February 8, 2012 by collabcubed - 2 Comments

Kyle Jenkins: Intuitive Abstraction

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Yep, I really love these. All that color and geometry makes me happy. Australian artist Kyle Jenkins, based in Sydney, paints, sculpts, makes collages and more, but here we have some of his acrylic paintings and works on paper. His work is concerned with aspects of intuitive abstraction which incorporates hard edge and organic abstraction. Through the use of basic elements such as lines, color, form and surface, Jenkins explores the construction and deconstruction of the work; what it looks like and how it was made in addition to the displacement of space.

I like them all! Hard edge or organic form; paper to wall mural.

via minus space

February 7, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Glow by We Make Carpets

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We Make Carpets (previously here and here) the Dutch collective that creates contemporary interpretations of the centuries-old medium, recently put together a Glow Carpet for the Glow Festival in Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

Consisting of 750 kilogram glow-in-the-dark pebble stones, the carpet was charged with bright light for five minutes every ten so that when the lights were turned off, the luminescent carpet, well…glowed!

February 7, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Preservation is Life: Bryan McCormack

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Continuing with the escalator theme, here’s an installation by Irish artist Bryan McCormack that was at the Centre Pompidou in Paris a couple of months back. Preservation of Life: Les sons de la vie—as the sound and light installation was called—started at the museum’s façade and continued up its famous 6-floor escalator as part of the art center’s AIDS annual fundraising campaign. 80,000 condom covered light bulbs in different colors, with hues changing on every floor, were used to form a condom tapestry. Accompanying the dramatic tunnel visuals was audio of a human heartbeat, with the pulse changing along with the colors, starting at the base with the cardiac rhythm of a fetus in the womb and progressing at every level, to a newborn baby’s heartbeat and, finally, to the artist’s own heartbeat on the top floor.

Though I didn’t see it written anywhere, I’m pretty sure that the title is a pun. In French, and in Spanish, preservatif, and preservativo, mean condom.

You can buy one of the condom bulbs here.

Photos courtesy of the artist; Bertrand Guay/AFP; and Xinhua

via coolhunting via notcot

February 6, 2012 by collabcubed - 2 Comments

Sonja Alhaüser: Food Art

German artist Sonja Alhaüser at times makes food her subject matter, as in many of her watercolor paintings, and other times makes it her choice of material. She has created sculptures from butter, chocolate, and marzipan, as well as performance pieces using milk and melted chocolate.

Taking food, a major part of our everyday lives, and using it in art converts it into a new medium that departs from its normal associations. It becomes about the process and about the relationship between art and other aspects of life. In many cases, Alhaüser’s works are edible, encouraging the viewer to eat them, as in the green pedestals made of chocolate (pictured above) included in the Eat Art exhibit at Harvard some years back.

Alhaüser will be part of an upcoming group show at Galerie Gesellschaft in Berlin this year.

Photos courtesy of the artist; Georg Kolbe Musem; and Galerie Michael Schultz

via Harvard Gazette

February 6, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Tiger & Turtle – Magic Mountain

This seems to have made the rounds a couple of months back, but I hadn’t seen it till now. Tiger and Turtle – Magic Mountain is a site-specific, large-scale, walkable rollercoaster designed by Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth positioned at the highest peak of the Heinrich-Hildebrand-Höhe in Duisburg, Germany. Visitors are invited to walk up the zinc-plated steel sculpture, which soars to 21 meters at its highest point, and, add to that the height of the artificial mountain that it sits upon, and a person gets a view of the Rhine from 45 meters above the landscape. Unfortunately, for the more adventurous types, you can’t actually climb on the center loop past a certain point.

Mutter and Genthe collaborated with Arnold Walz who did the parametric 3-D planning and stairway system, as well as Prof. Micahel Staffa who did the planning of structural framework, and architects Sonja Becker and Rudiger Karzel of bk2a architecture.

The interactive sculpture is lit up by LEDs under the handrails at night, making it accessible in the dark as well. My kind of rollercoaster.

Photos by Thomas Mayer

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February 2, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Eka Sharashidze: Wall People

Originally from Georgia, but now living and working in Berlin, Eka Sharashidze creates photo collages. Her series Wall People caught my eye. In these images, the panels almost look like paintings, (though that may not be the case in person) but, if I understand correctly (my Georgian and German are a bit rusty, as in I don’t speak either at all), Eka sets up her camera facing a big white wall and shoots the passersby collecting photographs of people going about their everyday business, from walking to biking, to standing and pointing. She then proceeds to take these images, often repeating many of them, (which makes for an interesting effect), other times placing the images sequentially illustrating the progression of time, and, finally, printing them onto aluminum panels. Sharashidze has some nice architectural photo collages as well.

via artreview

February 1, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Lael Marshall: Domestic Assemblages

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New York City based artist Lael Marshall probably makes more trips to Kmart than the art supply store when making her art. Initially working out of her apartment, Marshall found that the domestic cleaning materials lying around started “creeping into” her work. The result? Mixed media collages, many of which are on vacuum cleaner bags; dish towel paintings; and soap sculptures, including a series of soap cameras.

Playful, fun, and sustainable!

Photos courtesy of the artist and Bric Arts

January 31, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

More Highlights from the NYIGF

There is SO much to see at the NY International Gift Fair that just mentioning a few items doesn’t seem right, but that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Below are some things that caught my eye in a variety of areas, from toys to home.

Hoptimists were originally created by furniture designer Hans Gustav Ehrenreich in 1968 and are now designed in new materials and with new expressions, still in Denmark. Super cute and bouncy.

Uno Magnetic is an interactive, magnetic jewelry, designed by architect Luis Pons, that can take the form of a necklace, bracelet, or ring, depending on how you choose to wrap the individual colored chains and where you place the magnetic ball that keeps it all together. It comes in cute packaging, too, though I couldn’t find an image.

Cavern is a boutique wallpaper design firm with a fun take on wallcoverings. Their hand silkscreened designs take inspirations from natural as well as urban landscapes. The I See You paper, full of googly eyes was set up in their booth with pens for all to draw faces. Especially fun for a kid’s room. Other fun ones include Watertowers and Thesis.

Time Rings Puzzle from Argentina, is made from the wood of cypress trees that died naturally in Patagonia. There are two designs, one super difficult with the wood grain on both sides, and a slightly easier version that’s painted black on the back. Available through Looksur.

Amac and House Industries have teamed up and put type on these colorful acrylic boxes of varying sizes. Hard to go wrong when numbers and ampersands are involved.

And, of course, this list would not be complete if we didn’t include our exciting collaboration with Fred on a variation of our EARonic iPhone 4 cases: All Ears, due out in stores in the next month or two. For those who want more variety, All Ears offers slip in sheets with different his or hers sets of ears. The long-awaited Vulcan ear is now a reality as are other options. But don’t worry, for those who prefer the original EARonics, those are still available at our shop.

January 30, 2012 by collabcubed - 7 Comments

New Pantone Home and Office Products

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Just when you think there is nothing left to Pantone-ify, ROOM Copenhagen comes out with a new tableware/kitchenware and desk accessories line. I spotted these lovely pieces—the silky matte feel of the polypropylene is hard to resist touching—at the NYIGF yesterday. Sure, the Pantone products are always fun and appealing, but these objects would even be appealing sans the Pantone aspect, that’s how nicely designed they are. The Pantone colors and style are just an added perk!

From the placemats and coasters, to the triangular water jug and stackable boxes, all these pieces are just great. And how is it that no one came out with the business card holders before?!

The new line of products should be online soon, once ROOM Copenhagen gets their site up.

Gift show photos by Collabcubed: catalog images courtesy of ROOM Copenhagen.

January 30, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Hsin-Chien Huang: Read My Lips

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Last year at the Armory Show, here in NYC, I saw this work but didn’t make note of the artist’s name. Thanks to the amazing Google images, I was able to upload my photo and end up on Hsin-Chien Huang’s website. Read My Lips (as the piece is titled) is an interactive sculpture of Andy Warhol’s face with mechanical eyelids and lips. Taiwan-based artist Huang (who has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the National Taiwan University, in addition to a B.S. from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and an M.S. from the Illinois Institute of Technology, so he really combines science, technology and art) created this work as an experiment, inspired by the Facebook pages of dead artists and their Facebook “friends”. The computer that controls the eyelid and lip movements is connected to the internet. The work posts questions of artistic relevance and social significance to its Facebook page every week and friends can post responses. Using a text-to-speech engine, the artwork then reads back the responses silently.

An interactive public art project from 2010 is shown in the bottom group of photos. Listening is located in a Lo-Sheng sanatorium which used to be a leprosy house in 1929. Between the two large ears made of laser cut steel, is a platform in the space representing the brain. Pedestrians can walk onto the platform and reflect on the sounds they used to hear in the location, as well as the current sounds. There are also 15 QR-code labels on the ground which viewers can use to watch videos with their smartphones.

You can see Read My Lips in action in the video below.

January 27, 2012 by collabcubed - 2 Comments

Marios: Summer 2012 Collection Nowhere

These are fun! Marios, a fashion brand founded by Mayo Loizou and Leszek Chmielewski initially in Japan, now based in Milan, focus on contemporary, unisex, convertible garments. Their Summer 2012 collection Nowhere, a collaboration with photographer Kuba Dabrowski, features landscape photography in its designs.

via prosthetic knowledge

January 24, 2012 by collabcubed - 12 Comments

Doug Wheeler: SA MI 75 DZ NY 12

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After making a special trip with Em on Saturday, in the snowy cold, to see Doug Wheeler’s light installation titled SA MI 75 DZ NY 12 at the David Zwirner Gallery, we left promptly due to the crowded waiting area we descended upon and the one-hour wait ahead of us — I’m often deluded into thinking that I’m the only one who has these great ideas in NYC…but really, who goes to Chelsea on a frigid, snowy weekend? Apparently: a lot of people. — So, today, a Tuesday afternoon, I thought I’d quickly pop in but, alas, there would be no popping in. There was still a half-hour wait but, seating was available and the musical-chairs-style line kept me active.

Now, back to the exhibit: Amazing. The bright white light installation is the closest thing to what, I imagine, standing in a cloud might feel like. The first impression is that of a flat wall created by light. As one reluctantly steps forward—wearing the white booties provided by the gallery to keep things pristine—it feels as though you’re stepping into the void. The minute the light box is entered, all depth perception disappears. There’s a dense fog-like effect that’s created with light and white paint. The walls have been curved and the lack of hard lines or horizon intensifies the confusing sensation. The result is at first a little unsettling, but the incredible coolness instantly follows. The light in the box fluctuates emulating the light of day, from dawn to dusk, in a 32-minute loop.

If you’re in New York, you might want to check it out. Doug Wheeler’s installation is on view at David Zwirner through February 25, 2012. I recommend a weekday, if possible, for a shorter wait.

Photos courtesy of David Zwirner; Carolina A. Miranda; and soulellis’ flickr.

January 24, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Brian Tolle: Tempest

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New York artist Brian Tolle creates sculptures and installations that are iconographic with history or context in mind. The Tempest, located in Collins Park in front of Miami Beach’s Bass Museum, is one such installation. A sort of maze, made of powder coated aluminum, fiberglass, and LEDs, this permanent, site-specific sculpture appears as an island of tumultuous waves and invites the viewer to participate in the movement by walking through the maze.

The night view is quite spectacular, adding a glowing phosphorescent quality to the fiberglass water.

You can see more of Brian Tolle’s work at his website, including the Irish Hunger Memorial here in NYC and his more recent Simnai Dirdro (Twisted Chimney) in Wales. Coming this year, an installation that looks like two elevated statues on a lamp post that glow at night on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn.

Photos courtesy of the artist and wallyg’s flickr

via CRG

January 23, 2012 by collabcubed - 3 Comments

Cristina Barbero: Protected Spaces

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You know the saying “People who live in glass jars…”

Spanish artist Cristina Barbero believes that every individual needs their own vital space; create a bubble where they can be protected from their fears and problems. Each one may be very different and unique, yet united they form society and the cities that we live in.

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January 20, 2012 by collabcubed - 1 Comment

Foster School of Business Art Installations

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Two interesting permanent typographic art installations were recently created for the Foster School of Business, part of the University of Washington in Seattle. The two installations are collaborations between designers Kristine Matthews and Karen Cheng, both on the faculty at the University’s School of Art.

Change reflects on the dynamic relationship between business and change. The word “change” appears on the floor of each elevator, along with 18 synonyms (adapt, innovate, transform, etc.). The synonyms are each highlighted with actual loose change, international coins that hint at the diversity of the UW Foster Business School as well as the global nature of business.

As the elevator moves from floor to floor, the interior word “change” is modified by another word just outside the elevator, to both the front and back:
Floor 5: I Change/You Change
Floor 4: Lead Change/Manage Change
Floor 3: Expect Change/Embrace Change
Floor 2: Local Change/Global Change
Floor 1: Change Ideas/Change Lives
Floor 0: Change?/Change!

The second installation, Business Is..., asks how do you define ‘business’?

Viewers are asked to respond to the open-ended question “Business is…” on a companion website, www.FosterExchange.com. User responses appear on a series of LEDs that wrap around a four-story-high column. The monitors also display real-time stock market openings and closings, predictions, and even advice for students who meet and study in the atrium below.

Both installations are innovative, interactive, beautifully integrated, totally engaging and fun! I’d say complete successes through and through.

Here’s a video about the projects:

via sedg

January 20, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Rise & Sigh Sheets: Martina Carpelan

These made me chuckle. Finnish designer Martina Carpelan put a new spin on embroidered bedding. Her Rise and Sigh sheets have suggestive flirty sayings embroidered in reverse to leave a temporary tattoo-like impression on the occupier’s skin.

Wonder what these would do to Ariana Page Russell?

via design milk

January 20, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Florian Hafele: Contorted Sculptures

Viennese artist Florian Hafele creates sculptures using materials that vary from PVC and paint, to wood and plastic, to gilded bronze. What all his sculptures have in common is a contortionist or deformed quality. Focusing on the question of performance in our social environment, Hafele’s works offer multiple perspectives and views on the over-strained human in an achievement oriented society.

via carbon12

January 19, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

The RedBall Project: Kurt Perschke

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This is such a fun project! Though it’s been traveling the world for a few years, this is the first I’ve heard of it. The RedBall Project by New York based artist Kurt Perschke, consists of a series of temporary installations within a city over a span of a couple of weeks. Perschke finds interesting, and somewhat humorous, locations (though, a giant red ball in any location automatically evokes a certain amount of humor) that are often taken for granted. The previously neglected spaces come to the foreground highlighting the nooks and crannies of urban life.

For Perschke, the core of the project’s goal is the invitation to the public to engage and unleash their imagination. “Every time a passerby says – ‘You know, I know the perfect place to put it!’ – RedBall has succeeded in creating a moment of imagination.”

The project has taken place in many cities including Barcelona, Taipei, Chicago, Toronto, Sydney, Portland and most recently Abu Dhabi. Up next: Perth, from February 10 – March 3rd. Hey Kurt! How about bringing the project home to NYC?! I know the perfect place…

Here’s a short video by Tony Gaddis of the project in Chicago: