Category: Art

Erwin Olaf has a new exhibition of photographs showing in New York. They are redolent of the US of the 1950s. You can see them on his site; click through to his portfolio pages via the Art link. The series have the titles "Hope" and "Rain". 

A spiffy-looking set of dining table and Japanese-style chairs from a Norwegian company. Although the lack of any indication of price is never a good sign in my opinion.

You’ve probably read about the recent discovery of the earliest known example of Maya art near San Bartolo, Guatemala. But now, Dave Pentecost, one of the team who worked on documenting the painting, has published a video of the site on his blog. Amazing stuff. Although every time I see the image of HunahPu sticking a six-foot spear through his own penis as a blood sacrifice, I want to cross my legs, hard.

 

P.S. The downside of the video is the (not so) background music. Why do people insist on adding inappropriate music to videos? Admittedly, it’s not as bad as the Boar Semen Collection Music Video disaster I mentioned a couple of days ago. But still… Less is more, people!

For the second year running, the townhall in Gouda is being illuminated at night as though it was made out of stained glass. Lex, a local photographer, has already been in the market square last night taking the first shots of the season. I’ll have to make a trip one evening to get my own set.

Jill Greenberg’s portfolio of monkey portraits are worth seeing. Click through via the Flash site entrance…

 

(hat tip to Stewart on the Flickr blog)

Rudolph and Leopold Blaschka were a father and son team of artists working in glass in the 19th Century. I first came across them when Martin and I visited the Ware collection of Glass Models of Plants at Harvard University in 1992. The Blaschkas made over 4,000 botanical models of plants and flowers entirely out of glass. They are staggeringly beautiful and accurate models. What I didn’t know, until today, was that the Blaschkas were also responsible for glass models of marine animals as well. Equally staggering.

It’s a bit late, because I’ve been waiting for better pictures. Here’s what they did in Buenos Aires to mark World AIDS Day…

Dale Chihuly is an artist working with glass. I’ve seen his chandelier in the V&A museum in London and been duly impressed. I’d like to be able to wander around Kew Gardens at the moment to be able to see his current exhibition there. The interplay of natural organic forms and Chihuly’s versions in glass looks really stunning. Check out the video as well.

 

One question that nags me though, how on earth do you keep this stuff clean?

 

(hat tip to Ophelia over at Butterflies AndWheels)

 

Update: Lots of photos over at Flickr…

Unlike the Darth Vader carved out of butter, I think there is a genuine case for these witty images to claim the title of Art. Not great Art, but Art nonetheless.

Life is too short to be spending years doing this, surely?

I think we can safely say that if it is, it’s not art as we know it, Jim.

I came across a photograph reproduced on the Feministe blog here. I know this photograph. It was taken by Jill Posener (apparently in 1979) and collected, along with other photographs of graffiti, in her book Spray It Loud, published in 1982 (ISBN 0-7100-9458-2). She captured brilliant graffiti – mostly around the streets of London. I’ve got two copies of the book in my library – one is signed by Jill, dated November 1982 – I think it was bought at a CHE Winter Fair in London. She followed it up with a second book of graffiti photographs: Louder Than Words  in 1986 (ISBN 0-86358-086-6).

When I came across the Feministe entry, I didn’t know what had happened to Jill. A quick Google reveals that she’s very much alive and kicking, and now living in Berkeley, California. From starting out in the theatre company Gay Sweatshop, she became a professional photographer, and has published lots of stuff since then. I hadn’t realised it until now, but she was also the photographer who worked on another book in my collection: Out In America (ISBN 0-67085-850-1). More on her life and work at her website.

Kader Attia’s Flying Rats. Not for the squeamish or those with a hyper-active imagination – even though no animals or children were harmed during the making of this.

I mentioned Hillel Cooperman yesterday in connection with his presentation on good interface design in software. It turns out he has a blog, and I came across this entry on good design of physical objects – in this case a sink in a French railway station. He likes this design, on multiple levels, and so do I. Kudos to the original designer.

 

BTW, this sort of stuff – good ergonomic design – is explored in at least two of Donald A. Norman’s books: The Psychology of Everyday Things, and Turn Signals Are The Facial Expressions of Automobiles. Worth reading. Ooh, I see he’s got a new book out: Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things. I must get a copy – particularly since it has a picture of one of my bête noirs on the front cover – the beautiful looking, but completely impractical Alessi juicer.

I just thought that I’d leave you pondering some art produced by a collection of artists involved in the Dutch company Mothership.

 

In particular, the body suit/armour/fetishware stuff produced by Masahiro Fukuyama. Disturbing doesn’t even begin to describe it.

…plants had eyes? There’s a weird version of a natural history film showing just that. The film has been made by 1st Avenue Machine – a computer graphics company working in the field of advertising.

 

(hat tip to BoingBoing)

Thanks to Nosemonkey, I’ve now been alerted to the blogging of Mr. H. He maintains two blogs at the moment: Giornale Nuovo and Curiosities of Literature. Both are the artistic and literary equivalents of Cabinets of Curiosities. Fabulous stuff – how am I going to find the time to keep up with all this?

I’ll simply refrain from comment about this, other than to say that Prague is clearly bent on oneupmanship over Brussels.

Quote:

 

Taken from the press release of an art project; a giant pink woollen rabbit sprawled on a mountain hilltop in Italy. 

 

I see that Marc Quinn’s new work of sculpture: Alison Lapper Pregnant has been unveiled in Trafalgar Square. The work, like its subject, is pretty uncompromising and forthright. I like it. While some may have felt uncomfortable about such a public depiction of disability, I would merely draw their attention to the one-armed, one-eyed figure who is also present in Trafalgar Square, standing on top of Nelson’s Column.