Inside Jon Stewart's Book, Earth: A Visitor's Guide To The Human Race.

Jon Stewart's newest book hit the stores yesterday. Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race is his highly anticipated follow-up to mega-hit America (The Book) Teacher's Edition: A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction



The man behind the best-selling America (The Book), Emmy-winning, Oscar-hosting, Daily Show-anchoring Jon Stewart asks: Where do we come from? Who created us? Why are we here? Questions that have puzzled us since the dawn of time. But when it became apparent to Jon Stewart and the writers of The Daily Show that the world was about to end, they embarked on a massive mission to write a book that summed up the human race: What we looked like; what we accomplished; our achievements in society, government, religion, science and culture -- all bound in a 256 page book with lots of color photos, graphs and charts.



With eye catching page designs by Pentagram, this definitive guide to our species is filled with Jon's trademark sense of humor. Nothing is sacred and everything is hilarious. From captions under images to the appendices, the book is filled with wit, sarcasm and style. Here's a look at many of the spreads, crops and images (not in actual order) from this fun and fabulous new trendy tome.

Laurina Paperina's How To Kill The Artists

Meet Laura Scottini (aka Laurina Paperina), an italian artist with a wonderfully wicked sense of humor.



Her collection of drawings, installation and videos in the exhibit "How To Kill The Artists" is a hilarous and purposely ironic twist in which contemporary artists and cartoonists are being attacked by objects of their own creation, most of which brought them great wealth and or fame. I have gone to to trouble to locate images of the original pieces of art which Laurina references because some of you may not be familiar with the artists or the works.

The Installation:



Now, to better understand the following drawings, I have attached the artist's originals below Laurina's drawings/paintings so you can fully appreciate the satire.


Above: Paperina's painting with all the 'artists' from her collection


Jeff Koons:

Above: Paperina's Jeff Koons Vs His Dog

above: Koons' Balloon Puppy

Keith Haring:

Above: Paperina's Keith Haring's Dog.

Above : keith haring's famous dog icon

Joseph Beuys:

Above: Paperina's Joseph Beuys Eaten By Wolf.

Above: Joseph Beuys and Coyote, performance piece

Jackson Pollock:

Above: Paperina's Pollock

Above: Jackson Pollock at work

David Shrigley:

Above : Paperina's David Shrigley

Above: David Shrigley's photo "severed hand"

Maurizio Cattelan:

Above: Paperina's Cattalan Does Not Surf

Above: Maurizio Cattelan's Charlie Don't Surf

Barry McGee:

Above: Barry McGee (aka Twist)

Above: Barry McGee Sprayed

Above: Graffiti artist Barry McGee (aka Twist) at work

Takeshi Murakami:

Above: Paperina's Murakami Vs DOB

Above: Takeshi Murakami's DOB

Andy Warhol:

Above: Paperina's Warhol Vs. Marilyn

Above: Andy Warhol's Marilyn screenprint

Frida Kahlo:

Above: Paperina's Frida Kahlo

Above: Frida Kahlo's Self Portrait as the Little Deer

Jean Michel Basquiat:

Above: Paperina's Basquiat Vs. His Monster

Above: Jean Michel Basquiat, untitled

Above: Although not ready for download quite yet, she has animated videos which will be available for viewing on her site.

More about the artist:

Laurina Paperina (in english "Little Laura - Little Duck")
1980, Born in Rovereto. She lives and works between Mori (Trento, Italy) and Duck Land
2005, Academy of Fine Arts, Verona, Italy
1999, Art Institute, Rovereto (Trento), Italy

The artists' statement (in italian followed by english):

Io gioco con l'arte.
Il mio lavoro è un'elaborazione ironica della contemporaneità e sulle identità che la compongono. Elaborazione che nasce sintetizzando un linguaggio dove diversità e contraddizione si compenetrano e dove l'influenza dalla cultura di internet e della tv, dei fumetti e dei video games, della fantascienza e dei cartoons, generano un complesso insieme di elementi che si trasformano in un apparente caos ma lasciano intravedere delle forme riconoscibili.
I personaggi che popolano i miei lavori sono dunque ironia dipinta e sono frutto della mia fantasia, sono forme dinamiche e colori sgargianti di una sorta di "virtual reality" simile ad un video games dove la finzione e l'apparenza giocano simulando la realtà.
In sintesi il mio lavoro è un gioco ironico sulle sue esperienze che non ha un fine ben preciso se non quello di rappresentare le diversità di pensiero e come queste possano coesistere,
come se ogni elemento fosse un frammento indispensabile di un puzzle.

[I'm sorry...my english isn't good !!!]

I play with art. My work is an ironic elaboration of contemporaneity and the elements which are part of it. It is an elaboration stemming from a language sysnthesis where diversity and contradiction are intertwined and where the influence of internet culture, TV, comic strips, video games, sci-fi and cartoons are generating a complex set of elements, which, although turning into an apparent chaos, are letting themselves be seen in recognizable forms.
Characters populating my works are "painted irony": they are the fruits of my fantasy, dynamic forms and flamboyant colors of some sort of virtual reality resembling a video game where fiction and appearance interplay and simulate reality.
In sum, my work is an ironic game on my experiences, which has no specific purpose but to represent divergencies of thought and the way such divergencies may coexist, as though each element were an indespensable fragment of a jigsaw-puzzle.

Visit her site and see much of her other work.