‘To understand the Belgian artist Stéphane Mandelbaum, it is best to begin at the end of his life. Few agree on how he lived, but most agree on how he died. It was garish and violent. He was shot in Namur, in central Belgium. Acid was splashed on his face to make his body harder to identify. His corpse was thrown into a landfill. He was twenty-five years old. His bright, brief life and his art-brut style are often compared to those of Jean-Michel Basquiat, but whereas Basquiat found his way to the center of the art world, Mandelbaum was always an outsider. His life was a mixture of realities and self-imposed fictions that were so potent that even he forgot who he was. At the crucial moment of his death, Mandelbaum thought he was a hardened criminal when, in truth, he was closer to a doughy artist, a controversial but ultimately bashful poet of the visual.
‘His death came in December 1986 when he had attempted to steal a painting by Amedeo Modigliani called The Woman with the Cameo from an elderly woman’s home in Ixelles, a tony suburb of Brussels, along an avenue studded with art deco buildings. He had been promised money for the painting from friends who had connections to the black market. Having made almost no money from selling his own art, which was largely deemed too perverse and risqué, he desperately needed the funds. The problem was that there is no such painting by Modigliani called The Woman with the Cameo. What he stole was entirely fake. It is impossible to know whether Mandelbaum was aware of this or not—or whether or not the woman who owned it knew—but, when he turned it over, his buyers realized the truth and murdered him. That is, at least, the most agreed upon story. Almost nothing about Mandelbaum is certain.
The recent Mandelbaum retrospective in the tucked-away gallery of graphic art in Paris’ Centre Pompidou was preceded by a series of warnings that the exhibition was particularly vulgar and violent. It was composed of about a hundred of his works, most of them works on paper, done in ballpoint pen, charcoal, and colored pencil. The exhibition was a rarity: never before had he been given a major museum show. And for good reason: Mandelbaum was a curator and historian’s nightmare. Sorting through what is true and what his false about Mandelbaum is an enormous challenge. Even in his own diaries he lied about what he had done, claiming, for instance, that he had frequented a prostitute who never lived, and that he had robbed a home on a street where no such home exists.
‘Mandelbaum was born in Brussels in 1961. He was diagnosed as dyslexic as a boy, so his parents enrolled him in an alternative boarding school, from which he came home only on weekends. Learning to write was difficult, and he turned to drawing as an easier means of expression. His drawings frequently incorporated writing, though, and like Basquiat, the text was often riddled with spelling errors, both intentional and unintentional. At sixteen, he began studying at the Academy Fine Arts De Watermael-Boitsfort, where he began to draw more pornographic works. He called his notebook “my pigsty.” He began training in combat sports, dressing more sharply, and drawing increasingly sexualized figures.
‘In 1979, he transferred to the School of Plastic and Visual Arts in Uccle, where his style developed further. He became focused on tragic histories, mediated through the comic and the outrageous. He drew mostly profiles. In one of his best, “Der Goebbels,” from 1980, he drew Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda. Mandelbaum depicted him with great strength and heft but also as evil: his eyes dark with charcoal, his fists clenched and raised. He is yelling something. From his mouth come white circles, like a comic-strip balloon. The features are exacting—Goebbels’s hairline is receding slightly but perfectly combed, his face shadowed ominously. His teeth are invisible, his mouth open wide. Whatever he is saying—the bubble is left blank—is of great power and importance. Mandelbaum used white space to depict the historical void. His drawings are so packed with words and precise details that these blank expanses become all the more powerful. In another drawing, also from 1980, called “Composition (Portrait of Bacon),” which he drew using ballpoint and felt pens, he depicted various angles of Francis Bacon, whom he greatly admired, leaving white space only in the top left corner. The rest of the work is full of images of Bacon as well as versions of figures Bacon had drawn, done in Mandelbaum’s sickly, pornographic style, which evokes Egon Schiele. Mandelbaum drew words within words. He wrote “FOU” (meaning “crazy”) creating the shape of the letters with words that describe the colors Bacon favored (“blanc, rouge, vert”). Other words scattered throughout the drawing seem to track a shifting set of feelings. “Vive la vie” (“Live life”), he writes; then, in enormous lettering: “Salope” (“Bitch”). One imagines the white space he leaves to soon be filled by new, spontaneous feelings and emotions: fresh views of Bacon, his own latest thoughts and frustrations.
‘Mandelbaum’s art gives the impression of constant motion—the shifting feelings of a single work jumble together and on top of each other. This might be why he so quickly gave up on engraving (of which there are several examples in the Pompidou show), favoring the ease and speed of drawing instead. In the period between 1980 and his death in 1985, Mandelbaum saw a huge amount of art in Brussels, reading widely, especially on Japanese art and Jewish history, and worked tirelessly, often sleeping for only a few hours each night. Between 1980 and 1982 especially, he created the vast majority of his oeuvre, what would ultimately be his legacy.
‘It’s frankly difficult to judge the life and works of an artist who lived to only twenty-five. His interests jumped between exotic Japanese images of octopuses performing cunnilingus to faux-fawning depictions of Nazis. But his interest ultimately centered on outsiders: thugs, war criminals, artists intrigued by the perverse and unaccepted, like Arthur Rimbaud and Pier Paolo Pasolini. In 1980, he drew a profile of Pasolini, perhaps sensing a similarity between himself and the Italian director who was both gay and known for directing perhaps the most grotesque film of all time, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, an updated version of the Marquis de Sade’s libertine classic. Next to his drawing of Pasolini, Mandelbaum pasted a small picture of Christ, blood streaming from his chest, a winged cherub on his back. In the style of Pasolini’s films, Mandelbaum perverted this image, pasting another small cutout of an uncircumcised penis over Christ’s waist. In another drawing, from 1983, called “Dream of Auschwitz,” Mandelbaum depicted an erect penis next to the gates of the camp; in another, from 1982, “Kischmatores: Portrait of Arié Mandelbaum,” he drew a black-and-white image of his father, Arié—a known painter and art teacher—above a colorful picture of a Nazi officer. In one of his most disturbing works, “The Nazi, Saint Nicholas, the Brothers, and the Grandmother,” from 1978, he painted his family portrait but gave himself, as a boy, a yellow Star of David and added in a Nazi officer and the Catholic bishop St. Nicholas standing next to his family.
‘Mandelbaum’s art was about these kinds of additions—a penis to Christ, a Nazi general to his family portrait. These things existed—Christ had genitalia; Mandelbaum’s Jewish family had been persecuted—but they had also been buried, whether out of decorum or grief. Mandelbaum, however, saw it as his artistic task to dredge up everything. His desire to depict the people he most admired was not just about veneration but about testing his own versions of himself against those he most respected. In the case of Bacon, Anne Montfort, the exhibition’s curator, writes in one of the catalog essays, “These, however, exceed simple homage because they offer the artist the opportunity to measure himself against the British painter.”
‘In 1985, Mandelbaum had his first two exhibitions, one at the Galerie Hugo Godderis in Furnes, in northwest Belgium, and then, later in the year, one at the Galerie Christine Colmant in Brussels, the latter of which he dedicated to his father (and also to an infamous pimp and sex trafficker whom he had never met). In these shows the year before his death, his works start to enter into a kind of crossover genre that had already begun to define his life: a mix of truth and untruth. The transgression was less about any kind of particular crudity than it was about creating a transgressive, shifting identity. Around this time, he had fallen in with the Brussels underworld, at first through painting their portraits, and then through living their lifestyles. He spent time with thugs in the then-shady Brussels neighborhood of Matonge, stole a series of netsuke statuettes, assaulted and robbed a car collector. In 1986, he went to Zaire, to visit the childhood home of his wife, Claudia. The real intention of the trip, however, was to illegally traffic rare African artifacts back to Belgium and to sell them to collectors on the black market. On October 12 of that year, he stole the fake Modigliani. It was almost as if he couldn’t help translating the transgressive nature of his art to his own life.
‘The process of self-creation is a fundamental one to art. Mandelbaum sliced his entire mode of being into distinct contradictions. He came from a Jewish family, but he drew and painted fetishized images of handsome Nazi generals. His sexuality was uncertain, but he was married to a woman, and his artworks abounded with a rejection of these truths: “fucking Jew,” “fucking gay Jew”—these words scrawled largely and crudely behind small figures of painters and poets he admired. He was not a criminal when he began to paint portraits of prostitutes, thugs, pimps, and gambling bosses, but perhaps they led him to become one. He bragged of robberies he had never committed—until he began to commit robberies. He created a self that did not exist until it did. In January 1987, children discovered his body—his face chemically disfigured, two bullets in his skull. His life took the shape of a myth, the distance between truth and fiction still nearly impossible to parse.’ — Cody Delistraty
____
Further
Stéphane Mandelbaum Site
Book: STÉPHANE MANDELBAUM, UNE MONOGRAPHIE
The Unknowable Artist: Stéphane Mandelbaum
A Good-For-Nothing Capable of All: Stéphane Mandelbaum
Stéphane Mandelbaum, Edgy Art and a Life Violently Cut Short
How an Unsolved Murder Led to a Prestigious NYC Art Exhibition
Stéphane Mandelbaum, peintre défiguré à l’acide, par Gilles Sebhan, écrivain
Stéphane Mandelbaum @ The Drawing Center
Stéphane Mandelbaum at The Drawing Center
Stéphane Mandelbaum, ni juif, ni gangster, artiste
____
Extras
Stéphane Mandelbaum (1961-1986)
Stephane Mandelbaum au Centre Pompidou
Stéphane Mandelbaum, réalisation Jean-Pierre Sougy
LA SAINTETE STEPHANE, un documentaire de Gérard Preszow
___________
___
Show
Mishima
Composition (Portrait of Bacon), 1980
Der Goebbels, 1980
Pier Paolo Pasolini (with the Pietà d’Antonello dof Messine, 1477-1478), 1980
Autoportrait, 1980
Arthur Rimbaud, 1980
Bic, 1980
Pierre and Jose, 1985
June, 1981
Rainer, 1982
Turk, 1980
Ernst Rohm, 1981
P. de Max, 1984
Die Portrait von Kafka, 1985
Pasolini, 1980
L’Empire des Sens, 1983
Francis Bacon II, 1981
Composition (Masque), 1983
Bar, 1983
Double Autoportrait, 1984
Goebbels, 1980
Viens dans mon… Dessin au stylo bille, 1983
Etalon, 1980
Untitled (Cartes Postale), 1985
Composition (mask figure), 1981
Autoportait, 1983
Untitled, 1985-86
Pasolini III, 1981
Mazel-tov, 1983
A. Rimbaud, 1980
Sans titre, 1976
Untitled, 1982
Quartier de plaisir, 1984
Autoportrait, 1986
Saint Nicholas nazi, 1979
Portrait de Jose, 1984
Sans titre (Joakim Diambote), 1986
Orient, 1984
The Opium, 1987
Pollock, 1983
*
p.s. Hey. ** James Bennett, Thank you so much, James. ** tomk, Hi, bud. Thanks, man. And I did indeed eat a trough of cold sesame noodle yesterday, so you’re magic on top of everything else. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Thank you. Pretty lowkey, some friends came over for a bit to celebrate or whatever. It was good. Yeah, your opinion and the opinions of a lot of people I trust have put ‘Saltburn’ in the ‘only with a gun to my hea’d category. Two broken wrists was hell on earth. Just trying to get onto the jet to fly back home with my baggage was a torture chamber, not to mention 6+ weeks of trying to live with essentially no hands. I don’t recommend it. A private GbV gig would have made my b’day perfect, thank you. Love sharing half of the cold sesame noodle that Zac made me for my birthday with you somehow, G. ** Charalampos, Thank you, sir. ** Black_Acrylic, The blog has earned its keep then. Phew on the space between you and the class, as frustrating as that delay might also be. ** Bzzt, Hey, nice to see you! Thanks. And positive vibes galore back from somewhat dreary (if you count the sky) Paris. ** Daniel, Daniel! Thank you much, maestro. I hope you’re doing absolutely splendidly. ** alex, Hi, alex! So nice to see you! Bresson was definitely Catholic growing up and all of that, but I’m not sure if he practiced, as it were, as an adult. I’m thinking … not? Excellent news about the prose poem. I had a lingering cold nonsense end of year too. And now I seem to triggered some painful nerve action in my leg, so obstacles galore. Don’t let ‘Moby Dick’ wear you out. Abandon ship if need be. Yes, please keep me up with you whenever it doesn’t interfere with you and yours. ** Steve Erickson, Thanks. Ha ha, GbV on the screens at HRC is a hell freezes over situation. Anyway, I skipped the nachos because Zac gave me cold sesame noodle, so I was spared a big dollop of Kiss and Guns ‘n’ Roses and Journey for the moment. Right, budget-less, I know that one very well. ** ellie, Hi. So happy you’re wonderful. So deserved. And thank you for the extra effort to emoji me. It upturned my lips. Have a most lovely post-my-birthday day. ** Zak Ferguson, Thank you, Zak, and thank for the Bresson paean on top of that. It’s most welcome. And of course I’m in utter agreement with you. ** Jamie, Hey, buddy! It’s been a while. So good to see you. I’m okay, still headlong in trying to finish the film mostly. Getting by. What about you, more importantly? What’s been filling your time and you? The artist up above was from Brussels coincidentally, for whatever that’s worth. Love, me. ** Tosh Berman, Hi. ‘Les anges du péché’ is before Bresson had fully found his style, but it’s still worth seeing, for sure. Zac’s and my preference for using non-actors is definitely influenced heavily by Bresson’s dictum and its results vis-a-vis the performances in his films. I think there’s also some influence from the fact that both Zac and I are extremely interesting in the documentary form. Historically, Gisele liked to work with non-actors and also non-dancers. That’s changed recently, though. Right now all of her works have been starring the actress Adele Haenel, who’s super famous here. But I haven’t been very involved in that work. Thanks, Tosh. ** Jack Skelley, Thank you, Jack! Had a really greet meet-up with LilyLady. They’re fantastic. Thank you for occasioning our convergence. xo, me ** seb 🦠, Hey. Ha ha ha, those videos are amazing. The first one sounds like a collab. between Alice in Chains and, I don’t know, Frank Zappa, and, I don’t know, Vanilla Ice? Crazy! My birthday is now complete, and the future is my oyster, all thanks to you and to EpicHappyBirthdays! xo. ** Mark, Merci Beaucoup, mecs. Well, I can’t say that my birthday was quite that spectacular, but the thought definitely counted. Thanks, you guys. It’s at the end of February? Dang, I don’t think I’ll get there until March ‘cos we have to finish the film so we can show it to the LA crew. And select friends, if you’ll be curious by then. Multi-x’s and multi-o’s, me ** fervorxo, Thank you, thank you! If they had Criterion Channel over here, I would join you. ** Bill, B’day was perfectly okay. I have yet to see a persuasive argument for why I should see ‘May December’, although yours is a pusher. It just sounds so dull. But what do I know? Nothing. Thank you, Bill. ** Sypha, Thank you very much, James. ** Montse, Yay, Montse! I’m okay. My leg hurts for some reason, but whatev’. If luck holds, we’re about to start the final post-production on the film (sound, color, VFX, make a trailer) and be finished by late March. I pray. How are you? How’s Xet and Barcelona? I heard it’s cold there like it is here but maybe not quite as cold. Lots of love to you, my great pal! ** Minet, Hey there, Minet! It’s lovely to see you, sir. Oh, yes, your literary twink obligations must be attended to, I fully understand and agree. Thank you about ‘God Jr.’. That’s so nice. People don’t talk about that novel so much. And I’m especially glad you liked the last ‘in game’ section because that’s my favorite thing I’ve ever written. Ideally, hopefully, we’re about to finally start finishing the film, ideally by mid-to-late March. So hopefully almost there. What’s your good word? Are you writing? Or …? Lots of love back to you! ** Misanthrope, Hi. Thanks. Oh, more blog weirdness. It seems so random. April, spring showers, all of that. Makes sense. Thanks, bud. ** ted, Hi, Ted! Thanks so much for coming in. New book, and so soon, great!!!! Excited! Love back from me and from the shadowy city in which I am ensconced! ** T. J., Thank you so much! ** T, Hey! Thank you, pal. Yesterday didn’t end up being what I imagined, so no galette, but we can still divide one. What’s your weekend like? And, yes, I’m going to pore over the impending crazy events with non-sold-out vibes today and let’s conquer them. ** Sarah, Thank you very, very much, Sarah! ** Josiah Morgan, I could use a hot minute. It’s polar here. No, I handpicked the birthday post. I’m not that lucky. Well, maximalist excess Bresson definitely isn’t. Au contraire, as my adopted countrymen say. Hearing my poem in your voice made that poem seem actually like something I could be proud of, so mission accomplished on my front, and thank you, dude. Yeah, I saw on FB that you were in NYC. Wild place, huh? I miss it. Thanks a lot. I hope everything you’re doing is resulting in amazingness. Seems pretty much like a given. xo. ** Matt N., Thank you, Matt, and the very same to you, now on the new year front and whenever it’s appropriate on the birthday front. ** Bernard Welt, Well, Mr. Welt. A rare treat. My birthday has its uses. That is a fun game. Which I think I’m insufficiently caffeine-up to play at the moment. I think there must a lot of candidates for Lynchian scribes. Is it possible to read this poem based on a photo of your ass. Seems like there’d so much to learn by proxy. Well, I certainly hope Chrystel comes through. She tends to. It’s been ages since I had a friend staying there. It used to be the clubhouse. Make it so. So I should see ‘May December’? I don’t know, man, my eyelids feel heavy just thinking about it, but, wait, duh, that’s a positive to you, isn’t it? I saw you were reading with Diane. Is it to be streamed, ideally? Read your ass poem. What joy and unbounded passion I possess, which, actually, I do possess, don’t I, is yours to be metastasized. Your text was pretty clean, no worries. Love, me. ** David Porter, Thank you kindly, David! I think your birthday beat mine, which is fine with me, honestly. ‘Paternoster’ is an excellent title, need I even point out. It’s cold here too. But, I don’t know, somehow the word Liverpool has coldness built into it, unlike Paris which sounds warmish? Must be the ‘pool’. Of course. Love to you back. ** Corey Heiferman, Working its way into your mind is a lot, though, really, so that’ll do. I could watch/hear that video thousand times. Thank you. It deserves something, a prize of some sort, I guess. I am making a Vassi post, probably a ‘spotlight’ one, I think. Happy day! ** Даrву🐦⬛, Ooh, that looks nice. Really steely. My b’day was fine. No stress, no, don’t think so, no. I would remember if I was stressed, I think. Your sister is a cake decorater! That’s big news! That’s a great art form, I think. Wow. That’ll come in handy. Thank you for designing one for me. Fingers crossed about the passport if you need them. Seems like it’s kind of an easy get though. First out of state place … my guess, not really remembering, is probably Hawaii since my family liked to go on summer vacations there. And you? I will adore him. Guaranteed. ** rafe (, Howdy, Rafe! Oh, I really like that clip. Wait, you made that! It worked like a charm on me. Thank you. I briefly went into a mesmerised state. Cool. Haha, mauve dessert would be better. No cake, no, just cold sesame noodles but that’s my favorite food, so … And I really should have poked a candle in it but I didn’t. Great to see you! Keep me up on yours when you feel like it. ** Matthew Doyle, Hey, Matt! Whoa, you’re here. So trippy. Thank you for the b’day pleasuring. Paris rules still. I will say it’s a little too on the freezing cold side at the moment, but even so. Really nice pix. And I have no idea where you took them, I mean other than hereabouts, which is cool. And great about the progress in the studio. You sound jazzed. (Funny, that old term). Same here, gig indefinitely postponed twice now. But he was here for a while recording his new album. My pal and ‘Room Temperature’ composer Puce Mary was in the studio with him a teeny bit. No, I haven’t heard the track, but I will now. Good to see you. ** Okay. Today the galerie presents a show by a Belgian artist who was brutally murdered when he was very young and who left behind a lot of drawings and paintings that are pretty interesting and have given him a real cult follow in memoriam. I thought you all might be interesting to discover him if you haven’t. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
*
Dear Dennis,
i’m a french writer and the founder of the brand new international Hodler Prize dedicated to find the best text of the year.
I have the pleasure to announce your “Ongoing Blog” has been selected by Martin Bethenod, one of our jury member, to be part of the competition.
The final vote will take place in Paris, April 24th.
It would be wonderful if you could give us 30 minutes for a quick interview to be published on our Substack (30 K followers) https://hodlerprize.substack.com
Here you can find the press release for the full Hodler Prize story, the Jury and the 20 texts in competition https://www.dropbox.com/s/e2xnbq5k9egvb1i/Hodler%20Prize%20-%20Press%20release.pdf?dl=0
Many thanks !
Regards
Anthony van den Bossche
Hello Dennis! I’ve been on vacation lately so I am really sorry to have missed the chance to wish you a happy birthday. I don’t know how you feel about belated wishes but that’s what I have right now. My promise to you is that I’ll be punctual next time!
Thank you for the Robert Bresson post, I’ve seen you talk about him often and how he’s an inspiration and I really love when people talk about stuff like that.
Right now I am half watching an episode of Seinfeld and half listening to the Melvins, so a good day overall. How was yours?
haha aw I’m glad. every extra effort is worth it when it’s for you, Dennis. thanks, same to you. one of my friends’ birthdays is coming up in February. I’m skimming a Jean Echenoz novel and it says in Paris Februaries can be exactly like a kind of person, whom the author happens to be writing about. do you think it’s true?
Hi!!
I’ve never heard of Stéphane Mandelbaum. I’m hooked. “Portrait de Jose” (1984) is just incredible. Thank you so much for this post!!
In my world, that sounds like the most ideal birthday possible – lowkey, spent with friends (and cold sesame noodle, it looks like!).
I can’t even imagine the complete helplessness and hell of existing with two broken wrists for weeks. It’s definitely not an experience I’d like to try – or would wish on anyone.
Oh, wow! That’s very, VERY generous of love. Thank you so much! Love either making my diffuse urge to cry go away or making me cry, Od.
Lewd and dangerous! Stephane Mandelbaum is a new name to me and I am very glad to be introduced. Tragic that we never saw more of his work, which I can see well deserves its cult following.
Been watching a fair bit of the recent Yorkshire Ripper drama the Long Shadow which I must say has been pretty good so far. I was born in Leeds 1979 so this is very much my time and place, with my mum saying that the atmosphere depicted here is mostly accurate. Police at that time were very much unreconstructed ignorant sexist bastards, and the flaws in their investigation have been well documented in the years since. Still, I always find it compelling to revisit this case.
Dennis, Yes, in April with the showers in honor of Chaucer. Okay, not in honor of Chaucer. Just some arbitrary (I think) month picked by Rigby. We’ll see how it goes. Like I said, I took 3 1/2 days of leave last year. It’s time to take more. I haven’t been anywhere since December 2019 (NYC).
I’m still looking at Portugal in June. And then seeing Suede in London in July. 😀
Hi from Crete
I did not know about him until today. This story I read in the morning as I woke up and I keep thinking about it. What do you think of his artwork? Do you have a favourite one or two?
I am sure all these good wishes went to good places
It is very cold here and I am trying to keep things warm and inspired It is a challenge but I am going to do it
Here is my new poem called Same soul and I am happy to show you after your birthday
https://www.bizarrepublishinghouse.com/post/same-soul-by-charalampos-tzanakis
Love from Crete excited to see what are you going to post tomorrow
I have not come across Mandelbaum before. Fascinating work, tragic life, wow. I see the Pompidou catalog is fetching $270 on Amazon, ouch. (There’s also a historian named Stephane Mandelbaum, surely not the same guy.)
Good to hear your birthday went well. Hope the post-production work goes smoothly.
Bill
Hey Dennis – Got the okay from my surgeon to type again (in limited way). Wanted to let you know surgery went well. Recovery was initially rough, but it’s now getting better. Happy belated b’day! Loved the Bresson post and enjoyed discovering Mandelbaum today. Has your extra producer come through for you on finishing funds? Fingers crossed. xo
Yeah, I was always super curious to read God Jr. cause I’d seen you talking about how influenced you were by Eternal Darkness (big part of my childhood, total masterpiece) as you were writing and the whole idea of video game architecture which I’m completely obsessed with as well. I love how you took the repetitiveness and dissociated nature of NPC game dialogue and made it into this Bressonian meditative thing, it’s just so beautiful. One of my favorite things you’ve written as well. I always heard it was the most “left-field” and “conventional” of your novels, I guess cause it doesn’t have all the extreme sex and violence? But I completely disagree, I think all the usual themes are there. And there’s a lot of violence in it, albeit in a less obvious and salacious way than usual maybe. I loved the Nintendo sculpture debacle too, the whole thing made me super nostalgic for my childhood in the 2000s. Did you read any books about video game design or theory or anything like that as you were writing? Or maybe afterwards? I’d really love some recs if you got em hehe. The only other novel I remember having a truly interesting game section is B.R. Yeager’s Amygdalatropolis.
I am writing, very much so. Finishing my first short story collection, which will likely come out this year here in Brazil. The poetry book I released last year has been really making the rounds around here the past months, which is really nice. I’m planning to write more English stuff, get it all together in one cohesive collection or something as soon as I finish the book, but my brain can only store so much at once lolol
Very very excited about the movie, glad it’s coming along!! Hope the birthday was sweet as can be <3
xo
Hey Dennis. This weekend, hm, I’m free late afternoon both Saturday and Sunday, from about 18h onwards – does that work for you? No stress either way. And fuck, what a story. And what drawings! The detail is really entrancing. I much prefer drawings to paintings I realise. Something about the inability to get anywhere near like a photographic realism. Something like that anyway!
Starting out as an artist fascinated by outlaw life, actually living out those fantasies and getting murdered at 25 in the course of doing so is bleak, although Mandelbaum’s life story sounds so ambiguous that I’m flattening it here. Did you attend the Centre Pompidou show?
I have reviews of two re-releases: Lou Reed’s final solo album HUDSON RIVER WIND MEDITATIONS (https://artsfuse.org/284819/album-review-lou-reeds-hudson-river-wind-meditations-meditative-loop-de-loops/#comment-776833) and the 1982 James Baldwin documentary I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE (https://gaycitynews.com/i-heard-it-through-grapevine-documentary-james-baldwin/)
I saw the Iranian film CRITICAL PRIZE, which took Locarno’s top prize last summer, yesterday. It’s the most daring movie I’ve ever seen from Iran, with an unrepentant drug dealer for a hero, a scene in which a woman masturbates, and lots of images of women without hijabs. The dealer drives around Teheran at night, smoking hashish constantly, picking up passengers in his car and making deliveries. The style is cold and harsh but (befitting the subject) also trippy and blurry.
CRITICAL ZONE, not CRITICAL PRIZE.
Hi Dennis!
Sorry for not responding! Happy late birthday! How are you today? I hope you’re doing well. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to be more active here soon! Take care!
hi dennis!! glad you enjoyed the happy birthday videos! here’s one more, just because.
https://youtu.be/3tYrA2vwVUU?si=y_ryCXLVZGvy-zuu
it’s cat themed, so naturally i have to ask for your thoughts on cats. are you a dog person, a cat person or something else entirely? personally i’m more interested in pets you don’t need to touch often, like reptiles and fish.
how was today (or yesterday? i don’t remember the time difference, between the UK and france. it’s like 11:50 anyway. ) for you? i hope you’re basking in post-birthday glow instead of wallowing in post-birthday depression! you’re 71 now, right? i suck at maths. today i wrote a bit then went to a punk show, which i ended up leaving with a sore throat, at least three bruises and possibly a black eye but it’s too early to tell. worth it, though.
good tidings? maybe? or is that a greeting? i think i’ll stick with godspeed.
hey Dennis! yeah I suspect Bresson wasn’t devout or anything. it’s interesting though because his shots of hands and feet remind me of all the deliberate movements in mass, very careful and intentional.
sorry to hear about your leg, nerve pain is terrible. I had a similar vibrating pinch sensation in my elbow when I was under the weather but I chalked both ailments up to carrying my 2yo nephew around. it slowly disappeared though so here’s hoping yours does too!
this afternoon I went to see the Keith Haring exhibit that’s at the art gallery here in Toronto. it was amazing to see his massive tarp canvases up close. my eyes are still pleasantly buzzing from his day-glo paintings
Hi, Dennis, how did you spend your birthday? Love the portrait of Pasolini with the Pietá… have you read the book Late Bresson and The Visual Arts? I’m reading it now so I guess its just projection but this one reminded me of some of its talk about the convergence of old and new painting philosophies in Bresson’s work
Mandelbaum’s work is rad! So glad you had a good birthday. We are definitely interested in seeing what the film elves have been working on at the north pole. Saltburn has a lot of problems – I suspect there is a pretty good 90 min movie trapped somewhere inside those shaky 127 mins. Black Flag this weekend – they are doing all of ‘My War’ for the first set. We’ll be resuming shooting on ‘Stroke’ this weekend. xoxo
I really like this artist. I actually went back to it throughout the day to look at his work because l was just really intrigued.
I think the Germanic artists are always my favorite.
The pose he is in reminds me of Christoph De Babylon on the cover of “If your into it I’m out of it”
Look it up it’s amazing!
The album is masterpiece aswell.
I don’t feel anything anymore but if I did I’m sure it would be sadness. Although maybe that’s better. This could be pure hopelessness.
I saw an interview of Leonard Bernstein and he said something like:
Some people think Beethoven had to be immensely suicidal and depressed to make such a somber symphony as _____ but the truth is simply put:
A depressed artist lays in bed all day.
If they’re suicidal, then they’ll just kill themself
Leonard says it alot more bluntly but I think the connection between art and mental illnesses is alot more prosaic than most people think. it’s that pedestal of sadness=art that leads to a lot of younger artists killing themself before making their greatest pieces.
If they can’t turn their sadness into a prolific form of suffering then they aren’t a true artist.
But I think I can’t talk to anyone anymore because of the sadnesses that had came today in the form of what could may be betrayal.
I can’t control who I am it’s useless I just want to cut off all the unneeded parts because then maybe one fucking person would believe m
Hollowness.But I think I’ll remind myself of kindness.
There’s this guy in the rehab place that let me borrow his records and I let him borrow my Radiohead one and he came over with two very good ones: Joy Division and Nick Drake. And i love joy division but the pink moon one is. Scary cuz it’s got the brott guys face in there all inverted like he’s a serial killer.
A person can be so kind
Iwonder how accurate it is that we are in full control of how we feel and if those things do not relentlessly control us
But I feel I’m disintegrated so I might just be in circle
Also you totally asked in response what out of state places I’ve been to—despite me saying I don’t have a passport yet. I don’t know why, but that was kind of funny.
Sorry for very weird typos that were induced by fumbly fingers
Ah sounds like you had a very good kind of birthday, quiet with friends.
The reading with Diane is not to be streamed or YouTubed. Which is too bad because I think they all should be now. The following week I will do an hour long radio show here that will also become a podcast — lamentably without Diane. I don’t know how much poetry reading it will involve. I’m supposed to talk about the days of open readings and the great Folio books series in DC in the 70s-90s; the AIDS generation; dream studies and dream groups and dream stuff; and I’m guessing what I get out of poetry. Did I tell you I saw Michael Lally a couple of weeks ago at his home in upstate NY? Doing pretty well though he has Parkinson’s as I expect you know. We are all frail vessels. Love B
Ohhh wow, this is the type of art style that makes me want to get into sketching/drawing so badly. Or like, exactly what I want my journal to look like rather than the usual chicken scratch about whatever. Also coincidental since I’m going through a Pasolini phase right now. Thank you for sharing, I’ll be devouring what I can about Mr Mandelbaum for the rest of the week! For your birthday I had tamales de rajas con queso (extra salsa verde because I’m a a spice queen) and an iced berry + rosehip tea. I had a feeling your birthday viewing would be Bresson, so I picked up where I left off in his filmography — Au Hasard Balthazar. The most soulful eyes I’ve ever seen on a donkey, totally heart-wrenching and beautiful and I desperately want to visit a petting zoo now. Thank you for your birthday curations, I hope I ticked your boxes satisfactorily! Something silly: I got a text from an unknown number of a picture of a huge piece of shit on (not in, on), followed by its measurements. I’ve gotten spammy prank texts before and usually just delete and block but today I decided I had the time to fuck around and I’ve been talking to this stranger for like 2 hours now, I’m utterly amused. According to the area code, I’ve never been to the state they’re from so I have no idea how they even got my number, but a small part of me is like, what if I Do know this person? Will there be a big reveal soon? Will I be receiving any more pictures of shit? I’m on my toes & will report back with any major updates. xoxo
Thank you so much for bringing Mandelbaum to my attention. I surmise that he could’ve had a good life in Tel Aviv. His style fits in perfectly with the art I collect from zine festivals. He’d be a great fit for an exhibition in Israel. Only the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem could do it with relative ease, and the latter is likely too prudish. There are at best a handful of private galleries in the country that would be up for it, and the handful of Israeli collectors with the necessary budget and taste would likely purchase their Mandelbaum in Paris or New York or wherever. Some of his work must be lurking here somewhere. I’ll ask around.
I could make out only some of the Hebrew/Yiddish words. The word “kosher” (כשר) appears a few times.
What’s in store for your weekend? My weekend is Friday-Saturday so it’s already started. The earlier sleep schedule is perhaps even more of a game-changer on weekends. I’ve gotten enough sleep all week so I have energy. I can enjoy a lot of quiet and daylight together and finish personal tasks while my friends are still asleep.
Have you ever done a flâneur-themed day? I guess I’ll add it to my long list of possible guest posts.
Is it too simple minded to say that I’m reminded a little bit of Genet in that the work is both entirely unreliable but also so wonderfully masturbatory? I always learn so much from your blog but feel too inadequate to comment. Happy Birthday!