Category:
Art
Art
The Last Supper Museum
Down in the small Arizona border town of Douglas (population 16,000), one can find the Last Supper Museum, which hosts hundreds of works of art inspired by Da Vinci's masterpiece. It's a strange location for a museum dedicated to a piece of high Renaissance art — Douglas doesn't really spring to mind as a cultural hotspot — but then it's a strange museum.Last week my wife and I spent a few days driving around southern Arizona, checking out various sights such as Chiricahua National Monument. So, since we were in the neighborhood, we decided to visit the Last Supper Museum.
Based on its name, you might think the museum would be filled with Christian devotional pieces. And the curator reports that quite a few people who visit it expect this to be the case. But instead, it's the opposite. The museum skews heavily towards the offbeat, weird, and irreverent. It's really about all the bizarro ways Da Vinci's mural has been transformed and reinterpreted by modern culture.
So, for instance, you've got versions of the Last Supper done in unusual mediums such as banana fibers, coal, shoes, tupperware, and ostrich eggs. You've got Last Suppers in which Jesus and the apostles have been replaced by characters from pop culture (a lot of Star Wars, cats, extraterrestrials, Harry Potter, etc.). You've got social commentary, such as a banned-book version of the Last Supper. And mixed in with all this, you find more traditional, devotional pieces, such as some very impressive wood carvings.
Banana Fiber Last Supper
"The Last Slipper"
And then there's the curator, Eric Braverman, who hails from the world of Heavy Metal. He spent years traveling with bands such as Slayer, Metallica, and Megadeath. Much of the funding for the museum came from a donation made by Tom Araya, bassist for Slayer. Braverman totally looks like a metalhead, and that just adds to the weird, idiosyncratic nature of the museum.
We showed up unannounced, but Braverman happily gave us a guided tour for over an hour, filling us in on the backstory of each exhibit. He's definitely a natural showman. At one point he was rolling around on the floor to illustrate a point.
Eric Braverman, Last Supper Museum curator
So, overall I'd say the museum is a must-see if you're in the area. I'd even rank it among the top-tier best weird museums I've ever been to, up there with the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles and Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum in Detroit. Although I think you really need Braverman acting as a guide to get the full experience of the Last Supper Museum.
More info: LastSupperMuseum.com; Roadside America article about the museum; Arizona Republic article.
Extraterrestrial Last Supper
Ostrich Egg Last Supper
Velvet Last Supper
"Your Last Supper"
Posted By: Alex - Mon Dec 16, 2024 -
Comments (2)
Category: Art, Museums, Arizona
Double Bind
Published in 1978 by the artist Richard Olson, Double Bind consists of only six pages, but good luck reading those pages because, as the title implies, the book is bound on both ends.I could see this being an interesting addition to a library of odd books, but I don't know how many copies Olson created. I imagine not that many. One of them went up for auction in 2017 with a list price of $200-$300, but remained unsold.
Posted By: Alex - Sat Dec 14, 2024 -
Comments (4)
Category: Art, Books, 1970s
Lorraine O’Grady, RIP
Her Wikipedia page.
In the early 1980s, O'Grady created the persona of Mlle Bourgeoise Noire, who invaded art openings wearing a gown and a cape made of 180 pairs of white gloves,[10] first giving away flowers, then beating herself with a white studded whip, which she often referred to as, "the whip-that-made-the-plantations-move".[10] Whilst doing this she would often shout in protest poems that railed against a segregated art world that excluded black individuals from the world of mainstream art, and which she perceived as not looking beyond a small circle of friends. Her first performance as Mlle Bourgeoise Noire was in 1980 at the Linda Goode Bryant's Just Above Midtown gallery in Tribeca.[11]
Posted By: Paul - Sat Dec 14, 2024 -
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Category: Art, Avant Garde, Performance Art, Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Music, Twentieth Century, Twenty-first Century
Jade Montserrat
Her Wikipedia page.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Dec 04, 2024 -
Comments (2)
Category: Art, Avant Garde, Performance Art, Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Twenty-first Century
Artwork Khrushchev Probably Would Not Have Liked 59
Remember my rule for this series? The artwork in question had to be made during Khrushchev's lifetime. Well, I thought 1968 was too late. But no! Nikita lived till 1971.The artist's Wikipedia page.
Posted By: Paul - Tue Nov 12, 2024 -
Comments (1)
Category: Art, Avant Garde, Television, Self-referentiality, Circularity, and Endless Loops, 1960s, Russia
Art—People—Feelings
The heyday of the "Let's all groove together" utopianism.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Nov 06, 2024 -
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Category: Art, PSA’s, Bohemians, Beatniks, Hippies and Slackers, 1970s
Nixon drinks Gevalia coffee
Aug 1971: Posters appeared around Stockholm showing U.S. President Richard Nixon drinking a cup of coffee. They appeared to be ads for Gevalia coffee — though it seemed odd that Nixon would do an ad for Gevalia.
image source: moderna museet
According to Google Translate, "Gevalia dricks mest" means "Gevalia is drunk the most"
It turned out that the posters were the work of artist Kjartan Slettemark. He had combined an image of a hand holding a coffee cup, taken from an actual Gevalia ad, with a photo of Nixon distributed by the U.S. embassy. The posters were apparently a satirical commentary on the recent acquisition of Gevalia by an American company.
Indianapolis Star - Aug 6, 1971
The auction house Bukowskis offers some more details about Slettemark's hoax:
In 1971, Kjartan Slettemark came across a campaign poster featuring Nixon's portrait, innocently sent out by the American embassy. It hung on the studio wall for a few weeks when one day he asked for an advertisement poster for Gevalia coffee that he had seen at his local shop. The advertisement image showed a smiling woman lifting a coffee cup. When he cut out the woman's hand and placed it on the Nixon image, the size, colour, and lighting matched perfectly. He immediately wanted to print the work as a poster but could not afford the printing himself. He added the text "Moderna Museet - Open every day 12 - 22" and submitted it for printing at the press used by Moderna Museet. The poster was printed, and the bill was sent to Moderna Museet. The next morning, Stockholm's advertising pillars were filled with Nixon posters. Moderna Museet reacted and wrote a letter to the artist prohibiting him from selling or distributing the image. Despite this, the image continued to appear around the city. Kjartan Slettemark continued to work with the image, cutting away the museum's text and making it even more similar to Gevalia's campaign image. The fake Gevalia poster was political art. A protest against the US war in Vietnam and against American imperialism. In 1971, the Gävle company Gevalia had been acquired by the multinational corporation General Foods – thus finding itself on the enemy's side. The story continues as the advertising text is cut away and gradually develops into the collage series "Nixon Visions," where the president's face is distorted in various ways.
Three years later, Slettemark returned to Nixon as a subject. Slettemark applied for a new passport, but instead of submitting a picture of himself he used an altered picture of Nixon. The passport authorities accepted it. Images and text below from Cabinet magazine (Spring 2009):
Posted By: Alex - Sat Nov 02, 2024 -
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Category: Art, Politics, Coffee and other Legal Stimulants, 1970s
The First Living Work of Art
In 1961, German artist Timm Ulrichs put himself on display inside a glass case and called himself the "first living work of art" (erstes lebendes Kunstwerk). He repeated this performance at various times throughout his career.
Artmap.com explains: "Instead of found objects, Ulrichs uses his own body. A simple and simultaneously great idea: whereas with Duchamp the producer and the work were still separated, in the case of Timm Ulrichs, the artist and the work are one and the same."
A "great idea" is one way to describe it.
Some more examples of Ulrich's art:
In 1962, Timm Ulrichs signed his own body. His name was engraved as a tattoo on his upper arm.
In 1963, he tracked his heartbeat with a stethoscope. He broadcast it on a loudspeaker and exhibited the medical record as a musical score.
In 1966, Timm Ulrichs showed the tanning of his skin as a filmic process for the first time. The covered, untanned areas of his back, in contrast to the tanned areas, slowly reveal the word “Hautfilm” [skin film].
In 1969, Timm Ulrichs became a sperm donor at the Bremen sperm bank – ironically referring to Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility”.
In 1973, Timm Ulrichs ate for one year according to the average consumption of Germans, precisely observing the consumption of milk, bread, and cigarettes. Four cigarettes a day.
In 1978, using professional police equipment, Timm Ulrichs had a facial composite of his own face made.
In 1963, he tracked his heartbeat with a stethoscope. He broadcast it on a loudspeaker and exhibited the medical record as a musical score.
In 1966, Timm Ulrichs showed the tanning of his skin as a filmic process for the first time. The covered, untanned areas of his back, in contrast to the tanned areas, slowly reveal the word “Hautfilm” [skin film].
In 1969, Timm Ulrichs became a sperm donor at the Bremen sperm bank – ironically referring to Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility”.
In 1973, Timm Ulrichs ate for one year according to the average consumption of Germans, precisely observing the consumption of milk, bread, and cigarettes. Four cigarettes a day.
In 1978, using professional police equipment, Timm Ulrichs had a facial composite of his own face made.
Posted By: Alex - Mon Oct 28, 2024 -
Comments (2)
Category: Art, Body, 1960s
Monument to the Unelected
The front yard of a Phoenix home displays campaigns signs of major candidates who have lost a presidential election, including failed candidates of yesteryear such as James G. Blaine and Winfield Hancock.The signs are the work of artist Nina Katchadourian who calls it the "Monument to the Unelected." She's been creating it (and finding homes to host it) every presidential election cycle since 2008. On her website she explains:
Each sign was made in a design vernacular that could have come from any time in the past few decades, even if it advertised a candidate from a previous century. At a time when the country was preoccupied with the "fork in the road" moment of a major national election, the piece presented a view of the country's collective political road not taken.
More info: smoca.org, AZFamily.com
Posted By: Alex - Sat Oct 26, 2024 -
Comments (3)
Category: Art, Politics, Signage
1000 Cigarettes
Plexiglas book. Pages are laminated with collage elements embedded. Collage elements comprised of debris from smoking 50 packages, a total of 1000, of Camel cigarettes including cigarette butts, match-book covers, burnt matches, ashes, and smoke. Book is Coptic bound with various colored threads. The front cover of the book is laser-etched with the title; the back cover is laser-etched with the name of the press. Dimensions: Book 29 x 22.5 x 6 cm. Container/box 32 x 25.5 x 9 cm. Unique, one-of-a-kind.
The box cover and internal tray are made by Mark Wagner. The cover is collaged from 1/4-inch slivers cut from packages of Camel cigarettes. These cut slivers are reconstructed to form the image of the camel and desert landscape as they appear on the package of Camel cigarettes.
Source.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Oct 24, 2024 -
Comments (0)
Category: Art, Fey, Twee, Whimsical, Naive and Sadsack, Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Books, Smoking and Tobacco, Twenty-first Century
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Contact Us |