In honor of election day: the George W. Flush urinal, created by urinal artist Clark Sorensen:
This piece is a preview of Clark's up coming solo exhibit: "DOWN THE DRAIN - THE LEGACY OF GEORGE W. BUSH" Clark is holding an election night party to watch the elections results roll in and give George W. what he deserves - a good flush!
I recently met a woman who could tie a knot in the stem of a maraschino cherry with her tongue. I thought that was pretty impressive. But what this Romanian chewing gum sculptor can do is even more impressive.
Welcome to the very first contest sponsored by your pals here at WEIRD UNIVERSE.
Here's the deal:
The single prize is a used but in-good-shape trade paperback copy of Ricky Jay's Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women, an essential handbook for any true lover of the weird.
The challenge: to win the book, you must identify the painting and artist behind this little visual snippet to the right. The painter is one of the more famous outsider artists of the past 200 years. With luck, this challenge will be neither too easy nor too hard. If the contest goes on for any length of time without a winner, I'll post more snippets of the canvas, and other clues.
Please make your guess in the COMMENTS section of this post, not through email. Priority of the response, in the case of multiple correct guesses, determines the winner.
When we have a winner, I'll get their snailmail and post the book with some of my mailart on the envelope.
The Life Clock is the creation of artist Bertrand Planes. Each number represents a year of your life. It assumes that you're not going to live past 84. After that, you're evidently on borrowed time.
I think the numbers should be spaced to reflect the subjective experience of time -- with the first half of the clock going from 0 to 21, and all the remaining years crammed into the second half. (Thanks, Sandy!)
Posted By: Alex - Mon Oct 06, 2008 -
Comments (8)
Category: Art
Do you feel angry and frustrated sitting in your windowless cubicle grinding away at a dead-end job? Recent research (published in the journal Environment and Behavior) indicates there may be an easy way to brighten your mood, at least if you're a man. Hang a few art posters.
Researchers at Texas A&M University conducted an experiment in a simulated office. Participants were told that the researchers were investigating performance on a variety of computer tasks. In reality, the computer tasks were designed to "provoke stress and anger." The question was whether the artwork hanging on the wall (abstract art, nature posters, abstract and nature posters, or no art) would modify people's moods. The conclusion:
We found that nature and abstract art posters have a significant influence on state anger and stress for male participants but not for female participants. Male participants experienced less state anger when there are art posters on the wall of the office setting than when no art posters are present. They also experienced less stress when there were mixed abstract and nature art posters or all nature art posters.
It's not clear why men are calmed by wall art, but not women. Maybe men are just simpler creatures.
Well Medicated has posted a collection of 50 Polish film posters. I picked out three at random: The Empire Strikes Back, Rosemary's Baby, and The Getaway. Compare them to the American versions below. I like the Polish ones better.
Are the paintings created by musician George Clinton especially weird, or just arty weird? They're probably no weirder than the man himself. But only you can decide, by visiting his gallery.
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.