SUPER POP ART
06 June 2015, Cervera de los Montes
I'm drawing super pop. Super pop = Campbell's soup + Andy Warhol + Naomi Campbell. Super pop = consumer culture + pop art star + super model. Warhol's dinosaur 60's soup cans are really boring - tomato, vegetable, beef and consomme. The current Campbell's catalog is much more hilarious and pop.
MY FAVORITE CAMPBELL'S SOUPS
98% Fat Free Broccoli Cheese Soup, Avengers™ Fun Shaped Pasta Soup
Beer-n-Cheese with Beef & Bacon Soup
Chicken & Stars Soup
Chicken NoodleO's® Soup
Creamy Poblano and Queso Soup
Disney/Pixar Cars™ Soup
Disney® Princess™ Soup
Double Noodle® Soup
Fajita Chicken with Rice and Beans Soup
Fiesta Chicken Lime Tortilla Soup with White Meat Chicken
Goldfish® Pasta Soup
Healthy Request® Mexican-Style Chicken Tortilla Soup
Hearty Cheeseburger Soup
Hearty Pizza with Sausage & Pepperoni Soup
Italian Style Wedding Soup
Jammin' Jerk Chicken with Rice & Beans Soup
Loaded Baked Potato with Applewood Bacon Soup
Mega Noodle Soup
Moroccoan Style Chicken with Chickpeas Soup
Phineas and Ferb™ Soup
Pub Style Chicken Pot Pie Soup
Santa Fe-Style Chicken Enchilada Soup
Scooby-Doo™ Soup
Texas Style Angus Beef Chili with Black Beans Soup
PORTRAYING POWER
03 June 2015, Cervera de los Montes
I've been dogmatically avoiding living and currently active people in my art works. My idea has been that an art work must be more durable than an editorial cartoon. Sometimes it takes several years in between completing a work and exhibiting it in public.
One exception was a Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah I drew two years ago in Beirut (the work has never been showcased). Then I showed Kim Jong-un in my solo exbibition at Galerie Forsblom this year. The work was acquired by the Saastamoinen Foundation and appeared to be hugely popular. During the spring I did two commissions - Steve Jobs and DSK - and exhibited Kim Kardashian in New York and Vladimir Putin in Austria. Finally this week, I did a three piece series of the new cabinet of Finland featuring its key ministers. Probably those drawings never end up in a gallery but the social media is their perfect and exclusive platform.
The best thing in artist's job is that you don't have to follow your own rules but you can change them every day.
THIS WEEK'S TO DO LIST
01 June 2015, Cervera de los Montes
Cook seven lunches and seven dinners. Doctor’s appointment. Dentist’s appointment. Read Caligula’s biography. Try to be at home when FedEx brings books. Prepare new canvases. E-mail to Sweden again. Take the kids to ballet, music, horse back riding and football. Write about Impossibilism. Remember to water the plants. Buy ice-cream.
Studio: Mexican drug war, nachos, chill sauce, alcohol (banned by my doctor), Warren Buffet, ISIS detergent, Timo Soini, Ronald McDonald, Nesquick, Russian double eagle, kleptocracy, Kinder chocolate with Slavoj Zizek, Elon Musk, robots, wienersnichtel (spelling?).
PASSIVE IMPOSSIBILISM
25 May 2015, Cervera de los Montes
I was going to vote yesterday when my friend working in administration sent me a message that I don't have right to vote in the regional elections but only in the municipal poll.
I couldn't believe it because I voted in both in 2011 and 2007. The absurd thing this is that this time I was a candidate for the regional parliament - but couldn't vote myself.
I found out that according to the Spanish law I have a passive suffrage on the regional level, which means that I can be a candidate but can't vote. In the past I've voted illegally for the error of the local polling station.
On top of that, our results were calamitous in the whole country. Lets' face it, people are not interested in the class war and the dictatorship of the proletariat. I'm attracted to think like impossibilists who argue that any reforms in capitalism are counterproductive because they strengthen support for the existing system, helping to ensure the continuation of capitalism. More capitalism will lead us sooner to socialism.
STUDIO SHIT
18 May 2015, Cervera de los Montes
Last week I worked rigorously but I had to absent the studio one day for the electoral campaign. When I was away, birds invaded my studio. The sparrows shitted on the works that were shipped the next day to Finland. I had to fix once again one of the elements of 57 Varieties, the series of red monochromes, which has been incredibly hapless. The work has been damaged several times - it was sold this spring but I had to bring back few parts to the studio to repaint them. Now they are on their way to the collector and I hope they will arrive safe and sound. Maybe I should just extend canvases on the studio floor and let the birds poop on them. I could then name the specks with different types of shit.