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crucified Mickey Mouse at Yintai Luxury Mall

via photo on Flickr – Photo Sharing!.

It’s part of an annual celebration involving a whole bunch of stuff but I’m most impressed by the quality of the design, sculpt, and paint job of these constructions – that will all (except for one chosen to be saved by vote) be destroyed as part of the festival.

The themes take jabs at events of the past year and often feature political figures (that us Americans have no clue about) – and much to the horror of corporate IP lawyers – also freely use cartoon and movie characters in decidedly not-approved poses. They’re also bawdy, lewd, and fairly racist. Altogether WAY more exciting than our corporate-sponsored, often bland and poorly sculpted, Rose Bowl Parade floats. Tons more on flickr here. Also here and here.

Exterface.com and my friend of House of Vader are responsible for this:

which is freaky because looking through my old sticker collection I found:

Move over TRON lightcycle – I’ve got a new ride in mind.

I have this 34 x 11.5″ gauche painting by Harper but I can’t figure out what it was for. Harper worked as a set designer for Warner Brothers in the 40′s then worked on several Disney projects including Art Directing 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (which won an Oscar for the design), and later, after Disney, the famous Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and The Fantastic Voyage. If you have any clue what film had a scene like this set in North Africa or someplace with moorish ruins occupied by British? soldiers – let me know. I can’t find anything.

UPDATE: As the commenter below noted it MIGHT be from the 1936 Charge of the Light Brigade – watching the trailer suggests the same costumes and the same settings. But Harper would have been about 25 at the time, and would they have rendered color illustrations for a B/W film?

UPDATE: NOT from “Charge of the Light Brigade”. I watched it. BUT, based on suggestions, I did watch “Ten Tall Men” (1951) – and I’m certain this was a set design for that film. There’s also a scene that seems to be the inspiration to the begging prisoners scene from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

Very “this is the piece that’ll get me into art school.” Drag queens standing on a black shard. Sharks (a metaphor?). And a primitive Basquiat-inspired demon figure. Shit like this plays well in a crowded BFA portfolio review meeting – “This one’s got the passion, he just needs to focus.” – but after you’re accepted you don’t know what to do with it, and lord knows your parents don’t want it, so you stick it on your wall in a desperate attempt to deny it’s true fate: the thrift store. And it’s there a couple kids will find it and have a great “omg look at this” moment, maybe snap a pic on their cell phone, and then go to lunch without buying it.

Art like this is only acceptable to display if your mother painted it, and that’s what you see when you look at it. Because the rest of us see the most boring and overused image ever. Flowers in an old-world windowsill. And it’s horribly composed and poorly rendered (as this scene so frequently is). But again, if mom painted it it’s great and warm and u can keep it.

I bought this exact same print on a family trip to Laguna Beach when i was 15 or so. I didn’t care about the joke: “Sitting duck” har har. I just liked the chill nature of the duck. I needed any image supporting relaxation to be on my walls at that time.

I really try to be supportive of people being creative. But sometimes it’s really REALLY hard. I mean you have no idea how badly i want to put quotation marks around “creative” here.

Blurry squiggle flowers in a penis vase is a new way to combine two common subjects and secure a purchase from a gay buyer.

Great example of the piece that didn’t get you into art school.  You hang it on your wall in a sour grapes victory. Who needs art school anyway. Theory just turns you gay. I like colors. Immago paint my walls yellow.

20 years later you think about the suckers still paying off their CalArts loans while they work at a brand licensing firm and insisting finding ways to put Dora the Explorer on a toothbrush is “still being creative you know.” You might be working as a bar back and considering charging guys to watch you jack off online but u know that’s still better than Sallie Mae having a $50,000 grip on your ass into middle age. OMG this has nothing to do with what i’m supposed to be talking about. What’s happened to me. I’ve become an LA Weekly film critic.

Opening night is sold out. More pics to come after I recover. I designed all the sets/props as well as all 40-some illustrations projected on the scrim.

The Good Soldier Schweik for Long Beach Opera – It’s a comedy, in English, based on a Czech novel about the start of WWI. Only 2 performances, each in a different theater, the first one being far superior and almost sold out – Get Tix here if u want.

This is the tipsy bar – which i think is quite a sublime little piece. The mugs attach magnetically to metal hidden under the top allowing repositioning of the mugs – and re-balancing or un-balancing of the bar without the mugs falling.

this bed is made from platforms and crates used in other scenes. The look is spoze to be very traveling troupe with a circus/military feel.

I got this green chair for $5. Making it into a wheelchair cost a bit more.

These sketches were rough early concepts. The birdcage was found on craigslist and i added the extra who-ha at the top. I think adding chandelier crystals to those chairs and cage was a bit of genius but that’s me talking about myself. And let me tell u what a bitch it is to paint a birdcage.

The Good Soldier Schweik for Long Beach Opera – It’s a comedy, in English, based on a Czech novel about the start of WWI – if any of that interests you. There is also a scene with 5 guys in a bed together getting enemas. Maybe i should have gone with that for the poster image. There’s only 2 performances, each in a different theater, the first one being far superior I think – Get Tix here if u want.

A few years ago I was asked to design some concepts to fill this large atrium space in a mall in Jakarta called “FX”. None of my concepts were realized except for this slide, which was entirely inspired by the slides Carsten Holler did at the Tate in 2006 – something the client specifically requested – only flashier! Which is good because it bothers me when clients want me to do a rip-off of some artist’s work – I just tell them to hire that artist, then they’d get the bonus PR angle of having a “name” artist’s work in their space. But apparently clients assume “name” artists would be difficult to work with, unlike nameless wrists-for-hire like myself.

So here’s one of my renderings, and what what actually built – plus video of Asians flying out the end of it, skidding across the floor. I’m told “Atmosfear” is now the longest slide in the world (being the Tate ones were temporary), and that it’s wildly popular, and makes the mall a ton of money because you have to buy $10 worth of something to get a ticket to ride it.