Karl Wirsum (1939 – 2021) used the clean style of commercial graphics and the abstracted form of a dissected frog Screamin’ Jay Hawkins (1968). who used this painting as the cover for his album Because Is In Your Mind (1970). Best known fir his 1956 song “I Put a Spell On You” and his sensational live performances, Hawkins appears here in full song, raining amoeba-shaped sweat down on a man wearing “armpit rubber,” like old fashioned galoshes, to keep the moisture at bay.
While out for a neighborhood walk on Juneteenth, I stumbled upon a spectacular find: a gorgeous and very groovy mural has appeared on the wall outside Berlin Under A, one of the East Village’s last remaining live‑music venues. Created by artist Jane Beaird, the visually striking work is a spot-on recreation (complete with the band’s iconic imagery and typography) of the movie poster for Hung Up On A Dream, the recently-released, career-spanning documentary on 60s pop legends The Zombies. Talk about a trip!
Pink Jungle: 1950s Makeup in America was a pop-up exhibit that happened in late 2020 (mid-pandemic!) at a temporary location of the Makeup Museum across the street from the Whitney. While I could never quite distill the essence of my visit into a full post, it did yield a few fun Pink Things, such as this promotional poster, which I’m sure you’ll agree is quite fantastic
Five Points Festival Poster with artwork by Creon (@chknhead)
Holy Collectible Designer Toys, Five Points Festival is finally back after a two year, pandemic-induced hiatus, and we are soooo excited for a huge comeback celebration! Woo! Sponsored by Clutter Magazine, Five Points is the premier event for finding the coolest designer art toys and other collectibles, plus action figures, comics, street art, jewelry and assorted unique ephemera. Get your tickets now for the weekend of June 25th and 26th! Continue reading Five Points Festival Returns to Brooklyn June 25th!→
El Lissitzky (1890 – 1941) created the poster Beat the Whites With the Red Wedge (1919 – 20) in Vitebsk (a city in northeast Belarus, known as the birthplace of Marc Chagall). It is an early example of agitprop (Soviet political propaganda) that uses abstraction. The work was produced during the Russian Civil War (1918 – 21) in support of the Red Army and the young Soviet government in their struggle against anti-Bolshevik White forces. In the middle of the composition, a revolutionary red triangle drives into a white circle on a black background. The symbolic significance of these forms — emphasized by the scattered Russian words for wedge, red, beat, and whites — would have been easily understood by the artist’s contemporaries.
