Now THAT’s how you Photoshop
I’ve seen bits of this guy’s work around, but I never bothered to look him up until today. His name is Erik Johansson. He’s a Swedish photographer who works in Berlin.
There’s no modeling or 3D, it’s all multiple of his own photographs artfully cut together. There are thousands of people out there bashing photos together, badly. This guy is really good.
Go look.
July 28, 2015 — 9:03 pm
Comments: 4
Bruce Jenner is bustin’ out all over
Lion skin cloak? Check. Knobbly club? Check. Tits? Ohhhhh…wait a second.
We went to a stately home for a delphinium festival today (when you hook up with a gardener, marvelous things happen). This was on the grounds. It’s got all the usual accoutrements of a classical Hercules, but this is clearly a chick.
Well. Wikipedia tells me this is Omphale queen of Lydia and not quite a goddess. Hercules accidentally biffed someone and was sentenced by the Oracle to be her slave for a while, for some reason.
Unfortunately, none of the central texts survive in the original, so we are left piecing the story together from bits of art and literary allusion. The important thing is, this was a period of rich cross dressing for Hercules and Omphale.
*shrug*
In a perfectly unrecognizable form, the story of Hercules and Omphale was the subject of MST3K Experiment 502: Hercules. You can watch it in its entirety here.
Because I am all about the cultcha.
June 24, 2015 — 7:53 pm
Comments: 2
Absolutely haram
Found this in a search of old novelty postcards. Abdul Hamid (1725–1789), Wikipedia tells me, was the 27th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He was very devout and something of an Islamic saint.
And this is an old postcard of him composed entirely of half-naked ladies.
It’s like, weren’t we better off when nobody gave a shit what blasphemy people got up to halfway around the world?
Sincerely,
Weasel
April 22, 2015 — 9:36 pm
Comments: 15
it’s incredibly worrying when the bedbird tucks you in
Very funny. Two monks invent a bestiary. Well, I laughed.
Technically still holiday here. I slept past noon all four days of the long weekend. And you know what? I totally threw my back out doing it. Lying around in bed and sitting around in front of the computer too much.
How in the heck am I going to get up early and hoof it to work tomorrow?
April 6, 2015 — 8:05 pm
Comments: 3
Guess who!
Recognize this monster? No? This is a statue of Lucille Ball in her birth town of Celoron, N.Y. A thing to frighten naughty children with.
See, this is what happens when you stop giving art students years of rigorous drawing instruction and then demand realism from them.
Easter is a major holiday here; four day weekend and everything. So it’s back to loafing for me!
Good weekend and happy Easter!
April 3, 2015 — 7:49 pm
Comments: 19
I hope you weren’t eating
Romance novel covers as recreated by ordinary-looking people.
I was struck by how often the woman is clothed and the man is buck nekkid. I know romance novels are hardcore porn for women, so naturally would leave her with a little more dignity, but it seems like story mismatch for them not to be in a similar state of undress.
When I see a naked man in a clothed situation, I expect him to be snapping a towel, waving his winky about and bellowing “WAAAAUUUUGH!” or “woowoo!”
No, I have not just told you something you didn’t know about Uncle B.
March 4, 2015 — 7:36 pm
Comments: 15
art.
There are not many ugly cement box buildings in the UK, but there are some and they stick out like gangrenous thumbs. Uncle B heard on the radio the other day they’re trying to save one in London that’s in danger of the fate it so obviously deserves.
“Brutalist architecture” is not called that because it’s brutal and awful, believe it or not, but because le Corbusier liked to work in raw concrete — béton brut in Frog. The style that says, “fuck you, aesthetics!”
Anyway, I ran across this delightful concrete abomination on the interwebs tonight. It’s a fountain, put up in Swindon in 1966. The good burghers of the town hated it from the start.
Cast in concrete and seven feet to an edge, it was greeted by widespread burst of public outrage which soon mellowed into chronic disgust and loathing.
Within a remarkably short time the Cube was covered with slime. It soon became a popular gathering place for drunks, tramps and vandals. It was set in a pool which eventually became stagnant and doubled as an open-air lavatory and garbage receptacle.
Said one local wag, “It would be very fitting if the characters who voted to squander our money could be chained to the Thing for a few hours on a Saturday.”
It was pulled down before the Seventies were out. Honestly, look at this fucking thing. Can there be any more persuasive evidence that our rulers hate our guts?
February 25, 2015 — 10:47 pm
Comments: 12
This is my favorite of the cartoon reactions. The artist is Joep Bertrams. Onsterfelijk means immortal.
I like the sentiment. Sadly, I don’t believe it. In every instance I can think of, terrorism worked. Works. Works exactly as intended.
If they keep Charlie Hebdo going, and it keeps publishing enthusiastic blasphemy, I’ll be impressed and encouraged. But the point stands. Hesitant people will hesitate even more, and there will be more hesitant people.
The Financial Times has *already* run a “now, I’m not condoning terrorism, but…” article (link goes to HotAir because FT is behind a firewall). Western media are blurring out the offending images in reports about the incident. (Here’s the Telegraph. Here’s the New York Daily News (scroll down).
The AP’s sniffy, sanctimonious press release describing how they avoid all controversial images hilariously exploded in their faces when the Washington Examiner discovered them selling prints of Piss Christ on their web site. You remember — Andres Serrano’s photo of a crucifix submerged in a jar of old pee. (Btw, hate to admit it, always sneakingly thought that was a really haunting and beautiful image. Shame about the pee).
Point is, it’s probably going to work. This is probably not the tipping point. That depresses me as much as the murders.
January 7, 2015 — 10:41 pm
Comments: 6
It’s art
No, really. This guy makes these awful little clay-and-acrylic sculptures that look like unholy mashups of skin, teeth, toenails and secondary sexual characteristics. And hair. And at least one eyeball. And there’s a tongue covered in teeth. Oh, just go look.
They’re like poorly thought out souvenirs from the Mütter Museum.
They don’t fit my idea of fine art, exactly, but I must admit…they have a certain appeal. Okay, appeal is probably the wrong word. They’re very well done and. You know. Interesting.
Though I have to confess, it is my highest ambition to be a brain in a jar some day. Animate or not, I’m not fussy.
November 18, 2014 — 4:55 pm
Comments: 15
Weaselface, yourself
It’s Garbage Day, callooh callay! The happiest day of the week!
Eh. Not really. Between the two of us, we’re one saved cardboard box and a jam jar from being hoarders. Just…not tidy people. But tonight we made an effort to round up some junk and pitch it. I was most surprised when this thing fell out of an envelope.
This thing. This drawing. It’s a nice reproduction of a master drawing by Charles Le Brun (1619–1690), the dude Charles Louis XIV called the greatest French artist who ever lived.
Yeah. Some endorsements are not so good for your rep. (Ask Wagner. Or don’t; he’s dead).
Le Brun’s paintings are exactly the kind of pompous rubbish you can imagine the Sun King eating up with a spoon. But his drawings had an influence on art for a century or more — mostly his notions of conveying emotion on the human face.
This thing, though, is a part of a series of drawings — a philosophy, I suppose — known as le Brun’s Physiognomy. He’s trying to relate people faces to animal faces. With absolutely no success, if you ask me. They all look like creepy genetic experiments.
Anyway, these are the weasel faced ladies. When it turned up, Uncle B exclaimed, “I wondered where that got to! I bought that for your birthday. Or Christmas. I don’t remember; it was years ago.”
It was in the current bills-to-pay pile. Ladies and gentlemen, my housekeeping.
November 3, 2014 — 9:40 pm
Comments: 12