I dag kan man i Information læse min anmeldelse af Katsuhiros filmudgave af Akira fra 1988, som netop har haft premiere i en 4K-genmasterering. Den er bestemt et (gen)syn værd. Jeg synes den var bedre denne gang, end dengang. Læs mere her.
Archive for the 'hype & linkage' Category
The video posted here is my contribution to a lecture series on Raphael, organised to mark the 500th anniversary of his death in 1520 by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura of Toronto. Partly by happenstance, it turned into a series of lectures on Raphael and his relationship with or significance for other Italian renaissance artists, all of them Venetians. My talk, given in early October, was on his fraught relationship with Sebastiano del Piombo, who became Raphael’s main competitor in painting after he arrived in Rome in 1511, not least because he quickly allied himself with Raphael’s most severe rival, Michelangelo. Anyway, do check it out.
Do also tune into the contributions by my colleagues Thomas Dalla Costa and Giorgio Tagliaferro who talked about Raphael and Titian and Raphael and Paolo Veronese, respectively.
I dagens bogtillæg til Information kan man læse min anmeldelse af Danmarks første coronategneserie, Rikke Villadsens Kickstartede Syfilis 2020. Det er en vild, højspændt og trippet tegneserie, der bestemt fortjener en nærmere granskning. Læs her, hvis penge.
I dagens litteraturtillæg til Information kan man læse min anmeldelse af den franske tegners tegner Blutchs (og hans bror Robbers) genoplivning af den klassiske belgiske børneserie Tim og Thomas i albummet Men hvor er Kiki?, for nyligt udsendt på dansk af forlaget Zoom. Det giver anledning til betragtninger over hvad der gjorde især Wills udgave af serien i tresserne og halvfjerdserne interessant og ikke mindst til nogle tanker om et dansk tegneseriemarked, der i dag domineres af (gen)udgivelser eller efterligninger af gamle tegneserier. Her er et uddrag:
I Danmark udkom en håndfuld af Wills historier under albumboomet sidst i 70’erne og begyndelsen af 80’erne, og nu udgives Tim og Thomas igen som del af forlaget Zooms nostalgibaskende tegneserielinje.
Læserne fra dengang er blevet voksne og pengestærke og hører for deres indre øre den tørre lyd af tegneseriealbums, der klasker mod hinanden i børnebibliotekets bladrekasser.
Det har ført til, at en lang række fransk-belgiske albumserier med et halvt århundrede eller mere på bagen nu (gen)udgives i stor stil, ofte i stive samlebind med ekstramateriale, henvendt til aldrende læsere, der nødigt vil slippe deres barndom.
Læs hele herligheden mod betaling her.
This November, we staging a large virtual conference devoted to Titian’s late mythological paintings at the National Gallery. Organised by Thomas Dalla Costa and myself on the occasion of the exhibition Titian: Love Desire Death, which is still on view at Trafalgar Square (until 17 January), it will bring together scholars, conservators and scientists from Europe and North America to speak on a wide variety of topics relating to Titian and his mythological paintings, from technique to meaning and the wider context: from politics and identity to sex and violence!
The conference It will also feature four artist’s talks, with Nalini Malani, Michael Armitage, Phoebe Gloeckner and Tom de Freston — all reflecting on what Titian means to their practice and how they grapple with the enduring issues so central to his work.
The dates are 3, 10 and 17 November. You can see the full programme and register here.
Last summer, Christian Monggaard, film critic at the Danish newspaper Information and comics enthusiast, interviewed Robert Crumb twice in connection with the literary festival Louisiana Literature (see more here). With the blessings of Crumb, he has now converted these interviews into a small and beautifully-designed self-published book, Robert Crumb: I Can’t Do Pretty, to which he has added a personal appreciation of the artist that doubles as an introduction to Crumb’s career. He also asked yours truly to provide a foreword, which ended up as an essay about Crumb’s simultaneously transgressive and wholesome, self-analytical and empathetic work. Do check it out!
Order it here, or (perhaps) through your nearest book- or comics shop.
Halfdan Pisket følger nu sin skelsættende Dansker-trilogi op med Døden, en fiktion der belyser samme problemfelt og finder en lignende plads i dansk immigrantlitteratur. En stilsikker og bevægende tegneserie, jeg netop har anmeldt i Information. Læs den her, bag betalingsmuren, eller i dagens bogtillæg til avisen.
Min anmeldelse af Peter Wandel og Rasmus Meislers tegneserie Den magiske spinel kan læses i fredagens bogtillæg til Information eller online her, hvis du betaler. Det er en kompetent men McGraphic novel-agtig tegneserie, der primært er sat i verden for at højne opmærksomheden omkring Davids samling i København, hvilket bestemt er en værdig sag — Davids samling er en perle i dansk kulturliv, en samling på absolut internationalt niveau. Besøg!
Evigt relevant, og så er demagogen stadig orange. Fra Forever People #3 (1971).
Jeg er endnu engang beæret over at deltage i Morten Søndergård og Kim Schous podcast Supersnak — igen om Jack Kirby, naturligvis! Denne gang handler det om hans måske mest personlige større værk og muligvis hovedværket i hele produktionen, nemlig den såkaldte Fourth World-cyklus udgivet af DC Comics i begyndelsen af halvfjerdserne og desværre aldrig færdiggjort som han havde intenderet det.
Hent der, hvor du lytter til podcasts eller hop ind og lyt via Nummer9, Supersnaks Soundcloud eller podcastets Instagram og Facebook. Og hvis du har mod på mere, så hop tilbage og lyt til vores diskussion fra julen 2019 af Kirby samarbejde med Stan Lee under skabelsen og udviklingen af Marvel-universet. Endnu engang tak til Morten og Kim!
I fredagens bogtillæg til Information kan man læse min anmeldelse af to nye danske tegneserier, der har det til fælles at de omhandler mænd af den bløde, søgende og følsomme støbning. Det drejer sig om Palle Sigsgaard og Jens-Andreas D. Elkjærs tegneseriedebut Hasse får et liv og Lars Kramhøfts første solo-langspiller Noget frygteligt er altid lige ved at ske. Sidstnævnte er især et kig værd, men begge er interessante. Læs her.
I dagens bogtillæg til Information står min anmeldelse af amerikanske Nick Drnasos anmelderroste Sabrina at læse. Den er kommet på dansk for nylig og fortjener opmærksomhed. Blandt de mest markante tegneserieudgivelser de seneste år. Hermed et uddrag fra anmeldelsen:
Sabrina udkom forrige år på originalsproget og for nylig i glimrende oversættelse på dansk. Den har modtaget stort bifald blandt kritikerstanden og blev nomineret til Bookerprisen i Storbritannien. Forfatteren Zadie Smith kalder den »den bedste bog – inden for alle kunstformer – jeg har læst om den tid, vi lever i«.
Om dét holder nu, hvor COVID-19 er ved at omdefinere vore liv og samfund, er usikkert, men den følelse af eksistentiel skræk, Sabrina fremmaner i sin skildring af, hvordan tragiske fakta opløses i det mediebårne samfundsdyb klinger fortsat rent.
Smid penge efter avisen og læs her.
The BBC2 documentary Titian Behind Closed Doors, directed by Matthew Hill, aired on the BBC on Saturday night. It’s a treatment of Titian’s relationship with Philip II, the king of Spain, and the series of mythological paintings, the so-called poesie, that he painted for him. It coincides with our now-shuttered exhibition, Titian Love Desire Death, at The National Gallery. I was involved in pitching it to the BBC and gave an interview for it, but have not otherwise been involved. I recommend taking a look if you’re interested in the subject — it covers a lot of ground on a complex and rich topic. If you have access to the BBC iPlayer, you can watch it here for the next twenty-odd days.
I fredagens bogtillæg til Information kan man læse min anmeldelse af Tore Rørbæk og Mikkel Sommers Shingal og italienske Zerocalcares Kobane Calling — begge baseret på øjenvidneberetninger fra krigen i Syrien, Irak og Kurdistan. Det er gode om end ikke perfekte tegneserier, der rejser spørgsmål om tegneserien som journalistisk og dokumentarisk medie. Hermed indledningen:
Journalistik og dokumentarisme er i vækst inden for tegneserien. Formen er velegnet til at visualisere tid, sted og problematik på klar og samtidig nærværende vis. Der er mindre visuel ’støj’ i et tegneseriebillede end i fotografi, og billeder og tekst i forening kan ofte anskueliggøre komplekse forhold på mere økonomisk vis end tekst.
Det er imidlertid også meget arbejdskrævende, hvilket gør såvel nyhedsreportage som graverjournalistik eller detaljeret dokumentation i tegneserieform til sjældenheder – til det første skal man kunne tegne vanvittigt hurtigt, mens de to sidstnævnte kræver en tålmodighed, der sjældent står mål med den endelige læserskare. Derfor vælger mange noget midt imellem, eksempelvis rejseskildringen, personportrættet eller den dramatiserede øjenvidneberetning.
Læs den her, hvis du kan betale.
Before the world went sideways, I was working on an exhibition, Titian Love Desire Death, uniting seven masterpieces of mythological paintings by Titian (about 1488-1576) at the National Gallery. We managed to open the exhibition on 16 March. Three days later it closed along with the rest of the Gallery which was one of the last European institutions of its kind to do so. We have no idea when we will be able to reopen again and therefore whether we will be able to share this extraordinary collection of paintings with the public before they have to be packed and shipped onwards. I wrote about this situation for Apollo Magazine last week.
Titian called these pictures poesie in order to emphasise the inspiration he had taken from classical poetry and the ambition to have them work as visual poems. The group of six canvases were executed for Philip of Habsburg, King Philip II of Spain from 1556, between about 1551 and 1562, while a seventh was never sent and only completed towards the end of the artist’s life. The six have not been seen together since, probably, the 1570s, and the seventh has never been displayed with the rest of the group. This was a dream project, not just of mine but any Titian or Italian renaissance enthusiast for generations.
I have been privileged to play a part in its realisation and hope you will want to take a closer look, if not in person at the National Gallery, then perhaps at one of our partnering venues: the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh, the Museo del Prado in Madrid or the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, to where the paintings will tour, if all goes well and the pandemic doesn’t get in the way of that too. And if not there, then perhaps virtually — we will doing our best to share our knowledge and appreciation online over the next months, in part under the #MuseumFromHome tag. Also, there will be a documentary dedicated to Titian and the poesie, in which I participate, broadcast on BBC 2 on 4 April and I believe Mary Beard will be featuring the works on Front Row Late sometime soon as well. Will post links in here when and if.
Our exhibition film is based on the BBC’s footage, a taster of which can be seen in the following short video on the paired Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto:
Here is a Facebook Live I did on 16 March, before we opened to the public. It was done under the worrying shadow of Covid-19 so bear with the slight incoherence. In the run-up to the exhibition my colleagues and I also did a series of FacebookLives on the individual paintings — they can be accessed here.
A creative decision that we made early in the process and which I was particularly happy with was to reframe Philip’s six pictures in matching frames in order to harmonise the display. Handcarved in the National Gallery framing department by Peter Schade, our Head of Framing and his team, they are based on the original sixteenth-century frame around Titian’s late Pietà at the Accademia in Venice. Check out this nice video the Gallery produced on the project:
They *are* such wonderful paintings.
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Asterix i Information
Asterix anno 2020, komplet med bedaget racistisk karikatur
I dagens litteraturtillæg til Information kan (hvis man har abonnement) man læse min anmeldelse af Jean-Yves Ferri og Didier Conrads seneste Asterix-album, Vecingetoix’ datter. Vanen tro får jeg gjort mig nogle tanker om seriens præmis og hvor egnet den er til videreførelse af andre, nu hvor begge den ophavsmænd er døde. Hermed et uddrag: