Is that a maggot in your mouth or are you just happy to see me?

Back in college I had the bright idea of watching both Nekromantik I & II alone, after eating 3 ounces of mushrooms. It induced a full psychotic break in me, but strangely not until about two hours after I had watched them. It’s not the gruesome corpses, the relatively minimal violence (minimal for most horror films) or the gore. It was the MUSIC, the feeling of the films. Nekromantik I & II are ROMANCES.

The films are quiet, sweet and strangely tender. Watching them, you feel completely insane, like you are having a really weird nightmare. Add a shit load of psybocilin and things get ugly. I started questioning everything about me. What was wrong with me that I could even watch something like this? What was wrong with the world that this could even be conceived? I started pondering the idea of throwing out Mr. Twerpyworth my pet cat that I had preserved in a pickle jar full of formaldehyde. Did that huge blown up photo of the burning monk really need to be hanging over my mantle place? Maybe I should release that sweet old man that I had shackled in my basement. I was so freaked out and the trip the Nekromantik films induced was so bad that I actually tried to hide in my oven for 6 hours.

As art goes, the Nekromantik films are complete success, but like so much art that pushes the boundaries and provokes you to face the dark side, you have to ask if that success is really a victory or a defeat for humanity. In the end I say they are important films, just don’t watch them on drugs, and make sure you’ve rented some Disney for after you’re done.

-R.E. Brown
Swellco & Swellco 64312b

As you get older it’s hard to avoid being jaded; and when your life long mandate is to explore the far extreme fringes of the world’s artistic consciousness, it becomes hard to discern what to talk about. I battled the idea of presenting anything regarding Joel Peter Witkin for a week. In fact yesterday was my turn to post and I missed my deadline as I absently stared out into the blizzard raging outside. The day came and went as I contemplated whether a photographer who used sideshow freaks, birth anomalies and dead bodies as subject matter would relate to this site.

Obviously it’s a no brainer but I think debate in my head lends itself to a question about my own thick skin and knowledge of this subject matter. I was raised on a steady diet of his work, he was a grad student alumnus at University of New Mexico and his haunting presence was permissive in the photo department. So to me, posting about Joel Peter Witkin here is like posting about Elvis on a music site. My debate isn’t about what I know, it’s about what you, the reader knows. This may be “disturbing art 101″ to me, but maybe you haven’t taken “disturbing art 101″ yet.  Maybe that’s why we are here.

I’m going to continue discussing my fascination with Mr. Witson down the line, but I start this discussion with a portrait he did of Melvin Burkhart, the human block head. The above photo encapsulates everything this project strives to be. I had planned on writing a long dissertation on the presentation of sideshow outsider culture in terms of frightening dreamlike grandeur, but I don’t think I really need to say a word. Just take in this masterpiece. Meditate on the master photographers presentation of a master subject. There is no doubt in my mind that the moment will come when you will know what I would have said. In the presence of great art, no words are needed.

-R.E. Brown
Swellco & Swellco 64312b