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PBR Kelly.
Weekend at Bert & Ernie’s.
They may not be as literary, but San Francisco artist Justin Hager’s illustrated puns remind us of Timothy Leo Taranto’s.
Check out more of Hager’s work on his Tumblr (or at shows around SF).
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Art is an act of finding, making, and forcing meaning; a synthesis of witness and imagination; a course that veers always toward empathy.
...moreJay Shells, an artist currently working in New York, is taking favorite rap lyrics and putting the tracks on the map … all over the Big Apple.
This project, which Shells calls “Rap Quotes,” consists of homemade but very official-looking street signs bearing rap lyrics at the specific locations of the songs they appear in.
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Dmitry’s spontaneous cab drawings had such great composition and confidence. You could almost feel his grimace in so many of his lines.
...moreAccording to his website, Matthew Picton is interested in “humanising the city by deconstructing the clean, uncompromising aesthetic of the cartographic city plan and imbuing it with the unique history and culture of each place.”
Deconstructed, his works — bird’s eye view layouts of cities including New York, Tehran, and Portland — are layered representations of the urban as art. Flavorwire explains:
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Timothy Leo Taranto illustrates some of literature’s greats, including David Foster Wallace and Gromit, Flan-nery O’Connor, and John Frankensteinbeck.
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Born in 1932 in Omaha, Nebraska, artist Tom Bartek’s career is the tale of a man and a city, and proof positive that, in fact, you can go home again
...moreWell this is just excellent: over at The Nation, artist Steve Brodner live-blogged the Republican National Convention—through illustrations. A sneak preview of what you’ll find, after the jump:
...moreRumpus head illustrator Jason Novak has another cool panorama over at The Paris Review. Titled “The Iliad, Improved,” Novak puts his own spin on the Greek epic:
“I’d originally intended to treat the story without embellishment but just couldn’t allow poor Ajax to fall on his own sword at the end.
...moreIf you’re in San Francisco and at a loss for something to do tonight—or want to revise your plans and do something much cooler—head over to Dogpatch Wineworks for the opening of “Pier 70: In Its Own Words.”
A collaboration between Rumpus contributor, local artist, and community champion Wendy MacNaughton and Forest City (the minds behind the 5M Project), “Pier 70″ is a visual exploration of SF’s Dogpatch neighborhood.
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Artist Jason Novak opens up about some of the demons that he’s been carrying around for years:
...moreThe Guardian excerpts ten images from Nick Wadley’s new book, Man + Doctor, a visual autobiographical account of the author’s time spent in various hospitals in the UK, his anxieties and observations laid bare on operating tables.
The book is published by Dalkey Archive Press, the house responsible for releasing one of Wadley’s earlier efforts: Man + Dog, a varied and hilarious exploration of the relationship between man and man’s best friend.
...more“She had big brown eyes, long eyelashes, and a light brown mane and tail. It may not seem possible but I saw a shy smile on her lips. She tried to make believe that she didn’t notice me.”
At BOMB, an illustrated short story about a man falling in love with a horse, by artist Myron Kaufman. The story, Horse Scents, and its author, are introduced by filmmaker Charlie Kaufman, Myron Kaufman’s son.
...more“I believe Nina Simone tried to build that gun because that night she realized what all other-ed bodies eventually realize: a gun was already at her head. She feared a song might not be enough. The fact that this gun could not be seen didn’t make it any less real or lethal.
...moreArtist Takeshi Miyakawa’s public art installation was meant to be a city-wide tribute to New York.
Strangely, the project, which involved hanging illuminated plastic bags with the ‘I ♥ NY’ slogan, prompted a call to the bomb squad and landed Miyakawa in jail on Saturday.
...moreArtist Jason Polan’s drawings of Pop-Up Magazine #6 are available for a limited time as a book. Polan illustrated each story in “real time,” creating the only record of the live issue.
...moreFellow Letters in the Mail enthusiasts, take note of this forthcoming exhibit devoted to the USPS as a public service. The multi-media exhibition, Post Haste, will grace Oakland’s MacArthur B Arthur Gallery from May 4 to 28.
“Post Haste is, of course, as much a critical artistic endeavor as it is a eulogy to a public institution, letter writing and tangible human exchange.”
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Artist and Rumpus contributor Wendy MacNaughton’s flowchart helps us answer the ever-present question:
...moreAt The Nation, Barry Schwabsky writes about photographer Zoe Strauss’ “Ten Years” exhibition. Exploring Strauss’ evolving approach to photographic techniques, portraiture and storytelling, Schwabsky argues that her artistic triumphs come from “thinking big”.
“Strauss’s work was a runaway from birth, and by putting her photographs on billboards she is returning them to the streets from which they sprang… But more than that, Strauss’s images are not only about but for the urban rough-and-tumble.
...moreThe Chimerist, a website created by Maud Newton and Salon’s Laura Miller, launched this week, uniting “two iPad lovers at the intersection of art, stories, and technology.”
...moreThe Awl interviews Jeanne Kelly, “a visual artist with a background in forensic art,” about her Kickstarter proposal that went unfunded. The project was inspired by Victorian human skulls from the Mutter Museum. After selecting eight people (one of whom died of self-inflicted castration), Kelly researched their lives and spun them into possible narratives.
...more“While Rembrandt was an astonishingly talented artist, our response to his art is conditioned by all sorts of variables that have nothing to do with oil paint. Many of these variables are capable of distorting our perceptions, so that we imagine differences that don’t actually exist; the verdict of art history warps what we see.”
Jonah Lehrer explores how the brain perceives art.
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It starts with the watch, always. Boarding the ferry at the Sayville Harbor on Long Island, I remove my watch and zip it within the special pocket of my duffel. Vacation begins the moment we start the short trek over to the narrow strip of land that stretches thirty miles, just south of the city.
Twice a year Shutterclank! magazine hits the presses to support traditional photographers and stir up discussion. Founded by photographers Kate Contakos, Chris Schuster, and Jake Reinhart, the hope is that the magazine will further the community of lens artists, spurring them to interact and collaborate as a result of Shutterclank!
More than 200 colorful, haiku-ed signs will grace high-crash locations around NYC as part of the city’s “Curbside Haiku” safety initiative. John Morse is the poet and artist behind the signs (some of which you can view in their digitized form here).
...moreGallerina implores us to see HIDE/SEEK, “the groundbreaking examination of sexuality and gay identity in American portraiture” that opened last week at the Brooklyn Museum to the din of anti-gay groups. Noting its novelty and nuance, she breaks down the main reasons to visit the exhibit.
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