Visiting an art gallery in Washington, DC long ago, I gazed at amorphous shapes for a good while. Some abstract art is good, speaking directly to the subconscious mind, but this stuff just wasn’t doing it for me. The only message I got out of it was a mild scolding from my superego about wasting a few bucks. However, one exhibit in the entire exhibit actually looked like something. That’s probably the reason why it’s the only item I remember. In fact, it was obvious that some effort went into making it, setting it apart from much of the other Entartete Kunst.(more…)
I’m a recent transplant in this city. And as far as cities go, this one isn’t terrible. We live just over the hill from Erie, one of those giant inland seas carved from North America’s heartland, and it’s like having our own, muted stretch of coast for the quiet. (more…)
Those on the Right who believe that modern art is always “decadent” need to come to grips with Italian Futurism. In commemoration of the birthday of Filippo Marinetti, the founder of Italian Futurism and one of the prophets of Fascism, I would like to draw your attention to several writings on this website.
Editor’s note: The following is the transcript of Charles Krafft’s speech at the Inaugural Meeting of the Northwest Forum in Seattle on November 12, 2016. (more…)
The Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM), Tallin, Estonia
1,615 words
When You Say
We Belong to the Light
We Belong to the Thunder
July–October 2019
First of all, the actual building and location of the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia has a great, youthful, Do-It-Yourself aesthetic. It’s informally known as the EKKM (cool). Its entrance is a dirt trail (keeps the art snobs away). It’s located in a small cluster of falling down Communist-era factory buildings (awesome). (more…)
Those on the Right who believe that modern art is always “decadent” need to come to grips with Italian Futurism. In commemoration of the birthday of Filippo Marinetti, the founder of Italian Futurism and one of the prophets of Fascism, I would like to draw your attention to several writings on this Website.
Counter-Currents Book Editor John Morgan joins Fróði Midjord on the new podcast series, Guide to Kulchur, to discuss The Square, a recent Swedish film (available in English) which mocks and critiques the intensely politically-correct culture of modern-day Sweden. The film depicts the director of a modern art museum in Stockholm whose pride in his liberal beliefs is challenged when his wallet and phone are stolen, and he is forced to venture into an immigrant area in order to attempt to retrieve them.
Nietzsche was a seminal influence on the brothers Norman and Lionel Lindsay, as he was on many other contemporary aesthetes, artists, and literati of the Right, including their fellow Australian, P. R. Stephensen, who was cured of his Communism at Oxford by the Philosopher.[1] When Stephensen returned to Australia, after a publishing venture in Britain, he did so as an avid Australian nationalist, and soon as an “Australian National Socialist,” (more…)
Otto Dix was a German artist who is now celebrated as one of the great painters of the twentieth century, probably in no small part because he was put on the National Socialists’ list of degenerate artists, as, to the unthinking postmodern Left, anything the National Socialists hated is automatically considered good. Equally though, the postmodern cultureless cartoon Nazis of today’s corrupted Right consider him a degenerate artist also simply because his artworks were deemed Entartete Kunst by the NSDAP. (more…)
In 1683 the troops of the Ottoman Empire marched to the gates of Vienna, in the very heart of Europe. Their intention was clear: sack the city, rape and kill the inhabitants, and use it as a staging base for their expansion into the rest of Christendom. Although the Poles under John III Sobieski saved the day, (more…)
For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
–1 Timothy 6:10 (KJV) (more…)
Many readers will be familiar with John David Ebert from his excellent podcast (with Darryl D. Cooper), Decline of the West. In an early episode of the show, Ebert called the US presidential election for Trump even before Trump had won the Republican nomination. (more…)
Austrian arthouse film Egon Schiele: Tod und Mädchen is perhaps most disappointing in that Egon Schiele led a very interesting life, yet the scriptwriter Hilde Berger and director Dieter Berner have succeeded in making it appear rather dull, in the same way as Mike Leigh served up a snore-fest about J. M. W. Turner a couple of years ago. Perhaps the two most interesting aspects of Schiele’s life, his trial for pedophilia and his experiences in the First World War, are completely glossed over (more…)
Since Hillary Clinton’s mention of the Alternative Right in one of her speeches, there have been countless discussions about what the Alt Right is and represents, with everyone and anyone, no matter how inappropriate, suddenly declaring they are part of the Alt Right. I think it is quite easy to define what the Alt Right is: it is the postmodern manifestation of what Julius Evola termed the True Right. (more…)
Last Saturday night in Manhattan, a few good shitlords made art history. At the “Daddy Will Save Us” art show, event organizer Lucian Wintrich stated that this was “the first conservative art show in America.” But there really wasn’t anything typically “conservative” about this event — rather, it was the most radically avant-garde art show possible in The Current Year. If this was conservatism, it was revolutionary conservatism. (more…)
Francis Bacon was an extraordinary and extreme artist and one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century. He was also a Right-wing elitist and individualist who approached the problem of creating art in the twentieth century with an honesty and intensity that have not really been matched. Generally speaking, it is probably true to say that most of the Right dismiss Bacon along with other contemporary artists mainly because of his unique treatment of the human form. But in my view his art enunciates a violent assault on the complacency of conventional thinking and perception that should be seen as deeply consonant with the project of the Alt Right. (more…)
To download the mp3, right-click here and choose “save target or link as.”
To subscribe to our podcasts, click here for iTunes and here for RSS.
John Morgan of Arktos joins Greg Johnson to interview David Yorkshire, editor of Mjolnir Magazine, a print journal dedicated to cultivating artistic creativity from a European identitarian perspective. (more…)
Oswald Spengler’s radical contribution to the philosophy of history was to observe that different Cultures and Civilizations are discrete life forms and that they all have a certain life-expectancy. The linear progression of history, from the Stone Age to the prevailing Western liberalism, is a myth. There is no single line of history running through all of humanity. Instead, Cultures are born, they grow to maturity, they age, and they die. (more…)
Damien Hirst’s The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living
Editor’s Note:
This is the transcript by V. S. of the audio of Jonathan Bowden’s short film Against the Turner Prize. Unfortunately, only the audio is available on YouTube. If anyone has access to the video version, please contact me at [email protected]. Bowden talks about 25 illustrations. Without the video, however, I have had to try to provide new illustrations based on Bowden’s descriptions, frequently without success. (more…)
Those on the Right who believe that modern art is always “decadent” need to come to grips with Italian Futurism. In commemoration of the birthday of Filippo Marinetti, the founder of Italian Futurism and one of the prophets of Fascism, I would like to draw your attention to several writings on this website.
The English sculptor Andy Goldsworthy is a practitioner of Land art, a practice that seeks to create art from natural materials and settings. Other practitioners of Land art include Richard Long, Robert Smithson, and David Nash. Whilst there is this common element of setting art in (or creating it from) the landscape, there is also a particularly striking quality to Andy Goldsworthy’s work that sets him apart from other Land artists. In short, this particular quality of his work might be termed sacred or numinous. For this reason he is both lauded as a contemporary shaman and derided as a twee pastoralist. Neither extremity really reveals much about Goldsworthy’s art. (more…)
My very first question to him, a living, breathing, Beatnik legend in the flesh was . . . “Tell me about magick?” William was not in the least surprised by my question. “Care for a drink?” he asked. Putting on the TV to watch The Man from U.N.C.L.E., he explained “Reality is not really all it’s cracked up to be, you know . . .”—Genesis P-Orridge (more…)
Part 1 of this article explained how the line between the domain of the religion and culture of Europe and the degenerate art of our invaders has been dramatically crossed after years of stability. (more…)
Jeff Koons’ Balloon Dog at Versailles, Property of François Pinault
For most of my lifetime, the visual culture of France was not in dispute. It is not like in the United States, where nativity scenes were only recently ripped from the public square. Perhaps there was not a mutually accepted border, but for decades there has been a kind of line of control between all that was rooted in our culture and traditions and all garbage of the culture distorters. (more…)
Prampolini’s portrait of Filippo Marinetti, 1876-1944
155 words
Those on the Right who believe that modern art is always “decadent” need to come to grips with Italian Futurism. In commemoration of the birthday of Filippo Marinetti, the founder of Italian Futurism and one of the prophets of Fascism, I would like to draw your attention to several writings on this website.
In the month of August the American press turned its spotlight on the suffering of two women. The attention they were given did not correspond to the depth of tragedy of each but rather to the priorities of the parasites occupying the positions of power.
Given my interests in topics covered in my Nietzsche’s Coming God book review, as well as my Overman High Culture essay, I thought it useful to take a look at Daniel Forrest’s new book, Suprahumanism.
Fortunato Depero, Skyscrapers and Tunnels (Gratticieli e tunnel), 1930
2,770 words
Editor’s Note:
This text continues the transcript by V. S. of Jonathan Bowden’s interview at the Union Jack Club in London on Saturday, November 21, 2009, after his lecture/performance on Punch and Judy. The title is editorial.
Since our last update on our Summer Fundraiser, just over a month ago, we have received 31 donations totaling $2,200 in amounts ranging from $10 to $1000. Of that amount, $234.06 will be matched by our Swedish matching grant benefactor, for a total of $2,434.06. Our total is now $33,982. We are $6,018 from our goal of $40,000 with 11 days to go. (more…)
In 2012, I was walking my dog through San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, and I came across an art and craft show in the sunken plaza between the Academy of Sciences and the new De Young Museum (which looks like a rusted aircraft carrier scuttled in the park).
The words “sublime” and “numinous” have shifted in meaning somewhat over recent years. The word “sublime,” I presume, would now generally be interpreted to mean something of particularly great beauty, or an action particularly well executed. It would not be limited to a narrow usage but could be applied to any thing or action of particular excellence, perhaps with a slightly pretentious connotation of elegance. (more…)
The following text is a transcript by V.S. of one of Jonathan Bowden’s most entertaining lectures, which was delivered to the 25th New Right meeting in London on February 13, 2010. Although Stewart Home is the principal subject, Bowden romps through a wide field of politically correct theories, ultra-Left sects, and decadent forms of modern art.
The following text is a transcript by V. S. of Jonathan Bowden’s lecture on Wyndham Lewis which was delivered to the 8th New Right meeting in London on May 28, 2006. There are a number of passages marked unintelligible. These passages appear in the recording at 4:00, 34:21, 40:12, 41:52, and 46:28. (You can listen to the lecture using the player below or by downloading the lecture.) If you can understand these words, please post a comment below.
For the radical Right the issue of contemporary art is something of a non-starter. The past century or so of developments in the fine arts have been dominated by American (and often Jewish) theoreticians who have fashioned a sensibility wherein anything that smacks of European tradition is automatically verboten, unless it can be refracted through a distorting lens of ironic detachment or disinheritance. (more…)
Here’s a stumper: if the definition of irony is typically something like “that which goes against expectations,” then how could an Avant-Garde artist—one who is expected to test the boundaries of our expectations—ever satisfy popular, mainstream, garden-variety tastes in irony? At some point, the Avant-Garde artist will, according to his nature, go against the expected means by which the unexpected is supposed to be realized; he will offer us a newunexpectedness. (more…)
The following text is a transcript by V. S. of Tomislav Sunić’s interview with Jonathan Bowden. Click here to listen to the audio. A couple of words have been marked as unintelligible. If you can make them out, please post a comment below.
Tom Sunić: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen! Good afternoon, dear friends! (more…)
September 29th: My friend Anastasia (not her real name) hits town. She’s staying with some friends in Brooklyn and invites me to meet her at the Participant Gallery, on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Anastasia’s old friend Clytemnestra (not her real name) is going to perform what is described to me as a “cat dance.” I arrive on time to find the place quickly filling up with the most appalling collection of artsy-fartsy New York hipsters and self-conscious “individualists” that I have yet seen. (more…)
The following text is transcript by V. S. of a lecture by Jonathan Bowden given at the 7th New Right meeting in London on April 8, 2006 entitled “Bill Hopkins: An Anti-Humanist Life.” (more…)
The Following is an excerpt from Blood, written between April and May 1992. It is part of a much longer discussion about art, where Bowden explores one of his favorite themes: the art of the radical Left versus the art of the radical Right. (more…)
A. R. D. Fairburn was born on February 2, 1904. Fairburn was a poet, painter, critic, essayist, and advocate of Social Credit, New Zealand Nationalism, and organic farming. In commemoration,we are publishing the following expanded version of Kerry Bolton’s essay on Fairburn. To read Fairburn’s magnificent poem “Dominion,” click here. (more…)
What follows are selections from Confessions of an Anti-Feminist: The Autobiography of Anthony M. Ludovici, ed. John V. Day, ch. 4, “My Education, II (1910–1916).” (more…)
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), "At the Piano," 1858–59
3,572 words
Editor’s Note:
Anthony M. Ludovici’s grandfather and father, Albert Ludovici, Sr. and Albert Ludovici, Jr. were celebrated and successful painters in England. (more…)
The Apes of God happens to be one of the most devastating satires to be published in the English language since the days of Dryden and Pope. It appeared in a Private Press edition (prior to general release), and at over 600 pages it was the size of your average London telephone directory. (more…)
We have been up all night, my friends and I, beneath mosque lamps whose brass cupolas are bright as our souls, because like them they were illuminated by the internal glow of electric hearts. And trampling underfoot our native sloth on opulent Persian carpets, we have been discussing right up to the limits of logic and scrawling the paper with demented writing.
Arno Breker (1900–1991) was the leading proponent of the neo-classical school in the twentieth century, but he was not alone by any stretch of the imagination. If we gaze upon a great retinue of his figurines, which can be seen assembled in the Studio at Jackesbruch (1941), (more…)
A. R. D. Fairburn, 1904–1957, is not usually identified with the “Right.” As a central figure in the development of a New Zealand national literature, much of the contemporary self-appointed literary establishment would wish to identify Fairburn with Marxism or liberalism, as were other leading literary friends of Fairburn’s such as the Communist R. A. K. Mason. (more…)
In a recent article on this site entitled “Violence and ‘Soft Commerce’” Dominique Venner spoke about leftist radicals being absorbed by the system which they affect to detest. He was referring in particular to the collected manuscripts of Guy Debord, the left-wing revolutionary and situationist, whose pabulum was recently saved for the national library by Chirac’s minister of culture.
Jonathan Bowden Apocalypse TV
London: The Spinning Top Club, 2007
Apocalypse TV was published in August 2007 by the Spinning Top Club. It runs to 239 pages and contains a pencil sketch of the author in the frontispiece or prelims by Michael Woodbridge. It is quite different to the other books which I have reviewed by this author — novels and plays, etc. . . . — by being directly non-fictional in character. (more…)
I would like to take this opportunity to respond to various postings which have been placed on the website ‘Stormfront’ in recent weeks. I would like to thank those people who have been supportive of my efforts. [. . .] Other correspondents have been less charitable however. [. . .] But amidst all of the silliness and abuse these people are contriving to make a serious point, and this is: the status of modern or modernist art.
4,116 words
5,798 words
(prior to general release), and at over 600 pages it was the size of your average London telephone directory. 
