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This past weekend MUSACK and Subliminal Projects hosted a “Mr. Sparkle” themed art show, which paid homage to a character Homer Simpson portrayed on The Simpsons. The show featured a slew of artists, perhaps most notably Shepard Fairey, creating special pieces using the Mr. Sparkle character. This show brought to mind the recent rise of “Pop-Culture Art,” an art movement built entirely around the use of images in popular culture, primarily cartoons. From illustration to murals to sculpture, there’s a lot of artists using popular and recognizable imagery in their art and while a lot of it is really cool, it brings to mind an ethical question. Is it ok to be using someone else’s imagery to build your own art career? Cartoons are art and an artist created them, so is it cool for someone to get really good at replicating that artist’s work and make a career out of it? I don’t have an answer to this by any means but I want to break down the ways these popular images are being used and discuss why they’re popular but why they may or may not be ethical. The way I see it, Pop-Culture Art uses its imagery in three ways; a tool, a subject, or a straight up copy. So let’s start out talking about artists who use popular imagery as a tool, and what I mean by this is they’re certainly using a recognizable image or character but it’s not the focal point and there’s a high level of originality still being used. HAROW (Instagram: @Har0w) is an artist who I’ve been following for a long time who began as a graffiti writer but his large scale illustrations of superheroes and characters from popular shows like Dragonball Z and Naruto brought him into the eye of the fine art world. These illustrations are more than just replicas of popular characters but deviant, tatted up versions laid over walls of original graffiti, basically just injecting a level of badass into already badass images. Jason Freeny (Instagram: Gummifetus) is another artist who creatively and originally uses popular images in his work by dissecting toys of popular characters and creating detailed skeletons and organs within them. These anatomy studies of popular toys, like the lego man, take something that seems every day and simple and makes it a delicate dissection, adding life and reality to them. This is the art that I think, as far as ethics are concerned, is totally ok. These guys are borrowing images but they’re adding to them, there’s a level of originality. Harow adds delicate and detailed tattoos that are not only beautiful in their own right but fit the characters totally and he lays them over top of elegant font work that, again, fits well with the character. Freeny is cutting open popular characters who we may never even think of as having a detailed anatomy and giving that to them. It’s more than just a copying of a cartoon and I can behind that. Next is the guys who are using popular imagery as a subject and this is where things can get a little dicey for me. The work is cool, no doubt, but it’s here where the ethical questions really start to rise up. THUMBS (Instagram: @Thumbs1) is an artist who does a lot of crossover work with popular cartoons, illustrations featuring things like the Simpsons characters as the characters from Bob’s Burgers or Bojack Horseman as a My Little Pony. These images are really well done and the crossovers are pretty seamless in style and color. Jerkface (Instagram: Incarceratedjerkfaces) is a muralist who’s had work featured all over the country and it’s work made up of patterns with popular cartoons stacked on top of one another, usually missing their eyes. The shape, transparency, and lack of eyes certainly bares some level of originality, but at its core the imagery is largely unchanged from the original. So the question becomes is it ok to use someone else’s imagery in your own work? The Simpsons is a show that both of these artists have used imagery from so let’s use that as an example. The Simpsons were created by cartoonist Matt Groening and the show has been on for almost 30 years so using Groening’s original imagery in your own work builds in the recognizability without any effort. And this isn’t like the Mr. Sparkle show where already popular artists are using an image in one piece, no, these artists are building entire careers around using someone else’s original imagery. So, yeah the work is neat, but is it ok for these dudes to be making careers off of this? I’m not sure but it’s certainly fun to look at. Finally, we’ve got the straight up copies and this is where I’ve got to step up and say it’s not cool. This is more of a rant than anything but it started when I saw popular recording artist Billie Eilish at the iheartradio music awards wearing a shirt and shorts with Sailor Moon, another popular cartoon character, printed on them. This drew me in and upon some further research I found out they were by up and coming artist SlumpyKev (Instagram: @slumpykev), an up and comer in this new DIY high fashion era. I think a lot of people are out here creating cool clothing with just a screen printing rig in their garage but my problem with Kev is that nothing is original at all, he’s just printing cartoons on clothes. THUMBS and Jerkface are at least adding, subtracting, and crossing over elements when they make work with these characters but this dude recently released a series of beanies with Courage the Cowardly Dog on them and the image is one of the first that comes up if you google Courage the Cowardly Dog. Like what did he do? John Dilworth created the character AND that particular image, all this dude did is put it on a hat. So why’s that cool? Is he paying for licensing? I don’t get it. I think a lot of us got into art by drawing our favorite cartoons when we were little and that’s awesome but we grew from that. Now, all of a sudden, people are creating careers in art by drawing our favorite cartoons. Now obviously for a lot of the artists mentioned in this article that’s a big oversimplification and there’s a lot of merit and creativity in their craft. But at the same time for a lot of these people rising to prominence it’s not. There’s a big nostalgia factor to seeing a shirt or mural or sculpture with images from your favorite cartoons on it but we’ve got to think is that really original? Is it ethical for someone to make a career using other people’s imagery? I think this is a conversation we should have because I certainly don’t want to say it’s wrong, i love a lot of this work, pretty much every artist mentioned in this article I actively follow and enjoy but a part of me always thinks that this might not be cool and I want to talk about it. What do you think?

Lia Eisenstadt is an artist who's development and experimentation with different processes and styles has been incredibly impressive. I got to know Lia's work a few years ago in her printmaking and illustration, which was built around bold colors, strong and recognizable imagery that came together to form her own hieroglyphic language. Yet over the last year or so, Eisenstadt has really come into her own as a talented and ambitious sculptor. Her sculpture work is a more dynamic and layered use of the same imagery seen in her print work but when the lights go down she adds another exciting element in colored lights that draw out certain aspects of the piece. I got to have a short chat with Eisenstadt and the information and images she gave me about her work is much more than I could ever give. I'm certainly a big fan of her work and after reading this, I'm sure you'll be too. 1. First things first, give us some background on your work. What makes you the artists that you are? (inspirations, mediums, etc.) When creating work, I’m of course expressing my experiences in life and perspectives on contemporary conversations, as I think a lot of artists do, but I function in my own language of symbolism in ‘characters’, ranging from old symbolic imagery to modern visuals as a basis for most of work. These characters include snakes, naked women, abstracted faces/masks, consumer trash and modern technology. Using such recognizable imagery in my own language creates work that is both obsessively detail oriented yet vague enough to be interpreted differently by each viewer, allowing my work itself to engage in conversation with the audience. I think this interest in symbolism comes from my love for directors such as Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch, they both use saturated color and unexpected imagery to set tones, tell stories and place subtle clues throughout their work. You could honestly watch 2001 a Space Odyssey a hundred times and come out with a different perspective each time and it drives me crazy in the best way possible. I experiment a lot with artificial light in my videos and photography and use electro luminescent wire in my sculptures to get a ‘faux-neon’ effect. I generally use MDF board and plexi-glass in my sculptures but I’m currently looking to expand my choice in materials. Gotta switch it up every now and then, right? 2. So, from what I understand, you come from an illustration type background but you've really branched into sculpture. What would you say has inspired this exploration into a new medium? I had always loved illustration and painting but at a certain point I began to feel limited, there just wasn’t enough I could get out of 2D work. I still enjoy incorporating my love for illustration in my sculpture work, I just find creating my own unique canvas to paint on infinitely more fulfilling. I’ve always dreamed of creating installation art and I think sculpture is the path for me to get there. 3. Your sculpture work is made up of awesome stand alone pieces that also have this cool story telling and illustration elements with light. What drew you towards working with light? Thank you! I’m absolutely obsessed with neon and artificial lights. I have to attribute growing up in New York City and being saturated with light up signs and over the top consumerist meccas like Times Square for exposing me to that sort of landscape from an early age. I also associate harsh artificial light with bars and night clubs, which are at times, sexy, disgusting and colorful messes that inspire the aesthetic of my work as well. There’s something so mesmerizing to me about the way artificial lights create intimate and eccentric scenes, in a dark room the viewer unwillingly becomes a part of the work, as the light hits their face and creates brilliant shadows across the room. I enjoy using color alongside my concepts, not purely for aesthetic purposes, but to highlight different emotion as well as comment on the saturated and technological age we live in. We live in a time where we’ve become SO accustomed to staring into bright screens for a majority of the day, that we see light in a sort of comforting manner without fully realizing it, after all- half of our conversations and interactions take place over colorful pixelated lights. 4. Where do you plan on headed with your current body of work? Or any plans totally outside of what you're currently doing? Currently, I’m in a more experimental phase, trying out new textures and mediums such as artificial fur, resin and resin-collaged objects. I’m trying to find new ways to bring the viewer into the work, creating temptation to get closer and touch the work itself. My most recent video project “Questionairre” was one of my favorite pieces this year, though video isn’t my main focus, creating a piece where I got to paint scenes in color and record unique (and mostly drunk) opinions over a frantic mask-wearing drummer’s jam session felt just right, I’d love to make more work like that in the future. I love music and movies so it seems like the best of both worlds for me. Oh and I’m absolutely taking neon classes when I move back home. That’s been the plan for years. 5. You're a senior art student, any big plans for your art in the future? Thoughts on the current state of the art world that influence your decisions in this? As I mentioned earlier, once I graduate I’m getting my ass into a neon shop ASAP! I still feel like I’m all over the place with mediums and directions and I look forward to continue tumbling forward and finding new ways to express my artistic vision after leaving this space and entering some new ones. And I love the increase in technology based work in the art world these days, Nam June Paik is a big inspiration for me and I’d love to do my own modern spin on his concepts in the future. 6. Open season, anything else you want to add or get out there by all means, go ahead. I don’t upload as much as I should these days but my Instagram is @sobanyc and my website is https://sobanyc.weebly.com/ Soba as in soba noodles, nyc as in the overpriced smelly trash paradise. Yum. Check out my video “Questionairre” here! https://vimeo.com/304629137 Grab some popcorn, it’s a long but worth the watch. Remember Folks! Feature Friday is an awesome way to get your work seen and promoted, as well as make you eligible for other prizes! But, you’ve got to post on that forum so we can see your work and promote it! So post, comment and post some more! Let’s see and talk about all of your work!

hosted by Mery Gates, 1345 DeKalb Avenue, Brooklyn opens Saturday, April 6th, 6 – 9pm on view April 7th, 13th, and 14th, 12 – 6pm and weekdays by appointment Excited for this show, the first of a series curated by friend of Plebeian, Samuel Boehm, and includes work by Plebeian Contributor Daniel Giordano

*<3* happy spring equinox ya'll *<3*

Not sure what to really call this one. The picture to the left is one from my own practice. It was the result of experimentation in a printmaking medium. Luckily I had a professor during school who considered printmaking to cover any intentional action resulting in a mark. That idea got me thinking about how to expand on tradition print methods. Dark room photography was something that I knew absolutely nothing about at the time. But putting two and two together, why not replace the photo-emulsion stage of the screen printing process with another light sensitive medium. Taking the transparency of my design into the dark room and using it as a negative I burned it into a substance called liquid light (linked below). Then I ran the print through the bathing process to set the image. However being inexperienced in dark room techniques the image ran, but the name of the game is experimentation. because the image layer slipped in the bath the image became very abstract. If you take anything away from this Tuesday, you shouldn't feel like you like theres a set in stone way of doing things. Don't be afraid to just try it. You may be pleasantly surprised by the result...or you hate it and never do it again. Either way you learned something. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/45029-REG/Rockland_LLE16_Liquid_Light_Photo_Emulsion.html/?ap=y&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIjKim-tyP4QIVF4zICh27LAzzEAQYASABEgI3PPD_BwE&lsft=BI%3A514&smp=Y

Art is a funny thing in that the way we all produce is so different. Production varies from artist to artist, some people pump out work that’s of consistent quality and creativity, some people take years between pieces, and anything in between. The art making process is different for every artist that’s out there and that diversity in process creates diversity in artwork, if every process was the same then art itself would eventually start to blend into one stale entity. However, one thing that I believe every artist has gone through in their creative exploits is the block. Just being stuck and not knowing what to create. It sucks, it’s the bane of all of our existences as artists. So why do we get stuck? That’s a tough question, and like our processes I think it varies from person to person. A common factor that I’m sure a lot of us experience is just trying to stay relevant, there’s always going to be art and if you’re not producing then you might quickly be forgotten. So, sometimes as artists just the raw pressure to create is astounding and that’s not always productive to our work. It’s a tough thing to be stuck, as artists we tend to be very self-critical and when we’re stuck we usually don’t let up but instead get exponentially harder on ourselves. I’m stuck right now, I’ll admit it, that’s what inspired this article. So what can we do to break ourselves out of the mental trap that is being stuck? I don’t have a definite answer, art is never that easy unfortunately, but I’ve put together a few ideas that have worked for me and that might work for you. The first is to seek inspiration, be it new or old. Sometimes we drift away from what inspires us, especially during periods where we’re creating a lot, but when that creativity ends we forget what it’s like to be inspired. So, go back into the world and find those key things that make you function as an artist. Revist what has inspired you and see if it can bring back that spark. If not, maybe it’s time to find new inspiration and there’s a lot of easy ways to do that. Art shows are a great thing and I think we all find inspiration from them to some extent but if you get in that safe mode where you’re going and seeing the same artists or styles, go out and see something new. You never know what you might find in a gallery or publication, there’s a lot of REALLY inspiring art out there just waiting to be found. Or maybe you’re just inspired by life and while you’re making your art you get reclusive and forget to live your life. Well now you’re stuck in your studio, not sure what to create so what’s the solution? Go out and live. Find that new inspiration or experience. Go find what drives your work because sometimes we lose it when we create something, so before the next piece can happen we have to go find that wonder again. Another thing can help you break out of your funk is trying something new. In my experience the best time to try a new medium or process is when you’re stuck on what you’ve been doing. Something clearly isn’t working like it used to in your usual process so what’s the harm in trying something new? Not like you can’t go back to what you were doing before. In all likelihood, if and when you go back to your former process you’ll be going back totally reviatalized. Personally, I got into sculpture at a time when my illustration and painting was in a bit of a rut, I didn’t know where I was headed so trying something new and going into that experience open I took a lot out of that. From there, I really fell in love with sculpture and when I went back to my painting I had a whole slew of new ideas inspired by my sculpture and eventually I started merging the two mediums that I worked in. Sometimes when you’re stuck in what you usually do you go into a new experience totally open and not holding onto what your safety is because that isn’t working right now. The last thing is for if you don’t want to abandon your usual media and that’s just to throw some shit at the wall and see what sticks. I’m a big preacher of experimentation and I think we too often get stuck on just trying to be the perfect artist we envision ourselves as and don’t want to experiment for fear of failure. But sometimes when you’re stuck on what to create you just have to go head first into a projet, no plan whatsoever, just do it and see what happens. If you’re a painter, splash some paint on the canvas and see where it goes. If you’re a sculptor, weld some loose pieces of steel together, bend a wooden strip. Whatever you do, throw some clay on the wheel and let it ride, pour ink on a plate and see how it prints, whatever you do, JUST DO! Sometimes we get stuck in the planning zone and that’s what hurts our creative process, we can’t plan anything out so we think we can’t make anything but in actuality sometimes we just have to go in without a plan and see what happens. You never know, you might just get the creative juices flowing or you might find something totally new within your process that makes some awesome work. I really hope these methods help you break your funk and I’m interested in what you all do to break your own if these don’t work. But one of the biggest things I want you to take from reading this is that if you’re stuck it’s not just you. We all go through it, don’t beat yourself up, you’ll get through it. The best thing we can do when we’re stuck is learn from it, find out why we got stuck or find a new method that helps you break out of it, whatever it is, make this funk a learning experience for yourself. That way next time you hit a rut in your creative process you’ve got a more tools in your arsenal to help you get out of it. We’re always going to be learning as artists, so take something from all of your experiences.

When we create art work, the primary goal is for it to be seen. Be it in a gallery, private collection, or some other alternative, the primary goal of art is for work to be seen and experienced. So, when creating a work the artist must take into account how they plan on displaying that work! I’m all for winging it when making work but the display isn’t the natural flowing of thought that the process of making the piece is. Building in the mount for display or understanding how certain pieces will relate to one another when displayed together is pivotal in the art making process. I remember putting up work for my senior art show, the culmination of our school experience, and this person had brought in 4 or 5 wonderfully crafted sculptures and when asked how she wanted to hang them she had no idea. I was kind of blown away because sculptures aren’t like flat works, you can’t really just say fuck it and slap it on the wall, you’ve got to have some idea where this is going to hang, sit, or whatever. There were also people who were hanging 2-D work and had no idea how to make a cohesive display. It was mesmerizing some of the things people had ignored in their time at school! This shit is important, if you want your work to be seen, you’ve got to have an idea of how it’s going to be displayed because you’re not always going to be there to hold your work up and say, “look what I did.” So, what I’m really trying to get at in this short blog is practice your displays, consider what you’re doing to mount the work. One of the best ways to practice this is in critiques, obviously this practice is mostly focused on the work, but we can’t really experience a work fully if it’s just leaned against a wall can we? No. So if you’ve got a piece that you’re not sure how to hang, talk with your peers, experiment with different ways to display it. If you’ve got a collection of pieces, lay them out, find the best way to create a cohesive display, one that shows what you’re trying to say by creating this series. No one is going to see your work if you don’t know how to display, folks! So practice it, it’s much easier to have a professor let you know your display didn’t work and then workshop how to make it better than to have a gallery owner laugh in your face out in the professional world. It’s an easy skill to overlook but it’s a necessary one.

Patooey. To hell with critical thinking. Subscribe to the way of the scarecrow. Find your true self and go fuck it once you do, unleash the fucking fury, full throttle.

I was having a conversation with someone the other day about recording a video and they told me that they’ve just been recording things with their phone lately because their iPhone quality was now better than their GoPro’s. That really surprised me because although this rectangle that we all have in our pockets is amazing, if I’m spending $200-400 on a camera I really hope the quality is better than my phone’s. But then I took a deeper look at it and a lot of marketing has shifted towards cell phone camera ability. If you take a look around you’ll quickly find an iPhone ad with a beautiful landscape picture or something with “taken on an iPhone X,” underneath. Basically just ignoring the fact that it’s a phone, because they know you’re going to buy the phone, they want to market you the extra incentive of a “professional quality camera” attached to the phone. Then on top of that there’s instagram and a million photo editing apps out there all geared towards convincing us that everyone can be a photographer with their phone alone. It’s a striking thing, really, the fact that now pretty much every person has a phone and a high powered digital camera with editing capabilities built right into it in our pockets. In our POCKETS! If you could travel back in time to the 80’s and told someone that, their heads would explode. But is it detrimental to the photography industry? Think about it, after hundreds of years of portrait painting to document who we are and what we’re doing it, the camera quickly swooped in and took that over. Then from there a whole new industry of documentation, photography, came about. From there, video was born and it moved into an even more advanced direction. Then, almost as quickly as it appeared, suddenly everyone had a camera in their pocket and within just a few years those cameras were so advanced everyone thinks they’re a photographer. The camera quickly became the tool of a master craftsmen and just as quickly became an everyday commodity. So is it bad? As a sculptor, if suddenly everyone had a pocket sized metal shop on their person at all time, I wouldn’t be thrilled. It just seems like a controlled watering down of an industry because for everyone who’s studied the camera, the tools, the theory, every aspect of photography to be a good photographer there’s thousands of instagram superstars who think they’ve got unreal filter game. I don’t really have an opinion on this, I think it’s crazy, but I don’t know if it’s good or bad. We’ve talked about how problematic selling art can be so is this cell phone photographer era eliminating the need for true photographers? The documentary photographer could be replaced by a selfie stick if people convince themselves they’re just as well off with their phone camera, and prints would become irrelevant if people could take pictures themselves and just store them in the myriad of albums on their photos app. Or have we created a tool for everyone to create a gateway into an industry that they always feared entering? Maybe being able to take nice photos on our phones will inspire people to go out and buy a quality camera, research the craft and truly explore the photography world. Commodities like cell phones, and the cameras within them, are certainly excellent tools. But are they hurting or helping the craft of photography?

We are more than excited to announce that Daniel Giordano is joining the Plebeian team as a creative contributor. He will be sharing writings and other quirky content on our blog. Here's a taste of what is to come. Enjoy! To be a child, To have a pet snail, To never see its eyes, To feed it food flakes just one measly time, To watch it live on, Grow, By perpetually eating its own shit, To witness it grind out an existence in a miserable sheeny glass mug ‘til death, And to then Mourn the fact by Daniel Giordano Danielgiordano.xyz IG: @danieljgiordano

I think one of the most nerve wracking things about school is critiques, but they’re really important. Critiques are the culmination of your art making process, where you and your peers can reflect on how you got to this piece, what was successful and what wasn’t as successful. Critiques also allow you to see what others have done and analyze what was successful for them which can be incredibly helpful in reflecting on your own process. I’ve sat through a lot of critiques across multiple disciplines and there have been really good and really bad experiences. I don’t mean that my work was praised or my work was trashed, I mean that some critiques have been insightful and an excellent learning tools and some have been absolute wastes of time. There are certain things that are very engaging and helpful in critiques and there are some things that just don’t need to be said, so today I’m going to lay out another “do’s and don’ts list” for you all on critiques. As usual with this lovely Wednesday segment, this list will grow and evolve as we talk about these subjects with our artists and with all of you! Do: 1. Be Critical: This one seems super obvious but you’d be shocked at how many crits seem to just turn into a compliment festival and that’s not helping anyone. Don’t be afraid to let people know what they faltered on in their process, it’s not a personal attack and it will ultimately help the person grow as an artist. It’s called a critique after all, be critical, no one’s gotten better as an artist after everyone just sat around and complemented each other. 2. Write Down the Reactions You Get: A lot of information is going to get thrown around over the time it takes to critique a whole group’s work so make sure while your work is being discussed to write down the important things that you hear. Good and bad, remind yourself what you heard that you think will help you or that made you feel good about your work. 3. Speak Up: I’ve seen a lot of people who are talented and smart artists but they don’t speak during critiques… ever. Don’t be silent one, speak up and let people know what you’re thinking about their work, even if it’s something simple, you’d be surprised how much it may help the person whose work you’re talking about. So I think that the “do’s” for a critique are pretty simple and self explanatory. Basically just don’t be scared to speak or be critical of a work and take in everything that people say about your work. Not that hard. The “don’ts” are, in my opinion, the more crucial part of this list because doing these things can really halt the critique process and no one gains anything out of doing these silly things. Don’ts: 1. Say “I Like…”: The hardest I can physically roll my eyes is when a professor asks someone what they think of a piece and their response is, “I like it.” This does nothing for anyone, explain yourself. Why do you like it? What aspects of this work stood out to you for you to form the opinion of “like”? People are looking to you for help on understanding what is good and/or bad about their work so just hitting them with a lame blanket statement like this is insulting. 2. Say What You Would Do: This one is more of a phrasing issue and it’s pretty easy. Just don’t tell the person what you would do to make their work better. It’s not your work and it gives off a condescending tone like you’re saying, “I’m better than you, so here’s what I would change to make this piece better.” Now, I’m not saying don’t say what you’re thinking, but phrase it in a way of an idea, something that allows the artist to ponder the thought and not just hear that if you had made this, it would go this way. 3. Get Offended/Try to Defend Yourself: I said this in the Do portion but let me reiterate because people always seem to struggle with this but, a critique isn’t a personal attack! This is a moment for people to look at your work and let you know what is going well and what isn’t, so getting offended by people pointing out things that aren’t working in your piece is just a waste of time. You’re not going to get better as an artist if people just praise every piece that you make and even though it might not be exciting to hear people lay into your work a little, hold it together, it will help. I promise. Take in the critiques and if they don’t work for you, they don’t work, and if they do then awesome, you gained something from the experience! So that’s the opening for my “Do’s and Don’ts of Critiques,” and I hope you all like it! Let me know what you guys think or things that excite or bother you in critiques. Let’s build this list and help make the critiquing experience even better for students!