Ian Bunn | Political & Popular Culture Arts

Anthony Lister the 33 year old Australian painter and Installation artist, notable within the Lowbrow art movement, whose work is influences from a number of areas and genres, including street art, expressionism, pop art, and contemporary youth culture, has been featured by Nicholas Forrest in an Blouin Artinfo article titled ‘Aussie Street Art Star Anthony Lister’s Grimacing Graffiti Faces Go Global’. Forrest states “…Lister has been taking the urban art world by storm over the past few years with his painterly interpretations of grunge imagery. In well-reviewed exhibitions both at home and abroad, and frequent appearances in leading street-art publications, in 2011 he was also named one of the 50 most collectable artists by Australian Art Collector magazine… So what’s made him so successful transitioning his work from outdoors to indoors? One reason might be the confluence of subversive street aesthetic with high-art draughtsmanship in his work, making his images seem equally relevant and accessible in an up-market gallery as they do on the gritty walls of alleys. Lister is also proficient across a wide variety of mediums, as at home working with pens, stickers and aerosol as he is au-fait with different surfaces. And the subjects of his mainly figurative compositions are just as varied as his materials: sci-fi superheroes, clown-like characters, and licentious ladies appear as often as images of quite ordinary looking people. But the shared characteristics of his work, a signature blend of irony and decadence, are what make them stand out from the crowd; fed from his single-minded work approach. “The first rule of painting is to take everyone else out of the equation. I am the viewer, so I don’t underestimate my viewers,” he explains. “I can’t paint for anyone else.” Later, “it’s all about having the courage to say this is finished… It’s like being a soldier because I have to be hard as fuck to fall in love with these things and let them go.”

Inspired by Nicholas Forrest, Blouin Artinfo ow.ly/hnLUY Image source Steve Gray ow.ly/hnMfX

Marco Brambilla the 52 year old Italian – New York based filmmaker and installation artist known for his elaborate recontextualizations of popular and found imagery, has been profiled by Bob Morris for an article published in the New York Times titled ‘Where the Art Is Wild in 3D’. Morris states “…“Creation (Megaplex),” opened at the Nicole Klagsbrun gallery in Chelsea last week, the third of a trilogy that makes art from film. It uses Mr. Brambilla’s lavish sampling of hundreds of movie clips to create a swirling helix in which Maria von Trapp, Yoda, Dr. Strangelove and others seem to be flying through the air overhead before spiraling into a celestial toilet. “It’s about the disposability of film and images in an oversaturated world,” Mr. Brambilla said, explaining his inspiration. “Content in the background to marketing.” He may be a cynic when it comes to aspects of popular culture, but he is also a sunny, sociable and sought-after guest at art and fashion parties these days. It helps that his work is generous and accessible, and it doesn’t hurt that he has had a few mainstream commercial outings, too, with a 15-second Michael Jackson Pepsi spot last September, a Ferrari collaboration in 2011 and a Kanye West video in 2010.  Mr. Brambilla, born in Milan and raised in Canada, even had his moment as a Hollywood player in 1993, when he directed “Demolition Man” at 28. He found the level of compromise discouraging, and refocused his talents on video art. His work has received good reviews and museum shows, and he has seen it projected at a parking lot at Art Basel Miami Beach, a piazza in Rome, film festivals and even in St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral (in NoLIta), where he enjoyed the sight of thousands wearing 3-D glasses…”

Inspired by Bob Morris, New York Times ow.ly/hnJ2G Image source Facebook ow.ly/hnJ1H

Tiny little girl holding an itty-bitty rose (May 11th 2012)

Lee Mingwei the Taiwanese installation artist who undertakes participatory projects where strangers can explore issues of trust, intimacy, and self-awareness. Mingwei in an interview with Kate Deimling for Artinfodotcom, when asked “For ‘The Moving Garden’, which was recently on view at the Brooklyn Museum, you placed real flowers in a 45-foot-long granite table. Visitors were invited to take a flower and give it to a stranger upon leaving the museum. How often did you have to replace the flowers?” Mingwei responded, “The museum had to replenish 150 roses every morning before it opened. By around 3pm, most of the flowers would have been taken and given as gifts between strangers. …the Brooklyn Museum created a Twitter site for participants to post their encounters. One of the most beautiful images is a tiny little girl dressed in a polka-dot dress holding an itty-bitty rose. I am fascinated by these two ideas [chance and randomness] which are quite important in my practice. I often remind myself that if one of my female ancestors didn’t go to the market that fateful morning, she would never have met my male ancestor, and thus I would never have existed.”

Inspired by Kate Deimling http://ow.ly/aEgNF image source facebook http://ow.ly/aEhjw