Gary Baseman
| Gary Baseman | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
September 27, 1960 Los Angeles, California |
| Nationality | American |
| Area(s) | Cartoonist, illustrator, painter, designer, animator |
|
Notable works
|
Teacher's Pet, Cranium |
| Awards | Emmy Award, BAFTA award |
| http://www.garybaseman.com | |
Gary Baseman (born September 27, 1960) is an American contemporary artist who works in various creative fields, including illustration, fine art, toy design, and animation. He is the creator of the Emmy-winning ABC/Disney cartoon series, Teacher's Pet, and the artistic designer of Cranium, a popular award-winning board game. Baseman’s aesthetic combines iconic pop art images, pre-and post-war vintage motifs, cross-cultural mythology and literary and psychological archetypes. He is noted for his playful, devious and cleverly named creatures, which recur throughout his body of work.
Baseman was born in Los Angeles and raised in the city’s Fairfax district. He is the fourth child of Holocaust survivors from Poland (now Ukraine). Baseman’s mother worked at the famous Canter’s Deli and his father was an electrician. Baseman cites Warner Bros. cartoons, MAD Magazine, and Disneyland as early sources of inspiration. In junior high school, Baseman met Barry Smolin, who is now a radio host and musician, and Seth Kurland, a writer and TV producer. They remain close friends.
Baseman studied communications at UCLA. He graduated magna cum laude as a member of the Phi Beta Kappa society.
While Baseman is a figure in the Los Angeles art world, he is also situated within an international cultural movement that includes both mainstream and underground artists. Baseman cites Yoshitomo Nara, Takashi Murakami, and the illustrator William Joyce as contemporaries.
Baseman coined the term pervasive art as an alternative to the lowbrow art label. Baseman uses the term didactically to describe a broad shift in his and others’ work to more visible avenues of art-making. He has stated that his goal is to “blur the lines between fine art and commercial art.” According to Baseman, pervasive art can take any medium, and need not be “limited to one world, whether that is the gallery world, editorial world, or art toy world.”
Today, artists whom Baseman might refer to as pervasive are part of a larger movement with a recognizable “pop” sense, but not necessarily a shared artistic mission. However, by virtue of where these artists are shown and in what ways they garner public attention, it can be said that all pervasive artists in some way play with the boundaries between high and low art.
Among artistic peers, critics, and Baseman followers, pervasive art referred to an aesthetic that was until recently, limited to the mediums of album art, comic books, cartoons, graffiti, and speciality galleries. Now, pervasive art is largely realized in multiple mediums and across a range of industries, from fashion design, advertising and graphic design, to toy design, film, music collaboratives, and music videos. Cult-status street artists like Banksy, new wave comics illustrators like Gary Panter, Japanese pop artists, post-punk and hip hop artists, and iconic graphic artists like Shepard Fairey all contribute to a highly visible aesthetic that is virtually ubiquitous in contemporary culture.
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Wikipedia