Robert Williams's new web site
The incredible artist Robert Williams -- outlaw hot rodder, underground comix pioneer, and father of "Lowbrow Art" -- has a shiny new Web site. It's Flash, but it's gorgeous. Seen here, "In the Pavillion of the Red Clown." Link
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Sometimes I feel like a disproportionate amount of the visual art presented on BoingBoing features skinny, busty, white women. Like this, the McConnell/Fry glitter gif, the Tim Biskup, the Faesthetic, the COOP BoingBoing Tshirts, the Crehore, etc. Now, I love skinny, busty white women as much as the next girl/guy, and I will totally acknowledge that most of the stuff in the Art category doesn't have human figures at all, but it does seem like there's a weird absence of non-white, non-sexualized women (or dudes for that matter) in the imagery. It's not raking my heart over the coals or anything, but I just can't help not noticing.
Sexism hitched a ride back to upper-middle class America around the Summer of 1974...and hasn't looked back.
And once post-modern thinkers of the world (mostly guys) discovered BETTY PAGE, then all bets were off.
Most representations of women in modern comics, tattoos, rock posters and album covers are very "PAGE-LIKE" when they aren't mimic-ing bountiful PAMELA ANDERSON imagery.
There is little sensitivity towards the female gender either here at BoingBoing or anywhere on the internet...or in the entire world. Sad state of affairs, really. (pun intended)
I clicked on the link all fired up to contradict the first comment on this post and had the steam taken out of my engine by what I saw. They are striking images but it there is definitely a fairly cliched insistence of white curvy females. The threatening looking dark men are noticeable too.
Regarding my first comment...I promise that I won't complain idly. That one titled "Appetite for Destruction"...man, I know art is subjective, but that's pretty bad.
of course bb suks the cork of EZ franken-fez juxtapoz garbage. too hip to know it's 90s. one day we'll all see this stuff is crap, no. c.r.a.p.
rob't is growing, thank IT, but the swill he's left behind, zippo merch and hey, aurora kit hard-on just young enuff for '68 nostalgick sewer glut silk screens 'n pin stripes, is tired and lame. as in lame. like not cool or good but lame. read me. lamer.
what once was peddled as outsider went all formal and boring. that it's still meant to draw gasps of wow is tortured and moneyed. pathetic and predictable. shame.
hey, bb, there is art out there, rememeber ?
stuff that moves more than bowels.
suck it up, you've become NBC.
find the underground again,
Gotta be hard to be as hip as Billy, so I'll just stick to the facts.
I've been a fan of RW since his early days, and this gallery of his work shows that he has mellowed considerably since then.
Also, he unapologetically points out that this is the contents of his own head, for better or for worse. Check out "The Notion that Lurks Inevitably Between Two Adjacent Thoughts" (second to last one). Could the man be any more blunt about what's going on between his ears?
drunk post. sorry.
Used to be good art was Harvey Kurtzman and Georgia O'Keefe...now it's tattoo'ed motorcycle chicks and Hello Kitty in acryiic.
If you Boing Boing folks start posting SHAG posts
I swear I am outta here for good!
Please avoid the SHAG!
Cartoon art ain't modern art!
thanks!
Merry Christmas!
My qualm isn't whether or not it's art, what the gender or politics or intentions of the artist were, or anything. It's just with the choices that BoingBoing seems to make in the human-figure visual art it presents, which is skewed towards the "sexually objectified white women" side of things. That may be a product of the heteronormative patriarchal views of both men and women that tend to fester in comics, but BoingBoing is supposed to be pro-innovation, right? If we're into comic art, cool! Let's see if we can find some comic art that doesn't have to draw an unwieldy chest onto every female character, paint her white and make her arch like a cat.
Montauk...but...that's...hot. I take your point in so much as it isn't just white busty women who are hot, but I think the real problem here is that in media, as in the mind, the erotic is pushed aside as incidental, peripheral, and yet, for some reason, ever present. I mean what is the 'subject' of this painting? Well, that point could be argued any which way you like, but it would be difficult to argue that the subject is erotic. So I think there's a real question as to why something that's always there is likewise always pushed to the side. Likewise, rightly or wrongly, in society, media depicting the 'erotic for erotic's sake' is pushed to late night on tv, dodgy internet sites, and plastic wrapped magazines. So I'm not saying 'porn in every classroom' or anything like that. I don't really have an opinion at all. Like that guy from Zorba the greek, if given the choice between a night with a woman and a night with a book, I would probably choose the book; I've got to finish my degree, after all. I simply think there are a lot of unanswered questions as to why people think what they do about sex and sex objects.
Anyway, if you're asking for diversity of sexual objects on BB, I completely agree. As long as they keep it legal, of course.
Is it sad that my first thought was why the snake is in the birdcage? Never mind the gritty, weary and creepy over/under tones (oh, that's his prosthetic leg!), I want to know why you would keep a snake in a cage that wouldn't hold him.
Poor pissed off looking corn snake.
Lots of misguided criticism going around here. Art has ALWAYS portrayed the female form in idealized and exaggerated ways which changes over time. We worship fertility-- get over it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf
Coop's and Robert Williams' paintings are art history studies in and of themselves, packed to burst with vulgar Americana-- there's a clear "underground" appeal.
As for the women and what the artists are really saying, I don't know, but I don't see them as objectifying or demeaning to women. Coop's women evoke power-- they are elevated and venerated. Williams' women are... well, just the object of a twisted mind-- the twisted mind is the subject most of the time!
Gillagriene: looks like the snake ate Tweety-- bulge in the middle.
Personally, I'd rather someone worshipped my brain than my ovaries. And I don't see any reason to 'get over' that. Beside, dudes have sperm. Sperm denotes fertility too. But you don't see BoingBoing posting pop art of thick scrotums (gladly).
That art has 'always' done anything doesn't have much to do with it. Art has also traditionally focused on white people only - does that make it a 'natural' state for art?
I too cannot speak for the artists. But I do wonder why powerful women can't have normal boobs.
And the 'twisted mind' might be the meaning of Williams' art, but I wasn't topic about meaning, I was talking about the actual images themselves. And the actual images themselves seem to show, with disproportionate frequency, skinny white busty women in sexualized poses.
I'm not saying it shouldn't have been posted. I'm saying some diversity is nice. If we're OK with sexualizing people, let's sexualize everyone at least. That way the advantages and disadvantages of being sexualized can be shared by all.
For all the over-analyzing and "concern" I see not a single suggestion of "approved" artists to check out.
Anyone who thinks that the artists on BB only portray white women are colorblind (look at those Crehore paintings again), and those who think that all the women are skinny have a very superficial knowledge of Coop's work.
Of course, if more women of color/girth/whatever are featured on BB, then it becomes colonization of oppressed peoples or whatever. If anyone wants to prove me wrong, submit the links to the BB staff and see what happens.
And, finally: hipsters suck.
Father Brown in #8:
So I guess you've never looked at any of Mark's illustrations, or any of the non-painterly art posts here? Total 1950s cartoon cubism, there. Labeled as "art".
People like Shag, with roots in the commercial art of the fifties, also have their roots in Cubism - put a Jim Flora album cover side by side with a Picasso painting and you'll see the interplay. Look at Matisse's later work, or Miro's career. They may not have called themselves "cartoonists" but their interest in simplification and abstraction is at the core of a cartoonist's skill set.
Admittedly I speak with a bias, as I spent time in Spümcø worshipping the Three Pillars of Bob Clampett, Ed Benedict, and the face of Kirk Douglas - but I think that it's quite possible to make serious artistic statements in the modes we call 'cartooning'. It's just a name for a particular place on the continuum between photo-realism and total abstraction.
----
As to the sexism and racism debate - well, I'm a female artist, whose primary interest is the female form; I like making pretty curvy things and I'm a cartoonist, so my work tends to include exaggerated female bodies. I know several other female artists of various stripes who also tend to end up drawing pretty girls when they're not actively trying to draw something else.
In the post-photography age, it's an artist's job to hold a distorting mirror up to the world. And art mostly pays for shit, so you might as well have fun doing it: why bore yourself drawing a normal person when you can draw someone who is spectacularly beautiful - or spectacularly ugly?
And Williams, whose art screams over and over again that he's a product of the fifties, clearly can't allow himself to draw spectacularly pretty men, because that'd make him gay. *grin*
"And Williams, whose art screams over and over again that he's a product of the fifties, clearly can't allow himself to draw spectacularly pretty men, because that'd make him gay. *grin*"
^^^Win.
"looks like the snake ate Tweety-- bulge in the middle."
Hah! Cool. *always gets bogged in the minutia*
EGYPY URNASH SAID:
So I guess you've never looked at any of Mark's illustrations...
FATHER BROWNS SAYS:
I've seen maybe two of Mark's semi-artsy illustrations and his kind of stuff is the stuff that every hipster over 40 seems to latch on to nowadays.
This kind of koo-koo artwork is like mindless and harmless "color arranging" for the TATTOO AND TONGUE RING AGE -
Don't get me wrong, being a good colorist is not a bad thing...BUT when you place little bunnies, kitties and multiple sickening REFERENCES to Disney films in your work, then I would say maybe get a refund on your visions and check out a Gardner History of Art book from your local library.
SHAG falls into the cutesy, bunny class of pop illustration and Mark's does, too - and didn't our forefathers and mothers fight for more than over-priced cutesy bunny paintings.
Tokyo's nice, but I wouldn't want to live there.
I long for the day when Father Brown is "outta here for good"
And why is that. oh longer?
montauk
"Personally, I'd rather someone worshipped my brain than my ovaries. And I don't see any reason to 'get over' that."
I can, a person would think it was pretty obvious.
"Sometimes I feel like a disproportionate amount of the visual art presented on BoingBoing features skinny, busty, white women."
It turns out that your feeling is simply that, your feeling and nothing more.
There is a skew toward sexualized female figures on BB. It's obvious enough that I knew what this conversation would be about before I even clicked on the "comments" button.
That said, while I think that the criticisms of the art are valid, I don't see much point in criticizing BB for blogging about what they like. It's not as if they're bound by some kind of curatorial responsibility to represent the whole of contemporary art. They represent their own tastes, which are not shared by everyone.
I don't personally care for steampunk, vinyl toys or cutesy, candy-colored chimeras, so I tend to just skim past most of the "art" posts that focus on those subjects unless they have some more interesting hook. Those of us who don't like absolutely everything that gets posted on BoingBoing can find what we do like elsewhere.
I realize that this "if you don't like it, don't watch it" argument can ring a little hollow, since we're talking about a large blog that arguably has some pull in influencing the web-culture zeitgeist, but really, what do you want them to do about it? We can vent all we want about the skew in the bloggers' interests, but is that going to make anyone change their tastes? Probably not, and it probably shouldn't.
I've got a nice big (in-process) back piece tattoo of one of Robert's pieces. He's my artistic hero.
Father Brown = Kurt Benbenek, shameless Internet troll who fancies himself a Dadaist.
That said, Robert Williams is a skilled painter, and a living legend to boot.
Wow - the twisted PC police is out in full force on this one...
Yes, I think RW should be required by law to depict women equally in black and in white, small and large breasts.
In fact, all art should be checked by the PC Ministry of Controlling Dubious Thoughts...anything not bland shall be erased...
**Montauk said,
"Art has also traditionally focused on white people only - does that make it a 'natural' state for art?"
See, I actually think THAT comment was racist. What you should have said was, "White people art has traditionally been focused on white people...Native American people art has traditionally been focused on Native Americans...Asian art has traditionally been focused on Asians, etc. Why is that?"
By saying "Art" has traditionally been focused on white people only, you just marginalized all Art produced by a bazillion other cultures and races. YOU may not be paying attention to Art created by non-Western or non-white sources, but that doesn't mean others aren't.
Hell, it's not even that simple. You just ignored every Western non-white artist as well.
i, sadly at times, dance the love/hate line of this 'pop surrealism' art. i'm also guilty of making it. comix too. bunny paintings, etc.
and as #24 lolcat stevens said :
"I don't personally care for steampunk, vinyl toys or cutesy, candy-colored chimeras, so I tend to just skim past most of the "art" posts that focus on those subjects unless they have some more interesting hook."
you are so right.
we are often capable of offering forth crit for no better reason than we can. guilty as charged.
ps: when first i saw rob't stuff (psychedelic solution in ny, zap comix, 60s monster art) i was amazed..
mark rydens michael jackson album cover too,
most of the blab! artists too. sigh. too much amazing art.
ez to get all armchair about it and forget the skillz involved.
i'll make a point of sending the art that turns my crank towards bb and leave the neg. alone.
as for gender bias etc, i'll keep my eyes open and look for patterns.
Huh, you know what just occurred to me? The bird couldn't get out of the cage, and now that the snake has eaten the bird, the snake is trapped in the cage.
Moth to flame parallels? Makes me wonder if the picture is just a random weird scene, or is there a coded message comprised of the various objects? (One legged man, clown, dancing girl horrified, etc.)
Billy - right on for turning the hating into congratulating.
Gotta say, one of my favorite Rbt Wms pieces has nothing to do with breasts...
Dr. Cinnabar’s Cybernoid Art Ray
Scholastic Designation:
Beauty Is Best Expressed Through The Desire To Procreate But When Synthesized Into An Aesthetic Modular System, The Question Is “Can A Computer Respond To Visual Pleasure Enhancement Via Sensory Amplification Of Harmonic Keister Dynamics?â€
Remedial Title:
Alien Alphanumeric Ass Worship
http://www.francescolocastro.com/image%20pages/Robert%20Williams.html
My intention, which I think is pretty obvious when you look at my first comment, was to remark that there seemed to be a weird absence of non-sexed, non-white, non-skinny female bodies in the images that show up in the art section of BoingBoing.
Not that I thought it shouldn't have been posted.
Not that it was, or was not art.
Not that the artist isn't talented or the art isn't striking.
Not that it represents the politics of the artist.
Not that we should have a screening process.
Not that we need some kind of affirmative action.
I think there's been a pretty defensive reaction here. I wasn't knocking BoingBoing. I've read every post, usually with considerable interest, since I first laid eyes on it (quite a long time ago). I feel grateful towards it for giving me a more nuanced understanding of topics like DRM and copyright, as well as introducing me to little nerdy things like the LOLpresidents meme or the living octopus meal. I've also become a recent BBGadgets addict.
But to look at the response to my comment, you'd think I called it a racist sexist patriarchy machine or something.
I didn't.
I wasn't asking for changes, I was just remarking. I wasn't asking for changes because I see this situation as just a manifestation of larger social issues, not a social issue unto itself. And like some of you, I understand that isn't "my blog", it's the blog of other people, and they have (and should have) the right to decide what to post and what not to according to their tastes. I respect that. Just as by putting in a comments section, they've given me the right to point out that it seems like there's a weird focus on a particular female body type. And they've given you the right to call me "twisted PC police" for it.
But all right, it's evident that most of you don't agree, or you don't agree with the theoretical places where a comment like mine might go. So I'll shut up now. Hopefully on friendly terms, because I've followed some of your commentaries for awhile.
Happy Holidays, time for my grocery run.
I haven't really seen "RW's" work before.
Wild stuff.
I like "The Hot Rod Race" for it's classic imagery and bright colors, but then I'm no hipster at 41.
(kinda tame compared to others)
The gallery I looked at was one picture after another that invited closer and closer scrutiny even while some of the subject matter was a little unsettling.
Each could spark an entire evening's worth of lively conversation all on their own.
For what it's worth, I appreciate that Boing Boing turned me on to it just as they turned me on to Brian Despain.
Thanks for the art, Boing Boing, and happy holidays!
CLAYTON COUNTS SAID:
"Father Brown = Kurt Benbenek, shameless Internet troll who fancies himself a Dadaist..."
FATHER BROWN SAID:
Does anybody know the best mild solvent for cleaning a large LCD monitor?
I figure water (plus a small amount of dish soap) may work,
but maybe there's something better.
Awaiting your reply...
Father Brown
You want deionized water, distilled water. Tap water is too hard, has too many minerals in it. Don't use soap as it leaves a film. Maybe some distilled vinegar at 10% or so and a soft, lint free cloth. Try not to ever touch the screen with you fingers. Do not use paper towels or napkins of any kind. I use some commercial product made by GE I bought at Target that has isopropyl alcohol in it. Works ok.
Mantauk
But to look at the response to my comment, you'd think I called it a racist sexist patriarchy machine or something.
Funny, that is exactly what I thought you intended. I bet this is the first time anyone has ever misunderstood someone on the internet.
Happy Holidays
Ah... the war against Christmas continues... Probably a fascist liberal too.
;)
FATHER BROWN SAID:
Does anybody know the best mild solvent for cleaning a large LCD monitor?
CLAYTON COUNTS SAYS:
Hi, Kurt. Maybe you could ask one of the many people you've impersonated, harassed, or e-stalked over the years. Or better yet, check your blog:
http://kurtbenbenek.com
If only BoingBoing could suggest a solvent capable of taking care of a primitive stain like you.
Okay, it's been nigh unto 24 hours--I don't see a list yet.
I don't even see a suggestion of a single piece to view.
What a bunch of artists you are.
Noen - Merry Christmas!
I'll tell you all about it at the bus stop kurt
I have to agree with Billy, even though I don't agree with his D-bag tone. I have two issues of Juxtapoz from 1997 where Rob't and Coop were featured back to back, think.
There's definitely more (and better) art out there, but lately it seems as if most artists are busy drawing either vector-cutesy-graffiti-meets-Bape-mascot-with-a-hint-of-web2.0-glossiness
or cut-and-paste-tribal-arrow-spraypaint-grunge-vector-packs-from-media-arsenal-with-old-english-lettering to do anything creative.
NOEN SAID:
"You want deionized water, distilled water. Tap water is too hard, has too many minerals in it..."
FATHER BROWN SAYS:
Thanks!
I wouldn't thought that a little soap would leave a film.
hey kingofcats (#37) , for starters, check these links
(be forewarned that i'm a sucker for the psychedelic/visionary/crazy stuff which doesn't equal easy to deal with websites!)
here's raw vision
http://www.rawvision.com/
paul laffoley
http://www.laffoley.com/
mati klarwein
http://www.matiklarweinart.com/
alex grey
http://www.alexgrey.com/
and, last and most assuredly least, some of my stuff
http://drawrings.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_archive.html
Father Brown:
"I wouldn't thought that a little soap would leave a film."
No matter how little is in the water you use, when it evaporates the soap and minerals (usually calcium carbonate) in the water are all that is left and it will leave a film. This doesn't matter on your counter tops, it does matter on your LCD screen.
#42 Billy
I love "Baby Bottle"...and I bet you like Bruce Bickford...
Montauk/Pyros...merry xmas to you, too.
You know, if you don't know how to clean your computer monitor, you probably don't reach the minimum requirements to be in this thread.
Just saying.
Should we start a fake, smarmy conversation about how to tie our shoes?
God, at least I hope it was fake.
#44 el nico,
hey thanks and thanks for bruce bickford. i was in the dark about him ! not anymore !
That's in addition to your basic dishonesty. You've changed usernames at least three times since you started posting on Boing Boing. You've also done blatant linkwhoring here, attaching hyperlinks to you own website to the punctuation in your comments. And when I wrote to you about those hyperlinks instead of simply banning you, you responded with bushels of further lies, plus a bunch of crude, stupid, antiquated misogynist cliches aimed at me personally.
(Now and then, over the years, I've been verbally abused by people who were actually good at it -- and boy, are you not in their league.)
Let me give you one of the great secrets of online participation, to take with you to your next discussion venue: If you can't be brilliant, be polite and well-behaved -- and keep it short.
...
Montauk: Please don't get the idea that I think you're a bore in Father Brown's class. Lord knows, you're not. But your objection to the presence of conventionally attractive women in RW's art doesn't engage.
Do you imagine that David Pescovitz only finds Robert Williams' art interesting because of its cheesecake content? That's hardly the most noteworthy feature of RW's work.
Do you expect David Pescovitz to implicitly lie, and not write about artists he finds interesting, just because some of their work features conventionally attractive women?
Have you checked out the incidence of conventionally attractive representations of human beings in figurative art?
And I don't mean to belabor you, but you've also ignored Gillagriene's and Aaron's comments about the snake in the birdcage, which they've correctly identified as the central narrative image in this strongly narrative painting. Look again. There's a story going on there.
You have to start out by approaching a piece of art on its own terms. You're free after that to decide that it's pernicious crap, or boring, or derivative, or whatever. But if you don't grant it that initial sympathy, you'll never know what's interesting about it; and if you don't know why other people find it interesting, you won't be able to get them to listen to the things you have to say about it.
...
Elnico, there are no PC police; and if there were, their existence wouldn't explain what's been going on in this thread.
...
Billy, KingofCats: well done, both of you.