Bøger af Allan Graubard

Sun Step Black Lake is a remarkable book which showcases the art of collaboration, and artistic dialogue. The beautiful, abstract images, from John Welson, provide a platform for Allan Graubard's sublime words to wander through the terrain laid ¿¿ by Welson. But, then, in the true spirit of artistic friendship, Welson's images return the favour and work their way through Graubard's words. This is not only a delightful book of art and words, but also a testament to the brilliance of Allan Graubard & John Welson.

"Looking at your pictures is like looking through butterfly wings." -Jimi HendrixBetween 1968 and 1971, in a loft on New York's Jefferson Street, the poet, photographer and filmmaker Ira Cohen created some of the most mythic images of the late 1960s. Inspired by his friends Jack Smith and Bill Devore, Cohen's initial experiments with black light developed into an experimental ritual space he termed the Mylar Chamber--a simple room of hinged boards hung with reflective Mylar film. Through his extended network, and with the support of artist and set designer Robert LaVigne, Cohen invited visitors to play another self within this small theater, among them Jimi Hendrix, William Burroughs, Vali Myers, Jack Smith, Angus MacLise, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Lionel Ziprin, Ching Ho Cheng, Petra Vogt, Charles Ludlam, John McLaughlin and the rock group Spirit. In December 1969, in a summary of the past decade, Life magazine declared that "few came as close to explaining the euphoric distortions of hallucinogenics" as Cohen through his Mylar Chamber photographs, but the full story draws upon much deeper ideas surrounding identity and the power of the image. This is the first book to explore Cohen's iconic Mylar Chamber photographs. Published on the 50th anniversary of the Life magazine feature, and with several gatefolds, it includes more than 70 images from this intensely creative period, each digitally restored from the original negatives by Cohen's friend and collaborator, Ira Landgarten. It also includes an interview with Cohen, excerpts from his poetry, critical writing from Allan Graubard and Ian MacFadyen and further reflections from Timothy Baum, Alice Farley and Thurston Moore. Ira Cohen was born in the Bronx in 1935. A countercultural renaissance man, Cohen made films, photographs and poetry, edited the magazine Gnaoua and authored The Hashish Cookbook. Cohen became well known for his 1968 movie using the Mylar technique, The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda, soundtracked by Angus MacLise, the original drummer of the Velvet Underground. In 2008 Nina Zivancevic, writing in NY Arts magazine, described Cohen's life as "a sort of white magic produced by an alchemist who turned his back on the establishment in order to find God, art and poetry." He died in 2011.

Sirenes is a collaboration between the poet Allan Graubard and the artist Gregg Simpson. Allan Graubard notes that the title came about at an exhibition when he heard a fire engine snaking through the walls and realized that he had heard the theme for this collaboration. Poetry, art, and event twine in this sinuous flow of images. Allan Graubard's poems, plays and texts include And tell tulip the summer, Targets, Invisible Heads: Surrealists in North America. His plays have premiered in New York; Washington DC; Lafayette, Louisiana; Dubrovnik, Croatia; Sibiu, Romania; and in Modena and Lugo, Italy. He lives in New York with his wife, Carolyn McGee. Born in Ottawa in 1947, Bowen Island artist, Gregg Simpson, has been active in visual art, music, and multi-media performances since the mid-1960s. His work has been exhibited and published in museums and galleries in Canada, the U.S., Italy, France, England, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Chile and Australia.

A distinctive international anthology of art and literature from 21 noted contributors in response to current cultural and political conditions. From the base dissolution or putrefaction of matter-the Nigredo of language, image and gesture-the first stage of a process of transformation occurs. It begins at ground zero where antagonisms and sympathies root and intensify. It ends with a work offered to others. And it does so without hierarchy, on a common playing field, and without using or being used by genre or type to repletion. Nigredo also refers to the historical situation we find ourselves in, where conflict is the norm-whether experienced physically, psychologically, culturally, socially, economically, politically, racially, and by gender-and peace a momentary relief.

Surrealism in North America has a fractured history, with several arcs of continuity. Here is the story of one collective that evolves in five cities through various groups over four decades. Poets, artists, dance theater and theatre creators, photographers, composers, sculptors, inventors, critics, and seekers - friends and colleagues all - their oeuvres and interventions track their effort to refine a revolutionary poetic presence precise to time and place: a living adaptive force that flowers from marvelous encounters, discoveries, and collaborations. Essential to understanding the fate of surrealism in North America, this history has now found its voice and compass, just beyond the limits set by the past. Richly illustrated, with texts, poems, games, and commentary . . . Enter and leave as you please . . .