May 26, 2011
Lowbrow describes an underground visual art movement that arose in Los Angeles in the late 1970s. Lowbrow is a widespread populist art movement with origins in the underground comix world, punk music, hot-rod street culture, and other subcultures. It is also often known by the name pop surrealism. Lowbrow art often has a sense of humor – sometimes the humor is gleeful, sometimes impish, and sometimes it is a sarcastic comment.
Some of the first artists to create what came to be known as lowbrow art were underground cartoonists like Robert Williams and Gary Panter. Early shows were in alternative galleries in New York and Los Angeles such as Psychedelic Solutions Gallery in Greenwich Village, La Luz de Jesus, and 01 gallery. The lowbrow magazine Juxtapoz by Robert Williams, first published in 1994, has been a mainstay of writing on lowbrow art and has helped direct and grow the movement.
read more »
Posted in Art, Money |
1 Comment »
May 26, 2011
Todd Schorr (b. 1954) is an American artist and one of the most prominent members of the ‘Lowbrow’ art movement or pop surrealism. His work combines a cartoon visual vocabulary with painting methods of the Old Masters with large canvases (+80″), and is darkly satirical.
His piece, ‘Clash of Holidays,’ aroused controversy when it was exhibited in 2002. It depicts Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny locked in mortal combat. Santa’s wielding an axe, and the rabbit has a knife. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Baby Jesus, who’s munching on an ear from a chocolate rabbit, stand by. Schorr was accused of blasphemy by civic leaders in South Florida. ‘It was just a joke, really, like lot of my paintings that poke fun at things,’ comments Schorr, who completed the piece in 2000, then sold it to Courteney Cox.
read more »
Posted in Art, Humor, Money |
Leave a Comment »
May 25, 2011
Leica is a German optics company. The first Leica prototypes were built by Oskar Barnack in Wetzlar in 1913. Intended as a compact camera for landscape photography, particularly during mountain trips, the Leica was the first practical 35 mm camera, using standard cinema 35 mm film. Leica is particularly associated with street photography, especially in the mid-to-late 20th century, being used by such noted photographers as Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Leica cameras, lenses, accessories and sales literature are collectibles. Early or rare cameras and accessories can reach very high prices on the market. Notably, Leica cameras sporting military markings carry very high premiums; this started a market for refurbished Soviet copies with fake markings.
Posted in Money, Technology |
1 Comment »
May 25, 2011
Carl Zeiss is a German manufacturer of optical systems, founded in 1846. There are currently two parts of the company, Carl Zeiss AG located in Oberkochen with important subsidiaries in Aalen, Göttingen and Munich, and Carl Zeiss GmbH located in Jena.
The organization is named after a founder, the German optician Carl Zeiss (1816–1888), and is one of the oldest existing optics manufacturers in the world. The history of the company begins in the city of Jena before World War I, then the world’s largest location of camera production. Zeiss Ikon represented a significant part of the production along with dozens of other brands and factories, and also had major works at Dresden.
read more »
Posted in Money, Technology |
Leave a Comment »
May 24, 2011
A progress trap is the condition human societies experience when, in pursuing progress through human ingenuity, they inadvertently introduce problems they do not have the resources or political will to solve, for fear of short-term losses in status, stability or quality of life. This prevents further progress and sometimes leads to collapse.
The central problem one of scale and political will. The error is often to extrapolate from what appears to work well on a small scale to a larger scale, which depletes natural resources and causes environmental degradation. Large-scale implementation also tends to be subject to diminishing returns. As overpopulation, erosion, greenhouse gas emissions or other consequences become apparent, society is destabilized.
read more »
Posted in Money, Politics, Technology |
Leave a Comment »
May 24, 2011
A sinecure [sahy-ni-kyoor] (Latin: sine ‘without,’ cura ‘care’) means an office that requires or involves little or no responsibility, labor, or active service. Sinecures have historically provided a potent tool for governments or monarchs to distribute patronage, while recipients are able to store up titles and easy salaries.
A sinecure is not necessarily a figurehead, which generally requires active participation in government, albeit with a lack of power. A sinecure, by contrast, has no real day-to-day responsibilities, but may have de jure power.
Posted in Language, Money, Politics |
Leave a Comment »
May 21, 2011
Marc Newson (b. 1963) born in Australia, and now based in London, is an industrial designer who works in aircraft design and product design. He incorporates a design style known as biomorphism to his various designs. This style uses smooth flowing lines, translucency, transparency and tends to have an absence of sharp edges.
He is currently adjunct professor in design at Sydney College of the Arts and is the creative director for Qantas. He co-founded and owns the Ikepod watch company. One of his three Lockheed Lounge chairs sold for $968,000 at Sotheby’s in 2006. Every year he races one of his four vintage sports cars – an Aston Martin, a Lamborghini, a Ferrari and a Cisitalia, in the Italian Mille Miglia.
Posted in Art, Money, Technology |
Leave a Comment »
May 20, 2011
Wallace Wood (1927 – 1981) was an American comic book writer, artist and independent publisher, best known for his work in EC Comics and Mad. He was one of Mad’s founding cartoonists in 1952. Although much of his early professional artwork is signed Wallace Wood, he became known as Wally Wood, a name he claimed to dislike.
EC publisher William Gaines once stated, ‘Wally may have been our most troubled artist… I’m not suggesting any connection, but he may have been our most brilliant.’
read more »
Posted in Art, Money, Sex |
Leave a Comment »
May 20, 2011
Lawrence Lessig (b. 1961) is an American academic and political activist. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications. He is a professor of law at Harvard Law School. Lessig is a founding board member of Creative Commons, a board member of the Software Freedom Law Center, an advisory board member of the Sunlight Foundation, and a former board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
After graduating from law school, he clerked for a year for Judge Richard Posner, at the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, Illinois and another year for Justice Antonin Scalia at the Supreme Court. Lessig has emphasized in interviews that his philosophy experience at Cambridge radically changed his values and career path. Previously, he had held strong conservative or libertarian political views, desired a career in business, was a highly active Teenage Republican, and in 1978 and almost pursued a Republican political career.
Posted in Money, Politics |
Leave a Comment »
May 20, 2011
RiP!: A Remix Manifesto is a 2008 open source documentary film about the changing concept of copyright directed by Brett Gaylor.
Created over a period of six years, the documentary film features the collaborative remix work of hundreds of people who have contributed to the Open Source Cinema website, helping to create the ‘world’s first open source documentary.’ Gaylor encourages people to create their own remixes from this movie, using media available from the Open Source Cinema website, or other websites like YouTube, Flickr, Hulu, or MySpace.
Posted in Art, Money, Politics |
1 Comment »
May 20, 2011
RTMark is an activist collective that attempts to subverts the ‘Corporate Shield’ protecting US corporations.
The name is derived from ‘Registered Trademark.’ RTMark claimed as its first prank the ‘Barbie Liberation Organization,’ in which the voiceboxes of talking Barbie and G.I. Joe toys were swapped, and the toys then returned to the store (1993).
Posted in Humor, Money, Politics |
Leave a Comment »
May 20, 2011
TrustoCorp is an artist or a group of artists based in New York City.
They are known for their humorous street signs and product labels, which can be found in New York City, San Francisco, San Diego, and Miami.
Posted in Art, Money, Politics |
Leave a Comment »
