Pulp Fiction

Stress, 2004
Thomas Allen
24 x 20 inches
Chromogenic print

A discovery through the current issue of Harper's, Ben introduced me to Thomas Allen. Happily, popping his name into Google did wonders and many of his images are online (if not all). Initially we thought the work was sculptural in the form of an altered book (which is an art form all its own). The now pop up books are not the works themselves but the photographs are. While Allen has taken an X-acto to a plenitude of predominately pulp fiction novels, he has created his own new scenes with the cutouts and then through aspects of photography sets the scene for the newly altered books, with lighting and background. The object serves as a kind of still-life for artist to use in his photography.

I love the combination of mediums. More photos.

Like it? See Abelardo Morell's Alice in Wonderland Series and David Levinthal.

She

She turned her face to the window, 1868
Winslow Homer
Wood engraving, Engraver: Edward Sears
Page from The Galaxy, May, 1868, vol. V, opposite p. 581 Drawn by Winslow Homer, engraved by E. Sears

As commonly occurs in my wanderings (both virtually and physically) I've fallen in love with another artist, but not yet as a whole. Winslow Homer never held any particular interest for me, I tend to shy away from much American painting, while pretty and nice and often wonderfully real, I admit to finding it a bit dull. Many a painter was also a gifted draftsman, and Engravers such as Sears (who I can't find any info on quickly, only that he probably had his own engraving co. - via an ad in Harper's, maybe I'll do a little more research) spent their time bringing these drawings to the printed page. You'll see many of these images from Harper's Weekly, but all kinds of magazines and journals from the late 19th century appear.

I was playing around in the Brooklyn's Museum's collections using their new tag search to find works with women in them (an email from a dear friend prompted this :) and fell into the wonder of Homer's engravings. Maybe it is the lack of pretension in a drawing that has no color, where the focus is on the details of line, the need for a straightforward picture that tells a story, so it stands out amongst the text that surrounds it in the pages of the magazine. Either way (or ways I have yet to pinpoint), these wood engravings are great little stories that I can't stop looking at.

Also check out HarpWeek's cartoon of the day.