FRIDAY

At the intersection of the twee and the grotesque stands a sensibility: Call it the “tweetesque.” Somewhere between fine art and graphic design, between surrealism and caricature, between schtick and expression, it thrives. The Washington Project for the ArtsCorcoran is hosting a talk and book signing by genre standard-bearers the Clayton Brothers (Rob and Christian), Joe Sorren, and Eric White—art-schoolers who position themselves as quasi-outsiders, innocents almost, who, like the tweetesque itself, came of age in the ’90s. They’ve seen their publication venues grow from ’zines and posters to the Atlantic Monthly and snazzily art-directed monographs; their audience has shifted from close friends and indie-rock hangers-on to Hollywood such luminaries as Viggo Mortensen, Leonardo DiCaprio, and anybody named Arquette. The Tinseltown connection is a natural one: White places golden-age stars in such warped tableaux as Young Gary Cooper in Termite Mound With Post-It™, or a pseudo-philosophical Tijuana Bible featuring Katharine Hepburn astride Charles Mingus. Sorren’s portraits are stylized to make everyone from Ayn Rand to a fairytale lad up a tree look like E.T.—and, by contrast, to make Jackie Kennedy look as narrow-eyed as a winter flounder. (That Which Organizes My Feathers, a collaboration of Sorren and White, is pictured.) The Claytons combine Mexican retablos, African barbershop signs, and carnival banners into phantasmagorias informed by both spiritual quests and utter showbiz. The tweetesque lives in all of them, and if you’ve never known whether to howl or weep at Margaret Keane, chances are it lives in you. The artists speak at 6:45 p.m. Friday, Feb. 27, in the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s Hammer Auditorium, 500 17th St. NW. Free. (202) 639-1700. (Glenn Dixon)