Drinks Inspired by Artists

In keeping with my apparent recent theme of "Just Reposting from Flavorpill" (ha!), had to post this gem. Check out Drink Inspired by Famous Artists. I wasn't expecting them to be as tongue-in-cheek or clever as they are. Here are some of my favorites:
Georgia O’Keeffe’s Fuzzy Vulva
- Vodka
- Peach schnapps
- Honey syrup
Mix with bone of dead desert animal.

Vincent van Gogh’s Green Fairytale
- Absinthe
- Sugar cubes
- Water
Garnish with your own severed ear — because it’s coming off anyway. Better to chop it off while you’re still sober enough to make a clean cut.

Marcel Duchamp’s Urinal Scorpion Bowl
- Dark rum
- Brandy
- Orange juice
- Orgeat syrup
Serve in actual urinal, and share with friends. Anyone who doesn’t want to drink out of the urinal is an ignorant traditionalist afraid to break the shackles of bourgeois conformity.

One of the commenters also mentioned a drink inspired by Hemingway: "this delightful little punch in the face called Death In The Afternoon. Which is, quite simply, Absinthe mixed with ice-cold champagne." Given that I am currently reading the drunkfest that is The Sun Also Rises, that sounds like a worthwhile pursuit...
In the meantime, we're drinking Jameson & Ginger for tonight's Always Sunny episode.
Cheers!
d.

Vollis Simpson

The NY Times recently ran an article called "Vollis Simpson: Junkyard Poet of Whirligigs." It's about a 91-year-old outsider artist and former farm equipment repairman in North Carolina who creates huge, fanciful and dynamic pieces from junkyard scrap. I was particularly drawn by a quote in the article from Rebecca Alban Hoffberger, "a Maryland philanthropist and consultant to nonprofits" who opened the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. She says of Simpson, “He’s delighted with attention, but he doesn’t need it…my favorite artists don’t watch themselves being artists.”
My favorite artists don't watch themselves being artists.
What an interesting little phrase. Some of my favorite artists decidedly do "watch themselves being artists" (Whistler comes to mind). If you're not watching yourself being an artist--i.e. if you're unaware of your artistic identity, or don't particularly identify your work as 'art'--then are you really an artist?
Food for thought.

IKEA and art

Haha...check out this article on flavorpill about various artists' interpretations of IKEA.

Andy Warhol on YouTube

I saw this video on another blog...

(including another gem of a Braniff Air commercial with Dalí...)
And it led me to a multitude of Andy Warhol youtube videos:








I think my favorite is the TDK ad...and the Dalí screen test.
Did you know Andy Warhol had three television shows?
"- Andy Warhol's Fashion (ca. 1980)
- Andy Warhol's TV (ca 19981)
- Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes (1987)
ANDY WARHOL'S FASHION was shown on Manhattan Cable, Andy Warhol's TV was shown on the the Madison Square Garden Network and Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes was shown on MTV."
from Zamboni, where you can watch and even download some episodes.
Also, couldn't resist posting this Duchamp interview found during the Andy Warhol-athon:

Passport Photos of the Rich and Famous

This photoset on flickr of famous artists' passport photos is so awesome!
Mary Cassatt:

A very "earnest" looking young Ernest Hemingway (ha! geddit?) sans beard:

Gertrude Stein:

Man Ray:

TS Eliot:

Frank Lloyd Wright:

Edward Steichen:

Langston Hughes (looking very surreal):

Walt Disney (how this passes as a passport photo I don't know):

Peggy Guggenheim (I've never see her look so...ordinary):

And more including three of e.e.cummmings, Thornton Wilder, Isadora Duncan, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Lewis Hine, Berenice Abbott, the Marx Brothers (they got the crazy eyes!), John Singer Sargeant (with a large mustache, who knew?), Grant Wood, Edith Wharton, Edna St Vincent Millay etc...

Gabriel Orozco

Gabriel Orozco currently has a retrospective on at MoMA that was recently reviewed in the NY Times.
I was particularly taken with the description of one of the pieces in his first MoMA show in 1993, pictured above. Instead of using the sterile gallery space offered him by MoMA, he "chose instead the museum's nooks and crannies," creating this piece by placing bright pieces of fruit in the windows of the building across the street from MoMA. Holland Cotter writes in the Times, "You looked up and there they were: bright dots connecting art and life."
The main point of the article is a contrast between that show and the current one, which is bigger and more flamboyant. Cotter makes the point that the tones of these two shows point to a dichotomy in Orozco's artistic practice, concluding, "at some point he may decide which he really wants to be: the artist of poetic epiphanies or of institutional product. In this show he is both."
Yet he also says, "Mr. Orozco likes to disappoint; it is almost a credo of his. "I want to disappoint the expectations of the one who waits to be amazed," he has said." To me that quote would indicate that Orozco cultivates not just a dichotomy but a continuous change in his practice so as to confound expectations.
Either way, I cannot help being captivated by this description of "what Mr. Orozco has always done best: find the cosmic in the commonplace, sweeten abjection with wisdom and wit." Yet supposedly now, "At 47, Mr. Orozco is no longer the footloose wanderer, toothbrush, notebook and camera in hand, who found poetry in puddles and dignity in debris, dung and dryer lint."
Sounds like such an interesting show, not just for the art itself, but for what the chosen pieces and tone of the show overall say about a career and a man.
Wish I could see it!

He Yun Chang

He Yun Chang: Casting, Beijing Tokyo Art Projects, Beijing, 2004
Date: April 23-24, 2004
Venue: Art Gallery, Beijing
Process: He Yun Chang will cast himself inside a cement block and stay there for 24 hours.
Materials: Two tons of cement and sand, steel, etc.

More here.

Toilet Roll Art

Wow--made from toilet paper rolls!
Done by an artist called Junior Fritz Jacquet.

Also, this is my hundredth post! whoo?

Gwon Osang

Check out this guy.
He makes sculptures by photographing his subjects hundreds of times and putting the photos together into hauntingly off-kilter 3D objects.

Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries

Cool beans.

Bosch tchotchkes

Pretty great. Based on the imagery of Hieronmyus Bosch, a Renaissance painter often seen as a forerunner of Surrealism. On Amazon.

RIP Irving Penn

I loved this man's work.
From the Times obit: “Here was a young American who seemed unspoiled by European mannerisms or culture. I remember he wore sneakers and no tie. I was struck by his directness and a curious unworldliness, a clarity of purpose, and a freedom of decision. What I call Penn’s American instincts made him go for the essentials.”

Subodh Gupta

Very interesting artist...makes sculpture out of pots and pans:


As well as more traditional materials:

Of this bronze take on Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q., Gupta says he is an "idol thief." "Art language is the same all over the world," he claims, "which allows me to be anywhere." An interesting sentiment.

Thomas Demand

Would you believe those are photographs of sets...made out of paper?
Yeah pretty neat. Just went to his opening at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin.