Feed for Postsfeature
»
Bruegel, Rembrandt, Crumb and Cartooning
Extended Hooded Utilitarian piece on R. Crumb’s Genesis and the cartoon tradition.
»
Interview: El-P & Aesop Rock
Click here to read our 2003 in-depth interview with two of New York’s finest.
»
One Flew Out of the Cuckoo’s Nest — Comics Between Old and New
A survey of comics and cartoon history in parallel and opposition to that of the fine arts.
»
On Comics History and the Canon
A selection of writings on comics for use by teachers, students, and people otherwise interested
»
Worlds of Difference
Essay on role-playing games as a formative experience, in honour of passed D&D creators Gary Gygax & Dave Arneson
»
New Yorker Cartoons: A Legacy of Mediocrity
A deadening force at the heart of the art form, smothering the field in bourgeois mediocrity
»
A Certain Tendency in French Comics
Click here to read the extended Metabunker debate on the current (problematic?) state of nigh-mainstream French comics.
»
Continuous Creation — Titian’s Nuova Natura
On Titian’s aesthetic of the unfinished and Renaissance notions of the subjective.
»
Fabrice Neaud interviewed
An interview with cartoonist Fabrice Neaud on autobiography, reality and risk in making comics about life
Bacchus and Ariadne: the Long and the Short
Serendipity would have it that two separate digital initiatives at the National Gallery had me talking about one of my favourite paintings in the collection, Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne, for two consecutive weeks. One was our #PaintedLovers campaign for the Valentine’s Day season, which consisted of a series of very short and (hopefully) to the point expositions on selected paintings with love as their theme by myself and colleagues (above). The other is a new initiative, #NGYouChoose, where the public votes for paintings in the collection to receive more in-depth facilitation from the curatorial staff. This consists of a public lecture of half an hour or so that is then posted to the Gallery’s YouTube channel (below).
It was a fun exercise, and hopefully the lectures and videos have been useful to some of you. I’ve got to admit, however, how difficult I find it to talk to a camera. This is particularly evident in the #PaintedLovers video, where I was ad-libbing a presentation where everything had to be on point, i.e. clear, devoid of mispronounciations, uhs, digressions, etc. I come across (to myself, at least) as mannered and robotic. As such it is a pretty good reminder that I need to loosen up when speaking into the dark glass.
The #NGYouChoose lecture was also improvised — which is the way I tend to prefer it — and its lack of tight coherence shows it, but at least I feel more relaxed. I am talking to an audience that is right there, and that helps. It doesn’t change the fact, however, that the camera mercilessly captures every nervous head scratch, every superfluous gesture, and my incessant shifting of feet. I get sea sick watching it.
Sorry, this is mostly a bit of autocriticism. If nothing else, I hope it will help me do better videos in the future. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy at least some of what I have to say on this terrific painting. Do let me know, and thanks for watching.