FEBRUARY 2024 – brutjournal

THIS IS THE PLACE FOR DISCOVERIES AND DISCUSSIONS OF THE MOST INVENTIVE ART FORMS – ALL KINDS OF ART THAT IS FAR-OUT, FANTASTIC, FREE-SPIRITED, FUN, FUNKY, PHENOMENAL AND GOOD FOR THE SOUL. (MAMA CALLED IT SUI GENERIS)
SUBSCRIBE, BABY. RIGHT NOW!

IN THE STILL OF A WINTER’S NIGHT, EVEN AS THE WORLD KEEPS FALLING APART AT A RAPID PACE, THE EARTH KEEPS TURNING, TURNING, TURNING… OUR NOCTURNAL THOUGHTS TURN TO PEACE, LOVE, THE SOUND OF A CLOTHES DRYER GENTLY HUMMING, THE FLASH OF A FALLING STAR, AND, OF COURSE, THE MUSIC OF BARRY WHITE (1944-2003), THAT HIGH PRIEST OF GROWLING, COOING, LUSHLY SEDUCTIVE SOUL. VALENTINE’S DAY IS COMING. TIME TO PLAY WHITE’S “NEVER, NEVER GONNA GIVE YA UP” (1973) AT FULL VOLUME, SURRENDERING TO THE MASTER’S CALL: “YOU GOT IT TOGETHER, BABY.”

IN THIS ISSUE, DON'T MISS THESE FEATURES

Editor’s Letter

What the heck is brutjournal?
by Edward M. Gómez

Luna Luna, which bills itself as “the world’s first art amusement park,” is a new version of an attraction the Austrian artist André Heller first presented in Hamburg in 1987. Sarah Fensom, brutjournal’s U.S.A. West Coast bureau chief, reports.

Geneva, Switzerland

At the café/restaurant Remor, the artist Emmanuel Herz’s festive, mysterious “Fascinantes Méduses” (“Fascinating Jellyfish”), a group of unusual mixed-media sculptures and related paintings, has taken over the elegant, old venue’s ceiling lamps and walls. Enchanting!
by Edward M. Gómez

The Bosnian-born artist Amer Kobaslija is a contemporary history painter who lately has turned his keen observer’s eye on the tropical madhouse that has become his adopted home.

PAINTING HIS WAY INTO OTHER WORLDS: THE MAGICALLY RHYTHMIC ART OF ERNEST BURDEN, JR.

Ernest Burden, Jr. (1934-2022), known as “Erni” to his friends, was an artistic polymath. Trained in architecture, he later gravitated toward painting and photography. A former student of the visionary, American modern architect Bruce Goff, Burden made elegant abstract paintings whose pulsating energy flows from the far limits of the imagination and the depths of the soul.

BERN PORTER: YES, NOW IT CAN BE (SORT OF)

The late Bern Porter (1911-2004) was a physicist, artist, writer, publisher, performer — and Mainer. He contributed to such avant-garde tendencies as mail art and so-called found poetry. Now, The Idea of the Book, a small press, has published Now It Can Be — Why Did It Fail Before?, an anthology of Porter’s found poems. Their spirit offers an unexpected tonic for our times.

ELLA VERES: A MONOLOGUE PERFORMANCE EVOLVES OUT OF BITTERSWEET MEMORIES AND OLD JUNK

The Romanian-born, New York-based writer and artist Ella Veres brings a sense of humor and befuddlement about her adopted country to her assemblage works made with found materials. Her performance monologues are also impressionistic collages. Here, she ruminates on the essence of the trash she transforms into art, each piece of which she regards as a gem.

ROMANCE AND ALL THAT JAZZ: STEVEN HIRSCH’S LOVE PORTFOLIO

We’re always intrigued to discover what new confections the painter Steven Hirsch has brought back from his forays into a creative zone in which the kinky-kooky news of the day, his audacious eye for everyday weirdness, and big servings of media nonsense and fake political outrage combine to inspire his art. Here, a Valentine's Day portfolio — or something like that. Free-access article.

OVER THE MOON: IN L.A., AN ART AMUSEMENT PARK OFFERS HIGH-CONCEPT FUN AND GAMES

brutjournal’s U.S.A. West Coast Bureau Chief, Sarah Fensom, visits Luna Luna, “the world’s first art amusement park.” It’s a new version of an attraction the Austrian artist André Heller first presented in Hamburg in 1987. Fensom describes its “pavilion by David Hockney, carousel by Keith Haring, and Ferris wheel by Jean-Michel Basquiat, all of which are still working.” A photo-filled report.