Artists Brittany Powell and Tae Kitakata were studio mates in art school and wanted to keep in touch — creatively speaking — after graduation. They started Low-Commitment Projects as a way to ” … share concepts and schemes without a huge outlay of time, energy, or money.” They alternate posting these quick “sketches” on their blog every Monday. We fell in love with Powell’s sandwich creations, in which she transformed famous works of art by Jackson Pollock, Damien Hirst, and many more — turning the iconic images into tasty sandwiches. It’s a simple, but brilliant concept that captures the spirit of each artist’s expression. Get hungry past the break, and take a closer look.
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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.
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A patron of the arts as well as a visionary bookseller, George Whitman, the owner of Shakespeare & Company, the legendary English-language bookstore on the Left Bank in Paris, died this week at age 98. Writers flocked to his shop to browse, mingle, and even spend the night. To honor Whitman’s legacy, we decided to take a look at Shakespeare & Company, as well as several other storied haunts of artists, writers, poets and other intellectuals, from cafés to bookstores to hotels. Click through to check out our list, and let us know which currently happening spot you think will become the next artist hangout of legend in the comments. Read More »
After running features on the childhood photos of both famous writers and rock stars over the past few weeks, it might seem like we’re a bit youth-obsessed at Flavorwire lately. But we promise that that’s not the case. We just think that there’s something fascinating about images of cultural icons snapped long before they’d become household names. It humanizes them a bit. And so, today we turn our focus on the art world — specifically, some of the most influential talents of the past 100 years. Click through to peep photos of everyone from a dashing young Andy Warhol (pictured here) to a breathtakingly adorable baby Yoko Ono.
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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.
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A seldom seen college-aged Andy Warhol broods in a turtleneck and black rimmed glasses next to gals in bikinis. Picasso holds a bushy pup by a smiling child, the photo hand-inscribed “his daughter with whom he’s very much in love.” These snapshots of renowned artists taken in the early ’20s through the mid ’70s were found tucked into diaries and documents at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. The treasure of these images is not just in the intimate details — like Georgia O’Keeffe’s bathrobe and Jasper Jone’s contemplating slump — but also, in the vintage medium itself — the decaled edges, the whisk of sephia, the fuzzy sheen of a Polaroid flash — so dear in today’s age of instant digital photography. Peek into the private, unguarded moments of arty public people in our slideshow and catch “Little Pictures Big Lives” exhibit through October 3 at the Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery at the Smithsonian.
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When the summer season hits, we become a little beach-obsessed here at Flavorpill. As a result, we recently combed the Internet to discover literary greats in old fashioned bathing outfits and rock stars in skimpy swim suits — which has led us to consider, what do artists do (and more importantly, wear) at the beach? From Pablo Picasso playing servant to his baby mama on the French Riviera and Salvador Dali using a washed-up starfish as a monocle on the Spanish coast to Tracey Emin promoting donkey rides on the English shore and Terence Koh flaunting his wedding dress in the East Hampton surf, we’ve found that most artists look fabulous on the beach — even if hours in the studio have left them a little pasty. Click through our gallery of beached artists below.
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Art nerds, prepare to fall in love with the work of photographer Andy Alcala; in a series of self portraits entitled FaceArtists, he pays homage to a group of famous artists who range from Van Gogh to Banksy, recreating some of their most beloved works with his own mug acting as a canvas. Interestingly, it was his ode to Jackson Pollock’s One: No. 31 that gave him the most problems. “You’d be surprised how hard it is to make this drip affect when you’re the only one working on it,” Alcala explains. “I had to think of creative ways to get the paint to act like it would with Pollock because simply using a brush and the paint wasn’t working.” Click through to see how it turned out, and to view the rest of the series.
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Jackson Pollock took an unconventional approach to painting unconventional pictures. He preferred laying his canvas on the floor instead of setting it on an easel, and rarely touched it with his brush — that is, whenever he happened to use a brush, which wasn’t often. Instead, Pollock would drip paint from knives or sticks or other such objects while he frantically moved around the canvas trying to create the right combination of color, pattern, and texture. With this defiant attitude, Pollock helped define the genre of Abstract Expressionism and make New York City the art capital of the world.
Plagued by alcoholism, Pollock’s life ended at the age of 44 when he crashed his car into a tree just one mile away from his home. He had been drinking that night, and it would prove to be his last. Today is Pollock’s birthday, so to celebrate a life lived instead of mourn a life cut short, we bring you 50 facts about the controversial man who didn’t want to do what all other painters had done before him.
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Would you be able to recognize some of the world’s most famous artists if they were reduced to smiley face stereotypes? From a one-eared Van Gogh to a melting Dali, the gang’s all here, boiled down to their simplest forms. After the jump, forget that intro class you took in college on art icons, and behold The History of Art in its entirety — as told via emoticons.
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