Spanish graffiti and street artist Suso33 is best known for his scribbled silhouettes and large expressive faces that adorn numerous walls throughout Spain and Europe. He uses a unique style of drawing with both hands which can be seen in his video Crash! Even his tag is created with two hands.
You can see more of Suso33’s street art on his site and on flickr.
Tonight, as the cold air blew into town (what’s up with that, anyway?) so too did the crowds into Chelsea. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Chelsea so crowded. Part of the attraction was the opening of David Byrne’s installation, Tight Spot, the huge inflated globe squeezed in under the High Line. Byrne was there himself, looking tan and chipper, while we listened to his very deep, bass, pre-recorded distorted vocal sounds emanating from the globe.
Next door in the Pace gallery itself, was the opening of the show Social Media. Among the interesting pieces (in all honestly, it was a little too crowded to appreciate in its entirety) I really enjoyed Christopher Baker’s Murmur Study and Penelope Umbrico’s Sideways TVs.
The Murmur Study is instantly engaging and fun with all its ticker-tape spewing live Twitter status updates from twenty thermal printers attached to the gallery walls.
Sideways TVs by Penelope Umbrico made me chuckle. A large collection of miniature photos nicely hung separated from the wall and all displaying a collection of outdated TV monitors. Impressive how those things have trimmed down in the past few years.
There is plenty more to see at the Pace show and all the other galleries as well. Looks like the fall is here to stay and, just like that, another season of Chelsea art shows has begun.
Tight Spot will be on exhibit through October 1st, and Social Media runs through October 15th.
In recent years, there has been quite a bit of Post-it based art, taking advantage of its pixel-quality square shape. Turkish artist Ardan Ozmenoglu’s Post-it art seizes upon a different quality of the note: the transient nature, such as curling or falling over time as well as the disposable aspect. Whether using a grid of Post-its as her canvas, or printing on each individual Post-it and overlapping them en masse, Ozmenoglu counts on the changing quality of these notes as part of the work, creating an interesting result.
Check out more of her work here.
Australian artist David Kenworthy uses light and color to transform the most mundane urban commodities into jewel-like relics of childhood and playful consumption. His is a modern-day pop art: emphasizing the fleeting and shallow by playing with objects found in mass-market discount stores including toys, toy bins, and confections such as jelly beans and gummy bears. By illuminating these objects they radiate their own uniquely colored light with a stunning glow and vivid intensity. Kenworthy aims to recreate with his light sculptures the same instantly gratifying but ultimately transient feelings that come with their consumption.
You can find more images of David Kenworthy’s work here, here, and here.
I don’t know how it’s possible, but this is the first I’ve heard of Chaz Maviyane-Davies. Thanks to an article I came across on AIGA’s website, I am no longer in the dark.
Originally from Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), Chaz Maviyane-Davies knows what it’s like to grow up as a second-class citizen in a racist state. As soon as he was able, he left his country for Switzerland to study art and design. Going back and forth to Africa at different times in his life, Maviyane-Davies studied and worked in several countries including Japan, Malaysia and London. It was London in the 70s that he cites as responsible for “opening his eyes creatively.” “That’s when I started to identify graphic design as a nonpartisan discipline that could help to bring about change. It doesn’t only belong to capitalism or anybody. But you’ve got to be astute how you connect culturally with your audience.”
There are designers who have a gift for type and then there are those that have the gift of story-telling or message-relaying in one powerful image. In a very different style, James Victore comes to mind. Though Chaz Maviyane-Davies is clearly talented at both, he is a superstar at the latter. His are smart, sometimes disturbing, in-your-face and to-the-point images that deal with everything from social, environmental and health awareness, to politics and human rights. The type is almost superfluous.
See more here.
via AIGA
Click to enlargeTec started painting the streets of Buenos Aires in the 1990s. Known for his image of a fish cut in half as his tag, Tec was interested more in drawing iconic images that were bright in color instead of letter-based graffiti. He is a founding member of the art/design/music collective FASE and, along with DOMA art collective, were the force behind the graphic design influenced form of street art of bright colors and positive nature that largely defined street art in Buenos Aires in the years following the economic crash of 2001.
Tec continues to paint on urban walls.
You can see more of his work at his site and on his flickr photostream.
via graffitimundo
When I stumbled across this sculpture by Swiss artist Marc Moser for this summer’s Sculpture on the Sea exhibit in Aarhus, Denmark, it made me smile. Clever from its concept through to its punny name: Sea Pink. It’s pop art at its best; huge, oversized sunglasses at the beach with pink tinted lenses that allow the viewer to see, well, “sea pink.”
Here’s a short video to see it from all angles:
UPDATE: Here is a link to Marc Moser’s website.
When we were in Istanbul a couple of weeks ago, we happened upon the Arter gallery showing an exhibit of Patricia Piccinini’s work. Patricia Piccinini – in addition to having a great name (I think it’s the extra “ni” that makes it especially delightful) – is an Australian artist who works in several styles and mediums. One of these is a Vespa-inspired series of sculptures.
These wide-eyed and appealing deer-like creatures are molded by an automotive modeler using ABS plastic, automotive paint, stainless steel, leather, and rubber tires, of course. They represent Piccinini’s thoughts on machines behaving as animals; taking on a personality. We as humans are sometimes scared by their autonomy and our lack of control over them.
I’m figuring that this has been around for a bit, being that I just heard it nominated on NPR for best song of the summer, but it’s new to me. Foster the People is an LA band and, at least in this song (Pumped Up Kicks), they sound, to me, like a blend of MGMT and Peter, Bjorn & John down to the whistling segment. Very catchy. Very boppy. But if you listen to the lyrics, it’s not quite as lighthearted as it sounds.
In the new video by OK Go (always a clever crowd-pleaser), “All Is Not Lost”, they teamed up with the modern dance troupe Pilobolus. There’s something for everyone: cool dance; kaleidoscopic effects; human typography…what’s not to like! If you’re a Chrome user, you can view the interactive HTML5 version here and type in your own message…which is, apparently, “way cooler.”
via Wired
French street artist JR has hit the streets of New York City in full force this summer. With several murals up in downtown Manhattan and a series of smaller posters up in the Bronx, the closely cropped expressive faces and eyes are a fun surprise to see as you round the corners of NYC.
JR’s wish? To use art to turn the world inside out. His Inside Out Project is a “large-scale participatory art project that transforms messages of personal identity into pieces of artistic work.” The three of us participated in this ongoing event, with the help of our buddy Rence, and set out to post our poster under one of JR‘s massive Soho murals. As you can see above, our poster is a mere speck on the wall by comparison (click to enlarge for better view) and clearly no JR but, regardless, we had a blast putting it up and it’s great fun to be a part of this international well-meaning project.
If you’d like to take part in JR’s worldwide project, just upload a photo to the site and you’ll be contacted to make a donation before receiving your poster.
Click to enlarge.Recent work from Argentine street artist Chu (aka Julian Pablo Manzelli.)
You can see more of Chu’s earlier work as well as studio work on his site and flickr.
via graffitimundo
Norwegian industrial designer Marius Myking’s Pow Pow Chair is the first in a family of furniture loosely inspired by the famous Brooklyn based electronica band LCD Soundsystem and their song: “Pow Pow”. The front part, or seating area, of the chair is powder coated, while the outside is mirror polished, reflecting the environment surrounding it. Made out of one aluminum sheet.
Click to enlargeWe recently met Ivan Navarro at a couple of end-of-year graduation parties and learned that he is an artist who creates fluorescent light sculptures. After looking up his work, I was excited to see that I recognized some of it from this year’s Armory Show (the Armory Fence) as well as having seen some pieces online. I love all of it.
Originally from Chile, Navarro’s work Threshold was presented in the Chilean Pavilion at the 2009 Venice Biennale, consisting of three separate pieces: ‘Resistance’ (the chair attached to a bicycle which illuminates by pedaling the bike); ‘Death Row’ (thirteen doorways with colored neon lights inside repeated or reflected to give an endless appearance); and ‘Bed’ (the circular sculpture with half the word ‘bed’ in neon and reflected to create the full letters as well as repeated to create an infinite tunnel effect.)
This past March, Ivan Navarro had a show at the Paul Kasmin gallery in NYC called “Heaven or Las Vegas” where the light structures were based on the footprint of famous skyscrapers, including the twin towers creating a moving negative effect as infinite holes in the floor. (See video of exhibit below.)
There is an underlying social and political commentary present in Navarro’s work – from capital punishment, and homelessness, to the reign of Pinochet, torture, and more – that makes these sculptures as meaningful as they are beautiful.
Ivan Navarro currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Click images to enlargeNuria Mora is a street artist based in Madrid. Not that it should matter, but she is a woman and, as far as I’m concerned, it’s certainly refreshing to come across a female street artist—definitely in the minority.
Colorful and geometric, I imagine coming across any one of her wall murals would brighten one’s day. What I enjoy most about all of these is the contrast of the clean lines on the mostly old or run-down walls they appear on. It’s almost the opposite effect of graffiti way back when the tagging or murals would, many times, deface a newer wall or subway car.
There is plenty more to see on her site.
Click to enlarge.After the first roundup of objects that utilize typography, I’ve come across several more items, so here is a second roundup of typographied objects:
Zebra adds his stripes around Spain. Also behind the previously posted about Tiritas Malditas.
See more on his blog.
Sentinels made from found junk or garbage are the essence behind Junky Projects, a street art crusade around the streets of Melbourne, Australia. A reminder to the public that creating excess waste will come back to haunt them in the future.
Truthfully, they are more cute than menacing. It was hard to pick which ones to post because I liked them all.
CollabCubed 