Mark Mothersbaugh, “Love Is For the Birds, Baby!”
Mark Mothersbaugh’s work in DEVO (not that he did it alone) has often seemed like an extension of pop art into the commercial realm. DEVO’s “exhibitons” were albums, their “retrospectives” were compilations, and for a while there, their “museum” was effectively MTV. Pop Art 2.0, let’s call it: every bit of cover art or promotional gimcrackery seemed like a new Roy Lichtenstein with a political edge, as befitted a bunch of arty freethinkers from the cultural wilderness (or is it?) of northern Ohio. DEVO famously had a concept, and they fleshed it out with all manner of bold, cartoonish (yet strangely disturbed) pop paraphernalia.
Thus it’s no surprise that Mothersbaugh, at least, has been spending his free time churning out all manner of “paintings, prints, photography, rugs, sculpture and odd inventions like an instrument that plays bird calls” including “30,000 informal, post-card sized drawings that Mothersbaugh, 63, produced during decades of obsessive, mostly private, art-making.”
Mark Mothersbaugh, “1932 Matchmaking Stats, Pt. 1”
Mark Mothersbaugh, “Robot Loses His Head”
It sounds like Adam Lerner, curator of the upcoming show “Mark Mothersbaugh: Myopia” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver has his work cut out for him. Fortunately the show will cover all three floors of the MCA. “A lot of these things, it will be the first time any human other than me ever looked at it,” Mothersbaugh said.
The dates for the exhibition are October 31, 2014 to February 15, 2015. If you happen not to live in the Mountain Time Zone, fear not: six prominent museums have already booked the show after its time in Denver.
DEVO, “Post Post-Modern Man”:
“WB Mobile Art Spew Gallery featuring Mark Mothersbaugh”:
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Devo performing live on TV in 1978: Secret teachings of the SubGenius
DEVO and Jermaine Jackson team up for Halloween with ‘Let Me Tickle Your Fancy’