JUXTAPOZ 13

Juxtapoz Vol. 4 No. 1 feels like a smoke-stained dispatch from the late-90s underground art world, packed with lowbrow surrealism, anti-establishment energy and beautifully damaged creativity. The issue opens with “Drunk Driving in the Name of Art,” immediately steering into the magazine’s fascination with chaos, recklessness and artistic obsession, before plunging into the dystopian paintings of Irving Norman whose brutal anti-war imagery tears apart industrial society with nightmarish intensity. Norman’s massive painting Work on the cover sets the mood perfectly: crowded, anxious and vibrating with social collapse. Alongside this sits a feature on Frank Kozik, capturing his loud, sarcastic universe of gig posters, cigarettes, punk graphics and weaponised pop culture.

The issue moves fluidly between underground photography, sculpture, outsider collecting and dark folklore. “Retina” explores photography as sensory overload, while “Beyond 3-D” expands the magazine’s love for strange tactile art objects and handmade worlds. Todd Schorr’s technique feature peels back the obsessive detail behind his surreal paintings, and “Satan’s Little Helper: The Nightmare Before Krampus” drags ancient folklore into the magazine’s twisted carnival atmosphere. Wrapped around gallery reviews, collector culture and Robert Williams’ reflections on integrity versus commerce, the entire issue feels like a celebration of artists creating work too strange, confrontational or obsessive for the mainstream to comfortably contain.