cutesy art shit on the internet

like this -

http://www.heystuff.com/

there is SO MUCH of this stuff and it's all made by different people, yet there's this.. this VIBE that runs through all of it that is like kryptonite to me. i can't define it exactly. it's all very "clean". all ooze and pustules and wrongness has been scrubbed away. it's like Flash animation or something. i'm ranting and not very well, i apologize. i just hate all this shit forever. the reason i even looked at that site in the first place is because i have realized that i need a big fucking THING on my wall, and suddenly it occurred to me why paintings exist, or at least why paintings once existed, which was to cover up space on your walls and look nice and balance your room out. i thought it would be relatively easy to go find some internet site selling cheap cool prints but it's all this CUTESY SHIT. ALL OF IT@!

oh and hey, heystuff.com dudes! it's spelled "STATIONERY"

pretty sure this is a website aimed at suburban mothers, don't fret.

you know what it is? it's like somebody who vaguely remembers mike kelley's art and then thinking "you know what the problem with this is, it just needs a good wash"

xpost haha maybe. i suck at the internet.

judging by the local art openings i go too every now and again, "cutesy shit" is kind of the reigning aesthetic right now. maybe with a light 'subversive edge' thrown in.

that makes it even worse!! like by a factor of a million!

tracer u otm re this shit

don't get me started, don't EVEN get me started

i'd love to see some good old fashioned abstract expressionism some time, but it's all old-timey cartoons of sad children running through cloudy fields, with like maybe a crow bleeding on them or an angel showing its butt cheeks or something

http://www.threadless.com

http://www.etsy.com

ya this all seems to be... products for toddlers

i mean i agree in theory tho

especially shitty minimalist posters for star wars movies and stuff

a lot of this stuff does surely appeal to moms, but lets be entirely clear here people, they are URBAN MOMS

is there a bark magazine, but for children

I'm alright with this to be honest:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_n-jfUbCQkIM/SUtLfHs0meI/AAAAAAAACI0/PXe8IsrfqMY/s400/little_prince_elephant.jpg

this dark coincidence just pood out of facebook http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/boston/maureen-amp-luis-pondside-lily-pad-house-tour-128107

oh lord apt therapy

said aesthetic speaks of false modesty and embarrassment

you know what it is? it's like somebody who vaguely remembers mike kelley's art and then thinking "you know what the problem with this is, it just needs a good wash"

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 28 September 2010 20:57 (16 minutes ago)

Isn't that more or less Clement Greenberg's definition of kitsch? I mean that's basically what the site sells - cute kitschy stuff for you home. It sort of reminds me of Threadless except maybe aiming even more twee and a little older.

kitsch implies a wink and a lot of this stuff isn't really winky though. but i know what you mean. there is an element running through it that "it's just a bit of fun" which i think was demonstrably proven on these very message boards way back in the mists of time to be a phrase that always connotes something horrible.

"Just a bit of fun"

here's another example -

http://www.spincollective.co.uk/acatalog/index.html

it's just... it's swallowing the entire world.

http://i55.tinypic.com/2u5ggpl.jpg

if you're going to indict this stuff, you'd have to also include:
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/table_of_malcontents/images/skel01.jpg
which is equally mired in nostalgia.

http://postercabaret.com/productimages/Bike4detail.jpg

Philip this is totally the thread for indicting cutesy art shit on the internet so if you think that fits then this is definitely the place to do it.

not sure why the petit prince showed up upthread?

can you imagine going to someone's house and they have a wall sticker that says keep calm and carry on

http://mailordercats.com/

in the bathroom maybe

xp

lol

little prince feels like the genesis for this. like you read it, and it stayed with you.

fort thunder stuff feels less cutesy than just plain messy, but this is what almost all
indie comics look like now, though. messy nostalgia.

this is the reigning aesthetic for tv ads marketed at middle class ppl

reading an etsy seller spotlight or two may be educational

http://www.etsy.com/storque/spotlight/featured-seller-swanbones-10209

"Sw@n B0nes Thea+er" is the title I gave to the fragile shadowland where I can play freely with different characters and scenarios, seeing what strangeness occurs between the two. I live in Kansas City, Missouri with my beau and two wonderful, shaggy muses: a dog, Wynsome, and a cat, Hildegarde. I have a small forest in my yard with a secret garden, and windows that look onto my overgrown cottage garden and potager garden; I will spend hours staring into these for inspiration.

you can find websites that sell stuff like this that appeal to pretty much any taste

this one happens to be twee

also http://www.regretsy.com/

or maybe The different kinds of tea that cats like

only 100 ppl read the little prince but everyone who did then went out and started an etsy shop

amateurist i have been looking for websites that sell stuff that appeal to my taste but all i find is this cutesy shit!

give us an example of your taste!

i'll be honest - i never liked the little prince

it's like Flash animation or something.

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, September 28, 2010 4:52 PM (41 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

flash and generally the limitations of the net are a huge influence on and cause of this shit 4 sure

guys I am setting up an etsy shop while I read this thread ;_;

gotta confess, given the choice between messy nostalgia and tidy nostalgia, gonna go with tidy most of the time.
http://i28.tinypic.com/5evq11.jpg
(though must admit the 'flash'-iness of the title sequence already feels dated)

x-post to self - but I've been making jewelry while unemployed and I am poor so I might as well sell it, right? :( shit. I have an etsy site.

You're making jewelry, E, that is different!

My mom has started buying me etsy prints & stuff for Christmas every year. Well, it's better than her thinking I am still into Tim Burton.

ice cr?m that is exactly the shit i'm talking about

it is everywhere

kitsch implies a wink and a lot of this stuff isn't really winky though. but i know what you mean. there is an element running through it that "it's just a bit of fun" which i think was demonstrably proven on these very message boards way back in the mists of time to be a phrase that always connotes something horrible.

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, September 28, 2010 9:19 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

gotta confess, given the choice between messy nostalgia and tidy nostalgia, gonna go with tidy most of the time.

I don't think the messy/tidy distinction makes sense. I think you're talking about nostalgia for modernism vs. nostalgia for other things that aren't modernism. I think modernist nostalgia can be really annoying sometimes because the people who indulge in it rarely recognize that it IS a form of nostalgia. It's like if you look at something like Dwell magazine they'll criticize things like pseudo spanish revival architecture that's totally divorced from its original context and therefore inauthentic. Yet they act as if modernism is still a going concern and not a similarly out-of-context fantasy aesthetic for yuppies to buy into.

In other words, making a Eames-esque mid century modern house or Saul Bass style title sequence in 2010 is every bit as kitschy and postmodern as any other stylistic revival.

why mad men has a flash animated rjd2 scored intro is one of the great mysteries of our time

i guess nostalgia for the messy drawings of cavemen slaying dragons and eating ninja princesses in video game castles of your youth counts as nostalgia for things that aren't modernism.

amateurist i have a lot of tastes i guess, i don't know. ralph fasanella, red grooms.. tim hopkins of this bailiwick showed me some patrick hughes pieces a few weeks ago and if you ever get a chance to see one in person they are mindblowing. they're 3D and constructed to create a head-bending illusion of movement as you walk past them.

little prince feels like the genesis for this. like you read it, and it stayed with you.

fort thunder stuff feels less cutesy than just plain messy, but this is what almost all
indie comics look like now, though. messy nostalgia.

― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, September 28, 2010 2:28 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

i grew up with le petit prince (yeah, in french even) and still love it to death. and i love that whole sensibility: good design; clean, simple, hand-drawn lines; muted washes of color; the comfort of childhood and teen nostalgia; a deep sense of alienation and longing; intimations of futility and mortality; mordant comedy. and it's true that this sensibility has become oppressively dominant not just in comics, product design and illustration, but in indie-affiliated (?) film, music and literature as well. at worst it's cloying, suffocatingly sentimental, cute and infantile. but when it's executed well, it can still be quite appealing.

and i don't know, maybe it's just "country kitchen" comfy-homey kitsch for a new generation. nothing wrong with that, really.

guys I am setting up an etsy shop while I read this thread ;_;

― master of retardment (ENBB), Tuesday, September 28, 2010 5:39 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol, lyfe

the dominant mode of illustration at the moment is pretty much vile

wk so so so OTM about the privileged place cleared for mid-century modernism, as though it will never date or become kitschy, inauthentic

usually lots of stuff here
http://www.deviantart.com/

to continue helping amateurist-bot construct a perfect menu of cheap artwork for my apartment, i have a huge weak spot for the spikier end of art nouveau and the weiner werkstatte, guys like Gerd Arntz, Dagobert Peche

first result of doing deviantart search for weiner
http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/4341/ilxor.jpg

i mean, just fuckin kill me.

I don't know what weiner werkstatte means

ice cr?m that is exactly the shit i'm talking about

it is everywhere

― goole, Tuesday, September 28, 2010 5:41 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah at first i was a lil skeptical of yr claim that this shit is everywhere in galleries but then i realized 'wait wtf am i talkin abt' - in fact i have a friend who shows regularly who does exactly this type of thing

btw tracer have you considered something like this

http://thesportshernia.typepad.com/blog/images/2007/07/25/ben_roethlisberger_fathead_3.jpg

Lots of this on 20x200.com, which should stick to photography.

20x200 is a great idea but getting a couple of inkjet prints made me remember why original paintings/drawings or traditional printmaking styles (20x prints are way too flat and characterless) are way more interesting.

kitsch implies a wink and a lot of this stuff isn't really winky though. but i know what you mean. there is an element running through it that "it's just a bit of fun" which i think was demonstrably proven on these very message boards way back in the mists of time to be a phrase that always connotes something horrible.

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, September 28, 2010 5:19 PM Bookmark

That's the postmodern approach to kitsch, which seems to be related to camp, but to modernists kitsch was just empty imitation of the form of some sort of 'high' art detached from its content and context. And this sort of kitsch still occurs, because people in the design professions look at what seems to be "trendy" in art and gradually, usually a step or two behind, adapt it to consumer products. Which is not necessarily something I'm criticizing, but it's a process that has repeated itself for about as long as there has been mass culture.

re: weiner dog -- i like the smug expression and human baby hands on the dog -- he's all "you haters can suck it, i'm a weiner dog with human baby hands!" i agree the straddling coquette is pro forma.

eh, i have a large framed chunk of this fabric on my wall (maija louekari for marimekko), so i can't complain too much about the cute art shit:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4TXX85m0Ymc/SlYYd_NOKnI/AAAAAAAAADE/lux8zSNbZsk/s400/marimekko-kulke-kit-print.jpg

blue background, though - not exactly the same

wk so so so OTM about the privileged place cleared for mid-century modernism, as though it will never date or become kitschy, inauthentic

Kind of? I mean, maybe, but I don't much care. I have stopped being bothered by the entire 20th century happening at the same time. It's been going on for a while.

I think maybe the old usage of "kitsch" has been sort of replaced by "middlebrow" at least wrt stuff like this (although that word seems out of favor now too); it's like stuff that seems like it aspires to come off as vaguely, indeterminately artsy and sophisticated.

tbh i don't mind certain varieties of this stuff (and some of it i outright barfingly dislike), but also, i also don't consider it in the same category as art that actually has a profound impact on me! but we all need cute, don't we? i need cute.

its fiercely middlebrow, if anything (btw middlebrow is the most excellently snobby expresion, feel like it deserves renewed attention)

i mean call something some likes middlebrow and see what happens

I have a bunch of low-grade fake Danish mid-century furniture. I think I like it because it reminds me of therapists' offices and my grandparents.

feel like, robyn, this stuff is cute w/o any intensity - cute is intense, this is cutesy, and middlebrow

yeah, i get that, totally. but i think i would rather have some lovingly finely crafted etchings of birds and trees and stuff above my bed than the kind of art that tends to intensely blow my mind and would probably make me sleep weird all the time, so... i mean, that can be in the living room.

Um, looking at the site more I'm also pretty sure a lot of this stuff is aimed at CHILDREN

probs true

's like stuff that seems like it aspires to come off as vaguely, indeterminately artsy and sophisticated.

don't mean to criticize you, personally, but there's no way to make this criticism without coming across as snooty or elitist. when you say "aspires to com off as vaguely, indeterminately artsy" you're saying that other people might be fooled, but you aren't. and i don't know that there's any "fooling" going on here. it's a popular design style: light, whimsical and nostalgic, suitable to domestic comfort, but also tied both to somewhat highbrow ideas about design and to lowbrow pop culture. it wants to suggest intimacy, personality and handmade craft.

i would say that the style's attempt to create a sense of personal identification and affectionate closeness is its least convincing trait, especially when it's attached to mass-produced commercial products. that it is somewhat "arty" doesn't bother me at all.

a lot of it is also aimed at people who have children, and want to create a nice soft domestic bubble for and around their kids. which is AOK, afaic.

o you need sleep, sry i thought you were HARDCORE xp

lol

Well anyway like I said it's aimed at children so it's fine. Children shouldn't be exposed to HIGH ART anyway. Harumph!

but there's no way to make this criticism without coming across as snooty or elitist.

It's a little snooty, but there's a vibe of borderline hysteria going on here. "I just can't BELIEVE that some people have bad taste! Especially when I have good taste! It's an outrage!" I mean, there are more low-key ways to assert that you have good taste.

haha i totally had day-glo and crazy art in my bedroom for a long time and when i took it down, on a whim, i started sleeping better

i have a friend who calls a certain variety of this cutesy art shit "monster art" as in "i'm so tired of all this monster art"

but i have also seen some pretty awesome real-art monster art

mad men's title sequence is the only thing about it that ISNT middlebrow

children do not buy art, furniture or decorative pillows jus fyi - and besides im pretty sure most of this stuff isnt even intended for or ever used by children - children like video games, exclusively

Isn't calling something high- or lowbrow equally insulting?

stfu slocki u middlebrow

QED

is david carson modernist? coz it's messy as hell, and one thing I'm glad about whatever cutesy aesthetic siege we're under today, is it seems to have disappeared except for nu-metal album covers.

dont try to use highbrow abrevs at me, doesnt prove anything

well, that's an interesting observation, because he's know as a graphic designer - i think a lot of this art is actually more about graphic design

xp

http://www.vinylpulse.com/
this scene of gritty & cutesy figurines/paintings amuses me. however, when I see photos of conventions I kind of get sick of seeing so much of a single kind of pop art dominating everywhere you look

Isn't calling something high- or lowbrow equally insulting?

― kenan, Tuesday, September 28, 2010 3:28 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

not really, no. the highbrow (academic & "fine" art) and lowbrow (disposable pop art, overlooked "trash") have their champions and get plenty of respect. a lot of supposedly sophisticated art appreciation positions itself as open to both the high and low, in opposition to the wretched middle.

i mean call something some likes middlebrow and see what happens

― ice cr?m, Tuesday, September 28, 2010 11:15 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hahahaha

for vinyl figures i think the rounded shapes might be a restriction of the manufacturing process. or they could just be lazy, ha!

what was that book that called terry gross middlebrow? the description made her sound like jerry springer, though, hardly a middlebrow champion.

My original point wasn't really to complain about the site anyway, I was just trying to reframe what Tracer was saying.

Generally, I think if you still at all buy into the idea that part of the value of capital-A Art is in being unsettling, critical, confusing, etc. then there's still something a little bit worthy of derision about kitschy art that appropriates the style of Art with none of the difficulty of it. Yeah I know there's no way to say this without seeming snooty or elitist, but there's no way to criticize anything that is both very popular and mediocre without coming off that way. Again, not really trying to say something about this site in particular.

I can easily see a counter to this that capital-A art is really just a luxury good and all this stuff about "critical" and "unsettling" is just a veneer for wealthy sophisticates to cover their elitism with. I don't feel as invested in either side of this debate as I used to feel.

is david carson modernist? coz it's messy as hell...

― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, September 28, 2010 3:29 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

carson is pomo, right? not a fan

i recently called a book a friend really likes middlebrow and he got sort of upset, its funny cause what i meant was 'mediocre'

Was it Middlesex?

hahaa
xp
it was about the middle ages

they were just kinda meh

the middling ages

if you still at all buy into the idea that part of the value of capital-A Art is in being unsettling, critical, confusing, etc. then there's still something a little bit worthy of derision about kitschy art that appropriates the style of Art with none of the difficulty of it.

i don't even buy this. yeah, part of the value of Art art is to be challenging and/critical, but only part. one among a thousand missions that art might choose for itself, and the art that does choose this mission isn't necessarily any more interesting or valid than art that chooses some other. what does "appropriating the style of Art" really mean, anyway? are you saying that popular design should have no truck with fine or "real" Art, that it should resign itself to a kind of unpretentious ugliness? all i want out of popular design is that it be appealing and functional.

I mean exactly what it sounds like - I mean designers that go to the Whitney and the MoMA and the Chelsea galleries and look at ArtForum and see what's hot and then imitate it in visual style only, which is exactly what happens in the industry. I don't see what that has to do with whether the design is "appealing and functional" or not.

I mean do you actually like stuff like posters of Hopper's Nighthawks with the people replaced with dogs? No wait that's a bad example because that's at least funny. But do you really not have even an iota of contempt for stuff like that in between your broad, unjudgmental appreciations?

that certainly happens, but people involved in all areas of creative endeavor always have and always will do this. they look at one another, crib the good parts from one another, refashion and reshape as much as they create from whole cloth. it's only in fine/high Art, where there's still this cult attached to the idea of the promethean creator, that this is frowned upon.

and high art borrows too, borrows from rock & hip-hop design and art, borrows from grafitti and black metal logos. borrows from fashion and fashion photography as much as vice-versa. it's all good. it's the way it should be, cross-pollination.

that the home-use version of a given idea is somewhat less "confrontational" than the six-figure gallery/museum version doesn't bother me at all.

appeal and functionality are largely user-determined, imo. if people want to make room for a thing in their lives/budgets, then it's appealing. if they keep it around and come to really love it, it's functional.

i think this is a lot of what the Banksy movie was about!

do you actually like stuff like posters of Hopper's Nighthawks with the people replaced with dogs? ...But do you really not have even an iota of contempt for stuff like that in between your broad, unjudgmental appreciations?

― rammer jammer jan hammer (Hurting 2), Tuesday, September 28, 2010 3:56 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

i have not an iota of contempt. that said, i have no personal use for such a thing. i respect technical skill above all (as an artist myself). beneath that, i appreciate the ability to create something that other people will see some value in. that, as far as i'm concerned, is the only real task of the artist in society. to be of use.

I mean do you actually like stuff like posters of Hopper's Nighthawks with the people replaced with dogs?

― rammer jammer jan hammer (Hurting 2), Tuesday, September 28, 2010 6:56 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

http://29.media.tumblr.com/X4w147PPcj8phydboLDKO2I5o1_500.jpg

awesome

:o

amazing

I can't figure out the action though. Did he crack the window with those plastic chairs?

hahahahaa
that is 'of use' to me

yeah seems unlikely, maybe if you hit it just right xp

laugh every time i look at that. love how the bear is all, "yes, it is me! what you gonna do?"

that window had it coming

hahahaha YES

its an anteater

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l50/Digs08/anteater.jpg

okay, i wondered, but went with bears because they seem more likely to bust shit up

yeah its likely not that big irl too

isn't the throwing plastic chair thing via hooligans?

it is obv exactly the same anteater, though, which shows that i am lacking in memes

i like it less now that i know it is memes :*(

too lowbrow?

art is so mysterious
xps
it's ok to like it less - it's still awesome. but maybe not awesome art. context is everything rite

what if you commissioned someone to paint it and hung it on yr wall, better or more-middlebrow?

12 feet tall, in oil, otherwise middlebrow

I love the cute stuff (some of it anyway). However, are reproductions of any interest to you? You could try museums--I've gotten some nice Bauhaus repros from MOMA. How about art.net: http://www.art.com/gallery/id--a4332/koloman-moser-posters.htm?ui=A0EEB357AE614481A2B05403CB2D4ACB
They might have something you would be interested in.

As for why cuteness is a prevailing aesthetic--I suppose it's easier to do cute than sophisticated; also, there must be a larger market for it. Here's something I would like to buy that's not cute:
http://www.tinyshowcase.com/artwork.php?id=1776

How about this site? http://www.artriver.com/mm5/merchant.mvc? They have some Ed Ruscha prints I would like, but I think they just pulled them out of a book.

too lowbrow?

too kitsch. same diff, maybe. it's awesome no matter what, but i'm still attached to the myth of the promethean anteater creator, anteater ex nihilo

found out the chairs came from banksy and totally lost my boner http://www.canvasartprint.co.uk/prod5.asp?ID=280&offset=12&prod_id=3059

yah, it's in re: english hooliganism in marseilles or belgium or something. plastic chair missile thing.

who's that artist that does paintings of bears spying on people humping in the forest?

I think the problem w/this aesthetic is that it's so incredibly easy to imitate. Wasn't it about 10 years ago that all of this go popularized by Shag/Tim Biskup/the rest of the Juxtapoz crowd?

john lurie xp

Here's a good site for WPA poster repros (bought something from them last night, in fact).

http://vintagraph.com/ The Shorpy vintage photographs look interesting as well.

i just like the anteater polar bear
xps

yah, it's in re: english hooliganism in marseilles or belgium or something. plastic chair missile thing.

― caek, Tuesday, September 28, 2010 7:28 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

well i do love soccer hooliganism so

i know you do mate. it's your thing.

http://www.johnlurieart.com/art/images/elephant.web.jpg

a little research suggests anteaters will commonly display said what you want some posture when provoked, so basically lol bro anteater

oh! i didn't know it was the jarmusch guy! i endorse this brand of cutesy art shit.

is david carson modernist?

Hell no.

mad men's title sequence is the only thing about it that ISNT middlebrow

How so? It pretty much defines middlebrow to me. Visually it's just another tired sub-Bass-ian exercise that is nice and pleasant and seems vaguely fitting for the period. And the music is like polite NPR car commercial music with vaguely hip-hop-ish beats to give it a slightly contemporary edge. The whole thing seems calculatedly middlebrow to me.

I was trolling haha

I think the problem w/this aesthetic is that it's so incredibly easy to imitate. Wasn't it about 10 years ago that all of this go popularized by Shag/Tim Biskup/the rest of the Juxtapoz crowd?

both a problem and a strength. and that's a good argument against the idea that this is all nothing more than cheap theft from more serious/real capital-A Artists. "juxtapoz crowd" existing in a separate sub-universe, along with the likes of rob't. williams and mark ryden. as much as anything else, the cutey-pie style borrows in a postmodern fashion from the whole history of 20th century commercial art. heavy influence from 50s-70s book jacket design, magazine & children's book illustration. plus contemporary comics and graf, etc.

how about the ugly screensaver that is the L O S T title sequence?

you fucking idiots this art is all post-brow

wk so so so OTM about the privileged place cleared for mid-century modernism, as though it will never date or become kitschy, inauthentic

Well I would agree with that, but it's not exactly what I meant. I think if modernist revivalism is acceptable then so is any other type of nostalgic revival. I just don't see a huge distinction between a lot of the cutesy crap posted here and the toys that Alexander Girard or the Eamess made (vitra wooden dolls, alphabet blocks, etc.) I also find it ironic that people will fill their spartan modernist houses with all of this tasteful period correct Eames furniture, while the Eames's house was actually cluttered with a lot of things that Dwell magazine types would consider kitsch (like oddball collections of folk art and toys). And their work itself was inspired by that lowbrow "kitsch" that they collected.

I think if you look at every image posted to this thread as a piece of art or design devoid of context, the Mad Men title art is by far the most boring and unimpressive. And really its "tastefulness" functions in a similar way to the "cutesiness" of the other stuff. It's allowing people to buy into a certain feeling and attitude about themselves. And while I would never hang the sassy weiner-go-round girl on my wall, it's much more appealing and, in a way, less douchebaggy than the rat pack "coolness" of the mad men art.

you fucking idiots this art is all post-brow

Have we really moved beyond these divisions into a post-brow period? Or have they simply merged into a undivided continuum? A mono-brow if you will.

listen we've discussed the uni before and I think we should leave it at that

in my opinion all posts should be left to that

mad men aesthetic seems much more tied to the cutesy weiner dog aesthetic than what you're suggesting. wasn't there a 'turn yourself into a mad man' webapp that basically turns you into a cutout weiner dog?

OTM to all of that. "I think if modernist revivalism is acceptable then so is any other type of nostalgic revival." that's the spirit in which i received your post, though my reply may not have made this clear. that said, mid-century modernism does have a certain durability in its simplicity, hostility to decoration, focus on material identity, and lack of any specific "regional" identity. it is an artifact of its time, certainly, but it's much more flexible and adaptable than many of the regional/period design styles that preceded it.

also OTM re the weiner girl painting vs. the mad men bumpers (which really are quite dull). not least of all because the weiner girl thing appears to be a one-of-a-kind, handmade piece. sucker for object identity.

OTM shower directed at wk

in defense of the mad men intro, think of the cats

To quote my current displaynamesake, writing in 1944: "The effort of producing something in some measure worthwhile is now so great as to be beyond almost everybody."

its weird how people havent heard of him

it's an elaborate pun that I'm worried people 'aren't getting'

thus making me just look like some kind of angry douche

http://www.personal.psu.edu/drs18/madmenYourself.jpg eh not exactly a weiner dog but close enough

yeah but thats not the show, its amc marketing

a "matthew" weiner dog if you will

insert Matthew Weiner joke

xpost damn

im not getting it but more in a 'i have no idea what that means' rather than 'what an angry douche' way xp

its digiorno

sounds like the punchline of a really bad/great knock knock joke tbh

xpost

"the odor who?"

I'll chime in with a...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr5JBIfXbPQ

(sorry if y'all were expecting something more "highbrow")

back on topic does cutesy skate art shit count as this phenomenon

what kind of cutesy skate art shit?/what time period? I always got the impression there was a sort of plurality of aesthetics in the skating world, of which cutesiness was only one

are you talking about how hookups ripped off manga characters with boobies?

kind of but after thinking about it for a second I think that skate shit is a totally different thing from this internet shit

The whole juxatpoz style is "fine art" made by skaters right? So Etsy is arts and crafts done by the girlfriends of skaters? That sounds really sexist, huh?

xp too much shit out there to all be reducible to one kind of shittiness

don't think of biskup and shag as skater artists, but don't really know...

I guess this whole thing is a convergence of all of these various flat and cutesy styles that gathered steam in the late '90s.

folky modernist cutesiness: Eames, Alexander Girard, Charley Harper

skater/surfer/west coast psychedelic art : Rick Griffen, Jim Phillips, and on into the juxtapoz stuff, BarryMcGee, Margaret Kilgallen, Geoff McFetridge, etc.

Japanese superflat stuff

the "cal arts", power puff girls animation style

hot rod/swing/tattoo/nerd whatever revivalism: ed roth & robert williams, recycled via Coop, etc.

think all of these dudes listen to

http://cdn.pitchfork.com/media/2239-her-majesty-the-decemberists.jpg

I think you could maybe also make a materialist argument for the role of computers in the process -- people upthread pointing out the Flash-iness of a lot of this stuff are OTM

definitely. and the way that the flat colors also tie in nicely with printing processes: making t-shirts, rebirth of the silkscreened concert poster, letterpress, etc.

yeah I was thinking about printing technologies too I'm not confident enough in my limited knowledge to say

I think there's also an element of backlash against the too transparently computer-aided 3D gradient hell of 90s graphic design?
http://www.calumet.purdue.edu/library/Faculty%20Book%20List/the%20computer%20in%20the%20mathematics%20curriculum.jpg

posted on the garfield thread, but here's an awesome example of how to draw clean and flat and reproducible without
being cutesy:

http://www.jeffpidgeon.com/uploaded_images/Garfield1-718788-708447.jpg

xp (there should be a "but" somewhere in the middle of that first sentence)

yeah but jim davis was using, like, pens and shit

how the man takes the edge off his day is his business!

That's fucking atrocious. I would much rather look at a totally simplified geometric version of that any day.

while the Eames's house was actually cluttered with a lot of things that Dwell magazine types would consider kitsch (like oddball collections of folk art and toys). And their work itself was inspired by that lowbrow "kitsch" that they collected.

FWIW and IIRC, the Greenberg essay I was talking about above distinguishes folk art from kitsch, and places the former above the latter (you know, the authenticity thing). I recognize that this seems sort of debunked now and is at very least out of fashion, but that might very well have been the way the Eamses thought about it.

I guess what does seem sort of silly about retro-modernism is that modernism had this real PROJECT in design, making mass products for everyday living, doing away with certain class signifiers, etc., which lends a certain irony to the way classic modernist furniture now mostly just signifies wealthy sophisticate without any further agenda. I mean maybe it never didn't, but it's a bit funny. I still like a lot of that stuff regardless.

Also, what does bother me about the cutesiness thing in the arts, in a larger sense, is that it feels like a retreat into childhood to avoid the ugliness of the adult world. This has been said plenty of times though.

I guess what does seem sort of silly about retro-modernism is that modernism had this real PROJECT in design, making mass products for everyday living, doing away with certain class signifiers, etc., which lends a certain irony to the way classic modernist furniture now mostly just signifies wealthy sophisticate without any further agenda. I mean maybe it never didn't, but it's a bit funny. I still like a lot of that stuff regardless.

Absolutely. There's a wonderfully populist spirit to the molded fiberglass Eames chairs, but it seems wrong to buy one for $300 at the ironically named Design Within Reach.

Also, what does bother me about the cutesiness thing in the arts, in a larger sense, is that it feels like a retreat into childhood to avoid the ugliness of the adult world. This has been said plenty of times though.

True. But the flipside is that it can also be used to explore the ugliness of childhood.

Well, not "the ugliness of childhood" but ugliness that some people have experience in their childhoods.

Oh btw, interesting thing about the DWR name that I found out -- it was never meant to mean affordable. Apparently at first you had to have some kind of contacts to get stuff from the big name designers, and the idea of DWR was just to make them (relatively) widely available, not necessarily super cheap. Although maybe DWR prices were relatively low for the pre-Ikea/C&B days? I don't know.

Ah, that makes sense. Companies like Knoll and Herman Miller seem more set up for corporate/institutional sales and they don't necessarily have friendly showrooms. Still, I think the price of some of that stuff undercuts the intended spirit of its design. What's the point in using mass production and materials like plastic and metal if your chair costs $5000?

Well yeah, I agree. But I think the principles that those guys founded were later more-or-less perfected by true mass retailers like Ikea.

What's the point in using mass production and materials like plastic and metal if your chair costs $5000?

Oh, so my explanation was right although it started much more recently than I thought:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/garden/31dwr.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2
"Design Within Reach was founded in 1999 by Rob Forbes, a former potter with an M.B.A. from Stanford, who believed there was a retail demand among consumers for pieces by the likes of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe. (Before, the classics of modernist design were generally available only to architects or designers.)"

I.e. clearly did not happen in the "pre-Ikea days" so I had my history wrong.

did yall know that john arbuckle has been seeing liz? he finally got with her. it's like how they totally changed archie

err jon

They also killed off Puddles in Luann.
It's like the internet is sucking all the cuteness from the funny pages.

and why cant they kill off nancy and make the comic about aunt fritzi. they could could call it 'aunt fritzi'

lol

(u realize nancy came out of the "fritzi ritz" comics right??)

omg nvm
http://www.glyphjockey.com/fritziritz18/fritziritz18-400.jpg
google ftw
sorry big pic

They also killed off Puddles in Luann.

What? No they didn't.

NOT RETURNABLE

Well yeah, I agree. But I think the principles that those guys founded were later more-or-less perfected by true mass retailers like Ikea.

yeah

I feel like this might be one of those questions that answers itself in the asking... but just to drive home the point, I'd speculate that there's something reassuring about seeing 'distinction' emerge from such an undifferentiated 'level playing field'.

I wonder how that relates to the "I think the problem w/this aesthetic is that it's so incredibly easy to imitate." upthread?

It's hard to argue against a undifferentiated 'level playing field' without tripping into rockist-type pitfalls. That said, the originators (or revivalists) of this style didn't use CS5 and spit out Jim Flora ripoffs 20 times a day. Not that the process makes it better or worse, but I'd make a point that painting this stuff really forced these guys to closely analyze each choice they made.

It's hard to argue against a undifferentiated 'level playing field' without tripping into rockist-type pitfalls.

I mentioned rockism in the sense that arguing that tactile art > digital art was basically the same as rap or electronica isn't 'real' music - valuing the creative process above the final product.

Sorry if that doesn't make sense. Not enough coffee yet.

oh no I gotcha -- it makes more sense on the macro-level of the thread as a whole than the micro-level context of that particular quote

people who make this art love edward gorey

old-timey cartoons of sad children running through cloudy fields, with like maybe a crow bleeding on them or an angel showing its butt cheeks or something

this is A+++ excelsior yoga flame pinpoint logistical beatdown for all time

also all of this stuff is potential tat material

How about this?

http://www.newbloodart.com/

That just looks like run-of-the-mill shitty art, tbh.

http://www.newbloodart.com/uploads/new_foodft_180.jpg

food for thought

i found a "quality" print site but it's mainly big photographs of new york, jack vettriano, jasper johns targets and some picasso blue period shit, etc etc etc

i find it fascinating what makes the cut on these classic art print sites - there's a canon that basically includes greatest hits of impressionism, expressionism, a few warhols, a lot of magritte, a whole fuck-ton of modern nouveau thin-blooded expressionism (i.e. abstract hotel art), and a metric ass-load of photographs of like, audrey hepburn and the flatiron building

i guess it's "the wisdom of crowds"

this site - http://www.artnet.com/ is awesome but 99% of the stuff is unaffordable (though i did find a signed gerd arntz print for £150)

(sorry, UNsigned)

artnet seems to have a rep as a 'legit' Art World kind of site. They also do a lot of stuff with auction and price tracking, have a lot of database info about artists, etc.

tracer i have an idea--make your own art--hang it on the walls--paint it on the walls even--go wild--your imagination is your guide--

yeah i know this is what i should do, I'm just not very good at it

aw tracer im sure youre very good

whats important is trying

get a few pieces of used tinfoil, paper towels and some gray paint, you can whip up a kiefer in like a half hour

fake keifers are best executed outdoors, as burning them for a little while helps

How about Hatch prints?

http://store.countrymusichalloffame.com/categories/Hatch-Show-Print/

Is there an Affordable Art Show in London? There's one in NY this weekend.

it's not really my thing Virginia but that stuff's pretty cool. along those lines i'm a big fan of Yee-Haw - http://www.etsy.com/shop/yeehaw - some of it tips into cutesy territory but my hometown bias prevails

whaddya know - http://www.affordableartfair.co.uk/

I think their idea of affordable might be a bit different than yours and mine, but it could be interesting to check out.

I like Yee-Haw; I love letterpress so much.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs330.ash2/61075_148937928478239_103496386355727_229075_1743174_n.jpg

Tracer, I can't recommend the Affordable Art Fair. I went during the free hours and it seemed like a lot of junk all in one place.

that sucks. was it all actually totally not affordable as well?

am considering this deal where you send a digital photo off and they print it onto canvas somehow and send that to you

http://www.bellemaison23.com/2009/12/inspiration-for-your-walls.html

am considering this deal where you send a digital photo off and they print it onto canvas somehow and send that to you

I did that on CanvasPop - I got a coupon for like $30. I chose a really basic package and it came to like $95 or something, so I was a bit annoyed because I wouldn't have done it if not for the coupon. However, they did a good job.

inspiration-for-your-balls moreliek

i like this:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_JwKcIkr8tIo/SyII5JcB0-I/AAAAAAAAHy8/hATb9sS_iTA/s1600-h/WALL+DECOR+IDEAS_5.JPG

but jayzus @ the rest of that stuff.. i mean the purple shit in the second photo??? what????

franny yikes i didn't think it would be that much.

a nice collection of Charley Harper and his wife and kids art in this estate sale... would really like that slug laying eggs work
http://www.ebthauctions.org/cgi-bin/mnlist.cgi?ebth1/category/ARTWORK

lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XM3vWJmpfo

looooool

haha nice twist

i see what they did there and approve

Yeah, this is one of my favorite things to gnash my teeth at, all the Emily Strange clones and most of the "artists" featured on BoingBoing. It's just Margaret Keane all over again.

Hahah maybe I do need to watch Portlandia.

Do they have to go nuts at the end of every sketch? Or is that just this one and the "Yeah I read that" one.

fuck emily the strange, does anyone know who ramona is?

no

http://www.etsy.com/listing/62686466/hand-painted-side-plate-eat-my-cake-in

i dont see the big deal, people like cute things, dont go to etsy man

yeah this seems to be one of those things where you are looking on shitty websites and finding shitty things.

feels sortof inevitable

http://kioskkiosk.com/collections/sale/products/noas-calendar

this makes me pretty IA

FEckingBRilliantUARtsYtwit