The cross-cultural collaboration of N.A.S.A.’s debut album The Spirit of Apollo has been carried over to the album artwork: each album contains five interchangeable album covers by some of today’s most acclaimed artists from varied backgrounds and cultures:
Shepard Fairey. Los Angeles-based artist and graphic designer Shepard Fairey recently gained international prominence through his iconic imagery of Barack Obama (which subsequently graced the cover of TIME Magazine). Fairey’s cover utilizes his distinctive graphic style to address the themes of money, capitalism, war and various other upbeat global issues of the day. Fairey also worked with directors Syd Garon and Paul Griswold to create an amazing video for the song “Money” (featuring David Byrne, Chuck D and more)
Sage Vaughn. Los Angeles-based artist Sage Vaughn started out as a graffiti artist and has become one of the most respected painters in the contemporary art scene in Los Angeles. Vaughn’s collage for the cover of The Spirit of Apollo deftly incorporates a disco ball, rockets, seemingly drunken astronauts and a religious Spaniard.
The Date Farmers. The Date Farmers (Carlos Ramirez and Armando Lerma of the Coachella Valley) artwork echoes their Mexican-American heritage rooted in California pop culture. Their paintings, collages and three-dimensional sculptures contain elements influenced by graffiti, Mexican street murals, traditional revolutionary posters, sign painting, prison art and tattoos, all elements present in their cover for N.A.S.A.
Marcel Dzama. The Canadian artist known for small-scale ink and watercolor drawings of human figures, animals, and imaginary hybrids. In addition to creating iconic covers for such musical artists as Beck, They Might Be Giants and The Weakerthans, Dzama’s visual art has been praised throughout the world. Signing onto the N.A.S.A. project by contributing a cover, Dzama’s reach may finally expand into space.
Mark Gonzalez. A former professional skateboarder and artist, Gonzalez is known in the skateboarding world as the pioneer of modern street skateboarding. Gonzalez has designed skateboards and clothing, and his original art has been shown in galleries around the world. Gonzalez chose an aquatic theme for his contribution to N.A.S.A. – we can only hope that there are fish on Mars.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Jacob // Jan 22, 2009 at 2:16 am
Nice post gina. I notice you guys like to post some quirky things between your anti- plugs. My friend just came back from Australia and told me about a weird-kind-of-scene in one of the small cities there. It sorta revolves around what they call ConGraff (concrete graffiti). Its a group of people who photograph what others have engraved in wet cement. Its spawned a small scene called the ConGraff collective. a couple of bands have come out of it - ‘The JC Stobie Project (www.myspace.com/thejcstobieproject) and the Gentrified. One of ‘em started a blog that’s a quirky take on ConGraff - http://www.rosscoisavirgin.blogspot.com One way to describe it is that they’re a bunch of people with a whole lot of initiative and little talent! thought you guys might be interested in this stuff. anyway better run. Jacob
2 Gina // Jan 22, 2009 at 10:01 am
Hey Jacob - thanks for the link. that stuff is amazing. reminds me of a photo exhibition I went to years ago where someone had found a box of photos is a storage unit that was all amateur porn from the 70s and showed them in a gallery…an idea that was later re-purposed as capitalism by the people who bought the contents of Paris Hilton’s storage unit…
3 John // Jan 22, 2009 at 10:14 pm
You don’t know how tempted I am to post a link to Sage’s blog here. Lucky for most, my internet tourettes syndrome is at a stunning low tonight.
4 Gina // Jan 24, 2009 at 5:22 pm
please don’t post Sage’s blog here because a) it might put us under scrutiny from the same organization that raided Pete Townshend’s place and b) I’d have to change the description to “Los Angeles-based artist and total sexual deviant Sage Vaughn” and I don’t feel like making edits…
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