Clowns! art show in Los Angeles
A huge group art show all about clowns opens this Saturday, November 15, at the Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City, California. The lineup is, er, no laffing matter, with the likes of BB faves Andrew Brandou, Korin Faught, Audrey Kawasaki, Travis Louie, Annie Owens, J. Otto Seibold, Joe Ledbetter, Travis Louie, Gary Baseman, Brandi Milne, and dozens of others. The show runs until November 29, 2008. Corey Helford Gallery kindly provided us with a sneak preview of work from the show. Clockwise above, Brandi Milne, Chet Zar, Jason Shawn Alexander, and Shag. Click the images to see them larger.
Clowns! at Corey Helford Gallery
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Clowns are evil. See John Wayne Gayce for details.
Clowns.... Brrrr!
My claurophobia cannot be touched by such coolness. Very good clown art, and I never knew there was such a thing.
I'm liking the Francis Bacon style in the top right.
but,clowns really creep me out too.
here's my favorite clown art - the cover for the 1991 mr. bungle album.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v290/fearandloathing/Mr_Bungle.jpg
http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:gifuxqe5ldte
Clowns scare me. It's one of the only phobias I have (all my other fears are completely rational .. really). My grandmother was also an artist, and the only piece of hers I have is a painting she made of a clown. It freaks me out sometimes to have it on the wall, but I love it anyway.
in my hometown, children's hospice did a fundraiser called "clowning around town". myself and about a dozen other artists were given a 'blank' clown sculpture ( male or female, totally heideous)and were fairly free to do what we wanted with certain parameters ( family show, etc...) most went after the smily, happy clown theme, while mine went more for the realistic drunk-under-the-make-up route. after the clowns were placed in various locations downtown, it only took a couple days before the colrophobes were taking hammers, axes and sawzalls to the downtown clowns. fortunately, mine was one of five that was not vandalized, but either 'the guy' or one of the guys who did the vandalizing was caught as he stopped his car in the middle of busy highway 41 on the bayfront ( stopping traffic and really pissing people off) and ran over to a pair of kissing clowns ( the artist's take on the famous end of ww2 photo "the kiss") to push the sculpture over and start to kick the living shit out of it. a bunch of sight seers were standing near the statue, and ran and tackled the guy, holding him for the cops. the clowns that survived ( mne included) were eventually auctioned off, with 100% of the proceeds going to fund the construction of a children's hospice in s.w. florida. yeehaw!
Naked women, check.
Drinks, check
Kleenex, check
Bong, check.
Damn, when do I get to go to this party.
about time Chet Zar got some props on BoingBoing! good work, folks.
As somebody who's learning to clown, I find the comments in this diary.... interesting - even if they're all too common. A whole lot of people will say they're afraid of clowns, but so few actually are.
Art plays off this idea, killer mutant undead clowns. I don't mind it, I like that angle too.
I think it's normal to take something wholesome and happy and distort it into something obscene. Because of these books, movies, and unfortunately a couple real life examples it's become almosst the social norm to say "I'm scared of clowns".
I think that the only reason there is a little bit of apprehension beyond those points is because clowns look and act strange, they trigger an uncanny valley reflex, a fear of those different.
Not condemning anybody, I just find it interesting.
A whole lot of people will say they're afraid of clowns, but so few actually are.
Researcher Dr Penny Curtis said: "We found that clowns are universally disliked by children. Some found them quite frightening and unknowable."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7189401.stm
One well publicized study does not discredit all real world findings. If the findings in the study were true then people would be running in terror whenever there was a clown around.
Some people truly are afraid of clowns, but not many.
More kids are scared of clowns, but they're scared of the unknown. Kids are often scared of Santa, or mascots in cosume, or friendly animals.
One well publicized study does not discredit all real world findings.
One study would seem better than none. Are you using 'real world findings' as a synonym for your subjective impressions?
I only know one clown. Her "stage" name is Molly Penny, and she works at CHEO (Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (Canada)).
She has been a nurse at the hospital for over 30 years. I don't know her well, but I have chatted with her at the annual telethon more than once.
The only clown I know is not evil. Quite the contrary.