The Immortal Bob Ross

I meant to write a post about Bob Ross—he of the “happy little trees”—back in July, but…well, stuff happened. Once July ended, it kind of went on the back burner. Last week, however, College Humor published an article by Amir Khan entitled “15 Times Bob Ross Was EXTREMELY Bob Ross,” which offers a touching tribute to the man:

Bob, you taught us how to find those little happy trees within ourselves, and for that, we are eternally grateful.

The post is definitely worth a look.

By pumpkin46654, via College Humor

By pumpkin46654, via College Humor

Bob Ross, as you may know, hosted a public television show called “The Joy of Painting.” You might not think that this would be a path to a sort of superstardom, but here we are, talking about the man. I don’t think you could find anyone on Earth who, once they knew who Bob Ross is, wouldn’t love him, at least a little bit.

The Internet has been a gold mine of Bob Ross, from memes and animated GIFs to Autotuned music videos: Continue reading

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I’ll Never Understand Some People’s Idea of “Art” (UPDATED)

I really do believe that some people mistake edginess, abrasiveness, or plain old controversy for “art.”

The recently leaked private images of Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton, among others, are set to be printed onto life-sized canvases and exhibited at an upcoming event held in Los Angeles.

Cory Allen Contemporary Art (CACA) has announced that the works will be among the new additions to artist XVALA’s “Fear Google” concept.

They are set to be displayed at his upcoming exhibition, named “No Delete”, at the CACA’s space The Showroom in Saint Petersburg, Florida.

The artist’s publicist, Cory Allen, said in a statement: “XVALA appropriating celebrity compromised images and the overall ‘Fear Google’ campaign has helped strengthen the ongoing debate over privacy in the digital era.

“The commentary behind this show is a reflection of who we are today. We all become ‘users’ and in the end, we become ‘used.'”

That’s quite a bold statement for an artist who uses a pseudonym and speaks through a publicist. I had never heard of XVALA before I saw this article, and I already hate them.

I thought this article was satire at first, initially because of the subject matter, and then because the promoter goes by the name CACA.

I am perfectly willing to accept that no one person gets to define “art,” and that any single piece of art will mean 50 different things to 40 different people. What I do not accept, however, is that displaying stolen, intimate photographs of people without their permission is any less a grotesque invasion of privacy if you add some pretentious artiste-speak to it, than if it was posted anonymously to 4Chan.

“In today’s culture, everybody wants to know everything about everybody. An individual’s privacy has become everyone else’s business,” XVALA added. “It has become cash for cache.”

Shut the hell up.

UPDATE (09/07/2014): Anne Laurie at Balloon Juice named XVALA “Douchecanoe of the Week,” and the description made it into his Wikipedia page. Well done, internet.

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Public Art in Austin

Austin360 has an article up by Jeanne Claire van Ryzin on public art in Austin. I mention it in part because it is a good article, but mostly because my wife is quoted in it and I’m giddily proud of her for being awesome.

It covers several temporary public art exhibits I have gotten to see recently, and I hope you get to enjoy Austin’s public art, too.

This is from “Albedo,” by Mason Leland Moore and Joel Noland.

albedo_11348015253

More pictures on Flickr.

This is a composite of pictures I took at “The Color Inside” (PDF flyer) by James Turrell:

thecolorinside_121213

More pictures at Flickr and Tumblr.

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I Find This Highly Amusing for Some Reason

By carmichaellibrary (Student Book ArtUploaded by AlbertHerring) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Click to embiggen.

This bears the following description at Wikimedia Commons:

Isabelle, our new, unofficial library mascot. On loan from a student artist.

I definitely do enjoy self-referential art.

Photo credit: By carmichaellibrary (Student Book Art. Uploaded by AlbertHerring) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

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