art

We've never seen petty like this before and honestly, this story has so many levels of petty that we're gonna have to just let it do all the talking. All we can really say is that it involves world-renowned a-hole Anish Kapoor, his "bean" (aka Cloud Gate), and the world's blackest black shade of paint.

Need to inject some simple happiness into an otherwise bleak reality? Well, the hellhole that is Twitter surprised us this week with some good old fashioned internet wholesomeness. On Monday, Chappell Ellison shared a Tumblr post from cosmictapestry with a photo of a cranky-looking baby vulture wearing a dapper pair of pants. While the trousers were intended to keep the bird from messing with his leg splints, they have made him a bit of a celebrity on Twitter - with the help of Ellison's request that someone draw the sartorially blessed fellow. 

The request, which may or may not have been serious, was fulfilled by many of Twitter's artists and executed with varying degrees of skill. While the thread does boast some impressive and realistic depictions, we're more into the crude MS Paint masterpieces. You can see both ends of the artistly spectrum below, but we highly recommend visiting the thread for more wholesome goodness. You deserve it. 

While these are absolutely awesome to look at, we can't help but think that some of the trees can't have been too stoked about it. Also, just imagine crossing paths with one of these faces in the middle of a forest when the sun's going down and the eerie vibes of isolation in nature are already running amok. Just a little bit of yikes. 

There's no denying that people are very creative as well as incredibly skilled at making such interesting things. That said, who really wants a toe bed? Maybe this stuff resonates with at least a few people out there, but on the whole, a toilet guitar isn't gonna be something that a lot of us want to buy. It's just a drop in the bucket of the many impressive creations of questionable taste.

People are an incredibly creative bunch. Sometimes are creativity surpasses artwork and even leads to cursed food created in the underworld's kitchen. Sometimes people make things just because they can be done, and not necessarily because they will be popular or even nice looking. We're the kings of making things well but with questionable taste. There's no denying that these took a lot of talent to create, but the big question is "why?"

We don't really think about bricks. In a world where new buildings are steel and transparent, the brick has become a symbol of rugged pragmatism of days past. But in the right hands, a few bricks can become a highly aesthetic thing of satisfying perfection. They're graceful. Very unlike these "not my job" moments of incompetent construction or these OSHA safety failures.

We've got a real treat for anyone who has a deep appreciation for both art history and internet culture. These memes put a contemporary twist on renaissance, medieval and classical art. The combination of these two disparate visual mediums is funny in itself and many of the dramatic expressions of characters depicted in old paintings can really transcend time with the right funny caption. It's pretty to fun imagine Byzantine artists as epic memelords of the Middle Ages.

What the hell is an NFT anyway? Non-Fungible Tokens are basically digital assets or collectors items, sort of like a rare Pokémon card that has gained value over time due to its scarcity, except NFTs only exist digitally on 'proof of work' blockchains, like Ethereum. When one buys an NFT, they aren't buying the image itself, but rather the token that points to the image or video and says 'this is the only one that exists.' Now people can even buy individual tweets as NFTs, but the way that works is a little more complicated, and frankly, we don't really get it. All we know is, Jack Dorsey is selling his first tweet ever for like, millions of dollars and 'Bad Luck Brian' sold an NFT of his school photo for 20 ETH (about $36,000 at the time). NFTs aren't only being used to sell digital art, the memes have unsurprisingly taken over and you can find everything from the 'Deal With It' sunglasses to 'Nyan Cat' selling for lots of money. All of this absurdity might seem like a harmless game to some—buying the metadata of original troll face for thousands of dollars in crypto? Sure, okay. But sadly minting NFTs on proof-of-work blockchain has disturbing environmental consequences. The average NFT that gets minted to the ETH network has the same carbon footprint as one European resident's electricity consumption for 1.5 months. So until we can figure out a more efficient way to sell digital assets, some suggest that participants in this madness will have to offset the environmental cost by doing things like reinvesting their gains into renewable energy.

We've collected some tweets that paint a picture of the current NFT frenzy—some from high-profile public figures who are participating and some reactions from people who are watching from the sidelines.

Many of us may not be able to visit museums due to the coronavirus pandemic, but we're happy to report that we've got the next best thing. Art memes. They combine the creativity and skill of our favorite eras of art with dumb and relatable humor. What more could you want? 

Meet Finn, the golden retriever and 1000% good boy! Finn had gotten received neutered and had to wear a cone for up to two weeks, in the hopes of cheering him up -- his mom, Jenn Frates, decided to decorate his cone daily in fun new themes. 

And not only did they cheer Finn up, but they also cheered us up too. Frates told The Dodo, "I thought it would be a fun way to get through the long two weeks of him having to wear an ugly cone. I'm trying to stock his first-year puppy book with lots of funny memories. I also just love art/being crafty in any form." 

Frates continued, "We do a lot of photoshoots so he knows when I have him sit in the backyard that he has to wait and if he does … lots of treats are coming." And what pup wouldn't be excited about a treat? We absolutely adored scrolling through Finn's photoshoot and we hope you do too! 

Story via The Dodo

Every parent thinks their kids are amazing, and they should! Every child deserves to feel special, loved, and encouraged. But... at what point does encouragement just become straight-up lies. When your child presents you with a page full of scribbles, well there's reason to praise your little Jackson Pollack, but after the fiftieth one in a row, you may find yourself running out of enthusiasm. Ah, the joys of parenting.

Well, well, another day on twitter, another adorable animal goes viral, and you would never expect it to be this one. A bear in a river. That's right. You hear that ad may not think anything of it, but my gosh, that bear is the cutest bear that we've ever seen (and that's despite the fact that all bears are totally adorable), and we are not even slightly surprised that the internet went crazy over it. 

It's so cute, it inspired endless artists to create adorable versions of the bear themselves, and we felt the need to give them all (and the bear) some love. So, enjoy this adorable fluffball in all of its versions, and have a pawtasitc weekend!