Artistry: What If Rothko, Lichtenstein, and Matisse Did Interiors?

Thursday, January 30, 2014, by Spencer Peterson

Lichtenstein Moe's Tavern, 2013 by Jon Rafman/BNPJ

How might Picasso have fared as an interior decorator? If Jasper Johns had plied his trade on rooms instead of canvases, could he have made it into House Beautiful? Would we be watching The Franz Kline Treatment on HGTV if he were still around, and at all interested in wall treatments? Canadian artist and filmmaker Jon Rafman has been obliquely probing these hypotheticals with a single-topic Tumblr called Brand New Paint Job, where he culls amateur three-dimensional models from Google 3D Warehouse and digitally overlays them with the work of different artists. The rooms aren't meant to look good, exactly; some are intentionally (and hilariously) downright hideous, but one gets the sense that questions of taste miss the point of this formal exercise, as they would with Rafman's better-known project, where he exhibits found images from Google Street View, like a few of his contemporaries. As he explained to Bullett, "The BNPJ project enacts both a reduction and homage to these artists' work: on one level the painting becomes wallpaper, and on another these BNPJ rooms are like shrines to the artists." Make pilgrimage to these impressively executed shrines, including Duchamp's take on the Seinfeld set, below:

Jasper Johns Oval Office, 2013 by Jon Rafman/BNPJ

Keith Haring Theater, 2013 by Jon Rafman/BNPJ

Rothko 1960's Living Room, 2013 by Jon Rafman/BNPJ

Duchamp Seinfeld Set, 2013 by Jon Rafman/BNPJ

Brand New Paint Job [Official Site via HuffPo]

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Artistry: What If Rothko, Lichtenstein, and Matisse Did Interiors?