Allegedly David Hockney recently took a dig at Damien Hirst when a poster for his upcoming show at the Royal Academy of Art read, “All the works here were made by the artist himself, personally.” The Royal Academy of Art has since clarified that the phrase appeared on Hockney’s gallery wall, not their poster, and Mr. Hockney was not attacking anyone specifically.
This got us thinking. It’s not uncommon for artists to have assistants or employ experienced craftsmen to help with the production of their work. Sometimes, that’s the only way to bring their ideas to life. Sometimes, that process is part of the art’s conceit. Sometimes, they just want the money without doing much of anything. Here’s a brief and wide survey of classical and contemporary artists who conceive, but don’t or didn’t always “make” their own work. This is not exactly “in defense” of Damien Hirst. It’s a bit that, but more of … “in contrast,” just some thoughts to levy the hype and hate currently swirling around the artist. Let’s get to it!
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[Editor's note: While your Flavorwire editors take a much-needed holiday break, we're revisiting some of our most popular features of the year. This post was originally published February 16, 2011.] If we’re being honest, most of us will never own a work of art by a famous artist. And while back in college, it might have been okay to pay homage to one of the greats with a poster print from the museum, these days when it comes to the artwork that hangs on our walls, we tend to opt for original pieces by emerging (read: more affordable) talents. A few enterprising souls have found a way to sidestep the issue completely by displaying famous works of art directly on their bodies. Click through for some of our favorite examples, and if you happen to have an art-inspired tattoo, be sure to tell us about it in the comments.
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There’s no denying that the Occupy movement has been inspiring people across the globe, and in many cases, that inspiration is being expressed artistically. Not that we find this the least bit surprising — art and activism have always gone hand in hand. In New York City, the Smithsonian and the New York Historical Society, aware that they have a phenomenon on their hands, have been gathering artifacts from the protest all along, with an eye towards future exhibitions. Even with the art-world spin-off Occupy Museums, meant to get “people to think about who museums serve, and calling the art world out on its elitism and its abuse of labor,” the artistic community has been very supportive of the movement. Here we have collected twenty artworks, from drawings to posters to sculptures to puppets from artists both well known (Banksy, Shepard Fairey) and anonymous. Some of these, like the propaganda posters and stamped dollars, are meant to further the Occupy movement’s cause directly, while others are just artistic visions or ways to capture the humanity of what’s going on in the world right now. Click through to check out twenty pieces of art about Occupy Wall Street, and let us know what you think in the comments.
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Ah, Halloween preparation. It’s that time we make big plans and end up drunkenly donning cat ears or a witch hat or something because pffft. Why make it complicated? Who says you have to waste your beer tab allowance on something expensive and crappy that you’re probably only going to wear once? Because we care, Flavorpill is bringing you a set of easily DIY Pop Culture Halloween Costume Guides. We’ve already suggested some music-themed options, so here’s our attempts at art-related get-ups!
With the help of our latest installment, you can be “present” as Marina Abramović, raise yourself some hype with a Damien Hirst butterfly-tattooed-crotch, or do a classic Warhol with a new, shiny twist. Get creative, arty people!
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Held for the past three years in a remote, ramshackle Catskills summer resort called Kutsher’s, America’s own version of the British All Tomorrow’s Parties festival was a somewhat different affair in 2011. Although the musical line-up was just as incredible as ever — Portishead curated and headlined two of the three nights, and Jeff Mangum also performed twice (read more about that here) — the event found a new home in Asbury Park, the New Jersey beach town that’s most famous for launching Bruce Springsteen’s career.
We can’t say we didn’t miss the intimacy and seclusion of Kutsher’s, but the new location proved to be a fantastic alternative nonetheless. Along with three days of excellent and challenging music that catered to the crate-digger set, we bowled, strolled the boardwalk, sampled the offerings of a remarkable (and fully playable) pinball museum, walked on the beach, played mini golf, and warmed ourselves in front of a bonfire. Most importantly, we reconnected with a deep-seated love of music that’s constantly tested by the Internet’s exhausting and trivializing hype cycle. A gallery of highlights from the festival — including Portishead, Public Enemy, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Cults, Deerhoof, Swans, Shepard Fairey, and many more — is after the jump.
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The non-profit RxArt, committed to beautifying bleak hospital walls with the work of contemporary artists, has us digging for the Crayloa Big Boxes of our youth. The organization’s latest aesthetically pleasing dose of love will be released tonight at its annual RxArt PARTY, in the form of the coloring book Between the Lines, which compiles crayon-ready reproductions of famous contemporary works and features pages by notable street artists. Take a look at a few images from the book, including a Shepard Fairey peace-sign hand and some fun pictorial games sketched out by Mr. Brainwash, after the jump, then head to Paper to see more.
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Urban artist SABER has discovered a new place to put his graffiti: the sky. In an effort to protest a mural moratorium imposed by the Los Angeles City Council, the SoCal street-scrawler tagged the skies above his city with cryptic messages like “Upperplayground,” “Art Work Rebels,” “Art Is Not A Crime,” “End Mural Moratorium,” and in a nod to fellow graffiti-maker, Shepard Fairey, “Obey.” SABER’s skywriting project comes on the heels of MoCA’s Art in the Streets exhibit, and addresses LA’s contradictory practices of sanctioning huge billboards for ads while prohibiting large-and-small-scale murals. According to LATaco.com, the campaign is an effort to get more people to sign a petition ending the mural moratorium. As SABER claims, “Los Angeles was once the ‘Mural Capital of the World’ and [the] city should claim that title again!” See more skywriting after the jump.
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Today at Flavorpill, we were obsessed with the YA fiction-inspired poster for Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman’s latest film collaboration, Young Adult. We wished that we could be as popular on Facebook as Jesus is. We lost ourselves in New York Magazine’s “Encyclopedia of 9/11.” We wondered what Shepard Fairey did to make Copenhagen taggers hate him so much (you know, other than being a “Yankee hipster”). We were happy not to have been present at the world’s largest water balloon fight. We couldn’t decide which was harder to believe: the fact that Wilson Phillips is a getting a reality show or Beetlejuice is getting a sequel. We were surprised to hear that Anderson Cooper’s first guests on his new show will be Amy Winehouse’s family. We met the little boat who could. We got an advance look at Futurama’s season finale — which features three different animated styles. We listened to “The Burroughs Of Carbs,” a clip from Patton Oswalt’s new comedy album, Finest Hour. We visited the remains of an old Soviet shuttle. And finally, we watched Emma Watson’s new perfume ad, and it made us feel sad inside.
Last weekend, 41-year-old Shepard Fairey, who created the HOPE poster now synonymous with the President’s 2008 campaign, was attacked by Danish left-wing radicals outside a nightclub after the opening of his exhibition in Copenhagen. The angry men called him “Obama illuminati” and left him with a black eye and a bruised rib. Like any good street artist used to skirting the law, Fairey refused to go to the cops, so it was only this weekend that the Guardian got the scoop.
Earlier this month, Fairey completed a controversial mural in Denmark commemorating the demolition of the left-wing community base, “Ungdomshuset” at Jagtvej 69. The mural, while promoting peace, enraged many members of the community. Hours after its completion, it was vandalized with graffiti saying ‘no peace’ and ‘go home, Yankee hipster.’ ”The media reported that it was commissioned by the city, which wasn’t true,” Fairey told the Guardian. ”It looked to the people at 69 like I was cooperating with the authorities, making a propaganda piece to smooth over the wound.” So he tried to promote peace with his art but managed to offend the people he was trying to support enough that they ambushed him and beat him up? All we can say is, Fairey, you Obama-loving hipster, don’t bring any of that peace and harmony stuff to our town.
[via BoingBoing]
As our fifth youngest president celebrates his birthday with cheers from sea to shining sea, we made him a present in honor of his 50th. The Internet, as it turns out, is full of Barack Obama-inspired art, and we got it right here — Obama paintings, Obama acid tabs, Obama graffiti and street art, Obama made out of breakfast cereal, butter and gumballs, Obama sponge-bathing nude with a unicorn… We think since Shepard Fairey’s mega-popular HOPE poster is too thoroughly entangled with the president’s image, we’ll leave him out and mix it up a bit. Here are fifty impressive, creative, and WTF?! works of art in the image of our Prez.
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