Posted inArt

When the Joker Was a Contemporary Artist

Today is a very important day in contemporary art history. Yes, today is in fact the 47th anniversary of “Pop Goes the Joker,” a very amusing and at times slightly disturbing two-part episode of the original Batman television series starring Adam West. The episode depicts Gotham’s “art world” and opens with a scene in which The Joker enters a rather proper art gallery and sprays paint all over a series of priceless works, which are later praised as an act of artistic genius.

Posted inArt

The Artistic Nightmares of Dark Knight Rises

Hyperallergic writers and siblings Brendan and Marisa Carroll recently went to see The Dark Knight Rises, the final film of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. The gist of the last installment: After eight years of self-imposed seclusion, Bruce Wayne/Batman returns to the fray to save Gotham City from the “reckoning” imposed by a fearsome terrorist named Bane, who has the entire city under siege as a bomb ticks away. Wayne must also contend with a slinky cat burglar named Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman), who is on the hunt for a device that will virtually erase her criminal past — and who will do anything to get it.