March 1, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Will Ryman: Anyone and No One

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New York artist Will Ryman has taken a departure from his sculptures of giant roses that decorated the Park Avenue Malls in midtown last year here in NYC, and has now created two site-specific works: one a giant male figure, the other a giant bird. Presently, at both Paul Kasmin Galleries in Chelsea (the first artist to show in both at the same time) Ryman’s exhibit titled Anyone and No One consists of a 90-foot figure lying against the perimeter of the Tenth Avenue gallery walls, unclear whether he is sleeping or dying. The figure is made up of 250 pairs of shoes for the shirt and 30,000 bottle caps make up the arms, hands, and feet. The sculpture/installation, titled Everyman, seems to open up through the figure’s head into the next room where a labyrinth has been created out of 200,000 paintbrushes stacked on top of one another. I’m not sure if these organic structures are intended as a trip through the Everyman’s brain or not, but, in either case, this looks pretty amazing.

At the 27th Street gallery is Ryman’s Bird. This 12-foot high, 16-foot wide sculpture is made with 1500 actual and fabricated nails and weighs two tons. In the same way that the Everyman space becomes a box in which the huge man has been stuffed into, so, too, does the Bird’s gallery transform into its cage.

I think I’ll have to check this out in person soon. Both pieces will be up at both Paul Kasmin galleries through March 24th, 2012.

Photos courtesy of Paul Kasmin and Mark Rifkin’s flickr.

Thanks for the tip, Stephen!

February 24, 2012 by collabcubed - 1 Comment

Dimitris Polychroniadis: Church Slogan Art

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Architect and set designer Dmitris Polychroniadis from Athens has recently completed a series of humorous sculptures inspired by church sign slogans and relevant to the struggles that his country (as well as much of the world) is presently experiencing. The series is titled The Miracle of Fluo Colours.

From Polychroniadis:
Religion often serves as an emotional ‘lender of last resort’ in times of crisis. The idea for this series of maquette sculptures, comes from Christian church signs and billboards in the US. By stripping these religious quotes away from their physical and emotive context, the ‘message’ becomes more absolute, almost surreal. To emphasize this further, the text size has been exagerated in scale (compared to the figurines) and colour. The project is somewhat ‘street’ influenced by large scale advertising and slogan graffiti. The title of the series generates a contrast: The notion of God-sent miracles as an integral part of religious faith, against the marvels of man-made, modern age, industrial technology and it’s products such as fluoerscent materials and colours.

You might enjoy some of Polychroniadis’ architecture work as well. I especially like his use of type in his restaurant and store designs.

Photos: Michalis Dalanikas & Dimitris Polychroniadis

February 23, 2012 by collabcubed - 4 Comments

Katya Malakhova: Russian Nesting Dolls

Russian graphic designer and photographer Katya Malakhova, clearly an industrial designer as well, has put a spin on the traditional Russian nesting doll (matroyshka) concept in many directions, all a lot of fun. From Batman to a dominatrix, anatomical versions and bling, they all made me chuckle. Oh, and Gene Mutation has a nice surprise at its core.

These have got kidrobot written all over them, don’t you think?

via redbubble

February 21, 2012 by collabcubed - 2 Comments

E1000: 3D Pedestal Street Art

Spanish street artist e1000 (previously here and here) has recently painted another of his 3D works. This one on Paseo de Santa María de la Cabeza in Madrid, gives the illusion (when seen from above street level) of a pedestal emanating from the street. Passersby, unknowingly, suddenly appear to be elevated in a statuesque manner. Fun!

via escrito en la pared

February 16, 2012 by collabcubed - 1 Comment

Dancing Plague of 1518

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This tumblr by Niege Borges made me smile. In memory of Frau Toffea — the woman who was the first of 400 people in 1518 to be afflicted with dance mania in Strasbourg, France, dancing for days without rest resulting in some deaths — Borges is creating prints illustrating dance steps from sequences throughout the history of film. The tumblr/series is called Dancing Plague of 1518. She’s welcoming suggestions, so feel free to head on over and add yours.

If you’d like a print of one of the dances, they’re available here.

via free york

February 14, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Roadsworth: Dead Hearts

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Street artist Roadsworth started painting the streets of Montreal about ten years ago in protest of car culture and to promote bicycle use. This series of works is titled Dead Hearts…maybe not the most romantic title for a Valentine’s Day post, but that’s what we’re doing, so, let’s just go with it.

You can see more of Roadworth’s hearts as well as much more of his clever work on his website.

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 3, 2012 by collabcubed - 1 Comment

Buff Diss: Taped Hands and more

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Buff Diss, an Australian street artist from Melbourne, has been using tape instead of paint for the past six or seven years. Though he “tape paints” all kinds of images from abstract to skulls, there seems to be a strong hand theme. Diss cleverly integrates the elements and variations of the street to his advantage, at the same time adding humor to many of his pointing and pinching taped fingers.

The bottom three images are from one of his most recent works: a mural for Red Stripe in London.

Photos from Buff Diss’ flickr and blog.

via Brainstorming

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 - 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 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 18, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Michael Scott: Optical Paintings Plus

Em and I stopped by the opening of Michael Scott’s Black and White Line Paintings show last week. Upon entering the gallery, we were greeted by the collection of large enamel-on-aluminum paintings whose lines initially created visual effects such as moiré patterns and the illusion of multiple plains, until our eyes quickly adjusted and could take in these mesmerizing works. Surprisingly, they have a hypnotic and peaceful quality. Some have a sharp precision to them, while others are distressed and bleed. In the back office of the gallery there is even one that looks like the lines were done freehand and offer yet another take on the black and white line theme.

Michael Scott, a New York based artist originally from Pennsylvania, has worked in many mediums over the past twenty-five years, periodically returning to his line paintings. Other works include his multicolor line paintings and his smaller encaustic-on-wood works, one of which was purchased by Sofia Coppola, clearly a fan, who nominated Scott as her contribution to the 100-People-Places-and-Things-You-Need-To-Know in V Magazine’s Spring Preview issue. (You can see the article here.)

Michael Scott’s Black and White Line Paintings 1989-2011 is on view at Gering & López Gallery in NYC through February 18, 2012.

Photos courtesy of the artist, Gering & Lopez, and Triple V Gallery

January 11, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Jonny Detiger: Groovy Paintings

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There’s a lot to look at in these paintings by Jonny Detiger. They’ve got a doodle-y quality that I like mixed in with a 70s vibe. The names of Detiger’s current solo show, as well as his previous one, seem to describe his art perfectly: Stream of Conciousness and Kaliedoscopic Adventures.

And if you like these paintings, you might also like Detiger’s sock and underwear line at Etiquette Clothiers.

via local artists

January 11, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Cross-stitched Clichés by Lisa Bowen

I happened upon Lisa Bowen’s delightful tumblr of embroidered clichés and expressions, which made me chuckle. Originally from England but now living near Sydney, Australia, Bowen (who also goes by the alias Jilly Cooper) a mixed media artist has recently started a crafty, cross-stitch series titled ‘How to String a Sentence Together.’

The work came about after Lisa found a copy of The Penguin Book of Clichés and began thinking how often we use them, despite being told to avoid them. She began to collect these expressions and words, carefully cross-stitching each letter and framing each phrase.

In addition to cross-stitching and proudly using these “hackneyed and trite expressions,” Bowen tweets a cliché a day here, and sells her framed clichés here.