// Category Archive for: Art

“Seductive Subversion: Women In Pop Art”

By Chelsea Spear

Exhibit at The Aidekman Center for the Arts
Medford, MA

Free association: When I say the words “Pop Art,” what comes to mind? Screen-prints of Brillo boxes and Campbell’s soup cans, Ben-Day dots on comic-strip women, cartoon collages. And pop artists? Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Hamilton, maybe Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. Like most art movements, Pop Art is considered to be a boys’ club. “Seductive Subversion” seeks to turn this misconception on its head.
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Portrait of a Reputation: The Woodmans

By Chelsea Spear

The early months of 2011 find artist Francesca Woodman in the spotlight. After numerous solo shows throughout the United States and Europe, the photographer will be the subject of a career retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Her work changes hands for hundreds of dollars. Established photographers like Cindy Sherman and Photoshop illustrators such as Rosie Hardy cite Woodman’s ethereal self-portraits as a key influence.
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Excellence (Still) Has No Sex: A Tribute To Artist Eva Hesse, 1936 – 1970

By Emily Carney

“You won’t believe it. I was told by the doctor that I have the most incredible life he ever heard. Have you got tissues? It’s not a little thing to have a brain tumor at thirty-three.”

Eva Hesse

This was just the beginning of an interview artist Eva Hesse conducted with Cindy Nesmer near the end of her life. The tumult—and ultimate artistic triumph—of Eva Hesse’s inner life was more than apparent in the three-dimensional latex and plastic sculptures which she made near her life’s end.
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Fetish Art And Feminism

By Kai Shuart

Recently, I finished reading Craig Yoe’s Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster. Yes, it’s true. Even though I’m as much of a feminist as you’re likely to meet, I also love fetish and pinup art. I say this not to claim definitively that pinup or fetish art is feminist; I’m too well aware of the incongruity of these two things to make such a bold claim. Rather, I state my identity as pinup fan and feminist to remind everyone that feminism is not a monolith—it comes in many different varieties. I also state these seemingly contradictory positions to remind everyone that our desires know no political affiliation. We all have fantasies that we can’t explain for the life of us.
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The Notorious Bettie Page

By Less Lee Moore

Called “the greatest pinup model that ever lived” by pinup photographer Art Amsie, Bettie Page was nothing if not an enigma. The now-iconic images of her alternate between sweet, sassy cheesecake shots and those fetish photos and films that were brought before the Kefauver Hearings of the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in the mid-1950s. It is this contrast and conflict that director Mary Harron examines in her 2005 film, The Notorious Bettie Page.

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The Adventures Of Miss Flitt: Q&A With Designer Beth Hahn

By Chelsea Spear

In the late 2000s, knitwear designer Beth Hahn took the knitting world by storm with her series, The Adventures of Miss Flitt. Blending steampunk-friendly Victorian style, elegant knitwear designs, and an addictive narrative, the series follows the adventures of Emma Flitt as she traverses 19th century Brooklyn to find her sister. Her travels take her to seedy vaudeville theaters, pickpockets’ dens, and—in the most recent edition—to a most spooky séance. Ever the master storyteller, Hahn weaves her story through a series of simple-yet-gorgeous and thoroughly wearable cardigans, berets, overskirts, and other accessories.

On a chilly weekend in early January, I took virtual tea with Beth Hahn to find out more about her knitting endeavors.
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Night Of The Living Dead: Reanimated

By Less Lee Moore

In the intro to the Night of Living Dead: Reanimated DVD, horror host Count Gore De Vol refers to the film as “quite the exquisite corpse.” It’s a wickedly good double entendre and one that is also rather accurate.

For those who have not seen the original Night of the Living Dead . . . okay, I must interrupt myself at this point to ask you, “why the hell not?” It’s one of the most influential horror films ever, not to mention one of the earliest works in the Zombie Canon. It was even remade in 1990 by special effects guru Tom Savini and has been quoted and referenced in every piece of zombie media since.
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A Play In Three Acts: An Interview With Ergo Phizmiz

By Greta Pistaceci

I first came across Ergo Phizmiz a few years ago, though I am not exactly sure where—the British artist’s cover of the entirety of the Velvet Underground’s White Light/White Heat was available as a free download somewhere or other online (I have a feeling this was probably the WFMU blog, or one that might have linked to his personal website).
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We Are Going To Eat You, Too

By Less Lee Moore

Click the image for
a larger version.

If you live in the Atlanta, GA area, do not miss “We Are Going To Eat You, Too,” a sequel to the 2009 show at MINT Gallery, which opens on Saturday, April 17. (Hell, even if you don’t live in the Atlanta area, it will be worth the trip.) And unlike many horror movie sequels, this one promises to be just as amazing (if not more so) than the original.

Eric Weber is once again curating this artistic tribute to underground and cult movies. Eric writes for Popshifter, and is also an artist, photographer, and sometimes-draftsman of floor plans for the layout of the Golden Girls house. (For serious.)

Check out the MINT Gallery site for details and read more about Eric’s motivation for putting these shows together in the preview feature about the exhibit on Creative Loafing.

You can also read a great interview with Eric about his art from Popshifter‘s September/October 2009 issue. Don’t forget to check out his other Popshifter articles while you’re at it!

“We Are Going To Eat You, Too” runs from April 17 through April 25 at the MINT Gallery, a non-profit community oriented art gallery located at 684 B John Wesley Dobbs Avenue in Atlanta, GA.

The Sick Brick: Eric Weber’s Lego Art

Interviewed by Less Lee Moore

Eric Weber is an incredibly interesting and inspirational person. He’s a cult movie junkie, horror film fanatic, Divine devotée, and luckily for us, he writes about these things for Popshifter.

He’s also a visual artist who includes sketching, painting, and photography in his repertoire.

When he’s not following one of his many artistic and creative pursuits, he reenacts scenes from some of his favorite films in Lego form and photographs them.

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