Lost and FOUND!

I hope you’ll forgive a bit of self-promotion here,  as this has been a long time coming.

I’ve been on the missing persons list for a few months, putting the finishing touches on my book MISSING MYSTERIES: A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF NONEXISTENT MYSTERIES. I began this massive satirical reference back in 2011 and it has finally launched—in a shiny,  full-color, large format paperback edition from Black Scat Books.

I might as well let the blurbs speak for themselves because—frankly—I’m pooped.

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“Derek Pell is quite mad, in rather a brilliant way.” —Lawrence Block

“Pell’s satire doesn’t lack for sharp edges. His twisted humor is sure to appeal to crime-fiction lovers.” —J. Kingston Pierce, THE RAP SHEET

“This book is a lot of fun!” —Steven Heller

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Copies are now available worldwide on Amazon. CLICK HERE TO ORDER

Prop Art

Here’s a paperback I’ve been eager to get my hands on— THE DARK GALLERIES: A MUSEUM GUIDE TO PAINTED PORTRAITS IN FILM NOIR, GOTHIC MELODRAMAS, AND GHOST STORIES OF THE 1940S AND 1950S by Steven Jacobs & Lisa Colpaert  (ARAMER).

I first mentioned this book in a post last September and a copy has finally landed on my desk—bravo! (Official pub. date is March 31st) The concept is so deliciously eccentric it makes me want to compile The Encyclopedia of Fedoras. Fashion aside, who can forget  the portrait of Carlotta Valdes in Hitchcock’s Vertigo,  but I’ll  bet  the farm nobody can name the artist. (It was created especially for the film by the modernist painter John Ferren.)

Art  factors into the plots of a surprising number of film noir favorites such as Preminger’s Laura  and Cukor’s  Gaslight—as well as in many obscure releases. Well I’m happy to report you’ll find them all in The Dark Galleries.

The authors have produced an analytical study of cinema and painting that’s also a highly readable (and fun) reference. Indeed, this illustrated guide to an imaginary museum is like a big bucket of buttered popcorn for fans of film noir.

CLICK HERE to order on Amazon

On Oct. 1st the Rich Get Richer . . .

Daily Heller Does NOIR

Steven Heller, the editor of one of our favorite design anthologies (Sex Appeal: The Art of Allure in Graphic and Advertising Design), interviewed Norman Conquest, the publisher of Black Scat Books,  for his Daily Heller blog at PRINT magazine. You can read it here.

Hot Off the Press

Photography: The Whole Story

There are plenty of books which  chronicle the history of photography, but Photography: The Whole Story, edited by Juliet Hacking (Prestel),  is one of the best we’ve seen. What makes this concise, visual compendium  unique are its images. Yes, the familiar classics are here, but  a good number of the photos have not been widely anthologized. The book is also acutely  sensitive to avant-garde influences—a fresh reminder of just how much of the medium was (and is) experimental. It’s a breathtaking digest from photography’s birth to the present— complete with a “Key Events” timeline for each entry. With  over 1,000 images,  it’s  one of those reference books that’s hard to set aside. It will certainly lead readers to explore individual photographers and movements more deeply.

Click here to order on Amazon.

Still Film

Still Film by Norman Conquest

Membership Drive

The international anti-censorship art collective, Beuyscouts of Amerika (“Be prepared—fight censorship!”), was founded in the summer of 1989 by artist Norman Conquest. It was, in part, a response to the Republican attack on the National Endowment for the Arts—spearheaded by the late right-wing Senator (and reprobate) from North Carolina, Jesse Helms.

photographer unknown

“…The most recent round of the national debate over funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) ended one year later, on July 21, 1998. On that day the House of Representatives approved $98 million for the NEA for fiscal 1999 and rejected the conservative Republican position that tax dollars should not be used to support the arts. This is the latest chapter in a concerted assault on the arts — and eventually humanities — that has been raging with more or less ferocity since May 1989 when Sen. Jesse Helms, on information supplied by the conservative Christian American Family Association, condemned Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ” in an NEA-funded exhibition at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.”

—Cynthia Koch

 

GO TO HELMS!

The  first  “scout work” appeared in New York City’s  SoHo district—a series of ant-censorship decals plastered on phone booths, mailboxes, and gallery windows.   The decals were reproduced in various publications like the Village Voice and Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine which put  the mischievous organization on the map.

 

Private collection: Darlene Altschul

In 1992, Conquest created “Piss Bush,” a Beuyscout multiple (edition of 100) consisting of a transparency of George H. W. Bush submerged in a urine-filled bottle housed in a plastic case.

 

 

[Special Collections at the John M. Flaxman Library, Art Institute of Chicago]

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Many other talented artists produced work for the scouts, including Gerard Barbot, Marcello Diotallevi, Tarzana Savannah, Stefan Szczelkun, Farewell Debut, Klaus Groh, General Idea, Art FBI, and the Guerrilla Girls, among others.

Coming out post card by Farewell Debut (New York, 1990). [Private collection: Darlene Altschul]

 

GIRLS ARE BEUYSCOUTS,

TOO!

 

 

 

OFF TO THE CULTURE

WARS (again)

Post card by Stefan Szczelkun (London, 1991) [Private collection, Darlene Altschul]

With the reemergence of the Republican  culture wars and  recent GOP assault on women, the Beuyscouts of Amerika are on the march again.  All artists interested in participating are invited to contact Norman Conquest via this email LINK.

Yes, Newt Gingrich is back and just to prove that history repeats itself, here’s an excerpt from the book Extremely Weird Republicans (1995) by Norman Conquest.

 For more, visit Letter Bomb: The Official Organ of Beuyscouts of Amerika at www.beuyscouts.com

 

Public Service Announcement (1985)

“Reading is for Socialists” (1985). Poster by Norman Conquest. Visit Le Scat Noir for more Conquest art.

No Fasting

“Midnight Mass” is the rare “Plate 1” in artist Norman Conquest’s seminal Church of the Trans-Fat placemat series. [Click on image and pray for  larger view.]

Conquest began his mixed media church work in 2006, and it remains in-progress.

In addition to 26 laminated placemats, there is an illustrated  pamphlet celebrating the spirit of American gluttony The covers below are for the “mass market” edition (left) and the limited “deluxe banquet edition.”

 [Click on image and pray for larger view.]

There are various “suitable for framing” church certificates, including the exquisite one below.

[Click on image and pray for larger view.]

The series includes post cards, tax deductible donor flags, barf badges, and not-for-the-squeamish ephemera.

“Aisle of Light” (2010). Post card.

 

CTF poster (2012)

Last but not least there’s a limited edition CTF boxed product: Partially Hydrogenated Communion Wafers.

[Click on image and pray for larger view.]

You’ll find more works by Norman Conquest  here. 

For additional information about the artist you can e-mail me.