Grunge Design Essay

Grunge music originated in Seattle, Washington and can be described as dirty guitar, strong guitar riffs with distortion. They had dark lyrics and expressed the emotions of teenagers. Punk rock is the most popular genre with young rebellious teens that talked about they hated listening to their parents. These genres didn’t become mainstream until the world discovered the rock and roll band “Green Day” in the mid 90’s. The style of the time consisted of cut off T-shirts and tight, ripped jeans. Bands like a “Aerosmith” and “Guns and Roses” played a big fashion roll during this

Although examining art requires a huge knowledge, my intention in this essay is to analyze a piece of art, besides lyrics and the context, I’m going to examine it by following the steps presented by Alain de Botton.

Pop Art emerged in Britain in the late 50’s and the United States in the early 60’s.(Mamiya 1992) Pop Art is generally known today as a representation of celebrating popular culture and consumerism, however it’s background and origins are far more broad and extensive. There are many factors and influences that lead to the creation of the Pop Art movement such as adjusting to life after World War II, new technological advances that lead to mass cooperate growth, the evolution of Abstract Expressionism and also social issues in the media such as feminism. (Smith 2001; Mamiya 1992) Many of these factors overlap and act as a catalyst in the creation of Neodadaism and eventually Pop Art. (Livingstone 1992) Pop Art does not have a soul distinct style nor just one major influence and this can be proven by looking at key artists of the movement such as Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and James Rosenquist as well as female Pop artists such as Martha Rosler. (Brauer, Edwards, Finch & Hopps 2001) Exploring these artists and the major influences of their work will break down Pop Art and establish the movement’s purpose as well as its evolution.

This artwork appears to be an abstract piece made from magazine clippings to create a collage. The artwork is a vertical piece that measures approximately 17 x14. It focuses in on the subject of a girl who is created out of neutral colors. She stands out against the rainbow background. In the background each clipping has a different element and pattern, but they all work in unison creating a rainbow background.

The Grateful Dead was a band that toured continuously for 30 years until the death of lead man Jerry Garcia. They were known for free flowing jams and bluegrass roots. Phish is a band that has toured consistently for the last 17 years and has in time made themselves into stealth multi-millionaires. Both are very talented bands, who have and in the Dead's case, had, created big names for themselves. Many people make wrongful association with these two groups of musicians. It is said that Phish is trying to be the Dead of this generation. This statement is very untrue. Phish is not a Grateful Dead take-off. Phish and the Dead have much more differences than similarities. There are of course a few similarities between

Grunge music as we now know it was a reaction to the hair metal and theatrics of rock in the 80’s and the mainstream pop music of the time as well. Originating in Seattle Washington, we have the “Seattle sound” due to bands like Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Soundgarden. One of the original bands to create the grunge sound was The Melvins in the 80’s, they originated in Seattle and helped inspire some of the many well known bands that followed in the next decade. Everything down to

Jean-Michel Basquiat emerged from the punk scene in New York as a street-smart graffiti artist. He successfully crossed over his downtown origins to the international art gallery circuit. Basquiat’s work is one of the few examples of how an early 1980’s American graffiti-based could become a fully recognized artist. Despite his work’s unstudied appearance, Basquiat very skillfully and purposefully brought together in his art a host of disparate traditions, practices and styles to create a unique kind of visual collage. His work is an example of how American artists of the 1980’s could reintroduce the human figure in their work after the wide success of minimalism and conceptualism.

Throughout history there have been many musical "influences". One extremely important influence to modern music is The Grateful Dead.

In this project the iconic LP records cover I chose to redesign is De La Soul’s 3 FEET HIGH AND RISING.De La Soul is an American hip pop trio formed with members; Dave Posdnuos and Maseo in 1987. De La Soul’s positivity in their lyrics and music style meant many listeners to reference them as Hippie group. The Hippie idea inspires me to create my own hand draw Hippie symbol in the middle of my CD record design. The graduation colour effect on the symbol did not come from no where. It is the colours that represents the Hippie’s spirit. De La Soul’s declaration of their music as the “D.A.I.S.Y.Age”(da inner sound, y’all) stimulates me to remain the yellow scheme as the background relating to the word “Daisy”. The fluorescent flower symbol is

Grunge music was one of the most popular genres in the 1990’s, bringing a new style of rock with gritty distortion and new styles of hair and clothing.

The art piece that I chose to critique is the sculpture of a figure kneeling down and getting shocked. It is located on campus near the Morris University Center(muc). When I first saw this sculpture it caught my attention immediately, because of how gruesome the piece was. I feel like I don’t have a good understanding of what the sculpture represents, but it seems like it would raise plenty of controversy, due to its erotic features. It seems like the artist was venting his emotions when he created his idea. The sculpture is fairly large in size, which makes it noticeable, among the other art pieces on campus. The sculpture media consist of wood and concrete, and metal mostly. The individual is keeling down toward the west and is supported

In order to discuss pop art I have chosen to examine the work and to some extent lives of Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol who were two of the main forces behind the American movement. I intend to reflect the attitudes of the public and artists in America at this time, while examining the growing popularity of pop art from its rocky, abstract expressionist start in the 1950s through the height of consumer culture in the 60s and 70s to the present day.

Postmodern art decided to make revolutionary break with past and questioned previous theories known as “big narratives” of art, politics, economics and overall culture in order to create new theories. The big part of postmodern theory deals with the belief of preexistence of the art all around us. The artist is the one who can recognize these elements of art around as and synthesize them into the art work. This art work becomes object of interpretation which inevitably varies among different generations, social groups, national group, religious groups, and depends on some extent of the educational level of the observers and it is also different in the same individual in different times or environments. The different interpretations of

Meredith Davis’s book “Graphic Design Theory” was published in September 2012 by Thames & Hudson. This book blends a study of historical thinking of design with contemporary / modern approach to it. It also suggests students to critically analyse their work and asks them to adopt the design theories to embellish their practical design work as it will help them construct better work. This book also helps in understanding the consumers and the history of Graphic Design and also talks about a range of theories and introduces a collection of concepts and sources for future use and reference. In this book, Meredith Davis talks about the relationship of visual representation to the contexts of design. It talks about focusing on the broad and long term aftereffects of design and not to design only for the moment and responding to prompt needs.

Lowbrow art is a unique art movement that emerged in the 1970s in the shady corners of Los Angeles, California. Lowbrow art has many labels such as underground, Neo-pop, and Nobrow. Also known as pop surrealism, lowbrow art, was inspired by surf culture, punk music, underground comix, and most importantly, cartoon and comics. Lowbrow art is a movement for the millions of people who share a common culture. The movement has steadily grown since the 1970s and isn’t going anywhere soon. The pop culture prevalent in lowbrow art differs through each artist and is represented through their imagery. In this paper, I am going to elaborate on the characteristics of lowbrow art. Then, compare and contrast two contemporary lowbrow artist’s works, Isabel Samaras and Kenny Scharf (Esaak).