Total Geek-Art: A Celebration Of Pop Culture by Thomas Olivri (book review).
Any book with ‘Geek’ in its title falls into our raised eyebrow category. Thomas Olivri’s book, ‘Total Geek-Art: A Celebration Of Pop Culture’, nature is to show the work of 80 artists who don’t do standard work, often playing with recognised images and icons and, shall we say, twist them, usually for funny effect.
So what you get is a mixture based on odd ideas and done by competent professional commercial artists to make you think as much as looking at the art. Incidentally, most of them sell their work to various companies who must approve of what they see.
Total Geek-Art: A Celebration Of Pop Culture by Thomas Olivri. pub: Abrams
There is a lot of film poster work here, especially in Science Fiction and fantasy. Each provides their websites so you can see what else they do and sell, making this sampler a useful promotion of their work. Keeping count of their nationalities and we have English, Welsh, American, Australian, French, Spanish and Costa Rica. Then again, that shouldn’t be surprising as being geek is international.
Probably the one that had me laughing out loud the most was Australian Steven Rhodes take on children’s hobbies which was slightly sick and shouldn’t be copied.
otal Geek-Art: A Celebration Of Pop Culture by Thomas Olivri. pub: Abrams
There is so much to choose from here and even my gulping down about 70 pages at a time or day to make deadlines is still something to absorb the various styles and gag pictures. I was taken by Medusa Dollmaker (really Asunción Macián Ruiz) statement, ‘Ars Longa, Vita Brevis’, which translates as ‘Life is short, art prevails’ which must be true of all art.
otal Geek-Art: A Celebration Of Pop Culture by Thomas Olivri. pub: Abrams
With so many artists it is impossible to choose even particular favourites and I hate doing that anyway. The value of any artist depends on your personal taste. Quite frankly, there’s enough here to fit all and no artist is short-changed here. About the only thing straight here is putting the artists in alphabetical order but it would be chaos to try anything else. Feel inspired.
GF Willmetts
October 2020
(pub: Cernunnos/Abrams. 415 page illustrated medium large softcover. Price: £30.00 (UK), $40.00 (US), $50.00 (CAN). ISBN: 978-1-4197-4777-9)
check out website: www.abramsbooks.com
