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5/24/2023 Comments

Mr. Brainwash Art Museum & the Rebirth of Culture by John Cat

A wall of Mona Lisa copies with art & squiggles across her face.
A wall of Mona Lisa's on display at Mr. Brainwash. Who is this woman?
PictureRecycled spray cans as decor.

“Do not despise my opinion, when I remind you that it should not be hard for you to stop sometimes and look into the stains of walls, or the ashes of a fire, or clouds, or mud or like places, in which, if you consider them well, you may find really marvelous ideas. “ – Leonardo Da Vinci : A Treatise on Painting. Codex Urbinas written between 1482-1519 & Published 1651

       One fine Sunday we made plans to venture out into the dystopian landscape of sunny Los Angeles to visit the Mr. Brainwash Art Museum in the posh city of Beverly Hills.  A Pop Up museum with plans to travel, it sits in a bustling area and more so on this day when a crowded art fair was open across the street in a park. 
      The moniker Mr. Brainwash, a “nom de guerre” & artistic persona, was spawned out of the 2010 documentary movie, Exit Through the Gift Shop, which is a fascinating  story in itself about an art genre they call “Street Art”. 
   A newer label of art branding, "Street Art" is considered a subgenre of Graffiti or maybe it’s vice versa . Since the term Graffito  (to scratch or draw unto walls) has been around since humanity began, then it’s probably the former.  Mr. Brainwash calls his own movement by the label "Street Pop" and the museum houses some of his oeuvre since he entered the arena of Pop.

      A man larger than the life itself, Mr. Brainwash not only evolves as a work of living art & a busy artist brimming with "ideas" but is also a skillful raconteur who already knows the game well. He seems to be having fun doing it because for him -- Life is Beautiful.
     Two important American artists (both long dead) not mentioned in the amazing  Exit Through the Gift Shop movie yet seem to play an inspirationally important role in the Mr. Brainwash Art Museum concept is Artist/Activist Keith Haring  (1958-1990) & Neo Expressionist artist Jean Michel Basquiat (1960-1988). Both are NYC artists who exploded like rockets into the 1980’s art world money speculation scene yet sadly both succumbed as the decade closed in on their short burst.  Both careers began and ended on the same NYC streets as artists of the graffiti subculture (Street Art) and their resultant infamy catapulted them both into worldwide fame.
     Starting in 1980, Haring’s  animated simple cartoon like imagery first drawn in white chalk on blank black subway advertisements, was seen by millions of people on the NYC subways before most people knew what it even meant or even who was doing it. 
        What is it advertising? Strange lined figures dancing or gesturing up at flying saucers, a radiant baby, many radiant babies, more figures running around a barking dog...
       From 1980 to 1985 it is estimated that Haring drew over 5,000 images in the NYC subways alone and this helped launch a highly successful art career. Haring even opened a NYC retail store called the Pop Shop to purvey his wares he had produced.
 
      Artist Basquiat meanwhile first gathered infamy (along with his art collaborator friend Al Diaz) with the creation of a fake religion under the tag of SAMO. The slogan tag SAMO stands for Same old Shit & according to a later Basquiat interview, was “first created to be a logo like Pepsi.”

SAMO became an icon in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where the cultural influences of rap punk and street art coalesced, heavily influencing the aesthetic of the decades to come.

      Starting in 1978 while both were still in high school, the SAMO writings would appear large on walls as words, phrases, bombastic prose and untold truths,. It usually appeared in black writing along with a copyright symbol, spray painted or scribbled on walls as:

MAKE SOUP. BUILD A FORT, SET THAT ON FIRE. - SAMO©


SAMO© SAVES IDIOTS AND GONZOIDS...

SAMO©...4 MASS MEDIA MINDWASH

SAMO© AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO GOD

SAMO©...4 THE SO-CALLED AVANT-GARDE


      Al Diaz says “SAMO was like a refresher course because there's some kind of statement being made. It's not just ego graffiti.”
   Art critic Jeffrey Deitch called it "disjointed street poetry" and yet Basquait quickly went onward to capitalize on the attentions generated to quickly becoming a heavily collected & much shown artist in galleries worldwide.
  
     Basquiat combined African, Aztec, Hispanic, and ancient Roman and Greek imagery with his own invented iconography and graphic marks in works that emphasized the physical and the gestural aspects of the artistic process. 
Repetitions of words, names, scrawls, cartoons, anatomy drawings and voodoo incantations alike, his visual savagery articulated a vivid mind eager to cash in on the buying frenzies at the time.  Art as Art-To-Go became the norm as anything created sold & some artists (Haring) even referred to it as "Fast Art "
    Even before
Basquiat ever showed his work in any galleries, Blondie (Deborah Harry bought the first canvas he ever sold when they met on the music video ( 1981) shoot for her hit song Rapture.
      He even befriended Andy Warhol (b.1928- d.1987) & they later collaborated on a series of large paintings together.  The wealthy older Warhol took an interest in the younger artist, even renting him a loft/studio from his real estate portfolio at one point. It was the same loft where Basquiat in 1987, age 27, was later found dead from a heroin overdose. 
 
      In 2017, Basquiat became the most expensive American artist ever sold at auction when one of his “Untitled 1982” skull paintings sold for a whopping $110 million. This painting was first shown and sold at Basquiat's debut American solo exhibition in the Annina Nosei Gallery in year 1982. It is one of the artworks he painted in her gallery basement space there where he ensconced himself to work (a sometimes controversially viewed arrangement in the art world.)
      Annina Nosei will forever be associated with Jean-Michel Basquiat whom she helped launch into the mainstream art world as his first American art dealer, and whom she set up in a spacious studio where he could paint large canvases. Her connection with Basquiat was a career highlight, but only one event in her distinguished and ongoing art career.
The "Untitled" 1982 Skull painting's provenance can be traced from it’s original 1982 studio inception by the artist, to it’s purchase price at the same year's show  for a sum of $19,000 ( of which the artist may have received around $9,000 for it ). Not bad for a painting which most likely took no longer than a few hours for him to paint & later in 2017 sold for $110,000,000.

          Many of the second floor paintings we saw at Brainwash Art museum revolved around a heady display of Mona Lisa canvas reproductions in gold gilded frames with artful scribbles and artfully applied paint added for effect.

       The Mona Lisa, painted by Leonardo Da Vinci, is considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world".   
 

      Enter Mr. Brainwash…

         Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect.  Although he is best known for his dramatic and expressive artworks, Leonardo also conducted dozens of carefully thought out experiments and created futuristic inventions that were groundbreaking for the time. His keen eye and quick mind led him to make important scientific discoveries, yet he never published his ideas. 

       His Treatise on Painting,  taken from pages in his notebooks from 1482-1519, was first published in France in 1651. The main aim of the treatise was to argue that painting was a science
    In year 1503, Leonardo began work on an oil painting ( Mona Lisa) that was still in his studio when he died in year 1519. It was painted & worked on intermittently over these many years on a piece of 2′ 6″ tall x 1′ 9″ wide Poplar Wood panel. Later X-Rays have revealed his own fingerprints on it. 
     So we know it was a highly valued treasure by the artist as he carried it with him during studio moves & never parted with it during his lifetime. Some theories, based on his own writings, point to it being a portrait of his own mother, Caterina, whom we know later lived with him under his care.


Picture
Bellissima Prego ! At the Mr. Brainwash Art Museum. A museum goes wonders If Batman, Picasso & Francis Bacon had a baby...?


   
        Leonardo, a chiaroscuro master of art, pioneered the Sfumato technique, which translated literally from Italian means "vanished or evaporated" or “to vanish like smoke”.  It was a method that involved applying layers of thin glazes to inform a foggy, almost ethereal effect & oftentimes Leonardo used his own fingertips to smooth the paint instead of a brush.

     The Mona Lisa (also called Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo, Italian La Gioconda, or French La Joconde), another theory was that the model may have been Leonardo’s own mother, Caterina, or other suggestions that the painting was, in fact, Leonardo’s self-portrait, given the resemblance between the sitter’s and the artist’s facial features. Some scholars suggested that disguising himself as a woman was the artist’s riddle, while others argue it is a composite painting of different people)

Since we don't know what it all means with Mr. Brainwash and Leonardo Da Vinci, we asked some museum goers what they felt about the art:


 "Ehhh I wouldn’t say he’s a cultural vampire or anything like that. I just think a lot of his works were not very original. Or they were copied from an origin and regurgitated into today's society. “The thinking man” with headphones on. “The Mona Lisa” with a lakers jersey. People want to look at art they can relate to and sadly society is dwindling closer and closer into the screen age where most everyone communicates. I think the whole point is “no ideas original, there’s nothing new under the sun. Or maybe the point of it is there is no point." -- Denim 30, Singer/Musician

Picture
A glimpse into the future perhaps? Follow your Dreams.
On the museum rooftop were some cool spray painted metal sculptural car shapes. Maybe they are real cars? We have already delved into Art Cars as the "Ultimate Street Art" genre --   Art, Art Cars & the Beautification of our Urban Societies. Published in November 2021.

      Since Pop Art is a key part of the Mr. Brainwash recipe, we feel that further reading on the subject may help better to sense it all and what better source than Andy Warhol himself to help understand it.
         Warhol wrote two books about Pop Art. Both Popism:
The Warhol Sixties and The Philosophy of Andy Warhol ( from A to B & Back Again). The enigmatic, legendary Warhol makes the reader his confidant on love, sex, food, beauty, fame, work, money, success, and much more.
        In The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, told with his trademark blend of irony and detachment, this compelling and eccentric memoir riffs and reflects on all things Warhol: New York, America, and his childhood, as well as the explosion of his career in the sixties, and his life among the rich and famous.

     Another best seller Warhol tome is the later Andy Warhol Diaries which also covers his thoughts and relationships with both artists Haring and Basquiat, among many others. Spanning the mid-1970s until just a few days before his death in 1987, the book is a compendium of the more than twenty thousand pages of the artist's diary that he dictated daily to a co-author.

     Filled with shocking observations about the lives, loves, and careers of the rich, famous, and fabulous.  Warhol's journal is endlessly fun and fascinating. 

 " Pop will eat itself " -  anonymous 


   All in all, the creation of the Mr. Brainwash brand itself might be his best work yet as he is now successfully enshrined into the pantheon of the Street Art Gods he himself so enthusiastically encapsulates in this epoch.

     In the Mr. Brainwash religion, his Pop is a regurgitated culture on a continuous loop that will never die but only continue to eat itself (unless he comes up with new ideas). Parasitic by nature, Pop Art as we are led to believe it, becomes both the champion and victim to it's own demise.

   An artist now larger than the life he created, Mr. Brainwash walks a tightrope between his creative evolving persona as a living sculptural entity, acting out his own art history, while also creating, manifesting and spinning a mix up mash of sensitive shlock to the culture which happily laps it up.

  With simplistic mantras like, LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL, he possesses an idealistic life vision but most certainly not a naive one. Like all great artists in a century, his best work is either what he is currently working on now or has not even been made yet and his largest audience just being born.


 In true Warholian fashion, we also interviewed another Brainwash museum goer about her thoughts on the art inside:
"Idk well his whole thing is art can be whatever you want it to be. You can take inspiration from the past and make it new. He wants people to smile and laugh and to enjoy the art as if they were a child again bringing back feelings of nostalgia.  And to see things from different perspectives. And Life is Beautiful ." -- Tammy 28, Fashion Consultant
Picture
Culture afficianado Tammy visits the Mr. Brainwash Museum,
Comments

4/3/2023 Comments

Space Junkers: Art as the Aesthetic Ideal - (part 3)

A black dog repairing their space rocket that crashed unto an asteroid.
Black dog helping repair crashed rocket using pieces of space junk.
"All that has dark sound has duende", that mysterious power that everyone feels but no philosopher can explain." --  poet Garcia Lorca on Art.

        No environmental story about Space Junk would be complete without a dog as an inspirational  mascot. The information is only a bridge to the artworks, using art as a healing practice.
        Remember that it is not so much the words but artwork designed to draw you into a new higher consciousness as you read. The message is ultimately about nothing.

Character:  A Black dog – a black dog is associated with good luck & sometimes depression.
Name:  Nameless except it is based on a small black dog named Skillet.
Description: Small terrier sized dog. Wears chef hat with an antenna from implanted micro chip, has heart shaped white spot on chest .The antenna in micro chip  was a hack added much later for other reasons.
Dog Symbolism: Dogs are symbols of strength, courage, tenacity and symbolically associated with loyalty and vigilance, often acting as guardian and protector. Dogs were also associated with Anubis, the jackal headed god of the underworld.

Black Dog : Why is the nameless dog black?
        A black dog is sometimes used as a symbol for depression. First coined by the Roman poet Horace and later adopted by Winston Churchill to describe his own depression, the metaphor of the "black dog" has been used for centuries. The image of the Black Dog has been used from classical mythology through medieval folklore to modern times as a universal metaphor for depression and other mental illnesses.
         As well, the Black Dog is the name given to a being found primarily in the folklore of the British Isles. The black dog is essentially a nocturnal apparition, often said to be associated with The Devil. Its appearance was regarded as a portent of death.

Personality: The Black Dog in the Space Junk stories has a mysterious air mixed with a deep feeling of Duende.

Duende (Spanish) means "a deep quality of passion and inspiration,"- tener duende ("to have duende") is a Spanish term for a heightened state of emotion, expression and authenticity, often connected with flamenco dance & artworks.
In his brilliant lecture, "The Theory and Function of Duende", Spanish poet Federico García Lorca attempts to shed some light on the eerie and inexplicable sadness that lives in the heart of certain works of art. "that mysterious power that everyone feels but no philosopher can explain.
The duende, then, is a power, not a work. It is a struggle, not a thought. "
Picture
Cartoon sketch of Black Dog doing a Happy Dance in Space Junk.
Color symbolism:  The color Black has always played an important role in the development of art and literature. As the first pigment used by artists in prehistory and the first ink used by book printers for text.
 
Black is an easy color to read in art. In early cartoon animations from over 100 years ago, (Mickey Mouse, Felix the Cat etc) black ink was painted unto clear sheets for filming.
      In color psychology, black's color meaning is symbolic of mystery, power, elegance, wealth and sophistication. In contrast, the color meaning can also evoke emotions such as sadness and anger. People wear all black to funerals as well as for purposes of a cause or movement.
       Man in Black is a protest song written and recorded by singer-songwriter Johnny Cash, originally released on his 1971 album of the same name. Cash wrote the signature song to explain the social conscience behind his wardrobe choices.
Man in Black opening lyrics:
Well, you wonder why I always dress in black
Why you never see bright colors on my back
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone
Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on

the black dog gestering while talking
The black dog giving a speech.
And what do Dogs and Space have to do with each other?
In the early history (as we know it), of space travel from earth, our canine friends, dogs, were some of the first
mammals shot into space and land back down safely.
Dogs are man's best friend.

Next up: Space Junks: Art as a Social Function in Cultures. (part 4)

Picture
Black dog escaping into city
Comments

3/30/2023 Comments

SPACE JUNK: A PRACTICAL IDEAL IN ART. (part 2.) by John Cat

Snake character from Space Junk jumping around in a sort of spasmodic dance.
Snake character Ali from Space Junk.
PictureRough sketch of Ali the snake character in Space Junk.

    
----at the still point, there the dance is, –  T.S. Eliot


           Now that we know what the term Space Junk usually refers to these days, we can delve more into the space of the mind’s imagination & the practice of meditating in that area.
       A decade ago, 2012 to 2013, the environmental children’s story entitled, Space Junk, was published.  It is the first children’s story about the topic of Space Junk pollution.  Created in a spontaneous stream of consciousness writing style, these hand written (old fashioned style with ink and brush) stories were not formally edited  & feature unique works of art.
     
In the Space Junk stories are several main characters ( Yama, Ali & a nameless black dog) along with other introductory peripheral ones.  Here is a brief analysis and understanding of the snake character named Ali and brief research into the possible meanings to decipher and understand more about this Space Junk story.
         The plot is really about nothing and is almost an inconsequential aspect of the whole concept.  The plot merely offers a simplistic narrative about the trashing of the environment of space by humans. The subject matter acts as a bridge to the artworks which operate as a cultural salve to benefit humanity with art.
        The space of our minds is oftentimes filled with a clutter of ideas, emotions, mental formations, memories and thoughts about random things.  Mental clutter refers to times when our mind has too many thoughts which makes it difficult to process and focus. A cluttered mind is disrupting and it hinders our productivity, balance and even our mental health. This relates to the sub conscious as well.
       A daily practice of Meditation is a useful tool to unclutter the mind, get into the present moment and offers great health benefits for people of all ages. People practice meditation for many reasons but the main goal is to quiet the mind & focus on the NOW, the present moment and sub conscious.

     When our thoughts slow down and we focus on nothing & attempt to clear our minds, there is a space for cosmic energy to manifest.  This space is where things like personal healing, ideas, helpful insights & creative inspiration comes from. The present moment, the eternal now where God energy resides.
     Some people focus on their breathing to enter this nothing state of the sub conscious, while others silently (or sometimes loudly) recite a MANTRA.  As we related before, space also means emptiness and nothing. Yet form and emptiness are inseparable and they cannot be understood in isolation from each other.
     Emptying the mind is a useful tool to learn as it helps you give your brain a break. According to the dictionary, to EMPTY YOUR MIND means to try your best to think about NOTHING. It means to purposely put a stop to the constant stream of thoughts that are with us every day. This also acts as a form of brain detoxification as well.
      The practice of daily meditation is also a way of healing traumatic stress and raising performance. 
In his book, Catching the Big Fish: Mediation, Consciousness, and Creativity,  Director and Artist David Lynch intones that "ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper. "
      Another big proponent of the powerful practice of meditation is Dr. Joe Dispenza, a researcher of  epigenetics, quantum physics and neuroscience.  Dr. Joe has done extensive research on the effects of meditation and creating a new reality for your life.

Cartoon painting of a snake with arms playing air guitar.
Space Junk character Ali playing air guitar while singing.
Speaking of space & emptiness, a snake is one of  the Space Junk characters.  Here is a brief overview.

Name:  Ali -- The unisex name Ali was chosen by the artist simply because it rhymes with the word tree. No other reason given yet in retrospect has importance.
Ali is a gender-neutral name of Swahili origin ( from Eastern Africa)  which literally means “supreme” or  “exalted”. Today it is used as a name all over the world and in many different cultures other than African.

Description & Meaning: Ali is a greenish snake with arms,
wears a straw cowboy hat. and we all know that snakes don’t have arms, at least not on today’s version. The ancestors of today's slithery snakes once sported full-fledged arms and legs, but genetic mutations caused the reptiles to lose all four of their limbs about 150 million years ago, according to two new studies.
      Ali is a snake in the process of mutating backwards for the benefit of his emotional & physical survival, hence the arms.  He is de-evolving instead of evolving.  As these arms are rubber hose/noodle style appendages, this signifies the animated fun aspect of the character.
    
        These rubber hose/spaghetti style arms
are a reference to an early animation style used over 100 years ago. Rubber hose animation refers to the bouncy, rubbery way that characters were animated primarily in American cartoons during the 1920s to approximately the mid-1930s.  It is the first standardized animation style to be adopted by Hollywood studios. It was not only adopted for its efficiency, but also to avoid the issue of stiffness.
Color Psychology:  In color theory, Green is highly connected to nature and represents new beginnings, renewal and abundance. Growth, fertility, health and generosity are some of the positive color meanings for Green.
Green is also the color of money in U.S. dollars. Green (Secondary Color) is a color derived from mixing Blue and Yellow.
Alternatively, green can also carry negative associations such as envy, jealousy and a lack of experience.
Green has many of the same calming attributes that Blue has, but it also incorporates some of the energy of Yellow
.

Picture
Ali ( right) with Yama Space Junk( left) as they meet for the first time.

Personality: Ali sings & dances because he craves attention and just wants to be loved. Most people don’t like snakes because they are cold blooded reptiles and scary.   Snakes are not perceived as warm and cuddly.  So as an evolutionary feat Ali is de-evolving backwards with arms to hug others and be loved. He just wants to be hugged and not be a scary snake that everyone fears. 
        His arms are not only for hugging but also to do other things like to Dance
Rhythmically, play air guitar or  gesture wildly in Spasmodic movement.

Picture
Meaning & Symbolism:  Snakes and serpents are a much maligned species throughout history and literature.       People sometimes scream in fear when they encounter snakes or recoil in horror. A dishonest person is referred to as a snake.  'A snake in the grass' means a deceitful person or harmful thing that is hidden.

   According to the bible’s creation myth story about the Garden of Eden, a snake helped bring about the fall of mankind when naked Eve ate the apple from one and then tempted naked Adam. 
    
God told them they would die if they ate the apple. Death was God's warning, before “the great fall,” and the loss of innocence for mankind. We all know the story and remember it well from our bible studies in youth.
 
    But a snake is not all bad as far as symbolism & meaning goes.  Snakes are symbols of primal energy, referred to as Kundalini, which is an ancient Sanskrit word from India.

    
Prana (another Sanskrit word) can be translated as “life force energy,” “vital energy,” “breath of life,” “spirit-energy,” or “vital principle.” This term is used in yogic teachings as a general reference to the manifest energy of the entire universe. This original creative power is constantly flowing around us and inside of us.  
 
The practice of Yoga can harness the bodies energy channels  & cause an upsurge of the powerful life force energy (Prana).
           Kundalini is a healing form of divine spiritual energy that is sourced at the base of the spine & can be activated by breathing exercises, meditation, chanting & the practice of certain yoga postures.
 This specific energy (Kundalini = serpent power) that lies dormant in all of us is also our our untapped potential. True enlightenment can be attained as a sort of "awakened" state from this release of powerful energy.
         

       Kundalini means 'coiled' or 'circular'. The serpent symbolizes this exact type of energy that lies inactive , coiled like a sleeping snake, at the base of the spine ( root chakra) in all humans. 
Ancient texts such as the Bhagava described it as 'the coiled power'.

The Sanskrit term "Kundali Shakti" translates as "Serpent Power".


       On another note about snakes, the ouroboros or uroboros is an ancient symbol of a serpent eating its own tail, variously signifying infinity and the cycle of birth and death. The ouroboros was adopted as a symbol in Gnosticism and most notably in alchemy. The term derives from Ancient Greek.
      The ouroboros is often interpreted as a symbol for eternal cyclic renewal or a cycle of life, death, and rebirth; the snake's skin-sloughing symbolizes the transmigration of souls.


      The artist/author picked a snake character to avoid the cliché of cute and cuddly because polluting space is not nice and there is nothing happy about it.
      A snake character is not typically commercial. The snake Ali will probably never appear as a mass produced cuddly toy or sold as a Happy Meal character as these reptiles are usually not used in children’s stories and the subject matter is about the pollution of our earth in space. 
The subject matter is really about nothing since space equals nothing.

Using ART as a bridge, Art-To-Go seeks to heal & enlighten culture as unique creativity mixed with humor, as an environmental lesson.


Next blog entry -- Space Junkers: Art as the Aesthetic Ideal -(part 3)

Comments

2/20/2023 Comments

Space Junk as a Practical Dilemma in Art. (part 1) by John Cat

PictureWhat is Space?
 Space. What is it? 
Space seems to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. No thing or body can ever be outside space but only inside space.  Reach out your hands to touch it or look inside to grasp it and nothing is there.























Space is everything and all encompassing yet seems invisible at the same time. 
Space  is all encompassing  in our lives and is boundless. 
We as human life forms occupy space just like everything else that is physical. A house inhabits space yet at the same time there is emptiness in the form.

       Yes space also means emptiness and nothing. Form and emptiness are inseparable and they cannot be understood in isolation from each other.
               “Form is empty yet emptiness is also form.” – Avalokiteshvara
             Emptiness is Form refers to a Buddhist text called the Heart Sutra on the fullness of emptiness. The Heart Sutra is the distillation of all teachings on Emptiness. Emptiness in Buddhism refers to the interdependence of all phenomena, both mental and physical.
               Yet ultimately all phenomena are emptiness as space & nothingness are the same thing.  During Meditations, one is taught to try and focus on "nothing" in order to relax in the openness and clarity of space. A daily meditation practice has many healthy benefits & has actually been proven to open up untapped areas in our brains.
Emptiness is not a negative condition but a positive one.  Emptiness is inseparable from Luminosity, the creative power of the awakened mind.
Yet for something that is nothing, we all exist our whole lives encapsulated in this space. There is no outside space.

           What we call the sky marks the boundary of our physical vision looking, the limit our sight can reach. It is space (emptiness) in front of our outstretched hand as well as the endless space all around us emanating forth forever, above, below and inside even us.


Picture


          Around 150 years ago, as we know it, human travel began to include going farther up into our space.  First balloons & crude airplanes then rockets.

 
         In the year 1919, a treatise was published titled, A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes, by Dr. Robert Goddard, an American engineer, professor, physicist, and inventor. This is the first practical treatise on the use of rockets for space travel as we know it.
           In 1926, Dr. Goddard, launched a rocket up 41 feet high for 2.5 seconds that traveled at the speed of 60 mph. This feat ushered in an era of space flight and innovation that continued on into the following decades.
Goddard is now widely considered the Father of Modern Rocketry & Space Flight.


        Starting about the 1940’s, rockets by different countries have carried all manner of things up into space, even live ones. Dogs, cats, earthworms, amoeba, chimpanzees and only God knows what else besides humans themselves, has traveled into space. This has all created a new form of pollution and what is now known as Space Junk ( aka space debris, space garbage ) which did not exist for us before. Pieces of space junk also often crash land on earth and are usually described as Fireballs or mistaken for meteorites.


     Derelict objects left in orbit and other disintegrating objects can cause catastrophic collisions above our atmosphere and potentially wreak great havoc.

         A 1978 paper by Donald Kessler and Burton Cour-Palais, “The Collision Frequency of Artificial Satellites: The Creation of a Debris Belt" reference this idea. The scenario suggests that if the past growth rate in the catalogued population continued, around the year 2000 a more hazardous population of small debris would be generated as a result of fragments from random collisions between catalogued objects. This new source of debris would quickly produce a hazard that exceeds the hazard from natural meteoroids.
      This potential multiplying space junk cascade effect (the so called  Kessler Syndrome) would be considered a threat to human space travel at the very least. Estimates show that there are already more than 100 trillion untracked pieces of old satellites circling the planet at the speed of 17,000 miles per hour.
    Imagine a ricochet of self propagating Space-junk collisions creating even more debris over and over in a cumulative effect of multiplications.   This could destroy communication systems, setting modern society back decades and also making it difficult to venture beyond earth past debris fields.


Artful depictions of Space Junk.
Artful depictions of Space Junk

        There is a legitimate concern that just as the world’s oceans have been polluted with plastics, oil, trash etc & no country is held accountable to clean it up, that these same type state entities are doing the same thing to our space but with possible much more dire effects for humanity.
 
        Several recent examples of this is when in 2007 the rocket scientists in China decided it was a good idea to destroy one of their defunct aging satellites still orbiting earth and this was the largest creation of space debris in history, with more than 2,000 pieces of trackable size space trash (golf ball size and larger) officially catalogued in the immediate aftermath, and an estimated 150,000 debris particles.
        Not to be outdone and more recently in 2021, the brain trust in Russia blew up one of their own satellites & created a new cloud of their very own orbital space junk debris spinning over us in the heavens. More equals more.

         Closer to home is Space X with their Starlink satellites currently taking over Lower Earth Orbit ( LEO).
Half of all active satellites in LEO are now from SpaceX , which all orbit at a similar distance from Earth, just above 500 kilometers. All of them launched in the last 4 years (since 2019 with tens of thousands more coming soon), resulting in the
massive industrialization of low earth orbit.  
      As smug Tesla drivers finance this space proliferation with each purchase of their electric vehicles, they are in fact enabling the destruction of the skies above.


    Space X also shipped a Tesla roadster up into space which now endlessly orbits the earth in a sort of creepy ego gratification for it's main owner.  This “littering of the cosmos” by one of the richest people in the world is labeled as “ready made” art by some, while others question that the launching of a non-sterile object to interplanetary space may risk biological contamination of a foreign world.  

             Though artists have been making art with astronomical elements for a long time, the genre of Space Art aka Astronomical Art, is still in its infancy, Whatever the stylistic path, the artist is generally attempting to communicate ideas somehow related to space, often including an appreciation of the infinite variety and vastness which surrounds us.
Space Junk cartoon characters mediate about space..
Yama Space Junk and friends meditating to help combat stress and promote happiness.
       Since humans currently lack the technology to clean up this Space Debris issue, then it is left to future creative minds to come up with answers and methods to deal with it. We at ARTtoGO.com think art is the answer to inform and foster dialogue about this new method of  trashing the beautiful environment of earth.  We feel that ART is the answer to this pollution and this would benefit all of mankind.
     Over 10 years ago, between 2012 & 2013, we created a series of unique illustrated stories and art about the aspect of space junk polluting our lives & published them as 3 children's (adults too) books for entertainment purposes.
Called Space Junk, Space Junkers and Space Junks, these original art creations are one of the first if not The first environmental children's books about the pollution issue of Space Junk. 

More will be interpreted in this blog as part 2 - Space Junk as a Practical Ideal in Art.

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2/11/2023 Comments

ART & NUDE PHOTOGRAPHY as a Fashionable Design Ideal


"Photography is not art." - Man Ray

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         On 14 May 2022, L'Violon d' Ingres ( Ingres Violin), a black & white photograph created by Man Ray ( Emmanuel Radnitzky 1890-1976 ), set a new record for the most expensive photograph when it sold for $12,400,000 ( 12 million & 4 hundred thousand dollars ) at auction. Inspired by Neo Classical French painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, this 29.6 cm × 22.7 cm (11.625 in × 8.9375 in) photograph is now owned by the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
     The photo is captivating in it's surrealist simplicity, a nude photograph of KiKi De Montparnasse', ( Alice Ernestine Prin ) his model, lover and companion at the time.

Kiki was a French cabaret performer, painter, and artists’ muse who acquired her nickname for being a fixture in the bohemian circles of the Montparnasse neighbourhood in Paris. She modeled for numerous artists such as Amedeo Modigliani, Man Ray, and Alexander Calder.
        In Ingres Violin, she is posed half naked wearing a turbin, seen from the back with violin sound holes positioned on her back, thus transforming her body into a musical instrument, This picture maintains a tension between objectification & appreciation of the female form.

   Man Ray was a pioneering American fashion & portrait photographer who worked primarily in Paris and was
one of the key figures in the Dada art movement but his work also straddles surrealism. Developed in reaction to World War I, the Dada movement consisted of artists who rejected the logic, reason, and aestheticism of modern capitalist society, instead expressing nonsense, irrationality, and anti-bourgeois protest in their works.
      Man Ray was also a   painter  and one of his works is
The Lovers 1933, created in the aftermath of his passionate and sometimes volatile relationship with the beautiful American photographer and model Lee Miller. In their Surrealist love affair, she was often his model, frequently nude, and her sculptural presence in front of the camera – honed as a fashion model, is one of the most tempestuous and creative relationships in the history of art.
     The naked body has, since ancient times, fascinated artists of all backgrounds. Sculptors, painters and illustrators competed to celebrate the body and represent it in its original state, as evidenced by the works from ancient civilizations, notably Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. Prehistoric representations of the naked human body can even be seen on the painted walls of caves and prehistoric statuary art. But if masculine nudes prevailed in Antiquity, especially among the Greeks, the trend has now shifted and it is the female body that has become the ultimate muse for artists.
 In 1850 France, photographer Jean-Louis-Marie-Eugène Durieu (1800 - 1874) collaborated with artist Eugène Delacroix on a series of nude photo studies depicting human bodies. These photos were created to help the artist paint & draw without having the expense of a live model.  Delacroix then called these "palpable demonstrations of the free design of nature," & later drew from Durieu's photographs. Durieu was a founding member of the Société heliographique in 1851 and the Société Française de Photographie in 1854.
      Although the first known printed nude photograph was a male ca. 1840 France, the female form quickly grew in popularity for this new printing medium. Ever the entrepreneurs, the French quickly capitalized on this by producing  postcards of females in various stages of dress, undress and often completely naked.
Printed on a postcard sized piece of cardstock featuring a photograph of a nude or semi-nude woman. Such erotic cards were produced in great volume, primarily in France, in the late 19th and early 20th century. The cards sometimes depicted lesbians.
       Some of the most popular models of the day appeared on them as well as singers, actors, , circus performers & burlesque strippers.  Nude photography has long been assimilated to a sub-genre of eroticism, no doubt because it mainly depicts naked women, but is now collected as an art form & still used by many artists in their work to understand the human body depicted.  




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French Postcard ca. 1900
PictureHand colored photograph for a French postcard circa 1910

Nude black and white photograph by BellocqNude with a Mask by E. J. Bellocq
In 1897 New Orleans, Louisiana, a certain local politician declared a law that "whoring was illegal" in any neighborhood of the city except those bordered by a set of 16 blocks. This "Cathouse Neighborhood", soon became known as "Storyville" and where a photographer known as Bellocq (1873–1949) shot a series of 84 sympathetic photographs of a group of Storyville whores. Only of women, none of these photos depict any sexual acts or any implied erotic content but seem to be merely records of someone's obsession & documentation of the times.
Nude with a Mask, ca.1912, a 12.8 × 18.1 cm (5 1/16 × 7 1/8 in.) gelatin silver print from glass negative, owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is one such photograph.
Storyville is not only known for the world's oldest profession, it is also the incubation area for the time frame in the creation of the JAZZ music form.


Black & white nude photograph by Edward Weston (1886-1958)PictureBlack & white nude by Edward Weston (1886-1958)
   Another American, Edward Weston, was a vital pioneer of Modernist photography, who helped elevate the status of his chosen medium to that of a revered art form. He found early commercial success with a pictorialist style of image-making, using a soft-focus lens to create painterly portraits, but by the 1920s had adopted an increasingly experimental approach to his craft.
On a trip to Mexcio, he spent the next 5 years developing the radical stylistic traits that would come to define his later practice. This involved using a close-up lens and natural lighting “to make the commonplace unusual”, and saw rocks, clouds and plants rendered remarkably sculptural studies in line and texture.

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First Nude in Color 1951 by Norman Parkinson for Vogue.



Norman Parkinson (1913-1990) was a noted British fashion and portrait photographer who shot  beautiful images for magazines. Starting out as a Royal Air Force photographer in World War 2 he later gravitated towards fashion photography.
Parkinson shot First Nude in Color in 1951 for a Vogue magazine beauty book.
  The photo depicts a naked fashion model  from the side, posing face down on a chaise type lounge chair in a sort of beige antique white juxtaposition of minimalist colors. Her body is long & her hair is immaculately coifed in this mid century masterpiece.

     Diane Arbus (1923–1971), was an American photographer who shot poignant images of the various people she came across in her street photography. She photographed a wide range of subjects including strippers, carnival performers, transvestites, nudists, people with dwarfism, children, mothers, couples, elderly people, and middle-class families. People on the fringes of society fascinated her and she oftentimes got to personally know her subject matter as she documented her artistic visions.  In 1963, she made a series of nude images at a nudist camp in New Jersey. One such is, Waitress, a gelatin silver print  (37.2 x 36.3 cm (14 5/8 x 14 5/16 in.) now owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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Waitress, a black and white photograph by Diane Arbus
 Picture Jeana by artist Patrick Nagel
Jeana by Patrick Nagel
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Patrick Nagel (1945 – 1984) was an American artist and illustrator who created a remarkable archive of images epitomizing 1980's chic. First for Playboy magazine then branching into fine art seriography, he created popular illustrations on board, paper, and canvas, most of which emphasize the female form in a distinctive style, descended from Art Deco and Pop art. His minimalist style defined an era with cool, seductive women that became the most iconic of any single generation.
     Utilizing staged photography of nude or semi nude uninhibited female models he met through his work with Playboy, Nagel then painted them on canvas or made film positives of his photos for silk screening  (seriograph) as limited edition works of art. These alluring images soon became immortalized in popular culture at the time.
In 2020 one such image, Jeana 1983, a 40" x 25" acrylic on canvas, shattered the world record for Nagel when it sold at Heritage Auctions for $350,000.


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Le Corbusier, a black & white photo by Sasso 2002.
 Le Corbusier ,  A  work by Sasso features a naked female ( Melissa) stretched out on a vintage Le Corbusier chrome and leather chaise lounge. A lover of architecture & nature, Sasso also employs silk screening (seriography), dye sublimations, collage & digital imagery in his painterly oeuvre.
   Sasso briefly attended commercial art school where he took lessons in photography, fashion illustration, life drawing, technical drawing, painting and other art mediums,  Sasso then began experimenting with painting & drawing on canvas, photography and art on clothing to create a unique style in fashionable tee shirts and he is the main artist at ARTtoGO.com
  Sasso created the mixed media work Los Angeles  in 2018 which utilized a photograph he shot of a girl (Victoria) , digital imagery, as well as collage to create a 24" x 24" image that can be replicated much larger as artworks on canvas. 

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Los Angeles limited edition art made in 2018 by Sasso.
Picture1950's pinup photo by Keith










Marilyn Monroe by Phil Stern Picture
Marilyn Monroe by Phil Stern
PictureGiselle by Patrick Demarchelier
All in all, nude photography since it's inception at the beginnings of photography, has continued to be seen as a collectable art form and have an inspirational impact on the making of art by muse driven artists throughout the generations. 
     Special Thanks to  other Cultural Practitioners like Phil Stern , Helmut Newton ,Terry O'Neill, Patrick Demarchelier &  countless others who manage to keep this aesthetic tradition alive for the benefit of humanity & enhancement of world culture.


Sharon Tate by Terry O'Neill Picture
Sharon Tate by Terry O'Neill
Photo of nude model called Model in Directors Chair by Helmet Newton
Model in Directors Chair by Helmet Newton
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11/7/2021 Comments

November 07th, 2021

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11/4/2021 Comments

Talking Art, Culture & Art Cars with Ellen & Integer hosted by Culture Club

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Listen to A Conversation with Ellen & James Sasso: Making Art
with Senior Art Director Jesús González
Culture Club
Link -
https://anchor.fm/culture-club5
Sponsored by:
integer the growth company.

What inspires art and other questions.
Does art choose the artist or the artist choose art?
Can Art Cars really make a positive difference in our modern lives and culture?

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11/4/2021 Comments

Art, Art Cars & the Beautification of our Urban Communities

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Cadillac Ranch on Route 66 in Amarillo, Texas where 10 vintage Cadillac cars are buried in the dirt of a field.

What is art? Is art important?
  We need art in our lives to enhance the subtle energies of humanity & hopefully bring us deep feelings of inspiration, empowerment, awe, joy & other emotions. Art is something that stimulates an individual's thoughts, emotions, beliefs, or ideas through the senses. Whether experiencing the art or performing it, a beneficial energy is created in the process .

As the artist Pablo Picasso once stated; "Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life".

It's a best practice to experience forms of art that inspires us in many different way. Art can be a visionary form of objectification & create a healing stamp on the subconscious when experienced.

 One object today that is ubiquitous in our everyday life is the automobile/car or motorcar, which is used for transportation on roads. A relatively new creation of humanity as we know it, the year 1886 is regarded as the birth year of the car when German inventor Karl Benz patented his Benz Patent-Motorwagen. Of course there has been many many others produce manufacture cars since then & in very large quantities, spreading across the world even now through mass consumerism.

Cars are one of the leading causes of air pollution & climate change ... Passenger vehicles & commercial, are a major pollution contributor, producing significant amounts of nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and other pollution. Vehicle pollutants harm our health and contain greenhouse gases that cause climate change. Burning gasoline and diesel fuel creates harmful byproducts like nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, benzene, and formaldehyde. In addition, vehicles emit carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas.

At some point in time after automobile mass productions became the norm & humans bought many cars, is the marriage of art & car; the Art Car. Art cars are sometimes but not always driven and owned by their creators, who are sometimes referred to as "Cartists."
The Art Car is a very interesting new genre in art history that could also be considered a form of ultimate Street Art, although it existed before this term was ever coined.

One definition we came up with (with help from internet) is -  An art car is an automobile vehicle that has had its appearance modified as an act of personal artistic expression.  An Art Car is basically a mixed media sculpture on wheels ( unless the wheels have been removed ) , a hand painted (or air brushed) expression on a canvas of metal, steel, plastic & rubber, sometimes utilizing 3d objects. 
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Beyond the 2D applications of paints,  3 dimensional objects can be affixed or even the whole car itself can be stripped down, reshaped,  and morphed into what is sometimes called Mutant Vehicles (more on that later).

An Art Car can be mobile & driven on roads or even a stationary object acting as an installation.

One example of stationary cars acting as outdoor Art Car sculpture is Cadillac Ranch on the road just West of Amarillo, Texas.  In 1974, a row of ten vintage tail fin Cadillac cars (1949 Club Sedan to the 1963 Sedan de Ville ) were half buried nose down into a dirt field along the Route 66 highway there.  These Great Monuments, we are told, represent America's hopes and dreams, art and commerce, materialism and spiritualism, folly and fame. Cadillac Ranch has since become a ritual road side attraction site for those who travel along the mother road. The remnants of the still buried cars are now covered in ever changing layers of bright colored spray paints and this installation also exists as a participatory event.

 In 1955, 70 years after the first 1886 automobile creation in Germany, Los Angeles artist Kenneth Howard aka Von Dutch ( 1929-1992) hand painted flames on a 1955  Mercedes 300 SL  owned by Earl Bruce. Von Dutch was inspired by the hand painted fearsome images & flames on WW2 fighter planes and he was part of the nascent pin striping hot rods/vehicle culture of Southern California. This particular  Mercedes was actually the first of it's kind stateside so the car itself was seen by most sports car guys as an absolute shrine to German ingenuity and technology. Like art, opinions can vary & some people found this to be "desecrating a shrine" and the art car version was not well received at the time, although surely it attracted great interest as art.

1955 Mercedes 300 SL by Von Dutch
1955 Mercedes 300 SL by Von Dutch
Alexander Calder version of 1975 BMW CSL
Alexander Calder version of 1975 BMW CSL

Carmaker BMW is a leader in many things automobile & this includes the culture of Art Cars, as they have been a trendsetter in it since at least 1975 when .American artist Alexander Calder (1898-1976) put his art style on two 1975 3.0 CSL racing cars,
The result wasn’t just a claim of the first Art Car, or that this car was raced at Le Mans in 1975, but the inauguration of BMW’s Art Cars as we know the series today.
Calder’s piece formed the foundations for BMW’s ‘Art Car’ collection and many other contemporary artists ( Andy Warhol, Sandro Chia, Ken Done, Roy Lichtenstein, David Hockney & others) have since given their hand to this oeuvre, as both official and unofficial versions.

In 1979  artist Frank Stella painted a BMW M1  Procar  as part of his "Polar Coordinates" art series. In 1987 Keith Haring painted a red BMW Z1 at an art gallery in Düsseldorf, Germany with his signature style and distinctive range of emblematic signs.

    In 1996 Dallas, Texas, artist Jimmy Sasso was tasked to paint a 1996 BMW 320i for a marketing promotion involving a popular radio station Using oil based mediums, the car took 3-4 days to complete this mixture of abstraction & hand drawn symbols.

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1996 BMW 320i Art Car painted by Sasso in Dallas, Texas.
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1965 Rolls Royce Phantom V Limousine owned by John Lennon

 John Lennon Rolls Royce John Lennon of the Beatles bought the 1965 Phantom V limousine before he even owned a driver’s license.  Originally black with black leather upholstery, Lennon grew bored of the all-black vehicle & he was inspired to commission a garish paint job in the Romany style. An artist named Steve Weaver completed the work in May 1967. The bill was £290, about $9,200 in today’s dollars.

     Here in 2021 Art Cars are emerging as a popular expressive art form and important as  a  beautification of our urban areas & roads in communities. Aside from the cultural enhancements  is the recycle aspect or idea of making beauty out of a utilitarian machine that is a major cause of Global Warming and is helping to destroy our planet we all live on.  Keeping these 10,20 & even beyond 30 year old cars alive and on the road is truly an art in itself. A labor of love, an art object.
    Through the power of art an up-cycle recycle process occurs to transform a lowly used air polluting car into a roving art statement to be enjoyed and appreciated by the many, without anyone going to a gallery or museum.  An old car can become elevated into an art object & generate happiness to others and help heal society through these creations as they rove around not as a mere car but as art too.
In present day cities, artists are helping to spread this inspiring tradition & elevate our consciousness through the arts & propagate good energies using cars as that expressive vehicle.

   A 1991 Chevrolet Blazer S10   -- This artwork titled Dream Warrior by Sasso, was  started in early 2020 to artfully help heal a society in fear & repression from events. This vehicle for art blends into the urban landscapes as well as organically into natural settings, yet the colors, art & visual story create a bridge for the viewer into the fantastical realm of art appreciations sometimes without even realizing. Free form drawings & brushwork create "energetic movement mixed with bright color and juxtapositions to inspire one into happiness".  the artist uses it as a vehicle to  bring about art awareness as well as explore nature .

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1989 Mercedes Benz 500 SEL painted by ARTtogo.com in 2019 Los Angeles.
1989 Mercedes Benz 500 SEL painted by ARTtogo.com in 2019 Los Angeles.

      Swirling lines into organic shapes and symbols, writings & trans cultural surrealism adorn a 1989 Mercedes Benz 500 SEL that was painted in 2019 & sometimes roams the streets of Los Angeles getting 8 mpg but drives really great, smoothly sailing down the 405 freeway or stuck in traffic to the beaches. This Art Car generates much fanfare from viewers and inspires all to witness the greatness of art in our communities.

-- All Mutant Vehicles are Art Cars but not all Art Cars are Mutant Vehicles. -

One unique genre of the Art Car, is the Mutant Vehicles of Burning Man.  Burning Man, comprised of Black Rock City, a temporary art city which emerges in the sometimes hostile environment of the Black Rock Desert, a remote landscape in Nevada.
    A yearly event taking place over 8 days in late August, at least since the year 1991 at this location, Burning Man features various modes of camping, lots of people offering fun among large sculptural forms, performance art, sculpture installations, as well as Art Cars called Mutant Vehicles which roam the areas night & day, lit up with light, flames or even lasers & carrying people around while sometimes blaring loud music.
     With a speed limit of 5 mph, these mutants come in all sizes and shapes as they adorn the beautiful surrealistic flat desert called the Playa, an ancient dry lake bed made of hard packed white sand that sometimes blows up into sudden dust storms with white out conditions.
As NPR once reported, "Once considered an underground gathering for bohemians and free spirits of all stripes, Burning Man has since evolved into a destination for social media influencers, celebrities and the Silicon Valley elite."
    A Leave No Trace extreme camping event, Burning Man is mainly a huge art thing encouraging creative self expression & general well being. A unique cultural experience of sharing amongst like minded humans who like to laugh and have fun in an absurd atmosphere of art. Everyone is an artist and encouraged to participate in whatever form they wish. Dancing is an art. Hospitality is an art. Sleeping is an art. Fashion is an art. Photography. Cooking too.
  An acrobat balances on an Art Car/Mutant Vehicle called Playa Taxi. This 2004 Suzuki Aerio was painted in Los Angeles & seen on the playa.

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A 2004 Suzuki Aerio transformed into an Art Car at Burning Man by ARTtogo.com
Boeing 747 turned into the worlds largest art car at Burning Man Project 2017.
Boeing 747 turned into the worlds largest art car at Burning Man Project 2017.

The 747 Project, a giant Boeing 747, the world’s most iconic airplane, this is a 1985 Varig cargo conversion that once carried passengers in Brazil. This plane in 2017 was transformed into the largest art car mutant vehicle  on earth.
   The goal is to transform the plane into a new kind of vehicle inside which dreams, inspired by the same spirit of flight that took the Wright brothers to the skies, can come alive. The jet invites people inside for a “journey through life towards one’s future” & also hosts all night dance parties with music.
Art Car? Now you know.

Thank you for reading and hope you have learned something about art that you did not know before. Please add comments if you like Art Cars & want to see more of them.

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1/2/2020 Comments

RETURN TO ORDER 2020

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(left image) LUMINOUS BLOOMING collage & acrylic on canvas. 36" X 36" X 1 1/2" (91.44 X 91.44 X 3.8 cm)--- (right image) THE SEA collage & acrylic on canvas, 36" X 36" X 1 1/2" (91.44 X 91.44 X 3.8 cm)
Happy New Years 2020 with health, wealth and much great art in your life.
Around 100 years ago in art, was the  Return to Order movement and here in the first hours of 2020, our last two paintings of the  finals days in 2019 could be considered clear descendants of this distant art past. 
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 The
 Luminous Blooming, ( top left) a dreamy meditation in color featuring red roses in a pot, either floating or seated in front of a sea of eyes backdrop. Cozy and tight at the same time, the floating eyes reflect back at the viewer looking at the painterly roses.
The rose is considered a symbol of balance. It expresses promise, new beginnings, hope and is considered the highest vibrational flower on the planet. 
 Eyes are probably the most important symbolic sensory organ. They can represent clairvoyance, omniscience, and/or a gateway into the soul. Other qualities that eyes are commonly associated with are: intelligence, light, vigilance, moral conscience, and truth.  
The Sea, ( top right) a collage portrait, also contains eyes and a floating rose along with some Tibetan style clouds.

Luminous Blooming and  The Sea,  both by Los Angeles based painter James Sasso,,contain the use of his fluid drawing style and canvas collage, with certain characteristics of Surrealism, Though wholly original, modern, they both could hold a certain feel of nostalgia for the Return to Order art of the early decades of the 1900's.
 The return to order (French: Retour à l'ordre) was a European art movement that followed the First World War, rejecting the extreme avant-garde art of the years up to 1918 and taking its inspiration from traditional art instead. The movement was a reaction to the war. The return to order was associated with a revival of classicism and realistic painting, among other styles.

Two artists who helped to define some revolutionary developments in the visual arts in the opening decades of the 1900's were Henri Matisse (born 31 December 1869 – died 3 November 1954) and Pablo Picasso  (born 25 October 1881 – died 8 April 1973), arguably produced some of their finest artworks during this era and after.  


Both artists living in France, Matisse was known for his use of color (Colorism & Fauvism) and his original fluid drawing style, while Picasso in the 1910's and early 1920's made artworks described as a NeoClassical style, along with hints of Surrealism but also new off shoot methods in the genre of Cubism, referred to as both Synthetic Cubism and Crystal Cubism. 

Cubism has been considered the most influential art movement of the 20th century and the Synthetic variant of Picasso, noted for the first use of collage in oil paintings. To collage means to "to glue" or "to stick together", a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts but also in music. Picasso glued bits of fabric, paper and newspaper unto the canvas surface in his cubist paintings. 

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12/18/2019 Comments

Be In-Spiraled by Monochromatic Art Leggings

By: Jazmine Michelle
art-to-go blue dreams yoga leggings
Art to Go Blue Dreams Yoga Leggings. Wear the vibe.
We at Art-to-go are all about creating an experience. Even the creation of these artworks are an experience in the exercise. The patterns you see in these Art Leggings come from a stream-of-consciousness style of painting. Many of the forms are inspired from things found in different cultures as well as our own visual linguistics we conjure. We've found inspiration from Mayan, Japanese, Persian, Chinese and Native American styles, among many other artistic symbols used throughout the world, mixing it with our own visual writings.

​We love immersing in these images and then sitting down and putting paintbrush to blank surface and just letting the hand move. There is a healing and calming element to this practice of art. Think of the Japanese concept of the Zen garden. The idea is just to take the sand and let your hand move freely, guiding your implement to create temporary shapes. The final piece is not the goal, as it can get wiped away when you are finished. 

In the same vein, the final image is not the idea when sitting down to create this piece. The experience of letting the hand move lets the mind relax, allowing the work to create itself in the present moment of time. The ACTION is the point of the flow. The energy that comes from the brushstrokes is what translates the energetic something through the art piece unto the viewer.

Some of the elements involved are shapes that are found in nature, which is why they come across in cultures around the world and throughout any human history. Man is forever inspired by the natural world in his many vocations, be it science, engineering, ART, religion or any other philosophies. Look closely at the leggings and you will find many SPIRALS and swirls. Look closely at nature and you will also find the spirals in many ways, which is what helps connect us into the swirls of artful magic here born.

The spiral is an important philosophical concept, reminding us that life moves in this way where we always come back to a place close to our origin. We are never quite back to where we started, but we come close to that point over and over again, each time from a slightly different perspective.

This is like the experience of creating art. In our process each painterly mark is distinct and unique, never making the same thing twice, never having the same experience of making it twice. We will come back to similar concepts and ideas, maybe touching our origin again and again, but each time we will come from a new perspective of expressionistic modernity.
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"[Monochrome painting is] an open window to freedom, the possibility of being immersed in the immeasurable existence of color" - Yves Klein
PictureART to Go Yoga Leggings Blue Dreams.


 Color is an incredibly important element in our artwork too. The monochromatic use of blue in these art leggings relates to the works of the artist Yves Klein (1928-1962), who actually has an entire shade of blue named after him - International Klein Blue!

Klein was popularized in the mid 1900 century1950s-60's, finding that he wanted to only explore blue in his artworks. He would create entire canvases, shapes, worlds only using this one color. Called a pioneer of the art world, it is not hard to recognize how people must have felt while looking at his pieces for the first time.

The psychology of color is well-explored. Blue is peaceful. Klein's idea of being "immersed in the immeasurable existence of color" is so apparent when you are looking at a figurative ocean of blue canvas. It must have been such a revelation that such a simple, primary color could create such a powerful sense of peace and calm and wonder.  

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We don't use Klein's official color in our monochromatic leggings, preferring to mix our own for many years, that we name Sasso Blue for this artwork called Blue Dreams, but we found the same immersive sensation while painting the art and we hope to engender similar sensation for the people who choose to wear them and for all of the people who encounter these art leggings out in the world.  Let this art envelope you in your yoga practice or any other life experience.

​Like the spiral, these are colors found in nature and it brings us back to our primal sense of connection with the natural world and with each other.

We hope that you find joy and peace in these wearable art pieces and that they make you feel always 
​IN-SPIRALED (I love this word)!. Our unique art is made for you.

***We are also excited to be working on other colors for our monochromatic legging designs. Stay tuned to find out what our next color in this series is going to be! They will be unveiled very soon!
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​See you in the flow!

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12/16/2019 Comments

A Duct Taped Banana & why you should care.

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Duct taped banana art on clothing.

 Have you heard of the duct taped banana?
Have you seen it? 
Probably not in person unless you are artsy and were at this years Miami Art Basel 2019. This "art", a banana duct taped to the wall of a gallery, appeared as part of an installation dubbed “Comedian”,created by artist Maurizio Cattelan. Three buyers paid between $120,000 and $150,000 for 3 limited-edition pieces of this concept, which came with a single banana, a certificate of authenticity and instructions on how to replace the fruit.
Amazing & such great spiritual value.
Surely he isn't the first artist person to duct tape a banana to a wall or be the only human being who can do that but why are people even talking about it?  Maybe that even makes it great art in a way as it generates such dialogue.

High concept fine art or low brow stupidity?  Some news reports have even have labeled it an art world scam.

For the uninitiated reading, the duct taped banana is considered to be a piece of Conceptual art, a movement along with Pop Art, formed in mid century 1900's NYC.
Conceptual, as in the "idea" itself or concept being the important aspect of the artwork, less so than the actual art itself or renditions. 
Pop Art is inspired by both popular & commercial imagery, as well as the everyday mundane object but also focuses on production methods and the whole business of being an artist as an art producing factory.  Appropriation is another key word associated with Pop as well as manipulating the media to write about it, thus marketing the art.

Both these American bred art movements have roots in 1910-1920's DaDa movement which originated in Paris. DaDa is focused on absurdity, articulated sometimes in nonsensical ways and satirical to the point of whimsy. Using theater, poetry, painting, drawing and music as an answer to the human horrors of war during that time in Europe.
They also drew inspiration from banal everyday objects that would possibly not be considered art, unless they tell you it is, such as Duchamp's aptly titled: Fountain ( a way of saying urinal or toilet something to piss in)

 On April 9th, 1917, just over 100 years ago,  Marcel Duchamp achieved what was perhaps the most brilliant and absurd art event of the 20th century by submitting an upside down bathroom urinal titled, Fountain, as his art piece for an exhibition and signing it R. Mutt. 

From an editorial at the time:  
“Whether Mr Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view—created a new thought for that object.” 

And on and on it goes even to this new day in our lives of the duct taped banana.


Which brings us to our very own blessed duct taped banana artwork, titled, The Hummingbird, available  on t-shirts and comfy hoodies. 

This is just for you from Art-to-Go.
​These are made to order and we made it really beautiful for you to wear plus there is free standard shipping right now.

 When you wear the duct taped banana Hummingbird, be it at home or in the store, bar or cafe, there is an aesthetically invoked communication going on via the trans cultural significance of the art, sometimes silent but a connection and something is happening with the viewer based on them seeing it as well as you wearing it.  A visual linguistic without words which sometimes leads to discussion with others or not.
Art in whatever forms, can be a bridge to something higher in all of us and our art acts as a bridge for positive energy, deep thought, communication, laughter or anything to commence a new experience in life, even if only for a moment.  That is what we have come to call art.
Perhaps even talking about it helps too. 

On the method used...we bought some bananas at Trader Joes for .19 cents each, duct taped one to the wall and then took a photo of our beautiful one of a kind banana with it's unique distinct markings.  This is our photo of a banana  and we hope that you like it.
Hurry ! Limited Edition ! Our prices are always subject to change.


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11/14/2019 Comments

Texas Road Trip Leggings

By Jazmine Michelle
Picture
   "I love road trips. You get into this Zen rhythm; throw the sense of time out the window" - Miriam Toews

  Our Art-to-Go leggings tell stories. In this case, the  large
Texas Road Trip ( 8' tall x 9' wide x 2" thick  mixed media on canvas) painting was a commissioned piece meant to tell the story of driving through the great state of Texas. Texas is the birthplace of the Art-to-Go concept - long ago, we started out in a small store front studio in Dallas before much later relocating to California - and road tripping was one of the most iconic experiences you could have there. When people road trip across America, they often talk about wishing to avoid Texas. They want things to see and they want a lot of towns they can stop into.

But to us, the road trip is about one thing - THE ROAD.

Texas has such a surreal landscape. The vistas are spectacular and the fact that you can drive long, long distances without seeing civilization is food for the wandering soul. In this painting, you see the state being held up on a billboard. You get the sense of a wide open landscape within a wide open landscape of mesas and the plateau.
 The sky is huge and the land goes on forever in either direction, and in craving a road trip, you are craving more of that.

A road trip across Texas is satisfying for the human need for space and quiet and time, it gives you the chance to see and feel the vast world that exists outside your everyday life.

In creating these yoga leggings, we want to bring this iconic experience into your everyday life. This sense of freedom that comes from a road trip doesn't need to be reserved for long, nomadic trips. A road trip can be an hour-long commute, or even a morning trip to your favorite beach, park or yoga studio.

These leggings remind us that the Zen we get from the road trip can come with us and stay alive in our everyday lives.

To get a pair of your own high quality yoga leggings with this vibrant art, go to our store for both offerings, Capri style & long version.  Also available in cool men's leggings.
Comments

10/31/2019 Comments

Body Painting at Kushstock Festival!

By: Jazmine Michelle
Art to Go
Wonderful & fashionably stylish body painting by Art-to-go.
We are excited to announce that ART-to-Go will be at Kushstock Festival in Socal! This Saturday, November 2nd, we will be doing specialty marketing there for a  cannabis brand.  ART-to-Go has been creating signature tiger stripe designs and in honor of this, we will be hand painting tiger stripes on people for Kanha!
We use water based Special Effects makeup to paint on the human body.


Turning people into works of art is a beautiful way of making our designs come alive. So come down to Kushstock, get some candies, and see us in action!
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    Hello - Please follow us on the instagram for more exploits:  @SassotheCat  -- 
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    We are proud to be unique, original & the new.  All art here is original one of a kind or limited editions. Collect what you like and what you can at the time. Our prices are always subject to change. Most art arrives ready to wear or ready to hang on wall.  All purchase prices include the standard shipping charge in U.S. unless otherwise noted.
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