Art The Modern Art Thread

[mariacallas]

^ Damned cool! America isn't ready for the Japanese.

^^^^they willl be soon I've always loved Giger.
Here's some good stuff from one of my fave photographers/artists:
~~ Michael Baumgarten ~~

 

[mariacallas]

I love these too:

 

[shutterbug]

HR Giger has done entire bars in several nations, the one in Tokyo and the one in NY is shut down i believe, but i would like to visit one one day.. though i'd need another reason to go to said nation, other than this of course. From the chairs, windows, bars, floor and ceiling panels.. all hand done.

wow....those bars are awesome!!! i wanna go!

i'll buy a round for everyone

 

[chrissie]

DD:

H.R. GIGER ROOM in New York City, Limelight nightclub VIP Room, interior design, sculptures and prints. December 1998 through January 2002, no longer in existence. Formerly housed at 6th Avenue and 20th Street, in a landmarked church. One aluminum Giger Table was stolen in the last days of the clubs existence from the Giger Room, certainly an "inside job". The table is yet to be "recovered" and yet to be paid for by the former owners.

The room no longer exists as the Giger room

 

[Pander Bear]

Some more delicious modern art from David Wojnarowicz:

 

[Khadijah]

I gotta wonder what the damn big deal is with Alex Gray.

yea, hes talented (technically skilled) and got some interesting psychedelic shit, but why do people treat him as a god? His shit aint that much different than the other psychedelic art i seen. What is it about it, that makes it so special?

For real, i seen some people who seem about ready to jizz in their pants when they see a alex gray painting.

He has this thing in NYC called "cosm", the Chapel Of Sacred Mirrors.

I know this kid that went there and never shuts the fuck UP about alex gray.

I didnt come in here to hate, i am seriously just curious and maybe some of the people who are mad into his work could give me some perspective about it.

I know it must mean more to the people who are deeper into psychedelics, no doubt.

But i wanna know what it is, that makes people think that hes so awesomely amazingly incredibly talented beyond all others. He got skills, no doubt. and i appreciate a lot of art and a lot of different kinds of art. as someone who does art, it aint like i dont appreciate what goes into it, or talent where it exists.

But why, why do people who like him seem to be fixated on him, thinkin hes the greatest artist ever to walk this earth?

Its the same thing as the people who worship Tool and most of the people who know about alex gray that i ever met know about him thru tool. and when it comes to "the greatest artist", you just cant tell em otherwise. there seems to be some kind of "____ is the ULTIMAAAATE" when it comes to tool/alex gray fans and im curious where youre coming from.

I find that third eye shit interesting and i aint knockin it at all. i understand the perspective and the appreciation that people who are into psychedelics deeper than just trying them have for the art, cuz its psychedelic inspired and i guess its all about the psychedelic experience. so i dont know that i dont "understand" at ALL, maybe im just missing something.

Like i said.....I dont think alex gray is crappy at all. hes talented as hell. its cool. im just wonderin what it is that gives him this supergod status with some of his fans. dont take any of this as hatin.

Im glad i looked at this thread, i was gonna make a thread about alex gray a while back to ask then i figured no one would answer so i never did but now i got a place to ask my question in.

 

[Pander Bear]

People think he's a god because they take too much acid. The take too much acid when the listen to tool, they take too much acid when they see his name in the same sentence as Shulgin or Nichols.

Drugs have their place, but they really inhibit art appreciation.

 

[Khadijah]

People think he's a god because they take too much acid. The take too much acid when the listen to tool, they take too much acid when they see his name in the same sentence as Shulgin or Nichols.

Drugs have their place, but they really inhibit art appreciation.

you know, theres been many times when i thought you were a giant snooty douchemonkey but lately i agree with alot of the shit you say.

hahaha, basically, what you said there was kinda what i was suspecting all along, but i didnt wanna say so cuz i really wasnt tryina hear the flames from the people who were just gonna say that my dumb ghetto ass couldnt possibly comprehend the significance of his art, and disrupt the otherwise peaceful thread.

I do think his shit is kinda cool dont get me wrong, even doe it aint my style at all, and he definately got talent, but the whole mystique around him stumps the shit outta me.

I mean i even know this kid whose a graffiti writer, loves that shit, loves tagging, burners, gettin up, all that, appreciates the art of that, totally different style.... and even HE still be like..."Hands down yo...Greatest artist ever....Alex gray. Alex gray. hes amazing. He's so wonderful. No one even comes close to him." Im like damn just suck his dick already.

But, if any alex gray disciple wanna come in here and school me a little, i wouldnt mock you or be opposed to hearin your point of view on what exactly makes him so wonderful.

 

[alasdairm]

People think he's a god because they take too much acid.

or, perhaps, his art simply moves them in a way you (2nd plural) can't, don't or won't understand?

i don't find alex gray's work particularly moving but that doesn't stop me from accepting or even appreciating that some people look at it and see things i'll never ever see.

it's art we're discussing - is it really that hard to believe that different people have different preferences and those preferences vary in strength?

alasdair

 

[Pander Bear]

We've been agreeing on a couple things lately, it's kinda creepy.

I doubt anybody who considers themselves "really into alex grey" would also consider themselves "really into modern art". Grey is a skilled painter, and it takes talent to represent pictorially what people feel in altered states. That still makes him paintings equivalent of a courtroom stenographer. He's just a vehicle for an idea that isn't his own. There isn't any shame in that, though; Its just different from being an idea driven artist like, say, andy warhol.

Your graffiti guy seems to have a different understanding of what makes great art than what most posters in this thread do. It probably took him alot of practice to get to however skilled he is right now. I wonder if he realizes that ANYBODY who gets a BFA from an art school could reproduce anatomy the way gray does.

I'm a big graffiti fan (well, a big graffiti art fan, I'm ambivalent about just tagging stuff). Maybe you should expose your friend to people like Keith Haring or Basquiat. They both came up with a real appreciation for hip hop culture, and graffiti.

 

[Pander Bear]

or, perhaps, his art simply moves them in a way you (2nd plural) can't, don't or won't understand?

alasdair

I know your arguement, and I think its played itself out on bluelight before, but I think it's been a while, so we should do it again. Art appreciation (any kind of art) is more than just a respect for someone else's sacrosanct and ultimately unknowable opinion. Art is a product: a product of the creator, a product of his influences, a product of his culture, a product of his values. A fuller, more functional, and more accurate understanding of a particular work of art takes into account these influences. People who do not know this information are uninformed; they are ignorant. Their opinions are therefore, less valid than people who have made evaluations with all the relevant information.

I don't see how you could hand somebody a carte blanche for their uninformed artistic opinions, when if somebody held positions as uninformed in other spheres on bluelight (say, someone in CE&P who clings to the belief that Saddam had WMDs and was aiding Bin Laden) you would probably agree with the people who kindly offered factual links of contrary information.

Why are some opinions off limits to rational and logical challenge?

 

[Khadijah]

^innnnteresting atlas.

Anyways, I aint gonna go into that but what you said in your last post is one thing that always kinda pissed me off.

I wonder if he realizes that ANYBODY who gets a BFA from an art school could reproduce anatomy the way gray does.

EXACTLY.

See, thats what im sayin. he is very talented no doubt, and alisdairs points are totally valid for why they like him.

But when it comes to that 'the greatest ever' shit...i wonder the same thing....They always be like HES SOOOOO AMAZING. always with the emphasis on his anatomy. and im like yo......his ability to render anatomy is the same as anyone who went to art school for a few years. its the standard level of skill that someone who studied art would have. I aint sayin that hes mediocre, cuz he is original in and got his own style to whatever degree.but im just sayin, his level of techinical proficiency aint no more or less than most decently skilled artists with art training.


Atlas, iunno if you do art or anything. but when i was younger and shit and would be drawin in school or whatever, and some nosey ass kid would look over at what i was drawin, even if it was crappy as hell they would be like YOO THATS SO COOL YOURE SUCH A GOOD DRAWER. and it aint like i didnt appreciate it, just that it would be a drawing that was pretty crappy and nothin really special.

To people who aint that good at art, or straight up suck, or who aint got a good understanding of what goes into it, they are easily amazed. Just like it amazes the crap outta me when i see someone skateboarding and doin a simple ass trick, cuz i cant do it.

So alasdair, i agree with you that shit, if you like it, you like it, and thats a wrap. no fuckin with that. you got every right to love the shit outta soething, even if it sucks, if thats what moves ya.

but atlas i hear exactly what you mean that when it comes to judging the quality, art AINT objective, its still subjective, but no matter what, if i was a skilled as hell artist, you could tell it even through a few simple strokes of a brush rendering a body or whatever, even in simple shit true skill shines thru, so there IS still some kind of objective judging when it comes to when someone got skills or not.....iunno.i took some of my codeine syrup so im talkin my ass off...hope tha tmakes sense.


i aint tryina be a hater on anyones art. i undersatnd that sometimes shit can mean alot to you even if no one else "gets" it. and in the end whatever makes you happy, cuz thats what arts for, expressin yourself and makin you happy.

im just talkin more about the people who are fans of this artists work than his shit itself.

I like this discussion i think its sick but if its fuckin with the flow of the thread we could have it in our own alex gray thread if a mod thinks so

 

[mariacallas]

People think he's a god because they take too much acid. The take too much acid when the listen to tool, they take too much acid when they see his name in the same sentence as Shulgin or Nichols.

Drugs have their place, but they really inhibit art appreciation.

I agree I also just also never got into the whole psychedelically-influenced (sic) artwork either.

 

[mariacallas]

DD:Thanks for reminding me about Gottfried Helnwein...... i LOVE his work. He was my wallpaper (Peinlich) not too long ago....

It is the function of the artist to evoke the experience of surprised recognition: to show the viewer what he knows but does not know that he knows. Helnwein is a master of surprised recognition. - William Burroughs

Untitled

The Song

Peinlich (Embarassing)

lol....i've always wanted a Klimt reproduction in the bathroom AND a Helnwein reproduction in the living room in my future home...but i think that would be kind of disturbing for the guests

 

[mariacallas]

Kris Lewis
Evolution of Art

Keep out of Reach of Children

Discovery 2003

I got your Oscar Right Here

Elliot Smith

Promise Broken

Judith

Heart of Glass and Gold

 

[AmorRoark]

Promise Broken really spoke to me... her eyes, her hands, the tensity and fragility of her collarbones.. mmm. Thanks for that CC.

 

[rm-rf]

im a huge fan of the work of meats meiers, premeir 3d graphics artist. He is the artist that does the cover art for the 3d graphics package "MAYA" and his latest is featured on the cover of Maya 7:

 

[rm-rf]

heres some various stuff i dug up while trying to google OpenGL art (programmed visual information, no software tools or anything liek that)

scene from DOOM:3, done in OpenGL:

Interactive art is the wave of the future.

 

[AmorRoark]

Miguel Calderon

Most of you probably recognize his work from the film The Royal Tenenbaums.. which is humorous and "good" in its own right [see here]

but after doing some research I've come across some AMAZING work!

Six sleeping bags float magically in a makeshift mid-air campsite. Ponytails and dreadlocks dangle from the bags: there are hippies in those floating cocoons! The floating hippies are attached like so many balloons by a winding black tube from what seem to be tanks full of helium (or perhaps nitrous oxide.) Levitating above the ground, these snoozing figures embody the timeless desire to escape Earth’s gravity.

In Quantum Physics (2003) [image left, top], commissioned by MASS MoCA for Fantastic, Mexican artist Miguel Calderón rereads a chapter of utopian history. Hovering in front of a large freezer full of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream – as if ratty-haired children in Willy Wonka’s playhouse – the drowsing hippies might be dreaming of an endless supply of a very special ice cream – an ice cream dedicated to their recently deceased hippy hero Jerry Garcia. Yet a twisted commercial irony casts a spell over this haze of happiness, as blissful hippie revery is reduced to an ice cream flavor. As the irony takes hold, the hovering mystery of the sleeping bags once again captivates our imagination. Quantum Physics conveys a sense of levity and boyish humor even as it sticks its finger in the ribs of a consumer culture powerful enough to subsume communal ideals.

In the adjacent gallery, Calderón’s video Inverted Star (1999) [image left, bottom] moves from the cloud-filled skies of utopia to the fire and brimstone of hell itself. In 1999, Calderón placed a classified ad in a Mexico City newspaper seeking people who believed they were possessed by the devil. “Are you possessed?” the ad read. It did not take long for Calderón to find the “stars” of his project. He went to their homes and documented the strange behavior of the self-professed possessed. The title Inverted Star refers to the upside-down pentagram often associated with Satanism, but as in all of Calderón’s work, there is a more complex narrative beneath the prankish humor. In Calderón’s irreverent oeuvre, fact is always stranger than fiction. It is not the possession that is so striking about Inverted Star, but possibly the lengths to which people will go to become “stars” or to make a dollar. Beneath the sensationalism of the video is clear-eyed commentary on society’s rampant commercialism and sensationalist media.

link

 

[mariacallas]

Hmm.... I love the simplicity and poignance of Bettina Selmans' work.
Doge

Laugh1

Ghost Beach

Brown Hair (creepy!)

Dark Queen

Glasses

Sun

Wind