Hasta La Ideas

From the You’ve got to be kidding me department: Azerbaijan-based artist Rashad Alakbarov creates images by setting up ordinary objects (sometimes suspended in mid-air via wires) and shining a light onto them, turning the wall behind them into a canvas “painted” with light and shadows.

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Sandro Kopp’s Skype sessions reflect the hybrid nature of painting reality from a two-dimensional plane

A series that evolved out of two friends chatting online while on opposite sides of the world, Sandro Kopp‘s Skype paintings are a natural progression for the young portrait artist. As a half Kiwi, half German, Kopp—who currently lives in the Scottish Highlands—is no stranger to the nomadic lifestyle that Skype enables, telling us he regularly uses it keep up with friends and family. One person Kopp frequently speaks to is his pal Waris Ahluwalia, who is the subject of numerous paintings and the catalyst for this tech-inspired concept, which will soon be on view at NYC’s Lehmann Maupin gallery in a week-long solo exhibit called “There You Are.”

With Ahluwalia as his sitter, Kopp began his “experiment” of painting from Skype video sessions. A few days after its completion, he explains, he kept noticing it out of the corner of his eye and started thinking more seriously about the concept. Kopp prefers the emotional connection and fodder for real observation a live model gives over working from a photograph. The personal engagement Skype provides, combined with the screen’s two dimensional plane, is for him a new hybrid format. 

The Skype sessions also reflect Kopp’s personal philosophy that art should develop from doing. The industrious artist paints nearly everyday—he told us of one instance in which he did four paintings in one day—and this routine practice allows him to explore new ideas, saying “there a million ways to do a painting.”

The series has evolved since its organically-formed inception, and the forthcoming exhibition will not only include new works, but will also feature video installations that depict various moments during the sitting. Like his self portrait series called “The New Me,” Kopp continues to explore the subject of realism with a sequence of paintings that depict his friend Dave Le Fleming. Each painted on separate occasions, the portraits reflect both his ability as an artist to remain consistent through repetition as well as the inconsistencies in observation on any given day.

Kopp’s cast of models include some of popular culture’s most famous subjects, including Michael Stipe, Tilda Swinton, John C. Reily, Ryan McGinley and more. Those wondering how he finds himself in such good company need to look no further than the artist himself. Beyond the opportunity to sit for the talented painter, they are undoubtedly taken by his incredibly thoughtful, humble and considerate nature. Kopp is very aware of the time they give him, and says his fast-paced style—one where he often completes the small portraits in just a few hours—is both an understanding of the situation and his personal technique. “I would like to slow down in the future though,” he says.

The fourth solo show of his Skype portraits, Kopp’s mind is already wheeling with his approach for the fifth show, which will see the series unfold and progress in another creative direction. “There You Are” opens 25 January and runs through 4 February 2012 at Lehmann Maupin Gallery.

British artist duo breaks down contemporary war photos with a set of symbolic blocks

“Portable Monuments” presents the exhibition of a visual code of brightly colored blocks used to decipher the surplus of images accompanying news headlines. The brainchild of artist duo Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, the project marks the third installment of their analysis of German poet Bertolt Brecht’s 1955 book, “War Primer.” Brecht felt that because photography was mostly in the hands of the bourgeoisie, images from mass-circulated magazines were not an honest portrayal of capitalist society during WWII, so he compiled 85 “photo-epigrams”, turning his own four-line poems into what he felt were more appropriate captions for the pictures he clipped from publications like Time.

In October 2011 Broomberg and Chanarin created “War Primer 2,” for which they took 100 copies of the original hardback book, added silk-screened text and adhered 85 contemporary images culled from the Internet. Their soon-to-close exhibition at Dusseldorf’s Paradise Row gallery, dubbed “Poor Monuments,” takes the exercise a step further by replacing the substituted images with simple red rectangles, titling each piece with a description of the image not pictured and a URL of where it was sourced.

The “Portable Monuments” lexicon that Broomberg and Chanarin developed in a series of contemplative workshops is designed as an educational tool for deconstructing 21st-century news photos. The pair have reduced the images to a set of ingenuously hued blocks to represent the strangely palatable portrayals of modern conflict. With the majority of photojournalists following war’s rules of engagement, Broomberg and Chanarin aimed to create a code that points out the sterility of the resulting photography, documentation that they feel falls short of the full truth.

“Portable Monuments” is currently on view at Amsterdam’s Galerie Gabriel Rolt, with each original image now represented by a irreverently large-scale photo of the correlating coded blocks—arguably a nod to the fact that the photos on display will likely hold more value as unique works of art than the lives they actually depict.

The month-long exhibition runs through 18 February 2012 at Galerie Gabriel Rolt.

Close-up image of blocks: London suicide bombers (L-R) Hasib Hussain, Germaine Lindsay, Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer are captured on CCTV at Luton railway station on 7 July 2005. The Guardian, Thursday April 22, 2010., C-type print, 150 x 190 cm, 2011, Unique Work

Core77 isn’t the only one eager to help you prepare for the end of days, many exhibitors here at the 2012 SHOT Show are marketing gear specifically towards would-be zombie hunters. From Armageddon cleaning kits to bayonet-fitted anti-zombie rifles, this SHOT Show is all about the undead.

Reporting by Barbara Eldredge

According to armorer DoubleStar Corp, “In a post-apocalyptic world, red dots and holographic sights will not be a viable solution. Technology is dead, and the undead are coming after you. You aren’t afraid. You’re prepared. Armed with your DSC Zombie Slayer, the mobs of the undead will meet their match.” This rifle is easy to shoot and its attachable bayonet is sure to come in handy when the world’s ammo runs out.

Otis Zombie Cleaning System

Otis Technologies recently launched its Zombie Cleaning System for 5.56mm rifles, 9mm, .40 &.45 caliber pistols, and 12-gauge shotguns. Suppressing a chuckle, one fella at Otis told me that it is important to keep one’s firearms clean and ever-ready for the apocalypse.

Gerber’s Apocalypse Kit, as seen on AMC’s Walking Dead

Gerber has even teamed up with the hit TV show Walking Dead to produce their sold-out Apocalypse Kit. The kit’s canvas roll bag contains two styles of Gator Machete, a Camp Axe, Parang (the #1 selling product on Gerber’s website), and three styles of knives. Gerber’s senior brand manager Jason Michelotti told me that their zombie marketing has “had a huge impact on our business and enabled us to reach a new consumer. It has enabled us to stress the attributes of preparedness and survival.” In addition to all of their zombie fighting tools, at the Gerber booth, you can kill a real live zombie! Well, you can pretend to kill one, anyway.

There are also an array of zombie-themed targets. In addition to zombie-printed paper targets, Zombie Industries makes a gruesome-looking manikin zombie target that bleeds when hit. They were quite popular at the range yesterday.

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Designer George Nelson once said, “There is a silly myth that generals win wars. What the facts show is that designers do.” Firearms and design have a shared history extending at least as far back as Samuel Colt and the revolvers he displayed at the 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition. The American armory system and the use of interchangeable parts set a manufacturing precedent that would influence the production of everything from sewing machines, to typewriters, bicycles and cars.

Today, industrial designers continue to be influenced by the aesthetics and form of firearms. Just last month, I spotted Philippe Starck’s Lounge Gun Floor Lamp in a model apartment on Union Square. Deyan Sudjic, in his 2009 book The Language of Things, discusses how the visual style of the Walther PPK was appropriated in the look of Richard Sapper’s Tizio Lamp and the Volkswagen Golf GTI.

Whether one is pro-gun-control or just pro-gun, there is no denying that firearms in America are consumer products, and they’re popular products at that. The most recent Black Friday marked the largest number of firearms background checks (and purchases) since they’ve been keeping track—129,166—nearly 1/3rd higher than the previous record. In October, Gallup revealed that 1 in 3 Americans owns a gun and that self-reported gun ownership is the highest it has been in nearly two decades. Even London’s Design Museum recently acquired an AK-47 [PDF], becoming the first contemporary design collection to include a gun.

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