MTV's Top Pop Poop

(Blogger note-I wrote this awesome post last night, and something weird happened and only 1/3 of what I wrote showed up. So sadly this rewritten entry is probably not as interesting as yesterday when I was really into it.)

I don't think I've ever experienced feeling so moved by a text message that it made me post a blog about it, until today. As a ha ha joke, I texted my friend a picture of my mousepad at work. It's a Britto mousepad. Romero Britto - the uber cheesy "neo pop art" artist, that my friend hates dearly. 

A part of his response was "Mouse pads are just about the lowest of the low for visual artist...in fact, they're just below messenger bags." 

My replied back asking him aside from the artwork itself what's below that-a postcard, a coffee mug?

Honestly I couldn't stop thinking about this question. It automatically made me think of the essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin. I have yet to actually read the essay, but I slightly do know what its about. What's the lowest of the low of reproductions? I've seen Britto's work on buses (and all over the damn place in South Florida) but I counted that out because I think of that as public art. Tattoos are reproductions but I counted that out because for its sentiment to the tattooee. It's personal therefore the artwork is not lower down to the equivalent to a mousepad. Unless well you're me and suggested to your friend to get a tattoo of Joseph Beuys' How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare because you want to live your tattoo fetish through her. Back to Britto - His images (that's right images, not art) are all over the (consumer) place. I've been interning/working at this job for over a year now, and just a few months ago I noticed that my mousepad was a Britto. Not that I didn't notice my mousepad its that his designs are such a background image because I see it all the time. Just 2 years ago I found out that it was actually an art in charge of these designed images. I honestly thought it was just some manufactured cheesy design, like a tacky font. I know someone is in charge doing it, but I didn't know it was some famous artist who is in the Saatchi Collection.

So here's the response from my friend:

In order (of) reproduction: 

postcards

tshirts

coffee mugs

fridge magnets, 

toilet seat covers, 

mass produced shlock with no intrinsic artistic value...then mousepads.

He forgot messenger/tote bags. And umbrellas because I once had a Starry Night umbrella that I got from the Dollar Store.