Magazine-clipping pop art and Dada: real photos, not cartoons, each piece cut out of a printed page. Every animal is a kind of market — the bear is the bear market, the bull the bull market, the minnows the small holders, the whales the big ones, the dolphins the quick traders.
Three rules these were built to. One ground per scene: one photograph is the setting, the building is already in it or is one building pasted on, and everything else — the animals, the revolvers, the hats, the money bags — sits on top. Real cutouts from real public-domain photographs, never generated imagery. Text only in the operator’s exact words, or exact historical titles and quotes — nothing invented.
Da-Dandy
The ground: 1923 Hess Brothers Rotunda, Allentown PA — one real department-store floor
Cut out and pasted on: bear in a real top hat with a monocle, bear cubs, bowler, pearls, Crown Jewels, diamond, perfume, pocket watch, Marilyn Monroe
After Hannah Höch’s Da-Dandy (1919).
Gods / Egyptian temple
The ground: Pylon, Temple of Horus at Edfu — one real temple pylon
Cut out and pasted on: crowned bear, Amenhotep III head, Melek Taus, Kek, Hereford bull, Egyptian gold, Eye of Providence
Grosz forms and tickets
The ground: Behind the teller’s window at Oxford National Bank, 1916
Cut out and pasted on: bear and bull at the counter, Edison stock ticker, 1920 stamps, a lunch token, a 1920s invoice, a coin bank, typewriter, bills, $ sign
Coin family portrait
The ground: Alcázar of Segovia throne room — one real throne room
Cut out and pasted on: Melek Taus (the angel, most prominent, per the spec), two shiba portraits (Doge), Kek and frogs (Pepe), a chimpanzee (the ape), Crown Jewels, a Bar Kokhba shekel, gold, Betty Boop
Family portraits of the coins, with our angels always the most prominent figure. The ape is in the popular profile-picture style but deliberately a little different, so the art does not copy any one project’s ape.
The Art Critic
The ground: Giuseppe Gabrielli, The National Gallery, Interior of Room 32 (1886)
Cut out and pasted on: a suited man with a Hereford bull head, a carpenter rule where Hausmann put the pencil, coin bank, $ sign, 1920 stamps, a 1920s invoice, a lunch token, gold, a bear
After Raoul Hausmann’s The Art Critic (1919).
Fairs, parades, streets and food
The ground: 1909 Circus Parade, Allentown PA — one real circus parade with elephants and a float
Cut out and pasted on: bear in a top hat, Hereford bull, cubs, a breaching whale, a Bread and Puppet clipping, a Macaroni Waiter engraving, dog statue, $ sign
Every source photograph above is public domain, taken from Wikimedia Commons; provenance for each scene is kept with the build. Made on our own servers.