“The aesthetic experience is a simple beholding of the object . . . you experience a radiance. You are held in aesthetic arrest.” - Joseph Campbell
Aesthetic Arrest is our weekly dip into the Epicurean pleasures we’ve been enjoying lately. Here we go!
Ryan Wildstar’s Recommendations:
Reading: The Decadent Cookbook by Durian Gray and Medlar Lucan
Listening: KG Westman & Zaعfaran
Looking: Vyhnanec [Exile] and Faun by Karel Hlaváček
The Cabinet of the Solar Plexus
Viewing: Queer Eye: Brazil (Netflix)
Tasting: Tirana’s Outdoor Produce Markets! [The total cost of everything in the photo below was $6 USD!]
Ryan Elston’s Recommendations:
Reading: In Praise of Disobedience by Oscar Wilde
The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
- Oscar Wilde, from The Preface to The Picture of Dorian GrayListening: Taos by Efrén López, Stelios Petrakis & Bijan Chemirani
Looking: The Art of Steven Arnold
The Steven Arnold Museum and Archives
Steven Arnold at Fahey/Klein Gallery
Enigmatic, transgressive, gleefully queer: the 1970s cult film you’ve never seen
The life and art of Salvador Dalí’s surrealist disciple Steven F. Arnold
Viewing: Merlí: Sapere Aude [Merlí: Dare to Know] (Netflix)
Tasting: Ryan Wildstar’s Mint & Melon Gazpacho (garnished with diced green apple, cherry tomato and fresh mint). Served with Sliced Honeydew Melon Wrapped in Dalmatian Prosciutto.
That’s it for this week! What are your reading, listening, looking, viewing and/or tasting recommendations?
Share this post