This blog is maintained by Joellyn Rock
as a place for art + design students
at the University of Minnesota Duluth
to dialog about visual culture.
Joellyn Rock’s academic homepage
http://www.d.umn.edu/~jrock2/<a
Month: October 2006
Walker Art Center: Giant Robot
If you think this stuff is too silly, beware:
the Walker is taking it seriously!
Attack of the Giant Robot
Thursday, October 5th
Walker Art Center
William and Nadine McGuire Theater, 7 pm
Artist Talk: Giant Robot
From movie stars, musicians, and skateboarders to toys, technology, and history, Giant Robot magazine covers cool aspects of Asian and Asian American pop culture. In 1994, Eric Nakamura and Martin Wong launched the publication with no budget, no bureaucratic meetings, and no excuses to anyone. Demonstrating know-how and attitude from the coeditors΄ punk-rock zine background, the first Giant Robot was a stapled and photocopied digest in an edition of 240. Since then, it has grown more than 100 times larger, gaining accolades as one of the best zines from the L.A. Weekly, L.A. New Times, Wired, and Zine Guide as it tackles magazine racks around the world.
Presented by the Walker Art Center Teen Arts Council (WACTAC)
Pop Surrealism + Vinyl Toys
Ok, I’m asking all my students to post to this blog interesting things that they have noticed from visual culture. Here is what I have tuned in to over the past year or two:
I am following the artists featured in Juxtapoz magazine, whose work is sometimes categorized as Pop Surrealism. Some of this work I find too creepy or too cute, but sometimes it hits just the right edge between creepy and cute, and that intrigues me. Much of it echos with the punk art popular in the late 1970s-80s. I like the low-brow sensibility, and the way it thumbs its nose at the establishment, often with humor and decoy sweetness.
Juxtapoz magazine
http://www.juxtapoz.com/mambo/
Another recent passion of mine is the designer vinyl toy world. I have begun my own humble collection of these quirky artifacts and have some designs of my own on the drawing board.
About Designer Vinyl Toys::
http://www.computerarts.co.uk/in_depth/features/vinyl_fantastical
more links in the comments::
Digital Art + Culture 