Hasta La Ideas

Coming off his mural work in Kenya, ambitious photographer JR has made his way to Cambodia. For more on his work there see Wooster.

Related Posts:
Giant Portraits in Kenya
Village of Murals

Cape Town artist Bryan Little put together a public art piece of hanging letters that represent “the names we call each other in the new South Africa.”

The names are both epithets and endearments, reflecting the divisions that continue to exist as well as the connections being forged.

Source:

Several well-known LA based visual artists came together to create a custom mural for Nat King Cole’s upcoming album Re:Generations. The track used for this piece is by the Brazilian Girls featuring the timeless vocals of the “King” himself. For more on this new album you know what to do.

After some extreme heavy lifting, Jorge Rodriquez Gerada created a massive sand portrait of Barack Obama (2.5 acres in all). The portrait was created during the 2008 US presidential election using a large-scale vector graphic, a GPS topography system and approximately 650 tons of sand.

The technique of sand painting was used by the artist as a metaphor for the healing that needs to take place in order to improve our future and to secure a safer world for future generations.

To view more sand painting click here.

So to mark the occasion, we’d like to leave you with this inspiring Quote of the Week. Acclaimed graffiti artist Mear One discusses his views on art as it relates to facilitating positive social change with VC co-founder and Format Magazine contributor Sky Obercam. In his words:

I don’t think that my thoughts alone are any answer but I do find myself as a frustrated soul experiencing a space where it seems that laws and the concept of what a law is (something that’s put into place that can’t be challenged) is a problem. We don’t allow each other the space to evolve. We try to hold each other in these locked patterns where we uphold ‘normalcy.’

That needs to change, but it’s hard to do that because we don’t have an educational system that understands what I’m even talking about. I think there’s one major thing that all of us artists seem to express and that is this need to be different and go out on a limb to challenge ourselves, and others, to think in new and radical ways. When I say artists I mean everyone from an atomic physicist to a singer/songwriter.

Keep it on lock…We’ll be back in full swing on February 6th.

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via Formatmag