Art

Ours is an age of cultural cannibalism. We have rather suddenly gained very convenient access to nearly the whole of human history’s significant creative output, and we are remixing it with careless abandon. We have introduced The Beatles to Jay-Z, Jane Austen to George Romero, and Abraham Lincoln to Bram Stoker. If something gets a modicum of attention online, it can count on being Photoshopped, captioned, auto-tuned, GIF’ed, pickled, bronzed, or arranged for ukulele and… See more →

Until I get a stylus to use with Paper (for iPad), I’ll just draw this over and over again. paper.fiftythree.com

If you are not yet a fan of @mSutters’s distinctive, grotesque genius, it is never too late to start. birthdaystreet.com/2012/04/ha…

Much less skeptical of musicians’ motives than I used to be. Much more skeptical of visual artists’ motives than I used to be.

Art communicates. The core message might be as simple as “I like Slayer” or as complicated as “Let’s begin reversing centuries of female marginalization.” The work’s context and various expressive textures contribute narrative layers that enrich that core message. The more we identify with the message, its layers, and their convergence, the more we like the art, even if we can’t explain what those things are or how we connect with them.

In the who,… See more →

Congrats to @khoi and @thescottostler on the launch of @mixelapp! My first mixel: mxl.io/tmvIo5

Fumbling in the dark of a dangerous writing rabbit hole: “In order to work through this idea, I must define the concept of art.”

If you want to euthanize and gut a horse and writhe naked in its entrails, consider also finding a decent photographer. blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/20…

Just so you know, @itscolossal was easily my favorite blog discovery from this summer. thisiscolossal.com

Just finished proofing @bearskinrug’s new book. It is his Ulysses. To say you’re in for a treat would be a criminal understatement.

Your daily reminder that intellectual property law is fucked.

My inner ten-year-old’s brain just exploded.

O_O

There’s some pretty entertaining analysis in here.

Watched The Art of the Steal. Pushing aside my shrugging cynic and letting the sadness do its job.

Q: Is [x] art? A: Who cares?

Of course the tattoo epiphany I've been waiting for comes on the day I promised myself I wouldn't turn on my Mac.

Please join my standing ovation for The Superest, whose final hero was posted today. thesuperest.com/archives/2010…

Ingenious and beautiful.

I can’t decide which one to get.

First figure drawing session in a long, long time. Hope it's not too much of a disaster.

This would be impulse purchase #2 for today thanks to Drawn.

I love when Sutter does geometric stuff like this. I hope he keeps developing this style and plays more with line thickness and contrast.

Enjoying the ICA's struggle to intellectualize Shepard Fairey's work.

Keep your eyes peeled for this exhibition when it hits the Met in the fall.

Instead of telling people you do silkscreen printing, try saying, "Please tell me all your inane t-shirt slogan ideas."

On the Web

• 2008 Spooky Sock Monkeys: Kim Cornell’s annual crop of petrifying primates is already almost sold out!

In the Stereo

• Van Morrison: Moondance
• The Jackson 5: The Ultimate Collection
• Necrophagist: Epitaph
• The Supremes: The Ultimate Collection
• Ra Ra Riot: The Rhumb Line
• Stiffs, Inc.: Nix Nought Nothing

On the Silver Screen

• Quarantine
• The Godfather: Part II

All the mainstream press can say about comics is that they're finally recognized as a real art form, which means it's still not true.

Referring Center for Cartoon Studies students with anti-art-school attitudes (drawn.ca/2008/09/11/cartoon-colle…) to the wisdom of John K (johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2007/04/c…)

At SFMoMA, where Lee Miller is making me curse the day color photography came into being.

Sitting on a bench on West River Drive, reading about Harold Shapinsky.

See the full gallery (51 items) →

Among thousands of acres of land, a private airstrip, several species of exotic wildlife, and many millions of dollars worth of imported works of art, today belonged to Hearst Castle. I’m speaking, of course, of the incredible and excessive home that newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst built for himself over the course of more than twenty years in the early-mid twentieth century. As far as I know, it is the closest thing this country has… See more →

See the full gallery (27 items) →

Yesterday, as we sped along I-15 en route to LA, signs started pointing us toward a ghost town called Calico. Naïve tourists that we are, we were startled to find people working there and asking us to pay them six dollars for admission. A town with employees, an infrastructure, a web site, and its name painted in giant letters on the side of a mountain can’t rightly be described as ghostly, so we continued on… See more →

RIP, Robert Rauschenberg.

Heading into the Frida show at the Art Museum.

Watching a PBS educational series about the Medici family on Joost. It's interesting, but the narrator and dramatizations are annoying.

In a Dream, last night's initial foray into the film fest, was outstanding and deeply moving. Trying to keep pace with three films today.

On the Web

• Opening the Windows Vista Box: Because it seriously can’t be done without a fucking tutorial.
• Brown Tape Art: Mark Khaisman creates some stunning images with translucent brown packing tape backlit on plexiglass.
• Bobby Fischer, Chess Master, Dies at 64: He may have been an asshole, but man could he play.
• Lasagna Cat: A wonderfully bizarre collection of videos putting Jim Davis in his place.
• The Amen Break: The history of the world’s… See more →

working on this year's editions of holiday gifts. Is my artwork an inappropriate gift for someone close who might not otherwise be into it?

On the Web

• Fray Returns: The beloved site filled with true stories is reborn as a printed quarterly volume!
• Design Doing: A nice roundup and response to recent conversations regarding the relevance of web design within the greater spectrum of design.
• Charts and Graphs of Rap Song Lyrics: The title says it all. Fall-down funny stuff.
• Curriculum Vitae: The long-awaited followup to The Story of Eh, this fantastic new book of comics from Kevin Cornell… See more →

On the Web

• Behind the Scenes of Layer Tennis: Chris Glass details his side of the Layer Tennis match he played with Naz Hamid.
• The Pothole: My first guest contribution to The Superest!
• The Superest: A wonderful new site from Kevin Cornell and Matt Sutter, determined to determine who is the superest of them all.
• Radio Orphan Annie’s Secret Decoder Badges: A brief history of the decoder pins used by Radio Orphan Annie’s Secret Society… See more →

lamenting the atrophy of my neglected drawing skills.

On the Web

• Cassette MP3 Player: If I ever get around to installing Windows, I will so own one of these.
• My Team Vs. Your Team: Sutter Vs. Cornell Vs. Cornell in an epic, illustrated battle of superhero one-upmanship. See another match here.
• Photoshop Layer Tennis: The triumphant return of my favorite Friday afternoon design nerd diversion!
• Pitchfork Gives Music 6.8: An Onion article that is not so farfetched.
• A Brief Message: A new site dedicated… See more →

I killed my own summer. I took on more work than I should have, and hopefully I suffered the consequences more than my clients did. The summer is drawing to a close, though, and with its end, my schedule is finally becoming kind of manageable again. Today was the first day in ages that I was able to leave the house for something that didn’t resemble work.

In the early afternoon, I took in the… See more →

On the Web

• Siggi Eggertsson: Eye-popping geometric impressionism.
• Isaac Tobin: An outstanding graphic design portfolio. I’m particularly fond of his book covers.
• I Love Typography: A new blog whose title says it all.
• Everyone’s a Design Critic: Stan and I are cooking up a presentation for next year’s SXSW, and we’d love to have your vote.
• Turkey: Kevin Cornell’s submission for a comics contest in Philadelphia’s City Paper. I am of the strong opinion that you… See more →

On the Web

• Back Porch Video: An impressively varied collection of both underground and mainstream music videos from a 1980s public access show hosted by Detroit teens.
• Paper Art Gadgets: Tiny, incredibly detailed replicas of consumer electronics (including packaging) made entirely of paper.
• Vintage Vanguard: Covers and liner notes scanned from hundreds of Blue Note records. Enviable, to say the least.
• Rob Weychert from Happy Cog Studios: Design Interviews puts me under the microscope.
• Living… See more →

On the Web

• Thomas Allen: This photographer’s Pulp Fiction series adds an ingenious third dimension to book cover illustrations.
• The Digit: Photos of an amputee with an inspiring sense of humor.
• Fear(s) of the Dark: This French animated anthology looks very promising.
• Band to Band: Trace the musical family tree of your favorite band.
• Spinal Tap to Reunite for Live Earth Concert: Behind the scenes with Nigel, David, and Derek.
• Moustache May: You owe it… See more →