Dans le cadre de la lutte contre le réchauffement climatique, voici cette vidéo de Ruben van Leer qui présente l’initiative MyPolarice : 2 artistes néerlandais commercialisant des morceaux d’iceberg contenus dans des capsules, avant leur disparition. Disponible en 1000 exemplaires.
Copyright Fubiz™ – Suivez nous sur Twitter et Facebook
Tiffany Bozic’s stunning paintings showing the emotional side of living creatures
Masterfully melding science with fine art, self-taught painter Tiffany Bozic explores the subtleties of the natural world through her bold and beautifully executed works. Her whimsical illustrations of instinctual behaviors in the wild result in works that at first blush look straightforward, but an up-close view reveals much more complicated dynamics at play. “Confiding To Strangers“—currently on display at the Joshua Liner Gallery in NYC—continues her exploration of how all living things (humans included) relate and live among each other in the wild.
When possible Bozic studies her subjects in their natural habitat, much like her favorite artist John James Audubon. While travels span Papua New Guinea with a bird scientist (who she later married), Namibia, Australia and beyond, when Bozic isn’t in the field she does research at San Francisco’s California Academy of Sciences or examines creatures through her digital photographs.
Painting with acrylic on Maple panels or watercolor on paper, Bozic uses her subjects to metaphorically express her emotions. As she explained in a recent video, her painting about sexual selection dubbed “Passion in Paradise” (above right) visually portrays the story of two male animals whose horns got stuck together while fighting over a female. Turning the horns into connected Birds of Paradise, Bozic says the story shows just how powerful the female species can be.
With 31 new works in total, “Confiding To Strangers” is a gorgeously thoughtful exhibit about the numerous complex relationships we have with the living environment. The show is on view at Joshua Liner Gallery through 11 December 2010.
Wes Lang’s personal possessions in a new exhibit at Partners and Spade
From Jesse James to Capone, the American outlaw has long held a place in the popular imagination. For a fresh take on on what it means to be a rebel, artist Wes Lang sheds his own unique light on how the archetype fits into the modern world. With works in MoMA’s permanent collection and a host of international exhibitions under his weathered “Keep On Fuckin” leather belt, Lang’s talent is as strong as his opinions on America’s past and future. To take a closer look at the man behind the sentimentally subversive paintings and drawings, as Partners & Spade has done with their exhibit of Lang’s personal objects, is to explore a version of today’s masculinity that toes the line between sincerity and toughness.
While overall Lang’s possessions don’t differ much from any backwoods badboy’s—a silver dagger with a voluptuous naked lady handle, a middle finger statuette or a mounted roach collection—items like his rawhide packs of rolled up leather cigarettes show his meticulous dedication to any concept he creates.
Citing Basquiat as a major influence, Lang’s studious perfection also comes through in his highly-detailed, collage-like oil paintings and sketches. Montages of the kind of images typically airbrushed on the side of a Harley or its owner’s jacket breathe new life into these subjects with their meaningfully irreverent statements next to each image.
Covered in ink himself, fittingly much of Lang’s work would make an ideal tattoo. Along with his friend, tattoist Scott Campbell, the two make a case for tattooing as a legitimate artform without sentimentalizing it. As part of the Partners & Spade show, called “Staring At Empty Pages,” Lang will be on hand 20 November 2010 giving tattoos from a pre-drawn selection of custom flash art.
While Lang’s practice may seem simply beautiful or lighthearted on the surface, his work comes from deeply felt emotion. As Partners & Spade’s Andrew Post explains, a close relationship with a former math teacher who recently passed away led to a sculptural homage in the show. The totemic piece consists of a briefcase that belonged to his teacher, a massive Grateful Dead fan, swathed in Dead stickers and friendship bracelets collected from the 250 shows he attended as well as an extensive collection of tapes he left to Lang.
“Staring At Empty Pages” is on view through 6 December 2010 weekends only or by appointment through the week at the Partners & Spade studio.
Conceptual artist Roy McMakin’s funny furniture gets a hometown show
Roy McMakin‘s furniture designs aren’t the first to take on conventional assumptions about the distinctions between art and objects. As a trained architect, it’s not surprising that the interdisciplinary artist’s skillful manipulation of details rivals that of a legend like Ettore Sottsass. But where Sottsass used his painstakingly deliberate compositions to playfully reinvent ideas about what furniture can be, McMakin’s studied work makes wry observations about what furniture is. As the press release for his current show “Five Chairs & Ten Tables” puts it, McMakin’s absurdist work “emphasize[s] the sculptural quality of utilitarian objects, resulting in works both awkward and irreverent, exuding a presence simultaneously monastic and mischievous.”
This new exhibit sees the Seattle-based artist (he was born in the rural town of Lander, Wyoming) showing in his adopted city at Ambach & Rice. With an installation that consists of a series of furniture mismatched in shape and appearing slightly unfinished or off—cushions are askew, tabletops pitch too far over their pedestals—the work introduces a tension between notions of art and commerce. Here, the chairs and tables perform as “actors suspicious of the role in which they were cast.”
For more of McMakin’s explorations of emotion, scale, craft and function to explore how objects contain meaning, see Rizzoli’s retrospective book “When Is A Chair Not A Chair,” which includes almost all of his prolific output over the past 25 years. As McMakin explains it, “I see the job of an artist as that of a philosopher of visual experience.”
“Five Chairs & Ten Tables” is currently on view through 5 December 2010 at Ambach & Rice. See more images of the exhibit in the gallery below.
A London artist’s knife skills and knack for precision are the subject of our latest video
“Some people like taking their time,” says artist Kim Rugg, whose artistic achievements are measured in millimeters, used X-ACTO blades and picas. We spent the afternoon with Rugg in her London home and studio talking about her work re-imagining newspapers, comics, stamps and cereal boxes using their existing form while rearranging their content. Kim finds inspiration from the mundane and common objects around us. Her wicked knife skills and tenacious attention to detail have created a body of work that is as impressive as it is curious.
Artists align for a community poster festival celebrating bicycles
Started in Minneapolis just three years ago, the Artcrank show was a quick, fun way to publicize local artists by inviting them to create posters about bike culture. Since then, the concept has spread with lightning speed to cities like Portland, San Francisco, Des Moines and even London. With new cities taking part every year, “Artcrank is growing roughly 10-15% faster than I can keep up with,” said Charles Youel, Artcrank’s director and curator—not a bad problem to have.
“Accessibility is a big part of what makes the show unique,” Youel explains. Local works on display each sell for an affordable $30 apiece at each venue. “The more accessible those experiences are, the more diverse and interesting a biking and artistic culture becomes. I see people arriving on bikes, discovering local artists they’ve never heard of and connecting with causes. If free beer and cheap posters are the catalyst for that, it’s cool by me,” continues Youel.
Another central component to Artcrank is ensuring every show reflects the character of the community. At Portland’s show tonight (7 October 2010) Deschutes Brewery will offer free beer at the Ace Hotel Cleaners, an old laundry facility the Ace Hotel Portland converted into their own event space. “Having local partners and sponsors who support the show is a very important part of making Artcrank a more sustainable proposition,” said Youel.
Local artists featured in Portland’s show include Aaron James of MathDept, Martha Koenig, the husband-and-wife team of Truen and Julia Pence who make up Craft Services Design Co. and numerous others. In many cities, Youel posts an open call for artists on Facebook or Twitter. However, in a more established bike mecca such as Portland, he often contacts the artists personally to request submissions.
“When we first started entertaining the idea of doing shows beyond Minneapolis, I thought, ‘Well, this will work in places like Portland and San Francisco.’ And I figured that would be it,” said Youel. “Since then, we’ve seen the show catch on very quickly. We’re betting that Artcrank can and will work anywhere that people love bikes and art. So far, it’s a bet we’ve won every single time.”
Artcrank Portland will take place at the Ace Hotel Cleaners at from 5-11pm. All proceeds from the show will go to Bikes to Rwanda, a nonprofit that provides cargo bicycles to farmers in Rwanda as transportation for basic needs and coffee hauling. Other upcoming shows include Artcrank SFO at the Chrome store, and Bend, Oregon in December.
Also on Cool Hunting: Joy Ride Art Shows
Emerging London talent Richie Culver’s poignant collage work
Master of manipulation Richie Culver, with his arsenal of old photos and sharp-witted text, creates artwork with the one-two punch of a compelling soundbite that probes into both famous and more intimate historical moments. While the works function as pop homages too, his piece “Have You Ever Really Loved Anyone?”—an iconic image of Jesse Owens with those words plastered across—was the highlight of the May 2010 group show at the Tate Modern and suggests the dual forces at play.
Culver, who had rockstar dreams of his own, turns his song titles and lyrics into paintings and collage, a selection of which is currently on view in his debut solo show “Borstal Spots & Polka Dots.”
Also included in the exhibit are a smattering of Culver’s own photographs he’s taken over the years. The black-and-white collection is not too different from his textual works though, with each perfectly composed image functioning as one sentence from a much larger conversation.
A majority of his work seemingly revolves around love and relationships—a concept clearly demonstrated in the painting “I Loved You, You Just Couldn’t See It” but also in collage form. An image of a nun states “One fuck and she was anybody’s,” while the picture of a bride reads “aware of the ways of men.” Culver titles an alarming photo of a pouty-lipped woman with scars up her arm simply, “A love story.”
With a show dedicated solely to his personal photos planned for late 2010 and a cover shot for the forthcoming I Blame Coco album Constant hitting shelves soon, Culver continues to explore concepts that speak to his roots.
Reviewed on Le Cool as “A small, but moving show,” Culver’s “Borstal Spots & Polka Dots” runs through 26 September at London’s West 11 Gallery.
The Portland, OR-based
Official Manufacturing Company, made up of three creative types (Mathew Foster, Fritz Mesenbrink and Jeremy Pelley), come up with everything from signage and print materials to interior design for their clients. As the self-professed “thing makers” recently said in an e-mail, “If we come up with a great idea, we will find a way to make it happen.”
Like their tweaked acronym OMFGCO might suggest, the youthful trio has their finger on the pulse, embracing a holistic approach to re-branding and the du jour overall take on the marketing model that comes with it—ideally suited to smaller companies. The creative studio’s responsible for the clean, quirky look of prominent Portland businesses, such as popular charcuterie Olympic Provisions (recently featured in the New York Times) and re-imagining the local branch of the Ace Hotel as a city-specific, communal experience, complete with local art and a record player at the front desk. The latter client isn’t new to Pelley, who formerly worked as the lead art director for Atelier Ace, lending the group enviable chops—as do the backgrounds of the other two.
Mesenbrink and Foster both worked as designers for Wieden + Kennedy, where the group first connected in 2005 at the ad giant’s experimental school. But it wasn’t until finding themselves sharing studio space in downtown Portland in the summer of 2009 that the triumvirate began to work together and the company took off from there.
“We might work a little more these days than before,” they said (even answering e-mails en masse). “But the difference is that we’re working with each other, our friends and the businesses we believe in. We’ve got some upcoming projects that we’re very excited about, which will find us in more of a leadership role.”
In addition to their marketing work, OMFGCO also sells limited-edition merchandise. Check out more things by the thing-makers, and news about their upcoming projects,
on their site.
Transforming the Velvet Speakeasy in Montreal’s Old Port into a candlelit temple of worship embellished with gold walls and paintings, Kevin Ledo‘s mash-ups of religious imagery and fashion photography (previously covered here when it premiered in 2008) launches the first in a series of events christened “Velvet Renaissance.” Featuring work from the local artist’s series “The Guiding Light,” Ledo draws parallels between luxury fashion institutions and the symbolic worship of Medieval religious authorities with works bearing such tongue-in-cheek titles as “The Grace of Saint Calvin Klein,” “The Fall of Saint Prada” and “Saint Alberta Ferretti of Milan.”
Yesterday’s opening night turned the space into a multi-sensory experience with DJ Milton Clark lending eerie ambiance to Ledo’s works.
A monthly event, Velvet Renaissance invites a selected artist to showcase their craft using the Velvet Speakeasy as a canvas. The title of the event implies an underlying theme arts that echo that of the Italian Renaissance.
Not just limited to fine art, the line-up will also include graphic and fashion designers, as well as tattoo and audio artists. Following Ledo’s show, local designer Jean-François Proulx will unveil the “Velvet Book,” a quarterly publication and calendar, as well as the new Velvet graphic identity. The exhibit runs through 18 April 2010.
Spanish artist Roberto Mollá‘s latest work, a series of 15 compositions taking up the famous Japanese tale of pearl diver Princess Tamatori (showing at the upcoming Pulse art fair in NYC), puts the artist in the well-populated ranks of other cultural interpreters of the story. Compared to Hokusai’s explicit illustration of the fabled sexual encounter between girl and octopus and more recent examples in manga, film and pornography, however, Mollá’s surreal vision makes for a more restrained telling.
In fact, it was Mollá’s minimalist graphic style—mixing geometric shapes, delicately realistic pencil renderings, and a sparing use of color—that first caught our eye at the Fountain exhibition in Miami last January. While the work we saw then took up Japanese themes too, these new pieces see the 44-year-old punctuating his grayscale palette with gold instead of red.
A futuristic tenor, reinforced by Mollá’s use of cream-colored graph paper as a medium and vector-based imagery, nicely plays off the artist’s highly-detailed depictions of sea creatures, like mollusks festooned with tentacles and beautifully scaly Koi fish.
Inspired by artists such as Dadaist Francis Picabia, Italian Futurists and Russian Suprematist El Lissitzky, Moll#225;’s uses the influence of these art movements to come up with his fresh and personalized style.
Be sure to check out “Tamatori” at Christina Ray Gallery’s (formally GlowLab) booth at Pulse New York, 4-7 March 2010.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
