Unpop Art Movement

The UNPOP ART Movement

The UNPOP ART Movement was officially founded in Denver, Colorado, USA, in 2003 by Boyd Rice, Brian M. Clark, and Shaun Partridge. At present, the movement's other members include: Adam Parfrey, Jim Goad, Gidget Gein, Charles Krafft, Lorin Partridge, Nick Bougas, Larry Wessel, and Beth Moore-Love.

The UNPOP ART Movement is a loosely-organized group of creative individuals who often deal with similar cultural and aesthetic themes; generally speaking, the application of decidedly unpopular concepts via popular – often fun – media. These individuals each operate in their own respective creative fields (the plastic arts, music, writing, filmmaking, performance, etc.), and reside in cities far-distant from one another – however, as they often deal with similar subjects, share an overlapping set of philosophical and artistic principles, and have – on occasion – collaborated creatively, they are thus considered members of what has been dubbed "The UNPOP ART Movement."

Brian M. Clark, the movement's "Minister of UnPopaganda," has defined UNPOP ART officially as follows:

pop:

adj. — Of or for the general public; popular or popularized; Of, relating to, or specializing in popular music; Of or suggestive of pop art.

n. — Popular music; Pop art; Popular culture.

un-pop-u-lar:

adj. — Lacking general approval or acceptance; Regarded with disfavor or lacking general approval.

un-pop:

adj. — The application of pop aesthetics, stylings, or techniques to unpopular, unpleasant, repressed or otherwise censored ideas.

n. — Unpop art; Unpop music; Unpop writing; Unpop films.

Clark has further clarified UNPOP ART as follows:

UNPOP ART is definable as, "The application of pop aesthetics, stylings, or techniques to unpopular, unpleasant, repressed or otherwise censored ideas," and should, as a concept, be largely intuitive. Nonetheless, the question often arises: "Exactly who does something need to be unpopular with, in order for it to be considered UNPOP?"

This simplest answer to this is: The average contemporary person, and their average contemporary moral standards.

We at UNPOP ART understand that morality is entirely relative and largely subjective, and therefore define "unpopular" according to the context in which the material in question is presented. Most statutes that deal with "obscenity" have clauses which refer to things like "contemporary moral standards" (or something along those lines), and it is in this sense that we conceive of the term "unpopular." Therefore, for the purposes of defining UNPOP, the word "unpopular" is used in reference to the context-specific realm of contemporary – average – morality.

It is with this in mind, that we at UNPOP ART acknowledge that UNPOP isn't always intentional. Sometimes it manifests itself by accident (as in Jerry Lewis' film, "The Day The Clown Cried," for example), and at other times it is a result of conscious deliberation (as in Crispin Glover's film "What Is It?"). Ergo, there are no hard-and-fast definitions or rules about who created the UNPOP in question (or why), but rather, what it is and how it relates to average, contemporary morality.

The Official UNPOP ART website (www.unpopart.org) represents the first concerted effort to collect and catalogue the varied, often 'controversial' work of this group of individuals, and has been established as both an archive and a conceptual clearinghouse for unpopular, repressed, and often censored ideas.