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Annotated Bibliography

Altman, Jack and Sarane Alexandrian. Hans Bellmer. New York: Rizzoli, 1972. Print.
This book is a compilation of the work of Hans Bellmer including paintings as well as sketches, drawings, and biographical information. Bellmer’s work deals with sex and death as central themes, and the female figure is almost always present in his work. Aside from our converging themes, Bellmer has a fascinating quality of line in his sketches. He has the ability to morph bodies smoothly yet grotesquely into one another. All of these characteristics draw me to his work.

Dix, Otto. Otto Dix 1891-1969. London: Tate Gallery, 1992. Print.
This book is a simple and comprehensive overview of the work of Otto Dix. Dix uses his negative experiences in wartime Germany as an influence to create grotesque expressionist paintings. His utilizes both the grotesque and the female form (specifically the femme fatale image) in ways that interest me, and the quality of his paint and gesture have provided me with new ideas for material exploration. This book details the history of the artist’s life and how that history correlates with his body of work. Dix was heavily influenced by both Christianity and Friedrich Nietzsche, like myself, and his work also dealt with the interesting aesthetic issues of death and sex. Thus, his exploration parallels my own, and this book more than adequately conveys that exploration.

Druick, Douglas W. et al. Odilon Redon: Prince of Dreams, 1840–1916. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1994. Print.
This book articulates the enormous influence of Odilon Redon on artists that dealt with issues of occultism, Symbolism (the capitalization refers specifically to the Symbolist movement), mysticism, death, the body, sex, and humanity. His darker works interest me because of the uncanny parallels in our work. One of the more important effects of Redon’s work is his ability to use the disgusting with the beautiful to create a sense of the occult and divine ambivalence. Because I strive for similar effects in my own work, Druick’s book was an important source. It also provided a good deal of historical context that connected Redon with a number of other sources on my list.

Gaiman, Neil. The Absolute Sandman, Volume 1. Vertigo, 2006. Print.
Although I loved all four of Gaiman’s Absolute Sandman books, Volume 1 has had the most influence on me. The dark, surreal graphic novel takes a visually astonishing look at the Sandman and his experience of the complex mystical world Gaiman has built for us. The central premise is that Dream (the Sandman) and his siblings, like Death and Desire, embody and control the complex forces that dictate human inclinations. Gaiman expertly weaves in sources from various philosophical and religious traditions, without subscribing to any doctrinally, and crafts a beautiful, dark world for the reader to get lost in. The art is absolutely astonishing, and Gaiman has a tendency to play with narratives in interesting ways. For those reasons, this graphic novel remained one of my SMP sources.

Herrigel, Eugene. Zen in the Art of Archery. New York: Vintage Books, 1989. Print.
Although this book is short, I wound up incorporating it more than I expected to within the context of my creative exploration. Not only does this book discuss the practical application of dissolving culturally established dualities in a philosophical/religious tradition, but it also relates this practice back to art. In other words, this book provides insight into another tradition that emphasizes aspects of my philosophy, and it details the reasons that this should be applied practically in the artistic process. Herrigel provides cultural context that is interesting in terms of my study, but he also provides a way for me to incorporate components of this philosophy into my actual process of making.

Leakey, F.W. Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Print.
Originally, I discovered the name of this poetic collection in connection to the work of Odilon Redon who had illustrated Baudelaire’s poetry. Out of a sense of curiosity, I sought out  this beautiful work of literature. Partially, this work provides historical context regarding Odilon Redon and others of his time, but The Flowers of Evil also addresses many of the themes that loom over my project. He finds the beauty in ugliness, the depravity in youth, and the love in selfish hedonism. The entire book is a seamless conglomeration of opposition, and it builds upon my source material addressing interconnectivity between so-called opposites. This work will also act as inspiration because of its rich and detailed imagery.

Miller, Frank. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. DC Comics, 1986. Print
This graphic novel is one of Miller’s most famous works, and it delivers a more raw, realistic look at Batman as an aging superhero struggling, but never failing, to endure for the sake of good. As always, we understand Batman to be our hero, but we also recognize moral ambiguity through the darker elements of his character and tendencies. The artistic style mimics the dark, raw tones of the story, and the overall visual and textual narrative flows incredibly smoothly. The narrative element and artistic depictions have inspired some of the work in my SMP.

Moore, Alan and Brian Bolland. Batman: The Killing Joke. DC Comics, 1995. Print.
This has been one of my favorite graphic novels for years. It details a particularly dark story involving, once again, Batman’s plight to stop his arch nemesis, The Joker. The artistic style and movement of Bolland’s work has always inspired me, and the story line itself has a definite sense of moral ambiguity. Although we know immediately who embodies good and who embodies evil, the insanely sensible and diabolical logic of The Joker and Batman’s violent reaction to his dastardly deeds blur the lines between good and evil in (what I consider to be) one of Moore’s masterpieces.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil: prelude to a philosophy of the future. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Print.
Friedrich Nietzsche’s exploration of cultural and social value judgments is a milestone in the history of Western philosophy. It is one of my all time favorite philosophical texts, and it explores the ways in which values of good and evil have negatively impacted Western culture (philosophers in particular). Nietzsche postulates, among many other things, that these previously established “opposites” are outdated and ought to be abandoned for the sake of avoiding passive nihilism in favor of active nihilism. This book was my first introduction to the issues of dichotomy and culturally established categories and will continue to influence my body of work to an enormous degree.

Perkins, Judith. The Suffering Self: Pain and Narrative Representation in Early Christian Era. New York: Routledge, 1995. Print.
This book is an extremely valuable academic study on the origination of Christian exemplification of the suffering body. Because so much of my work incorporates and utilizes the suffering body in terms of a Christian context, I wanted to find a source that details the history of that representation in our culture. Perkins’s book details the causes for the Christian admiration for those who suffer physically for the sake of something beyond the self. It also discusses the process by which Christians began to view life as death and death as life (through issues of resurrection and the afterlife).

Posner, Helaine. Kiki Smith. Boston: Bulfinch, 1998. Print.
Posner’s book encompasses a wide range of information on the artist Kiki Smith. The book adequately and thoroughly details Smith’s personal goals, philosophy, and artistic development. Because of the fact that Smith and I are in direct dialogue regarding the mutual goal of revealing the falsity in culturally established duality, this book is a crucial component to my project. This text provides an opportunity to hear a talented and successful artist articulate her goals (which are so similar to mine) in words that I would not have expected. Smith also focuses on the body in ways that are pertinent to my exploration, and her material choices act as an adequate example of an artist with both rich, beautiful materials and disturbing subject matter.

Rabinovitch, Celia. Surrealism and the Sacred: Power, Eros and the Occult in Modern Art. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2004. Print.
Surrealism has always been of immense interest to my work because of the Surrealist desire to alter reality. This book connects my interest in Surrealism to my interest in the divine and religious studies. The author discusses supernatural qualities inherent in religious ecstasy and experience that Surrealists use to produce a sense of altered reality. Some of these qualities are the uncanny, the focus on the fetish object, the weird, occultism, the ambivalence of the divine, and that which exists on the boundary between the sacred and the everyday. All of these issues were crucial to Surrealists, and this book illuminates exactly how the sacred and Surreallism interact in a direct dialogue.

Rivers and Tides. Dir. Thomas Riedelsheimer. Perf. Andy Goldsworthy. Mediopolis Film - und Fernsehproduktion, 2001. DVD.
This film takes an up close look at the work and process of Andy Goldsworthy. The camera follows as Goldsworthy works in and with nature, and it is filmed with a specifically slowed down sense of time and an unwavering attention to the beautiful, tiny details of nature. I first saw this film in a course called East Asian Philosophies and Religions, and I was inspired by Goldsworthy’s rather Daoist process of collecting objects from nature. He is careful not to take too much from any one source, and, similarly, I was inspired to spontaneously collect discarded items from nature (rather than living items still growing). The film and Goldsworthy’s work has a careful, delicate aesthetic, and his process has inspired my SMP in invaluable ways.

Sánchez, Alberto Ruy et al. Five Keys to the Secret World of Remedios Varo. Mexico City: Artes de Mexico, 2008. Print.
Remedios Varo is a Mexican artist with interests in fantasy, the occult, the uncanny, and the esoteric. She was a Surrealist artist, and her work relates to mine in its attempt to alter reality. This book provides an overview of her work and themes, but it provides a focus on her mystical and magical aesthetic tendencies. The influence of the divine, the uncanny, and the altered reality are of interest to my project, and her elaborate material exploration provides an example of the ways in which one can make the uncanny, the weird, and the dark both beautiful and disconcerting.

Schmidt, Ludwig. Egon Schiele. Germany: Berghaus, 1995. Print.
Schmidt’s book conveys the life and work of Egon Schiele, but, relative to my project, the value of this book  lies chiefly in its illustrations. The quality of line and the deformation of the human body (specifically the female body) in Schiele’s work are of interest to my project and the development of my work. The book provides a wide range of Schiele’s work from early to later paintings and drawings. It is a decent, if slightly sparse, summary of Schiele’s artistic endeavors.

Tsai, Egenie. Robert Smithson Unearthed: drawings, collages, writings. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. Print.
This book reveals the more obscure drawings of the well known earth works artist, Robert Smithson. Unexpectedly, Smithson’s more obscure work shares themes similar to my own. The book’s value lies in its deep exploration of the stranger themes in Smithson’s work. He deals with issues of body (specifically related to the Catholic conception of the body), transubstantiation, mythology, religious iconography, and fetish objects. Interestingly, Smithson’s drawings reflect his earth works in that they question the boarder between sacred and profane (much in the same way that Surrealists did).

Vernon, Cassandra. Soul?. Poem, 2010.
Some of my source artists, like Odilon Redon, use poetry as a source for inspiration, and I decided to do the same in a collaborative fashion for my senior project. In the SMP show,  I have a triptych entitled Soul? that was based on poetry by this author. The poem deals with issues of dichotomy and feelings of displacement in a world that requires distinctions between the sacred, the profane, the holy, the unholy, the sinners and the saints. This was a collaborative project wherein Vernon and I worked together to alter both her poetry and my work until they complemented one another.

Werner, Hofmann. Gustav Klimt [translated by Inge Goodwin]. Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1971. Print.
Werner’s book about Gustav Klimt is important in terms of my material exploration. Klimt’s work incorporates mythology, the uncanny at times, as well as the divine, but it is the richness and ornamentation of his material that interests me primarily. This book  is an excellent depiction of Klimt’s development, and it reveals a variety of materially intricate works that act as inspiration for my own material exploration.

Wiesenthal, Simon. The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness. Schocken, 1998. Print.
 This book details the memories of a Holocaust victim and his struggles between past, present, forgiveness, vengeance, kindness and corruption. This poignant recount provides   a real and painfully honest story about human interaction in the worst possible conditions. It became important to me because much of the book discusses the place of religion in genocidal conditions, and one passage in particular inspired my work Origin Story II. This book has always haunted me, and it has been a constant reminder of the human condition throughout my SMP process.

Wilson, Liz. Charming Cadavers: Horrific Figurations of the Feminine in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Print.
This is a particularly well done and somewhat bizarre academic study on the Indian Buddhist practice of meditating on deformed and decaying female bodies to curb their physical desires. It is a detailed, fascinating, and unusual academic study that provided me with another context within which members of a religious tradition find value in the destroyed and suffering female body. In this case, the suffering female body exists for male monks to recognize the transience of desire. While there are very disturbing gender dynamics encompassed within this study, it is the general human usage of the iconic suffering female body that I am most interested in. This text provides excellent and vivid imagery as well as thorough information regarding this practice.

Yates, Frances Amelia. The Rosicrucian Enlightenment. New York: Routledge, 1972. Print.
This book details the emergence of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood in Europe. This is of interest to me because it details much of the development of a European interest in the mysterious and the occult. This interest would later inform many of the aforementioned artists, movements, and writers. It provides one facet of the development of the occult and themes of sex, death, and the femme fatale in European culture and literature, and it details many vivid images of this development which have provided me with artistic inspiration.

Zhuangzi and A.C. Graham. Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters. Hackett Publishing Co., 2001. Print.
This text, perhaps written but still attributed to Chuang Tzu, details the overarching concepts of Daoism. Of central importance to my process during the SMP were the Daoist ideas about nature and, especially, spontaneity. Spontaneity is often described in this playful text as actions that occur when an individual loses his or her sense of ego, and, in those moments, the individual can discern no distinctions between the self and the surrounding events and environments. Because my SMP is about dichotomy, this idea provided me with a very real, although often fleeting, way to escape the endless series of dichotomous distinctions in the world. By acting spontaneously in my art making and collecting, I was able to occasionally overcome the dichotomies that trouble me and inspire me to make art to begin with.