Archive for the ‘pop culture’ Category
These mouth-shaped urinals at a Rolling Stones museum in Lüchow, Germany have some women’s rights groups up in arms. The functional sculptures were designed by a woman, Dutch artist Meike van Schijndel and based on the Rolling Stones logo, the “Tongue and Lip Design,” created by art designer John Pasche in 1971 (which he originally modeled after Mick Jagger‘s mouth). Despite, some are bothered by the inherent femininity of the mouths and are speaking out against them, claiming sexism. Local activist Roda Armbruster was quoted in Spiegel as stating, ”Why does it have to be a woman’s mouth? If it had been based on the emblem of the Stones with the tongue, it would have been OK. But the tongue’s been left out and they really look like women’s mouths.” Ulli Schröder, who opened the museum after collecting Stones memorabilia for decades, said, ”That’s not a man’s mouth or a woman’s mouth, that’s art. They were damned expensive and they’re staying where they are and that’s final.” Check out some more shots of the controversial urinals after the jump.
In an alternate universe, Winnie the Pooh and his pals grew up in The Hundred Acre Hood and emerged as “Winnie Tattooh and his friends.” Paris design studio, Grapheart, doused Eeyore, Tigger, Piglet, and Pooh with mean tattoos, making for street-hardened versions of the fluffy characters you knew from your childhood. This falls right in line with our recent theme of posting about reimagined pop icons. Regardless, the beauty of these is in the details, so click more for four close-up images of Winnie Tattooh and his friends, including a shot of the original sketch.
Artist Alex Pardee ”re-imagined” these pop culture icons as bloated creatures for a collaborative exhibition with Dave Correia at the Blonde Grizzly Gallery in Salt Lake City, Utah. According to Pardee, he’s calling them “ICANS,” as a statement against proposed SOPA legislation. Here is what Pardee says about the ICANS (from Juxtapoz): I will be debuting a brand new series of 15 new paintings called “ICANS”. Why am I calling them “Icans”? Glad you didn’t really ask, but I’m telling you anyway. Well, because whether SOPA passes or not, I will continue to take any licensed character, or pop culture icon and do whatever I want with it for art’s sake, because ICAN. Also, I just want to conduct an ongoing experiment to see if ICAN take any cool icon from pop culture and make it way shittier by “re-imagining” it. So far, much like Hollywood does most of the time, the experiment is a super fun success! Alex Pardee is an artist, writer, and apparrel designer, who has produced work for Kid Robot, The Used, Juxtapoz magazine, among many other things. You can find more images of his ICANS below. via InspireFirst and Juxtapoz
As an apparent statement against overly sugary children’s cereal (a box of Frosted Flakes is 37% sugar) and because it’s “Grrrrreeeeaaat!”, Ron English created this Fat Tony figure, which he then promoted by planting it on the appropriate shelf at an LA supermarket. According to Clutter Magazine, this Fat Tony will be released as a toy, limited to 500 pieces with more limited followup editions available later. After the jump, watch a couple of classic Frosted Flakes ads, featuring a slimmer (but no less ridiculous) Tony the Tiger, Superman and horseback riding. via Vinyl Pulse
In the same dictatorial vein as our Little Giants figures of Mao Zedong and Vladimir Lenin, artist Stephen Ives has twisted the classic Mr. Potato Head concept to embody the images of some of history’s most pertinent iron-fist rulers: Saddam Hussein, Hitler, Kim Jong Il, Vladmir Lenin, and others. These figures are pretty incredible looking, and, in the spirit of Mr. Potato Head, their accessories appear to be fully interchangeable.
via Beautiful Decay
These figures by self-described “Evil Arts Organization” Suckadelic depict a Cybertron version of the Occupy Wall Street conflict. With obvious references to the classic Transformers tussle of Autobots (the 99%) vs. Decepticons (the 1%), Sucklord is the leader of the 1%’s battle for cyber domination over occupation. These were released at a show yesterday on the Lower East Side, complete with accompanying trading cards. My only question is, in the war for a fair shake, the Decepticons have Megatron played by, perhaps, Goldman Sachs, but does OWS have an Optimus Prime? I guess I always pictured the OWS answer as more of a Voltron-type mashup of powers. Regardless, I like the metaphor.
[via The World's Best Ever]
The artist Shepard Fairey (famous, among other things, for his iconic Obama Hope print) posted this design on his website Friday, along with a statement in which he voiced his hope that Barack Obama is still “our man on the inside.”  Occupy Wall Street supporters have since responded (somewhat negatively) to his statement and Fairey posted the entire dialogue on his site.  It’s well worth the read and illustrates some of the delicate issues living in the grey area between political expression and individual creative license.
Our friend and soon-to-be-collaborator Mike Leavitt just wrapped up his excellent show, “Art Army Royalty,” at New York City’s Jonathan LeVine Gallery. To say it was a success would be a mild understatement, as Leavitt sold almost all of the 20-some original pieces he created for the occasion and received tons of press from the notoriously fickle and difficult-to-impress New York media community. One piece of noteworthy love was his placement atop New York Magazine’s infamous “Approval Matrix,” which each month designates different tangents of popular culture into four categories: despicable and highbrow, despicable and lowbrow, brilliant and highbrow and brilliant and lowbrow. (The second-to-last — top right — houses Mike and his Chuck Close action figure.) Congrats, Mike. I’m vicariously checking off appearing on the Approval Matrix from my bucket list. Wait, is that allowed? To be honest, I’m pretty sick of the whole “hipster as punching bag” trope in popular culture. It’s played out. Regurgitated. The same five things said over and over again to describe a sub-genre of twentysomethings that for the most part minds its own business. Yes, the pabst-filled playgrounds of Williamsburg and Portland are packed with them. We know this. So, people, don’t spend your free time there if you’re offended, and certainly don’t move there. Generally, I think we collectively (read: the entire Internet and most of the world) need to take a step back and remember what our mothers once said: “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” All ranting aside, I kinda adore this video by two muppets called Glove and Boots, which traces the evolution of the hipster. I like that it doesn’t depend on redundancies and instead provides a fresh, albeit half-baked, perspective: the hipster didn’t just rise from the ashes of a pack of Parliaments, it evolved over time — starting with the caveman and finalizing itself somewhere around the yuppie. Check it out. –Quincy (via Laughing Squid)
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