Look into New York City’s past, at the locations where iconic album cover photos were taken, in a series of photo montages by Bob Egan called ‘PopSpots.’ Egan has tracked down the exact places where photos of Bob Dylan, Neil Young,  Simon & Garfunkel and more were taken in the 1960s and 1970s and transposed the album covers onto modern-day photographs.

“Manhattan is constantly being torn down and rebuilt anew, and I’m trying to find these places while they are still around,” says Egan. At the PopSpots website, he runs down the process of finding and photographing each site. It can take a lot of work to identify the exact spot; at times, Egan has to pay attention to minute details in the photographs. Others, like Springsteen standing in front of Public School 111 on the cover of ‘River’, are much easier.

For example, he explains some of his sleuthing to spot the exact subway platform upon which Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon stood approximately 47 years ago for the cover of ‘Wednesday Morning, 3AM.’ Several websites identified it as the platform at Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street, but to find the exact spot he had to look to things like the height of the support beams.

Egan has also begun to branch out beyond album covers, and outside New York City. He photographed the bridge that was the setting for Edvard Munch’s iconic painting, ‘The Scream.’ See the whole collection at PopSpotsNYC.com.

Where do fashion, art, graffiti and cool all intersect? In the mind of KAWS. The New York-based artist, who is referred to as Brian Donnelly by his mother, has been on the cusp of what’s cool, big, important and great about commerce-driven art for decades.

Taking Risks

(images via: ARTST)

But before KAWS was designing album covers for Kanye West and expensive vinyl toys for high end Japanese and European stores, he was risking life and limb pasting his own work over billboards, subway ads and phone booths (illegally) in New York, Tokyo, Paris, Berlin and other major cities.

Anything great involves taking some risks. And KAWS was onto something great that was about to be big.

KAWS’ Art Goes Mainstream

(image via: ARTST)

KAWS’ reworkings of The Simpson’s (called The Kimpsons) and his remixing of Mickey Mouse are his two most enduring images. Images of a KAWS-ified Krusty The Klown began appearing everywhere–not just billboards and ads, but on T-Shirts, sneakers and in toy stores. The remixes, the original art, the toys, the posters–they all featured the same thing: a KAWS Skull.

KAWS’ Own Brand of Art

(images via: ARTST)

Like Andy Warhol’s iconic Campbell’s Soup cans, what began as an ironic parody became an international brand.

Serious Fun

(images via: ARTST)

If the graffiti writer as Art Star is a two sided coin with Banksy’s political paste ups on one side, KAWS’ art and commerce cohabitation sits firmly on the other. And while KAWS’ work certainly lacks the lasting effect of Serious Works Of Art, what he lacks in political punch he makes up for in fun.

And, when the art’s this good, that’s a great thing.