Mother Nature is surrounded by grottesche in this fresco detail from Villa d'Este

The word grotesque comes from the same Latin root as "Grotto", meaning a small cave or hollow. The original meaning was restricted to an extravagant style of Ancient Roman decorative art rediscovered and then copied in Rome at the end of the 15th century. The "caves" were in fact rooms and corridors of the Domus Aurea, the unfinished palace complex started by Nero after the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64, which had become overgrown and buried, until they were broken into again, mostly from above. Spreading from Italian to the other European languages, the term was long used largely interchangeably with arabesque and moresque for types of decorative patterns using curving foliage elements.

Since at least the 18th century (in French and German as well as English) grotesque has come to be used as a general adjective for the strange, fantastic, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting, and thus is often used to describe weird shapes and distorted forms such as Halloween masks. In art, performance, and literature, grotesque, however, may also refer to something that simultaneously invokes in an audience a feeling of uncomfortable bizarreness as well as empathic pity. More specifically, the grotesque forms on Gothic buildings, when not used as drain-spouts, should not be called gargoyles, but rather referred to simply as grotesques, or chimeras.^{[citation needed]}

Rémi Astruc has recently argued that although there is an immense variety of motifs and figures, the three main tropes of the grotesque are doubleness, hybridity and metamorphosis.^[1] Beyond the current understanding of the grotesque as an aesthetic category, he demonstrated how the grotesque functions as a fundamental existential experience. Moreover, Astruc identifies the grotesque as a crucial, and potentially universal, anthropological device that the societies have used to conceptualize alterity and change.

History[link]

Early examples in Roman ornaments[link]

In art, grotesques are ornamental arrangements of arabesques with interlaced garlands and small and fantastic human and animal figures, usually set out in a symmetrical pattern around some form of architectural framework, though this may be very flimsy. Such designs were fashionable in ancient Rome, as fresco wall decoration, floor mosaics, etc., and were decried by Vitruvius (ca. 30 BCE), who in dismissing them as meaningless and illogical, offered the description: "reeds are substituted for columns, fluted appendages with curly leaves and volutes take the place of pediments, candelabra support representations of shrines, and on top of their roofs grow slender stalks and volutes with human figures senselessly seated upon them."

When Nero's Domus Aurea was inadvertently rediscovered in the late fifteenth century, buried in fifteen hundred years of fill, so that the rooms had the aspect of underground grottoes, the Roman wall decorations in fresco and delicate stucco were a revelation.

Etymology in Renaissance[link]

Ceiling of the Piccolomini Library

The first appearance of the word grottesche appears in a contract of 1502 for the Piccolomini Library attached to the duomo of Siena. They were introduced by Raphael Sanzio and his team of decorative painters, who developed grottesche into a complete system of ornament in the Loggias that are part of the series of Raphael's Rooms in the Vatican Palace, Rome. "The decorations astonished and charmed a generation of artists that was familiar with the grammar of the classical orders but had not guessed till then that in their private houses the Romans had often disregarded those rules and had adopted instead a more fanciful and informal style that was all lightness, elegance and grace."^[2] In these grotesque decorations a tablet or candelabrum might provide a focus; frames were extended into scrolls that formed part of the surrounding designs as a kind of scaffold, as Peter Ward-Jackson noted. Light scrolling grotesques could be ordered by confining them within the framing of a pilaster to give them more structure. Giovanni da Udine took up the theme of grotesques in decorating the Villa Madama, the most influential of the new Roman villas.

Maiolica pilgrim bottle with grottesche decor, Fontana workshop, Urbino, c 1560-70

In the 16th century, such artistic license and irrationality was controversial matter. Francisco de Holanda puts a defense in the mouth of Michelangelo in his third dialogue of Da Pintura Antiga, 1548:

"this insatiable desire of man sometimes prefers to an ordinary building, with its pillars and doors, one falsely constructed in grotesque style, with pillars formed of children growing out of stalks of flowers, with architraves and cornices of branches of myrtle and doorways of reeds and other things, all seeming impossible and contrary to reason, yet yet it may be really great work if it is performed by a skillful artist."^[3]

Mannerism[link]

Grotesque engraving on paper, c.1500 - 1512, Italy.

The delight of Mannerist artists and their patrons in arcane iconographic programs available only to the erudite could be embodied in schemes of grottesche,^[4] Andrea Alciato's Emblemata (1522) offered ready-made iconographic shorthand for vignettes. More familiar material for grotesques could be drawn from Ovid's Metamorphoses.^[5]

In Michelangelo's Medici Chapel Giovanni da Udine composed during 1532-33 "most beautiful sprays of foliage, rosettes and other ornaments in stucco and gold" in the coffers and "sprays of foliage, birds, masks and figures", with a result that did not please Pope Clement VII Medici, however, nor Giorgio Vasari, who whitewashed the grottesche decor in 1556.^[6] Counter Reformation writers on the arts, notably Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti, bishop of Bologna,^[7] turned upon grottesche with a righteous vengeance.^[8]

Giorgio Vasari recorded that Francesco Ubertini, called "Bacchiacca", delighted in inventing grotteschi, and (about 1545) painted for Duke Cosimo de' Medici a studiolo in a mezzanine at the Palazzo Vecchio "full of animals and rare plants".^[9] Other 16th-century writers on grottesche included Daniele Barbaro, Pirro Ligorio and Gian Paolo Lomazzo.^[10]

Engravings, woodwork, book illustration, decorations[link]

In the meantime, through the medium of engravings the grotesque mode of surface ornament passed into the European artistic repertory of the sixteenth century, from Spain to Poland. A classic suite was that attributed to Enea Vico, published in 1540-41 under an evocative explanatory title, Leviores et extemporaneae picturae quas grotteschas vulgo vocant, "Light and extemporaneous pictures that are vulgarly called grotesques". Later Mannerist versions, especially in engraving, tended to lose that initial lightness and be much more densely filled than the airy well-spaced style used by the Romans and Raphael.

Soon grottesche appeared in marquetry (fine woodwork), in maiolica produced above all at Urbino from the late 1520s, then in book illustration and in other decorative uses. At Fontainebleau Rosso Fiorentino and his team enriched the vocabulary of grotesques by combining them with the decorative form of strapwork, the portrayal of leather straps in plaster or wood moldings, which forms an element in grotesques.

French neoclassical painted decor in the Raphaelesque grotesque manner at Fontainebleau, 1780s

From Baroque to Victorian era[link]

In the 17th and 18th century the grotesque encompasses a wide field of teratology (science of monsters) and artistic experimentation. The monstrous, for instance, often occurs as the notion of play. The sportiveness of the grotesque category can be seen in the notion of the preternatural category of the lusus naturae, in natural history writings and in cabinets of curiosities.^[11][12] The last vestiges of romance, such as the marvellous also provide opportunities for the presentation of the grotesque in, for instance, operatic spectacle. The mixed form of the novel was commonly described as grotesque - see for instance Fielding's "comic epic poem in prose." (Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones)

Grotesque ornament received a further impetus from new discoveries of original Roman frescoes and stucchi at Pompeii and the other buried sites round Mount Vesuvius from the middle of the century. It continued in use, becoming increasingly heavy, in the Empire Style and then in the Victorian period, when designs often became as densely packed as in 16th-century engravings, and the elegance and fancy of the style tended to be lost.

Extensions of the term in art[link]

Artists began to give the tiny faces of the figures in grotesque decorations strange caricatured expressions, in a direct continuation of the medieval traditions of the drolleries in the border decorations or initials in illuminated manuscripts. From this the term began to be applied to larger caricatures, such as those of Leonardo da Vinci, and the modern sense began to develop. It is first recorded in English in 1646 from Sir Thomas Browne:"In nature there are no grotesques".^[13] By extension backwards in time, the term became also used for the medieval originals, and in modern terminology medieval drolleries, half-human thumbnail vignettes drawn in the margins, and carved figures on buildings (that are not also waterspouts, and so gargoyles) are also called "grotesques".

A boom in the production of works of art in the grotesque genre, characterized the period 1920-1933 of German art. In contemporary illustration art, the "grotesque" figures, in the ordinary conversational sense, commonly appear in the genre grotesque art, also known as fantastic art.

In literature[link]

The Grotesque is often linked with satire and tragicomedy.^[14] It is an effective artistic mean to conveys grief and pain to the audience, and for this has been labeled by Thomas Mann as the "genuine antibourgeois style".^[14]

The earliest written texts describe grotesque happenings and monstrous creatures. The literature of Myth has been a rich source of monsters; from the one-eyed Cyclops (to cite one example) from Hesiod's Theogony to Homer's Polyphemus in the Odyssey. Ovid's Metamorphoses is another rich source for grotesque transformations and hybrid creatures of myth. Horace's Art of Poetry also provides a formal introduction classical values and to the dangers of grotesque or mixed form. Indeed the departure from classical models of order, reason, harmony, balance and form opens up the risk of entry into grotesque worlds. Accordingly British literature abounds with native grotesquerie, from the strange worlds of Spenser's allegory in The Faerie Queene, to the tragi-comic modes of sixteenth-century drama. (Grotesque comic elements can be found in major works such as King Lear.)

Literary works of mixed genre are occasionally termed grotesque, as are "low" or non-literary genres such as pantomime and farce.^[15] Gothic writings often have grotesque components in terms of character, style and location. In other cases, the environment described may be grotesque - whether urban (Charles Dickens), or the literature of the American south which has sometimes been termed "Southern Gothic." Sometimes the grotesque in literature has been explored in terms of social and cultural formations such as the carnival(-esque) in François Rabelais and Mikhail Bakhtin. Terry Castle has written on the relationship between metamorphosis, literary writings and masquerade.^[16]

Another major source of the grotesque is in satirical writings of the eighteenth century. Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels provides a variety of approaches to grotesque representation. In poetry, the works of Alexander Pope provide many examples of the grotesque.

In fiction, characters are usually considered grotesque if they induce both empathy and disgust. (A character who inspires disgust alone is simply a villain or a monster.) Obvious examples would include the physically deformed and the mentally deficient, but people with cringe-worthy social traits are also included. The reader becomes piqued by the grotesque's positive side, and continues reading to see if the character can conquer their darker side. In Shakespeare's The Tempest, the figure of Caliban has inspired more nuanced reactions than simple scorn and disgust. Also, in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, the character of Gollum may be considered to have both disgusting and empathetic qualities, which fit him into the grotesque template.

Alice surrounded by the characters of Wonderland in The Nursery "Alice" (1890)

Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame is one of the most celebrated grotesques in literature. Dr. Frankenstein's monster can also be considered a grotesque, as well as the Phantom of the Opera and the Beast in Beauty and the Beast. Other instances of the romantic grotesque are also to be found in Edgar Allan Poe, E.T.A. Hoffmann, in Sturm und Drang literature or in Sterne's Tristram Shandy. Romantic grotesque is far more terrible and sombre than medieval grotesque, which celebrated laughter and fertility.

The grotesque received a new shape with Alice in the Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, when a girl meets fantastic grotesque figures in her fantasy world. Carroll manages to make the figures seem less frightful and fit for children's literature, but still utterly strange.

Southern Gothic is a genre frequently identified with grotesques and William Faulkner is often cited as the ringmaster. Flannery O'Connor wrote, "Whenever I'm asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one" ("Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction," 1960). In O'Connor's often-anthologized short-story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," the Misfit, a serial killer, is clearly a maimed soul, utterly callous to human life but driven to seek the truth. The less obvious grotesque is the polite, doting grandmother who is unaware of her own astonishing selfishness. Another oft-cited example of the grotesque from O'Connor's work is her short-story entitled "A Temple Of The Holy Ghost." The American novelist, Raymond Kennedy is another author associated with the literary tradition of the grotesque.

Contemporary writers of grotesque fiction include Paul Tremblay, Matt Bell, Chuck Palahniuk, Brian Evenson, Caleb J. Ross (who writes domestic grotesque fiction ^[17]), and many authors who write in the bizarro genre of fiction.

Theatre of the Grotesque[link]

The term Theatre of the Grotesque refers to an anti-naturalistic school of Italian dramatists, writing in the 1910s and 1920s, who are often seen as precursors of the Theatre of the Absurd.

Friedrich Dürrenmatt is a major author of contemporary grotesque comedy plays.

In architecture[link]

Grotesque at the University of Chicago

In architecture the term "grotesque" means a carved stone figure.

Grotesques are often confused with gargoyles, but the distinction is that gargoyles are figures that contain a water spout through the mouth, while grotesques do not. This type of sculpture is also called a chimera. Used correctly, the term gargoyle refers to mostly eerie figures carved specifically as terminations to spouts which convey water away from the sides of buildings. In the Middle Ages, the term babewyn was used to refer to both gargoyles and grotesques.^[18] This word is derived from the Italian word babuino, which means "baboon".

In typography[link]

The word "Grotesque", or "Grotesk" in German, is also frequently used as a synonym for sans-serif in typography. At other times, it is used (along with "Neo-Grotesque", "Humanist", "Lineal", and "Geometric") to describe a particular style or subset of sans-serif typefaces. The origin of this association can be traced back to English typefounder William Thorowgood, who first introduced the term "grotesque" and in 1835 produced 7-line pica grotesque—the first sans-serif typeface containing actual lowercase letters. An alternate etymology is possibly based on the original reaction of other typographers to such a strikingly featureless typeface.^[19]

Popular Grotesque typefaces include Franklin Gothic, News Gothic, Haettenschweiler and Lucida Sans (although the latter lacks the spurred "G"), whereas popular Neo-Grotesque typefaces include Arial, Helvetica and Verdana.

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Grotesque

• Hunky Punk
• Mask
• Mummers' play
• Rigoletto, an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi.
• Sheela na Gig
• Southern Gothic
• Ero guro

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Astruc, Rémi (2010) Le Renouveau du grotesque dans le roman du XXe siècle, essai d'anthropologie littéraire, Paris, Classiques Garnier
• Clark, John R. (1991) The modern satiric grotesque and its traditions

Further reading[link]

• Sheinberg, Esti (2000-12-29). Irony, satire, parody and the grotesque in the music of Shostakovich. UK: Ashgate. pp. 378. ISBN 0-7546-0226-5. http://www.dschjournal.com/journal15/books15.htm. 
• Kayser, Wolfgang (1957) The grotesque in Art and Literature, New York, Columbia University Press
• Lee Byron Jennings (1963) The ludicrous demon: aspects of the grotesque in German post-Romantic prose, Berkeley, University of California Press
• Bakhtin, Mikhail (1941). Rabelais and His World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 
• Harpham, Geoffrey Galt (1982, 2006), On the Grotesque: Strategies of Contradiction in Art and Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press)
• Selected bibliography by Philip Thomson, The Grotesque, Methuen Critical Idiom Series, 1972.
• Dacos, N. La découverte de la Domus Aurea et la formation des grotesques à la Renaissance (London) 1969.
• Kort, Pamela (2004-10-30). Comic Grotesque: Wit And Mockery In German Art, 1870-1940. PRESTEL. pp. 208. ISBN 978-3-7913-3195-9. http://www.frontlist.com/detail/3791331957. 
• FS Connelly "Modern art and the grotesque" 2003 assets.cambridge.org [1]
• Zamperini, Alessandra (2008). Ornament and the Grotesque: Fantastical Decoration from Antiquity to Art Nouveau. Thames and Hudson. pp. 320, 11" x 13", 250 color illustrations. ISBN 978-0-500-23856-1. http://www.thamesandhudsonusa.com/new/fall08/523856.htm. 

External links[link]

• Video tour of the most vivid examples of medieval Parisian stone carving - the grotesques of Notre Dame
• The Grotesque: Bloom's Literary Themes edited by Harold Bloom and Blake Hobby

This article relies on references to primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject, rather than references from independent authors and third-party publications. Please add citations from reliable sources. (November 2008)

Spawn of Possession is a death metal band from Kalmar, Sweden, founded in 1997.

Biography[link]

Spawn of Possession formed in February 1997, consisting of Jonas Bryssling (guitar), Jonas Karlsson (guitar), and Dennis Röndum (drums).^[1]

After three years the band recorded their first demo, The Forbidden, and right after found bass guitar player Nick Dewerud to fill the empty bass spot. A year later the band went to the studio to record their second demo, Church of Deviance, and in December 2001 Spawn of Possession signed a deal with Unique Leader Records.

The band worked on new material for the next six months and in June 2002 began recording their debut album, Cabinet. The band ended up in the Pama Studios together with the highly acclaimed producer and engineer Magnus Sedenberg with whom they had worked on previous recordings, and released Cabinet.^[1]

To promote the album, they first toured Europe for four weeks, together with Disavowed, Vile, Inhume, and Mangled. Shortly after followed a six-week North American tour together with Unique Leader label mates Severed Savior, Pyaemia, and Gorgasm. Travelling coast to coast including a five gigs ride to Canada, they played no less than 27 shows on this tour.^[1][2]

After coming back from the US came another European tour, as part of the annual No Mercy package, with bands such as Cannibal Corpse, Hypocrisy, Kataklysm, Exhumed, Vomitory, and Carpathian Forest.^[1] After this spring-tour summerfestival the band perform at eight festivals, including Fuck the Commerce (Germany), Stonehenge (Netherlands), Grind You Mother (Italy), and Mountains of Death (Switzerland).^[1][2]

During this period and the beginning of fall 2004, Spawn of Possession also started to work on new material. In mid-September the band joined Cannibal Corpse as direct support on a 24 show tour throughout Scandinavia and the Baltic/Eastern European states.^[1][2] The successor to the debut album is titled Noctambulant and was released in July 2006 by Neurotic Records.

On May 11, 2009, the band posted a small preproduction teaser from their as yet untitled new album, commenting that they wanted "to finally break the silence". There are five finished songs and seven others still in the works. The band also explained that "additional lineup changes will be announced soon".

On June 24, 2009, Jonas Bryssling confirmed on Spawn of Possession's message board that Matthew Chalk (ex-Psycroptic, Mephistopheles) and Christian Muenzner (Obscura, ex-Necrophagist) have joined the band. Bryssling states "Two very talented and competent musicians has recently joined Spawn of Possession. Matthew Chalk (Ex-Psycroptic) is going to handle the vocal and lyric writing. Christian Muenzner (Obscura, ex-Necrophagist) is going to do the Lead Guitar part and unleash his madness into the multicoloured and distorted universe of Spawn of Possession. The Line-up is now complete." In the same year, Norwegian bassist Erlend Caspersen (Blood Red Throne, The Allseeing I), known for his highly technical playing, also joined the band to complete the lineup.

However in September 2010, Dennis Rondum joined back and will handle the vocals instead of Chalky who just joined for a brief period. In December 2010, Richard Shill has been relieved from drumming duties. The reason cited was that Richard depends very much on actual band practice and with SoP members being scattered all over Sweden, Norway and Germany band practice becomes an impossibility. Henrik Schönström announced as new drummer.

On May 20, 2011 it was announced they were signed to Relapse Records and are beginning work on a new album to be released this fall.

Influences[link]

Spawn of Possession have been influenced by many different artists from various subgenres, mainly from death metal and classical music. They have been influenced by artists such as Death, Monstrosity, Nocturnus, Morbid Angel, Suffocation, Cannibal Corpse, Gorguts, Dismember, Edge of Sanity, and Carcass as well as art music composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach, Sylvius Leopold Weiss and Dmitri Shostakovich.^[3]

Members[link]

Current members[link]

• Jonas Bryssling - Rhythm Guitar (1997-Present)
• Erlend Caspersen – Bass Guitar (2009-Present)
• Henrik Schönström - Drums (2010-Present)
• Dennis Röndum - (Drums/Vocals) (1997-2006) Lead Vocals (2010-Present)
• Christian Muenzner - Lead Guitar (2009-Present)

Former members[link]

• Jonas Karlsson - Lead guitar (1997-2006)
• Ben Lawless - Lead guitar (2009-2010)
• Niklas Dewerud – Bass (2000-2006)
• Matthew Chalk - Vocals (2009-2010)
• Jonas Renvaktar - Vocals (2003-2009)
• Mikael Petersson - Session vocals (2000-2001)
• Richard Schill - Drums (2008-2010)

Discography[link]

• The Forbidden (demo, 2000)
• Church of Deviance (demo, 2001)
• Cabinet (2003)
• Noctambulant (2006)
• Incurso (2012)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Spawn of Possession on Myspace
• Spawn of Possession on Facebook

Brian Warner (Marilyn Manson)
Manson performing at 2009's Quart Festival
Background information
Birth name	Brian Hugh Warner
Born	(1969-01-05) January 5, 1969 (age 43) Canton, Ohio, United States
Genres	Alternative metal, industrial metal, gothic rock, industrial rock, shock rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician, artist, poet, film director, actor, writer
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, harpsichord, drums, flute, pan flute, mellotron
Years active	1989–present
Labels	Cooking Vinyl,[1][2] Nothing, Interscope
Associated acts	Marilyn Manson, Eminem, Satan on Fire, Mrs. Scabtree, Jack Off Jill 150px Marilyn Manson's signature

Marilyn Manson (born Brian Hugh Warner; January 5, 1969) is an American musician, artist and former music journalist known for his controversial stage persona and image as the lead singer of the eponymous band Marilyn Manson. His stage name was formed from juxtaposing the names of two 1960s American cultural icons, namely actress Marilyn Monroe and convicted multiple murder convict^[3] Charles Manson as a critical and, simultaneously, laudatory appraisal of America and its peculiar culture.^[4][5] The seemingly outrageous styles for which he models and the controversy surrounding his lyrics have led to his public appeal.^[6]

Early life[link]

Marilyn Manson was born in Canton, Ohio. He is the only child of Barbra Warner (maiden name Wyer) and Hugh Warner.^[7] Manson is of Polish and German descent on his father's side, and is a fourth cousin twice removed of Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan.^[7][8] In his autobiography The Long Hard Road Out of Hell, he detailed his grandfather's sexual fetishes (including bestiality and sadomasochism) which led to the forming of Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids.

As a child, he attended his mother's Episcopalian church, though his father was Catholic.^[9][10] Warner attended Heritage Christian School from first grade to tenth grade. He later transferred to Glenoak High School Canton and graduated from there in 1987, and later became a student at Broward Community College in 1990. He was working towards a degree in journalism and gaining experience in the field by writing music articles for a South Florida lifestyle magazine, 25th Parallel. He would soon meet several of the musicians to whom his own band would later be compared, including My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, The Perfect, and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails.

Career[link]

Music[link]

Manson performing at 2007's Eurockéennes.

Manson formed together with guitarist Scott Putesky, Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids in Florida in 1989 (the name was shortened to Marilyn Manson in 1992). While with The Spooky Kids, he was involved with Jeordie White (also known as Twiggy Ramirez) and Stephen Gregory Bier Jr. (also known as Madonna Wayne Gacy) in two side-projects: Satan on Fire, a faux-Christian metal ensemble where he played bass guitar, and drums in Mrs. Scabtree, a collaborative band formed with White and then girlfriend Jessicka (vocalist with the band Jack Off Jill) as a way to combat contractual agreements that prohibited Marilyn Manson from playing in certain clubs. In the summer of 1993, the band drew the attention of Trent Reznor. Reznor produced their 1994 debut album, Portrait of an American Family and released it on his Nothing Records label. The band began to develop a cult following, which grew larger with the release of Smells Like Children in 1995. That EP yielded the band's first big MTV hit with "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)," a cover of the 1983 Eurythmics hit. Antichrist Superstar (co-produced by Trent Reznor) was an even greater success.^[11]

In the US alone, three of the band's albums have been awarded platinum certification, three more gold, and the band has had five releases debut in the top ten, including two number-one albums. Manson first worked as a producer with the band Jack Off Jill. He helped name the band and produce most of the band's early recordings, and also played guitar on the song "My Cat" and had the band open most of his South Florida shows.^[12] Manson later wrote the liner notes to the band's album Humid Teenage Mediocrity 1992-1995, a collection of early Jack Off Jill recordings. Manson has appeared as a guest performer on DMX's album Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood^[13] and on Godhead's 2000 Years of Human Error album — the only album released on his vanity label Posthuman.^[14][15] In 2011 it was revealed that Manson was to appear on the singer Skylar Grey's album "Invinsible" on the track entitled "Can't Haunt Me".

Film and television[link]

Manson at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.

Manson made his film debut in 1997, as an actor in David Lynch's Lost Highway. Since then he has appeared in a variety of minor roles and cameos, including Party Monster; then-girlfriend Rose McGowan's 1999 film Jawbreaker; Asia Argento's 2004 film The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things; Rise; and The Hire: Beat The Devil, the sixth instalment in the BMW Films series. He was interviewed in Michael Moore's political documentary Bowling for Columbine discussing possible motivations for the Columbine massacre and allegations that his music was somehow a factor. He has appeared in animated form in Clone High and participated in several episodes of the MTV series Celebrity Deathmatch, becoming the show's unofficial champion and mascot; he often performed the voice for his claymated puppet, and contributed the song "Astonishing Panorama of the Endtimes" to the soundtrack album. In July 2005, Manson told Rolling Stone that he was shifting his focus from music to filmmaking – "I just don't think the world is worth putting music into right now. I no longer want to make art that other people — particularly record companies — are turning into a product. I just want to make art."

Johnny Depp reportedly used Manson as his inspiration for his performance as Willy Wonka in the film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Manson himself expressed interest in playing the role of Willy Wonka in the film.^{[16][unreliable source?]}

He had been working on his directorial debut, Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll, since 2004, with Manson also set to portray the role of Lewis Carroll, author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Initially announced as a web-only release, it was later decided to give the estimated $4.2 million budget film a conventional cinema release, with a slated release date of mid-2007. The film was to have an original music soundtrack with previously unreleased songs.^[17] Production of the film had been postponed indefinitely until after the Eat Me, Drink Me tour.^[18] In 2010, studio bosses shut down production on the project, reportedly due to viewers responses over the violent content of clips released on the internet. The film was later officially put on "indefinite production hold".^[19] However, according to an interview with co-writer Anthony Silva about the hold, the film was still on and the talk of it being shut down was just a myth.^[20]

Manson will portray metalband lead singer Lars in the upcoming slasher Splatter Sisters, for which he will also contribute an original soundtrack.^[21]

Art[link]

Manson claimed in a 2004 interview with i-D magazine to have begun his career as a watercolor painter in 1999 when he made five-minute concept pieces and sold them to drug dealers. On September 13–14, 2002, his first show, The Golden Age of Grotesque, was held at the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions Centre. Art in America's Max Henry likened them to the works of a "psychiatric patient given materials to use as therapy" and said his work would never be taken seriously in a fine-art context, writing that the value was "in their celebrity, not the work".^[22] On September 14–15, 2004, Manson held a second exhibition on the first night in Paris and the second in Berlin. The show was named 'Trismegistus' which was also the title of the center piece of the exhibit – a large, three-headed Christ painted onto an antique wood panel from a portable embalmers table.

Manson named his self-proclaimed art movement Celebritarian Corporation. He has coined a slogan for the movement: “We will sell our shadow to those who stand within it.” In 2005 he said that the Celebritarian Corporation has been "incubating for seven years" which if correct would indicate that Celebritarian Corporation, in some form, started in 1998.^[23]

Celebritarian Corporation is also the namesake of an art gallery owned by Manson, called the Celebritarian Corporation Gallery of Fine Art in Los Angeles for which his third exhibition was the inaugural show. From April 2–17, 2007, his recent works were on show at the Space 39 Modern & Contemporary in Florida. 40 pieces from this show traveled to Germany's Gallery Brigitte Schenk in Cologne to be publicly exhibited from June 28 – July 28, 2007. Manson was refused admittance to Kölner Dom (Cologne Cathedral), when he was in the city to attend the opening night. This was, according to Manson, due to his makeup.

Manson revealed a series of 20 paintings in 2010 entitled Genealogies of Pain, an exhibition showcased at Vienna's Kunsthalle gallery^[24] which the artist collaborated on with David Lynch.

Other[link]

Manson made an appearance in the video game Area 51 as Edgar, a Grey Alien. His song "Cruci-Fiction In Space" is featured in a commercial for a video game, The Darkness. His likeness is also featured on the Celebrity Deathmatch video game for which he recorded a song for the soundtrack (2003). The song "Use your fist and not your mouth" was the credits score of the game Cold Fear as well as Spawn: Armageddon. The song "Four Rusted Horses" had an alternate version used in trailers for the video game Fear 3. A remix of the song "Tainted Love" appears in the debut trailer for the game, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit.

Personal life[link]

Manson launched "Mansinthe," his own brand of Swiss-made absinthe, which has received poor reviews from critics who compared the drink's odor to sewage water and described the taste as being "just plain"^[25] however it came second to Versinthe in an Absinthe top five^[26] and winning a gold medal at the 2008 San Francisco World Spirits Competition.^[27]

After media comments from Manson that he wears his signature black leather pants 24 hours a day,^[28] animal rights group PETA added Manson to its "Worst-Dressed Celebrities of 2008".^[29]

Relationships[link]

Manson was engaged to actress Rose McGowan from February 1999 to January 19, 2001.^[30]

Manson and Dita Von Teese first met when he asked her to dance in one of his music videos. Though she was unable to, the two kept in contact. On his 32nd birthday they became a couple. He proposed on March 22, 2004 and gave her a 1930s-era, 7 carats (1,400 mg), European round-cut diamond engagement ring. On November 28, 2005, Manson and von Teese were married in a private, non-denominational ceremony in their home. A larger ceremony was held on December 3, at Gurteen Castle, in Kilsheelan, County Tipperary, Ireland, the home of their friend, Gottfried Helnwein. The wedding was officiated by surrealist film director and comic book writer Alejandro Jodorowsky.^[31] On December 30, 2006 Von Teese filed for divorce due to "irreconcilable differences."^[32] ET.com and People claimed that Manson was having an extramarital affair with then 19-year-old actress Evan Rachel Wood, who is to co-star in his horror film Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll, and was featured in the video for his 2007 single, "Heart-Shaped Glasses."^[33][34] The relationship was confirmed by Von Teese in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, "I get the impression he thinks I was unsupportive, but the truth is I wasn't supportive of his lifestyle, and someone else came along who was."^[35] Manson's alcohol abuse and distant behavior were also cited as cause for the split.^[36] A judgment of divorce was entered in Los Angeles Superior Court on December 27, 2007.^[37]

In 2007, attention was brought to Manson's love life again when a relationship with actress Evan Rachel Wood was made public.^[38] Manson and Wood reportedly maintained an on-again off-again relationship for several years. Manson proposed to Wood during a Paris stage performance in January 2010, but the couple broke off the engagement later that year.^[39]

Manson has recently been romantically linked to American photographer Lindsay Usich, who is credited as the photo source for the cover art of his most recent album, "Born Villain ". Usich was referred to as Manson's girlfriend in the March 2012 issue of Revolver magazine. In the article a reference is made to a new painting by Manson featuring Usich as well.

Lawsuits[link]

In September 1996, former bassist Gidget Gein negotiated a settlement with Manson where he would receive $17,500 in cash, 20 percent of any royalties paid for recordings and for any songs he had a hand in writing and his share of any other royalties or fees the group earned while he was a member. Furthermore, the settlement allowed him to market himself as a former member of Marilyn Manson. This settlement was not honored, however.^[40]

Former guitarist and founding member Scott Putesky (aka Daisy Berkowitz) filed a $15 million lawsuit in a Fort Lauderdale court against the singer, the band and the band's attorney, David Codikow in January 1998 after his forcible departure from the group in the spring of 1996. Berkowitz claimed he was cheated by the band out of "thousands of dollars in royalties, publishing rights, and performance fees." He also filed an attorney malpractice suit against Codikow, alleging that "Codikow represented Warner's interests more than the band's and that he gave Warner disproportionate control over the band's name, recordings, merchandising, and touring proceeds."^[41][42] By October of that year, the suit had been settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.^[43]

In November 30, 1998, a few days after the band accumulated "[a] total [of] more than $25,000" in backstage and hotel room damages during the Poughkeepsie, New York stop of their Mechanical Animals Tour,^[44] SPIN editor Craig Marks filed a $24 million lawsuit against Manson and his bodyguards for allegedly assaulting his person and threatening to kill his family. According to Mark's interview with the New York Post, the issue stemmed from Manson's displeasure with the magazine's decision to renege on a promised cover story of the band for their January 1998 cover. According to Marks, the last-minute change was made because Manson's record wasn't "performing." The Post described the editor as "bruised and battered." Manson for his part issued a statement saying, "I had a conversation with Craig Marks expressing I was tired of Spin's immature business behavior and the series of deals they had broken with me. I told him that I didn't care what he prints or whether or not I'm on the cover. I simply no longer wanted to work with him or his magazine that obviously has a lack of respect for musicians and their fans." On February 19, 1999, Manson counter-sued Marks for libel, slander and defamation. The singer was seeking $40 million in reparation, claiming that Marks' statements were false and "were made ... with actual malice, hatred and personal ill will." According to the counter-suit, Marks' allegations have "greatly damaged and injured [Manson's] reputation and standing in the music profession, in the music and entertainment industries, in his community and in the general public, and has been subjected to great shame, humiliation and indignity."^[45] As for the Poughkeepsie incident, Manson apologized and offered to make financial restitution.^[46][47]

In a civil battery suit, David Diaz, a security officer from a concert in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on October 27, 2000, sued for $75,000 in a Minneapolis federal court.^[48][49] The federal court jury found in Manson's favor.^[50]

In a civil suit presented by Oakland County, Michigan, Manson was charged with sexual misconduct against another security officer, Joshua Keasler, during a concert in Clarkston, Michigan, on July 30, 2001. Oakland County originally filed assault and battery and criminal sexual misconduct charges,^[51] but the judge reduced the latter charge to misdemeanor disorderly conduct.^[52] Manson pleaded no contest to the reduced charges, paid a $4,000 fine,^[53] and later settled the lawsuit under undisclosed terms.^[54]

On April 3, 2002, Maria St. John filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court accusing Manson of providing her adult daughter, Jennifer Syme, with cocaine and instructing her to drive while under the influence.^[55] After attending a party at Manson's house, Syme was given a lift home;^[56] Manson claims she was taken home by a designated driver.^[55] After she got home she got behind the wheel of her own vehicle and was killed instantly when she crashed it into three parked cars. Manson is reported to have said there were no drugs or alcohol at the party. St. John's lawyer asked "[if] there were no drinks, no drugs, why would she need a designated driver?"^[55] The suit alleged Syme was returning to the party at Manson's request. The case, BC271111, was dismissed on May 29, 2003.^[57]

On August 2, 2007, former band member Stephen Bier filed a lawsuit against Manson for unpaid "partnership proceeds," seeking $20 million in back pay. Several details from the lawsuit leaked to the press.^[58][59] In November 2007, additional papers were filed saying that Manson purchased a child's skeleton and masks made of human skin. He also allegedly bought stuffed animals, such as a grizzly bear and two baboons and a collection of Nazi memorabilia.^[60] In December 2007, Manson countersued, claiming that Bier failed to fulfill his duties as a bandmember to play for recordings and to promote the band.^[61] On December 28, 2009, the suit was settled with an agreement which saw Bier's attorneys being paid a total of $380,000, of which Manson's insurance company paid $175,000, while the remainder was paid by Bier's former business managers, according to Manson's lawyer Howard King.^[62]

Discography[link]

• Portrait of an American Family (1994)
• Smells like Children (1995)
• Antichrist Superstar (1996)
• Mechanical Animals (1998)
• Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) (2000)
• The Golden Age of Grotesque (2003)
• Lest We Forget: The Best Of (2004)
• Eat Me, Drink Me (2007)
• The High End of Low (2009)
• Born Villain (2012)

Awards and Nominations[link]

Grammy Awards

MTV Video Music Awards

Filmography[link]

• Lost Highway (1997)
• Celebrity Deathmatch (1998)
• Jawbreaker (1999)
• Clone High (2002)
• Bowling for Columbine (2002)
• The Hire: Beat the Devil (2003)
• Party Monster (2003)
• The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (2004)
• Area 51 (2005)
• Rise: Blood Hunter (2006)
• Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll (unreleased)
• Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! (2010)
• Splatter Sisters (2011)
• Born Villain (2011)
• Wrong Cops (2012 - to be released)

Books[link]

• The Long Hard Road Out of Hell. New York: HarperCollins division ReganBooks, 1998 ISBN 0-06-039258-4.
• Holy Wood. New York: HarperCollins division ReganBooks, Unreleased.
• Genealogies of Pain. Nuremberg: Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg, 2011 ISBN 3-86984-129-8.
• Campaign. Calabasas: Grassy Slope Incorporated, 2011 ISBN B-00-5J24ZH-S.

Appearances in other media[link]

• Season 2, Episode 18 of South Park features Trey Parker doing a parody of Marilyn Manson singing "Stinky Britches"
• Episode 2 of Clone High portrays Marilyn Manson singing a song about the Food Pyramid, for which he wrote the lyrics and performed.
• Season 5, Episode 4 of Family Guy shows Marilyn Manson talking to Chris Griffin after his parents accuse him of influencing their son.
• In the final episode of the fourth season of Mr. Show David Cross portrays the character "Marilyn Monster" in a sketch.
• In The X-Files Season 8, Episode 17 the characters Detective Potter and Agent Reyes discuss Marilyn Manson after finding his cd at the desk of a suspect.
• Andy Dick created the character "Marilyn Poppins" for The Andy Dick Show as a satirical homage to Marilyn Manson
• Manson was characterized in the British TV Series Bo' Selecta! during Series 4, Bo! in the USA.
• During Season 4 of Madtv Pat Kilbane portrayed Marilyn Manson in episodes 406 & 407 for a Kenny Rogers sketch and Lowered Expectations sketch respectively.
• MTV's Cartoon Sushi featured a clip of Marilyn Manson and Charles Manson in a celebrity fight to the death. This later spawned the series Celebrity Deathmatch in which Marilyn Manson continued his appearances crashing the fight between Hanson vs. The Spice Girls in the "Deathbowl '98", as well as his deathmatch with Garth Brooks in Season 1, Episode 6. His final match against Ricky Martin occurred when Martin interrupted a performance by Manson's band. Celebrity Deathmatch was made into a video game in 2003 featuring Marilyn Manson as a playable character.
• Marilyn Manson is mentioned in Method Man's song "Well All Rite Cha", Outkast's song "Y'all Scared", Shop Boyz' song "Party Like a Rockstar", Dead Celebrity Status' song "In My Backyard", Wyclef Jean's song "Where Fugees At?", D12's songs "These Drugs" & "Blow My Buzz", Xzibit's song "3 Card Molly", Bizzy Bone's song "Social Studios", Slaughterhouse's song "The One", Nicki Minaj's song "Higher Than a Kite", Big & Rich's song "Comin' to Your City", Lonestar's song "Don't Let's Talk About Lisa", Princess Superstar's song "I Love You (Or at Least I Like You)", The Ataris' song "The Radio Still Sucks", Bowling for Soup's song "Luckiest Loser", Thousand Foot Krutch's song "Unbelievable", Relient K's song "My Girlfriend", Eminem's songs "When the Music Stops," "Still Don't Give a Fuck" & "The Way I Am" as well as New Radicals' song "You Get What You Give". Both later songs generated interest from Manson.
• In D12 member Proof's album 'Searching For Jerry Garcia', the rapper recites "we're all stars in the dope show" at the start of the song "M.A.D." The line is a reference to Marilyn Manson's 1998 single The Dope Show.
• Manson also voiced Edgar, in the video game Area 51

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Marilyn Manson

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Marilyn Manson

• Official website
• NACHTKABARETT