Trouble is brewing at OuBaPo, France's experimental-comic-book movement. After years of infighting over artistic direction, at least four of the nine founding members have quit, and the two highest-profile artists aren't speaking to each other.
And this is how it ends:
The 46-year-old Mr. Trondheim is also preparing a tell-all comic detailing various fallings out with Mr. Menu.
Something I'd like to do some more thinking about is the relationship between nihilism and cultural innovation. There's certainly something intuitive about the way a culture that sees no future for itself might feel free to engage in free cultural play; with no future to plan for, there is no need to be responsible and risk averse.
One obvious example is the art and music of Weimar Germany; in a visit to New York last weekend I caught an exhibition at the Neue Gallery of Otto Dix's work from that period. It's awesome, disturbing stuff. The suite of 50 etchings called "Der Krieg" is a relentless indictment of war - torn and mutilated bodies, rotting flesh, piles of corpses at the front, with debauchery and violent sexuality behind the front lines. It's not a fun exhibition, but absolutely worth seeing.
A more recent example is the New York City of the late sixties to the late seventies. There's a new movie, Rubble Kings, that explores the way the gangs had almost completely taken over the city by the mid-seventies. But at some point, somehow, things started to change, and the violent gangland impulses were sublimated into the creative energies of hip hop. Here's the trailer - it looks fantastic:
Sunday, January 23, 2011 at 02:50PM