watch horrible things happen to him–being burned, boiled alive, hacked to death by angry mobs, just to name a few. How would that make you feel?

For those of us interested in the darker sides of his curriculum, the Edgar Allan Poe related works is pretty obligatory. Also the horror movies from 1960s are a must see (although most of them are recently remade Hollywood style, so don’t pick the wrong one!). Price also did voiceover on Alice Cooper‘s  Welcome to My Nightmare from 1975.

Vincent Price and Alice Cooper.

Vincent Price and Alice Cooper.

Vincent Price was an art lover and collecter, and did actually go to Yale studying Art History. From the 1960s he was involved in the Vincent Price Collection of Fine Art, and the Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College. Another fun fact: He commissioned works of our favourite artist Salvador Dalí!

Vincent Price in The House on the Haunted Hill

Vincent Price in The House on the Haunted Hill

We highly recommend checking out Victoria Price’ VincentPrice.com. Here you’ll find fan resources, news, videoes, stories, pictures and even his famous cook book Cooking with Vincent!

© www.cookingvincent.com

© www.cookingvincent.com

You can also check out the official Youtube channel, the official Facebook site, and their Twitter.

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