Subject:
|
Re: The pseudo-intellectual ramblings of a cool-guy wanna-be.
|
Newsgroups:
|
lugnet.general
|
Date:
|
Sun, 5 Jun 2005 23:28:31 GMT
|
Viewed:
|
810 times
|
| |
|
|
In lugnet.general, Felix Greco wrote:
| |
So now, as an adult, my sense of
aesthetics and taste are a bizarre mish-mash of all these things. I like
bright vivid colors, surreal situations, and all that is gitchy.
Unbeknownst to me, this had all been worked out, discussed, and labeled by
others. They call it Lowbrow art, also known as Pop Surrealism. The movers
and shakers of the movement are folks like Todd
White and Shag. This is the artwork that is
appealing to me. I find I identify with it. It may be the voice of my
generation. I think others feel the same way, but have just not bothered to
put a label on it. Folks like Lenny
Hoffman and Nelson
just to name a couple (related:
Kevin & Tim’s Bot Contest is sure to
produce more off-beat weirdness).
|
Wow. What a great post (I mainly say this because you linked to Mr.Ham).
Warning: Rambling About to Commense
I think a better title might have been “The Art of LEGO: A New Perspective” -
that usually when we think of the ‘Art of LEGO’ - we think of mosaics and
sculptures, and items that could probably make it into an art gallery at some
point in time. Not that these things are bad, they aren’t. A lot of them I am
very impressed with - but my point is that there is a new version of LEGO Art
which is quite a bit different.
I think Pop Surrealism might be a good label for it - if for no other reason
than the example of the artists that you linked to. But I think one of the key
parts of this new LEGO Art is using the medium of LEGO (brightly colored
children’s building blocks) to rebuild the bizarre and sometimes dark side of
reality. An example of this might be at the link above. There is a picture of
Mr.Ham, a robot made out of LEGO, smoking a bong. While I’m not going to say
that drug use is good or bad, but it certainly isn’t the high point of our
civilization. I think the picture is outrageously funny, and I think the humor
comes from the odd juxtaposition. Using LEGO (a child’s toy) to make a robot (a
technological wonder) who spends his time smoking (not a very galant use of
time).
There isn’t any grand message there, but that is part of the point. Art doesn’t
have to be about the big things in life. I think that Art shouldn’t be about
the big things - by doing that, we make Art too big for our ordinary lives. And
Felix made the point all too well, Art is around us all the time. Humans have a
propensity to surround themselves with Art constantly, from commercials to
cleverly colored cell phones. I might call this “art” (lower case a) because it
isn’t trying to make any point at all, but it is still art. I think the style
of the “popular” - the language of imagery that is common to the ordinary person
- is the most potent ones available to an artist today.
I see a number of LEGO Artists around who do similiar sort of work. Work that
draws the line between sculpture and something else - that focuses on both the
ordinary and the extraordinary (Space Monkey smoking a cigar is a great example)
and just touches on the humorous. A lot of what could be qualified as this ‘New
LEGO Art’, most people (including the artists) would say isn’t actually Art.
But I think they’d say that because it doesn’t have the quality of pretention
and false depth that most people attribute to Art.
I’m really glad you wrote this post Felix because it has started me considering
the artistic movement that I have suddenly found myself in the midst of. I
think this is very exciting, and I’m interested in what new directions this
could take.
“Me Me Me”
-Lenny
|
|
Message has 2 Replies:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | The pseudo-intellectual ramblings of a cool-guy wanna-be.
|
| What follows is a small synopsis of some the research I’ve been doing lately. I wouldn’t have otherwise written this up, but based on the good conversation that was born from the (URL) Emerge> discussion, I thought it might be fun. If you’re the (...) (19 years ago, 5-Jun-05, to lugnet.general, FTX) !
|
13 Messages in This Thread:
 
 
- Entire Thread on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
This Message and its Replies on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
|
|
|
|
