Hallelujah

Drawing while listening to Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah...



Illustration: Maaijke Middelbeek

Portrait of a dark romanticist

"I have one aim—the grotesque. If I am not grotesque I am nothing." Aubrey Beardsley



Aubrey Beardsley is probably the most controversial artist of the Art Nouveau era. The main themes of his later and more famous work are dark and perverse, with a grotesque erotica. His illustrations are as a rule drawn in contrasting black and white.

Beardsley produced extensive drawings for books and magazines and was also a caricaturist and political cartoonist, mirroring Oscar Wilde's irreverent wit in art. Beardsley was aligned with the homosexual clique that included Oscar Wilde and other English aesthetes, but the details of his own sexuality remain in question. He was generally regarded as asexual, which is hardly surprising, considering his chronic illness and his devotion to his work. Speculation about his sexuality include rumors of an incestuous relationship with his elder sister, Mabel, who may have become pregnant by her brother and miscarried. For sure is that his work is charged with eroticism.

Not only his drawings and short life were explicit. Beardsley was an outstanding public character as well as a private eccentric. Wilde said he had "a face like a silver hatchet, and grass green hair." Beardsley was meticulous about his attire: dove-grey suits, hats, ties; yellow gloves. He would appear at his publisher's in a morning coat and patent leather pumps.

Aubrey Beardsley, 1872-1898.

Text: Maaijke Middelbeek

I'll be your mirror

Love holds up a mirror where we see ourselves, the good, the bad, the beauty, the ugly, the truth and lies.

Photo: Boudewijn Rolff

Monogrenade - Ce Soir

Meet 'The Cucurbit'

THE CUCURBIT

Sometimes the troublemaker bothers me a bit
But you must love him, because he produces marvellous hits
He’s very smart because he reads a lot of lit
And always in good shape; long, slim and fit

To see whats going on you can follow his Twits
Last time I read he became friends with the worldfamous cousin It
And from the last money he bought a new strange car with a name; Kit?

On the stage he is like a flit
And his playings are full of wits
Let me introduce to you ‘The Cucurbit’!




Text & image: Maaijke Middelbeek

Money And Run

UNKLE feat. Nick Cave

Wing bolster beam

Illustration: Maaijke Middelbeek

Zoo

Reading your cardiovascular

Black, deep, far away
What do you see?
How do you play?

Questioning and absorbing clarifications, they get you like a batter
With strong precision you penetrate to the heart of the matter
You, always hungry to feed your brain
Even more when poison shifts through your veins

Nothing escapes your focussed blue eyes
You scan objects and occurings like professional spies
Your iris even widens when curiosity is growing and taking over
So I’d say no reason to stay sober

These obstinate features
Make you a most remarkable creature
Not only melancholic, but rather clear
So it’s time to pass that grey zone instead of keeping it near

You know exactly how to persuade and how to enchant
Your perceptive eyes and feral pilus promisses me a fierce romance.

Poem & illustration: Maaijke Middelbeek

Women are heroes

French artist JR is known for his X-large and extreme close portraits that are mostly exposed in the open air. His black and white photo's cover up buildings, roofs, stairs and nowadays even a bridge and a train. His new film 'Women are heroes' shows his latest covers and the process towards it. The stirring movie takes you through the slum areas of Kashmir, Rio, Nairobi, Phnom Phen and Monrovia to listen to the stories of brave and positive women - both young and old - all survivors of misery and war. These heroines were proud to pose for JR's camera and even more to dress up the environment with their enormous portraits, that often give them recognition or even a starstatus.

The faces and eyes of these real life models show their turbulent history, but also their strength and maybe even more the fun of live. With music from Massive Attack, amongst others, that works well with the changing atmosphere and accelerated images.



Text Maaijke Middelbeek

Horiyoshi III: The Skin Carver

Serpents twist over the shoulder amidst a cacophony of peonies and cherry blossoms; dragons breathe fire across a pectoral muscle; a tiger creeps over an elbow. The designs of Horiyoshi III, Japan’s undisputed tattoo master, come to life with every twitch and shudder of the skin. Born Yoshihito Nakano in 1946, Horiyoshi III had his epiphany when confronted with a Yakuza (Japanese gangster) sporting a full body tattoo—or “suit”—at a public bathhouse as a young boy. Inspired, he visited the studio of his later master, Horiyoshi I, for his own tattoo, and subsequently became his apprentice at the age of 25. Now based in the suburbs of port-city Yokohama, Horiyoshi works from a secluded, quiet atelier, crammed with skulls, Japanese Noh theater masks and even a dragon-print umbrella from Vivienne Westwood. His status as the most respected tattoo artist in Japan is confirmed by his adoption of his master’s honorific title, which he aims to pass down to his son, Kazuyoshi Nakano. (source: www.nowness.com)

Tijn 2010/17/10

Mr Blue Sky is flying high
Anywhere from earth to space, far away and nigh
A young mutineer that likes the speed of life
With an existance that is bold and rife
Daring to go fast without seatbelts
Being unprejudiced, swimming through live like rainbow smelts









Wonderland, the final destination of this turbulent flight
He seizes the day from evening till morninglight
So not really a quick journey in a paper plane
He is overtaking the storm like a hurricane
This young rolling stone with his waggish redhead
Flames in his being, never afraid to take large steps or multiple treads










Photography & Videography: Lars Janssen - www.larsjanssen.com
Production: Maaijke Middelbeek

Deviant Streets Saigon

Photography: Leonie Zijlstra

Cellular

People Press Play - These Days

Jay E. 26/09/2010 - SERIE 1

I'm a dreamer, composer and believer
An accumulator of true humanity and immemorial wisdom
One day I see myself living in a temple, learning and realizing more
That same day I keep and guard a tremendous number of images
Carefully choosen out of a constant waterfall of notions










Perfect or not, a diversity of pictures feeds my brain and plays my camera
Moving or still, I try to catch the right space of time and actual beauty
I want to develop as many films and grow into a visionary collector
Be an anthologist of touching moments or narrative things
In this sanctuary of (sur)reallism I will trace the freedom to illustrate
Find liberty, do whatever I want and play off my own serious thoughts
This returning dream shows me how to catch the sheer movements of existence
And will learn me how to fly life on it's good-natured wings










Photography & Videography: Lars Janssen - www.larsjanssen.com
Production: Maaijke Middelbeek

Jay E. 26/09/2010 - SERIE 2

Photography & Videography: Lars Janssen - www.larsjanssen.com
Production: Maaijke Middelbeek

The Head

Matias Vigliano & Dante Zaballa, Argentina, 2010.

A colourful and psychedelic trip through the mind.

Lost in conceptions

Out of focus
Fagged
Blurred
I’m losing it...
But, I am not lost!

Only have to wash the brain
Flush the dirt out
Get that train
Know again what life is about

Act sensible
Forget about it
Let go
You’ll find!

Feel the blissing
Stop longing for what’s missing
No more flying around searching
Like this small bee in the universe that is slowly merging

Into nothing you’ll lose me
Don’t spread your wings like a bird in the sea
Stop running in circles
Better open the heart for miracles
Much easier than living in history or following math
And for a change I would say take a side-path


Text: Maaijke Middelbeek
Photo: Leonie Zijlstra

Anne de Grijff visually interpreted by Petrovsky and Ramone

Yesterday Dutch designer Anne de Grijff presented her AW2010-11 collection at vintage and designer boutique Kabinet in Amsterdam. The shop where you can find and buy her whole collection from now on. Timeless and feminine pieces with pleats and peeled drapes as a signature. For this occasion, and with some of the designs, photography duo Petrovsky and Ramone, in two words Dutch and edgy, made a dreamy short film in black and white.

Lucia

Lucía remembers the summer in which she fell in love with Luis. The furniture within a bedroom is shaken and destroyed, meanwhile the charcoal Lucía appears and vanishes on the walls.



Directed by: Cristóbal León, Niles Atallah and Joaquín Cociña

Translucent or Phenomenal

White, the colour of innocence
Drained of colour
Pure and virginal

Like paper, blanc for writing down a new story
Clouds, soft and sensitive just as you are
Sheets, I want to lay in with you
A white pony, I want to ride with you
Or Tipp-Ex, to erase our flaws
Just like ghosts, because sometimes we prefer to be invisible.

Poem by Maaijke Middelbeek
Photo by Leonie Zijlstra

Paper Aeroplane

by Angus & Julia Stone

Marteen Z. 11/07/2010

by Maaijke Middelbeek & Leonie Zijlstra