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The Lobster is a 2015 absurdist dystopian black comedy film. In the film, single people are given 45 days to find a romantic partner or otherwise be turned into animals.
It was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival and won the Jury Prize. It was shown in the Special Presentations section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. The film was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the 89th Academy Awards and for Outstanding British Film at the 69th British Academy Film Awards.
We're here visiting Plastic Animals
This could have so many titles honestly.
Here's some old-school-ish figs from The Super Mario Bros Movie, an absolutely underrated gem that everyone should watch at least once.
I know that sounds like sarcasm, but legit, I love this movie and everything in it. Drunk Bob Hoskins? Fantastic animatronics? Absurdist humor? a complex, immersive world? Dennis Hopper as Donald Trump? This movie has all that and more.
The figs are pretty self-explanatory. I know Luigi doesn't have a mustache in the movie, but these two heads were too good to pass up.
Anyways, that's all for now.
Monkey.
From a compelling exhibition by French artist Laure Prouvost (1978), in which the artist welcomes you into a surreal and absurdist world of her own making.
At Museum De Pont Tilburg NL.
More of this at my Blog:
From a compelling exhibition by French artist Laure Prouvost (1978), in which the artist welcomes you into a surreal and absurdist world of her own making.
At Museum De Pont Tilburg NL.
More of this at my Blog:
Erik Kessels presents « Perfect Imperfections » , the fine art of making mistakes...
Erik Kessels (1966) is a Dutch artist, designer and curator with a particular interest in photography, and creative director of KesselsKramer, an advertising agency in Amsterdam. Kessels and Johan Kramer established the "legendary and unorthodox" KesselsKramer in 1995, and KesselsKramer Publishing, their Amsterdam-based publishing house, both of which they continue to run.
He is "best known as a book publisher specialising in absurdist found photography", extensively publishing his and others' found and vernacular photography. Notable works include the long-running series Useful Photography, which he edits with others, and his own In Almost Every Picture. Sean O'Hagan, writing in The Guardian, said "His magazine, Useful Photography, forgoes art and documentary for images that are purely functional. ... Humour is the unifying undercurrent here as it is in KesselsKramer's series of photo books, In Almost Every Picture".
On paper, successful creative director, artist and photographer Erik Kessels doesn’t seem like much of a failure. Yet, as his new book reveals, failing is a healthy part of the creative process – while imperfection can be a fascinating artistic sphere in which to work.
"This exhibition shows a large overview of the best fabulous failures found in contemporary art, design and photography, made by a group of artists that like to fight perfection, embrace serendipity and search for fabulous failures."- Erik Kessels
“Let’s face it, we’ve all failed. Maybe not on a grand scale, but in some way, shape or form, we’ve screwed up.” That’s the first line of Dutch photo curator and art director Erik Kessels new book Failed It! (published by Phaidon).
A curious photograph....very interesting ….It was difficult to know what's fact and what's fiction...
Erik Kessels presents « Perfect Imperfections » , the fine art of making mistakes...
Erik Kessels (1966) is a Dutch artist, designer and curator with a particular interest in photography, and creative director of KesselsKramer, an advertising agency in Amsterdam. Kessels and Johan Kramer established the "legendary and unorthodox" KesselsKramer in 1995, and KesselsKramer Publishing, their Amsterdam-based publishing house, both of which they continue to run.
He is "best known as a book publisher specialising in absurdist found photography", extensively publishing his and others' found and vernacular photography. Notable works include the long-running series Useful Photography, which he edits with others, and his own In Almost Every Picture. Sean O'Hagan, writing in The Guardian, said "His magazine, Useful Photography, forgoes art and documentary for images that are purely functional. ... Humour is the unifying undercurrent here as it is in KesselsKramer's series of photo books, In Almost Every Picture".
On paper, successful creative director, artist and photographer Erik Kessels doesn’t seem like much of a failure. Yet, as his new book reveals, failing is a healthy part of the creative process – while imperfection can be a fascinating artistic sphere in which to work.
"This exhibition shows a large overview of the best fabulous failures found in contemporary art, design and photography, made by a group of artists that like to fight perfection, embrace serendipity and search for fabulous failures."- Erik Kessels
“Let’s face it, we’ve all failed. Maybe not on a grand scale, but in some way, shape or form, we’ve screwed up.” That’s the first line of Dutch photo curator and art director Erik Kessels new book Failed It! (published by Phaidon).
Graffiti murals and installation service available, for inquires please write: acamonchi.hq@gmail.com
that reminded me - there was this protest action held annually in Russia called "Monstration" which should more accurately be translated as "Monsteration" , from "monster" you see, the action was a demonstration of people carrying banners and things with absurdist slogans like "Raccoons are people too!" or "Dark Star for rent" etc
One of those was "Don't rock the boat ! Our rat is getting seasick"
2015 - Michail Serebrjakow's Diagonale Lösung des Problems
Mikhail Serebryakov was born in Volgograd (Soviet Union, now Russia) in 1958. A construction engineer and painter, Serebryakov describes himself as a “real absurdist”. He painted the satirical picture “Diagonale Lösung des Problems” (“Diagonal Solution of the Problem”) on the Berlin Wall. He lives in Moscow.
The painter Mikhail Serebryakov comes from Volgograd, Russia. He studied civil engineering and industrial and urban planning in Volgograd at the same time as learning to paint in a studio for academic painting. He has worked in planning offices and as a cartoonist, caricaturist, and author, as well as a freelance painter. The first exhibition of his artwork in West Berlin was held in 1988. In 1990 the East Side Gallery project organisers asked him to design a picture for the Berlin Wall. His first design showed a man throwing a woman into the air with a hay fork.
In Russian artist Mikhail Serebryakov’s painting “Diagonale Lösung des Problems” (“Diagonal Solution of the Problem”) the positive gesture of a raised thumb is subverted by an element of force: Rather than being voluntarily aloft, the thumb is held in place by a chain. The painting is an ironic comment on life in general and on German unification in particular. Although it was positive, Serebraykov is saying, it had problematic consequences for the lives of the Germans. The painting was almost completely defaced by 2009, when the artist restored it.
Matter-Eater Lad is the fifteenth member inducted into the Legion of Super-Heroes, joining soon after Bouncing Boy.
In his first appearance, Matter-Eater Lad explains his origins, saying that the natives of Bismoll found that microbes had made all their food inedible, and that the populace evolved their ability to eat all matter as a survival mechanism.
This gives his teeth and jaws, apparently, the strength and durability to bite and chew through stone, metal, and other hard substances the way that Superboy Mon-el can.
Tenzil's mother is named Mitz Kem, and his father Rall who, curiously, use Tenzil's LSH stipend to buy groceries as told in "The Hapless Hero" in Action Comics #381, despite ostensibly being Bismollians.
His brother, Renkil, tries to take Tenzil's place in the Legion during one story (Superboy #184).
Their family life is shown to be rough. He has an unrequited crush on Shrinking Violet, which features for the bulk of the Legion's run in Adventure Comics.
He appears rarely in Legion stories, as the writers struggled with the problem of how to make his power useful in a fight and was routinely written out via a plot device where Tenzil was constantly being drafted into his planet's political system due to his fame as a Legion member.
During one of his first draftings to be in politics, he put in a good word for fellow Bismollian, Calorie Queen, who had somewhat similar powers as him, but also had the ability to turn caloric energy into super strength.
Matter-Eater Lad has one major heroic moment, though, when he saves the universe by eating the previously thought to be indestructible Miracle Machine, though the energies of the device leave him insane for several years.
He is ultimately cured by Brainiac 5. He would later avert the conquest of Bismoll by an army of Computo replicas, with the assistance of the Legion Subs (this mission would cause Polar Boy to disband his group, and join the Legion proper).
In volume 4 of Legion of the Super-Heroes Matter-Eater Lad plays a significant role. Keith Giffen, who had much success with humor in his 1987 Justice League relaunch, revamped Tenzil Kem (which could arguably be explained as consequence of his regained sanity) as a free spirit who rebels against his planet's virtual enslavement of him as a senator by becoming a multimedia celebrity, using his planet's tax money to finance multiple television shows that allow Tenzil to leave his planet for trips to Earth and other planets for adventure and fun.
While Tenzil's exploits generate disdain from his world's rulers, his adventures make him even more popular with the masses of his homeworld, resulting in Tenzil being kept on as senator.
"Trust me, I'm a senator" is an oft-uttered catchphrase during this period. Tenzil eventually comes into conflict with former Legion villain Prince Evillo, founder of The Devil's Dozen, and is sent to a Hades-like dimension. Upon his return, he discovers that, having been technically dead, he has been voted out of office by the opposition party (who dislike both his disrespect for their traditions and his overwhelming popularity), so he leaves Bismoll for adventure.
During the "Five Year Gap" following the Magic Wars, Earth fell under the covert control of the Dominators, and withdrew from the United Planets.
When fellow Legionnaire Polar Boy was unjustly imprisoned by Earthgov for speaking out against the Dominators, Tenzil traveled to Earth, and used his force of will and absurdist sense of humor to free him.
Tenzil rejoined the Legion, and since the team was operating without the assistance of the United Planets, his political connections and owed favors became very important to the Legion. Matter-Eater Lad ultimately courted and married former Legion villain Saturn Queen.
Soon thereafter, the members of the Dominators' highly classified "Batch SW6" escaped captivity. Originally, Batch SW6 appeared to be a group of teenage Legionnaire clones, created from samples apparently taken just prior to Ferro Lad's death at the hands of the Sun-Eater.
Later, they were revealed to be time-paradox duplicates every bit as legitimate as their older counterparts. After Earth was destroyed in a disaster reminiscent of the destruction of Krypton over a millennium earlier, a few dozen surviving cities and their inhabitants reconstituted their world as New Earth. The SW6 Legionnaires—including their version of Matter-Eater Lad—remained.
⚡ Happy 🎯 Heroclix 💫 Friday! 👽
_____________________________
A year of the shows and performers of the Bijou Planks Theater.
Secret Identity: Tenzil Kem
Publisher: DC
First appearance: Adventure Comics #303 (December 1962)
Created by: Jerry Siegel (Writer)
John Forte (Artist)
A relatively obscure and very fun Legionnaire and note that he's from the planet "Bismoll". An obvious reference to Pepto-Bismol, an antacid medication which had become quite popular in 1962, used to treat temporary discomforts of the stomach and gastrointestinal tract, such as nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, and diarrhea. All of which he would seem to get eating metal, rocks, debris, etc. It's... MATTER-EATER LAD! 😍
From a compelling exhibition by French artist Laure Prouvost (1978), in which the artist welcomes you into a surreal and absurdist world of her own making.
At Museum De Pont Tilburg NL.
More of this at my Blog:
What a lazy mind I have, going down the same old grooves, as if the deeper the ruts then the deeper my understanding of reality. What if imagination is a sense that can be freed of 'I see things as they were yesterday'? That would make a case for a new kind of story-telling game.
Perhaps dreams are waking up.
ERWIN WURM
Glue Your Brain
MCA Gallery, Sydney
28 November 2005 - 12 February 2006
Erwin Wurm is an Austrian artist with an absurdist edge. The highlight of his obesity series is Fat Convertible.
30/52
lol it's kind of nice to almost be able to tell myself apart from a white wall for once, thx Cuba
I really want to do a second part or something to this; I don't dig it as much as I thought I would on its own. Mainly I think because it wasn't an idea I was super passionate about; I just got home yesterday and thought it'd be a great idea to roll around in foundation and smear it on my nice new walls, the usual. I'm such a freak omg. I'm aight with it though.
What I wanted was to do something about the parts of ourselves we leave behind when we meet other people and go other places and whatever. The figurative parts l o l can you imagine if we all left limbs and things behind everywhere what a mess. But even though I'm pretty absurdist in how I personally feel about life & meaning, I do think that every person in our lives is meant to have whatever effect on us that they do, whether good or bad. Because I think that both good and bad experiences are important and every experience & person teaches us something. Idk, let me know your thoughts if they're the same or different or whatnot.
Happy Wednesday dudes! Sorry to be awol again, I just moved back to Columbus this past weekend but I'll be in one spot for at least a few more weeks so that's great & hopefully means actual regular weekly uploads again. Either way I love yall and I'll c u soon <3
French postcard by Editions F. Nugeron, no. Star 136. Photo: Air France / Distribution VU. Caption: Federico Fellini, Giulietta Massina and Marcello Mastroianni, 13 April 1960.
Italian film director and screenwriter Federico Fellini (1920-1993) was one of the most influential filmmakers of all time. He was known for his distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images with earthiness. In a career spanning almost fifty years, Fellini won the Palme d'Or for La Dolce Vita (1960), was nominated for twelve Academy Awards. He won an Oscar for La Strada (1954), Le notti di Cabiria (1957), 8½ (1963) and Amarcord (1973).
Federico Fellini was born in 1920 in Rimini in the Emilia-Romagna region. His native Rimini and characters there like Saraghina (the devil herself said the priests who ran his school) - and the Gambettola farmhouse of his paternal grandmother would later be remembered in several of his films. His traveling salesman father Urbano Fellini showed up in La dolce vita (1960) and 8½ (1963). His mother Ida Barbiani was from Rome and accompanied him there in 1939. Fellini's first passion was the theater, and at the age of 12, he briefly ran away from home to join the circus, later entering college solely to avoid being drafted. He enrolled in the University of Rome. Intrigued by the image of reporters in American films, he tried out the real-life role of a journalist. Additionally, Fellini worked as an artist on fumetti (Italy's illustrated magazines), and occasionally even made his living as a caricaturist at Roman restaurants. He caught the attention of several editors with his caricatures and cartoons and then started submitting articles. Several articles were recycled into a radio series about newlyweds 'Cico and Pallina'. Pallina was played by acting student Giulietta Masina, who became Fellini's real-life wife in 1943. They remained together until his death. The young Fellini loved vaudeville and was befriended in 1939 by leading comedian Aldo Fabrizi. Fabrizi recruited Fellini to supply stories and ideas for his performances; between 1939 and 1944. The two men worked in tandem on a number of largely forgotten comedies, among them No Me Lo Dire, Quarta Pagina, and Campo de Fiori. When young director Roberto Rossellini wanted Fabrizi to play Don Pietro in Roma città aperta (Roberto Rosselini, 1945), he made the contact through Fellini. Fellini worked on that film's script and is on the credits for Rosselini's Paisà (Roberto Rosselini, 1946). Dale O'Connor at IMDb: "On that film, he wandered into the editing room, started observing how Italian films were made (a lot like the old silent films with an emphasis on visual effects, dialogue dubbed in later). Fellini in his mid-20s had found his life's work."
Federico Fellini collaborated on films by Pietro Germi (including In Nomine Della Legge and Il Cammino Della Speranza) and Alberto Lattuda (Il Delitto di Giovanni Episcopo and Il Mulino del Po), among others. In 1948, Fellini completed the screenplay for Il Miracolo, the second and longer section of Rossellini's two-part effort Amore. Here Fellini's utterly original worldview first began to truly take shape in the form of archetypal characters (a simple-minded peasant girl and her male counterpart, a kind of holy simpleton), recurring motifs (show business, parties, the sea), and an ambiguous relationship with religion and spirituality. He further explored this in his script for Rossellini's Francesco, Giullare di Dio (Roberto Rosselini, 1949). In 1950, Fellini made his first attempt at directing one of his own screenplays (with help of Alberto Lattuda), Luci del Varieta (Federico Fellini, Alberto Lattudada, 1950), which further developed his fusion of neorealism with the atmosphere of surrealism. Fellini then directed the romantic satire Lo Sciecco Bianc. The film marked his first work with composer Nino Rota. Fellini's initial masterpiece, I Vitteloni, followed in 1953. The first of his features to receive international distribution, it later won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival, the first of many similar honours. The brilliant La Strada followed in 1954, also garnering the Silver Lion as well as the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Picture. After helming Il Bidone (1955), Fellini and a group of screenwriters (including a young Pier Paolo Pasolini) began work on Le Notti di Cabiria (1956), which also won an Oscar. Then he mounted La Dolce Vita (1960), the first of his pictures to star actor Marcello Mastroianni. He would become Fellini's cinematic alter ego over the course of several subsequent collaborations, its portrait of sex and death in Rome's high society created a tremendous scandal at its Milan premiere, where the audience booed, insulted, and spat on the director. Regardless, La Dolce Vita won the Palm d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and remains a landmark in cinematic history.
During the 1960s, many films by Federico Fellini were influenced by the work of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung and his ideas on the role of archetypes and the collective unconscious. The women who had both attracted and frightened him in his youth and an Italy dominated in his youth by Mussolini and Pope Pius XII inspired Fellini's dreams. In the 1960s, he started to record them in notebooks, and life and dreams became the raw material for such films as 8½ (1963) or Fellini - Satyricon (1969). With 1965's Giulietta Degli Spiriti, Fellini worked for the first time in color. After experimenting with LSD under the supervision of doctors, he began scripting Il Viaggio di G. Mastorna. Over a year of pre-production followed, hampered by difficulties with producers, actors, and even a jury trial. Finally on April 10th, 1967, Fellini suffered a nervous breakdown, resulting in a month-long nursing homestay. Ultimately, he gave up on ever bringing Il Viaggio di G. Mastorna to the screen, and his new producer, Alberto Grimaldi, was forced to buy out former producer Dino De Laurentis for close to half a billion liras. As the decade drew to a close, Fellini returned to work with a vengeance, first resurfacing with Toby Dammitt, a short feature for the collaborative film Tre Passi nel Delirio. Turning to television, he helmed Fellini: A Director's Notebook, a one-hour special for NBC, followed by the feature effort Fellini Satyricon. I Clown followed in 1970, with Roma bowing in 1972. Amarcord, a childhood reminiscence, won a fourth Academy Award in 1974. It proved to be his final international success. He later shot Il Casanova di Federico Fellini (1976), Prova d'Orchestra (1979), and La Citta delle Donne (1980), which were less successful. Fellini turned to publishing with Fare un Film, an anthology of notes about his life and work. E la Nave Va (1983) and Ginger e Fred (1985) followed, but by the time of L'Intervista (1987), he was facing considerable difficulty finding financing for his projects. His last completed film was La Voce Della Luna (1989). In the early 1990s, Fellini helmed a handful of television commercials, and in 1993 he won his fifth Academy Award for a lifetime of service to the film industry. In 1993, Federico Fellini died the day after his 50th wedding anniversary. He was 73 years old. Jason Ankeny at AllMovie: "One of the most visionary figures to emerge from the fertile motion picture community of postwar-era Italy, Federico Fellini brought a new level of autobiographical intensity to his craft; more than any other filmmaker of his era, he transformed the realities of his life into the surrealism of his art. Though originally a product of the neorealist school, the eccentricity of Fellini's characterizations and his absurdist sense of comedy set him squarely apart from contemporaries like Vittorio De Sica or Roberto Rossellini, and at the peak of his career his work adopted a distinctively poetic, flamboyant, and influential style so unique that only the term "Felliniesque" could accurately describe it. "
Sources: Jason Ankeny (AllMovie), Dale O' Connor (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
JEFF WHIPPLE
PAST / PRESENT FUTURE
Jeff Whipple's artistic vocabulary is distinct and decades-deep, developed through a rigorous engagement with image-making, absurdist narrative, and philosophical inquiry.
Over the past fifty years, he has built a multidisciplinary practice that spans drawing, painting, sculpture, performance, video, and public art, often blurring the lines between them. His work reflects a lifelong investigation of what it means to perceive, interpret, and inhabit the world, filtered through a lens that is at once skeptical, incisive, and marked by a wry, understated humor.
This retrospective, Past, Present, Future, traces the evolution of Whipple's visual language across time and medium. From early figurative experiments and collaged surrealism to the symbolic clarity and conceptual precision of his mature work, into digitally informed compositions, the exhibition reveals a continuity of thought alongside continual reinvention. Across media and time, Whipple approaches his subjects with persistent curiosity: What happens when clarity and confusion share the same frame? How do we assign meaning to the ordinary, the absurd, or the overlooked?
A central visual element throughout Whipple's work is the Spanasm-his term for a three-line symbol first introduced in the 1980s. It functions variously as a graphic anchor, a conceptual metaphor for life, or a quiet interruption in the visual field. Over time, it has become a kind of signature-not just of authorship, but of intent: a marker of presence, rhythm, and connection.
Whipple's early works, rendered with technical precision and a taste for contradiction, draw heavily from photography, personal memory, and popular media. As his practice developed, he incorporated elements of theater, language, installation, and satire, creating a body of work that is both materially diverse and intellectually cohesive.
Whether through large-scale paintings, hand-drawn animations, concrete sculptures, or integrated text banners, Whipple constructs images that operate like staged encounters, poised between intimacy and spectacle.
Throughout the exhibition, motifs recur and mutate: a hand obscuring a face, a vacant gaze, an isolated figure caught mid-gesture. His characters occupy indeterminate spaces, simultaneously psychological and theatrical, symbolic and quotidian. The work maintains a taut balance between conceptual rigor and visual wit, offering viewers both immediate clarity and slow-burn complexity.
More than a chronological survey, Past, Present, Future offers a portrait of an artist who has remained both agile and insistent, constantly shifting form while holding firm to his deepest preoccupations. Whipple's work doesn't seek resolution so much as it cultivates attention: to gesture, to language, to the quietly strange details of contemporary life.
Across five decades, he continues to ask questions without demanding answers, inviting his audience instead to stay with contradiction, to look longer, and to think harder about what we see.