THE AWFUL TRUTH

A telling sequence from African American director/producer Oscar Micheaux's film WITHIN OUR GATES (1920).

EXPERT TIMING

My concept of an animation timing sheet at age 13. (1975)

Yrs, MK

A SPLASH OF GRAPHIC CLASSICS

Yrs, MK

COPYRIGHT 2014 BY MILTON KNIGHT

MY MEMORIAL DAY GIFT

WITHIN OUR GATES (1920), an early movie by Oscar Micheaux, pioneering African-American filmmaker, directing a multi-racial cast. The film has the usual Micheaux quirks (the lighter the skin, the more trustworthy the black), but I find the film to be sincere, and sometimes painfully honest concerning race relations. For those who crave fast action, the lynching/rape sequences (in answer to BIRTH OF A NATION, no doubt) are in the latter third of the film.

YUMMY MUSIC, YUMMY DANCER

A HARLEM TORCH

American song, Danish jazz.

INTERVIEW ON ARTS & EROTICA

A journalist conducted this interview with me (by email) in the spring of '02 for an art magazine that seems to have disappeared. A shame to let it rot...so I've brought it to you myself.

What is it about erotic art that compels you to create it?
MK:I simply see sexuality as something so human, so grotesque and ripe for satirization, that I  cannot help but be attracted to it as a subject for my art.

What qualifies as erotic art, something titillating, sexually arousing, voyeuristic? Political?

MK: For me, it is a successful use of the artist's tools (color and the paint mediums) to approximate the feelings before, during or after coitus. Willem De Kooning said that "oil paint was made for painting the nude". I use acrylics when I paint, and, like oil, it is ideal for my own rough, expressionistic expression of sensuality. The female form especially is slammed onto the canvas with heavy slashes of paint, sometimes of fairly decayed-looking hues. The action of the woman's body and the thoughts of the individual's brain are what I attempt to capture (in the spirit of the Ukiyo-e artists) ; in the paintings of strippers, there is even a sadism. Romanticization is almost non-existent. I would say that, for myself, eroticism springs just as much from the evocative emotions of the subjects as anything else. Just showing a couple f---ing won't do it.

Am I off the track here, perhaps erotic art has nothing to do with sexuality, but stripping the human form back to something real, something raw, honest and or candid?

MK: This is getting very close to it for me. The words 'eroticism' and 'sexuality' can connote idealization, but, as stated previously, I work to attain what may be percieved as the opposite; a representation of humanity that is satirical, full of bile, yet humanistic. Not terribly easy to do.

Is erotica directly related to our sexuality or can it be an androgynous commodity?

MK: I suppose in our hip, cynical, yet dewy-eyed society, it can be, but that doesn't interest me in the least. Any sort of sexual art will be sexist, because a man or woman created it. To me, politically correct eroticism, taking all pains not to offend, and attempting to see a situation from all possible sides, is condescending. Such attempts cheat the audience of an experience it should be allowed to rightfully enjoy...or not enjoy.

Who are some artists/ periods of history in which erotic art appealed/ inspired you?

MK: There are many. As stated, Japan's 'floating world' print artists of the late nineteenth century, particularly Yoshitoshi; the Australian Norman Lindsay, famous for his prints and paintings of lush classically derived nudes of the first sixty years of the last century; the popular Tamara De Lempicka and other European artists of 'Art Moderne' sexuality of the 1920s & 1930s. Such Russian painters as V. Lyapkalo are celebrating with new, freely painted, delightfully carnal-looking nudes.

What doesn't qualify as erotic art?

MK: Pin-up paintings can be classified as at least using eroticism, but to me they do not qualify as erotic art because they reflect so little of a human experience. They are genre paintings, meant to deliver certain proscribed messages with a proscribed number of gimmicks. Individualized techniques are rare; in this regard, Earl Moran and Zoe Mozert were standouts. Moran's women seemed franker and fleshier.

Is painting as strong a medium as photography in this realm?

MK: A photograph can be manipulated in wondrous ways by the photographer, but the result will always be a manipulated photograph. In this way, the painter, starting off fresher and owing to no one but himself, has an advantage; he is the presenter of the theater of his own mind. But the erotic painter takes risks that the photographer is safe from. Viewers will agree at least on the 'sexiness' of a given photo; staying within certain perimiters, the photographer cannot help but be pleasing to the visual vocabulary we have built up; he is, after all, working in a different kind of partnership with God's handiwork. Painted art is so subjective! Techniques and styles will not translate to everyone, and if a viewer doesn't dig the approach, he may remain blind to whatever message the artist is working to convey. No painter can be 'erotic' to all.

COPYRIGHT 2014 BY MILTON KNIGHT

THOUGHTS

Only in LA: I drove into the driveway of a church and got caught in the snarl of a movie shoot. A kind movie shooter guided me backing out.

***

"Fine Art" ruined my profession. Nowadays comic artists get kicks playing the starving artist (usually subsidized by their parents). See, I've been working since the 1980s. I'm old enough to miss the days of publishers NEEDING content and my being able to negotiate a proper price. I entered comics partially to express myself, but also because it was a JOB.

***

My problem is, I think the sex in my work is as happy and innocent as nature itself. Certainly not as sick as the "mainstream" image of Commissioner Gordon tied up naked.

Yrs, MK

MISTER WOLF

1949 Soviet razz at capitalist greed. I'm by no means "on their side", and am well aware of Stalin's crimes against humanity, but the points made in this relic are possibly more relevant than ever.

Yrs, MK

BEHIND THE IRON CUR-TOON

I don't know when or why I started recognizing certain cartoons as Russian ones. I don't recall being exposed to them often on TV. But their polished appearance, characters who, to me, seemed extremely realistic at the time, and the strange, almost "backward" timing let me know what I was seeing in seconds. Thanks to You Tube and Dailymotion, the films from the 1940s and '50s are easy to see; too bad most of them are the Most Boring Films on Earth.

It's the animation for adults that tend to offer real surprises, but there are gems among the childrens' films as well. Here's one that made a big, BIG impression on me as a youngster when I saw it dubbed in English in a department store "kiddie theater". The signs in that version were crossed out on the film, frame-by-frame (occasionally revealed), which was just as impressive...and mysterious.

Yrs, MK

THOUGHT

Today seems less of an end of civilization when you study world history.

***

On a brighter note, Rita Rio's Orchestra with Alan Ladd:

Yrs, Milt

TWO MORE RECORDS

"Nice People", a snappy song about living the best one can under financial duress. Played by Joe Loss' band.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7FbhCJp_NM&feature=share&list=PL1uoHbzYQbsUHX4tkkTBuBJ5DD72NGoT6&index=191

Henry Hudson, another British aggregation, gives us "Today I Feel So Happy".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzkRb6WDlsM&list=PL1uoHbzYQbsUHX4tkkTBuBJ5DD72NGoT6&feature=share&index=196

A FAVORITE RECORD

1929; Ted Weems & his Orchestra beautifully play "Washing Dishes with my Sweetie at the Kitchen Sink". The band that laughs out loud!!

THOUGHT

I feel less apt to post new pics on the web now. Free samples lead most people to expect...more free samples.

PNEUMONIAC THOUGHTS

Strange part of cold/pneumonia is its start; when all my tasks are laid out in front of me, but look uncontrollable and don't know why. ("Why can't I think??") Waking up the next day with "hair hurt" is just as bad.

Just documenting the sensations while I still recall them.

ROAD TO RECOVERY, H'I SAY

Feeling better. Able to stand, walk & sit upright without buckling for the first time in 2 wks.

FEELING BETTER, I HOPE

I was losing faith in the antibiotics the doctor prescribed me, but for the first time in weeks, my cough has stopped and it's not so hard to get out of bed. I hope it lasts. Thanks to those who've sent their best wishes.