The Juxbox: Threadful Photography

Okay, let's picture boundaries in photography. Yeah, in your head. Go on. They're two dimensional, they preserve moments and yet transient, they're such a square. Alright, now threw that out the window. Yes. Out. The window.

And ladies and gentlemen, let us give a big round-up applause to Craigie Horsfield and Maurizio Enzeri, whose works crossed boundaries that created something  new and yet have  roots in a traditional domestic craft. Tapestry for Horsfield, embroidery for Enzeri.

I've chanced to Horsfield's works last year on me and my sister's last year  Euro trip. Before we head back to Eindhoven after spending the weekend at Zeeland, Oom Wim and Tante Thera decided to take us to a brief stop in Antwerp and go to MuHKA. ANd then BAM!!! Big ass carpets on the wall that just beyond anything I ever seen. Now THIS is MODERN ART bitches! I felt lucky, and thought that this could be very much our Bayeux Tapestry (dubbed as the first comic book, basically it is a loooooong embroidered cloth depicting events leading up to the Battle of Hastings, I know this from reading up another  comic; Bryan Talbot's The Adventures of Luther Arkwright).  

My photos didn't do it justice, really. Because the real works are textured and tactile and the images just sort of jump in your face. It was brilliant. 

 You  can read about the exhibition here.

Okay, now, Maurezio Enzeri. His works is something I stumbled on the Internet, natch This guy embroidered  photos straight-up  and it is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Furthermore, this is something that we could simulate. Somehow. Work those fingers, boys and girls!!!

The Juxbox: Natural Curiosities

I'm a hoarder by nature and with my interest in anatomy, science, books, and decorating it's no great surprise that one of my dreams is having my own Wunderkammer.  Isn't just grand to have a roomful of books and interesting objects and whatnots. Too be frank the dream, as any good dreams are, is a bit far fetched. I would be more happy enough to settle with a copy of Albertus Seba's Cabinet of Natural Curiosities (remember this please, especially on my birthday). Or perhaps not, and went collecting little by little until I die, in the meanwhile I will share my collection here, this blog is my weenie web wunderkammer after all. 

How could I not envy him, cool job, awesome house, even fabulous clothings.

Albertus Seba's famous plates

The Juxbox: The Anatomixers

My fascination with the art of human anatomy probably started when I entered university. Without ever really knowing why, my nextdorm neighbors were always studious medical students whom everyone of them I often find perusing a hefty book while eating, gossiping, or bathroom going, et cetera.  It was Sobbotta Atlas of the Human Anatomy. Well that, and I began collecting metal cassettes, great bands like Carcass and Cannibal Corpse often depicted scenes of operations cover album or lyrics. 

Bloody hypertrophy of papillae spewing urethritis like urticaria

Septicaemia filled dermis scorched by acidic uric nocturia.

Verrucose urethra

Glutenous condyloma

Ureterocoeles excreting warm, decaying, cystic pemphigus

Gnawing at flesh with rancid uraturial lust.

Manifestation On Verrucose Urethra - Carcass ( from the "Reek of Putrefaction" (!988) album)

But, it was seeing Gray's Anatomy on a bookshelf (couldn't buy it, too expensive for me back then) that got me hooked totally on medical illustration so that every now and then I would google myself some. In a way these images bring back my childhood dream of becoming a Jolly Roger hoisting buccaneer. Ah enough yours truly, let us enjoy the works of modern-day artists who managed to dissect human bodies profoundly. 

First I present you, Valerio Carrubba. Like the great  Andreas Vesalius, Carrubba's stoic subjects were posed in front of a pastoral settings. As if having your internal organs exposed was just another day at the office.

The Juxbox: Sofia Coppola and Ray Caesar

Great minds, they say, think alike.

I have been biding my time, say like two years, to watch Sofia Coppola's "Marie Antoinette". And one glimpse of the blue paneled carriage just sweep me off my feet. This pâtisserie of a film is just  so girlishly gorgeous and my eyes greedily devours all of its the visual delights. But a nagging feeling of the deja vu  quickly followed. And I found a  man called Ray Caesar that could give enough answers before I sing myself to sleep.

You're currently catching my drift, I believe..... And yes there's more.....

THE JUX BOX: Boucher, la Tour et de Pompadour

I got addicted to the idea of juxtaposing art and decor (and everything else considerably) after finding Whistler's Peacock Room. I soon stumbled to another blue green room, in a painting called "La dejeuner"  by François Boucher, one of the front runners of the French - Rococo decorative art. Ah, even the artworld agreed in giving breakfast a very special place,  most important meal of the day indeed. (Check these brekkie-titled paintings from my favorite Impressionists here, here, and here)

And this painting brought me straight to the splendour of Madame de Pompadour, his patroness.

I have a suspicion that she fancied the color teal too. Somewhat confirmed by another portrait of her by Maurice Quentin de La Tour.