March 7, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Pprofessors: Red People Art-Constructor

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Yes, there’s been a bit of a Russian theme this week after perusing many a Russian gallery site into the wee hours the other night, but this is the last of it for now, and it’s a fun one, at least I think so.

The Red People project, created by Andrey Lublinskiy and Maria Zaborovskaya of the Pprofessors art group, is a modular system used to assemble an anthropomorphous character, sometimes large, other times small, out of 13 wooden blocks. Working in practically any context and integrated therein, these Red Men have become a sort of viral phenomenon around Moscow and its environs. So much so, that they have become stars of comics and political debates, and are slowly making their way across the world.

With inspiration from, and a nod to, cult artists such as Malevich, Rodchenko, Bruskin, Giacometti, Haring and Gormley, the Pprofessors have made these red contemporary icons pop up in the most unexpected of places, including sitting by a park fountain, scootering around the streets of Moscow, or sitting in the middle of a shopping center. After their exhibit in 2010 at the Gridchinhall Gallery, a few of the men have become permanent fixtures on the grounds, with one sitting atop the gallery’s building entrance.

The Pprofessors also created a toy-like kit of the Red People, where each child (or adult) can manipulate the elements of the composition using the basic red blocks included in the kit.

All in all, a very fun project that I could see taking off in NYC.

via artguide

March 7, 2012 by collabcubed - 1 Comment

Marie Bovo: Cour Intérieure

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Originally from Alicante, Spain, photographer Marie Bovo now lives and works in Marseille. I really like her ‘Cour Intérieure’ (interior courtyard) series of photographs. Despite its consistent theme, each one has its own personality and color scheme, with clotheslines varying in direction, capturing that particular aspect of many Mediterranean towns and cities. Such a cool perspective, too; a bottom-of-the-well sensation.

via kamel mennour

March 6, 2012 by collabcubed - 1 Comment

Slade Architecture: Virgin Clubhouse and…

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Virgin Atlantic’s new JFK Clubhouse – designed by our good friends James and Hayes Slade of Slade Architecture – opened yesterday at JFK International Airport here in NYC. The 10,000 square foot lounge includes a beautiful curvy bar, cool seating such as the also curved, oversized, custom-made flame red ball sofa, and a large maple wood and burgundy billiards table in the ‘Entertainment Zone’. Bumble and Bumble has opened their first US airport salon and spa as part of the Clubhouse, as well.

Slade Architecture have a slew of great projects under their belt (many of them award winning) and an impressive range to boot; from residential to commercial, educational to cultural…plus furniture and product design, to boot! Below are some of our recent favorites, but you should really visit their website to see much more.

Top three photos: Barbie Flagship Store in Shanghai; second from bottom: Pup Tent; bottom left: Diffa Installation (discarded furniture covered in duct tape); bottom right: East 67th Street Bathroom.

All photos courtesy Slade Architecture

via Virgin Atlantic’s facebook page

March 5, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Aristarkh Chernyshev: New Media Sculptures

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Moscow-based contemporary new media artist Aristarkh Chernyshev creates sculptures that integrate today’s technology while commenting on our obsession with it in a humorous fashion. His LED sculptures play with the idea of information overload, in some instances grabbing real-time news feeds from the internet, winding them around the LED lightboard strips through the trash as in his work Urgently! (top two photos), or winding around endlessly in a knot as in Knode (third from top), as well as taking poetic texts and breaking them apart then reuniting them as stock exchange rates in Lyric Economy (second from bottom).

In addition to his LED sculptures, Chernyshev has collaborated with other artists on some fun and interesting interactive pieces. With Alexei Shulgin —the co-founder of their art collective/gallery/creative electronics production company Electroboutique — they created the eyeglasses piece titled The Way I See It! as well as the wowPod, an oversized distorted iPod.

There’s lots more interesting work that can be seen on the XL Gallery’s site and the Electroboutique site.

Here’s The Way I See It! in action…with a very catchy poppy tune that I, unfortunately, don’t know what it is.

via XL Gallery

March 4, 2012 by collabcubed - 2 Comments

Boa Mistura: Beauty and Pride in a Favela

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I love everything about this amazing project by the appropriately named Spanish art collective Boa Mistura (good mix): the typography, the color, the participative nature, and most of all the huge heart behind it.

Made up of artists Arkoh, Derko, Pahg, Purone, and Rdick who have developed their work in different fields, Boa Mistura represents a mixture of perspectives combined to create something better. Recently they have started a series of projects in the favelas (slums) of Brazil, starting with Vila Brasilândia near São Paulo where, directly involving the inhabitants, they painted the streets and alleyways with murals using anamorphic typography with pride-inducing words such as, well, ‘pride’ (orgulho), ‘beauty’ (beleza), ‘sweetness’ (doçura), ‘firmness’ (firmeza), and ‘love’ (amor).

As you can see, the result is fantastically joyful. Bravo!

via juxtapoz

March 3, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Ana Soler: Red Way

Another nice installation by Ana Soler (previously here) titled Red Way. Red string on a teak pathway in Alishan Park, Taiwan. I love how dramatic it looks; the contrast of the tall pines and the red criss-crossing string. Lovely.

March 2, 2012 by collabcubed - 2 Comments

Ana Soler: Causa-Efecto

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Spanish artist Ana Soler has a knack for taking the everyday object and creating spectacular installations. Her most recent, Causa-Efecto (Cause and Effect) involved 2000 tennis balls giving the illusion of bouncing all over the various rooms and levels of the Mustang Art Gallery in Alicante this past fall. The multiple trajectories that these balls take have you looking in all directions. A bit like a three-dimensional airline route map.

Very fun and cool!

Photos courtesy of the artist.

via mag

March 1, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

The Wynwood Walls: Street Art in Miami

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Well, this certainly puts the Houston graffiti wall to shame! The Wynwood Walls is a community revitalization concept conceived by Tony Goldman in 2009 as a way to transform the warehouse district of Wynwood, Miami into a center where people could gravitate and explore, thereby developing the area’s pedestrian potential. I should have picked up on something with so many street artists featuring projects in Miami on their sites.

Initially opened in 2010 with the Wynwood Doors, the project has since expanded to the Wynwood Walls and Outside the Walls. Street artists from all over the world have gone to Miami to participate and it has become a sort of “Museum of the Streets,” as coined by Jeffrey Deitch, one of the original co-curators.

Here Comes the Neighborhood is a series of short episodes on the project as a whole, as well as interviews with individual artists. If you like the trailer below you can head on over to their site to see much more.

via the delightful Karen aka Kaia!

February 29, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Winter 1972: Post-it Installation

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Swiss design studio I Never Kissed A Dog created a winter wonderland in a living room using thousands of white Post-its as part of a photoshoot for the perfume Winter 1972. Designer Adrian Merz painstakingly covered the entire room and then photographed it using different light sources and effects to add to the image…as if a room covered in white paper from top to bottom isn’t impressive and surprising enough!

via urbanpeek

February 29, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Doug Aitken: Song 1 at the Hirshhorn Museum

After not thinking about the Hirshhorn Museum in years, right on the heels of finding out about the plans for a bubbled garden (see previous post) is now news of the upcoming Doug Aitken installation, turning the exterior of the circular museum into a 360-degree projection screen. The piece, titled “Song 1”, will consist of 11 high-definition projectors streaming multichannel yet-to-be-disclosed images in conjunction with the song “I Only Have Eyes for You” with covers created and performed by several artists including Beck, and James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, specifically for Aitken’s work.

I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve seen by Doug Aitken, including his video installation Sleepwalkers at MoMA back in 2007 (where does the time go?!) which was also projected on the building’s façade (bottom photo). Based on past experience, this should be worth checking out. Maybe a trip to D.C. combining cherry blossoms and the Hirshhorn is in order this spring.

This impressive project will be on view from March 22nd to May 13th, 2012.

Renderings courtesy of the Doug Aitken Workshop. Bottom image courtesy of MoMA.

February 28, 2012 by collabcubed - 2 Comments

The Radical Camera: NY’s Photo League

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What a great surprise to walk into the Jewish Museum a week ago, not knowing what I was about to see, and experience one of the best photography shows I’ve seen in a long time. The Radical Camera: New York’s Photo League, 1936-1951 is a must-see for any lover of New York City, or of street photography in general. Some of the photos were familiar, but most were new to me. From the moment you enter the gallery, the parallels with the present are evident in the opening short film showing protesters in Union Square demanding unemployment assistance. It’s the 99% almost 80 years earlier. Of course, the contrasts are striking as well: these protesters look hungry, poor, all dressed in suits and skirts, and no one is smiling. There are no bed-ins or fun t-shirts as in the 1960s and today; clearly it was a different time, but it’s hard not to compare.

Apart from the protests and the poverty, the streets themselves also, in some cases, look exactly the same and in others are hard to recognize. It’s truly fascinating to look at every detail of each photo. Add to that, that the Photo League – a group of amateur and professional photographers who were politically progressive, believed in photography as an instrument for social change, and were later blacklisted during the McCarthy Era – leased 2,600 sq. feet of space in our very own building’s basement in the late 1940s as their gathering space, makes it all the more close to home.

One of the projects by the Photo League, and led by photographer Aaron Siskind, was the Harlem Document, an in-depth photographic overview of the black community. It made me smile to read that they collected ‘dozens’ of photos over several months of shooting; definitely not the digital age of today.

All photos are from The Jewish Museum’s website and The Financial Times. From top to bottom and left to right:
Joe Schwartz, Slums Must Go! May Day Parade, New York, c. 1936. ©Joe Schwartz
Erika Stone, Lower Eastside Facade, 1947. ©Erika Stone
Ruth Orkin, Times Square, from Astor Hotel, 1950. ©Estate of Ruth Orkin
Aaron Siskind, The Wishing Tree, 1937. ©Aaron Siskind Foundation / Courtesy Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York
Ida Wyman, Spaghetti 25 Cents, New York, 1945. ©Ida Wyman
Ruth Orkin, Boy Jumping into Hudson River, 1948. ©Estate of Ruth Orkin
Morris Huberland, Union Square, New York, c. 1942. ©Estate of Morris Huberland / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Arthur Leipzig, Ideal Laundry, 1946. ©Arthur Leipzig
Weegee (Arthur Fellig) Max is Rushing in the Bagels to a Restaurant on Secont Avenue for the Morning Trade, c.1940 ©Weegee

On a different note, don’t you think the bagels-on-a-string delivery method has great potential for a comeback in a contemporary health code compliant version?

If you’re in NYC, I highly recommend this exhibit which will be at the Jewish Museum through March 25th, 2012.

February 28, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Claude Lévêque: Dreamy Light Installations

French artist Claude Lévêque has been creating light sculptures and installations since the ’80s. There’s a surreal quality to much of his work — upside down blacklit beds, abandoned trailers with chandeliers, or an elevated one with stringed lights inside, precariously balanced on cement blocks — as well as wit. I also like the way many of his neon signs are integrated with chairs or paintings, resulting in a strange juxtaposition.

Lévêque currently has a show at La Maison Rouge in Paris through May 20th.

via galerie kamel mennour

February 27, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Superflex: Copy Light Factory

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After going through Cindy Sherman’s (the queen of ‘selfies’) new retrospective at the MoMA this past Saturday—an interesting show in itself—I made a quick loop through their other major exhibit next door, Print/Out. Though met with mixed criticism, I have to say, it’s hard for me not to like rooms filled with colorful contemporary graphic prints, posters and books, much of which involve typography, so, I was pretty pleased. But one project that stood out was Danish design studio Superflex’s (coincidentally one of the collaborators on the previously mentioned Superkilen Park in Copenhagen) Copy Light Factory. In this workshop (I was there during non-workshop hours) lamps are created by copying images of well-known lamp designs onto translucent paper and then attaching them to wooden cubed frames. Here is how their website puts it:

Copy Light Factory is a workshop producing Copy Light – cube shaped lamps made of translucent paper with photocopied motifs of various well-known lamp designs. However, the owner is free to change the image to a lamp design of his/her own choosing. Thus Copy Light seeks the borders between the copy and the original. As a copy of a copy Copy Light turns into something new: an original lamp that communicates the problems of the current copyright system.

I loved this idea and will totally be making one for my next apartment.

You can visit Print/Out at the MoMA through May 14, 2012.

Table photo courtesy of Superflex; all others collabcubed.

February 24, 2012 by collabcubed - 3 Comments

Olga Diego: Interactive Inflatables

We certainly have posted our fair share of inflatable sculptures and installations, but somehow each one has its own personality and style. This exhibit, Aire (Air), a few months back at the Mustang Art Gallery, is an installation by Spanish artist Olga Diego. Working with plastic, both translucent and transparent, and plastic bags, along with electronic circuits that inflated and deflated each structure, Diego filled the gallery with six separate inflatable works that interact with each other and with those who viewed the show in its space. Some of the pieces allude to well-known images such as Duchamp’s The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even, and the hanging man to Christ. Some of her shapes are organic in form and complement the more figurative ones nicely.

The two bottom photos are from a previous exhibit by Olga Diego at Plataforma Petracos, Hábitos de Habitar (Habits of Inhabiting).

You can see the works in Aire being inflated in the video below, as well as their general movement and interactivity.

Photos by Álvaro Vicente and El Periodic.

via revista treintaycuatro via the multi-talented anA

February 23, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Tang Kwok Hin: Mixed Media Collage

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I have been a fan of vellum since my early days as a designer. That sort of semi-matte quality really appealed to me and I found myself running it through the copier on a regular basis. Any comp looked better with a little vellum overlay.

So, it’s not surprising that Hong Kong mixed media artist Tang Kwok Hin’s collages are right up my alley. These are created on layers of glass instead of vellum but, for me there is something reminiscent of that vellum effect.

Many of the collages pictured above are part of a series titled Containers as Evidence of Presence, 2010-now. This is what Tang has to say on the subject:

Every object cannot be self-existent in the form of flow and permanency. Books are stored on shelves; wine is put into glass bottles; water need to rely on coast to constitute river; even though air is such invisible element, we have the Earth as the storage. All these are the things possessing ability like protection and providing positions for the protected ones to exist. Positions are: something has to open for discovery, such as gift boxes and chests of treasure; something is concealed from our sight that we can percept through our experiences, such as roots in vases of flower and furniture in houses.

Tang Kwok Hin is attracted to the interdependence between containers and the things loaded. He uses photos that he takes as well as images from related searches on the internet. The photos are adhered to different levels of glass, resulting in a somewhat surreal effect.

via amelia johnson contemporary

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

Do Ho Suh: Floor plus Cause & Effect

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I’ve recently become acquainted with Korean artist Do Ho Suh’s work, both online and in person this past fall at Lehmann Maupin Gallery’s exhibit of his work. However, these two installations are new to me and both appeal to me very much. Floor, which was recently exhibited at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute, consists of almost 2,000 plastic little men pushing up on a walkable glass surface, trying to prevent being crushed. These small figures en-masse deal with individuality and collective force, a running theme in Suh’s work. Similarly, his installation Cause & Effect, a tornado-like structure made up of thousands of piggy-backed figures suggests, once again, that there is strength in numbers.

Cause & Effect is currently on display at Western Washington University.

Photos: Phaidon, Huffington Post, The Stranger, and Korea.net’s flickr

via colossal

February 20, 2012 by collabcubed - 3 Comments

Hirshhorn Bubble: Diller Scofidio + Renfro

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This is such a clever and fun idea! Diller Scofidio + Renfro (fast becoming one of my favorite architects after the High Line, Alice Tully Hall and all the renovations at Lincoln Center, as well as the ICA in Boston, just to name a few…) have designed an inflatable temporary event space for the cylindrical courtyard of the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. The thin translucent membrane of the pneumatic structure is meant to be squeezed into the void of Gordon Bunshaft‘s donut-shaped building, and ooze out the top as well as beneath the mass. The contrast of the soft and hard structures is great, and by roofing over the courtyard the museum gains 14,000 sq. feet of sheltered space in the spring and fall that will accommodate up to a 1000-person audience for performing arts events, films, lectures or even art installations.

The project was initially scheduled to open in Fall 2012, but due to lack of sufficient funding, the project may be delayed slightly. Hope not too long…