{"id":2084,"date":"2009-10-16T16:10:29","date_gmt":"2009-10-16T23:10:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2009\/10\/american-artifact\/"},"modified":"2009-10-16T16:12:17","modified_gmt":"2009-10-16T23:12:17","slug":"american-artifact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2009\/10\/16\/american-artifact\/","title":{"rendered":"American Artifact"},"content":{"rendered":"

from MediaBistro’s Unbeige<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

American Artifact<\/em>\u00a0Chronicles Rock Poster Art’s Long, Strange Trip<\/h2>\n

By Stephanie Murg on Oct 15, 2009 03:06 PM<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In 2004,\u00a0Merle Becker<\/strong>\u00a0quit her corporate television job at MTV to pursue a growing fascination with rock posters. Soon, she was traveling across the country interviewing artists such as\u00a0Stanley Mouse<\/strong>,\u00a0Art Chantry<\/strong>, and\u00a0Tara McPherson<\/strong>. “My initial intent was to find out why so many artists are drawn to doing rock posters,” says Becker. “I also wanted to tell a clear story of the history of the art form.” The result is\u00a0American Artifact<\/a><\/em>, a documentary that has been making the festival rounds and premieres tonight in New York at\u00a0the Royal Flush Festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The film chronicles the rise of American rock poster art, from the skeleton and roses posters created for the\u00a0Grateful Dead<\/strong>\u00a0and the birth of silk-screening to grunge and the off-kilter whimsy associated with contemporary bands. “It is my hope that this film causes people to see ‘lowbrow’ art in a different way,” notes Becker, “as beautiful pieces of art that are also valid statements about the cultural changes that America has seen throughout the years.”<\/p>\n

Always a huge music fan, Becker was inspired to make\u00a0American Artifact<\/em>\u00a0after encountering\u00a0Paul Grushkin<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Dennis King<\/strong>‘s coffee table tome\u00a0Art of Modern Rock<\/a><\/em>. “I was not only blown away by the artwork, but I was also surprised that nobody had done a film about its history and the current rock poster art movement,” Becker tells us. “I really had no idea that modern rock posters were being done, and until that book, I thought that the ’60s rock poster art had marked the end of that medium.” She soon found her way to\u00a0GigPosters.com<\/a>, “and the rest is history.”<\/p>\n

Read on for more from our interview with Becker at MediaBistro.com<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from MediaBistro’s Unbeige American Artifact\u00a0Chronicles Rock Poster Art’s Long, Strange Trip By Stephanie Murg on Oct 15, 2009 03:06 PM   In 2004,\u00a0Merle Becker\u00a0quit her corporate television job at MTV to pursue a growing fascination with rock posters. Soon, she was traveling across the country interviewing artists such as\u00a0Stanley Mouse,\u00a0Art Chantry, and\u00a0Tara McPherson. “My initial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2084\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}