Art that requires a very specific light source
And now I love art again. I found this over at Environmental Graffiti, and it’s a sculpture from artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster.
Right about now, you should be like “But Gynomite, this isn’t that cool looking. It’s just more po-mo bullshit!”
Here’s what that same sculpture looks like in a dark room with a light shined on it in a specific way:
That's the sculpture there on the left
This piece is called He/She, and it’s part of a 10 year project of these two artists, which is all about creating shadow art from unexpected things. (And yes, these guys are both peeing.)
Come see more!
I suppose this could be considered found art
My college roommate Moe and I used to buy our art exclusively at thrift stores, and we found some amazing stuff. Yarn paintings, weirdly framed magazine pages, statues of cowgirls, you name it. The best thing we ever found was a framed picture of President Lyndon Johnson, which we of course bought immediately, and upon deciding that it was lame a few weeks later, we took the whole thing apart, looking for salvage. Behind the picture of the prez were two Sears Portrait Studio era pictures, each of a toddler that just didn’t…look…right. They were cute, but their eyes were a bit blank, their hair was manic looking, and their hands were dirty and clutched at weird toys. We were delighted and immediately hung up their pictures, and since Halloween was coming soon, then decorated them with fangs and dripping blood and other scary stuff. They were a huge hit.
Take that and times it by one million, and you might come close to what this guy has done. He buys thrift store paintings of landscapes and then adds Katamari. Yeah. Jump to take a look and find out how to buy one.
My President is Poorly Represented in Art
And now, a website that has been long overdue:
I work in a wonderfully afrocentric neighborhood in Brooklyn, and leading up to the election, the amount of bad artwork and clothing featuring our lovely president’s face reached a fever pitch.
I swear, I actually saw a shirt with Barack and Tupac standing side by side, but of course there’s no trace of it online. I did see a lot of this though:
And while it’s fun to make fun of really bad artwork, the fact that we have a president that inspires people to make really bad art and really bad t-shirts is really wonderful.
Things you do to hotels when you’re an artist.
I found this website of people doing Secret Wall Tattoos in hotel rooms, and I’m kinda enamored with the idea. Basically, you take something from looking like this:
before
What appeared over Pieke Bergmans head when she thought of this?
Via Neatorama via Apartment Therapy, artist Pieke Bergmans reimagines the light bulb, in a series called “light blubs”. Why has no one thought of this before?!
You thought you were being clever, and now you’re art.
I read this story a while ago at Neatorama, but haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, so I decided to share. This woman at Cabinet of Wonders went on a family trip to Italy, and…. here, I’ll let her explain.
In Pisa my elder daughter became fascinated by all the people taking pictures of their friends holding up the leaning tower, or pushing it over – it is never easy to tell from the wrong angle. At times there were four or five people in a row all holding their hands up – which, when taken out of context, looked like some kind of mass-hallucination tai chi class.
She asked me for her camera and disappeared for a half hour, and then came back with these, which I think vie with many of the conceptual art pieces in the Whitney Museum. I found them hilarious and strangely compelling.
The Polish are way cooler than us
I found a bunch of Polish movie posters for American films that are amazing and often require explanation. There are a few after the jump, check the link for more!
short circuit 2
Camouflage
One of my favorite trends in art now is when people organically make art that looks like it was photoshopped. It triggers in me the exact same emotion as when I see pictures like this, of ivy overtaking a building.
It’s a sense that we’re winning, that somehow the organic and alive things will always triumph over technology and stone. Maybe I’ve seen the Terminator too many times. Regardless, check this out.
Art, as approved by Kanye West
A few weeks ago we went to the Takashi Murakami exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, which is a quick and lovely 15 minute walk from our apartment. As a complete noob of an art appreciator, I must say that it is completley badass.
This is Takashi Murakami, a Japanese born and bred artist who has helped to develop the Superflat art style in Japan, which acknowledged a movement toward mass-produced entertainment and its effects on contemporary aesthetics. His stuff is anime, pop-arty, and highly and weirdly sexual. He designs handbags for Louis Vuitton, and thus one whole room of his exhibit is an actual Louis Vuitton bag shop, where you can buy the bags off the wall.
What’s the best job in the world? Toy photographer, obvi…
This guy, Brian McCarty, takes amazing pictures of toys in context, and that is all you need to know.
