An Artist's America

This is a wonderful book. Michael Albert's art is an imaginative critique of modern culture. I love his work!

Pop quiz, hotshot: Name me all the children's autobiographies of artists you can think of: GO GO GO! Not biographies, mind you. Autobiographies. Actually, there are a couple out there, so let's narrow it down a bit. Pop art. Name me all the books in which a Pop artist explains his or her artistic style to the kiddies. Oh, and see if you could also narrow it further down and find one that's written for young kids, involves recycling, and shows the kids how they too can make art that looks just like what this famous artist has made on his own. Unless Jackson Pollock was indulging in children's books on the sly (and let's all enjoy THAT image for a moment or two, shall we?) the pickings are a bit slim. That's why An Artist's America, by Michael Albert is one of the more interesting art-related titles to shuffle onto the young reader scene. More inspiration than fact-laden history, the book serves to inspire young readers to make their own collage art from household items. The end result is a bizarre mix of corporate consumer culture, and good old-fashioned art projects that provides a lot of food for thought. You may associate the Pop artist movement with the 1950s or 60s, but Michael Albert is young, Pop-inspired, and a master of the cardboard collage. Within a couple pages the artists shows how he started work as a child, fascinated by drawing on anything at hand and then later in college, brand names. Collage melded with the man's Pop instincts until he started taking everyday objects like cereal boxes, cutting them apart, then rearranging them together into new forms. As we flip through the book we see his homage to Andy Warhol in the form of a rearranged Campbell's Soup can. We see currency cut up and put back together and finally we see Albert start to put words and tableaus together. "The Last Supper" done with Toucan Sam? It's "The Last Breakfast" now. How about a crazy/beautiful panel of slogans, all made out of recognizable collaged letters called "You Know What They Say"? In the end, Albert inspires readers to pull out the old scissors and start hacking up the boxes in our recycling bins firsthand. Back matter includes instructions on collaging and Art and Photo Credits. I have to admit that as someone who cringes every time an actor whips out a Pepsi can in a movie I had this momentary instantaneous cringe when I encountered familiar logo after familiar logo. You know that moment in the movie "Supersize Me" when the kids can identify Ronald McDonald but not Jesus? Yeah. So I felt a bit of that going through the book. But as it states clearly on the publication page, "The artist's use of various logos and brands in the collages that are reproduced in this book is purely for the purpose of his own artistic expression, and such uses are not intended to suggest endorsement or sponsorship of those works of art, the artist, or this book by any company, organization, or owner of any brand." Not entirely true when you consider that Mr. Albert