#michael bonesteel

[churchofsatannews]

The Art of H.R. Giger and Vincent Castiglia curated by Stephen Romano

The Art of H.R. Giger and Vincent Castiglia curated by Stephen Romano

Vincent Castiglia Gallery, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Opening December 1st and continuing through February 2023. For a detailed press release, follow this link. Castiglia: The Sleep, 2006, 83×55,collection Martin Eric Ain,SWZ A catalog will be available, with contributions from es-teemed writers Michael Bonesteel (author of “Henry Darger: Art and Selected Writings) and curator Robert Cozzolino…

[sinceileftyoublog]

Philippe Cohen Solal & Mike Lindsay: A Pop Tribute to Outsider Art

From Left: Mike Linsday, Hannah Peel, Philippe Cohen Solal, Adam Glover; Artwork by Gabriel Jacquel

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Outsider visual artist and writer Henry Darger’s fame was essentially happenstance, so it’s fitting that Philippe Cohen Solal’s decades-long obsession with Darger is chock full of coincidence. In 2003, the member of longtime neotango group Gotan Project found himself with a day off on tour in New York City and decided to venture over to the American Folk Art Museum, a choice that would change his life and culminate in Outsider (¡Ya Basta!), April’s collaborative album with Tunng’s Mike Linsday, the first adaptation of Darger’s words in music. 

At the museum, Solal, unaware not only of Darger but of outsider art in general, saw a Darger work, and, as he told me over the phone earlier this year, “fell in love.” Looking closer at the details of the work, he saw something he recognized: the name Kiyoko Lerner, who had lent the work to the museum. The very same name of a woman he was set to meet the next day in Chicago as recommended by a mutual friend back in Paris. The friend suggested they meet due to their love of tango. “We met and talked a bit about tango,” he said, “but quickly, I asked her about Henry Darger.” She began to tell him exactly who she was, the story that’s become increasingly well-known in the annals of Chicago cultural history.

Lerner and her late husband Nathan (himself a prominent Chicago photographer) were Darger’s landlords; Nathan discovered Darger’s work in his “very messy room” shortly before Darger’s death in 1973, most notably his 15,000+ page novel In The Realms of the Unreal as well as his magazine-traced illustrations and watercolors accompanying the book. (The book, a fantastical epic about child slave rebellions, would go on to inspire visual artists and musicians for decades; indie rock band Vivian Girls took their name from characters in the book, and Darger would even be referenced in The Venture Bros.) Nathan immediately knew he had something special, and he and his wife took control of Darger’s estate. Darger would start to become formally recognized by the art world, his work prominently featured in museums and documentaries. Nathan died in 1997, and Kiyoko would continue to operate as head of the estate and donate her collection to various museums across the world.

In 2006, Kiyoko flew to Paris and met up with Solal at the first Darger exhibition in the city, at La Maison Rouge. It was immediately when he left the show that Solal had the idea to make music inspired by Darger’s art. “At the time, I didn’t [even] know that [Darger] wrote lyrics,” Solal said. “I had no clue.” In reference to Darger’s war between children and adults, Solal had the idea to write “adult music for children,” or vice versa, and wrote a track that wouldn’t even end up 15 years later on Outsider. He visited Kiyoko at her Chicago apartment. “I spent a few days immersed in his art. I didn’t know precisely what I wanted to do, and then I discovered he wrote lyrics. It very much changed the project.” Nobody had thought to put Darger’s lyrics to music, and Solal wanted to put his stamp on the increasingly large pool of reinterpretations of or references to Darger in the arts and culture world at large. Kiyoko put him in touch with art historian Michael Bonesteel, who led Solal to more lyrics.

Not wanting to go at it alone, Solal got the idea to do a collective project adapting Darger’s lyrics to music with various friends. He reached out to the likes of Calexico’s Joey Burns and Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner, but Lindsay was the one who really stuck. Solal and Lindsay were fans of each other’s bands, and the latter visited the American Folk Art Museum while on tour at Solal’s recommendation, he himself rediscovering Darger’s work. In 2015, there was another Darger retrospective at the Paris Museum of Modern Art, and Kiyoko, who attended, suggested to Solal that he reveal his song adaptations of Darger. “I didn’t tell her I only had one song at the time,” he laughed. That was his inspiration to reach out to Lindsay. “I thought maybe I’d do a 5-track EP. I called Mike and reminded him of my project and asked him, ‘Are you ready to work on that with me?’”

Solal and Lindsay separately wrote the melodies and basic arrangements of the songs that would end up on Outsider, and they recorded and produced the record together. Lindsay introduced Solal to Northern Irish musician/singer/multi-instrumentalist Hannah Peel, who would voice the Vivian Girls. Solal asked Adam Glover, a singer he knew through his manager, to be the voice of Darger himself. (“He was very young...but he can sing like Sinatra or Dean Martin,” Solal said.) The four created an album with Darger’s words using traditional pop instrumentation and song structures but also children’s instruments; Peel even created her own music box to play some of the melodies. Sometimes, the words were spoken, as on “Hark Hark, My Friend, Cannon Thunders Are Swelling”, while other times the vocals are isolated in harmony, as on “We Sigh For The Child Slaves”. “We know more about Darger as a painter and visual artist, so it was important to have Darger as a storyteller,” Solal said. Furthermore, the group wanted to capture the raw spirit of Darger’s art by rendering the voices distorted, shifting their pitch to make them sound almost out of tune. The instrumentation, meanwhile, ranges from slinky electric guitars to strings, and even barroom-style piano on the penultimate “We’ll Never Say Goodby” [sic]. “With our small team, it was lean and simple to do this music,” said Solal. While most of the titles and words were taken directly from Darger, down to the spelling of “Goodby”, the album touches on Solal’s story, too. Instrumental interlude “851 Webster Avenue” is named after the address of Lerner’s apartment Solal visited for the first time, when his fascination with Darger really took off.

Solal can’t exactly pinpoint what ever fascinated him about Darger, both in general and as the world changes, but he has some clues. “At the time, what was interesting to me was it was clear [Darger] was a self-taught artist, and maybe I felt a bit moved by that because I’m a self-taught musician,” Solal said. “I never went to music school, but I understood that without any specific art education or practice at an art school, you can create something...Henry Darger is an amazing example of someone who created his own world.” Darger’s style of illustration, his drawings traced from magazines, made up for the fact that he wasn’t a technically great drawer, and it complemented his heightened sense of color. Moreover, Solal feels kinship with some aspects of Darger’s childhood. Part of the inspiration for In The Realms of the Unreal was that Darger himself was sent to an asylum that put children to work. “When he was a kid, everybody called him crazy,” said Solal, “But I’m sure he didn’t think he was crazy. I remember when I was 9 or 10, I thought I was crazy. Nobody called me crazy, but I thought I was.” He found commonalities in, simply, being misunderstood.

Solal also questions what it means to be an “outsider” artist; in reality, Darger spent most of his time inside, confined in a room creating fictional worlds. Funny enough, according to his diaries, he was fascinated with the weather, tracking the accuracy of the predicted versus actual weather, but that’s about all for the outside world. On the day JFK was killed, for instance, Darger had nothing about it in his diary entry. He chose to interact with the world through the magazines he would trace, and through collections of items like Pepto Bismol bottles, National Geographic issues, and broken glasses. He wasn’t much for interpersonal relationships. Not only was Nathan Lerner unaware of Darger’s artistic enterprises, but neither were the young artist couple with whom Darger actually shared his apartment. Solal thinks that Darger’s resistance to presenting himself as an artist was as a result of his childhood experiences. “If the outside world was not so mean to him, maybe he’d be less scared to show who he was to the rest of the world, even just to his neighbors,” he said. “It’s funny that we call him an outsider. He was more an insider but was protecting himself from the outside world.”

Perhaps, subconsciously, the more that creative folks learn to look through Darger’s eyes, the less likely his, or any genius goes unnoticed. Solal remarked that many of the folks involved in Outsider almost had to “unlearn” their craft. Andrew Scheps, who mixed the album, at first didn’t know the context and gave Solal and Lindsay a product that was “too clean;” Lindsay explained Darger’s story and the importance of having strange-sounding narrative effects in the records. “When he worked [after that] on the mix, we found Henry was back in our songs,” said Solal. The individuals involved in coming up with animated videos for each of these songs, French animator Gabriel Jacquel with art direction by Pascal Gary (aka Phormazero), also had to abandon their fundamentals and learn to draw like Darger. Overall, exploring his work provides admirers like Solal the opportunity to dig deeper, from figuring out how to bring Outsider on stage to “finding new ways to tell the story,” like podcasts, interactive maps, short films, and Spotify playlists of Darger’s favorite music. “This man is full of mysteries,” he said. “I hope my future is Outsider for a while.”

[fashionbooksmilano]

Henry Darger

Klaus Biesenbach

Contribution by Brooke Davis Anderson, Michael Bonesteel and Carl Watson

Prestel, London 2019, 320 pages, paperback, ISBN  9783791385839

euro 50,00

email if you want to buy booksinprogressmilano@yahoo.it

This lavishly illustrated volume presents the iconic American "outsider" artist in a new critical light, locating him as a major figure in the history of contemporary art. Self-taught and working in isolation until his death in 1973, Henry Darger realized an elaborate fantasy world of remarkable beauty and strangeness through hundreds of paintings and an epic written narrative. Angel-like Blengins with butterfly wings, natural catastrophes, innocent girls, and murderous soldiers all appear in Darger's scenes, which are reproduced in this book in double-page and gatefold illustrations. In the volume's introductory essay, Klaus Biesenbach examines the radical originality of Darger's art, including his use of collage, incorporation of religious themes and iconography, and frequent juxtaposition of innocence with violence. An essay by Brooke Davis Anderson illuminates Darger's source materials and techniques, while another by Michael Bonesteel puts Darger's life in the context of his work. The book also includes Darger's autobiography, “A History of My Life," introduced by Carl Watson. The only book of its kind, Henry Darger offers an authoritative, balanced, and insightful look at an American master.

13/11/19

orders to:     booksinprogressmilano@yahoo.it

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[hyaenagallery]

Elsie Paroubek part 9 Though Elsie’s mysterious disappearance and death were once the subject of intense police investigation and journalistic focus, her story faded into obscurity until the death of outsider artist Henry Darger in 1973. Michael Bonesteel, an art historian examining Darger’s work, found repeated reference in Darger’s Story of the Vivian Girls novel to Annie Aronburg, leader of a child slave rebellion, and to an inspirational picture of her that had been lost. Miss Aronburg had met a shocking yet heroic death at the hands of her captors. (The murder is described in detail, and is nothing like Elsie’s death.) According to his diary, Darger really had lost a picture of a little girl and was desperate to get it back or replace it. He did not give the name but said it had appeared in the “Chicago Daily Noise (sic), May, June, or July, 1911.” Bonesteel’s search in the newspaper archives revealed Elsie Paroubek and her story. A portrait of Annie Aronburg by Darger shows a somewhat older blonde-haired girl. Her hair ribbon and the distinctive collar of her dress are similar to Elsie’s in the photograph. In the novel, Darger describes children who are kidnapped and mistreated by adults, while the heroic little Vivians, Annie Aronburg and others form “rescue squads” to save them. #destroytheday (Throwback post from June 22nd, 2017) https://www.instagram.com/p/B-mvC9uhhft/?igshid=1lktjypb049ad

[astroshnotes-blog]

Joshua Ruebl on Intersectionality and the Authoritarian Left

I found this comment by artist Joshua Ruebl under an article on the resignation of Michael Bonesteel from the Chicago School of the Art Institute. The original article was published by the Chicago Reader. It’s available here: m.chicagoreader.com/chicago/michael-bonesteel-resignation-saic-henry-darger-comics/

Here is the comment by Joshua Rueble. It’s excellent.

I'd like to make a comment on the poster "No Patience for White Old Men." This commenter is a textbook case of the new authoritarian left, those who have no understanding of art or culture or sex. They are stuck on postmodern notions of identity, meaning identity outside of science and biology, weaponizing theories against anyone who disagrees with them. They say, for instance, that gender is a social construct when it isn't. Science is in increasing conflict with postmodernism. Us Gen-X'rs fought for equal rights, and sex positive feminism. The issues I've seen with these students, especially in the arts, is that they base all their critiques on "power imbalances" between people, based in postmodern theory. They've gone down the intellectual path of intellectual segregation. Let me explain. The trigger warnings aren't there for disturbing content. They are there when the material is being presented by "A straight white male." This is due to the faulty theory of intersectionality, which creates a sort of "Caste System of Oppression" Basically all discourse in a classroom can be shut down by a trans person or person of color or a feminist, even over a minor disagreement between two liberals. They can accuse anyone who disagrees with them as being "white supremacist." I also , as an ethnic Ashkenazi Jew, take offense at Intersectionality and crass identity politics. Also, these students have strange puritanical views on sex. LGTBQ and intersectional feminists believe that due to social power imbalances that any sex for instance in a heterosexual relationship can't be truly "consensual" because of social power imbalances. So this professor, by discussing any kind of sexual content in an art class of all places, can be accused of harassment, even when he is just reading from a textbook. The far left has its own alternative facts. These are on display with half-educated students who listen to intersectional theory and then blindly attack and destroy the careers of any one who disagrees. As for trigger warnings, our generation didn't need them. I went to art school. My girlfriend was a sexual assault survivor and made very sexual art. These students are taught by Marxist intersectionality that the very presence of this professor in a class talking about sexual content is triggering, assaultive, and "white supremacist." We can't be cornered into fear by these Maoist middle class spoiled brats. Don't give them an inch because they will eventually, literally go into art museums and slash every nude thinking its "rape culture" and "white supremacy." This might sound like paranoid theorizing, but look what happened to Bret Weinstein at Evergreen. These Social Justice kids create straw man arguments and will assault anyone over minor disagreements, launching into ad hominem attacks on anyone from Indo-European backgrounds.

[truzn2-blog]

Henry Darger

Explained in a biography by Michael Bonesteel (no date), “Henry Darger led a secret life as a prolific visual artist and epic novelist. His vast collection of creative work was discovered in 1972 when his two-room apartment in Chicago was cleared out shortly before he died.”

I was told to look at Darger’s work for inspiration quite early on in the project and I was wowed by everything about it, I have been looking for exhibitions that I could go and see it at but there is nothing available as of yet.

It is just so hard but mesmerising to believe he was creating all of this just for his own enjoyment. The way his work is in long endless scrolls that he made himself out of whatever accessible materials was very motivating at this stage. Also the backgrounds, overwhelming bright colours and sort of unsettling nature of the story line really began to motivate me.

[camphorror]

i want this why is it so expensive like it’s expensive in a way that will never ever ever ever justify buying it ugh

[majidalaydeross]

Overlay from Device on Vimeo.

A film directed by Device

Based on the story by Elizabeth Bonesteel Read Elizabeth Bonesteel’s original story here: http://bit.ly/2SpzdRW

Creative Direction: The Verge (theverge.com) Creative Director: William Joel

Produced by Device

Illustration: Device Animation: Device, David Feliu, Sebastian Garcia, Jong-Ha Yoon, Karol Szczepankiewicz. Clean up: Device, Luke Etcheverry, Sergi Ros, Sheila Hattaf, Jong-Ha Yoon, Karol Szczepankiewicz, Demian Garnero.

Screenplay: William Joel

Ray: Kyle Stewart Ando: Michael McDaniel

Music: Sono Sanctus Sound Design: Ambrose Yu

Executive Producers: Eleanor Donovan, Nilav Patel. Supervising Producers: Sophie Erickson Production Manager: Meg Toth Editorial Director: Helen Havlak General Manager: Steven Belser Netwoek Manager: Sarah Bishop Woods

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Visit us: devicers.com Follow us: facebook.com/devicers instagram.com/devicers twitter.com/devicers behance.com/device

[sohownowbrowncow]

Overlay from Device on Vimeo.

A film directed by Device

Based on the story by Elizabeth Bonesteel Read Elizabeth Bonesteel’s original story here: http://bit.ly/2SpzdRW

Creative Direction: The Verge (theverge.com) Creative Director: William Joel

Produced by Device

Illustration: Device Animation: Device, David Feliu, Sebastian Garcia, Jong-Ha Yoon, Karol Szczepankiewicz. Clean up: Device, Luke Etcheverry, Sergi Ros, Sheila Hattaf, Jong-Ha Yoon, Karol Szczepankiewicz, Demian Garnero.

Screenplay: William Joel

Ray: Kyle Stewart Ando: Michael McDaniel

Music: Sono Sanctus Sound Design: Ambrose Yu

Executive Producers: Eleanor Donovan, Nilav Patel. Supervising Producers: Sophie Erickson Production Manager: Meg Toth Editorial Director: Helen Havlak General Manager: Steven Belser Netwoek Manager: Sarah Bishop Woods

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Visit us: devicers.com Follow us: facebook.com/devicers instagram.com/devicers twitter.com/devicers behance.com/device

[preownedshop]

PEN TO PAPER By Michael Bonesteel – Hardcover Pre-owned, very good condition

Pre-Owned PEN TO PAPER By Michael Bonesteel – Hardcover Pre-owned, very good condition For Sale

$15.00 (0 Bids) End Date: Monday Feb-18-2019 14:58:06 PST Buy It Now for only: $24.00 Buy It Now | Bid now | Add to watch list

from WordPress https://preownd.net/used-books/pen-to-paper-by-michael-bonesteel-hardcover-pre-owned-very-good-condition/

[earlrmerrill]

Art Institute Of Chicago Becomes Battleground In PC Wars Following Instructor's Departure

"Michael Bonesteel, an adjunct professor specialising in outsider art and comics, ... resigned this year after two Title IX complaints were filed by transgender students" and he was consequently stripped of some courses and required to revise his syllabus for another and have it approved. Since then, reports Jori Finkel, the School of the AIC has been receiving some serious pushback over alleged censorship.

Article source here:Arts Journal

[fnewsmagazine]

Art history professor Michael Bonesteel left SAIC abruptly this summer. What happened?

http://fnewsmagazine.com/2017/08/what-happened-to-michael-bonesteel/

Photo by Richard Pearlman.

[outsiderartfair]

Bonesteel Affair- allegations refuted in Chicago

Outsider Art luminary Michael Bonesteel has resigned under duress from his teaching position at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago​ (SAIC). Read the full article in Raw Vision Magazine​.

Edward M. Gomez, Raw Vision Magazine

[hyaenagallery]

Elsie Paroubek part 9 Though Elsie's mysterious disappearance and death were once the subject of intense police investigation and journalistic focus, her story faded into obscurity until the death of outsider artist Henry Darger in 1973. Michael Bonesteel, an art historian examining Darger's work, found repeated reference in Darger's Story of the Vivian Girls novel to Annie Aronburg, leader of a child slave rebellion, and to an inspirational picture of her that had been lost. Miss Aronburg had met a shocking yet heroic death at the hands of her captors. (The murder is described in detail, and is nothing like Elsie's death.) According to his diary, Darger really had lost a picture of a little girl and was desperate to get it back or replace it. He did not give the name but said it had appeared in the "Chicago Daily Noise (sic), May, June, or July, 1911." Bonesteel's search in the newspaper archives revealed Elsie Paroubek and her story. A portrait of Annie Aronburg by Darger shows a somewhat older blonde-haired girl. Her hair ribbon and the distinctive collar of her dress are similar to Elsie's in the photograph. In the novel, Darger describes children who are kidnapped and mistreated by adults, while the heroic little Vivians, Annie Aronburg and others form "rescue squads" to save them. #destroytheday

[leeannclymer]

Blog Post: What's Next For ACA Repeal?

Following the failure of the Senate's so-called "skinny repeal" bill last week, the Affordable Care Act remains the law of the land for the time being. But it also remains under siege, even if there is not a fully crystallized health care reform proposal on the table, says Michael Parme of Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP. Blog Post: What's Next For ACA Repeal? published first on http://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/workers-compensation/rss.aspx

[tomperanteau]

Prof 'demonized' by 'militant LBGT students'

Prof ‘demonized’ by ‘militant LBGT students’

(CAMPUS REFORM) — A Chicago art professor has resigned, saying a “small cadre of militant LBGT students with an authoritarian agenda” created a “toxic environment” for him. Michael Bonesteel—a renowned expert on comic books and outsider art who taught popular classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) for the past 14 years—explained in an exclusive interview with The Chicago…