There are always people doing weird and wonderful things in the name of art – sometimes a bit too weird to get space in mainstream galleries or publications – but now these oddballs and oddities have been given a platform. Authors David Carrier and Joachim Pissarro have bravely stepped out into the unknown, shone a light in the corners, looked under rocks and come back with a collection of the offbeat, outré, and overlooked treasures that exist outside the snobbish world of The Arterati. Jeff Koons is raving about it.
Many of these works wouldn’t work at all if reproduced in a gallery setting anyway. The Glue Society’s melting ice cream van, for an obvious example, needs to be seen outdoors on a sunny day. The spray can transformation of the Soviet-era war memorial in Sofia wouldn’t travel well either, and the same could surely be said for Dimitri Taykalov’s meat soldiers. The book is published through Phaidon, and at £25 for a 480-page hardback including 350 illustrations represents exceptional value for money. Oh, and look; IT’S A DOG PAINTED LIKE A TIGER.
Mondrian Car
Photo, Harrod Blank
Hot With The Chance Of Late Storm,
The Glue Society,
for ‘Sculpture by the Sea’ festival,
Sydney, 2006
Photo by Derek Henderson
Military uniforms and guns made of meat,
Dimitri Taykalov
Misfits Surfboard,
Trevor Moran, 2010
In Step With The Times,
Sofia, Bulgaria
Photo by Sophia Kleinsasser
Ossario, Alexandre Orion,
São Paulo, 2006
Photo, Alexander Vikulov
