"Lowbrow" it may be called, but high-profile best describes the cultural impact of this contemporary art movement. Found everywhere from wine labels and high-end bar accessories to major motion pictures (Teacher's Pet, the upcoming Pink Panther), the visibility of this dynamic work has rapidly increased in the last few years to worldwide recognition and acclaim. Weirdo Deluxe is the first significant manifesto of the genrea riotous blend of pop culture, street culture, pop art, and surrealismand includes profiles of and interviews with 23 leading artists and hundreds of outrageous examples of their work. Special features include an expansive timeline, and peeks at the artists' collections and influences. Weirdo Deluxe is at once a primer and lowbrow art sourcebook as well as a visual homage to pop culture.
I love art and film and poetry from a wide range of people including Giotto and Duchamp and Caravaggio and Godard and Tom Waits and David Lynch and Orson Welles and Denis Johnson and Glenn Barr and Isabel Samaras and many more.... and I write about what I love...
Also, I make my own art and films and I write poetry and fiction and jottings on walls of mountains....
Art liberates, heals, entertains, enlightens... we need this for personal fun but also for a larger good...
Laughter is healing. The lowbrow-pop surrealist / underground art that I write about and the writings of Bukowski make me laugh.... so do films like THE NUTTY PROFESSOR..... or THE CIRCUS by Chaplin... released in 1928...
How does art liberate? Just by imagining something other than the consensus reality, the "givens" that we are surrounded by in our culture and society, we are liberated. Art provides insights, shows how things are artificial or constructed by media, by society. Art can help deconstruct the illusions, thus freeing us...
The pop surrealist - lowbrow artists are satirists. They make carnivalesque work that turns the "givens" in society and culture upside down. They celebrate the grotesque and forbidden as ways to free our minds. So does Bukowski...
We need to stay open-minded and consider alternatives, to imagine, to dream, to laugh, to freely think about anything--- not only for personal good, but also for the oceans and plants and other species and our species. Too much ego-driven exploitation stifles and is not based on sustaining resources and life....
I'm digressing a little bit here, but to see how we have endangered the oceans, please check out the documentary ACID TEST online. And, since I'm writing here about my work and ideas, I'd like to mention that in addition to writing about the arts and creating my own art of various kinds, I've done a lot of journalism and some of it has been what one might call environmental advocacy writing.... I love the oceans and the planet... I also love food and have written about food... I've written about people and places and film and pop culture.... art, writers... all fascinating to me.
I'm glad Amazon has this page.... thank you, Amazon... it helps people enjoy books, art.. film ! life... !
cheers,
Matt
