The Wizard

Julien Langendorff and I met a few years ago when were working together on a large painting project of mine. Music was playing loud in the studio, and one song made us stop and smile. That song was « The Wizard » by Black Sabbath:
Misty morning, clouds in the sky
Without warning, the wizard walks by
Casting his shadow, weaving his spell
Funny clothes, tinkling bell
Never talking
Just keeps walking
Spreading his magic

We could picture the album cover, with features a woman dressed like a witch in some haunted psychedelic landscape. We were both into it’s cool promise of evil rock and roll; of gnarly roots and blood red leaves, blackened windows, and horror movie thrills. We decided then that we needed to make Pillars of Fire, a movie which we shot and made the music for, and which owes much to Black Sabbath’s inspiration.

The cool thing about « The Wizard » is that the music is pure 1970s heavy metal wickedness, but the lyrics are a goofy portrait of a wizard who is putting out the positive vibes.

Evil power disappears
Demons worry when the wizard is near
He turns tears into joy
Everyone’s happy when the wizard walks by

I suppose this romantic idea of art being the magical medium for release from earthly fears is one that attracts us. The artist as wizard, a valuable outsider whose esoteric knowlege might actually be helpful.

Julien Langendorff works in his quasi-mystical way of narrative figuration. Graphic images are surprisingly handmade, patiently gaining force like tree roots breaking through a sidewalk. Obsessive and delicate cutting, pasting, drawing and painting result in images that seem to be caught in mid-animation, floating and flying across whatever support they are applied to. There is much evidence of time passing, gestures repeated, patterns created, lines groomed to look wild. Julien’s art making ritual transforms all of it into a personal vision with his haunted poetry. Sex and death and misunderstood monsters, more or less human, seem to be the main themes. We are reminded that the Symbolists like Odilon Redon and Eduard Munch were fans of Edgar Allen Poe. I bet they would have liked them some Sabbath too.

Of course these flaming constellations and sexy talismans will not turn you into a disciple of Satan. Rather they are gentle invitations to intimacy. These monsters are lost on the river of life with the rest of us, and they look out from from this imagined world in confrontation or resignation. I remember one portrait of François Mitterrand that Julien did for a magazine that wasn’t so much a portrait but a very funny and accurate zombie likeness. Two smiling skulls are linked together in friendship or transformation, arms are seen outstretched everywhere wanting to make contact, and colors are bright against the black abyss.

There is hope that the hairy being in the Pillars of Fire movie will find peace at the end of it’s existential journey, even if it means being transformed into fire. We are re-assured that there is at least something to be found in the darkness of the unknown, not just boring and truly terrible nothing.

No reason to be scared.

-Jason Glasser, Paris, 2010

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Julien Langendorff – le prince des ténèbres

Existe-t-il une relation entre la science et la pornographie? Dans l’imaginaire de Julien Langendorff, ces mondes a priori disparates se réconcilient à travers une juxtaposition d’images de la contre-culture des années 1960, dans lesquelles l’ésotérisme, la musique et l’art psychédélique ou les hippies génèrent à la fois une fascination pour les mystères de la chair et ceux de l’univers. Ce n’est pas un hasard si l’Homme se lance à l’assaut du cosmos une fois qu’il a fait le tour du corps humain… La quête du savoir absolu est tout aussi présente dans l’iconographie pornographique que dans les spéculations sur la vie extra-terrestre.

Mais une fois que le speculum de Langendorff a fait le tour du cosmos comme de la pornographie, qu’est ce qu’il reste ? L’espace métaphysique des univers parallèles, les fantômes refoulés par une société sur-rationnelle. Le sommeil de la raison engendre des monstres depuis la naissance de l’humanité, mais chaque époque possède les
siens, et génère des voyages nocturnes spécifiques dans l’inconscient. Pourtant, Charles Baudelaire se demande dans Le Spleen de Paris : « Peut-il exister des monstres aux yeux de Celui-là seul qui sait pourquoi ils existent, comment ils se sont faits et comment ils auraient pu ne pas se faire? »

Dans le cas de Julien Langendorff, il s’agit plutôt de monstres sortant des films d’horreur de Dario Argento et Kenneth Anger ou de la musique de Black Sabbath, donc d’une romantisation de monstres datés, que Langendorff réinterprète, découpe et rassemble dans des collages.
Les têtes de mort aux yeux exorbités, couvertes de minuscules bouts de papiers multicolores, munis de nez surdimensionnés de Commedia del arte, arborant des bijoux esotériques, pleurent ou sourient, pleins d’émotion. Langendorff fait aussi partie du groupe « Pillars of fire », pour lequel il a réalisé plusieurs films en Super 8, racontant l’histoire d’un monstre noir et poilu perdu dans une forêt, un personnage qu’on a plutôt envie de caresser que de fuir.

Ses images méticuleuses flirtent avec la naïveté de l’Art Brut comme avec la mémoire de l’ Arts and Craft. Formellement, elles s’approchent de la démarche pragmatique du vieux Matisse, qui a recours aux papiers
collés quand l’âge l’empêche de peindre. Il existe une antinomie entre forme et contenu chez l’un comme chez l’autre : La Tristesse du roi, par exemple, joue du contraste entre l’allégresse des couleurs et la mélancolie ; et Langendorff, ce prince des ténèbres, nous rappelle que l’humour et l’exubérance des couleurs sont la meilleure façon d’apprivoiser ses monstres.

-Sinziana Ravini

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I’ve always been a bit jealous of people who are able to paint and draw well.  
It’s not easy to write about drawings or paintings, they seem to be even more personal than photographs or video clips because they are so many things funneled into one image that is completely controlled and original.
Below is a short list of some places that my mind goes when i see Julien’s.  
-the best parts of saturday morning cartoons, with all the shitty parts stripped away.
-the movie KRULL always sitting at the video rental store on VHS but i was too young to rent it.
-the feeling of what it might be like to get tasered.
-dark places mixed with light ones, literallly and figuratively.
-being covered in sweat and falling in dirt, but maybe colorful dirt.
-colored rocks at the bottom of a fish tank.

It seems that a lot of artists (myself included) are attracted to counter culture groups from the past;
 hippies, goths, satanists, etc. I’m not sure why these movements still resonate today. Is it because we haven’t had anything comparable in very recent times?
Sometimes it feels like we are living in a time when it’s all about the same, everything has been referenced so much that it has all become dust and the peace sign has about as much meaning as the swastica.
I’m not saying this in a negative way, i think it’s kind of exciting. For me these works create that feeling, they reference several times and things but still completely fresh. It’s like starting all over. 
Julien, sorry it took so long to write this. 

-Peter Sutherland, NYC, 2011