Billy Al Bengston was een Amerikaans kunstenaar.
Men verwijst dikwijls naar Bengstons link met de “kustom”-auto-scene en de motorcultuur. Hij was naar het schijnt de eerste om autolak te gebruiken in de hoge kunsten met psychedelische kleuren die vaak mandala-achtige vormen kregen.
Ik geef u een lied van Harold Budd (die stierf onlangs ook): “Three Faces West (Billy Al Bengston’s)” (2005).
Claes Oldenburg was a Swedish-born American sculptor known for soft sculptures such as Giant Soft Drum Set in the first half of his career, and extra large artworks in the second half of his career.
Margaret Keane was an American artist known for her kitschy paintings of subjects with big eyes.
A resurgence of interest in Margaret Keane’s work followed the release of Tim Burton’s biopic Big Eyes (2014).
Cynthia Plaster Caster was an American visual artist known for creating plaster casts of celebrities’ erect penises.
If you are looking for a recording in mainstream cinema of a penis being cast, check Nancy Godfrey‘s work in W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism (1971).
Dan Graham was an American visual artist known for such artworks as Belgian Fun (2004).
John Wesley was an American painter, known for his spareness of technique and flat-style of painting.
Wayne Thiebaud was an American painter, one of the more interesting American painters of the 20th century.
I particularly like his Refrigerator Pies (1962) which I first came across in Art Now (1976) by Lucie-Smith.
Two good texts on the early period of his career are “The Slice-of-Cake School” (1962) and “An Interview with Wayne Thiebaud” (1966).
The first text has some intelligent remarks on lighting. The second has Thiebaud talking about the significance of pies in the American mind.
Because there is no good Youtube footage of Thiebaud and as an non-journalist I cannot reproduce content in copyright, I give you one of my favorite paintings, Mound of Butter.
Lawrence Weiner is an American artist who made visual poetry and who wrote the art manifesto “Declaration of Intent” (1968).
He designed the Quando Quango and Section 25 poster for Factory Records in 1985.
With Ned Sublette, he released the albums Ships At Sea, Sailors & Shoes (1993) and Monsters from the Deep (1997).
In Antwerp, his poem “Iron and gold in the air, dust and smoke on the ground” is on permanent display at the Middelheim Open Air Sculpture Museum.
Jimmie Durham was an American sculptor and pretendian.
He is known for such works as Still Life With Spirit and Xitle (2007).
It features a 1992 Chrysler Spirit smashed by a 9-ton boulder of red basalt from the Mexican volcano Xitle.
Durham gave the stone a cartoon-like face afterwards. As of 2021, it was located at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
Chuck Close was an American artist working in portrait painting and photography known for his massive-scale photorealist and/or hyperrealist portraits of himself and others, which hang in collections internationally.
Well known works include Big Self-Portrait (1968).