Psychological

Valeriu Buev

Last Modified December 29, 2019 1 Comment

The paintings of Moldovan artist Valeriu Buev explore the strange and poetic tragedy of the human condition. Although Buev uses the language of surrealism and dream, his stunning images remain fully rooted both psychically and technically in material reality. Through the processes of distortion and imagination, Buev confronts the stark costs of humanity’s darker tendencies, such as war and corruption.

And yet, Buev’s work doesn’t rely upon simplistic platitudes and does not fall back on propagandistic tropes. Instead, each gorgeously painted image is wildly open to interpretation through visual metaphor and rich layers of ambiguity.

Each surrealistic image is embedded firmly in the near past or possible symbolic present.

Buev doesn’t indulge in idealism or painting surrealist images disassociated from present reality. Instead, he unflinchingly confronts the stark realities of our world and transforms each transgression into something oddly beautiful, poetic, and archetypal.

Others of Buev’s images remain just beautiful and opaque. The artist’s symbolism suggests something meaningful. Like a Rorschach test, each skillfully crafted image queues the viewer to delve into his own subconscious. Our reading may tell us more about our own current emotional landscapes than we first assume.

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Prints can be obtained from Saatchi Art and on Fine Art America:

Valeriu Buev on Fine Art America

Valeriu Buev on Saatchi Art

Return of the Salvador Dalí Tarot

Last Modified December 13, 2019 Leave a Comment

When most people think about Salvador Dalí, the first thing that comes to mind is likely his mind-bending work as one of the vanguards of surrealism—melting clocks, spindly-limbed monsters, bizarre tableaus that tread the line between dreamscape and nightmare… either that or his trademark mustache.

However, Dalí’s oeuvre is not simply limited to oil paintings; throughout his career, he dabbled in a wide variety of eccentric and surprising formats. He made sculptures, cookbooks, wine guides, designed sets for plays and operas, and even collaborated on an animated film with Walt Disney. One of the most unique undertakings of his career though is undoubtedly the infamous Dalí tarot deck, which has been a highly-sought and hard to find collector’s item since its original release in the mid-80s. Well, good news: the Dalí tarot deck is back, and it’s better than ever.

Taschen, the publisher behind a number of high-end hardcover volumes of Dalí’s work, has recently re-released the Dalí tarot deck as a beautiful 78-card box set. Included with the deck itself is an insightful companion book by author and tarot scholar Johannes Fiebig, which delves into Dalí’s life and process while completing his tarot series. The book also provides detailed information on the history of tarot, explanations of what the individual cards mean, and instructions on how to perform your own readings with the deck. The addition of Fiebig’s book elevates the previous version of the deck by making it one of those rare art objects that are not only inspiring to behold, but also functional to use.

Although it’s easy to imagine Dalí deciding to delve into tarot cards on a psychedelic whim, his original impetus for creating the deck is perhaps even stranger than the fact that he made one at all. The deck was commissioned by famed film producer Albert Broccoli as a prop for the classic 1973 James Bond film Live and Let Die, starring Roger Moore and Jane Seymour. In the film, Seymour plays a psychic medium called Solitaire who uses tarot cards to track the legendary MI6 spy James Bond. Legend has it that after Dalí began working on the deck it became clear that his fees would be too high for the production to afford, so Broccoli decided to scrap the idea and the tarot deck prop was cut from the film.

Thankfully, Dalí’s wife Gala encouraged his interest in mysticism and the occult, and he became so enamored with the process of creating the tarot deck that he continued to work on it for more than a decade.

Many of the cards themselves feature Dalí’s interpretations of classic works of art, such as Vincenzo Camuccini’s The Death of Julius Caesar, which stands in for the Ten of Swords. As a tribute to Gala, he included her likeness in the deck as the figure of the Empress, which is quite an appropriate choice, since the Empress represents the creation of life, romance, and art. Dalí also included himself in the deck as the figure of the Magician, which represents self-confidence and signifies success in upcoming ventures. When he finally completed the tarot deck in 1984, the original limited edition was lauded by tarot readers and Dalí fans alike and quickly sold out, so it seems that his casting of himself as the magician was indeed a prophetic choice… fated by the cards, perhaps?

For a particularly surreal tarot experience, and as a supplement to Fiebig’s guide, try combining the Dalí tarot deck with surrealist filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s series of instructional tarot YouTube videos, in which he provides in-depth lessons on the history and practice of tarot reading, as well as personalized readings for followers of his channel. Jodorowsky and Dalí were contemporaries, and Dalí was even slated to appear in Jodorowsky’s ill-fated attempt to make a big-budget version of the sci-fi classic Dune. Although there’s no evidence that the two surrealist visionaries ever discussed their mutual interest in tarot, at least not on record, it’s fun to imagine what that conversation would have been like; one has to assume it would have been either extremely profound or completely incomprehensible.

Until the new Taschen edition, which was released this past November, original copies of the deck were extremely hard to come by, selling for upwards of $500 on online auction websites like eBay. The 2019 version of the deck is much more affordable, retailing on Taschen’s website for $60 USD. It makes a perfect gift for any lover of Dalí’s artwork, or just tarot cards in general. So if you want to take a surreal glimpse into your future, or just have some fun with your open-minded, art-loving friends, there’s no better way to do so than with a tarot deck designed by the inimitable Salvador Dalí.

*Surrealism meets Symbolism in Salvador Dalí’s tarot deck*

Combining the occult with his own unmistakable sensibility, Dalí’s tarot is a pastiche of old-world art, surrealism, kitsch, Christian iconography and Greek and Roman sculpture.
— openculture.com

Deck of 78 tarot cards with booklet in a box, 7.4 x 13 in., 184 pages

Pre-Order Dali’s Tarot Deck.

Further Reading:

Salvador Dalí’s Tarot Cards Will Tell Your Surreal Future

Salvador Dalí’s Surreal Tarot Card Designs from the 1970’s to be Released as a Complete Deck

Salvador Dalí’s surreal tarot cards from the ’70s and ’80s being reissued

Gadzooxtian

Last Modified November 11, 2019 Leave a Comment

Biography

Melbourne artist Xtian was conceived in East Germany but born in Hungary – that makes him one part Australian and two parts former communist.

He’s been actively collaging for two-plus decades – but is not adverse to making music or short animations. His works can best be described as questions, or “edge of comprehension”. He has exhibited and been published both locally and overseas – most recently by Oyster Moon Press’ Hydrolith 2: Surrealist Research & Investigations.

He is also one half of the now ten-year-old – and still growing! – exquisite corpse project The Infinite Collage (close to 80m long!), and is the creator of the longest-running surreal collage comic series The Micturating Angel.

Xtian is the founder of Melbourne Kollage Ultra, and a contributing member of a number of other collage groups.

Artist Statement

(Before you proceed: the images are an extract from a much larger work.)

“…too arty for comic book lovers, too comic booky for art lovers…”

Do you like comics? So do I. Marvel? Hell no! Okay, we’re gonna be friends then.

This is not an “artist statement” – that will come some other time. This is an introduction to “The Micturating Angel”. A spiel. A sales-pitch. But not an explanation – maybe an excuse? A necessary use of words to explain images that have already said all they can?

Do you like comics? I mean REAL comics, like Charles Burns’ stuff, or Druillet’s or Kago Shintaro or Nihei Tsutomu? Or “The Sandman” series by Neil Gaiman?

Right.

But what about weird stuff by the original Surrealists and the Dadas? Are you familiar with Max Ernst’s collage novels or Gilliam’s animations from Monty Python? What about free jazz, avant-garde music and the writings of William Burroughs? The (good) films of David Lynch? Those books from the 90s put out by V. Vale, the “REsearch” books? Are you familiar with the æsthetics of early industrial music culture or with the visuals of punk underground collages and photocopy art?

Am I laying this on too thick?

You wanted a statement, an introduction, so a schooling you’re gonna get, son.

Right. We’ve established the basics, so meet “The Micturating Angel”, the “Naked Lunch” of comic books! I unashamedly call it a comic, ‘graphic novels’ are for pretentious twats. But its a comic with a fatal flaw: too arty for comic book lovers, too comic booky for art lovers – where do you draw the line?

Why even draw it? (And why even draw a comic in the first place?)

I grew up in Eastern Europe, pre-Fall-of-Communism, so my background is a little different from yours. I read mostly French comics translated into Magyar, I read nonsense literature from Germany and local writers and science books (never became an astronaut though). Emigration was a grand adventure and high school was a ridiculous shock: all the beauty of learning coupled with everyone hammering a round peg into a square whole.

Squares man. They can be so beautiful when they’re not people.

Like the panels of a comic book. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

In high school, I invented surrealist writing – not being aware of its well-established existence. It saved my brain for greater things. Eventually, I met some actual surrealists, some actual poets, and artists and some actual interesting life.

And here we are today – and I’d like you to meet my children – The Micturating Angels (there’s more than one).

Q: What does “micturating” mean?
A: Pissing.
Q: Wut?
A: It’s all you get.

A surreal collage art-comic series seven years in the making (and counting). Somewhere between 2ooo – 3ooo collages in total, including the guest stars, the Secret Chiefs (guys in charge of this here Cosmos). Unraveling the adventures and sanity levels of young girls against their captive, oppressive world (is this a feminist comic? I don’t know…). Young girls against crappy old men and institutions, religious zealots, ignorance vs. science, freaks!

Drawing on source materials ranging from hardware catalogues to religious imagery to medical illustrations, alchemical instructions, furniture assembly instructions, “dirty” comics, mangas, giallos, and cannibalistic self-re-absorptions, the “Necronomicon” (containing not all but most of the sigils of the “Fifty Sacred Names of Marduk”), engineer’s manuals and mathematical formulæ

– do you still like comic books?

Then you’ll love this one! Playing with the conventions of comics to create striking visuals, adventures revealed through non-linear story-telling and complete non-sense dialogue – yes, the words are a red herring – “The Micturating Angel” is a unique comic that will never be understood by anyone – and that makes it an enduring mystery, I hope. (Aren’t questions better than answers? No, they’re not. But Bigfoot is more interesting when you DON’T know that it’s just mountain-lion footprints.)

And there it is. My seven-year Grand Opus, unlike its predecessors (all the other books I’ve made), and a never to be repeated exercise by me. And I WANT you to enjoy it! I really do, I want you to look beyond the confusion, I want you to stop trying to make sense of it and revel in what it actually IS: an ever-shifting series of nightmares laid out like the storyboard of a Hollywood blockbuster that will never be made.

Welcome aboard. I hope you like THIS comic.

– Xtian, 2019

“I LOVE your collage work! It is VERY surreal… your comics are great! … Good luck with your project!”
– Rev. Ivan Stang, Church of the Subgenius

“… a very original comic…”
– Surrealismo Internacional

Books: lulu.com/spotlight/gadzooxtian
Prints: redbubble.com/people/Gadzooxtian
Facebook: facebook.com/The-Micturating-Angel-1609957469288457
Site: gadzooxtian.com

Albane Simon

Last Modified October 24, 2019 Leave a Comment

About Albane Simon

Imagine a world where linear time has lost all relevance. A place where past memories and future visions dance in a familiar present gone awry, this is where nightmares collide with lucid clarity. Touching on topics diverse as ecology, science, architecture, and spirituality.

Guide du Whisky-Flammarion éditions - Albane Simon

Illusion Et Réalité (2010) - Albane Simon

Seek & Find - Children’s book project - Albane Simon

instagram.com/albanesurrealcollagist/

James McCarthy

Last Modified October 13, 2019 Leave a Comment

James McCarthy is a surrealistic landscape painter. McCarthy’s psychedelic/cosmic mindscapes wrestle with the concepts of space-time and the afterlife.