Seldon Hunt works and process

LP for upcoming release....

2011-11-15T06:47:00.000-08:00

Goatwhore

2011-11-10T11:59:00.000-08:00

Some pics from the Goatwhore,Exhumed show at Europa in Brooklyn last night. Didnt stay for Exhumed considering they didnt appear to have a single original member in the line up which always kind of weirds me out. Goatwhore always put on a great show, great energy, instigation of physical and emotional violence across the board. Havoc opened and played some pretty coo old school thrash without any under or over tomes of hipster fashion worship, great musicians. Thanks to Liz for the photo pass.

New photos

2011-11-10T11:33:00.000-08:00

After a lengthy absence, Im re-establishing contact with the blogmasphere. This will contain mostly art based projects, my website containing the design work. Hope you enjoy.

Helmut Lang

2010-04-01T15:33:00.001-07:00

These are some clothes i designed the textile/print for in the last couple of months. YOu can see whcih part i did, its complex and symmetrical....Thanks to Michael Colovos the CD at Helmut Lang for the opportunity to work on a great project.

Immortal - Brooklyn Masonic Temple

2010-04-01T15:29:00.000-07:00

The Immortal show at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple on Tuesday night was killer. Everything I expected from the blizzard beasts was supplied and supported but a great live performance and light show. For those who missed it because no-one in the band killed anyone or burnt a church down in 1991 then you missed a classic black metal show.

GISELE VIENNE/JONATHAN CAPDEVILLE/DENNIS COOPER: Jerk

2010-01-05T14:23:00.001-08:00

Jerk might be unbearable for some. But in our eyes, theater so wisely woven with reality, however violent, is wholesome." - Les Inrockuptibles, France

Gisèle Vienne's Jerk is based on the chilling text of Dennis Cooper, an author deemed "the most dangerous writer in America" by the Village Voice. It is a story told from the vantage point of David Brooks, the real life accomplice to Texas serial killer Dean Corll who was responsible for the deaths of more than 25 teenage boys in the early 1970s.

Jerk is theatre at its starkest, a harrowing journey into the most hidden corners of the human psyche.
Performed by and created in collaboration with Jonathan Capdevielle

Substance Abuse Skateboards

2010-01-02T09:14:00.001-08:00

Gallerie du Jour for Paris Photo 2009. 19 November - 31 December.

2009-11-13T06:54:00.000-08:00

HEAVY METAL DESIGN IN PRINT magazine

2009-11-06T21:24:00.000-08:00

The Exile of Satan from Heavy Metal Design
by Alan Rapp
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—
Those "heavy metal" bands that debuted during that first palmy MTV generation sound like nontoxic pop compared to today’s vast offerings of subaltern metal genres, where intricate is the new heavy, and glacially slow is far more radical than hyperfast. Metal has evolved in such diverse directions—drawing from and crossing over with punk, math rock, noise, and avant-garde musical threads—that perhaps the real surprise is how audiences who never thought of themselves as metalheads are now exploring bands with names like Baroness, Gojira, Isis, and SUNN O))).

Detail from the 2009 Isis album Wavering Radiant

Heavy metal has evolved visually as well. Gone are the fantasy illustrations of radioactive zombies and band logos composed of overlapping swords. After a generation of sprouting subgenres, the heavy metal field is littered with a diversity of styles that even the most hardy metalhead will have trouble encompassing. As Ian Christe, author of Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal and publisher of the metal-oriented press Bazillion Points says, "Heavy metal design is not a monolithic form at all. You have everything from junior high school kids in Iowa drawing skulls and pentagrams and band logos to Norwegian design houses making skulls and pentagrams and band logos. There are all levels of sophistication and intention—and execution."

Heavy metal design today comprises a vast field of images that no longer compulsively refer to adolescent power and provocation fantasies. The genre’s pervading preoccupation with the occult yields far less goat and pentagram iconography—which became self-conscious clichés almost instantly anyway—than more ambiguously dark imagery. A few designers, some of the key musicians of the scene in their own right, have emerged to torque graphic conventions, and use strategies to indicate that metal, as a visual genre, is more multivalent and eloquent than mainstream design aficionados probably ever imagined.

Cover for Sunn O))) 2009 album Monoliths and Dimensions, which uses a monoprint by Richard Serra.

In part through the growing success of his doom metal band SUNN O))), Stephen O'Malley is arguably the most visible of these designers. Like SUNN O))), which is named for a vintage amp brand (and pronounced, "sun"), O’Malley keeps a toe in classical metal tropes but contributes an aesthete's sensibility. Having designed album covers and limited-edition packaging for his own projects and dozens of other bands, O'Malley literally put his mark on the scene through a simple yet radical reevaluation of that nexus of metal band identity—the logo. He abandoned hoary Blackletter-derived gothic ornamentalism and opted instead for a medium-weight sans serif for SUNN O)))'s logo, which he jokingly calls "Portland modernism." The move signaled not just a departure from custom: He visually cues the sonic hallmarks of the band—mass, mood, and deceptive simplicity. For the logo for his now defunct band Khanate, O'Malley distilled and crashed the Helvetica ultralight letterforms to such an extreme that only a tangle of nonreferential geometry remains—"vector madness," he calls it. "I see Stephen exploiting the very nature of [Adobe] Illustrator itself with that logo," says Ian Christe, suggesting that even this level of sophistication retains a core of the heavy metal ethos: "I would say it’s a metal trait to not stop at the bounds of sensibility."

The band logo has always been the nexus of identity for metal bands. Mike Essl, head of graphic design at Cooper Union and an avowed metalhead himself, sees it as parcel of attentive branding: "I think the thing we can take away from these metal logos is the craft involved in making them, the attention to form. If you look back at some of those '80s logos, it looks like they inherited a little bit from the New York school of design, like Herb Lubalin fast-forwarded. That attention to detail, the custom drawing and interlocking of typefaces, is what I try to use in my work and what inspires me."

Album cover for Stephen O'Malley's band Khanate

The genre's sense of restless invention saw the logo enter new territories, taking a notorious turn from neo-Lubalin to the perversely illegible with the arrival of European black metal. A Satanic and paganistic movement that solidified in the Scandinavian countries in the early '90s, many black metal bands played lightning fast, howling and screeching their vocals. Band personae tended toward the extremely theatrical—donning spikes and robes, covering their faces with white corpse-paint—while album covers often used imagery of wintry northern forests. But it was the spindly, spiky, branching logos that defined this subgenre for years. A game of international runic one-upmanship ensued, in which the band with the least legible logo was the most authentic. Such extremes couldn’t last forever of course, and Christe observes that a knowing readability has crept back in. "If you trace generations of heavy metal through the band logo styles, the newest is this suburban death metal, with bands like Job for a Cowboy, whose logo looks like it's made of stretched-out internal organs pinned to a lab dish—but it's legible instantly. It has all the markings of being completely out of control, but you can read it at first glance, which is always a sign of commercial intent."

It's also impossible for metal graphics to ignore the design culture at large. O'Malley sees the resurgence of the "dirty" manual look as one of the more intriguing trends in contemporary graphics, citing the work of Justin Bartlett and Aaron Turner: "The move back to DIY hand-drawn illustration looks pretty cool and suits underground metal." Turner is also a highly visible member of the metal graphics scene through his label Hydra Head, which he founded while still in college in 1993, and his band Isis is known for its heavily layered and complex songs. After studying painting and printmaking at Boston University, Turner, like O'Malley, taught himself Photoshop and Illustrator. "Once I understood the realm of possibility with digital apps, I explored them full-bore," says Turner. "After two or three years of focusing on the computer, I wanted to take what I learned with that and integrate it with the more hand-drawn approach I had started out with." Employing a distinctive line reminiscent of woodcuts, Turner's abstract, sometimes vermiform designs grace all of the packaging for Isis, and more than half of all Hydra Head releases. "For me, generating stuff by hand is a more direct and connected approach to making work," he continues. "It is more intimate and carries more of my personality than computer designs."

Illustration for Isis, published in German magazine Visions, by Seldon Hunt

Among the few designers Turner trusts to design for Hydra Head (including some Isis merch like posters and tees) are O'Malley and Brooklyn-based Australian Seldon Hunt, who deranges his work with a pointillist intensity of detail and mirror-imaging. His work treats ostensibly predictable metal tropes like skulls and desolate natural vistas yet eschews diabolism. He transfers an almost psychedelic power through dense information and rigorous symmetry. But he disavows the mantle of a metallized Fred Tomaselli: "I think the psychedelic nature of the work is there but I’ve never been influenced by psychedelic art, which I’ve always hated," says Hunt. "I do want people to be hypnotized, and the arrangement and detail is part of that. I want my work to look impossible, for someone to look at it and find through the level of detail that the work has a life of its own. But I don’t think it’s 'trippy.' It’s colder than that."

While O'Malley, Turner, and Hunt may plot three key points on the map of avant-garde metal design, their stylistic divergences support Christe's claim that diversification is inherently part of the aesthetic. Hunt agrees, and he's skeptical that metal's newfound coolness presages mainstream attention: "There’s no one aesthetic really … we like to say there's an aesthetic, but it's really just the logo on the T-shirt that differentiates us from people in the fashion industry or architects or computer programmers—they all tend to wear black as well. It's just that most of the stuff we make and wear tends to have something negative on it. I don’t think it's got a huge capacity to be involved in mainstream society."

Cover of Sunn O))) album ØØ Void

The nature of heavy metal, based as it is in countless suspensions of disbelief—of imagination, or as O’Malley posits, even of “transcendence”—may reveal itself to be ultimately quixotic. But the music and its corresponding visual messages are far more refined today, if still abrasive to the mainstream, and its practitioners continue to evolve these themes out of restlessness. “Metal is interesting because it really encompasses so many different types of music,” says O’Malley. “It has a strong aesthetic teetering on taboo, but isn’t really taboo. It’s just a little bit outsider.”

ISIS European Tour poster

2009-11-05T14:06:00.001-08:00

Current European Tour poster for ISIS, as they create havoc across the continent. You can get it at the shows, its 18" x 24" and beautifully printed by Wes of the Burlesque people. If you live outside of Europe or you miss the show in Europe you can get one at www.shirtsanddestroy.com

While stocks last...

New giclee print

2009-11-05T14:00:00.001-08:00

This is the new giclee print that will be released by the lovely folks at Shirts and Destroy up there near Boston. The accompanying deck design will be released by Substance Abuse skateboards.

Pelican.

2009-11-05T13:56:00.001-08:00

New Pelican art coming out or is probably out now on Southern Lord. Really happy with this piece. Andrew Wiese took the original photos.

Back on board

2009-11-05T13:54:00.000-08:00

Ok, so ive been a bit slack maintaining this but ive decided to get back on the horse and make sure i keep this updated with various points of interest. Its been a busy year, so apologies to those who saw that this blog was about as interesting as a raw pasta being interviewed by a deaf monkey. It begins again....

SHirts and Destroy

2009-06-29T17:53:00.001-07:00

New shirt available at shirtsanddestroy.com

NEW POSTERS for SALE.

2009-06-03T12:28:00.000-07:00

Available now, the gig posters for Wolves in the Throne Room and ISIS.

NEW SHIRT DESIGN

2009-05-05T18:43:00.001-07:00

New shirt design to be printed by the guys at Shirts & Destroy. Available soon.

ISIS Tour prints for sale.

2009-05-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

Now available. Isis 'Panopticon' Tour series. This set of prints has completely sold out in the original batch, from back in 2004-5 when Isis toured Australia/Japan, Europe and the USA. Originally they were offset printed on non archival paper as tour support. Now due to some interest in these bad boys, I have printed up a limited edition series, as high quality, giclee prints, at a wopping 18" x 24" on 300gsm French archival rag. These are larger than the original posters and have truly remarkable color depth and detail. The edition is 50 of each poster.

Prices are $80 for a single poster, or the bargain price of $200 for the set.
They are available at www.seldonhunt.com
or at www.myspace.com/seldonhunt
or email seldonhunt@seldonhunt.com to make enquires, or to pay by check or cash.

CROWLEY in PARIS

2008-06-05T12:56:00.001-07:00

CROWLEY 29 05 2008
Crowley artworks on show in Paris...

Ordo Templi Orientis has been working with the Centre Pompidou, the Warburg and the Palais de Tokyo to assist, in a minor way, with two truly important art shows, both featuring works by Aleister Crowley.

FIRST SHOW:
CENTRE POMPIDOU — TRACES DU SACRÉ
May 8 - August 11
The Centre Pompidou in Paris is mounting a show commemorating the anniversary of its founding as the most prominent state-owned museum of modern art in France, titled “Traces du Sacré.” The show opens to the public on May 7 in Gallery 1, and runs until August 11. The curators have assembled a wide-ranging exploration of spirituality and esotericism in Europe and America in last century, drawing on their own holdings as well as those of other institutions and collectors around the world. The Warburg Institute has kindly loaned four newly-restored Thoth Tarot paintings by Aleister Crowley and Frieda, Lady Harris: The High Priestess, The Hermit, The Moon and The Aeon. One important, previously unknown Aleister Crowley oil painting will be included in the “Great Initiates” section of the show, kindly loaned by the owner of the group of paintings that form the second Palais du Tokyo show (discussed in detail below, this show runs concurrently with the Centre Pompidou show for a month from June 5). Also on view will be Cameron’s remarkable large-scale portait of Jack Parsons, “Dark Angel” — all part of the curatorial take on the “Lucifer Rising” mythos of Kenneth Anger. Also featured are works by Harry Smith, Jordan Belson and many others influenced directly or indirectly by Crowley and his students. Of course the overall context of the show, including Arp, Brancusi, Chagall, De Chirico, Dali, Dix, DuChamp, Giocometti, Goya, Kandinsky, Klee, Kupka, Miro, Mondrian, Munch, Picasso, Warhol etc. etc., is breathtaking. That Crowley should be included with these artists in a retrospective — one that takes into account the incredibly influential spiritual and artistic undergrounds — is groundbreaking. A comprehensive catalog will be available for purchase. After Paris, a smaller group of works (that will not include the Crowley-Harris Thoth paintings) travels to Münich.

The Centre Pompidou’s own English show synopsis (as of late fall of last year and therefore subject to change) is as follows:

SYNOPSIS
Title: Traces du sacré
Site: Centre Georges Pompidou – MNAM
Dates: 7th May 2008 – 11th August 2008. Paris
Theme: The relations between spirituality and Western art of the 20th Century
Curators: Alfred Pacquement, Jean de Loisy, Angela Lampe
Number of works: about 350 (including documents)
Second venue : Haus der Kunst, Munich, 11th September 2008 – 11th January 2009
The Centre Pompidou is in preparation of a major exhibition that will explore some of the predominant aspects in the relationship between Western art and spirituality. This inquiry will have as its foundational starting point, within the history of art, the faith-seeking vision undertaken by the German Romantics, as well as a Nietzscheian philosophy that sought a revaluation of society, proclaiming the death of God. The 20th Century was ushered in deep within this tumult of upturning beliefs, within the modernization of Western societies, heavy with what Max Weber asserted as the “disenchantment of the world.” The combating forces of capitalism and Marxism, the triumph of industry, the rapid development of the urban landscape, the spread of psycho-analytical theories, the rise of utopian tendencies, all pushed modern man further and further into not only reconsidering his religious stance and his place within existence, but into being forced, compelled, necessitated into reconsidering this spiritual orientation. This spiritual crisis unleashed a host of new forms within the metaphysical questioning of art. From Wassily Kandinsky to Francis Bacon, from Barnett Newman to Bill Viola, from Brancusi to Cattelan, modern art continually forms diverse and opposing responses to this spiritual interrogation, sometimes as answer, sometimes as further question.
The aim of this exhibition is to explore, throughout the 20th Century, the most outstanding artistic expressions of this spiritual quest and to show how it continually, up to the present day, invents new, dynamic signs.
The exhibition follows a chronological path and deals directly with many of the major aesthetic movements of the 20th century; a rich documentation will clarify and support their historical, cultural, and philosophical contexts. Each room is separately devoted to a specific response to the spiritual crisis. In order to evaluate the permanence of these responses through the century, each specific room, in building historical moments, will also include the work of a contemporary artist. To highlight the universality of the inquiry, a few non-western works will also be included.
(This following non exhaustive list is the one of the exhibition in Paris. The second venue in Munich will present a reduced, concentrated version. Works only shown in Paris)
* Metaphysical anxiety: Christian Boltanski, Mounir Fatmi, Bruce Nauman
* Dead of God: Francisco Goya, Caspar David Friedrich, August Strindberg, Edvard Munch, Henry De Groux, Lucio Fontana, Gino De Dominicis, Carl Gustav Carus
* Nostalgia for the infinite: Giorgio De Chirico, Odilon Redon, Ferdinand Hodler, Pierre Huyghe, Constantin Brancusi, Gina Pane, Damien Hirst
* The great initiates: Jean Delville, Charles Sellier, Rudolph Steiner, Aleister Crowley, Hugo Ball, Gino De Dominicis
* Syncretism: Paul Elie Ranson, Hilma Af Klint, Marcel Duchamp, Akseli Gallen Kallela, Piet Mondrian, Usco
* Aura: Frantisek Kupka, Marcel Duchamp, Theo Van Doesbourg, Vassily Kandinsky, Yves Klein, James Lee Byars
* Metaphysical Science: Frantisek Kupka, Kasimir Malevitch, Yvan Kliun, Augusto Giacometti, Rudolph Steiner, Paul Sérusier, Anish Kapoor, Frank Scurti
* Cosmogonics: Andrej Belyj, Hilma Af Klint, Johannes Itten, Gulya Pap, Sigmar Polke, Augustin Lesage, Matt Mullican
* Crystal: Hermann Obrist, Wenzel Hablick, Kurt Schwitters, Hans Scharoun, Johannes Molzahn, Hermann Finsterlin, Wassili Luckhardt, Pablo Picasso, Pierre Huyghe, Corey Mc Corkle, Akunov
* Homo novus: Paul Klee, Andrej Belyj, Jean Delville, Umberto Boccioni, Otto Dix, Marc Chagall, Frantisek Kupka, Alexej von Jawlensky, Adel Abdessemed
* The Absolute: Piet Mondrian, Kasimir Malevith, Constantin Brancusi, Niele Toroni
* Eden: Franz Marc, Vladimir Baranov-Rossiné, Erich Heckel, Jean Arp, Paul Klee
* Dance: André Derain, Emil Nolde, Vaslav Nijinski, Antoine Bourdelle, Mary Wigman, Ernst Kirchner, Léon Backst, Adolphe de Meyer, Auguste Rodin, Rudolf Von Laban
* Discovering other spiritualities: Emil Nolde, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Janco, Cameron Jamie, Aby Warburg et André Breton, Victor Brauner, Jan Matulka, Lee Miller, Roland Penrose
* Eros et Thanatos: Salvador Dali, Eli Lotar, Man Ray, André Masson, Pierre Molinier, Pablo Picasso, Stanikas
* Profanation: George Grosz, Max Ernst, Francis Picabia, Salvador Dali, Man Ray, Thierry De Cordier, Antonin Artaud, Mounir Fatmi, John Latham, Andrès Serrano
* Apocalypse: Vassily Kandinsky, Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Murnau, Maurizio Cattelan, Douglas Gordon, Bruno Perramant
* Man of sorrow: Francis Bacon, Robert Smithson, Jerzi Grotowsky, Christer Strömholm, Bruce Nauman
* Room for St John of the Cross: Bill Viola
* The renaissance of religion after 1950: Maurice Denis, Georges Rouault, Fernand Leger, Henri Matisse, Le Corbusier, Germaine Richier, Jean Lurçat, Joseph Beuys, Jacques Lipchitz
* Despate of the night: Jean-Michel Alberola, Pierre Buraglio, Thierry De Cordier, Jannis Kounellis, Mark Rothko, Kris Martin, Yazid Oulab, Eli Petel, Emmanuel Saulnier
* Mythmakers: Matta, Wifredo Lam, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, André Masson, Lee Mullican, Wolfgang Paalen, Robert Smithson, Tobias Collier
* Sublime: Barnett Newman
* Shamanism: Joseph Beuys, Hans Namuth/Pollock, Etienne-Martin
* Beat: Allen Ginsberg, Brion Gysin, Wallace Berman, Bruce Conner, Jay DeFeo, John Giorno, Henri Michaux, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Aldous Huxley
* Lucifer Rising: Rick Griffin / Kenneth Anger, Cameron, Aleister Crowley / Frieda Harris
* Psychedelics: Isaac Abrams, Jud Yalkut, Pardo, Peter Segdley, Paul Thek, Patrick O’Neill, Usco, Harry Smith, Joshua White
* Sacrifice: Marina Abramovic, Rebecca Horn, Michel Journiac, Herman Nitsch, Yazid Oulab
* Zen: Nam June Paik, Robert Filliou, John Cage, Jean Degottex, Ad Reinhardt, Charwei Tsai, On Kawara, Roman Opalka
* Shadow of God: Andy Warhol, Moshe Ninio, Paul Chan
* Desecularisation: Jean-Michel Alberola, Jonathan Monk

SECOND SHOW
PALAIS DE TOKYO — LA CHAMBRE DES CAUCHEMARS: PEINTURES INCONNUES D’ALEISTER CROWLEY
June 6 - 29
This opening of the show at the Palais de Tokyo is June 5, 7-9 p.m. Kenneth Anger will be on hand at the opening and events are expected to be scheduled. This important show features a newly discovered trove of important oil paintings by Aleister Crowley. This amazing collection, owned by descendants of an artist-acquaintance of Crowley’s in Sicily, was only recently brought to light by Dr. Marco Pasi, the well-known Crowley scholar on the faculty of the University of Amsterdam’s graduate school in Hermeticism and Related Currents. Fifteen paintings of the sixteen in the collection will be exhibited — one, as noted above, is included in the Centre Pompidou show. A color catalog is being produced that will include articles by Dr. Pasi and others. This show is a rare chance to see a unified collection of oils that are of such quality that they may well provide the basis for the serious attention of art scholars and critics that Crowley’s painting deserves. Dating from his Cefalu period, they comprise an amazing collection of works produced when Crowley was at the height of his artistic powers.

http://www.lashtal.com/CP_MODULE_CROWLEY.pdf

Le Hiérophante (Tarot Card Study)

Oil on wood, 24.20 x 19 cm. Copyright © Ordo Templi Orientis.

NEW works

2008-06-05T09:55:00.000-07:00

Here are the new t-shirts coming out through The Omega Order. Available soon.

Henson Images cleared by Censorship board

2008-06-05T07:43:00.001-07:00

Censors decide on PG rating for Henson child photo
David Marr
June 6, 2008
IT'S official. The naked girl that sparked the Bill Henson fuss is not porn. The sight of her on an invitation to the photographer's Sydney exhibition a couple of weeks ago provoked shock and outrage, but the Classifications Board has now declared the picture "mild" and safe for many children.

It is believed the Director of Public Prosecutions is on the verge of advising NSW police that any prosecution of Henson would be unlikely to succeed.

The case against Henson appears close to collapse.

The Classification Board, under its new chief, former head of the ABC Donald McDonald, has now given the young girl on the invitation the rating PG.

Considered one of the most confronting in the Henson exhibition, the picture came to the board for classification when it was discovered in a blog discussing pornography and the sexualisation of children. But the classifiers found the "image of breast nudity … creates a viewing impact that is mild and justified by context … and is not sexualised to any degree".

While a minority of the board thought the impact of the picture was "moderate" rather than "mild", none of the classifiers thought it deserved banning or called for any restriction on its display.

The board's guidelines state: "Material classified PG may contain material which some children find confusing or upsetting, and may require the guidance of parents or guardians. It is not recommended for viewing or playing by persons under 15 without guidance from parents or guardians."

This verdict is bad news for police hoping to convince the DPP, Nicholas Cowdery, QC, that Henson's photographs would provoke the "offence to reasonable persons" needed to prosecute him as a child pornographer.

Another hurdle for police is Henson's right to call expert evidence that his work has artistic merit or purpose. Legal commentators over the past fortnight have generally argued this makes his prosecution either as a pornographer or publisher of indecent articles highly unlikely.

Police seized 32 Henson photographs from Sydney's Roslyn Oxley9 gallery on May 23 following uproar the previous day on talkback radio.

Since then, Henson photographs have been removed from the walls of two regional NSW galleries and impounded at the National Gallery in Canberra.

Henson Images cleared by Censorship board

2008-06-05T07:43:00.000-07:00

Open letter in support of Bill Henson

2008-05-27T21:27:00.000-07:00

...this is an excerpt from a long letter written to Australia's political leaders in support of Bill Henson. A number of significant creative and cultural dignitaries have signed it including J M Coetzee and Cate Blanchett to name some obvious people...

The work itself is not pornographic, even though it includes depictions of naked human beings. It is more justly seen in a tradition of the nude in art that stretches back to the ancient Greeks, and which includes painters such as Caravaggio and Michelangelo. Many of Henson’s controversial images are not in fact sexual at all. Others depict the sexuality of young people, but in ways that are fundamentally different from how naked bodies are depicted in pornography. The intention of the art is not to titillate or to gratify perverse sexual desires, but rather to make the viewer consider the fragility, beauty, mystery and inviolabilty of the human body. In contrast, the defining essence of pornography is that it endorses, condones or encourages abusive sexual practice. We respectfully suggest that Henson’s work, even when it is disturbing, does nothing of the sort. I would personally argue that, in its respect for the autonomy of its subjects, the work is a counter-argument to the exploitation and commodification of young people in both commercial media and in pornographic images. Many of us have children of our own. The sexual abuse and exploitation of children fills us all with abhorrence. But it is equally damaging to deny the obvious fact that adolescents are sexual beings. This very denial contributes to abusive behaviour, because it is part of the denial of the personhood of the young. In my opinion, Mr Henson’s work shows the delicacy of the transition from childhood to adulthood, its troubledness and its beauty, in ways which do not violate the essential innocence of his subjects. It can be confronting, but that does not mean that it is pornography. Legal opinion is that if charges were laid against Mr Henson, he would be unlikely to be found guilty. The seizure of the photographs, and the possible prosecution of Mr Henson, the Rosyln Oxley9 Gallery or the parents of Henson’s subjects, takes up valuable police and court time that would be much better spent pursuing those who actually do abuse children.

BILL HENSON - the saga continues...

2008-05-25T06:34:00.000-07:00

Here is more about the case as it evolves in Oz....a remarkable case of great art being viewed as pornography by narrow-minded witchhunters. One cannot help noticing, that if you view the image above, which is the main one causing the controversy, that it puts into question the motivations of the viewer if they chose to see porn in this image. Its more disturbing to me that people can see something so vile in a beautiful portait of trust and innocence. These charges being made say more about the people creating the charges than the artist himself. What do they call that in psychology? ...'Projecting'?

FOR more than 25 years, Bill Henson has been called controversial — and bombastic, melodramatic and overwrought.

But it was only the art world that cared. Occasionally it voiced some discomfort, but mostly there was admiration for an artist whose moody use of light and dark subject matter was in the spirit of bad-boy painter Caravaggio and hard-drinking poet Baudelaire.

But this time the police have stepped in, a prime minister has called his pictures "revolting", and "that Bill Henson" has come close to being a notorious household name.

In 1983, he photographed a group of young nude junkies lying about in European museums. The toughest criticism he received was being called "obvious".

About 15 years he ago he produced a series of teenage nudes sprawled across car bonnets. Not titillating; more akin to a nightmarish car wreck. Some of this series of nudes are on show at the Newcastle Regional Art Gallery, where they have barely raised an eyebrow, let alone a scandal.

Director of the gallery Ron Ramsey said yesterday: "When that series first went on show, internationally, there was more concern with the way they were presented … with rough edges and some of them actually torn. We have a couple in the collection and there has never been, as far as I know, any concern or complaints from the public.

"They had to go through the (Newcastle) council and the acquisition committee, and there were no objections raised. That's what's shocking everybody — that works similar to what we've put on display are now the subject of a police investigation and all this controversy. We're gobsmacked."

Forty years ago, artist Martin Sharp was famously tried for obscenity because of a piece he wrote for Oz magazine. Last week he received an invitation to Henson's exhibition, which features a topless 13-year-old.

"It was a powerful image. I would call it very beautiful in its vulnerability rather than 'revolting' as the Prime Minister has done," Sharp said. The photograph suggested the girl "gave her trust to Henson … and this trust has been violated by the police and Kevin Rudd's comments."

CENSORSHIP in Australia out of control.

2008-05-23T11:47:00.001-07:00

Australia has always had a dubious reputation as far as art and film censorship is concerned, but if anyone thought that with Little Churchy Boy John Howard out of office, the national sport of censorship would catch up to the new millenium, you are sadly mistaken. Here are two cases worth checking, that are truly disturbing. It is hard to believe that in the year 2008 that an artist of the calibre of Bill Henson who has represented Australia at the Venice Biennale, and who is probably one of the nations mosthighly respected artists internationally could have his work mis-interpreted with such vehement narrow minded hysteria. Please read article from The Age newspaper from Victoria.

THE art world has denounced a "dark day in Australian culture" after police seized up to 21 photos of naked children and said they would lay charges over an exhibition by renowned Australian artist Bill Henson.

While Prime Minister Kevin Rudd described the works as "revolting" and devoid of artistic merit, the art community has come out strongly on the side of Henson, rejecting the accusation that his works are pornographic.

At 3pm yesterday, police announced charges would be laid under the NSW and Commonwealth crimes acts for publishing an indecent article.

It was unclear whether Henson or people from Sydney's Rosyln Oxley9 Gallery, which published several of the controversial images on its website and promotional material, would be charged.

Both Henson and gallery owner Roslyn Oxley went to ground. Henson is believed to be distressed by the charges.

"This morning, police have attended the gallery and executed a search warrant and seized several items depicting a child under the age of 16 years of age in a sexual context," Superintendent Allan Sicard told media gathered outside the gallery.

The Age believes that police are also examining previous work by the artist.

Police raided the gallery on Thursday night following a complaint that has since been revealed to have come from child sexual assault advocate Hetty Johnson.

Early yesterday the gallery released a statement saying it would remove some of the works and reopen the show.

"After much consideration, we have decided to withdraw a number of works from the current Bill Henson exhibition that have attracted controversy," the statement says.

"The current show, without the said works, will be reopened for viewing in coming days."

The gallery has not commented since it was announced charges would be laid.

Henson has been a prominent figure since his first show at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1975. His work is found in public, private and corporate collections, including the National Gallery of Australia and the Australian High Court. It is also held in several prestigious international galleries, including the Guggenheim in New York and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris.

Over the decades, his subjects have included crowds, landscapes and images of urban decay, but those that excite the most comment and controversy have been of adolescent bodies.

In his latest exhibition, seen by Fairfax journalists at an early viewing this week, photographs of naked children comprised about a third of the show. Most of the shots were taken from the waist up, although the genitals of the female model were visible in one image.

AND...also, of less significance, but none the less equally terifying, is this recent cencorship case, in the 'Lucky Country'.

IF ONE of art's aims is to inspire discourse, debate, even division, Van Thanh Rudd has achieved plenty, even without his painting finding a hook from which to hang.

Yet the artist remained elusive about his controversial work, Special Forces (After Banksy) yesterday. Melbourne "artist activist" Rudd, the nephew of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, painted Special Forces as a comment, he says, about the global economy hampering efforts to improve human rights.

It was to hang in City Library as part of the Ho Chi Minh City Young Artists Exhibition, but City of Melbourne chief executive Kathy Alexander decided that it "did not contribute to the original intent of the exhibition".

Legal advice warned that the depiction of an Olympic torch-carrying, fast-food chain mascot, Ronald McDonald, running past a burning monk could attract legal action from McDonald's.

"I may well have been overly cautious," Dr Alexander said. "But I'm five weeks in the job and I look after $300 million of ratepayers' money, and I think they would be pretty peeved if they ended up in court paying millions of dollars."

The decision inspired criticism that the council was pandering to Chinese sensitivities, a claim Dr Alexander denies.

Lord Mayor John So, who has previously been accused of over-sensitivity on issues related to China, was not told of the decision to reject the painting until after it was made, Dr Alexander said. Councillors Peter Clarke and Fraser Brindley believe self-censorship is being practised.

Cr Brindley wants council to tighten guidelines for artworks chosen for display.

KIDS CANT READ

2008-05-14T12:12:00.001-07:00

This kid obviously didnt heed the sign. Poor little feller.

Gustave Doré

2008-05-14T11:04:00.000-07:00

Thee Master Illustrator.

KTL Tour

2008-05-14T08:17:00.000-07:00

Please make sure you check out the KTL shows when they hit the East Coast of the USA this month. Will be very special mind altering, body melting, psychedelic inhalations from the left hand lower shadow drenched undersphere.

May 17 2008 8:00P
KTL @ FIMAV Victoriaville, Quebec
May 18 2008 8:00P
KTL @ Music Gallery Toronto, Ontario
May 19 2008 8:00P
KTL @ Empty Bottle Chicago, Illinois
May 20 2008 8:00P
KTL @ Johnny Brendas Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
May 21 2008 8:00P
KTL @ Knitting Factory New York, New York

HOLOSCENE/TUNTURIA split 10"art

2008-05-14T08:08:00.000-07:00

These fine gents have created a masterpiece and given me the pleasure of creating the artwork. coming soon. chceck it out. really great stuff.

THRONES POSTER

2008-05-06T17:01:00.000-07:00

As part of the continuing Tour Series via the venerable, if slightly bearded Mr Tim Moss, here is a design for the upcomign Thrones show. It will be printed by the highly talented Andy at Broken Press. Will be availabe at the show.

READING

2008-05-02T13:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was browsing in my local Barnes & Noble bookstore, and noticed a slight commotion...I moved a little closer to view what was happening and was astonished to see two truant officers arresting a nerdy looking 15 year old girl for truancy. In a bookstore!! I thought this was highly amusing. Arrested for READING. It reminded me of the Bill Hicks sketch, about the South, where upon opening a book in a diner, the cowboy at the counter says 'Looks like we got ourselves a READER.' But this was for real. I didnt know whether i should burst out laughing or try and rescue the girl from such an astounding case of misappropriate use of authority. I hope she doesnt lose her enthusiasm for a dying art....

MORE recent works.

2008-05-01T10:47:00.001-07:00

Recent shirt design plus the new card i designed for myself to hand out when required...

RECENT WORKS completed this week.

2008-05-01T10:37:00.000-07:00

Some new works completed in the last week and a half.

NEW Made Out of Babies artwork completed

2008-05-01T10:23:00.000-07:00

New artwork completed for the new Made Out of Babies album, The Ruiner, out soon on The End.

Seldon Hunt shirts

2008-04-23T06:24:00.000-07:00

Finally after so many requests for an original shirt of my design that has nothing to do with any doomy or metally bands, it is has happened, so here you go. It is being produced by the merch people at The End records here in Brooklyn. It is printed with discharge inks on black 100% cotton shirts. Im pretty excited about this and I have to say they look pretty cool. The drawing was actually originally supposed to be part of a special promotion for Stephen O'Malleys old project Burning Witch, but this never ended up happening so I decided it wold be perfect after The End offered me my own line of apparel. There will be more shirts and other assorted things available thrugh my store at The End, so keep an eye out here for future postings. Click on the bog/link above to go to the store.

FINALLY...a blog.

2008-04-23T06:21:00.000-07:00

SO here is the Seldon Hunt blog. Here there will be postings of new works, works in progress, random thoughts and musings and photographs. Anyway, keep a look see on the blog and i will try to maintain a vigilant attitude towards updating and adding stuff that is hopefully interesting and revealing. Goodo then.