It’s been a while since we’ve posted about music, but I just heard this song (I may be late to the party on this) on the radio and really liked it. We Are Augustines are a Brooklyn-based band with their debut album titled Rise Ye Sunken Ships. I like everything about what I’ve heard and seen so far: both the music and the videos which show NYC in all its grungy beauty. The song above is Chapel Song and the video is by Matthew C. Mills.
via Soundcheck
Click to enlargeOriginally from Strasbourg, designer Antonio Cos lives and works in Milan. As an industrial designer he has designed everything from door handles, to kitchenware, to lamps and furniture. In his glassware collection titled Déjà Vu he experiments with traditional glass techniques and shapes, giving it that already-seen-it-before quality but adding a contemporary twist by piecing those familiar components together in an unconventional way, giving them new life and creating imaginative shapes that are beautiful, modern, and fun.
A few years back, a friend of mine printed out one of Emily Eveleth’s beautiful oil paintings of a jelly donut and had it hanging by her desk. That was the first time I saw any of Eveleth’s paintings. She has been painting jelly donuts for two decades and the results, I think, are quite spectacular.
In an interview in the Boston Globe by Sebastian Smee, Eveleth responds to the question: “Why donuts?”
Clearly, the donuts are left open to interpretation: some may see just donuts; others landscapes with boulders; and still others, erotic close-ups of bodily orifices. Regardless, Eveleth’s technique and mastery of oil painting, as well as the luminescence she creates, are there no matter how the viewer interprets them. I imagine that if John Singer Sargent had painted donuts, they might have looked a lot like these.
You can see more of Emily Eveleth’s painting and drawings at her website.
Click to enlargeLos Carpinteros are a Havana-based duo consisting of Marco Castillo and Dagoberto Rodríguez. Formed in 1991, originally as a trio that included Alexandre Arrechea (see previous post) until his departure in 2003, the Cuban collective decided to renounce the idea of individual authorship and pay homage to an older tradition of artisans and skilled laborers. They create installations and drawings that merge architecture, design, and sculpture in surprising and humorous ways. Often, their very carefully crafted works set up contradictions between object and function, in addition to practicality vs. uselessness.
via Sean Kelly
Nice pencil drawings by Michelle D. Ferrera, based in California. Originally, Ferrera worked in journals but a few years ago, looking for a larger canvas, she picked up a piece of scrap wood from the garage and the rest is history. I really like the effect; the rustic quality of the wood grain in contrast with the smoothness of her drawings. And those hands and feet…impressive!
via artslant
Click to enlargeI am consistently drawn, unknowingly, to the work of LTL Architects. The Arthouse at the Jones Center in Austin, Texas is no exception. Looking around for interesting art, I came across the Arthouse’s website and spotted their recent renovation with its protruding, aqua-tinted, translucent glass rectangles that add color and texture to the white façade through to the interior. Illuminated by LED lights at night, the glass units especially animate the street view after dark. An expansion of the existing contemporary art space, and keeping with many of the original architectural qualities of this 160-year-old building (the first 3-story brick building in Austin, that once housed a theater and later a department store) LTL (Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis) Architects implemented a series of integrated tactical additions, creating a “visual dialogue between the art and the surrounding urban environment.” The original Queen Theater’s murals are exposed, as well as the wooden ceiling and steel trusses. Historical and contemporary features are cleverly intertwined throughout. The grand central staircase, made of wood, is dramatically suspended 35 feet down from the ceiling. In addition, a beautiful wood roof deck with laminated light boxes provides a movie screen and panoramic views of downtown Austin.
Looks like a lovely space.
Click photos to enlargeOriginally from Palermo, Italy, and later studying in Bologna, artist Pietro D’Angelo started his career as a sculptor working in marble and stone. Clearly, a radical change in materials has taken place in more recent years. His life-size sculptures, from what I could gather, are made by creating a wire frame and attaching large quantities of paperclips. They are not only very cool, but full of humor and character as well.
Polish artist Trond Nicholas Perry, based in Warsaw, is fascinated by stream of consciousness thinking, hence a fan of James Joyce, and gets some of his inspiration by halting that stream randomly, or, as he credits William S. Burroughs for questioning: “How random is random?”
His latest project Quantum is a water-driven music machine, a collaboration with his girlfriend architect Agata Sander. A site-specific sculpture, made for a canal in Warsaw, that plays a single song, much in the way a player piano does, but driven by the water’s movement.
Perry’s work is classified as sculptural but there seems to be a performance quality to many of the pieces as well. His K.Y.S. (love, humility, pain) boat project was built in collaboration with artist Eric Piroit. They sailed this uniquely designed boat from Norway to Germany and then the Netherlands. Mostly interested in underlining DIY aesthetics and engaging spectators as well as empowering them by realizing that it is possible to “do it yourself,” putting emphasis on the belief that ‘will’ is more important than technical ability, which Perry feels strongly.
For me, the quirky quality of the sculptures was enough to lure me in.
You can see Quantum in action in the video below:
Click to enlargeI’ve been collecting typographic stamps online for a couple of months; just filing them whenever I came across one. Unfortunately, I didn’t always make a note of where I found them, so my apologies for not crediting all sources. Some of the sources, however, include:
With a mannequin arm adorning each of Em and Dan’s college rooms, one could begin to be concerned with our recent interest in truncated limbs. Not surprising, then, that artist Ronna Nemitz’s sculptures would appeal to us. There’s something about focusing in on the movement and detail of these legs and arms that I find interesting. Using plaster life casts, with steel for certain pieces such as the wire and diving board, Nemitz, from western U.S., created an exhibit titled The Pull of Gravity.
You can see more of Ronna Nemitz’s work on her website.
What appears to be an abstract wood sculpture made up of a cluster of two-by-fours painted red, is exactly that for 23 hours out of the day. The sculpture, created as part of the Hello Wood Festival in Budapest this past July, was one of the three “typography team” projects (there were architecture teams and film teams too) made by students from Hungarian Universities. Titled Ebéd (‘lunch’ in Hungarian), this structure was designed to form the word ‘ebéd’ in a pixelated font, using the rays of the sun to highlight it in the negative space of the shadow precisely at 1pm: lunchtime! The rest of the day the sculpture showed a random system of shadows. Very clever, I’d say.
The team was led by graphic artist Áron Jancsó, with team members, Krisztina Bogó, Péter Magda, and Gabriella Karácsonyi.
Click to enlarge“revalue: to change the value of something or to consider it again.”
Revalue is the name of this series of sculptures by British artist Chris Mitton. By reinterpreting cultural objects in a contrasting material — in this case, handcarved carrara marble — Mitton’s work emphasizes the subjective nature of their value. From a crushed can to a grenade, Mitton’s “monuments to the mundane” are, for the most part, life size. A few large-scale exceptions above shown with the actual size can in the photo.
With skill and humor Chris Mitton makes us rethink the transitory.
There’s a similar thinking with Vlad Berte.
via TAG Fine Arts
Click to enlargeHow spectacular would it be to sit in this restaurant?! The recently completed Trollwall Restaurant and Service Center in Trollveggen, Møre og Romsdal, Norway was designed by Oslo-based architects Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter (RRA). Sitting at the foot of one of Norway’s natural attractions, The Troll Wall, this new building has a dramatically sloped roof that mimics its surroundings with eye-catching glass façade to reflect the impressive natural landscape. A stunning accent to an already breathtaking backdrop. In addition to the restaurant, the building houses a gift shop and a theater.
via Open Buildings
Click for slight enlargementFrom collages made with maps, to maps made with paper, some of them anyway. British artist Matthew Picton, who presently lives and works in Oregon, creates map sculptures. His most recent works are made of paper; not just any paper, but texts or sheet music that is significant to each city in some way. A few examples include: Jerusalem created from The New Testament, The Torah, The Armenian Bible and The Koran; Las Vegas in 1972 created from texts from Hunter S Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” (and luminescent paint); Dresden in 1945 using sheet music of the score of “The Ring” by Wagner; and Lower Manhattan created from headlines that accompanied the 2001 World Trade center bombing and DVD covers of the film “Towering Inferno” also book covers of the novel “The Plot Against America” by Philip Roth, just to name a few.
Picton’s earlier city map sculptures are mostly made from duralar, enamel paint, and pins with several layers depicting streets and roads at the micro level in addition to the city’s evolution over time. Each layer showing a layer of history in the city’s transformation. Beautiful on “multiple levels”: cartographically, artistically, and textually.
You can see more of Matthew Picton’s maps here.
Starting today, well, actually yesterday, we are offering free shipping on all EARonic iPhone 4/4S case orders within the U.S. and, now, $5 shipping on international orders. To guarantee arrival by Christmas, for those doing their holiday shopping, please order by December 15th on orders within the U.S. International holiday orders should be placed as soon as possible since we cannot guarantee less than 3 weeks for delivery…international shipments have varied from as little as a week to as much as a month.
So visit the CollabCubed Shop today and place your order because sometimes you may just want to mix it up a bit.
(Props to Aaron!)
It’s not exactly a Thanksgiving post, but it does involve the kitchen, poultry and cooking. Last year Em brought back one of these Pla! Etelvina plastic bag-storing chickens from Buenos Aires that we have hanging in our kitchen, and though plastic bags are out, somehow we still accumulate enough to see our Etelvina plump up as we gradually stuff her, and trim down as we use the bags for garbage. Along with the chicken came CheF, (much to a cousin’s horror) the politically incorrect apron that’s ridiculous enough to make us laugh, and that I am donning today as I cook our Thanksgiving dinner.
If you’re into these kinds of quirky, and we think, fun objects then you might want to check out the rest of the Argentinean company’s items: there’s a cotton ball dispensing bunny and a corrupt policeman piggy bank that takes coins in his side pocket while looking the other way.
In the meantime, have a nice holiday!
Click to enlargeIn the past month I’ve come across a few works made of traffic cones, so I decided to explore more and see what else is out there. Here are some of my favorites; from installations and sculptures to traffic cone inspired graphic design.
Click to enlargeSpanish street artist Nuria Mora (previous post) who we know more for her colorful large-scale abstract murals, also creates 3D street art. In the past several months Mora has been taking over public ad spaces (lit marquee-style ad boxes; do those have a name?) and inserting her origami paper sculptures that can be seen from both sides – as well as highlighted by light at night – on main thoroughfares in Madrid. I like everything about these: the idea of replacing ads with art; the origami pieces themselves; the way she blocks out the glass to create a window specific to her piece; and the happy quality of it all.
Though a different anti-ad street art approach, there is some connection to Graffiti Research Lab’s 2007 video screen intervention in NYC. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend you check it out here.
But getting back to Nuria Mora, visit her site for much more of her lovely work.
CollabCubed 