“As Getout”

If you are lucky enough to live in Los Angeles—I love saying that—get on down to the Paul Loya Gallery in Culver City tonight for the first Los Angeles solo show of Dimitri Drjuchin’s paintings.

Drjuchin’s career has really taken off in the past few years. He’s the creator of the already iconic cover art for Father John Misty’s Fear Fun album and his “Fuck You, I’m Batman” stickers have the same sort of presence around New York City as Keith Haring’s radioactive baby once had. This will only be the artist’s fourth solo showing.

Here’s a sample of the new show.
 

“We The Food Chain”
 

“Be Cool and Everything Will Be Cool”
 

“No One Noticed the Birth of the Multiverse”

Paul Loya Gallery, 2677 S. La Cienega Blvd. Los Angeles, CA, 90034

Saturday Morning Tetratome runs from November 2 to December 7.

Below, the time-lapse view of “Honeymoon” being painted in 2011:

 
Austrian photographer Klaus Pichler, known for a book of prison tattoos, Inked for Life, among other works, has created a wonderful series of portraits featuring cosplayers in full costume, hanging around at home.

Who hasn’t had the desire just to be someone else for a while? Dressing up is a way of creating an alter ego and a second skin which one’s behavior can be adjusted to. Regardless of the motivating factors which cause somebody to acquire a costume, the main principle remains the same: the civilian steps behind the mask and turns into somebody else.

For this photo series I visited owners of elaborate costumes in their own homes. As a matter of fact, ‘Just the two of us’ deals with both: the costumes and the people behind them.

Some are charming and poignant.
 

 

 

 
Some are striking feats of design.
 

 

 
And many run the gamut from admirably witty to just flat out hilarious.
 

 

 

 

 
Also, it must be noted: the attention to staging in these is incredible, is it not? Either that, or a lot of costume enthusiasts just happen to have crazy nice houses.

The series, along with a great deal of Pichler’s other fine work, can be viewed at his web site. And you really should have a look at them there, they absolutely benefit from being seen at a larger size than we can show them here.

Via Metafilter

 
Iconic kitschy shit-paintings by Thomas Kinkade get a major upgrade (that’s my opinion and I ain’t backin’ down) with added Star Wars themes by artist Jeff Bennett.

The series is appropriately titled “Wars On Kinkade.”
 

 

 

 

 
Via Laughing Squid

 
As disgusting as this looks, it’s rather clever in its unappetizing appetizer kinda way.

Dan Whalen crafted the ear-shaped bowl, put some pesto sauce in it and then made the “Q-tips” out of balls of mozzarella cheese and lollipop sticks.  I shudder to think what this guy would do with fondue.

 
Lest we inaccurately dismiss the Victorians as naught but stuffy prudes, it behooves us to remember that whacked-out senses of humor are not a recent innovation. I’m used to seeing photography of this time period as a wall of stoney faces, but these headless jokers mug with the best of ‘em! The photos were created using double-negatives, save for one which looks like a shitty X-Acto knife cut-and-paste—get it together, Thaddeus!
 

 

 

 
More after the jump…
 

“Tree Man,” £44.99 ($72)
 
The good people at Lenin Imports have hit on a marvelous idea that will spruce up any office cubicle, foyer, dormitory room, or prison cell. For a nominal sum you can adorn your drab living space with a figurine painstakingly reproduced from the masterpieces of Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch, including such imaginative hellscapes as The Garden of Earthly Delights, The Last Judgment, and The Temptation of St. Anthony.

Most of the statuettes are about four inches tall, and most are priced at £44.99 ($72), but they vary a little bit according to size and complexity; one especially large one is priced at £144.99 ($235). If you’re looking for a bargain, note that “Ears with Knife” from The Garden of Earthly Delights is a steal at a paltry £29.99 ($50).

Prices “exclude postage and packaging.”

I’ve selected some of the more awe-inspiring figurines for you to peruse, but there are plenty more at the Lenin Imports website.
 

“Blue Flutist,” £44.99 ($72)
 

“Ears with Knife,” £29.99 ($50)
 

“Devil on Night Chair,” £44.99 ($72)
 

“Bird with Castle Body,” £44.99 ($72)
 
Thank you Michael Vanderbilt!

 
It’s surprising that someone at U.S. Games Systems hasn’t reissued the obscure Astronomia card deck, an astronomically themed Victorian Georgian card game published in 1829. Surely someone should have turned it into a Tarot deck or children’s educational video or board game by now. Zazzle sells clocks, iPhone covers, Nook decals, handtowels, notebook covers, and other items featuring the Luna card image, but not the actual cards. Mostly intact decks cost thousands of dollars, but curious as I am, I don’t want to learn how to play the game that badly.

 

 

 
The George Glazer Gallery describes an available $2400 deck:

A highly sought-after astronomically based card game, Astronomia, with beautiful illustrations by Henry Courbould, was created by F.G. Moon in 1829. Deck of educational astronomy cards pertaining to the solar system. Zodiac constellations, planets, the sun, comets, and asteroids are decoratively and scientifically rendered in shades of black and white as if the night sky were being viewed through a draped window flanked by pillars.

Bonhams Auctioneers described a similar lot in a catalog listing, which sold for $903 two years ago:

An attractive and scarce pack of cards on an astronomical theme. The pack is divided into the four seasons: Summer (pink, Autumn (yellow), Winter (white) and Spring (blue). The zodiacal sign cards of or a greater value than the other cards. The suits are made up as follows: Spring- Aries, Luna, Jupiter, Saturn, Herschel, Tellus, Venus, Mars, Mercury, Pallas, Juno, Ceres, Vesta. The remaining suits are composed in the same way, except for the first two cards: Summer: Cancer, The Sun; Autumn: Libra, The Comet; Winter: Capricorn, The Orbits.

More scans of the cards can be seen here.

 
A miniature record store made entirely of LEGO bricks by Ryan Howerter (AKA eldeeem). This is so damned adorable it’s adorable.

The blue milk crate at the bottom is a nice touch.

Via KFMW

 
This is a guest post by Nick Abrahams

Madge Gill (1882-1961) is finally being heralded as one of England’s premier visionary artists thanks to a major exhibition of her works taking place currently at the Orleans House Gallery in Richmond, London. Her work is also the subject of a major new catalog, filled with essays (including one by Roger Cardinal, the critic who first coined the term “outsider art,” to cover the wide range of artworks created by self taught and visionary artists) and - even better! - that includes many rare pictures by Gill, most reproduced for the first time.
 

 
Madge Gill produced all her work under the influence of a spirit guide named “Myrninerest,” whom she believed was responsible for her prolific output of work. Under Myrninerest’s influence, she would often draw 100 intricate postcard sized drawings at a single sitting! Gill believed she was channeling images from an alternate reality and that the work therefore belonged to her spirit guide. To this end, she did not sell her work during her lifetime, and upon her death hordes of work was found stacked under her bed and in cupboards.

Gill’s work invariably includes female faces, staring out at us , but who these women are (self portraits? Myrninerest?) is never clear. Occasional words and phrases appear. And often heavily repetitive abstract patterns fill the background, or become the subject in themselves. Although self taught, Gill had a draftsman’s eye for composition, and the hallucinatory nature of much of the work is exquisitely delicate. Here is an example of her purely abstract work:
 

 
Although Gill seemed to have little influence on the wider art world, the work carries an amazing psychic power, and seeing the work en masse gives a glimpse of Gill’s restlessly inquisitive inner world.  It is exciting to see these works in the flesh, many for the first time being exhibited in public, and to get a glimpse of the compulsive need this woman had to make art. There is something visionary in her work that often echos elements of psychedelic art, as well as Gustav Moreau or William Blake, but with a far more obsessive focus, and a feminine lightness of touch.
 

 
So if you are in London, scoot along to Richmond to see this epic show, including the colossal “Crucifixion of the Soul,” a brightly colored and heavily drawn upon 10 meter long work on calico, here on a rare public display, taking up one entire wall of the gallery, alongside a bewilderingly range of other works by Gill, as well as a carefully curated display of other artists who were themselves visionary or mediumistic in their approach. And its free!

Loosely inspired by Madge Gill and her work, David Tibet, best known for his musical output as Current 93, now has a new musical project under the name Myrninerest. Tibet has also collaborated with Henry Boxer, one of the curators of the Orleans House Gallery show, to publish a book of 108 reproductions of some of Gill’s postcard sized drawings, reproduced at their actual size, available here.

Below, Myrninerest’s recent soundtrack for filmmaker Derek Jarman’s magical Journey To Avebury film, all shot on Super-8 back in 1972.

 
This is a guest post by Nick Abrahams

“CCTV Tower with Bountiful Harvest”
 
In their exhibition “The Beautiful Future” at Beijing Design Week a few weeks ago, westerners Nick Bonner (Koryo Tours) and Dominic Johnson-Hill (Plastered8) pulled something of a Komar and Melamid when they commissioned paintings of contemporary China from North Korean artists.

The remarkable canvases that resulted challenge one’s notions of irony or protest—they seem incredibly pointed but may have been meant sincerely. One suspects that the fantastic juxtapositions—Maoist uniforms and karaoke, or socialist flags and office cubicles—were at a bare minimum prompted as compelling subjects by Bonner and Johnson-Hill. It’s a little unclear.

Several of the paintings feature notable architectural gems of the recent past, including the Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei, the Beijing National Aquatics Center by PTW Architects, and the CCTV Headquarters by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture.

As a deadpan provocation, it’s pretty fabulous.
 

“Office Culture for Prosperity”
 

“City Migration”
 

“Bird’s Nest, Home of the People”
 

“Water Cube for Clean Air and Healthy Life”
 

“KTV Gives Us a Voice”
 

“Disco Night to Enhance the Day”
 

“Glorious CCTV Tower”
 
via designboom