SpY Does It Again >> Street Art for the Non-Seeing

Oh this really touches my heart.  Interesting that no one has done this before (or at least not that I know of, which may mean nothing).  Street artist SpY has made street art for blind pedestrians...

Braille label-maker

"Mambo Kings"

 Stickers placed on surfaces highly-used by blind pedestrians.

Also reminds me of the scene in Amelie where she leads around the blind man and describes everything to him... looove that scene (and movie).

[SpY]

Masters and Their Crafts >> Richard Avedon

"Fashion is one of the richest expressions of human desires, ambitions, needs, frailty, insecurity, security.  What we wear is an indication of our sense of ourselves."

I particularly love his portraits:

Tennessee Williams, New York, 1969

Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Waldorf Astoria, Suite 28a, 1957

Beckett, Paris, 1979

Brando, New York, 1951

Duchamp, New York, 1958

Cole Porter, New York, 1950

Dylan, New York, 1965

Arts Visuels >> Zac Freeman ...a knock-off of Vik Muniz and Chuck Close?

Found item collage portraits by Zac Freeman combine pointilism, impressionism, and mixed media by using film canisters, telephone parts, gears, and other odds and ends to create faces that are the sum of their parts.

I like... but... also kind of just feels like a mash-up of some of Chuck Close and Vik Muniz's work:

Chuck Close, "Phillip Glass," 1977, Watercolor and Acrylic on Paper

Chuck Close, "Big Self-Portrait," 2000-2001, Acrylic on Canvas 

So Chuck Close has got the pointilist portrait thing going on...

Vik Muniz, "Self-Portrait (Back) (Pictures of Magazines)," 2003, Chromogenic Print

Vik Muniz, "Toy Soldier," 2003, Chromogenic Print (of toy soldiers)

 ...And then Vik Muniz takes the idea to the collage realm, using hole-punched bits of magazines and toy soldiers and everything in between to make portraits (as well as recreations of Old Master pieces).  So while Freeman's work is impressive for its tedium and is interesting to look at, and he certainly has an eye for light and dark, I kind of feel like he's ripping off two other great artists... do you?  

Arts Visuels >> Classics >> Brancusi

In seventh grade, Ms. Hearey, my art teacher, showed our class this piece and immediately and forever changed my understanding of Modern art.  

Bird in Space, 1923.  

She put up a slide of this sculpture on the first day of class, without telling us the name or giving any introduction, and asked what we thought of it.  As twelve and thirteen year-olds with no particular artistic leanings, we stared dumbly and were unable to offer anything of substance.  I remember actually thinking the classic non-Modern-art-lovers' comment, "I think I could have done that." 

Then she told us the name, and showed us more examples of Brancusi's style of reducing and abstracting ideas to their simplest form-- in this case, a flying bird represented not by beak and wings and feathers, but by a fluid, graceful form encapsulating the essence of a bird in flight-- and it all clicked. 

The Kiss, 1916

Brancusi (and these two pieces in particular) became a favorite, and Katy Hearey, if you're out there, I think I have you to thank as starting me on a path that would result in my majoring in art history and generally loving art history for life.

Arts Visuels >> Classics >> Peter Beard

Arts Visuels >> Claire Morgan

In the same way that people often describe experiencing the moments of a car wreck or calamitous accident as though it were in slow motion, so slow that they can recall every detail with supernatural clarity, Claire Morgan's painstakingly precise installations composed of taxidermied animanls, manmade plastics, and natural elements seem to reconstruct a freeze-frame of the metaphorical factors that collided to cause the death of the animal on display.

[Claire Morgan]

Ball Nogues Studio

 Ball-Nogues studio designs these installations of dyed twine, which they call "Suspensions," using a computer program they created, and then they hang the twine by hand.  Are you in awe??  I am!

Ball-Nogues studio is a design and fabrication studio based out of Los Angeles and is headed by Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues, who studied together at Southern California Institute of Architecture.  Represented by Edward Cella Gallery in LA, their work has been featured at P.S. 1, the Venice Biennale, the Guggenheim, and many more prestigious institutions and exhibitions.

PS- if you like these, check out these installations.. highly reminiscent!

[Ball-Nogues]

[Edward Cella]

[via Kitsune Noir]

An Introduction >> Jaume Plensa

Jaume Plensa's Nomade at Antibes.

By constructing figures out of letters, Plensa's work explores not only the human form, but also the role of language in the human experience.  The figures are literally made out of the building blocks through which we communicate and describe emotion, both expressing the importance of language in the human experience and giving a physical, tangible form to language. 

Many of his pieces, like Nomade, above, are built so that the viewer can walk inside of the piece.  Very different from viewing a three-dimensional sculpture from afar, the viewer is now inhabiting the piece, having his experience of the work shaped both by the shape of his physical environment and by the language it is made out of, incomprehensible though it is.

The contemplative poses of many of his figures also suggests the artist's interest in the role of language in reflection.  While true meditation may be thought of as the absence of thought, by quite literally forming shapes out of letters, Plensa seems to emphasize the importance of language in giving shape to our inner monologues.

In the Midst of Dreams, above, in which three ambiguously-gendered and race-less forms appear illuminated from within while in sleep, was described by the artist as an exploration of the centrality of dreams to the human experience and his own interest in the concept of a universal human race, democratized by common experiences like dreaming.

In Song of Songs, the artist constructed "walls" out of letters that, when read from top-to-bottom, form the classical poem of the same name, walls that guide the movement of and form "rooms" around the viewer as he experiences both his environment and the poem.  

Interestingly, the letters are suspended rather than laid against an impermeable surface, meaning that while the sheets of letters form "walls" around the viewer, the walls are transparent, allowing a visual interactivity with the entire room while the viewer reads the poem that mimics the way one also brings outside experiences and reference points to the reading of poetry in more traditional mediums.

If you want to check out more of Plensa's work, read about his Crown Fountain project in Chicago here.

[Jaume Plensa website]

Looking Back At >> Alexander Calder's Wire Sculptures

Le Cavelier, 1930

 Edgar Varese, 1930

 Hercules and Lion, 1928

SpY

LOVE the public art by Spanish artist SpY.

Here's an excerpt of a review of his work:

His work involves the appropiation urban elements through transformation or replication, commentary on urban reality, and the interference in its communicative codes. The bulk of his production stems from the observation of the city and an appreciation of its components, not as inert elements but as a palette of materials overflowing with possibilities. His ludic spirit, careful attention to the context of each piece, and a not invasive, constructive attitude, unmistakably characterize his interventions.

...SpY’s pieces want to be a parenthesis in the automated inertia of the urbanite. They are pinches of intention, hidden in a corner for those who want to let themselves be surprised. Filled with equal parts of irony and positive humor, they appear to raise a smile, incite reflection, and to favor an enlightened conscience.

(Based on the typical bike rack found in Madrid.)

A statement from SpY on his website about taking this photo...

 I was taking the pictures of this sign, placed in a very busy street in Madrid city center, when a policeman approached and said: "Did you put it there last night?" I said no, I'm a photographer taking pictures of the city. He insisted: "are you taking pictures of the flower?" I said yes, I've seen it and found it funny. Then the cop says: "I think I know your face, maybe we know each other?" I then thought: fuck, this cop knows me and has figured all out. Y said no, I don't seem to remember you. His face was partly hidden with a hat and a scarf. He went again: "I'm sure to remember you, didn't you hang out with Suso? I think we know each other from graffiti." Already more relaxed, I asked him what neighbourhood he was from. He was a member of Los Trece, a well-known graffiti crew from Móstoles. I recognized him and said that his looks had gotten me nervous. He laughed and said: "I saw it this morning, I thought it was probably put there last night, it's pretty cool, I hope it stays long." I then kept on with the pictures. When seeing me precariously try to do it from the middle of the street, he said: "Do you want me to stop the traffic so you can take the picture better?" I said, well, if you don't mind... He then walked to the middle of the street and started stopping the traffic. I quickly took the pictures, thanked him and said goodbye, he said goodbye and I left.

[Spy]