Hasta La Ideas

Sipho Mabona does beautiful things with paper. Not only does he have an awesome job title—Professional Origami Artist—he also has big plans for his hobby-turned-profession. Using a 2,500 sq. ft. sheet of paper, Mabona is looking to create a life-size origami pachyderm, cleverly known as the “White Elephant.”

And he’ll even record himself doing it, for those of you video-or-it-didn’t-happen skeptics—two cameras will be streaming a live feed of the project in progress. The entire project will be completed in a room at the Art Museum in Beromünster, Switzerland with help from three assistants. The team will take on treacherous creases and potential for some major paper cuts to craft an elephant that stands over ten feet tall (with the help of a support structure and white acrylic sealant). Mabona explains:

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The “Weird Faces Vending Machine” doesn’t muck around with commentary on the nature of the work of art, commodification of “culture,” or unpacking the universal human condition. This small installation is by Matthias Dorfelt, or Mokafolio. It charges your credit card $3, tells you that it “[LIKES] THE WAY YOU WAIT” among other digital burbles, and eventually produces a unique print of computer generated faces, which would appear to be hand drawn and which are in fact adorable. In short, it does a tidy job questioning the value of the work of art and the commodification of cultural artifacts. (The universal human condition may be hinted at vis a vis the array of odd faces? Jury’s out.)

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Beijing-based artists/married couple Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen have embarked on a his-and-hers exhibition that truly sets them apart. With insight from their 11-year-old daughter, Song ErRui, the installation The Way of Chopsticks pulls the differences of their artless childhood memories in Communist China to their daughter’s contemporary upbringing.

By taking everyday households items and splitting them in half—literally—Dong and Xiuzhen each take a side and adorn it with inspiration from their childhood memories and today’s world. A refrigerator becomes half-covered in salvaged windows and half-draped in pantyhose and concrete powder. A bathroom is transformed into a gender-fueled art exhibit.

Dong’s take on the bathroom.

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In January, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei stacked 760 bicycles at the Galleria Continua in Italy. His most recent installation, on display until October 27 in Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square, tops his previous one with 3,144 bikes, illuminated by blue and pink lights. A similar exhibit (with the same name, but using 1,200 bikes without the lights) was shown at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in early 2012.

The lights reflect the bikes’ chrome, giving it an eerie, almost blurry look. Weiwei is known for his social design and this sentiment isn’t lost on this project. The sound variation of “Forever Bikes” was created as a labyrinth-like monument to the rapid social change China—and the rest of the world—is constantly experiencing. Never before has a pile of chrome looked so good.

The installation was an exhibit at Toronto’s Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, which took place on October 5th. Scotiabank Nuit Blanche is a one-night contemporary arts and culture festival that features artists from around the world.

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I suspect that one of the reasons “Tumbler” from the recent Batman films quickly achieved instant classic status is because of its unambiguous resemblance to the iconic F-117 Nighthawk, arguably the most advanced fighter jet of the 20th-century. My hypothesis is largely based on the fact that (like myself) the target audience for the films—or at least the vehicle design and visual style of Christopher Nolan’s trilogy—recognizes the affinity between the two conveyances from our youthful obsession over such things.

Photo by Peter Cox

Which is probably why artist Paul Segers’ latest project, “Stealth Pavilion,” piqued my interest. The Eindhoven-based mixed media sculptor is known for large-scale installations, as well as “[organizing] projects in the Netherlands and around the world under the auspices of his ‘New Brabant Front,’ a network of like-minded artists from various fields in the creative industry.” His new piece references the aeronautical and architectural aspects of his previous work even as it speaks to the timely issue of surveillance.

The Stealth Pavillion was created for KAAP, an annual exhibition at one of the fortresses of the old Dutch defense line ‘de Hollandse Waterlinie.’ The ‘theme’ of the exhibition was inspired by Dutch artist Constant Nieuwenhuys’ Utopian ‘New Babylon’ project (1959-74).

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