Spanning roughly 42 meters, this bicycle and pedestrian bridge called ‘The Twist’ bridge for its contorted and sculptural lines, connects the Holy-Zuid district and the Broekpolder over Vlaardingse Vaart in The Netherlands. Designed by West 8 Architects with structural engineers ABT, the bright red bridge makes for a lovely and striking surprise in the natural green setting.
And if you like this bridge you might also enjoy West 8’s three previous red undulating Bridges Borneo-Sporenburg.
Click to enlargeI saw a couple of Kees Goudzwaard’s paintings a few years ago and absolutely loved them. The Dutch artist who lives and works in Belgium, creates oil paintings that look like taped pieces of paper, but in fact are smooth surfaced paintings of taped pieces of paper. Not only is the trickery of it all fun, but the paintings themselves are beautiful. The seemingly overlapping layers are so skillfully reproduced – with subtle differences in color recreating the translucency of the layers – that you can’t help but stare in disbelief. The result: a lovely (and surprising) combination of abstract and realistic painting with a textural quality conveyed on a smooth canvas. Here’s a bit on his process:
In case you didn’t notice, I’m a fan.
You can see many more of Kees Goudzwaard’s paintings on his website.
The anonymous Spanish art collective Luzinterruptus like to use light as a raw material and the dark as their canvas to carry out urban interventions in public spaces and draw attention to problems in the city that often go unnoticed by people as well as the authorities.
Their most recent intervention, Walking in the Rain, took place on October 26th, the first day of rain after a completely dry summer in Madrid. In celebration of the rain and, thus, cleaner more breathable air, Luzinterruptus placed 50 illuminated rainboots in Parque del Oeste for a 10-hour period as encouragement to others to put on their own boots and walk happily through the rain.
You may also want to take a look at their two other recent interventions: Under Nuclear Threat and Public Art that you Fancy Touching.
Click to enlargeKnown for his massive scale silhouettes on city walls, Spanish street artist Sam3 has works in cities from Madrid to Lisbon, Cologne to Buenos Aires and even San Francisco, to name a few. I especially love the inverted silhouettes — I can’t believe there isn’t more of that in other street artists’ work. Also, the way he integrates the building façade in many of these (see third photo from top) is so clever and effective.
You can see more of Sam3’s work on his site, blog, and this flickr pool.
Click to enlargeDoroDesign, an Italian design firm founded by Dario Olivero and Stefano Ollino, aims to work with creative minds from a variety of cultures and backgrounds and make their visions reality in all design mediums from graphic to interior. Their Zero Collection represents the essence of the firm:
With just three cuts and two folds on a sheet of aluminum, the Zero Chair is a beautiful example of simple and minimalist design. The chaise longue and coat rack follow the same cut-out simplicity with beautiful lines. The product photos aren’t too shabby, either.
via behance
Romanian artist Vlad Berte creates stone sculptures of everyday objects. His aim is to highlight what we tend to overlook yet influences us on a daily basis. He puts these objects front and center — in stone, no less.
How fun would it be to have those socks or shirt placed next to a statue in the Greek and Roman sculpture court at the Met?
via artnet
Click to enlargeJust when you think books are on their way out, the University of Chicago builds a new library that can hold 3.5 million volumes and deliver your requested book within minutes. The Joe and Rika Mansueto Library, named after the couple who donated $25 million to the university, was designed by architect Helmut Jahn and completed last May. Both the top and bottom of the library are quite spectacular. The domed, 700-glass-panel reading room measuring around 8,000 square feet, pops up from the lawn, while underground, extending 50 feet deep, is a hi-tech automated storage and retrieval system that uses five mechanized robotic cranes, in conjunction with bar codes on the books, to retrieve any title quickly from the 24,000 metal bins used to store the books in optimal preservation conditions.
It’s all very impressive and the structural volumes, from the 120 foot x 240 foot clear span dome on top to the nearly 1,000,000 cubic feet of subterranean storage space, are challenges that were successfully tackled and executed by Halvorson and Partners Structural Engineers.
Thanks to tipster Elaine!
This past summer when we visited Istanbul, we popped into a gallery on a stroll down Istiklal Street, mostly because we recognized Ivan Navarro’s piece from the window. The show was Matter-Light 2 at the Borusan Muzik Evi. But this introduction is just to set the stage for the delightful surprise that ensued. While looking around the spare gallery at the various interesting light sculptures in the exhibit, suddenly, almost comically, and completely unexpectedly, a light bulb dipped down quickly and swiftly from the ceiling. And then another; and another. The artist behind this amusing curiosity is Swedish artist Christian Partos. The piece, titled E.L.O. (I am assuming a clever reference to, and/or appropriation of the name, the Electric Light Orchestra) consists of a roomful of light bulbs essentially dancing in the gallery. This is a permanent installation at the Borusan Music House (that’s the translation).
Seeing the stills really doesn’t do it justice, so here are two videos.
You can see more of Christian Partos’ work here, including his installation for a subway station in Malmö, Sweden.
Click to enlargeCalifornia artist Mary Button Durell creates paper sculptures using only tracing paper and wheat paste. They have been compared to cellular membranes and described as biomorphic abstractions; definitely organic in shape and feel. Though many of the works look as though built on a wire frame, that is not the case. The process involves extensive hand-building by the artist.
In addition, the translucent quality of the paper adds another dimension to the pieces.
You can see more of Mary Button Durell’s beautiful work on her site.
This app made me laugh. The Magritte Your World iPhone App is the creation of the Dorothy collective in Manchester, England, England. It was released to coincide with the René Magritte exhibit that ended last month at the Tate Liverpool.
Available here.
Click to enlargeThis has been making the rounds on facebook but I just came upon a whole set of images from the artist. The amazing Lego Army 3-D chalk drawing is by Dutch artist Leon Keer and the artist collective Planet Street Painting created for the Sarasota 2011 Chalk Festival in Florida. The drawing, based on the famous terracotta sculpture army of Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang, measures 30 x 40 feet and is drawn in such a way to fool the eye with depth and perception.
Apparently, there is a link between an 8-foot-tall Lego man that washed up overnight on October 25th at Siesta Key beach and Leon Keer’s drawing. Clever publicity stunt or coincidence? Either way, a very impressive feat.
I came across these beautiful photographs by Romanian artist Ion Zupcu, now living in Hopewell Junction, NY. This series titled Works on Paper was initially inspired by his daughter’s paper models for her architecture studies. Zupcu started photographing very small, folded and bent pieces of paper, most barely extending one inch across, using a Hasselblad camera. He enlarges the square-format prints to 15 inches squared, playing with the light and shadows, as well as exposure, creating a dramatic abstract effect. Lovely.
More of Ion Zupcu’s work can be seen on his site, and more of his Works on Paper series can be seen at Drooel and Gallery 339.
Click to enlargeProvidence, Rhode Island holds a special place in our hearts being that two out of the three of us are currently living there the majority of the year. Not surprisingly, the importance placed in design on both campuses where Em and Dan attend, is evident from Brown’s new Granoff Arts Center designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, to the RISD Museum of Art designed by Jose Rafael Moneo. What are nice as well, are the little surprise design elements you suddenly come upon on both of these adjacent schools. Typography, one of our favorites for example, is nicely incorporated and used decoratively on both campuses. Strolling around on a recent visit we spotted some of these. I wasn’t able to find information on all of the designs, but have included what I did obtain.
It’s been a while since we’ve posted about a watch but, being the watch lovers that we are, it was great to have one pop up in our inbox. This concept design for a Nooka watch by Brazilian designer Mario Troise seems like it would fit in perfectly with the collection. The minimalist design includes a magnetic band and 12 boxes on the face made up of pixels offering up yet another way to read time.
Mexican design firm Anagrama, specializing in identity and brand consulting, rebranded the boutique print shop Micheline, from their logo and packaging to the interior of their shop. In order to express uniqueness, elegance and modernity and keep the flavor of the mid 70s when Micheline was founded, Anagrama played up the 1975 year typographically in the decor as well as through the furniture and lighting selections. The color palette was kept neutral to contrast with the bright colors of the card catalogues and papers. Nicely done!
Click to enlargeRight now through mid-December there’s an intriguing exhibit at the Japan Society, here in New York, called Fiber Futures: Japan’s Textile Pioneers. I’ve yet to see the show, but the images look very interesting; not your average textile design.
One of the artists featured in the show is Naoko Serino whose soft sculptures are quite impressive. She describes her work as fiber art: three-dimensional expression using jute that contains light and air. Some of her works are small individual pieces, while others are large-scale installations. It all looks delicate yet has an imposing presence.
You can see Serino’s installation Generating–8 (third and fourth images down from top) at the Japan Society through December 18, 2011, along with the work of several other Japanese textile pioneers.
via the Japan Society, via my mom
Click to enlargePatrick Guns is an artist who lives and works in Brussels. In addition to working as a sculptor, he works in photography, illustration and painting.
There’s a heaviness to these sculptures, both physical and emotional. Their toy-like cuteness is betrayed by their size and actions.
Click to enlargeMy parents have had a Liliana Porter print/collage on one of their living room walls for close to 30 years. It may, at times, have been on a different wall or maybe even in a different room, but it’s been in their apartment for a long time. I’ve always been more intrigued by the background of how that print ended up in their possession than the print itself, not because I dislike the print, I don’t, but because I’ve always found it curious how Argentineans who immigrated to New York in the 60s all seem to know each other, even if indirectly. They are all friends of friends, or cousins of friends, or went to the same university, or frequented the same café. I don’t remember the exact connection here, but I believe it involved a friend of a friend inviting them to a small art show.
Recently, I came across the image of the miniature man hammering a seemingly huge nail and it made me smile. Upon checking who the artist was, I was pleasantly surprised to recognize Liliana Porter’s name. Visiting her site revealed this collection of objects & installations. I love them. They’re charming and humorous, and maybe it’s just me, but I find them a little touching. Though these are new to me, clearly it’s not the case for many others. Porter’s work is included in numerous museum collections including the TATE, MoMA and Met.
To see many more of these miniature installations, as well as the rest of Liliana Porter’s work including prints, collages, photographs, video and public art, be sure to visit her website.
CollabCubed 