Category Archives: Art
Alice Hope: Ball Chains & Magnets
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From a distance it’s hard to tell if New York based artist Alice Hope’s works are paintings, tapestries, or even hanging shag rugs. But, as you get closer the source of the curious colors and textures is revealed as long strands of aluminum ball chains, some painted, others in their natural metal state. Hope painstakingly places each one of these ball chains manually (I know because I saw her finishing one up at the Armory Show earlier this month) onto a perforated steel panel, using magnets. Though it could seem that the process is random, in reality Hope has a process that often relies on numeric patterns. The repetition and monotony of the process is a significant part of the work, as is the gradual deterioration of the work that occurs through dropped chains and magnets.
Currently you can see one of Alice Hope’s pieces at the Greene Space in NYC. The video below shows her process installing it.
Photos courtesy of the artist and collabcubed.
Lin Xinjian: City DNA
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Shanghai-based artist Lin Xinjian was fascinated by the combination of uniqueness and uniformity in the patterns revealed by Google Earth’s views of cities. He began sketching the patterns he saw, making them into geometric shapes; a series of lines, curves, x’s and o’s. He calls these large canvases City DNA, borrowing the term from urban planning. Though not as minimal as Mondrian, it’s hard not to draw comparisons. Circuit boards come to mind as well.
From top to bottom: Paris, Madrid, Manhattan, Los Angeles, Chiasso, Venice, London, and Beijing.
via coudal
Sergei Sviatchenko: Less
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I love all of these photo collages by Ukrainian-born artist Sergei Sviatchenko who lives and works in Denmark. In his Less series, which seems to be an ongoing project started in 2004 with subtle variations such as Less Paint and Lessroyal, Sviatchenko takes familiar everyday objects and recontextualizes them delivering the imagery in new, dynamic forms.
These collages have a surreal bent to them that’s just great, and how about that wallpaper (third image down from the top)? That would be fun to have at home or in an office.
You can buy prints of some of Sviatchenko’s works here, and a recently released book on his work titled Everything Goes Right & Left If You Want It.
Alex Schweder: Performance Architecture
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Alex Schweder creates installations that he refers to as “performance architecture”. Based on the notion that relationships between occupied spaces and occupying subjects are permeable, Schweder’s works often invite interactivity. Visitors follow their visual architectural instincts and once engaged, their expectations and perspective are challenged; what at first seemed familiar becomes strange. Top two images are from the pivoting and rocking Stability, which relies on the position and weight of its two occupants (in collaboration with Ward Shelley.) Snowballing Doorway (third photo down) is an inflatable installation with two arches in mirrored orientation, participants can pass through the bottom arch until the upper up-side-down arch starts to displace it. The next two photos are of A Sac of Rooms All Day Long another inflatable structure with something too big inside something too small. Roomograph, which follows, works like a photogram with photosensitive material that when the lights go out, occupants see their outlines as shadows. Counterweight Roommate forces vertical movement to rely on the counter weight of its two occupants, and was continuously inhabited for five days at Scope Basel in 2011. Split Skin (bottom left) is an installation of licked together packing peanuts that melts and contorts when in contact with water and lastly, The Rise and Fall, offers visitors a ground-shifting structure that responds to their weight and their movements with relation to one another.
There’s much more information on all of these installations as well as many others on the artist’s site.
via haptic blog
Eran Gilat: Life Science
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Israeli scientist and photographer Eran Gilat combines both passions in a visual study influenced by his constant exposure to various biological tissues and specimens. His photo series Life Science offers an artistic expression of scientific observations, research methodology with an emphasis on aesthetics. Disturbing to many, there’s an eerie beauty to these somewhat morbid painterly photographs. Hard not to compare them to 17th Century Dutch still lifes.
NYC Culture on the Cheap: Weekend 3/22
Cheap things to do this we
Free & Cheap things to do this weekend in NYC (3/22/13 to 3/24/13) in art, music, theater, performance, dance, architecture, film, design and general fun. Click through to event pages for more info, either on images above or in the descriptions below.
1. ART: Fri 3/22 & Sat 3/23 through 4/20 – Sergie Tcherepnin: Ear Tone Box. Works at the intersections of sound, sculpture, and theater with objects taking on hybridized personalities, inviting play between things and bodies. At Murray Guy in Chelsea FREE
2. THEATER/DANCE: Fri 3/22 and Sat 3/23 – Breaking Surface: merges dance, acrobatics, flight, water, & poetic imagery in a watery adventure that defies expectation. 8pm. $25
3. BOOK/MUSIC/PARTY: Fri 3/22 Celebrate Touré’s new book I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon with a dance party featuring a night of Prince music spun by Ali Shaheed Muhammad from A Tribe Called Quest. 7pm. $5.
4. FILM: All Weekend – New Directors New Films: $12 to $15. See schedule
5. ART: Fri 3/22 – Anne Lilly: Temporal Tincture. Beautiful and elegant interactive kinetic sculpture (one of my favorites at Scope). Noon to 5pm. Reception 5 to 8pm Galerie Swanström, 136 Sullivan St. FREE
6. MUSIC: All Weekend – Planetarium by Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, and Nico Muhly at BAM. A few $25 seats left.
7. DANCE: All Weekend – DanceBrazil at the Joyce Theater. Tkts $10 and up.
8. FILM: All Weekend – The Films of Stanley Kubrick at IFC: $13.50
9. FOOD/DRINK/MUSIC/FUN: Sat 3/23 & Sun 3/24 – The Big British Invite will take place from 12pm-6pm. Drinks, dance, express manicures. FREE
10. MUSIC/FOOD/FUN: All Weekend – Freetown Produce Festival with Cajun Music and Cooking. Day Passes $30 to $37. See schedule
11. ART/TALK: Sat 3/23 –Artist Hans Haacke and Irving Sandler in Conversation on Haacke’s practice, including his contribution to the German Pavilion at the 1993 Venice Biennale. 3pm $8
12. MUSIC: Sat 3/23 – Fredericks Brown & Jean Grae: a double bill of Soul and ground-breaking hip hop. 7:30pm $20
13. COMEDY/PERFORMANCE: Fri 3/22 & Sat 3/23 – NYC Improv Fest. See schedule for shows. $8ea/$40 for Fest Pass
14. FOOD: Sat 3/23 & Sun 3/24 – Big Cheesy Competition: Seven Grilled Cheese sandwiches from 7 chefs compete: $25 (This is apparently sold out.)
15. MUSIC: Sun 3/24 – Lucy Michelle & The Velvet Lapelles at Mercury Lounge 7:30pm $10
16. ARCHITECTURE/WALK: All Weekend – Go for a stroll on the brand-spanking new bouncy Squibb Park Pedestrian Bridge with yet more spectacular views of the NYC skyline. FREE
17. FOOD/WALKING TOUR: Sun 3/24 – Big Onion Multi-Ethnic Eating Tour. Combines the history of the diverse LES with a series of small food sampling, or “noshing” stops from local shops. 1pm $25 with RSVP
18. TALK/ARCHITECTURE: Sun 3/24 – Surfrider Foundation: Mobilizing Grassroots Activists in Coastal Conservation at Beach 94 in the Rockaways. 1 to 3pm. FREE RSVP
Check last week’s COTC, or the week before, for some ongoing events. Enjoy!
Mark Hartman: Billboards
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Some of my favorite “street art” is the type that occurs naturally, unplanned, with no single artist responsible. It’s the collage-like effect created by the little bits of postings and ads left behind and piled upon each other on billboards and plywood throughout the city. It’s actually been a longtime (unfulfilled) plan of mine to try to recreate this effect on a wall in my home. New York based photographer Mark Hartman has honed in on this very subject matter in his personal photo series project titled Billboards. He describes himself as curator, picking and choosing specific parts of these shredded walls, beautifully cropping and photographing them.
via Prism
Long-Bin Chen: Sculpted Books & Magazines
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Taiwanese artist Long-Bin Chen works with books, magazines, and phone books using traditional sculpting techniques to carve them into works that resemble classic stone busts of both Eastern and Western icons. I saw several of these in person at this year’s VoltaNY Show and even seeing the front and backs up close, and knowing that they’re made with printed matter, they are still amazingly convincing.
Photos: collabcubed; MAD; and artnet
Morag Myerscough: Environmental Graphics
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English designer Morag Myerscough creates environmental graphics combining a great sense of color with a great sense of typography; what could be better? Having started Studio Myerscough in 1993, the studio has collaborated with important architects and worked on spaces that range from museum exhibitions to five children’s dining rooms for the new Barts and The Royal London Children’s Hospital (four of which can be seen in the top four photos.) All of Myerscough’s work exudes happiness and fun, which seems like the perfect combination to bring a little joy to a children’s hospital. There’s much more to see on Studio Myerscough’s website as well as over on the Supergroup site.
via étapes
Academie MWD Dilbeek: Carlos Arroyo
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The Academie MWD (Music, Words, Dance) in Dilbeek, Belgium opened this past fall. The Spanish firm Carlos Arroyo Architects faced the challenge of integrating the new building on the boundary of city and forest, with low-rise single-family homes and the imposing Westrand Cultural Center designed by Flemish architect Alfons Hoppenbrouwers in its immediate surroundings, all the while maintaining the delicate balance with the natural green landscape. Arroyo and his team came up with an ingenious solution: a dynamic façade that gives the optical illusion of changing as you move along the street. In one direction the reflection of the trees is seen, in the other a series of blues, grays and whites from the sky and the facing cultural center. Looked at straight on, the building becomes a burst of color, in homage to a painting by the aforementioned Alfons Hoppenbrouswers where he transcribed a piece of music by a Flemish composer from 1497 into colors and visual rhythms. The color continues on the floors of the interior spaces. The result is a combination of kinetic sculpture, contemporary architecture, and nature. Nicely done, especially for a music and arts institute.
Photos: Miguel de Guzman
via europaconcorsi
NYC Culture on the Cheap: Weekend 3/15
Cheap things to do this we
Free & Cheap things to do this weekend in NYC (3/15/13 to 3/17/13) in art, music, theater, performance, dance, architecture, film, design and general fun. Click through to event pages for more info, either on images above or in the descriptions below.
1. MUSIC/ART/PARTY: Fri 3/15 – Broken Angel Block Party: Fundraiser with music and art to help 82-year-old Arthur Wood find a new home. 4 to 8pm. Benefit after Party from 8pm to 1am $10.
2. ART: Fri 3/15 & through 1/4 – Applied Design MoMA ranging from a mine detonator to a vessel made by transforming desert sand into glass using only the energy of the sun. Also on display are 14 videogames and more. FREE Fridays from 4 to 8pm.
3. ART: All weekend & through 4/28 – Jon Kessler: The Web – An immersive installation that addresses the significance of the internet & mobile devices in our lives. 12 to 6pm. FREE
4. FILM: All Weekend – Philip Roth: Unmasked at FilmForum. FREE tkts available first-come, first served at box office day of show.
5. FILM: All weekend & through 4/25 – Cinebeast’s Subway Series: subway-themed features, docs, and video ephemera at various theaters around the city, and even busking with short films underground. FREE to $12.
6. FUN/FOOD: Fri 3/15 – The Slush Pile: Friday Night Happy Hour. Bottles of wine for $15, buckets of beers from $12 to $24 grilled cheese and board games! 4 to 8pm
7. THEATER: Fri 3/15 & Sat 3/16 – RogerandTom: mind-bending, head-scratching, meta-meta-quasi-romanti-tragi-dramedy 7pm $15 to $18
8. FILM: All Weekend – Foxy: The Complete Pam Grier. $9 to $13
9. ART: Sat 3/16 6 to 8pm & 3/17 to 3/31 – The Wonder Cabinet exhibit brings together an eclectic group of artists, sculptors, costumers, video artist, holographers and more to compose a narrative together in a walk-through cabinet of curiosities. FREE
10. FILM/FOOD/DRINK: Sat 3/16 & Sun 3/17 – Spoons Toons and Booze St. Patrick’s Day cartoon episodes, all you can eat ceral bar and White Russians
11. ART/DESIGN: All Weekend & through 8/4 – Sagmeister & Walsh: Six Things: known for their experimental typography and striking visual imagery $12 FREE on Saturdays.
ALSO: All Weekend – Barbara Bloom: So to Speak A museum collection. $12 or FREE on Saturdays.
12. FOOD: Sat 3/16 – Fourth Annual Best Wings in Brooklyn Competition 2pm FREE
13. WALKING TOUR/ARCHITECTURE: Sat 3/16 – Remembering Ada Louise Huxtable in Midtown. 2nd of two architecture tours of modern architecture: 11am. $15 to $20
14. ART/DEMONSTRATION: Sat 3/16 – Katagami (a Japanese paper-stencil dying technique) will be demonstrated at Cooper-Hewitt. 10am to noon. FREE for members. $20 non-members.
15. MUSIC: Sat 3/16 – Vocal Electrofolk: Africa to NY – Helga Davis joins esteemed cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, and Zimbabwean vocalist Netsayi joins the evening with Black Pressure 7pm. $15
16. MUSIC: Sun 3/17 – Genghis Hans at the Ace Hotel: mixture of indie rock, pop, and electro. 10pm FREE
17. WALKING TOUR: Sun 3/17 – Hell’s Kitchen: The Political History of the NY Irish, Walking tour. 1 to 4pm. $12.50
18. COMEDY: Sun 3/17 – Invitation to a Beheading St. Patrick’s Dy Edition. Stand-up. 8pm $15
MORE…
>>ART: All Weekend & through 8/4 – Monumental Works by El Anatsui $12.
>>ART: Fri 3/15 & Sat 3/16 through James Turrell: Roden Crater and Autonomous Structures. Pace 57th St. FREE
>>MUSIC/FUN/FILM: Sun 3/17 –50 Years of Cassettes showcasing music by primarily tape-based artists Aki Onda, G. Lucas Crane, Emmanual Ferrant, and Rinus Van Alebeek. In additionalso watch a series of experimental films shot on PixelVision by Sarah Halpern while eating tape-shaped snacks. Bushwick. 4pm. FREE RSVP>>FOOD: All Weekend & through 3/31 – Chinatown Restaurant Week: roughly 20 restaurants offering meals for $20.13.
Jérémy Laffon: Hollywoodoscopies
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French artist Jérémy Laffon uses chewing gum sticks to create precarious structures and installations. Whether placing the gum in the style of a house of cards, or stacking them in spiraling columns, or creating a parquet pattern with them in a floor installation, Laffon’s pieces have an unstable and ephemeral quality that the artist plays up at times, forcing collapse by bending or heating the sticks, ultimately swinging into a different dimension.
Laffon’s work is being shown at the Association Limousin Art Contemporain in Limoges (his hometown) through March 23, 2013.
Photos courtesy of the artist; documentsdartistes; and galerie gounod
via junkculture & designboom
Dinner For Two: Rachel Lee Hovnanian
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One of the crowd-pleasers at this year’s Armory Show was the mixed media installation Dinner for Two by Rachel Lee Hovnanian; an elegantly set 16-foot table with a multi-tiered (wedding?) cake standing tall in its center while a holographic-looking mouse nibbles away at it. At each end of the table is an LCD screen with a three-minute looped video of a couple, the man on one end and the woman at the other. Their eyes never seem to meet as they look down and around while the familiar sounds of texts and ringing cell phones are heard relentlessly. Hovnanian comments on the piece (via artinfo):
“We’ve forgotten what is real. Fast food chains replaced cafes; children think a package of pink powder mixed with water is real lemonade made with freshly squeezed pink lemons. We think we have 1,000 real friends on Facebook. We are sucked into our screens and can’t find the time to separate from technology. Only when the power is down, or if we are visiting a remote place with no wireless, can we take a break.”
Perfectly demonstrated.
Photos: Collabcubed; bottom courtesy of the artist.
Hense: Recontextualizing Church
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What could be better than a graffiti mural? Multiple graffiti murals on one building. In this case, a Church in Washington D.C. Atlanta-based artist Hense was commissioned to paint the former church in D.C.’s up-and-coming arts district. Along with a small crew, some rollers, brushes, spray paint, acrylics and more, Hense and his team covered every inch of the structure with de Kooning-esque colors and Pollock-esque splatters and scribbles. Talk about an extreme makeover! The vibrantly colored transformation sits across from the future home of a 20,000 sq. ft. museum, how appropriate for this sculptural work. Hense’s installation is the perfect combination of contemporary abstract art and classic architecture that defines the artsy neighborhood. You can see Hense’s latest painted building in Atlanta, the WCAC, over here.
Photos: Miguel (M.I.G.) Martinez ©Hense
via i-ref
Nausheen Saeed: Baggage
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Pakistani artist Nausheen Saeed created a series of sculptures depicting women as luggage. I saw two of these at the Scope Art Fair this past weekend here in NYC and they were sort of jarring to literally stumble upon. The carpet-like patterned fabrics are wrapped around sculpted fiberglass giving a mummified look to them while the zippers, straps and handles make them look bound and enslaved. The notion of women as burden seems to be the implication, and after reading up a little on the artist, it appears she remarked the following on the series: “Since childhood, family elders, through concealed remarks, give girls the impression that they are a ‘burden’ that should be packed off in marriage as soon as possible.” Saeed sees luggage as a possession, and women in their roles of mother, wife, sister and daughter, always belong to others. Yet, what is stored inside can be deeply personal.
The top sculpture is titled Transitory, the one that follows Belonging and the third one down, Carrier. There is a fourth, not shown here, titled Handle with Care… thanks goodness.
Photos: Aicon Gallery, Canvas Art Gallery, collabcubed, and artsofnyc.
NYC Culture on the Cheap: Weekend 3/8
Cheap things to do this we
Free & Cheap things to do this weekend in NYC (3/8/13 to 3/10/13) in art, music, theater, performance, dance, architecture, film, design and general fun. Click through to event pages for more info, either on images above or in the descriptions below.
1. THEATER: Fri 3/8 and Sat 3/9 – Danny and the Deep Blue Sea: One-act play set in the Bronx where a man & woman emerge from their dark pasts into an empathetic embrace. 7pm FREE
2. ART: All Weekend – Spring/Break Art Show at the Old School in Nolita. 20 curators curate non-traditional art with theme of New Mysticism. Noon to 9pm. $5
3. FILM/TALK: Fri 3/8 and Sat 3/9 – Fusion Film Festival NYU’s premiere film and tv festival celebrating women in film. FREE
4. DESIGN: Fri 3/8 & through 4/5 – We the Designers: Reframing Political Issues in the Obama Era FREE
5. ART: All weekend – Independent Art Fair. Featuring over 40 international galleries representing fourteen countries. FREE
6. ART: All Weekend – VoltaNY Art Fair. (One of my favorites) This year in Chelsea. 11am to 8pm Sun to 6pm $15. 82 Mercer.
7. ART: All Weekend – Fountain Art Fair smaller independent galleries, collectives and artists who wish to gain access to a larger audience. $10
8. FILM/VIDEO: All Weekend – Moving Image Contemporary Video Art Fair takes place in a tunnel! 11am to 8pm through Sat. Sun 11am to 4pm FREE
9. FOOD: Sat 3/9 – Vegan Spring Break Shop-Up: Vegan & gluten-free baked treats and more. 12 to 5pm FREE
10. ART/TALK: Sat 3/9 – Tumblr Art Symposium: part discussion and part exhibition, explores the fast-evolving artistic landscape of Tumblr, 6pm to 1am FREE with RSVP
11. FILM: All Weekend – Queens World Film Festival 2013: $10
12. MUSIC: Sat 3/9 – Wahoo Skiffle Crazies at Union Hall. Doors 8pm. $8
13. FOOD: Sun 3/10 – FSNYC’s 3rd Annual Duck-Off. 1pm to 3pm. $25
14. PERFORMANCE/ART: All Weekend & through 3/15. The Introducing Series at The Windows, Roger Smith Hotel: 13 artists, who represent a broad range of young makers and experienced performers, will exhibit their presence in this space for a full 12-hour day. FREE
15. ART: All Weekend – The (Un)Fair: Guerilla-style art show in a 19th Century Hell’s Kitchen building with almost 100 works. 11am to 8pm. FREE
16. ART/FOOD: Sun 3/10 – LES Gallery Stroll noon to 6pm and Brunch at various locations from 1 to 3:30pm. Brunch with RSVP FREE
17. ART: All Weekend – Nathan Sawaya & Dean West In Pieces; LEGO art and photography collaboration; 10am to 6pm through 3/17 FREE.
ALSO in LEGO: Fri 3/8 & weekdays through 3/20 –Piece by Piece Sean Kenney LEGO sculptures and artwork. FREE
18. MUSIC: Sun 3/10 – Organist, composer and friend Harold Stover plays works by Cesar Franck & Camille Saint-Saens. 5:15 at St. Thomas Church. FREE
MORE…
>>FILM/FUN: Fri 3/8 – Movieoke at Videology. Karaoke for movie geeks! 8pm. FREE
>>ART: All Weekend – New City Art Fair, Japanese Contemporary Art. In Chelsea. FREE
>>ART: Sat 3/9 – Bushwick Gallery Late Night. 6pm to 10pm. FREE
>>WALKING TOUR: Sun 3/10 – Exploring the Glamorous Afterlife at Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx. 1pm to 3pm. $18.
Pendulum Choir: Cod.Act
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Swiss artists André and Michel Décosterd who make up Cod.Act combine their talents of music composition and architecture in their artistic performance and interactive installations. Their devices translate physical movement into sound.
Their Pendulum Choir is probably the most surprising. A choir of nine men is harnessed onto hydraulic jacks that react to their voices. The swinging and rotating singers seem to hang by their toes while leaning at what look to be close to 45-degree angles, coming very close to each other yet designed to never collide. Kind of zany, funny, and at the same time a little creepy.
Cod.Act have many other creations including the Cycloid-E—a pendulum of metallic tubes equipped with sound sources and with measuring instruments capable of making them resonate according to their rotations—and the Ex-Pharao, a mechanical apparatus composed of cables and hydraulic levers that allows the visitor to modify an opera by Schoenberg in real time. Much more to see on their site.
via spoon & tamago
CollabCubed 