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10 Great Works of Literature and the Famous Artworks That Should Illustrate Them

By Chloe Pantazi on

Literature and art often work best together. Walk into the New York Public Library and you’ll find a heaven of books amid decadent paintings. Frank O’Hara’s 1957 poem, “Why I Am Not a Painter,” is best read alongside Michael Goldberg’s painting, Sardines. More recently, Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs came up with Bookcam, a sculpture that, as its title suggests, is a working camera made out of books. And The Book Lovers, the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts‘ current exhibition, which features novels by Carl Andre, Salvador Dalí, and Andy Warhol, is all about the relationship between books and art. The show inspired us to explore that relationship further by matching artworks to our favorite pieces of literature – we think these would make fantastic illustrations. … Read More

Art

From Warhol to Miró: The Top-Selling Artists of 2012

By Paul Laster on

Andy Warhol is still a superstar; Pablo Picasso remains a household name; and Jean-Michel Basquiat will forever be a creative rebel without a cause. Artnet.com, the online art site whose price database includes the auction results from more than 1,400 auction houses worldwide, just released a list of the world’s top-selling artists of 2012, with both surprising and anticipated statistics.

We analyzed the list to discover that Warhol was making amazing 3-D paintings back in 1962; Francis Bacon’s twisted portraits of his suicidal lover are his most coveted works; and rock legend Eric Clapton is a major art collector who’s reaping big returns on his past purchases. We also learned that 1981 — when he was still just 20 years old — was bad-boy Basquiat’s best year and that works from a handful of obscure Chinese painters are now selling for millions. Click through to see images of the year’s top-tiered works and read about who sold what and for how much. … Read More

Art

Happy Birthday Basquiat: 10 Memorable Movies About Artists

By Marina Galperina on

There’s something about artists that makes them compelling biopic subjects, especially if there’s something sexy, traumatic, Bohemian and otherwise scandalous about their personal life. In honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s birthday — he would have been 51 today — we present a few recommendations, just to get you started. Here you will find those dramatic details artfully exploited on celluloid with various degrees of salaciousness and, we hope, some valuable background on Bacon’s, Van Gogh’s, and Kahlo’s actual artistic careers. First up? The birthday boy himself. … Read More

Art

Portraits of Famous Artists and Photographers by Other Artists

By Marina Galperina on

What happens when an artist drops his brush or a photographer lowers his camera to pose for a portrait by a colleague? We investigated and found a snap of a young Nan Goldin, pre-fame and sans blouse, Francis Bacon’s face deconstructed by the strokes of Lucian Freud, and Picasso romping around in a big blond wig for Brassaï. Often starkly casual peeks, these portraits are brimming with a friendly intimacy and professional camaraderie. Take a look at some of our favorite cultural figures as models in the slide show. … Read More

Photography

Johnny Stiletto's Gritty Photos of '80s London

By Emily Temple on

The anonymous photographer Johnny Stiletto (a pseudonym, of course) captured the London of the ’80s through a streetwise lens, capturing the day to day life of the average man with gravity and beauty — as well as sneaking a peek at a celebrity now and again. “I like interaction,” he told the Telegraph, ”I like an eye line. I like people who look stylish. I don’t do it at weekends, because people are less interesting when they’re being ‘weekendy’. Winter tends to be better than summer, because bright daylight is not very rewarding. I like evenings.” Stiletto’s photographs have recently compiled into a collection entitled Vintage ’80s: London Street Photography, which is definitely worth a look. In the meantime, check out some of our favorites of his shots (and Stiletto’s charming and elucidating ruminations on his subjects) after the jump, and then be sure to head over to his website for many more. … Read More

Art

The 30 Harshest Artist-on-Artist Insults In History

By Marina Galperina on

Our recent author-on-author, filmmaker-on-filmmaker and musician-on-musician insults have proved that creative folk are only human, and occasionally enjoy a good rip on their industry compatriots. Artists are no different, albeit they do it a bit differently. What they lack in media exposure, they make up in specifics, attacking “sickly” lines and “filthy” shades or, like Salvador Dalí, outright making up verbs like “outuglying” to drive their insults. Naturally, a good portion of these revolve around artists cutting down each others’ relevancy — yesterday’s Renaissance “daubers” are today’s graffiti “toys.” Looks like the battle of egos will never go away. (Oh, good!) Here are 30 harshest historical and contemporary artist-on-artists insults. We’d love to hear yours in the comments. … Read More

Art

The Most Staggering Sales at Art Basel 2011

By Allese Baker on

Art Basel, the most legendary, prestigious art fair in the world — which this year featured $1.8 billion in art — closed with a spectacular bang Sunday. Galleries boasted of epic sales, Gagosian selling $45 million worth of art within the first 45 minutes of the fair, and works by artists like Mark Rothko, Maurizio Cattelan, Anish Kapoor, and Bridget Riley fetching well over $2 million. Bloomberg declared that the art the market was officially back to, if not above, “peak of the boom” 2007-2008 levels and Forbes called the fair a feeding frenzy, reporting that billionaires and celebrities were sweeping up artworks at world-record prices. If the soaring sales at Basel serve as any sort of economic barometer, it’s clear that the disparity between the rich and the poor is graver than ever. The following list chronicles ten of the most mind-boggling sales at Basel this year. … Read More

Art

Creative Habitation: Inside Artists’ Living Spaces

By Emily Temple on

[Editor's note: While your editors take the day off, Flavorwire will be counting down some of our most popular features of 2011 so far. This post originally ran on April 10th. Enjoy your Memorial Day!] This week, New York Magazine ran a series of fairly great articles documenting apartment living in New York City. One of these in particular, entitled ‘The Perpetual Garret: Where the starving artists slept’ caught our eye for its rare peek into the homes of some of our favorite artists. Inspired, here we’ve put together some of our favorites from the NY Mag article as well as some of our other favorite artists’ lairs from around the world (and the internet), the whole collection running the gamut from the tiny and cramped to the ridiculously messy to the spacious and modern. Click through to see how the other half lives. … Read More

Art

The 10 Most Influential Artist’s Muses

By Paul Laster on

Throughout history, artists have been inspired by the presence of certain other people in their lives that motivated them to create their best work. The source of inspiration could be a man, a woman, or even a pet, but it is almost always a being that also possesses great talent and an expressive imagination. From the model for Édouard Manet’s Olympia and Pablo Picasso’s mistress in the heyday of surrealism to Francis Bacon’s drunken pal and David LaChapelle’s doll-face girlfriend, we’ve uncovered the most influential muses of modern times. Click through our choices and let us know who would be on your list. … Read More

Books

A Response to Milan Kundera: Art Is Not Dead

By Chelsea Bauch on

Milan Kundera’s latest essay collection, Encounter, is at once enthusiastically exultant and outright curmudgeonly. Amid deserving praise for the composers, artists, and writers who have inspired him, the Franco-Czech writer also describes our era of so-called post-art as “a world where art is dying because the need for art, the sensitivity and the love of it, is dying.”

It’s a compelling claim — and one that’s now been widely over-quoted — but, as Geoff Dyer aptly noted in his Guardian review, it’s also “a form of provocative kindling” that, in keeping with Kundera’s legacy of intellectual interrogation, begs to be challenged. So, in the spirit of constructive optimism, we humbly offer contemporary counterparts to Kundera’s beloved artists — they may not be perfect approximations, but these recent innovators are at least confronting and pushing the same boundaries. … Read More