This looks absolutely amazing. Ruben's Cupid escaping from the painting at Brussels Airport and flying around. I can't believe there are so many people in the airport not interested in watching it, as l would go out of my way by quite a bit to witness this. Hats off to all the people responsible.
Following on about the Rod Stewart Vertigo albums in the post below, l would not like to cast aspersions about where the vertigo design came from, but l have a sneaking suspicion that whoever designed it may have seen the 'Uneasy Centre' Op Art by Bridget Riley (1963), which is below.
Compare and contrast to the Vertigo version.
The art team of Linda Glover and Mike Stanford, (based on an idea by Olav Wyper) were meant to be inspired by Marcel Duchamp's Rotoreliefs (below), but who knows?
Despite how great l think the label design is, I can think of only one punishment that should have been administered for the possible 'inspiration'.
Mackenzie Thorpe has created many paintings of sheep in his distinctive style, is pretty local (Middlesbrough) and has a gallery in Richmond, North Yorkshire, not far from my home. Even my local pub has some paintings of his, and l do like them.
However, although it's obviously completely different, August Friedrich Schenck's 'Anguish' is my favourite sheep painting, a rather harrowing and distressed sheep / ewe bleating and pining for what one assumes is it's dead calf, surrounded by crows.
I wouldn't want it displayed at home, and l understand humans anthropomorphize, especially with animals, but l think it's captured the extreme emotion perfectly.
To lighten the mood after that, here's some by Mr Thorpe
It was only recently that it was pointed out to me on another blog or tweet (I can't remember where), that the photograph of the 1927 Jasper Tornado, taken by Lucille Handberg and on one of my favourite albums, Deep Purple's Stormbringer, was the same one on used on Miles Davis' Bitches Brew, plus Siouxsie and The Banshees Tinderbox. It's blown my mind, as l'd never noticed before, and l have been looking at the Deep Purple and Miles Davis albums for years.
Sometimes l amaze myself at how stupid l can be.
Below is the famous photograph, captured 8th July 1927 in Jasper, Minnesota, plus drawings of the other two photographs she took before and after. There's also an article from The Milwaukee Sentinel about it, plus the album covers mentioned.
More information about the tornado and the photographs can be found here (and also here).
A large blow up of the news story in The Milwaukee Sentinel can be found here
So the great Albert Finney has passed away (last week). In all of the tributes to his great body of work, one that seems to have been forgotten is Charlie Bubbles, written by Shelagh Delaney and featuring some long forgotten Manchester sights, including what Manchester United's Old Trafford used to be like, before it evolved into the 'Theatre of Dreams', and kids could still afford to attend en mass.
Reminds me of when l was a lad, back in our day when it was all bomb sites etc blah blah blah blah blah blah......
To celebrate South Korea knocking out Germany in the World cup, and to take my mind off the life sapping England v Belgium 'game', here's Korean artist Hyungkoo Lee's 'The Objectuals'.
They're strangely disturbing
It has just come to my attention via the Afterword site that Alan Aldridge has died.
Bugger.
For those of you that don't know, he was a much in demand illustrator, and has had his work featured on many books and records, probably the best known of which are for Elton John and The Beatles.
Here's a selection of his work that l currently own, in fact the Bob Dylan poster is framed, at the top of my stairs.
Aldridge also did a load of science fiction covers for Penguin books back in the day, that l used to have, but have since gone walkabouts.
I may have to start collecting them in the future, to go with the rest of my crap, as they just look so good.
And here's Alan Aldridge himself, supporting the Labour party in 1970, with a tiny Edward Heath in the palm of his hand (from Getty Images).
