What is Lowbrow Art?

An American art movement that is gaining momentum in big cities worldwide. Kickstarted in 1994 by artist Robert Williams, it includes a wide range of styles and subjects, from decal art to velvet paintings and tatoo flashes to intensely detailed paintings of fantastic scenes. Favorite subjects include "B" movies and sci-fi, late sixties San Francisco comix, early sixties auto accessories art and car monsters, early pinup (soft core erotica), cartoons, japanese animation, current and retro tattoo imagery, violent/sadomasochistic images and even clowns painted by serial murderers.

Lowbrow art, when professionally presented, is now attracting big collectors and high gallery prices.

What are the characteristics of Lowbrow?

Lowbrow was born of underground or "street" culture.

The single most common tactic that Lowbrow artists employ is to poke fun at convention. They know the "rules" of art, and consciously choose not to abide by them. Lowbrow art has a sense of humor. Sometimes the humor is gleeful, sometimes it's impish and sometimes it's born of sarcastic comment, but it is always present. Lowbrow draws heavily on icons of popular culture, particularly those now commonly known as "Retro". Tail-end "Baby Boomers" will recognize them straight away.

Lowbrow, while it is defining itself, goes by a number of aliases: underground, visionary, Neo-Pop, anti-establishment and "Kustom" are but several examples. Additionally, John Seabrook has coined the phrase "Nobrow", and one has also seen the term "Newbrow".

For the time being, most Lowbrow art isn't sanctioned by the critical/curatorial/gallery-going mainstream. Exceptions to this seem to be happening primarily in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Atlanta, Paris, London and Tokyo. In 2005, many major cities have opened lowbrow galleries, and tourist hotspots have discovered this cutting edge subculture. Juxtapoz magazine is the best bet for becoming acquainted with Lowbrow artists.

Lowbrow currently suffers something of an identity crisis, due to having a wide variety of artists lumped into it. For example, the designer of a simple, kitschy decal may be accorded the same Lowbrow designation as the artist who composes a technically masterful Lowbrow painting or sci-fi sculpture. Hopefully, this will sort itself out in years to come. Meanwhile, you might want to begin collecting Lowbrow now, paying attention to signed limited editions and professional presentations. The more outrageous stuff may fade, but Lowbrow as a category appears to have a very bright future.