Art, in one very limited sense, is an economy of symbols and materials. In today’s bustling digital marketplace of aesthetics and ideas, Andrew Laumann’s work is like your favorite neighborhood corner store, perpetually well-stocked with Millennial fantasies of absolute power with no responsibility. Punks rocket through a boundless void or drop from trees like overripe fruit, totally prosaic shit like chain-link fences and CD-R cases become symbols of infinity. How to spend this energy? How to use this junk? What kind of feeling can it get us?

The labor of an artist is always bound up in desire, but the wants and needs reflected in Laumann’s paintings, prints, sculptures, and collages seem strangely achievable: getting high, walking through a forest, collecting tokens of good-times-past, refusing to think about death. Yet art is none of these things and while it might make you feel nostalgic or pleasantly fucked-up in an analogous way it’s not about to replace the grand human ventures of exploration and conquest. Laumann’s work is so sublimely satisfying because we want more than the-thing-itself, we want to see it from every angle, experience it from every vantage point, and generally confound that sneaking suspicion that we’ve already done every fun thing that there is to do in this world. Give us little monuments and letters to god and tell us it will always be this great forever.

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Hey, wanna decide which of 12 rad painters goes home with a $500 BLICK gift certificate and $1,000 in cold hard cash? Of course you do. When’s the next time you’ll have that kind of power at the click of a finger?

In the nearly two decade history of New American Paintings, a tightly controlled panel of expert jurors have determined the fate of thousands of artists in the pages of their magazines. Winning these competitions has catapulted the careers of many now-adored artists into the national spotlight. Now, for the first time, NAP is inviting all of us to join the jury and vote for our favorite of 12 artists featured in NAP this year. Head on over to the Reader’s Choice Poll and cast your ballot!

That lovable scamp Ben Aqua has teamed up with Mitch Trale, the clever artist-programmer behind the kaleidoscopic virtual reality mind-trip walled.in, to bring us the most terrifying vision of Shaq since Kazaam. You can’t escape him. “Zoom into his teeth” – Ben Aqua.

Via the awesome Ida Lehtonen.

According to the YouTube page, this piece by Renato Atuati is called Via Crucis, IX – Jesus Cai Pela Terceira Vez. But for the sake of being conversational, let’s just refer to it as “that funny-sad little video with a triangle head dude in garbage bags carrying a street sign and puking in São Paulo.” Because as far as I can tell, that’s what it is, and it’s awesome.

Atuati sent it my way in a mysterious email to me last week, noting that this is his “new stuff,” though I’m not sure where to see his old stuff. No matter, this clip is enjoyable enough– in some unsettling, melancholy way– even devoid of a larger context:

Dirty Dishes, a book of illustrations and paintings by outstanding Canadian animator Amy Lockhart. We share her love of angry ladies and the sheer terror of human bodies. Published earlier this year by Drawn & Quarterly.

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Some people spend years searching for their place in the world. Paul Paper just makes it up. He’s a sly Lithuanian photographer with a gifted eye, but he’s also an emissary for the online art world. He provides a catalyst for collaboration and creative cross-contamination that’s so often lacking on the varied fragmented Internet art venues. He’s not just discovering a community of like-minded artists who support each other’s varied creative endeavors– he’s building one.

Paper’s love for cinema led to a great group project we’ve shared here before, Postcards to Alphaville, which featured movie-obsessed artworks from a fleet of artists including FS favorites Michael C. Hsiung and Drew Beckmeyer. He also somehow convinced dozens of amazing artists to create works inspired by the winking riddle “It could be me, but it’s actually Paul Paper.” On top of all that, Paper runs the always on-point directory of global artistic radness, I Like This Blog.

Paper’s latest work is called I Forgot to Forget and features 16 of his original photographs lovingly printed in a staplebound zine. I was stoked to get a copy in the mail a couple months ago, and I’m happy to share it with you here. Unfortunately, only 60 of these were made– so unless you act fast, you probably won’t be getting one for Christmas.

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Every winter around this time, Giant Robot invites a boatload of marvelous artists to make original pieces on the unsung canvas of the Post-It. Hundreds of these tiny pieces are currently plastered on the walls of GR2, going for just $20 each– a bargain-basement price for many of these artists.

Last year and this year, I volunteered to assist in the intricate process of hanging this massive show. My reward was a sneak peek at the smörgåsbord of miniature masterpieces, which led me to determine with laser-point precision exactly which Post-Its I needed in my life. The three above were my selections from this year’s collection, crafted by (clockwise from upper left) Christina Song, Greg Clarke and James Chong– three artists I didn’t know from adam before this show, but to whom I now feel a deep-running affection.

Stop by Post-It Show 6 before it closes on January 12th! Below, check out the Post-Its I picked up at last year’s show, from three of my favorite artists (and one dude whose name escapes me).

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In Internet Therapy, Dump.fm creator Ryder Ripps surreptitiously records a session with his 68-year-old therapist. The ensuing discussion touches on Ripps’ anxieties over living life online and creating intangible products for a limited virtual audience. The therapist awkwardly tries to turn the problem over in his mind, but in the end a wide gulf between his terrestrial world and Ripps’ deeply entrenched cyber existence proves insurmountable.

This piece, presented on the always-awesome DIS Magazine, really strikes a chord with me. I’ve often thought to seek guidance for the uncharted territory of living with the Internet, but to whom should I address these questions? Maybe a peer to peer support group of internet addicts is the answer! Who’s with me? Anyone?

The colors in Nathan Osterhaus‘ photographs just pop. I especially appreciate the magnificent multiverse of plaid pictured in the portrait grid of painter Shane Walsh, above. It’s a one-man Exactitudes!

And now, the most recent video work of Hooliganship: a dream team made up of Peter Burr in collaboration with Christopher Doulgeris. Rather then satiating you with the immediacy of a happy, high energy world of good vibes like in their previous video work, this new piece is an atmospheric search that resonates without immediately melting inside of you.

“faketrap” whispers a dark enigmatic tone bordered by fleeting feelings of uneasiness. The air here seems to be thick and Lose Weight Exerciseed with impermanence. Appearances of warmth are merely cameos and it feels like you have the impossible task of finding humanity in a mixed-up digital world. It reminds me of my struggle with trying to cozy up to the Internet while it remains to me, uninterpretable and cold.

Watch the trailer for Hooliganship’s stellar Cartune Xprez 2010 DVD compilation, below, featuring work from a league of fantastic animators and video artists including Andrew Jeffrey Wright, Jacob Ciocci and Clare Rojas. Previous contributors to the Cartune Xprez DVDs include Takeshi Murata, Bruce Bickford and Shana Moulton. So basically these discs are filled with the work of geniuses.