Opium Fields

Malíř Karel Balcar

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Sun, 22 May 2011 20:14:00 +0000

Karel Balcar (born in Lanškroun in 1966) is a Czech painter. In 1992 he was accepted to the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague under professor Zdeněk Beran and graduated in 1999. Most of his exhibitions since then have been in Prague, including venues such as the Liechtenstein Palace, town hall and the Rudolfinum but also the cities of Brno, Hradec Králové and at the Czech Centre in New York City. Many of his paintings have grotesque or sadomasochist themes, and he often portrays feelings of anxiety. via

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taken from DRTENGE

Olaf Martens

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Sat, 14 May 2011 16:34:00 +0000

Olaf Martens is interested in staging his pictures like a theatre play. In his often humorously constructed images, Martens combines a take on fashion, documentary, conceptual, social, even animal photography, art historical and socio-political references. His work cannot be categorised but is a combination of what can be termed a kind of post - modern eclecticism. Marten's view of the feminine takes on a very particular, interesting turn in his work and is the central theme around which all else revolves.
Martens undermines the seemingly homogenous facade of the photographic. His works is characterised by uniting contrary details, and refiguring them in a very unique and hybrid manner. This leaves many questions to the viewer, not apparent on first glance.
The theme of the outside and the outsider has been a recurring theme in Marten's work from the very beginning. His images are most often taken in dis-used factories, the outskirts of cities, and in new and up-coming cities like Russia, Czechoslovakia, Turkey and East Germany.
Similar to David Lynch's imagery, Martens uses recurring roles and types usually those of outsiders to society. Cleaning women, dwarfs, seamstresses, overly fat women, strippers, dancers, transvestites are of particular fascination to him. They inhabit the opposite end of the spectrum and Martens ironically combines them with seemingly flawless models. Yet, here the model appears in latex, gas masks, workers' outfits and high heels, adding another hybrid layer to his work.
Olaf Martens studied photography at the highly renowned Leipzig Academy for "Graphik und Buchkunst". His contemporaries are the well-known "Leipzig School" with artists such as Neo Rauch, Tim Eitel or Tilo Baumgartel. His work has been exhibited in many museum group exhibitions on contemporary German photography as well as in solo exhibitions at the Kunst Museum, Bonn, Grassi Museum, Leipzig, Moscow House of photography, Leopold Museum, Vienna, German Historical Museum in Berlin, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg. He has exhibited in galleries nationally and internationally. His work is included in collections such as the FC Gundlach Collection and the Sammlung Goetz, Munich. via

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pics after the click are NSFW

SUKA OFF

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Mon, 09 May 2011 15:19:00 +0000

SUKA OFF is a Poland based artist collective existing since 1995. They have been creating work across visual theatre, performance art, club action, installation, photography, video art and music visuals. Their work has been presented in theatres, art galleries, clubs and festivals in most European countries, as well as in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Japan. They remain completely independent and not supported by any public institution due to the character and content of their work.

The members of SUKA OFF are Piotr Wegrzynski (founder, visual artist, performer) and Sylvia Lajbig (classical philologist, performer). SUKA OFF is constantly supported by other artists collaborating on individual projects. Among them are Hellen Burrough, Maciej Dziaczko and Tomasz Wiracki.

homepage / flickr / vimeo

pics after the click are NSFW

Truls Espedal

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 21:08:00 +0000

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Eliot Lee Hazel

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 21:22:00 +0000

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Deadbeat At Dawn

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 16:43:00 +0000

Director: Jim Van Bebber
Genre: Action / Crime
Year Of Release: 1988
Language: English
Length: 1hr 19min
Type of video: .avi

An action-packed cult classic from renegade filmmaker Jim VanBebber (The Manson Family, My Sweet Satan), who not only wrote, directed and edited the film, but also served as fight choreographer, special effects coordinator, and his own death-defying stunt man! Deadbeat at Dawn tells the gritty story of Ravens gang leader Goose (VanBebber), who tries for one last drug score before leaving the mean streets to settle down with his psychic girlfriend. But when she is murdered by members of the rival gang, Goose plots his violent revenge.

One of my all time favorite low budget movies, total classic!!

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Bara no sôretsu / Funeral Parade of Roses

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 16:06:00 +0000

Director: Toshio Matsumoto
Genre: Drama
Year Of Release: 1969
Language: Japanese (w/ english subs)
Length: 1hr 44min
Type of video: DVD5
Special Features: Director commentary & Interview, original japanese trailer, poster gallery

A feverish collision of avant-garde aesthetics and grind-house shocks (not to mention a direct influence on Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange), Funeral Parade of Roses takes us on an electrifying journey into the nether-regions of the late-’60s Tokyo underworld. In Toshio Matsumoto’s controversial debut feature, seemingly nothing is taboo: neither the incorporation of visual flourishes straight from the worlds of contemporary graphic-design, painting, comic-books, and animation; nor the unflinching depiction of nudity, sex, drug-use, and public-toilets. But of all the “transgressions” here on display, perhaps one in particular stands out the most: the film’s groundbreaking and unapologetic portrayal of Japanese gay subculture.

Cross-dressing club-kid Eddie (played by real-life transvestite entertainer extraordinaire Peter, famed for his role as Kyoami the Fool in Akira Kurosawa’s Ran) vies with a rival drag-queen (Osamu Ogasawara) for the favours of drug-dealing cabaret-manager Gonda (Yoshio Tsuchiya, himself a Kurosawa player who appeared in such films as Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, and High and Low). Passions escalate and blood begins to flow — before all tensions are released in a jolting climax that prefigures by nearly thirty years Tsai Ming-liang’s similarly scandalous The River.

With its mixture of purely narrative sequences and documentary footage, Funeral Parade of Roses comes to us from a moment when cinema set itself to test, and even eradicate, the boundaries between fiction and reality, desire and experience; consequently, the film shares a kinship with such other 1969 works as Masahiro Shinoda’s Double Suicide and Ingmar Bergman’s A Passion [The Passion of Anna]. Yet Matsumoto achieves a zig-zag modulation between pathos and hilarity that makes his picture utterly unique: a filmic howl in the face of social, moral, and artistic convention. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Toshio Matsumoto’s Funeral Parade of Roses for the first time outside of Japan on any home video format.

I am so lazy with this blog, I uploaded this months ago...

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Jacob Aue Sobol

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 14:46:00 +0000

Jacob was born in Denmark, in 1976 and grew up in Brøndby Strand in the suburbs south of Copenhagen. He lived as an exchange student in Strathroy, Canada from 1994-95 and as a hunter and fisherman in Tiniteqilaaq, Greenland from 2000-2002. In Spring 2006 he moved to Tokyo, staying there 18 months before returning to Denmark in August 2008. He now lives and works in Copenhagen.

After studying at the European Film College, Jacob was admitted to Fatamorgana, the Danish School of Documentary and Art Photography in 1998. There he developed a unique, expressive style of black-and-white photography, which he has since refined and further developed.

In the autumn of 1999 he went to live in the settlement Tiniteqilaaq on the East Coast of Greenland. Over the next three years he lived mainly in this township with his Greenlandic girlfriend Sabine and her family, living the life of a fisherman and hunter but also photographing. The resultant book Sabine was published in 2004 and the work was nominated for the 2005 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize.

In the summer of 2005 Jacob traveled with a film crew to Guatemala to make a documentary about a young Mayan girl’s first journey to the ocean. The following year he returned by himself to the mountains of Guatemala where he met the indigenous family Gomez-Brito. He stayed with them for a month to tell the story of their everyday life. The series won the First Prize Award, Daily Life Stories, World Press Photo 2006.

In 2006 he moved to Tokyo and during the next two years he created the images from his resent book I, Tokyo. The book was awarded the Leica European Publishers Award 2008 and published by Actes Sud (France), Apeiron (Greece), Dewi Lewis Publishing (Great Britain), Edition Braus (Germany), Lunwerg Editores (Spain), Peliti Associati (Italy) and Mets & Schilt (The Netherlands)

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Pics after the click are a bit NSFW

Osoi Hito / Late Bloomer

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 11:16:00 +0000

Director: Gô Shibata
Genre: Drama / Thriller
Year Of Release: 2004
Language: Japanese (w/ english subs)
Length: 1hr 23min
Type of video: .avi

Late Bloomer is the story of Sumida-san, a severely handicapped man, and his downward spiral into hell. When we’re first introduced to him we find that despite his physical limitations – and contrary to cultural misconceptions about the handicap – he has all of the desires and personality traits of a physically normal man. Specifically: he loves to party, eat good food, and ‘rock out’ to his caregiver Take’s hardcore band. However, Sumida-san’s life begins falling apart when he develops a crush on his new occasional caregiver, Nobuko. Needless to say, the feelings are not reciprocated and when Nobuko starts spending her free time with Take, Sumida-san is driven mad with desire and frustration and things take a turn for the worse… This film, which took five years to produce, has become a Japanese cult favorite. Hauntingly shot with Black and White cinematography and featuring the underground electronic music of World’s End Girlfriend, the film has won several awards on the festival circuit and was subject to rave reviews from critics and viewers alike. This is simply unlike any film you have seen. Audiences are coerced into seeing events through Sumida’s eyes and the depth and breadth with which the issue of physical handicap is dealt with will stay with you long after viewing. In an approach which is neither condescending nor apologetic, the existential malaise faced by the character Sumida is front and center, all through a non-verbal presence highlighted through visual and audio stylization.

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Mikaylah Bowman

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:14:00 +0000

flickr

Ward 13

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:14:00 +0000

Director: Peter Cornwell
Genre: Short / comedy / horror / action
Year Of Release: 2003
Length: 13 min
Type of video: .avi

After a car accident, Ben wakes up in hospital. Not knowing where he is or what is going on, he starts exploring the corridors...only to find that the staff don't have his health in mind! The hapless patient must pull himself together and do everything he can to escape. It's an action/horror/comedy — ending with the wheelchair chase from hell!

imdb / buy / link

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Adoration

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:51:00 +0000

Director: Olivier Smolders
Genre: Short / Drama / Horror
Year Of Release: 1996
Language: French (w/ english subs)
Length: 15 min
Type of video: .avi

A Japanese student in Paris anatomizes attraction, externally and internally, inside him and out.

inspired by Issei Sagawa

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-------------To view links please send me an email (belowthefog666@gmail.com) and you will receive the necessary information.

Talonbraxas

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 21:52:00 +0000

http://talonabraxas.deviantart.com/ / http://talonabraxas.blogspot.com/

Quand on est amoureux c'est merveilleux / A Wonderful Love

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 18:43:00 +0000

Director: Fabrice Du Welz
Genre: Short / Drama / Horror / Comedy
Year Of Release: 1999
Language: French (w/ english subs)
Length: 21min
Type of video: .avi

Here's a work of pure genius I accidentally stumbled upon when going through the extras of Du Welz' other masterpiece "Calvaire", this is a macabre and fun short that simply has to be watched, you won't regret it!

imdb / links

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To view links please send me an email (belowthefog666@gmail.com) and you will receive the necessary information.

Onibaba

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 18:01:00 +0000

Director: Kaneto Shindô
Genre: Drama / "Horror"
Year Of Release: 1964
Language: Japanese (w/ english & russian subs)
Length: 1hr 42min
Type of video: DVD9
Special Features: Interview w/ director, trailer, behind the scenes, gallery

As a feudal war rages in 14th-century Japan, those left behind are struggling to survive. The wife and the mother of a soldier make their meager living by preying upon hapless samurai who come their way, killing them and selling their armor for food. When a friend of the soldier returns to the women's hut, they learn the fate of their soldier, and are forced to deal with this survivor. Tensions build as the young widow gives in to her loneliness, and the older woman fears abandonment, feels jealousy, and plots revenge.

Another classic of Japanese cinema, you can't afford to miss this one!!!

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To view links please send me an email (belowthefog666@gmail.com) and you will receive the necessary information.

Zhaokui

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Sun, 23 May 2010 13:30:00 +0000

Another artist I have no information about, all I know is that he(?) is from China. Any into is much appreciated!!! (his deviantart link -> http://clytze.deviantart.com/ thanks anon!!!!)

Kanashimi no Beradona / Belladonna of Sadness

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Fri, 21 May 2010 14:35:00 +0000

Genre: Drama, Fantasy
Director: Eiichi Yamamoto.
Year of release: 1973
Animators: Gisaboru Sugii, Shinichi Tsuji, Yasuo Maeda.
Writers: Eiichi Yamamoto, Yoshiyuki Fukuda.
Format: DVD5
Language: Japanese (w/ english and russian subs)

This well-crafted Japanese animated feature adapts the novel Belladonna by Jules Michelet in a unique manner. The story concerns a love affair, taking place in the Middle Ages, shadowed by witch-trials and the Inquisition. The actual moments of the story are shown in more-or-less still tableaux, but the inner thoughts and feelings of the characters are fully animated.

Reviews: tezuka in english, pelleas, Esotika Erotica Psychotica

Ignore the genre I've put above, this is a full on art-house movie, lot's of still images (think Midori), utter psychedelia at times, slow moving story. Not for everyone!

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To view links please send me an email (belowthefog666@gmail.com) and you will receive the necessary information.

Joel-Peter Witkin / L'image indélébile / Vile Bodies

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Mon, 17 May 2010 20:22:00 +0000

L'image indélébile + Vile Bodies: part1 / part2 / part3

Joel-Peter Witkin is a photographer whose images of the human condition are undeniably powerful. For more than twenty years he has pursued his interest in spirituality and how it impacts the physical world in which we exist.

Finding beauty within the grotesque, Witkin pursues this complex issue through people most often cast aside by society -- human spectacles including hermaphrodites, dwarfs, amputees, carcases, people with odd physical capabilities, fetishists and "any living myth... anyone bearing the wounds of Christ." His fascination with other people's physicality has inspired works that confront our sense of normalcy and decency, while constantly examining the teachings handed down through Christianity.

His constant reference to paintings from art history, including the works of Bosch, Goya, Velasquez, Miro, Botticelli and Picasso are testaments to his need to create a new history for himself. By using imagery and symbols from the past, Witkin celebrates our history while constantly redefining its present day context.

Visiting medical schools, morgues and insane asylums around the world, Witkin seeks out his collaborators, who, in the end, represent the numerous personas of the artist himself. The resulting photographs are haunting and beautiful, grotesque yet bold in their defiance a hideous beauty that is as compelling as it is taboo.

Witkin begins each image by sketching his ideas on paper, perfecting every detail by arranging the scene before he gets into the studio to stage his elaborate tableaus. Once photographed, Witkin spends hours in the darkroom, scratching and piercing his negatives, transforming them into images that look made rather than taken. Through printing, Witkin reinterprets his original idea in a final act of adoration.

Joel-Peter Witkin lets us look into his created world, which is both frightening and fascinating, as he seeks to dismantle our preconceived notions about sexuality and physical beauty. Through his imagery, we gain a greater understanding about human difference and tolerance.via

Il portiere di notte / Night Porter

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Fri, 14 May 2010 14:18:00 +0000

Director: Liliana Cavani
Genre: Drama
Year Of Release: 1974
Language: English (w/ english subs)
Length: 1hr 57min
Type of video: DVD9
Special Features: None

The dark and melancholy story of a former teenage Nazi concentration camp inmate, Lucia, and the S.S. officer who was her torturer/lover, Max , who accidentally meet again in a Vienna hotel in 1957 where Max works as the night porter...

melancholic, beautiful and strange with absolutely magnificent music. Not to be missed!

imdb / links

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To view links please send me an email (belowthefog666@gmail.com) and you will receive the necessary information.

John Wadsworth

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Mon, 03 May 2010 12:43:00 +0000

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ZARDOZ

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 18:45:00 +0000

Director: John Boorman
Genre: Sci-Fi
Year Of Release: 1974
Language: English (w/ english, german, spanish subs)
Length: 2hr 26min
Type of video: DVD5
Special Features: Commentary (english)

In the far future, a savage trained only to kill finds a way into the community of bored immortals that alone preserves humanity's achievements.

They don't make them like this anymore, this is the fucking shit right here, pure eccentric goodness! The crazy costume design alone makes the movie, a must watch!

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To view links please send me an email (belowthefog666@gmail.com) and you will receive the necessary information.

Sunna No Onna / Woman In The Dunes [Director's Cut]

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 00:46:00 +0000

Director: Hiroshi Teshigahara
Genre: Drama | Thriller
Year Of Release: 1964
Language: Japanese (w/ english subs)
Length: 2hr 26min
Type of video: .avi

An amateur entomologist searching for insects by the sea is trapped by local villagers into living with a mysterious woman who spends almost all her time preventing her home from being swallowed up by advancing sand dunes....

One of my all time favorite Japanese movies, a true classic!

imdb / links

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To view links please send me an email (belowthefog666@gmail.com) and you will receive the necessary information.

Maloon

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 23:58:00 +0000

I have no site or anything for this artist, I found these pics ages ago on a Russian site, all I know is that the artist is from Poland, any info on this artist is much appreciated!

Esao Andrews

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 23:37:00 +0000

Esao Andrews grew up in the Arizona desert, and moved to New York in 1996 to complete his BFA in Illustration at the School of Visual Arts. After graduating in 2000, he spent the next few years working as a flash animator while painting in his free time. Andrews exhibited his oil paintings in coffee shops and group shows before landing his first major two-person show at Fuse Gallery in New York alongside John John Jesse in 2003. He has since collaborated with Tara McPherson for a DC Comics project, and has created album artwork for several bands, as well. Esao Andrews has developed a signature cast of dark and surreal characters, blending erotic and sometimes frightening surrealistic images, in a manner that is often compared with other American artists like Mark Ryden and John Currin.

Andrews participated in the 2002 BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery in London and cites Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Alfons Mucha, and Joe Sorren as major influences.

via thinkspace

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Saturno Butto

noreply@blogger.com (Khaos[]) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 02:12:00 +0000

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Cult painter Saturno Butto portrays fetish alongside religious ritual, painstakingly executed in oil by a classically-trained hand. Here forceps and gags are sacred, eating, masturbation and bondage are divine ceremonies and provocative harlots are saints. Butto's use of fetish tools as religious objects and vice versa moves beyond simple shock value; he elevates the themes that classic religious painting deemed taboo, undressing martyrs and placing pleasure on its rightful throne. Gold and vermillion, royalty and blood, ecstasy and violence converge here to build shrines to beauty, seduction and power all the while demolishing altars of dogma.
Zoetica Ebb

pics after the click are nsfw.