Porcelain Artist Charles Krafft

October 1, 2006 10:51 PM

Charles Krafft is a porcelain artist who creates detailed munitions made of fine china, painted servingware commemorating modern atrocities, and "Spone" art, bone china made using human bones as the base material.
posted by jonson (11 comments total)

OK, the guy has a problem. The Soylent China is plain weird.

The china guns are cool, but it´s sad that people would freak out if someone tries to bring one of those in the hand luggage.
posted by cardoso at 11:23 PM on October 1, 2006

Great stuff, jonson; those hand grenades are gorgeous. And I loved this:

"My idea was to drag plate painting kicking and screaming into the 21st century with these images of things you don't usually find on tableware. It began as natural disasters -- like floods -- then it went into sociopolitical disasters where," he says, lowering his voice with mock gravity, "I've found the most comfort."
posted by mediareport at 12:31 AM on October 2, 2006

Cool. The Spone ARt is super creepy, and does the job.
posted by DenOfSizer at 6:02 AM on October 2, 2006

I'd love a whole set of "Disasterware". It's always good to keep modern atrocities in mind while stuffing your face with modern plenty.
posted by bobobox at 6:33 AM on October 2, 2006

Ha. The windmill and other patterns really evoke the Delftware style. Nicely disorienting. Great post.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:03 AM on October 2, 2006

He's also a founding UNPOP artist !
posted by unpoppy at 8:53 AM on October 2, 2006

Just the other day I wondered if anyone had ever made bone China out of...
posted by jkaczor at 4:22 PM on October 2, 2006

here's his myspace profile http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=47078894
posted by unpoppy at 5:45 PM on October 2, 2006

He's also a founding UNPOP artist !

I never got the unpop thing. If anything ties all of that stuff together it's that it's offensive, mostly to one or more minority groups. So like, congratufuckinglations. You made some shitty half-assed artwork that puts the [fill in racial epithet] - AND the fucking faggy stupid effete art world that won't pay attention to your work because their so faggy and stupid and effete - in their place.

For the very few gems that exist in the "unpop" world (most by the above Charles Krafft, Jim Goad or maybe Boyd Rice occasionally), most of it is lazier than Sid Vicious' bass playing even while it wishes so hard to be 1/10 as offensive as he was when he appeared on the scene.

I did read one thing on the website that rang true for me though:

You don't shock me. I shudder with boredom at everything you do, from tattooing your dick to chewing on your own poop. Not only have I seen all of your weak gestures before, I've seen them done better. - Jim Goad

Also, that I have to agree to a copyright notice (which seems to be mostly constructed to shield said website from litigation, which is the weakest legal ploy in the cyberlaw playbook) is weaker than a shitty gif of a pickaninny rendered in pseudo-warholesqe dayglo colors.
Yeah, weaker than that. And Nigredo Head is -- make no mistake -- really fucking weak.
posted by illovich at 12:38 AM on October 3, 2006

C'mon now, illovich, no love for Smanson?
posted by jonson at 7:36 PM on October 3, 2006

Smanson is funny, but it also encapsulates another criticism of much unpoppery: Unpop can often rise only to the level of rejected entries of Photoshop Phriday, which is pretty sad for an art "movement."
posted by illovich at 12:06 PM on October 12, 2006