Craig Kaufman - 1960s plastic art goodness

I watched the PBS documentary "the Cool School" a few months ago, and then picked it up again the other night.  My wife (http://blog.hippiecouture.com) and I are fascinated with the 60s, and the documentary shows some extra cool art as it emerged in LA during the 1950s and 60s at the Ferus Gallery.  I am particularly taken with the work by Craig Kaufman, as, if you know me at all, I have a deep fascination with shiny plastic.  Plastic is a motivating factor in the creation of my slobots, and Kaufman uses it in a masterful way.  The pieces I am highlighting here are from a series of work from the 60s that is created in vacuum formed acrylic plastic.  You can read some more about Kaufman on wikipedia...

The Ferus Gang (Group Portrait of Artists from the Ferus Gallery), 1962.
(Left to Right: John Altoon, Craig Kauffman, Allen Lynch, Ed Kienholz, Ed Moses, Robert Irwin, Billy Al Bengston). Photo by Patricia Faure.

 

slobot grunmicros over in the UK

UK toy blog vinylabuse.com did a quick write up on the grunmicros...

The writer, OKKLE sent me a funny note telling me that the flatter headed grunmicro looks a little like these robots from the Smash Potatoes advert from the 60s... 

bassline makes the slobots insides jiggle

oddly enough, and not very widely known fact: most of the slobots prefer music with bass capable of rattling your insides. here's a couple of tracks, including the current (in the slobot's humble opinion) reigning king of trobbing bass - bassnectar.

and some other throbbing basslines from the bassbin twins...

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slobot's Earl Grey and Sencha headed to Chicago

These two slobots, Sencha and Earl Grey are headed over to Rotofugi in Chicago as we speak to be part of the Toy Karma 2 show... nice line-up on this one, including some heavyweights in the Kaiju and art / toy arena, like Buff Monster, David and Sun Min of Ugly Dolls fame, Itokin Park, and many, many more. The whole premise of this show is based around Japanese toys and their influence on art. This came at a great time for the slobots, as i have been following a track with some of the slobots that takes them back to some of the original images and shapes, which, interestingly enough, take some cues from Japanese Kokeshi dolls, like the Philosophers that i did for a show earlier this year. Both of these slobots are made of found objects, approximately 75%-85% post consumer plastics that have been repurposed into art. The big one stands approximately 14" tall, both have a cool green glass eye and some glow in the dark parts. they have a story too: "Earl Grey and Sencha are two slobots from two different worlds... Sencha comes from the far off land of Japan, created as a household service robot while Earl Grey was created to be a librarian by a noted scientist from Great Britain. Worlds away from their homelands, they met in New York City, and, sharing a passion for proper cups of tea, opened a wonderful little tea shop in the Lower east Side."