Art: Artist Guy Peellaert Dies - Designed Album Covers, Created Rock Dreams

Guy Peellaert was the Dutch-born artists responsible for illustrating the book Rock Dreams (1976), a tome that introduced me at a young and impressionable age to the history and more importantly the mythology of rock and roll. His dreamlike, paintings were filled with the humor, lust and grandeur of rock - I always wished that he and writer Nik Cohn would update this masterpiece to cover the crucial years after 1977 but this was not to be the case.

In a sense this is as it should be, for what Rock Dreams enshrined was a canon of music that would fragment in the wake of punk into a million jagged pieces with narratives that spoke to an increasingly specialized audience. Still, I like to think that some of the visual storytelling he employed found it's echo in the early videos of the 80s which codified easy to swallow personas for stars like Cyndi Lauper, Billy Idol,  ZZ Top and Madonna.

His visual style owed a debt to Edward Hopper, with a touch of photorealism and occasional collage elements woven in. His post Rock Dreams work continued his obsession with pop culture and Americana mythmaking with images of Betty Hutton and George Raft amongst others. His later works expanded his scope to take in the entirety of 20th century pop culture and world history.

He's also well known for doing the covers for David Bowie's Diamond Dogs album (famous for having to emasculate the Bowie/canine hybrid) and the Rolling Stones' It's Only Rock N' Roll album.

Here are some of his best pieces:

Art: Banksy - World's Best Artist?

Arrrgh! How can I say someone is the world's best artist - it's totally subjective! Well I'm saying it and you all can just kiss my grits if you don't like it. Better yet, nominate me someone else. Banksy just put 5 new pieces up in New Orleans to commemorate Hurricane Katrina or as history will call it - the great Bush Clusterfuck (part 12) of 05. They are typically brilliant - what would one expect from the mysterious best artist in the world?

Culture: Will Elder, Brilliant "Mad" -man, Dies

An Appreciation by Noah Mallin

Will Elder, the graphic artist who stuffed his panels full of sight gags and wordplay for Mad Magazine and Playboy died today. He was 86 years old. After attending high school with future Mad founder Harvey Kurtzman and fellow Mad artist Al Jaffee, Elder helped draft maps for the Normandy landing on D-Day during World War II.

At Mad Elder pioneered a style that influenced the entire magazine as well as the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker creative filmmaking team behind Airplane! and The Naked Gun and even the non-sequitur filled design of the much ballyhooed Spy magazine in the 1980s.

He would go on to create and draw the strip "Little Annie Fanny" for Playboy magazine, filling it with his bawdy humor and dynamic action.

Street Art: Turning Ads Into Art NY Style -- Phantom Cut And Paster Hits The Subway

By Noah Mallin

Readers of this blog (Hi Mom!) know that I'm a fan of clever art in public spaces (Ala anonymous Brit graffiti artist/sculptor/prankster Banksy). Blog And I Am Not Lying
has great pics of this mystery found artist's work (including the ones seen here), currently in subway stations now. Dig the Iran = Nam piece made out of the raw material of a big-budget Hollywood ad campaign above. Iron Man posters are a speciality of this phantom:


A trenchant commentary on recent baseball developments:

Mmm, cut and pastey goodness makes me feel a disturbance in the force:

Culture: George Lois -- The Willy Wonka of Brain Candy

By Noah Mallin

I was thrilled to see that the Museum of Modern Art has a terrific show featuring an old family friend (Hi Mom!) -- George Lois, one of the most revered names in American advertising and graphic design. What makes Lois so incredible is his gift for discerning the mental hook -- whether it be verbal, visual or otherwise -- that will lodge an idea or client in an unsuspecting person's cerebellum. He is the man who came up with the phrase "I want my MTV!"

The show at MOMA is focused on his covers for Esquire magazine from 1962 - 1972, and they are a brilliant bunch. It's refreshing to be confronted with the graphic cleanliness and visual high concepts of Lois covers. Though his covers were the peak of the form, almost any magazine cover of the era is better designed and more eye-grabbing than today's preference for packed-in text, graphics and info all fighting for notice. I highly recommend the show for anyone in New York or visiting, but Lois' website is typically also very well laid-out and has a wealth of visuals. Even better is the extensive commentary from Lois on nearly every example.

Here are two more of my favorites:

Music: Tasty Licks -- Musical Food Fanatics Turn Bento Boxes into Album Homages

By Noah Mallin

The Obacci Jacket Lunch Box site has acres of these Japanese Bento Box meals with the ingredients rearranged to resemble album covers. And I bet your parents told you not to play with your food. Via Pink Tentacle blog.

Art: Dashing Dave Stevens, One of the Great American Comics Artists and Illustrators, Dead at 52

Appreciation by Noah Mallin

Dave Stevens will be best remembered for creating The Rocketeer, one of the most successful independent comic books titles of the 80s and one that, along with the Hernandez Brothers' Love and Rockets established the move towards a new appreciation of the format in ensuing decades.

The fantasy pulp 30s setting and premise of a deco designed hero with a rocket pack to match also would similarly be echoed within and without its genre, from literature to movies and even to the world of design.

The Rocketeer's girlfriend Betty was an obvious Betty Page homage -- obvious that is to the few who even knew who the 50s fetish pin-up model was. It was Steven's obsessive knowing portrayal of her that served to introduce her to the masses. Steven's himself was surprised to discover that she was alive and well and the two began a correspondence during the run of The Rocketeer. They became friends and as her fame began its resurgence he tried to help protect her and see that she benefit from the renewed interest. Mark Evanier, who knew Steven's, recounted him saying "It's amazing. After years of fantasizing about this woman, I'm now driving her to cash her Social Security checks."

After selling the rights to The Rocketeer to Disney Steven's began to work more in the realm of illustration, often doing covers and stylized pin-up images. The film version of The Rocketeer is a great deal of fun, particularly with the apt casting of Jennifer Connelly as Betty, though it was a box office disappointment.



Stevens himself was an inspiration for illustrator and ex-girlfriend Laura Molina's work, specifically a series she called Naked Dave. Molina was quoted as saying:

"There's something I've realized about why these paintings make people so uncomfortable. Dave Stevens is a "male muse", and an unwilling one at that. The traditional gender roles have been reversed. This upsets the order of things. Women are not supposed to have my technical skill or use it to toy with and objectify a male subject. I do this for the same reason that Dave and other male artists continue to paint and draw naked women.... Because I can."

Steven's was also briefly married to model and b-movie scream queen Brinke Stevens in the early 80s. She continued to model for him after their divorce.

His death came after a long struggle with leukemia. Reportedly he was working on a career retrospective of his work.

Culture: The Exquisite Loneliness of Jon Revealed in Garfield Minus Garfield

I have to get my twisted Family Circus mash-ups scanned and on here -- no joke! I really love this kind of creative repurposing. The site Garfield Minus Garfield features the popular corpulent cat-starring comic strip with the titular star removed from every frame he's in -- leaving lonely, looney, possibly meds- skipping owner Jon. Enjoy the harshness of utter despairing loneliness...an isolation that takes Jon to the brink of madness!

Art/Culture: Decapitator Forces Ads to go Topless

The latest found artist to hit London is The Decapitator -- a name that brings to mind an airport thriller serial-killer. Which in a way he or she is. Witness above and below how they worked their magic on a poster for Disney's High School Musical:
You can check out their handiwork on Flickr here.

Art and Design: Last Minute Gifts for the Holidays

Well it's too late for Hanukkah but for those last minute gift givers may I direct you to two websites that are hawking some extremely nice items -- and better yet they are from friends of mine.

Typewriter - By Jessica Frederick

Why not give the gift of art? I've known Jessica Frederick since New Edition was the hot boy band and she is a very talented artist who has attracted commissions from a number of prominent corporations and private collectors. You can contact her to purchase a print online through the interwebs. Now that's progress!

Then of course there is jewelry, and Michelle Samson is like one of those crafty crows that can spot a nifty shiny object a mile away. Except you get to feather your nest with her finds. She says, "Jewelry should not be dull -- it should be a form of expression, a form of art." Check out her company Mademoiselle Jewelry here.

Art: New York MTA Bans Life Lessons, Multiple Dads

Boing Boing reports on this recently spotted switcheroo on the L Train banning the fathers from TV's Full House. Apparently Deej and the other kids are welcome but their creepy fathers have to stay home. Not that I'm complaining.

Art: Banksy Revealed -- Is This Man One of The Great Artists of Our Time?

Cell Phone pic of the man who may be the elusive Banksy

Banksy may or may not be a great artist -- I think he ranks among the best. He certainly has been one of the most elusive. Exploding the notion of officially sanctioned "public" and "private" art has meant that he has kept his identity tightly under wraps as he stencils his work on local walls, sidewalks, and billboards around the world but mostly in his home base of the UK. Often his work is lucky to last longer than a few days before being cleaned off or painted over as graffiti. Recently an alert citizen spotted him putting up a new work in East London where he extended the double yellow line in the street into a flower before adding an image of the satisfied "artist" nearby.


Here is an article from the Times online on Banksy's "outing". Here's the Independent's article debating his merits. And here are a few of my favorite Banksy's:

The above is on the dividing wall in Palestine.




Banksy slapped these stickers on Paris Hilton's album in a few record stores on the day of its release.


On the side of a posh apartment tower.



Issues of privacy and surveillance are central to Banksy's work.

Art: Slinkachu Proves that It's Not The Size of Your Installation

UK Artist Slinkachu brought his "Little People" to Nuart and it's one of the coolest "disasters" I've seen. Check out this link to get the full impact of this clever installation.

Art: For Better Or For Worse Ending...Sort Of

FBoFW's Mike gets caught with Weed (the guy next to him)

Continuing my obsession with all things Canadian, For Better or For Worse - one of the best recent daily comic strips - will be wrapping up its storyline sometime in 2008 rather than ending entirely this month as originally planned after almost 30 years in syndication. Creator Lynn Johnston's family strip is one of the few (along with Gasoline Alley) to have characters age in real-time, and many of us have grown up along with the Pattersons. There is a great short interview here with Johnston from the Kansas City Star . Her plans after she wraps up the current storyline is to take a hybrid approach blending old strips with some new work in a flashback format. One of the major changes is that the characters will stop aging (which is a bit of a disappointment for me). Part of the impetus for this re-thinking has been the dissolution of Johnston's real-life marriage which was the basis for the John and Elly's marriage in the strip. Johnston says that the strip will not parallel this real-life development. It should be interesting to watch.

Art: The Art of Joseph

Detail from One of Joseph's "NY Cenes"

My wife has a great eye, especially for unexpected gems. Since 2003 she has been collecting the work of Joseph, an artist who lives in New York and can usually be found working freehand in subway stations. He has a number of themes and motifs that he returns to: looping trains, alien saucer attacks, streetlights, all in his distinctive style. Among the Joseph pieces we have hanging is a rare one that includes a battery powered light-up element. Here is a link to Joseph's MySpace page which has great information on him and images of his work. Many of his pieces are done on scraps of paper which he sometimes mounts on cardboard. His vivid colors are a hallmark of his style, though last night my wife and I saw Joseph and bought a new NY Cene (similar to the one above) that was totally black and white.

Art: The Dick Just Keeps on Coming -- or, Inserting Dick in Dionne Warwick's Mouth

There must be something in the air this week, perhaps an orbiting all-knowing satellite monitoring our activities and shooting a pink beam of light into our foreheads. Oh, never mind, that's just Alberto Gonzales monitoring our activities...see you in FISA court! Anyhow, this is our second Philip K. Dick item and it comes from the Gray Lady herself - The New York Times. Randy Kennedy writes about conceptual artist Sean Dack who has taken the sheet music for number one hits in the years after Philip K. Dick's death, including Dionne Warwick's gloopy "That's What Friends are For" and replaced the original lyrics with Dick's late life apocalyptic prophesies. Hilarity ensues? Maybe not -- but sometimes art ain't funny. Read the piece here. Note that you have to register on the Times if you haven't already but it's free. What's next? Total Recall II?