Fanboy Art Collection

I had a mixed reaction to KAWS (aka Brian Donnelly) after seeing an exhibit of his work at the Brooklyn Museum but his fanboy outsider art collection hits all the right notes.  Basil Wolverton's caricature looked familiar, probably from Mad magazine which appealed to my eye as much as my teen funny bone.

 

"TV Calamity" Original Art by Basil Wolverton (ca 1960s)

For mostly prurient reasons, I enjoyed Mr. Natural and Fritz the Cat in college.  It wasn't until Terry Zwigoff explored their weird creator in Crumb, a 1994 documentary, that I realized how much R.'s comix colored my view of the counter culture.  He often collaborated with Aline Kominsky, his wife, whom he drew below with a Mac and who was immortalized in Diary of a Teenage Girl, one of my favorite films of the last decade. 

Doesn't this sketch have an Edward Hopper vibe?

"Hotel Girl Study" by Jane Dickson (2016)

Donnelly clearly has a taste for strange, surreal and abstract images.

"In The Desert" by H.C. Westerman (1971)

"Math" by Nicole Eisenman (2017)

Untitled by Lee Lozano (1962)

Forty-eight untitled drawings by Helen Rae cover an entire wall, exuding a fractured magnetism.  Deaf and non-verbal, she found inspiration for many of them in Vogue fashion shoots.  Rae added her own Cubist-like twist, transforming them into something else entirely.  She exhibited her work, my favorite in the show, for the first time at age 76.

IMHO, Donnelly should establish his own museum or at least endow a wing at another institution to share his atypical taste with the world on a permanent basis.  

If you haven't seen The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, you're in for a real treat.  Benedict Cumberbatch does a smashing job portraying the artist who changed the way the world treats cats.  Cumberbatch is an art lover, too.  I once spotted him holding court at a Basquiat exhibit.

Untitled (1932)

"My Wallpaper" (1931)

Dogs peer out from a collage by Nicole Appel.

Dancers & Dogs (2019)

She also has a thing for Cuba.

"Cuba" (2018)

 

Kewl Brooklyn

Time was you'd head to a movie theater to cool down on a hot summer day.  I chose the Brooklyn Museum instead.  The curators are trying pretty hard to attract a younger crowd.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.  In some respects KAWS picks up where Keith Haring left off: graphic art that really pops.  I wonder what Keith would be doing now if HIV hadn't killed him?

Cartoons like the Simpsons are a huge influence.

Small K, B, M, H Landscapes

The Kaws Album

Sponge Bob, too.

His oversize sculptures don't look like they'd last 3000 years, that's for sure.

Born To Bend

Gone

Companion (Resting Place) 

Separated

Take

Well maybe the wood ones will.  The videos in the gallery suggest KAWS is BIG in China.

I love how the mask blanks my features, too.

Tide

Existential question for the KAWS generation:  does plastic bleed?

New Morning

Merchandising affirms KAWS's global popularity. Signs posted in the gallery use FOMO to push visitors in the gift shop, where many overpriced items were sold out.  Watching cartoons or the Muppets on this Brazilian sofa would be super meta. 

Gang

Skateboarders seem like the perfect demographic.

I breezed through KAWS:  WHAT PARTY guilt-free. "The Slipstream: Reflection, Resilience, and Resistance in the Art of Our Time," another exhibit (and mouthful) demanded closer attention, although it included skateboards, too.

Maximum Sensation by mounir fatmi (2010)

Loophole of Retreat by Simone Leigh (2019)

"Dogwood Flower" by Sugiura Yasuyoshi (2019)

"Nicotine" by Karon Davis (2016)

Would you believe this is Queen Elizabeth?  I doubt if she likes it any more than "The Crown."

Koh-i-noor by Hew Locke (2005)

Koh-i-noor (close-up)

"John Edmonds: A Sidelong Glance" is what really drew me to the museum.  By positioning Black men next to the African sculptures he collects, Singleton comments on desire and acquisition.

Anatolli & Collection" John Edmonds (2019)

A Guard for the Gods by John Edmonds (2020)

Serendipitous discoveries also abounded.

Revolutionary (Angela Davis) by Wadsorth A. Jarrell

"Paul Cadmus" by Luigi Lucioni (1928)

Over 300 Million Served" by CRANK (2019)

"The Virgin" by Joseph Stella (1926)

I'm also ashamed to admit I'd never visited the museum's spectacular third floor.  Or maybe I'd just never seen it so empty.

Yo, Truth Be Told:  masks in museums are a pain in the ass post-vaccination!