Customer Reviews

Uncanny: The Art & Design of Shawn Wolfe

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Shawn Wolfe has done it again. Before we knew it he fooled all of us into buying more products that play on our desperate need to buy more products that subvert the idea of buying products by existing as the "non product". What's going on? So nice to look at, you wish these things could walk across your livingroom floor, and not just in your nightmares. I can't explain it--he's speaking a visual language I don't speak but I love to look at. And I think he must be smarter than me because I put his Panic Now stickers all over my car. Is he controlling my mind?

This has to be the most interesting book ever written. Why? I'm not sure, but if you read it, I think it just might speak for itself.

The title alone is so, well, UNCANNY. It represents the book so concisely, and so profoundly.

I highly recommend reading books, and this is most certainly a book! Enjoy it!

What's most enjoyable about this book is what I find most genius about Wolfe's artwork itself: He uses the methods by which advertising operates, the co-optation of ideas and trends, and throws it right back in advertising's face. What emerges is just how absurd advertising really is, and in a bigger sense, that we allow ourselves to live in a world in which it dominates. Wolfe is a cultural alarm clock and this book is his wake-up call. Rise and shine people.

No matter what your opinion of art or books, this is the one to buy this holiday season. Mr. Wolfe has his finger on the pulse of what it means to be a consumer in the year 2000 or what being a consumer was like back in'79 for that matter. If I were a wealthy art collector type, I'd buy all the original Shawn Wolfe I could get my hands on, but I'm not, though I'm perfectly satisfied with owning fine reproductions of Wolfe contained in this quality paperback book, which I proudly display on my kitchen table. It goes great with any General Mills brand cereal and a cup of Starbucks coffee. It's mighty tastey when perused with straight whiskey, Jack Daniels, as well. Buy this book, feast your eyes, then gift it to a girlfriend who will cherish Mr. Wolfe's book, although soon forget you. I've lost three copies of this precious art document to transient women this month alone! So spend your money where it counts. Vote Wolfe.

I was unfullfilled until 'Uncanny' uncorked the ubiquitous, unheralded, un-cola-like creativity of Shawn Wolfe. Run, don't walk, and buy this book.

I used to be a lousy drunk, sleep in a cardboard box and live off crusts from unfinished pizzas left on the sidewalk. Then I read "Uncanny," the brilliant new self-help book by F. Shawn Wolfe. It honestly changed my life. I've read it approximately 63 times since then. I'm sober, my new box is durable plastic and I'm growing new hair at my temples and crown. Thank you, Mister Wolfe. You are an American Hero. Peace Out.

"Pass the gas 'doc'"

"What?"

The surgeon was startled. He was a little gassy. Greasy lunch. He's a doctor of sorts, he should know better. Anyhow, the bulk of it seemed not to have much of smell. He was spared that much.

"Oh. I see what you mean."

He lifted the mask to the patient's face. Though he was relieved that his own gasses weren't being detected, he was put off by the man's crassness toward such a touchy subject as medical drugs; especially those one could derive pleasure from.

The patient eased back. As he faded out the ride in the chair was smoothe and stable. He felt secure and safe, far away from harm. Four thousand pounds of glossy painted steel. A form fitting suit of armor. His body was a different shape now, but that didn't bother him.

Wolfe was so far ahead of the millenial hype that he pre-dated his own ahead-of-the-timeness, which is a timeless lost art, if you ask me. Thus, the book and the eventually detonation of the (Chess)Kingdome and advancement of the Safeco Brand. All moderne era sports teams owe him a season ticket as he honed his skills doing streamlined black-and-orange insectoid "Yellow Jackets" back in the Go-Go 80s in a Central Ohio that had yet to sprout its own New Bomb Turkses, minor league hockey franchises and Columbus Crewes. "Uncanny" will be on my coffee table until 2084.

A tome of this magnitude only comes along once in a century - and this is Shawn Wolfe's century. The visual and didactic distortions so prevalent in modern consumer society are perfectly reflected, or should we say "refracted" back to us in this, Wolfe's "message" to future socio-art-historians. It is a study of image as message and message as meaning and meaning as truth. As I absorbed this incredible work I found myself gripped with giddy recognition... "that's me in there! I too am a mere caricature of a modern life!". The only thing we know is that we know nothing and "The Art & Design of Shawn Wolfe" proves to us how small and petty are our everyday desires and dreams; how meek are our pretensions to individuality and enlightenment. From this literary achievement, we can all learn something valuable; about our art, our lives and our post industrial and merely disposable context. Even as we come to reconcile ourselves to buy and sell our own culture and leave nothing for future generations but an empty heart and a huge bill, we see that there is nothing to fear. The future is our birthright, the present is our commodity and the past is our storage media. Bravo!

Do you know why you are fat? Why you prefer crunchy golden goodness to a newer, moister lifestyle? Or why your Personal Digital Assistant won't cut you some slack? 'Uncanny' by artist/eschatonaut Shawn Wolfe slices and dices up postmodern culture into chunks so thick, you'll be choking on them all week! Page after white knuckled page of full color ads for things that don't even exist, and if they do exist, they'll wish they didn't! Are you looking at an ad for a band, or a headache inducer? (Mommy, why does that lady have spoons for legs?)

Wolfe is one of the most exciting voices to come out of the premillenial burnout of the last decade. His brushes, pens, and mouse-clicks are minipulated with a matter-of-fact honesty to remind us that the world (or outerspace for that matter) may be for sale, but not so without a fight. With 'Uncanny', Wolfe is not projecting fear onto the culturescape; his art is instead a kind of psychic cinema-verite in which we see ourselves watching ourselves. This resulting feedback is a hilarious, eye-opening trip into the emptiness in our lives that we love to fill with products and brand names. His Remover/Installer for instance is a fascinating look at how a 2-dimensional idea becomes a very real 3-dimensional parasite, feeding off our nostalgia for quicker, safer lifestyles.

Baudrillard wanted us to skip the last decade and jump right to Y2K and avoid the rush. I am just thankful we had Shawn Wolfe and Beatkit to show us the way.