Neal Auch

In which selfie has occurred.

A vanitas still life with tulips and coins. By Neal Auch.

The success of objects like the Labubu or Stanley cup seems to come down to two factors: (1) they are associated with status, but, (2) they're not prohibitively expensive. The word "expensive" is relative, so let me be clear. A Stanley Cup obviously costs a lot more than most comparable water bottles. But it's still within reach of a middle class person. The same is simply not true for other status symbols, like a Bugatti, for example. Both the Bugatti and the Stanley Cup derive their value primarily from symbolic meanings and auras of association. But in the case of the car, that symbolic meaning is reinforced by a prohibitive price tag; for the cup, on the other hand, the association with status is much more tenuous. And, of course, this makes it much more fragile. As far as I can tell, what is true for the Stanley Cup also seems true for Labubus and NFTs. There is also a connection here with history's first commodity bubble: Dutch Tulip Mania. In the 1620s tulips were a prized status symbol, accessible only to the ultra-wealthy. But the craze really kicked off in the 1630s, when a plethora of new varieties were introduced at varying price points. The tulip still had an association with wealth and status, but suddenly middle-class buyers could engage with the market. As the mania progressed, the tulip's connection to status (and therefore its value) became more and more abstract and tenuous. Near the end, people were trading futures contracts, rather than actual bulbs. The flower was effectively removed from the equation entirely. After this, the end came quickly.

On the meaning of the Labubu.

While contemporary floral paintings rarely aspire to much beyond an aesthetically pleasing depiction of natural beauty, the roots of the genre are deeply philosophical. Some of the earliest floral Still Life were explicitly religious, often incorporating subtle nods to Christianity such as a vase with a monogram for Christ's name or, rather often, much less subtle imagery such as crucifixes and the Eucharist. Since many blossoms were understood as pharmaceuticals, their depictions often carried meaning related to health, wellness, and prosperity. But there is one message encode in floral paintings which eclipses all others: these are depictions of mortality. We are being told that life, like the flower, is beautiful but fleeting. Lest the reader think I'm grasping at straws here, many 17th century Netherlandish paintings included explicit reference to Isaiah 40: "All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall..." The idea that "all flesh is grass" speaks, more broadly, to the notion that all flesh is interchangeable. In this way, the floral Still Life speaks to the very same deep psychic anxieties which are being channeled in the gross-out body horror of films like The Thing or The Fly. To admit that one kind of flesh is functionally equivalent to another is to confront mortality, because it amounts to saying that we are nothing but "hunks of spoiling flesh on disintegrating bones," as Thomas Ligotti put it.

Vanitas with Flowers

Vanitas with Flowers

Vanitas with Flowers

Behind the scenes: experimenting with candle light while trying not to set myself on fire.

I have a new newsletter coming next week, which will be about apples and flesh and virginity.

Just made gremolata and now my cutting board smells amazing maybe I'll just eat the board.

A vanitas with crucifix, roses, and coins. By Neal Auch.

"Does the infinite space we dissolve into, taste of us then?" – Rainer Maria Rilke

Current soundtrack. The organ is kind of a peculiar instrument, to my mind at least. Malone's approach to the instrument results in something that feels adjacent to ambient drone music, only melodically much more complex than you'd typically expect for that sort of fare.

Prepping the studio for some stuff...

I saw it in theater also. It was hilarious watching people storm out. There was one exodus early on when they realized what the movie is about. Then, a 2nd exodus during the same sex scene, because apparently these guys were comfortable with someone fucking a wound, but not with gay stuff, lol.

Which reminds me: there's no telling how long we'll be able to share 18+ content on social media. If you want to see where this project is going without censorship, maybe consider subscribing to my newsletter.

Shitty behind the scenes snapshot of one of the arrangements that went out with my last newsletter.

Making prints...

Cover of 3LBE Volume X with a large monster surprising travelers, alongside a list of contributors Lauren Ring · Steve Toase · L.M. Guay · Christi Nogle · Neal Auch · J. L. Jones · Koji A. Dae · Amelia Gorman · A. Y. Lu · Ashley Stokes · Laila Amado · Avra Margariti · Richard Thomas · Ann LeBlanc · Erica Clashe · Steve Rasnic Tem · Nick Mamatas · Nkone Chaka · Jordan Kurella · Timothy Granville · E. Catherine Tobler · Jonathan Olfert · Shelley Lavigne

There is always more to fear than what you perceive nearby, here is the wraparound cover for 3LBE VOLUME X print anthology. This book contains 24 stories of weird, wonder, and horror, and 42 new illustrations. Order now from our store. 📕🐙💀🤘https://www.3lobedmag.com

Making props. My first attempts with rope so far from perfect but passable, perhaps.

Vanitas with old picture, by Neal Auch

Vanitas with old picture, by Neal Auch

The essence of photography is a false promise of immortality. The image in a photographic print appears static, ageless, deathless. In reality, of course, the photo is only marginally more long-lived than whatever subjects it depicts. The negatives get lost, the colours fade, the print becomes creased and tarnished. If it doesn't end up in a landfill then it winds up in an antique shop bin somewhere. Ten pictures for a dollar. Something like that. An old apple crate full of long dead strangers. Maybe you pick up a few, place them around your home, repurpose them into something new. Another picture. Another lie of immortality, waiting to disappear.

The essence of photography is a false promise of immortality.

3LBE Magazine - A Song for the Centipedes by Neal Auch They came at night -- a great pilgrimage of arthropods. They poured in from faucets, electrical outlets, light fixtures. They squirmed through hairline fractures in the walls, making their way from th...

Read online:

www.3lobedmag.com/issue39/3lbe...

A close up photograph of a centipede set against a black background.

Three-Lobed Burning Eye Volume X contains my story about motherhood and centipedes and, I guess, witchcraft or something? Anyway, you can read it for free at the link in comments if you feel like it.

The shattered glass is an element which appears frequently in the still life of the Dutch Golden Age (and also in my own work). The most obvious way to think about this is as a symbol of transience. Nothing is permanent. All things–even inanimate things–succumb to a kind of death in their time. By the story might be more interesting than that. I've found at least one reference claiming wealthy bar patrons had a tradition of tossing their glasses at the end of the night (and then presumably paying off the barkeep for the damages). Under this reading, the shattered glass is a symbol of ostentatious wealth, rather than death. From the perspective of a visual artist, there's another possibility that seems plausible to me: broken glass is just more visually interesting than an intact one. The fault lines and fractures make for a more compelling arrangement. Plus, the broken glass adds drama. Where once there was merely a laid table, now we have a hint of mystery, of narrative. We are forced to imagine the scene which gave way to this destruction and, in doing so, we are drawn deeper into the picture.

Vanitas with Coins, Teeth, and Shattered Glass. By Neal Auch.

Still Life with Oysters, Lemon, a Roemmer, and a Shattered Glass, by WIllem Claesz Heda

Thoughts on the shattered glass.

I made this Vanitas series around the peak of the NFT boom. The idea was to evoke history's first market bubble: the Dutch mania surrounding tulips in the 17th century. Dice emphasize the fact that most NFTs are just gambling tokens, while bubbles foreshadow the fate of that art movement. I opted to use artificial tulips, because on some level the commodity being traded is irrelevant; the tulip is just a placeholder, interchangeable with a beanie baby, NFT, etc. Though I didn't realize it at the time, that NFT mania was arguably the beginning of social media's slop era: page after page of cynical low effort art being promoted with an eye on grifting before all else. The situation is much worse these days, with most of this dying website clogged up with deified crustaceans and similar sillyness. The endgame for AI is, of course, less obvious than it was with NFTs; there are plausible use cases and I'm no expert on the tech. My suspicion, however, is that the version we see today--marketed as a generalized tool for doing everything--is likely a bubble waiting to pop. Time will tell. All things are transient.

Notes on the Vanitas, Dutch tulip mania, the NFT boom and bust, and algorithmic art.

Next month's newsletter is going to be about apples, virginity, and sin. Subscribe if you like that kind of thing.

That one time I wore a suit.

Do not capitulate to the zombies.

A vanitas still life. Bones are placed in a flower base as if to simulate a bouquet. Coins and more bones litter the table below. Art by Neal Auch.

“Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you....” – James 5:3

A Vanitas still life with coins and teeth. By Neal Auch.

“Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire.” – James 5:3

My newsletter this month is about overlap between the philosophy of Vanitas art and the oligarchs and grifters of our modern age.

There was also a nice resonance here, because a central theme of still life is the idea that everything rots and this stands in tension with the urban legend that this particular brand of fast food doesn't rot. It does, of course, because it's just regular food and everything rots.

Vanitas with Big Mac. By Neal Auch.

Vanitas with Big Mac. By Neal Auch.

Vanitas with Big Mac. By Neal Auch.

This series represents one of my earliest attempts to reframe the Vanitas critique of rapacious greed for a contemporary audience, by shifting the emphasis from nobility to massive corporations. For this to be legible, I needed a symbol of corporate America which would be instantly recognizable and which sit comfortably within the wheelhouse of still life. McDonald's was an ideal choice, because the brand is unmistakable, and also because food is a staple subject matter for still life art. Tomorrow's newsletter will cover similar territory but from a different angle, touching on Viking mythology, tech bros, and immortality grifters.

Vanitas with Big Mac

Vanitas paintings like these are sometimes interpreted as meaning "greed is bad." I don't think that's quite right... It's true that the juxtaposition between skulls and precious objects is meant to remind the viewer that the pursuit of wealth is pure vanity in the face of certain death. But that verdict of vanity is rarely levelled against common folk. Pictures like these often include conspicuous insignia of the ruling class: crowns, mitres, sceptres, weaponry, etc. A contemporary approach to Vanitas art would similarly take aim and the rapacious greed of tech oligarchs, political elites, religious figureheads–those who stand above the law and who wield disproportionate control over the levels of society. Tomorrow's newsletter will explore the Vanitas as a critique of oligarchy. Subscribe via the stack place if that sounds interesting to you.

The Knight's Dream

Large Vanitas

Tomorrow's newsletter will explore the contemporary Vanitas as a critique of oligarchy. Subscribe if that sounds interesting to you.

Vase of Flowers, by Jan van Huysum (1722) This is a stunning painting just on its face, but there are a lot of beautiful little details if you pay close attention. The bouquet is teeming with insect life: butterflies (probably associated with divinity), but also bees and flies (probably a nod to the "memento mori" underpinnings of these kinds of paintings). The tiny bird (?) eggs in the bottom right are interesting to me... They are very conspicuously placed near the ledge and the nest seems tipped over, suggesting they might topple at any minute. I have to assume this is symbol of transience and instability: the painter is probably trying to remind us that life is precarious and every thing of beauty can end just as quickly as it begins.

Vase of Flowers, by Jan van Huysum (1722)

Well, that made for a fun cottage read.