Recently I was introduced to the bibliography tool Zotero. This tool for documenting the bibliographic information from various books and articles I find while searching the web came in very handy when I found the book Pop Surrealism:The Rise of Underground Art, by Robert Williams. This book documents the beginning of Pop art (also known as Lowbrow art) from its birth in the 190’s to the present. It also includes essays and artwork from twenty three well known artists. Not only would I recommend this book because it gives information about the history of this movement, but it provides pictures of the pieces as well. One artist that everyone should recognize in the book is Shag, he is the artist synonymous with tiki art, but the list of famous pop surrealists only grows from there. Although this book plays up the “outsider art” factor, many people have become believers of this style and consider it a relevant movement within the art world. You be the judge and read this book, you may discover a new artist or become more familiar with the now popular world of lowbrow art.

Cover of the book Pop Surrealism:The Rise of Underground Art

Thanks to the delightfully flashy and colorful movie Marie Antoinette, by Sofia Coppola, the historic life of France’s queen has become a part of pop culture. In continuation with the re-education of her life and those of the court of Versailles, the Getty Museum will be screening films about love and seduction within the court. When browsing through a favorite art blog of mine, art.blogging.la, I came across the post about these films. According to caryn, a writer for the blog, the Getty will show the first film of the series entitled “The Lifted Hem: Seduction and Betrayal at the Court of Versailles, starting April 18th and continuing for the following two weekends. Personally, I will be going Saturday April 19th to see the segment about Marie Antoinette, but the previous night should entertaining with the segment about Madame Dubarry, the mistress of King Louis XV. The exhibition is inspired the court paintings of Jean-Honoré Fragonard, the famous rococo painter who depicted love and lust in his works. Although this is not a contemporary art exhibition, there will never be a replacement for the work that defined moments in history. Read more about the even on art.blogging. la in the post “Let Us Eat Cake”

images from The Getty from the films “When and Man Loves” and “Marie Antoinette”

After searching through my pageflake, I noticed a post from wooster collective about the artist Anthony Lister. I had never heard of him before, but his work is incredible. The large scale canvases he paints on are mixed media and focus on superheroes and villians. He is getting ready for a solo show at New Image Art Gallery, opening April 26th, which looks very promising since his paintings are energetic and amusing. Since the show won’t be ready for a while, check out New Image Art Gallery in Los Angeles to see some of the artists currently on display. In addition to Lister, NIAG represents artists with similar work.

“coke nights on thriller(right)” from anthonylister.com

Underground is a term that gets thrown around a lot, but the underground world is a vast culture that can embody everything from the clothes someone wears to the books they read. So, how are you supposed to navigate this confusing world of art, style, and culture and come up with useful information? My question was answered after being introduced to the site pageflakes. This site allows subscribers to create their own page complete with widgets, or rss feeds, that supply up to the minute information from their favorite news sources, blogs, entertainment sites, and so on. More importantly, it helps users search for topics from a variety of pages, resulting in better information and more chances to learn something new, perhaps what is going on in the world of underground art. Pageflakes guides the user through the site with the shiny button, aptly named “flakey”, found in the upper corner of the page. After creating my very own pagecast, I began to search through my favorite sites, adding one rss feed after another. In the end I think I created a pageflake that can satisfy my need to learn all there is about the art world and the people who make it run.

Let’s begin with my favorite part of the page, the rss feeds. I am always drawn towards photos, video clips, magazine cutouts that can evoke inspiration, so I felt it would only make sense to keep up on feeds from websites and blogs that supply the best inspirations. On the right side of my page, I have filled the column these kinds of sites. Starting at the top is the youtube site that catalogs videos from Nylon magazine. Nylon magazine is a great resource for fashion and culture from the early twenties crowd and their video clips bring the magazine to life. This widget is followed by Wooster Collective, the site, mentioned before on this blog, that follows street artists from all around the world. Street art is a great thing to follow when looking for new underground artists because many street arts will eventually show their work in smaller galleries like those found in Chinatown. Under wooster collective is the fantastic magazine Flaunt. Flaunt has some of the best photography along with great articles about musicians, actors, and most importantly artists. These magazines are generally found in art classrooms and design studios, so what would be better to read than the magazine that is read by artists? Following Flaunt is up to the date information about fashion shows from Style.com. Many times designers collaborate with artists, as seen in the current collection from Prada featuring the talented James Jean. Following the fashion shows is a great way to learn about emerging artists and view the eclectic people who frequent these shows. As I added more rss feeds I only thought it was necessary to add SourHarvest. This is one of the first sites I included on my blog role because every week they have the best list of every opening from the smaller galleries found in Culver City, SIlverlake, Chinatown, and Santa Monica. This column on my pageflake has the most action and gives me the best insider information on fashion, culture, and the arts.

The left column of my pagecast is the academic side. I have included a universal blog search and a universal news search. Both of these tools can link me to other lovers of the underground as well as articles, books, journals, etc., that help teach people what is going on in the underground world, further answering the question of “What is the underground?”. In my most recent searches I have used the terms contemporary, urban, culture, and, art. I feel contemporary yields the best information because the items retrieved have ranged from street artists to well known museums. The term urban has not been as helpful because that word on its own generally doesn’t link to art too often. Fortunately, the words contemporary and underground together seem to bring about articles about artists currently showing in contemporary museums, a big help when looking for new artists to follow. Underneath these two search boxes I have included a wikipedia box because this source offers great biographies on artists and links you to similar artists and galleries within their network.

At the bottom of my pagecast I have compiled a bibliography of five good articles and books I have found about contemporary art. The bibliography was created using Zotero and searching on Amazon.com and various library resources. One of the two books I found looks like it is a very good resource for newcomers in the art world. It is titled “Pop Surrealism: The Rise of Underground Art” and it explains how underground art came to be. The pop surrealists created the term low brow art, which has more currently become the genre of choice for local galleries. Most of this information came straight from the introduction of the book and the contents look like they focus on individual artists, a helpful tool when you are unfamiliar with who is famous and for what. The second book I chose provides pictures of street art from around the world. Not only are there inspirational photographs, but it gives the reader a chance to see what art is emerging from the underground. Street art is accessible to most people living in an urban area and this book takes the constantly changing art seen on the sidewalks and makes them permanent. Of the three articles I cited, I believe the article by Martha Groves is the most interesting because it is written about BCAM, a museum that has recently opened that is filled with artists who were once underground. Her article gives some behind the scenes information about what it took to open this contemporary art museum.

The last thing I have included on my pagecast are the bookmarks saved from my searches as well as my soulmate’s searches. Hopefully you all remember Arlisnap, my bookmarking soulmate. I like to keep track of this bookmarker’s tags because they have similar interests as me. Since I don’t go on to delicious everyday, I can keep track of my favorite sties and arlisnap’s every time I go to pageflakes.

I hope you all take the time to tour my pageflake because it is full of resources for education and inspiration. I think this way of monitoring a number of sites at one time is very helpful and as seen in the amount of rss feeds I found about art and culture, there seems to be no slowing down in the growth of the art world. Many of the magazines and blogs I included share topics