Bob Georgeson, Father, when will my dress be ready?, 2010, Photomontage
Showing posts with label eroticism and religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eroticism and religion. Show all posts
Father, when will my dress be ready?
But it says here...
Bob Georgeson, But it says here..., 2009? Photomontage
Another one from the Brides Of Christ series that I had forgotten I had done! An interesting part of the creative process...I don't know if other artists have the same experience. Guess one is busy looking forward much of the time, so it is a surprise to go back through the files and discover these works that have never seen the light of day. Either that or I was so smashed I just didn't remember doing it...no, that can't be the case because I never get out the spray adhesive while inebriated...nothing worse than gluing ones face to the table...
God moves in a mysterious way
I came across this nun doll in an church opportunity shop. Anglican surprisingly. Now I don't collect dolls (well, not many) but I have never seen one like this before. Who made it and why? Was it a gift (to a child)? An attempt to determine ones path in life? And how many nuns do you see wearing lipstick and mascara? Who knows...but for $4 it had to become part of my collection of curiosities...
I shudder to think that it might have been a plaything for a cardinal...
Surrealism - Part Two
The Grand Master - Luis Bunuel
After my revelatory discussions with Dusan Marek, who had taught me that Surrealism was more a way of life than an art movement, and my meeting with Denys Finney, who had opened the possibility of me becoming an artist, I started to study my new interest with passion. Influential books were:
- Dada: art and anti-art by Hans Richter
- The History of Surrealist Painting by Marcel Jean
- Diary of a Genius by Salvador Dali
- Surrealism by Herbert Read
- Selected Poems and Nadja by Andre Breton
- Surrealists on Art ed. by Lucy Lippard
- The Road to the Absolute by Anna Balakian
- Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp by Pierre Cabanne
But the person who (for me) galvanised the essence of surrealism was Luis Bunuel, in my opinion the most compleat surrealist of all. The first Bunuel film I saw was Viridiana. The effect of this I can only liken to a Buddhist achieving enlightenment. And the story of it's making, and subsequent release, is as surreal as the film itself.
Fernando Rey and Sylvia Pinal in Viridiana 1961
The story is purely de Sadeian in concept, and could have (like de Sade's Justine) been subtitled The folly of virtue. But where the Divine Marquis attempts to shock with his pornography, Bunuel shocks with subversive ideas, and it is this that makes the film so dangerous. Bunuel said, 'What I am aiming to do in my films is to disturb people and destroy the rules of a kind of conformism that wants everyone to think that they are living in the best of all possible worlds'. In Viridiana he takes a swipe at just about everything, from religion to society, moral standards, obsession, class divisions, innocence and trust. In Viridiana there are no winners...everyone loses eventually. I watch Bunuel not to be entertained, but to learn...
Bunuel had returned to Spain from a 25 year self-imposed exile in Mexico to make this film. The script had been submitted to the Government censors who took umbrage with the closing scene, and Bunuel modified it accordingly. Why they allowed the rest of the script is still a mystery. Bunuel shot the film in his usual economic, to the point, often just one take style. The negatives were smuggled into France and the film premiered at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival as Spain's official entry where it was awarded the Palme d'Or and received a 7 minute standing ovation. It was promptly banned by the Franco government in Spain and blacklisted by the Vatican as 'sacreligious and blasphematory'. I suspect that Bunuel was as honored by this response as he was in receiving the Golden Palm. The master had struck again...
The Temptation of Saint Anthony
"Go out and see" Saint Anthony is reported to have said. It might be a useful lesson for art teachers to impart to their students, and the story of this ascetic and his trials in the desert has been a favourite of artists for centuries. On one hand a vehicle for the depiction of the triumph of piety over evil, on the other for the temptations of the flesh in the form of phantom women. Saint Anthony was an Egyptian Coptic but I have never come across a work that shows him as middle-eastern in appearance, and the phantoms are invariably Caucasian as well. Mmmm...he thinks...I have just given myself an idea! Maybe I should forget this blogging rubbish and get busy on the 'real' Anthony with some Nubian goddesses in the bomb shelled Libyan desert...
But before I do, some of my favourites...we begin with Paolo Veronese...
Paolo Veronese, Temptation of St Anthony, 1552-3, Oil on canvas, Musee des Beaux-Arts, Caen
An interesting comparison with the earlier work on paper below. From the fairly 'mainstream' Renaissance style he has gone straight for the jugular (so to speak) in this Mannerist masterpiece of chiaroscuro and composition. Anthony is about to get pounded with the hoof of a goat while the female figure claws his palm with her nails while languorously dangling an exposed breast over his eyes as demonic figures lurk in the background. It's almost like Saturday night at the Wyndham pub...
Paolo Veronese, Temptation of St Anthony, 1552, Pen and chalk on paper, Musee du Louvre, Paris
Felicien Rops says of his version: " Here is more or less what I wanted Satan to say to the good Anthony. I want to show you that you are mad Anthony, to worship your abstractions! That your eyes may no longer search in the blue depths for the face of Christ, nor for incorporeal virgins! Your Gods have followed those of Olympus. But Jupiter and Jesus did not carry off eternal Wisdom, nor Venus and Mary eternal Beauty! Even if the Gods are gone, Woman remains. The love of Woman remains and with it the abounding love of Life."
Felicien Rops, Temptation of St Anthony, 1878, Etching and aquatint, Felician Rops Museum, Namur, Belgium.
Here, an almost comic Satan displaces Christ from the crucifix, and replaces him with a engaging nude. Rops nearly always laces his eroticism with a generous dose of humour. The normal INRI at the top of the cross has been turned into EROS. Perhaps Saint Anthony is more horrified of Rop's imagination than he is of the elements that make up the picture? It is interesting to see the preparatory drawing for the female figure, and the change that has occurred in the final print. I like the shroud ringing the breasts, and the garter and black stay ups are always a nice touch...
Felicien Rops, study for Temptation of St Anthony, 1878, Etching, Felician Rops Museum, Namur, Belgium.
Max Ernst takes a different tack and looks at the second of Saint Anthony's temptations where he was attacked by visions of demons. Influenced by the extremes of Matthius Grunewald and Hieronymus Bosch his hallucinatory vision allows for some of his favourite motifs to appear. Painted in 1945 it reflects on the horrors of war. A good reason not to venture into the desert alone...
Max Ernst, Temptation of St Anthony, 1945, Oil on canvas, Wilhelm-Lehmbruck Museum, Duisberg, Germany
...plus my own humble version (with apologies to Nan Goldin for the appropriation of the blonde). It just fitted perfectly! Almost got the Coptic bit right though...
Bob Georgeson, Temptation of St Anthony. 2010, Photomontage
...mmmm
Enough of the pontification! Who really cares about the state of art? Well, I do but I am not going to let it get in the way of my primary interests! After all, what can be more endearing than a beautiful derriere and seamed stockings? And I just love the look on his face...
Bob Georgeson, ...mmmm, 2010, Photomontage
Night nurse
Well, you gotta start somewhere...first the blogosphere, next Bollywood, then Cannes and maybe even Fyshwick!
Eros & Thanatos
Bob Georgeson, Holy Grail, 2010. Photomontage. Private collection.
An Easter present...
I have been asked on occasion about the process that leads to works such as this. I collect images that I like, thinking that one day they may be useful. They are cut out using a scalpel and cutting mat. The subject matter follows in the dada/surrealist tradition of sex and death, religion versus freedom. There is nothing particularly original in this. Call me stuck in a time warp if you like but in so far as art is concerned I think that very little of interest has been done since the dada revolt and the demise of the surrealist 'movement'. For me the surrealistic aesthetic lives on!
In this picture the background takes views of the dome in St. Peters basilica and throws them together in a distortion that creates two circles (life and death). The crucifix came from a photo of a site in Europe where a massacre of the innocents had taken place...I can't remember exactly the location. It just happened to be the right tones and size although I did like the chains as an added double entendre. The stockinged legs and rather ample derriere are courtesy of Lucy L'Vette, a porn star who specialises in legs, feet and nylon fetishes. What is it about a pair of shapely legs in black thigh high stockings that is so universally erotic?
The communion cup's origin is unknown, possibly also from the Vatican. It just happened to fit the composition with the cross at the grip aligning nicely with Lucy's backside. The position of her head aligns with the genitals of Christ and the receptacle of the chalice. Out comes the spray adhesive...it's glue time!
Holy Grail is from the Brides of Christ series...
Toe be or not toe be
Bob Georgeson, Untitled, 2010. Photomontage
I am interested in online collaboration...
The above work goes back a while. I kinda like some of the things happening in it but always wondered whether it was just stating the obvious, and needed some other element to 'finish' it. As a consequence it has sat in the cupboard until now. Here is your chance to win a signed original Bob Georgeson artwork posted to the address of your choice! Suggest ways in which this work could be improved, other than the obvious 'stick it up your #$%&' or 'put a match to it'. You can also send me the elements you want added. I will cut in suggestions and let's see where we end up...
You can collaborate by posting a comment, or by email (which can be found on my profile)...
Desecration in the Church
Bob Georgeson, Time of Desecration, 2012
...for Alberto Moravia, who's Time of Desecration is one of my all time favourite novels, and for all those babies who have pissed on the priest at baptism...
Thanks to Suzanne for modelling...
The Brides of Christ
Bob Georgeson, The Inspection, 2010
Bob Georgeson, Abandonment, 2010. Photomontage
Bob Georgeson, Angels, 2010. Photomontage
Bob Georgeson, Confirmation, 2010. Photomontage
Bob Georgeson, Temptation of St Benedict, 2010. Photomontage
Bob Georgeson, Two primates discussing the role of women in the church, 2010. Photomontage
Bob Georgeson, Will you stop dripping wax on the floor!, 2009. Photomontage
All images are original cut and paste...not digital!
And are for sale at ridiculously reasonable prices...senior's discounts etc.
The Brides of Christ series is about the relationship between religion and eroticism...