An informative and enlightening, though visually barren, exploration of a vibrant contemporary art scene.
These biographical sketches celebrate underground artists who brought popular cartoon imagery into the avant-garde.
In this first volume of his survey, Costa interviews and profiles five painters in the second wave of the California-centered lowbrow art movement. They moved in the 1990s and 2000s beyond the “classic” first-wave subjects of hot rods and pin-up girls to tackle subtler themes using mid-20th-century graphic styles, South Pacific idols, and other Tiki motifs. His subjects include grand old man Josh “Shag” Agle, whose brightly colored paintings have the feel of a Jetsons’ soirée from 1961, with chic girls listening to cool jazz at swizzling cocktail parties amid hypermodernist décor, and Tim Biskup, whose more abstract bent features his trademark technique of decomposing figures into assemblages of polygons. The others are Miles Thompson, whose images are inspired by the Ren and Stimpy cartoon series and also incorporate firefighting icons Smokey the Bear and Woodsy Owl into environmentalist-themed pieces; Atlanta artist Derek Yaniger, whose style recalls old-school Mad Magazine, with seedy men leering at buxom burlesque girls; and Brandi Milne, who paints greeting-card depictions of adorable kids and cute critters but complicates and deepens them with dark hints of distortion and distress. It’s a varied set of artists, but commonalities emerge in their life stories: precocious fascination with drawing, encouraged by parents and teachers; punk-rock phases that often led to the formation of garage bands at art school; starter careers in commercial art and graphic design, where they soaked up styles while drawing album covers or working as Hollywood animators; the leap to the fine art side, nurtured by La Luz de Jesus gallery in Los Angeles and Outré in Melbourne, Australia; and a continuing commercial focus with online stores, sales of reproductions and merchandise, and animation projects.
Costa’s knowledgeable examination of lowbrow gives a cogent, unifying account of a diversity of styles. These motifs are rooted in an impulse to elevate cartoons and other demotic visuals into fine art; in a reaction against the overintellectualization of modern art, one grounded in skilled drawing rather than airy concepts; and in an avid engagement with art’s tradition of representational paintings that tell stories. His commentary on individual works is evocative, insightful, and very readable. (“The female Hamlet is meant to juxtapose the certainty of death and the vanity of life with the former court jester’s skull, and Biskup hoped that the viewer might contemplate how giants in history such as Alexander the Great and the lowly Yorick have returned to mere dust. But unfortunately, the symbolism was lost on most viewers, who just saw a sexy cartoon girl.”) The biographical material, it must be said, is not very gripping because artists just don’t live as colorfully as they used to. Agle recalls drinking and pitching bloodily through a glass window, but otherwise there is little indecorous behavior and no dueling or cutting off of ears. The most dramatic moments usually involve the selling out of a show. Frustratingly, the book has no illustrations of the paintings discussed (but they are easily Googled). Still, cognoscenti will be interested in Costa’s probing insider’s story of lowbrow’s evolution while casual art lovers will be pointed toward a trove of captivating paintings.
An informative and enlightening, though visually barren, exploration of a vibrant contemporary art scene.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-578-59582-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Lowbrow Literati Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An erudite plea to not give up on truth.
A film director addresses the assault on truth.
“All my life, my work has been involved with the central issue of truth,” Herzog writes in this brief collection of essays. Like many others, he is worried about the ease with which people can be deceived into accepting falsehoods as reality, such as the seemingly real online chat between him and a Slovenian philosopher “in which our voices are mocked up very accurately, but our conversation is meaningless twaddle.” That some of these threats have their positive side, Herzog writes, makes the problem even more vexing. AI, he notes, can help with “improvements in the design of vaccines,” but it also presents “the possibility of comprehensive, mass supervision, of disinformation, of manipulation on a vast scale.” In these impassioned pieces, he offers his insights into the threats to the concept of truth. Fake news, he points out, is nothing new. One can trace the phenomenon back as far as 1275 B.C.E. and the falsehood that, at the battle of Kadesh, Ramses II was a great conqueror, when in fact “Ramses was not triumphant, [and] the battle was inconclusive at best.” Herzog presents many examples of delusion, including the flat earth theory, the “technical possibilities of producing fictive ‘truths’” with Photoshop and TikTok, deepfake porn on the internet, and more. He is especially animated over “the foolish belief that equates truth with facts,” reserving particular scorn for cinema verité, “an antiquated form of cinema that offers no profound insights.” Little is original here, but Herzog is an engaging ally, and he isn’t above cheekily harmless deceptions of his own. When he was in Panama and dressed in missionary garb for his role in Harmony Korine’s film Mr. Lonely, a local approached him and wanted to confess. Herzog listened to the man’s confession and “granted him absolution in Latin.”
An erudite plea to not give up on truth.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9780593833674
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: July 31, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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