Okay, does anyone want to guess how artist Bradley Hart made these portraits? Any clue what those pixels are, arranged in that neat hexagonal pattern you’ve clearly seen before?
Even if you puzzle out that Hart can buy some of the raw materials for his work at the UPS store, you’ll probably not guess how he added the color. Hit the jump to see.
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For many of you, landing an auto design gig would be the end-all be-all. But imagine having that job, with all of its demands, and still having enough creativity left over to do your own art on the side.
Craig Metros is a Ford designer from Detroit, now transferred to Australia. In his new home base of Melbourne, Metros has rented a garage-studio with five other guys, and in his off hours, creates art (primarly car-based, you can check his pieces out here) and works on machines. Watch the video below and decide which of his lives you envy more.
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We’ve seen the insanely complicated things people can do with paper by painstakingly folding it (Matthew Shlian) or cutting it by hand (Bianca Chang). It was just a matter of time before another OCD paper artist/engineer got his hands on a laser cutter and made things really complicated.
Artist Eric Standley, a SCAD grad and now associate professor at SVA’s Virginia Tech branch, painstakingly assembles hundreds of sheets of differently-colored laser-cut paper. The intricate shapes evoke stained glass windows or something you would carve if you were imprisoned for 30 years. This man has the focus and patience of a sniper on Adderall.
See more of Standley’s stuff here.
Man this is trippy. In the beautiful facility you see pictured above, Seattle-based artist Etsuko Ichikawa draws using molten glass and fire. It’s one of those things where words doesn’t do her process any justice, but luckily there’s video of it:
Reporting by Kyana Gordon
Let the graffiti games begin. With the Olympics just mere days away, street artists have been making their presence known around England. Even Banksy couldn’t resist an opportunity to show his satirical support with these two new pieces. One stencil features a javelin thrower armed with a missile while the second is a portrait of an Olympic pole vaulter in mid-jump landing in the direction of a filthy mattress below.
Equally impressive is other Olympic-themed work that has cropped up all over. This timely McDonald’s jab (in case you aren’t aware McDonald’s will be the only French fries, or ‘chips’ sold at London Olympic venues) by an unknown artist was photographed by Pogorita outside the Brighton tube station.
Even this piece of a female diver plunges headfirst into an open toilet captured by Tim Callaghan makes quite the provocative statement. And a multi-colored pigeon by Ronzo depicts city birds getting in on the action.
Seeing beautiful street art in London? Leave a comment on where we can see more work below!
Painter and muralist Josef Kristofoletti is pleased to present his latest project, the “Atlas Detector,” commissioned by none other than the ATLAS Experiment at CERN, which is headquartered within the otherwise nondescript building. While we eagerly anticipate confirmation of a certain recent discovery, the Austin TX-based artist has recently completed his eyecatching rendition of the very same.
The three-story tall mural was painted by international artist Josef Kristofoletti on the side of the ATLAS control room directly above the detector, near the Swiss-French border outside of Geneva. This project was inspired by the same questions that the physicists at CERN are trying to answer; where did we come from, what does it mean to be human, and what is our place in the universe. The artist worked closely on location with physicists at CERN over the course of a year to create the mural. It depicts the artist’s interpretation of what the Higgs boson might look like.
Time-lapse painting-of video after the jump:
Sven and Nils Völker—graphic designer and installation artist, respectively, though they both do both—are pleased to present a pair of new installations at Flø in Ulsteinvik, Norway.
For the art festival “Go with the Flø” in Norway we’ve turned an old school gym into one large installation. It’s an interplay of two site specific installations which fill up the whole room.
On the wall is the work “Haven’t Seen Myself in Ages” by Sven Völker. A huge wall of 414 posters which are illuminated by color changing lights. Thereby the appearance of the whole wall is constantly changing and different forms appear and disappear again.
The middle of the room is dominated by the installation “Twenty Eight” by Nils Völker. A 15 meter long double row of white plastic bags which are selectively inflated and deflated in controlled rhythms creating wavelike patterns and a sizzling soundscape.
As a column of inflatable plastic bags, “Twenty Eight” is ostensibly a rework of “Thirty-Six,” which was suspended ceiling as a sort of respirating chandelier. His brother’s work, on the other hand, is easily the cynosure of the space: the kaleidoscopic pop hues belie their simple paper construction.
photo via the selby
Sculptor Tom Sachs happens to have his studio just up the block from me, but the goings-on inside are well-shielded from the street. I’ll occasionally pass by just as the doors quickly open and close to admit or discharge one of his employees, and I always catch that distinctive shop whiff that screams they’re making stuff in there.
Sachs (whose “Space Program: Mars” exhibition opens today at the Park Avenue Armory) has a quirky sense of humor fully on display in this “Love Letter to Plywood” video:
The video was directed by Sachs collaborator Van Neistat—remember his brother, Casey?–and is part of a trilogy called “Energies and Skills.” Check out the other two, “How to Sweep” and “Space Camp” for more Neistat & Sachs goodness.
As a vehicle to celebrate emerging artists in one space, The Pulse Art Fair opens today at the Metropolitan Pavilion with an array of artists and disciplines including video art, dance, and architectural installation. Last night, I had a walk-thru with Cornell Dewitt, the fair’s director, to go over the spatial and architectural-bent arts present in the show. He says that Pulse makes it a point to be “accessible, literally and metaphorically.” In a city that hosts dozens of art fairs like the monolith Armory show to the edgy Independent, Pulse tends to run in a glowing medium. It’s central location and eclectic mix of galleries makes for great inspiration grounds. The art here can be as opaque as in contemporary art gallery but Pulse strives for diversity. From a young Estonian artist to Fred Wilson, and a Fred Torres collaboration, Pulse’s manageable-sized gallery allows for intimate moments with the art and gallerists.
Upon entry, the Lead Pencil Studio installation in the Pavilion’s lobby brings the city into an art world space. The plywood set is an architectural take on a Chinatown street, with life-size re-creations of chain-lock doors, post box, fire escape, and storefront. The installation is meant to emphasize all of the formidable pieces attached to a building and it’s street life that an architect did not put on that building. We are left with the stark imaginary formations of order and security from urban planning, emergency exits, and an attempt at street art. The plywood objects represent the hustle of city-life, but in their plywood manifestations we are hyper aware of their artful re-imaginings. We remember that we are in an art fair. Dewitt says of the space, “the world is falling away and you transfer yourself, bizarrely into this clarified art world.”
“I wish to communicate with you” by Pablo Guardiola, 2011, 28 x 42 inches
A screen shot of the “view in a room” option.
One of the topics that was brought up at a panel discussion I attended earlier this week was about the problems of publishing catalogue raisonnes. If the catalogue is a of living artist, it becomes outdated the moment that artist creates new work. And even for artists like Picasso, every time one of his works changes hands the catalogue has to be updated. It’s a publishing nightmare. Now Art.sy, a new online platform, could make those heavy and constantly out of date printed catalogue raisonnes a thing of the past. Art.sy is still in its beta phase, but I recently got the chance to explore its massive resources. It’s powered by the Arts Genome Project, an open source platform that tracks and catalogues every artist, arts organization and every performance, exhibition and event in real time (i.e. no more trips to the printer).
Art.sy expands on the concept by making all that information searchable across more than 800 “genes—such as art-historical movements, subject matter and formal qualities.” Feel like looking at blue, medium-sized installations? How about James Turrell’s Untitled (19NSB)? Or maybe you want something big and pink? You’ve now got ten pieces to browse through. You can also choose to only look at works that are for sale or, sift through them by subject matter like “Fantastic Environments,” “Text” or “Culture Critique.”
But how are these searchable “genes” created in the first place?
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.
