Art Slice

Detail: Leonora Carrington, "The Magical World of the Mayans" mural, 1963-64. Casein tempera on panel. Mexico City, MX.

We are back with another edition of our CREATURE DOUBLE FEATURE where we discuss TWO different artworks by TWO different artists and compare what makes them so terrifying!

Usually, we are able to squeeze them into one episode but not this time!

We kick off our 2025 CDF edition with illustrator, painter, and stained glasser Harry Clarke (1889-1931).

Whoo-ee, y’all, what a journey this one has been! 

Part of our process of building our episodes includes immersing ourselves in the time and place these artists worked - we want to know what they were seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting?

This time it included watching Derry Girls and traveling (virtually) to the mecca of the Irish Celtic Revival: the enchanting Aran Islands off the Western coast of Ireland.

ARAN ISLAND

It also led us to really ponder what made Harry’s vib different from his predecessor Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898), known for his grotesque and erotic black ink drawings, but also from the many overlapping movements happening at this time: Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, Celtic Revival, Irish Revival, Gothic Revival and many more.

AUBREY BEARSLEY

Harry hailed from Dublin, Ireland and was just as popular for his book illustrations during the Golden Age of gift-books as well as his other-wordly stained glass in churches.

STAINED GLASS - GENEVA WINDOW

While his masterpiece is the Geneva Window, a breathtaking example of Harry’s skill and mastery of stained glass, we will be focusing on an illustration from the book of Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allen Poe (1919, 1923).

Yes, horror-ific Edgar. Allen.Poe. 

The work in question is that of “King Pest” from 1919, a story about two drunken sailors bumbling about a 19th century plague-stricken London.

KING PEST

Sounds chill but the combo of grim and gory Poe plus Harry’s scary talent of visualizing such tales will give you the heebie-jeebies (not all speaking from experience 👀).

Click PLAY if you dare and get ready to be HARRY-FIED!

Topics include E-Girl socks, El Chavo del Ocho, island getaways, pampooties, Derry Girls, Guinness, TB vaccines and much, much more!

The Pantry in this ep’ is “Horror Vacui”.

And, of course, we want to hear from YOU! 

What are YOUR favorite Harry Clarke illustrations from Tales of Mystery and Imagination?

Listeners, we are excited to share a very special interview with Orna Tsultem, curator and art historian of Mongolian art, where we dive into the origins of Mongol Zurag, the art of resistance.

Check out our interview here:

In this episode, we discuss the origins of Mongol Zurag which began as benign secular painting, which was a significant change from the traditional Buddhist thangka paintings.

After Mongolia became a Soviet satellite state, Mongol Zurag, slowly but surely, became the voice of resistance from Mongolian artists looking to rediscover their cultural heritage.

The Mongol Zurag style continues today and the Mongolian artists’ message which most of us can relate to in the year 2025 living under neo-liberalism and capital greed.

You can learn more about Mongolian Art here:

https://www.artmongolia.org/

MUSIC:

Yesterday Album - Lofi And Chill Artist - HoliznaCC0 https://holiznacc0.bandcamp.com/album...

01 Album - 2013

27: Yasuo Kuniyoshi ✰ ► !! shed your husks !! ◄

We are back, this time getting lost in the weird and wonderful world of painter, photographer and printmaker Yasuo Kuniyoshi’s early works (Part 1) that feature wonky landscapes populated by dream logic, lumpy babies, curvaceous women, angular farm animals, and Japanese folk tales as well as American folk influences.

Yas’ early works became an amalgamation of his lifelong journey of self-identity, expertly blending sentimental past memories, like that of Japanese folktale Momotaro, with present feelings of fear and isolation due to the growing racism and tension he was experiencing on the daily.

As an Asian American immigrant, and like many other Nikkei, Yas found himself trapped somewhere in the middle - considered neither Japanese nor American enough - as relations between the US and Japan escalated.

We discuss “Little Joe with Cow” 1923, “Bad Dream” 1924, and “Self-Portrait as Golf Player” 1927.

We present a very special bonus interview with Emily A. Beeny, Chief Curator at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco about the Mary Cassatt At Work exhibition!

Check out our interview here:

(Side note: we were so inspired by our chat with Emily that we’ll be following up with a whole episode about Mary Cassatt’s only mural so stay stuned for that!)

Since her day, Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) has been known for her paintings of bébés and upper class women but there’s another layer - a radical one - that has been overlooked until now.

Join us as we discuss how this new exhibition explores the idea of labor surrounding Cassatt’s studio practice as well as her radical subject matter: the bébés being cared for by, more often than not, nannies, nurse-maids, governesses etc. 

Our conversation with Emily revolves around Cassatt's “A Goodnight Hug”, a pastel from 1880 (see below).

Topics include the artist as laborer, shedding light on domestic work, her and Cassatt’s involvement in women’s suffrage in the US.

You can learn more about the exhibition here:

https://www.famsf.org/exhibitions/mary-cassatt

𐙚 The exhibition closes January 26th, 2025 - don’t miss it!! 𐙚

MUSIC: HoliznaCC0 - “First Snow”