Polaroid portrait of Keith Haring by Andy Warhol

Keith Haring drew cool, clean, simple lines that showed his confidence and talent as an artist. Haring could draw long before he started school. His father, an engineer and amateur cartoonist, encouraged him to create his own cartoon characters rather than copy them from comic books or Disney cartoons. So, Haring dreamt up his own cartoon figures which he drew across page after page of his drawing books.

Then his father gave Keith another sound piece of advice—he told him to learn how to draw with his eyes closed. Haring practiced and practiced until he could draw any of his figures with eyes tight shut.
 

 
In 1989, Keith Haring traveled to Barcelona where he painted on a large mural “Todos juntos podemos parar el SIDA” (Together We Can Stop AIDS) in El Raval or the Barrio del Chino—a notorious drug area, where used syringes and drug paraphernalia littered the streets. The mural was painted on a concrete buttress in la plaza Salvador Segui and contained many of Haring’s famous trademark symbols—dancing figures, snakes, hypodermic syringes and the three figures of see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil—or in this case: speak out, educate, and understand the dangers of AIDs. In his journal, Haring wrote about the mural:

I spent five hours doing it, as I had planned. The wall had a strange inclination that made it difficult to paint, but one of the things I like about this work is the [physical] adaptability it requires. I found a posture that allowed me to paint in a homogenous, balanced way. Some of the best photos of this mural reflect the body language and postures I adopt when painting it.

 

 
Haring produced the work for free, hoping it would inspire change.

In the 1990s, the mural fell into disrepair and was removed to MACBA—the Museum of Modern Art in Barcelona.

The video (shot by Cesar de Melero) also includes footage of Haring working on a mural at an arts studio/nightclub.
 

 
Bonus early news report on Haring drawing chalk murals on NY’s subway, after the jump…
 

 
A hobby can be an essential activity for relieving stress. Everyone should have one to clear their minds of the day’s tension and strain, whether it be stamp collecting or bird watching or model ship building or videotaping yourself pissing all over random objects in your living room.

In one of the murkier, moldier recesses of the internet you will find the YouTube channel of one “Johnny Urine.”

Johnny does one thing and one thing only. He posts videos, generally about 30 seconds in length, of himself whizzing on indiscriminate objects.

For the price of a simple mouseclick, one can see Mr. Urine do his thing over a broken ukelele, a plate of shrimp, a multivitamin bottle, a stapler, a tape measure, a comb, and, in one of his highest rated videos, a copy of Twilight.

In the 25 videos posted to his channel, Johnny Urine lets loose—not only on the intended articles, but even more disturbingly, all over his living room carpet. His aim is not always true, and one wouldn’t imagine a whole lot of house guests having an extended stay in the Urine abode.

The stream of videos sadly cuts off in November of 2012, leaving us wondering if Johnny Urine may have departed this earth, leaving only a legacy of ammonia-stenched statements on the mundane objects that mock our sad existence. Let that soak in for a minute.

Fair warning, these videos are NSFW-ish.

Here, in what is certainly his greatest work, is Johnny Urine baptizing a Pink Floyd CD:

And then there’s the crowd favorite:

 
Oh, 1940s anti-VD posters, the only place where a girl’s cooch might be worse than Hitler!

During World War II, propaganda was deployed to spark the purchase of war bonds, to get you to STFU, and to spur the collection of scrap metal. Naturally, the sex lives of “our boys” weren’t exempt from such crusades. The U.S. government enlisted the help of artists, designers, and advertising professionals to create what amounts to the first mass campaign about sex; in so doing they created these eye-popping and surprisingly frank posters.

A researcher named Ryan Mungia has published an excellent collection of VD posters entitled Protect Yourself. Mungia came across the posters entirely by accident while researching a book on wartime Hawaii:
 

My objective was to find photographs, but I came across this file folder peeking out of an open cabinet that said “VD Posters” on it. Inside, I found a stash of 35mm slides of these posters, most of which ended up in the book. I guess you could say the subject chose me, since I didn’t set out to make a book on venereal disease, but became interested in the topic because of the graphic nature of the posters.

 
The images come from the National Archives and the National Library of Medicine. As Mungia points out, the images evoke memories of other beloved graphics: “The designs were really reminiscent of film noir or B-movie posters from the ’40s, those pulpy-style poster designs, and they also reminded me of the Works Progress Administration artwork, which I love.” Mungia also said of the posters: “Women are often portrayed in a negative light,” being associated with Hitler or Hirohito in one attention-getting poster.

Those slogans…. “Worst of the Three,” “A Bag of Trouble” ... methinks they protest too much!
 

 

 

 
More after the jump…

 
Banksy’s back, and this time he’s traveled to Gaza to get the world’s attention. Never one to shy from controversy, the artist’s website was recently updated to show 4 new pieces that he spray-painted in bomb-ruined Gaza, along with a tourism-style video purportedly shot by the man himself. The 2-minute short, aimed at making a big statement about the grim situation there, is mockingly titled Make this the year YOU discover a new destination.

Here’s a look at the new stenciled art with descriptions, if given:

 
This one is called “Bomb Damage” and appears to be inspired by Rodin’s famous bronze sculpture, “The Thinker.”

Gaza is often described as ‘the world’s largest open air prison’ because no-one is allowed to enter or leave. But that seems a bit unfair to prisons - they don’t have their electricity and drinking water cut off randomly almost every day.

A local man came up and said ‘Please - what does this mean?’ I explained I wanted to highlight the destruction in Gaza by posting photos on my website – but on the internet people only look at pictures of kittens.

If we wash our hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless we side with the powerful—we don’t remain neutral.

To give you a feel for it, here’s a couple stills from Make this the year YOU discover a new destination:

 

 
You can watch the video in its entirety here:

 
via Juxtapoz

 
I’m smitten with these tiny models of vintage synthesizers called “Analogue Miniatures” by artist Dan McPharlin. You know how something is so cute you kind of want to squeeze it to death. Yeah, I’m feeling it with these.

“Produced between 2006 and 2009, the “Analogue Miniatures” series was my attempt to pay tribute to early synthesizers and analogue recording equipment. Rather than replicating existing machines, the focus was on creating a revisionist history where analogue technology continued to flourish uninterrupted,” says Dan.

Each musical instrument is handmade using “framing matt-boards, paper, plastic sheeting, string and rubber bands.”

Here’s an idea for Mattel: They need to create a Moog synthesizer savvy Barbie doll, perhaps an homage to electronic musician Delia Derbyshire and include these tiny synths as apart of her kickass accessories. Seriously, how cool would that be? A DELIA DERBYSHIRE BARBIE DOLL, DAMNIT! I want one.

Please Mattel, make this happen.  And if not Mattel, some doll maker with an Etsy shop!

You can view more of Dan’s work here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Below, a 2009 documentary on Delia Derbyshire:

 
via Bong Boing

 
Award winning French photographer, Laurent Chéhère beautifully lifts the viewer into the stratosphere with these mesmerizing works of photo manipulation from his “Flying Houses” series. The simple images that include clotheslines, neon signs, graffiti, power lines and intimate internal scenes are slightly unsettling with these normally grounded structures pulled free from their moorings.

A few of Chéhère’s photographs from the series will be on exhibit through February 22 at the Muriel Guépin Gallery in New York City.  From the gallery’s website:

In his second show in the United States, award-winning French photographer Laurent Chéhère will present 5 new iconic “Flying Houses” at Muriel Guépin Gallery. Laurent Chéhere, a French photographer born in 1972 in Paris, makes images of flying houses and other dwellings that are informed by his wanderings in the hidden neighborhoods of Paris and by his love of cinematic history. The charming manipulated images, part digital, part analog depict a dreamlike world where his reconstructed houses appear to float in a silvery sky.

You can find more of Chéhère’s work on his website.
 

 

 

 
More flying houses after the jump….

 
Since he supplied us with a visual vocabulary for cutesy dread over many decades, perhaps it comes as no surprise that Edward Gorey designed a set of whimsical tarot cards. The set is called the “Fantod Pack,” the word fantod signifying “a state of worry or nervous anxiety, irritability” and thus possibly the most Edward Gorey word ever. (David Foster Wallace was fond of the word as well, using the phrase “howling fantods” multiple times in Infinite Jest; the main clearinghouse website for DFW information is called The Howling Fantods.) 

Not surprisingly, Gorey’s tarot set is (a) not precisely a tarot set, (b) reflexively downbeat, (c) more like a parody of a tarot set, and (d) utterly hilarious. Seriously, and I know that he is known for this style of humor, but looking over the Fantod Pack will give you a whole new appreciation for the possibilities of the deadpan mode of humor. Why is the “Stones” card so funny, when it’s just a little drawing of three plinths of varying size? Somehow the silly self-seriousness of the project is communicated. The backs of the cards feature a typically Goreyish creature called a “Figbash.” Here’s one now:
 

 
Authorship of the Fantod Deck is attributed to a “Madame Groeda Wyrde,” which might engage the minds of those of you who enjoy anagrams. The instructions are as hilarious as the other elements of the set, as for instance:
 

Interpretation must always depend on the character and circumstances of the person consulting the pack. What might portend a wipe-out for a teenage hotdogger from Yokohama, might warn an octogenarian spinster in Minot, North Dakota, of a fall in the bathtub, though, of course, the results might come to much the same thing.

 
Ahem: “To read your fortune, first shuffle the pack and take it in your left hand. Stand in the centre of a sparsely furnished room and close your eyes. Fling the pack into the air. Keep your eyes closed. Pick up five cards and place them face up in the form of a cross.” Then you’re supposed to read the cards in the following fashion. The center card shows your current situation, the top card depicts “something from the past that continues to affect your future,” on the left is your “inner self,” the card on the right shows “the outer world,” and the bottom card displays “something about to come into being in the near future.”
 

 
Every card comes with an evocative list of associated words, and these too are simply brilliant. Unfailingly austere and morbid—nobody’s meeting a dark & handsome stranger in this set—the peculiar word choices only enhance the grim comedy, with bizarre words like chagrin, bêtise, megrims, impetigo, catarrh, inanition, cafard, barratry, and champerty lending everything a flushed air of erudite and anemic horror.

Some sources falsely attribute the deck to the 1995, which is when Gorey made the first set available. Its origins actually trace back to an issue of Esquire in the 1960s. An unauthorized deck was printed in 1969, after which an authorized limited edition of 776 copies was created (750 numbered, and 26 lettered) in 1995. Since 2007 it is available as an unlimited deck; you can get it from Amazon for about ten bucks. Copies of the 1995 limited edition set run much, much higher, though—there are three of them available on Amazon for $450 each.   
 

“The Sea”
January / wasting / loss of ears / an accident in an elevator / lurching sickness / cracks / false affection / vapors / a secret enemy / misdirection / demons / estrangement / chagrin
 

“The Limb”
February / miscarriage of justice / gapes / a forged snapshot / morbid sensations / a useless sacrifice / alopecia / a generalized calamity / broken promises / ignominy / an accident in a theatre / fugues / poverty
 

“The Stones”
March / a forged letter / paralysis / false arrest / falling sickness / evil communications / estrangement / a sudden affliction / anemia / strife / a distasteful duty / misconstruction
 
The rest of this great tarot deck is after the jump…..

 
A life-size statue of Hollywood’s real golden boy Oscar, bent down on his hands and knees huffing lines of cocaine, was installed Thursday morning. The guerrilla art piece, dubbed “Hollywood’s Best Party,” is the velvet-roped handiwork of Los Angeles street artist Plastic Jesus. It was installed at the intersection of Hollywood Blvd and La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles (next to Elvis Presley’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star, no less) and was timed to appear just prior to the big Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday.

The Tumblr for Plastic Jesus states he is “inspired by world news events, society, the urban environment, culture and politics,” and that his “work combines humour, irony, criticism and unique opinion to create art that engages on many levels.”

This particular piece is a statement on drug abuse and addiction in Hollywood. On Twitter, the artist points to a Los Angeles Times article about the (apparent) fatal drug overdose of Parks and Recreation producer Harris Wittels:

And people ask me what my art is about http://t.co/BUkHvouY3a #Oscars2015 ##academyawards #OscarsCountdown pic.twitter.com/AUBtHjwLDN

— Plastic Jesus (@plasticjesusart) February 20, 2015

Looking closely at the piece, it appears that the artist gave Oscar use of his custom black “American Excess” credit card to cut his lines of blow.
 

 
Of course, the real blow here is that the piece has already been removed. Huffington Post reports that the art was up for just a few short hours before it was ordered out by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. The Plastic Jesus team quickly disassembled the golden partier and got him out of there before authorities could. If you’re hoping to catch a glimpse of the art in real life, according to an interview with the artist in Huffington Post, he’s planning to be place it outside of Urban Outfitters (at Melrose and Stanley) on Saturday.

via Nerdcore and Huffington Post

 
Does watching scary B-movies from the 1950s heighten your design skills? Improve your acuity to color? Based on these brain-melting covers of Psychotronic Video alone, I’d have to say there’s a distinct possibility.

Of course, it may just be that Psychotronic editor Michael J. Weldon is a fucking badass, that’s probably what’s really going on here. If you aren’t familiar with the Psychotronic cinema ethos, get yourself a copy of one of their books and don’t look back.

After issue 18 a bar code is present on the cover, which is unfortunate, but with images these profoundly enjoyable, it scarcely matters. (If you click on some of the images, you’ll be able to see a larger version.) 
 

 

 

 
Plenty more Psychotronic Video covers after the jump…

 
If you’re like me, either you do this or you have friends who do this, dismiss any athletics-related topic by—eyeroll optional—relegating it to the category of sportball or sportsball, I’ve seen both used. Artist Don Celender was touching on something vaguely similar when he produced his endlessly amusing Artball Trading Cards project in 1971.
 

James Rosenquist, Tight End
 
The more I hear about Celender, of whom I had never heard before a few days ago, the more I like him. He unfortunately died in 2005 at the age of 73. He was a native of Pittsburgh and received art-related degrees from two esteemed local schools, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh; he taught at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. Here’s a section of his NY Times obit—I like absolutely everything about this:
 

In 1969, with Conceptual Art gaining steam, Mr. Celender began a series of letter-writing campaigns that spoofed the movement while spreading its ideas and gathering interesting information. With his Cultural Art Movement he sent outlandish proposals to 25 museum directors, suggesting for example that Sherman Lee, director of the Cleveland Museum of Art, drop by parachute 1,000 works of Asian art from the museum’s collection, one at a time, onto the state of Alabama. Mr. Lee replied that since art was in the mind of the beholder, he had “mentally performed” Mr. Celender’s idea.

In subsequent works, Mr. Celender surveyed film directors, prison wardens, labor leaders, religious figures, travel agents, celebrities and famous chefs about their art preferences. He also produced a series of baseball cards using artists’ faces.

 
He was kind of the thinking person’s Ted L. Nancy of his day, if that reference means anything to anyone. But far from the nut that that description implies, he appears to have been a gentle satirist of the art world while playing fully within the art world’s rules.
 

 
On those “surveys” of various types of people on their art preferences, you can look at an example here, namely an “ART PREFERENCE SURVEY OF SOAP OPERA ACTORS/ACTRESSES” (in the example, Guiding Light actor Jerry ver Dorn says he favors M.C. Escher).

The playing cards constitute irresistible eye candy for baseball fans of a certain type—I am certainly one of the clan. I badly want to hold and touch these little scraps of silly cardboard. There isn’t that much information out there on the cards, it seems; it was difficult scraping together the visual evidence I was able to gather for this post (if anyone has or finds more images of the cards, please let us know). If you’re lucky you can find a set on eBay for about $50.

The cards seem to vary significantly, to the point that any sentence written about them risks being inaccurate. For some of the cards, Celender seems to have been used the metaphor of regular playing card, as in the “James Rosenquist, Tight End” card pictured above, whereas others seem entirely made from scratch—rather than deface actual baseball cards, Celender appears to have made mini-collages of baseball players and superimposed the black-and-white face of an artist over the player’s face, and then added a fakey baseball team name like “METZ” or “CENATORS” (for those who disdain sportsball, the Washington Senators were a baseball franchise from 1901 to 1960 before becoming the Minnesota Twins, and then, weirdly, from 1961 to 1972 before becoming the Texas Rangers; the Mets currently play in New York City). On the back would be a “highlight” from that artist’s career. You can see the method here, using Jean Dubuffet‘s “The Gypsy” and Thomas Hart Benson‘s “July Hay.”
 

 
I believe there were five sets of cards. For completeness’ sake, here are the artists represented in each set, culled from the listings at specific object:
 

Set 1: Josef Albers, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Robert Morris, Richard Pousette-Dart, Franz Kline, Jean Dubuffet, Georges Roualt, Leo Castelli, Isamu Noguchi, Anthony Caro, Vincent van Gogh, Marisol, Gerald Clarke, Bernhard Berenson, Albert P. Ryder, Fernand Leger, Horace Pippin, Paul Jenkins

Set 2: Helen Frankenthaler, George Luks, Hans Hofmann, Georges Braque, Victor Vasarely, Marc Chagall, Martha Jackson, Henry Moore, Richard Lippold, Raoul Dufy, Alfred H. Barr Jr., David Smith, Bradley Walker Tomlin, Georgia O’Keeffe, Pavel Tchelitchew, Grandma Moses, Arthur B. Davies, Albert Alexander Smith, Tony Smith, Allan Appel, J. Carter Brown

Set 3: Robert Rauschenberg, William Glackens, Tom Wesselmann, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Thomas Hart Benton, Édouard Manet, Henri Matisse, Adolph Gottlieb, Wassily Kandinsky, Yves Tanguy, Ivan Karp, Donald Judd, Larry Rivers, Thomas Eakins, Willem de Kooning, George Segal, Grace Hartigan, Jackson Pollock, Robert Henri, John Marin

Set 4: John Chamberlain, Henri Rousseau, Hans Hartung, Ibram Lassaw, Ozenfant, John Goodrich, Hilton Kramer, Ray Johnson, Roy Lichtenstein, Jacques Lipchitz, Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhardt, Peggy Guggenheim, Bridget Riley, Matta, Rufino Tamayo, Piet Mondrian, Andrew Wyeth, Everett Shinn, Richard Lindner

Set 5: Jasper Johns, Piet Mondrian, Dan Flavin, Thomas B. Hess, Mark Rothko, Pablo Picasso, Patrick Caulfield, Claes Oldenburg, Alexander Liberman, Alexander Calder, Andy Warhol, Ossip Zadkine, Pierre Soulages, Charles Burchfield, Clyfford Still, Allan Kaprow, Sidney Janis, Dorothy C. Miller, Sam Francis

 
Here are a couple more images (if you are diligent in your searches you can find more out there; this isn’t a bad starting point) and a stimulating Vine:
 

 
More after the jump…