Pop Surrealism: The Rise Of Underground Art (Hardcover)

by Kirsten Anderson (Editor), Robert Williams (Contributor), Carlo McCormick (Contributor), Larry Reid (Contributor)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
First comprehensive survey of the Pop Surrealism/Lowbrow art movement. With its origins in 1960's hot rod culture and underground comics, Pop Surrealism has evolved into a vilified, vital, and exciting art movement. Includes: * informative essays by art luminaries Robert Williams, Carlo McCormick, and Larry Reid * a forward by Kirsten Anderson * images from twenty-three of the movment's top artists including: Anthony Ausgang, Glenn Barr, Tim Biskup, Kalynn Campbell, The Clayton Brothers, Joe Coleman, Camille Rose Garcia, Alex Gross, Charles Krafft, Liz McGrath, Scott Musgrove, Niagara, The Pizz, Lisa Petrucci, Mark Ryden, Isabel Samaras, Todd Schorr, Shag, Robert Williams, and Eric White.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 154 pages
• Publisher: Last Gasp (October 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0867196181
• ISBN-13: 978-0867196184
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 10.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #393,034 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, August 4, 2005

By	WTA (New England) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Can't say enough terrific things about this, it's one of the best selections of modern art available. Yeah. I said modern art and not "outsider" art. Sorry kids, but that new crap we see in Artforum and in the big museums is the hellspawn of marketing, grant maggotry, the corporate world, and the new corporate academia. It has little to do with the natural evolution of Western Art. If it tickles you to think you're being a Bad-Boy/Girl/Whatever by liking this "outsider" stuff then you're falling right into their game plan, you're a niche market and they'll try to eat up this world just like they ate up "alternative music" in one big gulp. This art is the art of true Americans and that other yuck--the so-called mainsteam (which includes the pre-fab avant-garde nowadays no matter how middle-class titilating and naughty it be) is the Devils' work--the real Devil, the one that created Wal-Mart and George W. Bush.

Love this art, demand that your museums purchase it, rejoice in the fact that you'll never see some Ryden or Williams hanging in a corporate headquarters, sing Hosannas that some trendy art monkey with a Smith degree won't be writing pompous reviews using terms like "globalization" and "gender" about this stuff, wrap yourself in the red, white, and blue, and sing the Star Spangeled Banner! I just wish we could find some equivalent modern creative types with this kind of vitality in music and architecture.

(Recommended--read Paul Johnson's recent history of art, especially the bit where he talks about how the modern art world went all to hell because someone figured out how to market the bejesus out of it)

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars raves from a lowbrow newbie, September 3, 2005

By	Mark Hanington (Kailua, HI United States) - See all my reviews

I do not come from the lowbrow culture ,whatever that is, and have never paid it any heed. But I came across this book and my eyes have been opened. This art is NOT what I had assumed - it's clever, thoughtful, insightful, and challenging. It has an in-your-face attitude which I think held me at bay for a while. But through this book I have learned to relax, to appreciate and to enjoy. Many thanks and much admiration to Kirsten Anderson for assembling this, and for including three short but effective essays by three painters who helped me discover a whole new world lying right before my eyes.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great introductory book, January 28, 2005

By	Broadway Phantom (USA) - See all my reviews

What is 'lowbrow' art? This book attempts to assemble a collection of art from an ever growing movement of artists going against assumptions of conventional art. But don't you think this is a boring book of essays. Only the first few pages are text, the rest is pure visual feast, as it should be.

Shock-full of colorful art sometimes cartoonesque and always thought-provoking, this book is destined to become known as the first collection of artist works in the vein of Mark Ryden, Marion Peck or Liz McGrath.

Also, if you like this kind of art, don't miss out on the magazine Juxtapoz. If by now you haven't been properly exposed to 'lowbrow' art or 'surrealist pop' or even 'rebel art' as we're still struggling to name it, check out this beautiful book. You won't be disappointed.

We only wish the book was thicker.