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Joseph Wesley Moon Watson The Candles, 2015
wax
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Adrián Villar Rojas The Theater of Disappearance, 2017
‘Everything in Villar Rojas’s project is carefully planned to show its temporal side: What is doomed to disappearance, what cannot be preserved. Villar Rojas unveils this spatial and material fragility to remind us of the fleeting and minuscule presence of our own existence in the universe.’
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Unknown Untitled, 1973
vintage nude with a skeleton
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X-Ray Audio Bone Music (2016)
‘Bone Music, an exhibition currently on show at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, examines the phenomenon of Soviet music bootlegging, a period in which music lovers used x-ray films to record and distribute music, unavailable in the country at the time.’
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Caspar Berger Various (2012-2013)
Dutch artist Caspar Berger is using his own skeleton to create a new series of sculptures.
Skeleton (2012)
Sanctity (2013)
ATTRACTION / SELF-PORTRAIT 30 (2014) Watch an excerpt here
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Casey Weldon Kids Will be Skeletons (2010)
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Alain Séchas Les Papas (1995)
Plastic skeletons, canvases, easels, stools, palettes, brushes, acrylic paint.
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Matthew Day Jackson Terminal Velocity (2008)
‘Jackson created a 3D scan of his own skeleton in fibreglass and dropped it from a great height onto an aluminium car hood.’
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David Cerny Tuned Death (2011)
‘A metallic red skull hanging at the end of a horizontal metal crane rotates atop the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art.’
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Jenny Holzer Lustmord Table (1994)
‘In 1993, at the invitation of the Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, the Sunday magazine of one of Germany’s largest daily newspapers, Jenny Holzer created a series titled Lustmord, prompted by the war in former Yugoslavia where sexual violence against women and girls was used as a strategy and weapon. Taking its title from a German word for “sexually motivated murder,” Lustmord treats sexual violence in its ubiquitous manifestations. It represents these acts from the perspectives of perpetrators, victims, and observers.’
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Agelio Batle Ash Dancer (2016)
‘On a specially-designed, high-frequency vibrating table planted in the middle of San Francisco’s jack fischer gallery lies a life-sized human skeleton made of solid graphite. Artist Agelio Batle has carefully crafted ‘Ash Dancer’ to rest on a precisely-constructed paper countertop. As this violently-shaking surface rattles, the skeletal artwork leaves behind abstract, illustrated impressions of itself. As a result of the unrelenting vibration, the graphite bones slowly disintegrate in the process and will eventually disappear completely.’
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Morris Costumes Undead Cathy & Fred (2014)
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Urs Fischer Various, 2000 – 2007
‘The skeleton figure is of no particular gender or age. The skeleton serves as a representation of anyone.’
Violent Cappuccino. 2007
Undigested Sunset, 2001-2002
Skinny Sunrise, 2000
Skinny Afternoon, 2003
Violent Cappuccino 2, 2007
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Brandon Vickerd Apeshit, 2002
Forged and welded steel, hooked and spun steel wool, silicone
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Unknown Untitled, 2016
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JockPussy FTM Luke Hudson Barebacked By A Skeleton, 2017
‘I’ve got a bone to pick with you! Says Zack in his Halloween costume. Turns out his big cock is way too big for his skeleton costume – nutbuster Luke is to the rescue – ripping Zack’s costume and immediately filling his face with that long schlong. Luke jumps right on top of that rock hard cock – Zack finding just the right spot deep inside Luke. Luke is definitely busting more than ghosts tonight and his treat is a face full of Zack’s cum.’
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Gino De Dominicis Il tempo, lo sbaglio, lo spazio, 1970
‘It is the morning of June 8, 1970 when, on the occasion of the inauguration of the 36th Venice Biennale, an instant of eternity and immortality bursts into the time and space of the lagoon.’
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Sibling London Skull Sweater, 2012
‘Launched in Spring 2008, the fashion brand Sibling was born of a desire to reinvigorate men’s knitwear. Taken from the starting point of traditional pieces such as cashmere twinsets and Breton tops, designers Joe Bates, Sid Bryan and Cozette McCreery have collectively had backgrounds with designers as varied as Alexander McQueen, Giles Deacon, Lanvin, Jonathan Saunders and Bella Freud. In 2015, Joe Bates sadly passed away from cancer at the age of 47. The brand went on hiatus in 2017.’
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Unknown Perverted skeleton fucks a teen witch on Halloween, 2012
‘Looks like Kristine Kahill but I can’t find a full scene anywhere. Same nose and tiny tits. If anyone knows the full scene then I’d really like to see it. I hope it is Kristine.’
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Adam Pyett Various, 2010
‘I decided if I was going to do still lifes I was going to really embrace the genre, the Vanitas tradition, as it has a universal reality. I feel like a lot of the subject matter in, say, Golden Age Dutch still life is not really relevant to us in the same way, but the skull is as relevant as it ever was.’
‘Vanitas Motorhead’
‘Vanitas AC/DC’
‘Vanitas Ramones’
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Jacques de Oliveira Cezar Justin B. Skullpture, 2014
‘My work is highly inspired by the beauty of the anatomy and the classic conception of academic sculpture, with a pinch of trashy pop-culture.’
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Oleg Elagin Death among us, 2014
‘«Death among us» doesn’t need a genre attribution. Its pragmatic simplicity in the synthesis of the technical complexity is quickly decoded by the viewer and creates difficult definable reaction. Irony, existential anxiety, shock, attribution to the already-seen, the question “what is it?” etc.’
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Jason Limon Fragments, 2021
‘My mind absorbs and overflows with thoughts and emotions with no way to be revealed but through marks on a blank surface. There is a curious young soul within me that begs to show its existence. My mind drifts to far of places in hopes of returning with fragments of memories and dreams to share with others.’
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Halstaff’s Animatronic Workshop Skeleton Prototype, 2012
‘This is the first prototype of my animated skeleton with a 3 axis skull, audio driver and a 3 axis arm. It uses 2 Picaxe controllers and 7 servos. It runs completely separate from a computer once programed.’
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Isaac Sprague The Skeleton Man, 1841 – 1887
‘Sprague was born in East Bridgewater, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Sprague, a shoemaker, and his wife, Betsey Sprague. He was a normal child who spent much time swimming. At 12 years, he began to lose weight quickly. His appetite was healthy. Sprague blamed the swimming for his weight loss, but doctors were puzzled. Sprague worked in his father’s shoemaking business and later in his father’s grocery store. The more weight Sprague lost, the weaker he grew. After his parents died, he was too weak to work and was forced to leave his job. In 1865, a sideshow passed through town. He declined a job offer with the troupe, but reconsidered and joined the show. He appeared as The Living Skeleton. He went to New York City and got a job in P. T. Barnum’s American Museum at $80 a week. Sprague’s job ended when the museum burned to the ground in 1868. Sprague married Tamar Moore, and sired three healthy boys upon her. He returned to work with Barnum and other showman. At age 44, Sprague stood five feet six inches, and weighed only 44 pounds. Physicians decided he suffered from extreme muscular atrophy. He died penniless in Chicago, Illinois in 1892.’
*
p.s. Hey. ** jay, Hi. Happy you dug it. The book’s strong. Oh, the man-boy love topic, yes, a guaranteed mood alterer. Grim and hilarious is the best tone? An argument could be made. I know that story of Tony’s. Yeah, I guess I can sort of see the crossover. He and I did an event together in LA. He’s a cool guy. ** Adem Berbic, An endless array of pockets, I can only assume. I’ve been trying to achieve Bresson’s lucidity all my life practically. It feels like I’m underwater here today, but it’s hot water. ** _Black_Acrylic, I think you might like Evenson’s work just in general. Dude, get back into making art! You’re so talented in multiple ways, and I’ve missed having physical evidence of your sensibility. Strongly encouraged! ** Bill, ‘Dark Property’ is a special jewel in his oeuvre. Or it has been to me. For a moment in my overheated, insufficiently coffeed mind/eyes at first I thought you were saying that ‘Salivation Army’ was in the in-flight entertainment list, and I was going to ask what airline please?! ** Steve, No, I haven’t read about that guy, but of course I’ll investigate. Curious indeed. Today it’s supposed to be 95 degrees F, and over the weekend some forecasts say it could get up to 101 degrees F. Kind of an emergency situation here in very unaccustomed Paris. Well, yeah, see him and use him as your excuse to hit London, for sure. ** Chris Kelso, Hi, Chris. It has been a while, I think. Lovely to get to see you. Yes my Paris address is the very same. Thank you! And I will do my best to try to be here when you do Paris Disneyland, of course. I hope all’s ultra-great. ** ⋆˚꩜｡darbbzz⋆˚꩜｡, Lucky piano chords. That sounds so nice: your Busch Garden sojourn, even with the rain. I’m getting desperate to be in an amusement park. Zac and I kind of semi-decided to try to go to Dollywood on our way to or from LA at Halloween because they have this amazing seeming new ride. This one. If you fell asleep, I hope it was deep and cozy. ** Hugo, Hey there. I have very shitty non-decadent portable AC in my pad. and today I’ll find out if it helps at all. I’m happy you’re reading ‘Magician’. ** HaRpEr //, That would be a pretty good title. Any book titled that would surely fly off the shelves. As a fellow former kid tagged problem child, high five. We won. I’ll get the Underscores LP any minute, thank you. ** laura w, Me too, assuming my new habit actually takes. It’s too hot outside to want to go way across town to check out that store I mentioned, but soon. Absolutely nothing I’ve heard or read about ‘Hated Rivalry’ has made me even the teensiest bit curious. I think the real test is whether guys say ‘I love you’ after they’ve rimmed each other. Have the swellest day. ** Malik, Totally, tell me about it. I’m from LA where heatwaves are like getting a visit from your next door neighbor, but here they think such things are a fairytale. Or maybe not anymore. I just found a non-legal stream possibility for ‘I Love Boosters’, so I should be good. Thanks for the report. Sounds like what the doctor ordered. I have yet to find an album among the huge amount of albums that Nyege Nyege Tapes releases that isn’t quite exciting. Yeah, what a label! Very best to you, pal. ** Caesar, Hey. The heat is pretty unbearable, but of course I’ll bear it. Please teleport your winter over here, if you can find a way. I am very interested in Uruguayan literature because I don’t think I’ve ever read any. I noted those three names, and I’ll get on it with them as my starting point. Thanks you so much. France did win, and everyone was smiling here yesterday. Well, not everyone, but a lot. Smiling Parisians is something one notices. Mm, I think I’ll wait a bit before I talk about the new film because we’re still fiddling with the script a little. ‘Extremely Dark’? Curious title pick. I can’t wait to see that. I know the name Eric LaRocca, but I’m not sure that I’ve read him. Patrick Wilson and Javier Bardem aren’t my type, so I don’t have a clue if they’re sexy. I mean I can guess they are. That would make sense. Enjoy your coldness. Or imagine me enjoying it. ** Sarah, Hi! I’m good, busy doing stuff as always, and anxiously awaiting the end of our heatwave, which is making it hard to do stuff. I’m glad your book is being happily received. Are you working on anything new? Onwards and upwards 4ever! ** Laura, Hi. Lovely wordage about Evenson. I hope he peeked in here and saw that. Well, I don’t think dead people are even the most minuscule particles of anything, so I think they’re not even themselves enough to forget us. I’ll find out about our portable ac’s abilities in about, oh, two hours when the heatwave officially begins its murder spree. I hope yours is a magician. ** Thom, Hi, Thom! It’s a real good one: that novel. Worth hunting. Agree about punchline writing. Quite hard to ace. Poets can sometimes be great at it. James Tate, for instance. My New Band Believe, right? Yeah, I’m completely blown away that he even knows my work much less was able to make amazing art from something I did. Crazy. Black Dice just played here, and I missed it, darn. Late July, okay, great, bated breath. And your schemes for the press are way exciting too. The heat here is making curiosity seem like a bit of a luxury, but I’m still in touch with it. I hope today makes you hungry. ** Right. Today you get the third installment in the blog’s Skeleton’s franchise. You know what to do with it. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
I don’t think your brand of lucidity needs comparison. At least from where I’m standing. I’d certainly trade limbs for it, as well.
I got a little hung up on ‘Lustmord Table’ for obvious personal reasons. Kicking up dull questions about whether ‘responding’ to something like that through art means sort of co-opting it for a separate, insular discourse. Not that I’m saying that in some moralising, ‘no you shouldn’t’ way. All that stuff there in the 90s was the occasion for so much twee, condescending shit from the West. To date, I think the only worthwhile Western take on what happened is Baudrillard’s articles for Libération: https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.18574/nyu/9780814723708.003.0007/pdf?licenseType=open-access. He rips Sontag a new one, and deservedly so in my opinion.
Isaac Sprague made me sad, but maybe he loved his job, what do I know. He roundaboutly reminded me of Kaspar Hausar a little. That’s my favourite film ever, did I ever mention that?
Back in the 80s we grew up with this curious advert for videotapes with a skeleton explaining their benefits. It will always be deeply ingrained in the memory of all those who saw it. Since then, I would subconsciously expect all skeletons to have a similar posh English accent.
Cool skeleton art. Speaking of bones, my poetry chapbook “Skull Music” (featuring the skull-like part of Eagle Rock as a cover image) is coming out at the end of the year. How’s that for a not-so-smooth bit of self-promotion, haha…
Things are cooking on my end vis-a-vis the imminent move, plus all kinds of logistics I won’t bore you with. But everything’s on track. Been looking into the tax situation here & it looks like I’ll have to file taxes in both Germany & Spain for another round of boring reasons. Do you pay taxes in both the US & France, or is that an inappropriate question that ask out in the open?
I may have to push my Paris visit back by a couple of weeks. There’s too much on my plate right now & even after I move into the guest apartment I was telling you about I won’t exactly enter R&R mode overnight. But I’ll keep you posted on those plans.
Sorry to hear about the heatwave engulfing you over there. Spaniards have all kinds of methods to cope with those. One I heard recently for hot nights is to sleep under a humid blanket. Don’t know if that sounds appealing or helpful to you at all, but I thought I’d pass it along. I suspect most people would get the urge to piss in that scenario. What helped me in the past are wet bandanas wrapped around the head (& auto-correct just made that “wet bananas” before I caught it). Here’s hoping you find a way to stay cool.
Has the hunt for a producer begun or are you guys still fine-tuning the script? Everything else good on your end?
Sorry to hear the heat is still an issue, Dennis. It was pretty comfortable in Berlin, even got a little cold for summer for a few days.
This skeleton porn subgenre, ha! I love the sweater, though that massive hump can’t be comfortable.
One of the things I love about Brian Evenson is the clarity of his prose, especially in the midst of all the lack of clarity in his characters’ perceptions and psychology. He’s pretty much a model for The Gotham Grammarian’s principles. I’m currently slogging through a remarkably sloppy novel (from an experienced writer whose work I’ve enjoyed), and I keep thinking of rewriting some sentences and using them as examples in Gotham Grammarian.
Bill
Rule 34 arrives for skeletons!
You’ve got an air conditioner that’s not very efficient? If the whole summer’s gonna be very hot, is it worth investing in a better model?
The cover of PARADISE METAL caught my eye on Bandcamp: a middle-aged man with a huge beard dressed in black robes holding a guitar.
Anthology’s showing a promising film this weekend: a restoration of Chris Jolly’s 2001 no-budget CURSE OF THE SEVEN JACKALS, shot in a hotel room in Athens, Georgia, with performances and a soundtrack from some of the Elephant 6 crew.
Gimmicky memoir titles make me irrationally angry unless they don’t seem like something that a group of corporate types spent hours trying to perfect. Titles like ‘The Naked Civil Servant’ are great in my eyes.
Haha, the two pornos are great. I like silly porn like that, though I suspect I’m in the minority there seeing as other people watch porn for its primary utility. I haven’t watched porn in that context since I was a teenager. After transitioning, watching gay porn makes me feel like a voyeur, and straight porn doesn’t interest me unless it’s ‘shemale’ porn.
I think the heat is coming to the UK tomorrow, and when it’s a hot day I always think about how nice being a skeleton must be. Running out of my skin suit and no nerves sensing anything bad or any pores for sweat to leak out of. I was sort of delirious today due to what I think were allergies and had to space out and listen to Joanne Robertson and Popol Vuh. With the fan going I’m expecting my room to sound like a third rate shoegaze festival within the next couple of days.
I started working on this poem yesterday that I’m very excited about. It’s called ‘I Was Corrupted In My Youth’. I’m also still working on this story that I keep tweaking and re-arranging, but I’m also excited with what I’ve got there. When both of those are done I’ll read through my novel and see what I can do with it. I’m honestly pretty good with juggling projects. That’s actually my ideal way of working because you can pause and work on something else if you’re indecisive.
From the pic u sent that amusement park looks so crazy cool! WOW! Was on shrooms right now so dont really have much to say…
Ohhh my Korg Drum Machine came in!!
So excited to use that.
DOnt work at lil cesaers right now but might be working at 711 soon. Haha funny story to that. Been getting scam calls thought it was a scam, the result awkward but funny initial impression
Now that I got one annoying trip out the way, I want to plan my fun trip
Europe!!! Hopefully…if not then New York again. Mainly want to see the edm scene there and art and such.
Dont worry, I have a pragmatic and logical plan there I can explain in future
Im just gonna send this as it is instead of dwelling on it. later.
cant find a place in my studio to chill so I just accepted I am the space and let all the negative flow away.
Drew a beautiful picture for Bast.
101 degrees and humid sounds like absolute hell (i think paris is humid?). like being boiled alive. praying for your aircon to make it through.
at least france was in a good mood today! i have not been following the world cup, i’ll confess. every world cup they run all these articles about how americans are finally getting into soccer and then the minute it ends we collectively lose interest.
i had no idea about my new band believe. i’ll have to check them out. today i had no idea what to listen to i just played alien lanes all day. i confess to not being as devoted to gbv as you but i do like to play bee thousand and alien lanes when i don’t know what i want to listen to because every song just flows into the other so well.
incoming point and click game recommendation for you: birth by madison karhh.
stay cool, literally and figuratively!
hi Dennis!
ty! <3
so cruelly shagged out from all of the whatever at play so this will be epigrammatic minus the funny, meaning just short =(
(you keep me a bit in reading anyway tho, huh?)
girl getting banged by the hung mechanical skeleton is the star piece here imo and it made me p emo lol. almost looks like she had to hold him together, such necessary tender balance. the artifice of it all endeared itself to me hugely.
tell you what, maybe i’ll just stay ~officially~ hopeful for both of us, uh, woman of stunned faith etc ^_^
go get your airco! mine is a straight up wiz, hasn’t tempted into eroticism just yet but it wouldn’t even be cringe, the way i overheat in its absence =)
but how’s your script, Dennis! almost almost there, yea? anything else shareable..? <3 tell it i send kisses and petting when you guys hang out next, should it help lol.
xoxo