November 6, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Jose Dávila: Buildings You Must See…

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Mexican artist Jose Dávila, based in Guadalajara, works in a range of mediums including photography, sculpture, and installation. The work explores his interest in the relationship between “place and fiction, space and temporality under architecture.” His series of photographs/collages (is it collage if you’re cutting out from an image rather than adding to it?) Buildings You Must See Before You Die are prime examples of these themes. These silhouettes of famous, recognizable architectural icons take over the photo, many cases, in unrealistic proportion to their surroundings, emphasizing their grandeur.

The rest of Dávila’s work, from his light sculptures made with neon tubes paired with bricks and concrete, to his installations, really appeal to me and you might want to check them out as well on his website.

via studio magazine

November 6, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Yuri Malodkovets: New Hermitage

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Yuri Maldkovets is a Russian photographer based in St. Petersburg. He has photographed more than 120 catalogs and albums for the State Hermitage Museum, with access to its art. In his exhibit titled New Hermitage, Malodkovets hung large black and white photographs of classic 19th century Italian marble statues wrapped in polyethylene for storage. The plastic wrap acts as a graceful veil, sculptural in its own right. The statues seem to grimace at having the plastic on them, as if trying to escape. And the series of busts smothered in the same material are a little disturbing but add an interesting quality as well.

via art in russia

November 5, 2012 by collabcubed - 1 Comment

Clet Abraham: Signage Sticker Street Art

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French street artist Clet Abraham, now living and working in Florence, humorously alters traffic signs throughout major cities in Europe by strategically pasting removable stickers on them. But it’s not all just to crack a smile on the faces of those who pass by. Clet is commenting on society’s standardization and the constricting effect that rules have on us, limiting individual expression and thought. It’s no coincidence that many of his images reference religion.

If you like Clet Abraham’s work, you might also enjoy Dan Witz’s Do Not Enter Project and Roman Tyc’s Semafory.

Photos courtesy of the artist; Paul nine-o; nijule; edoardo80; walls of milano; surreyblonde; metella merlo; kriebel; and lartefact.

via studio magazine

November 2, 2012 by collabcubed - 2 Comments

Shelley Miller: Sand Sculpture Handbags

Sure, you’ve seen plenty of sand castles, but what about sand handbags? Shelley Miller (previously here) created a series of sand sculptures of designer bags, purses, and clutches during a residency in Brazil a few years back. Much in the way that her Icing Graffiti works disappear in less time than it took to make them, so too these accurate pocketbook replicas that wash away with the tide.

From Miller’s website:
The mirage-like nature of these objects, physical in form, yet never fully tangible, is a reference to the desirable objects one sees flipping through a fashion magazine while laying on the beach.

The photo documentation of these temporal sculptures were then used to produce the “Summer Collection” booklet, a mock fashion catalogue that returns these objects to their fashion industry inspiration.

If it were up to me, next year Miller would be one of the artists invited to participate in the Creative Time Sand Sculpture Competition in Rockaway.

November 2, 2012 by collabcubed - 1 Comment

NYC Culture on the Cheap: Weekend 11/2

We will not be posting Culture on the Cheap this weekend. Power outages and limited transportation as a result of Hurricane Sandy are keeping things quiet. Hope that most of you are doing all right and safe. We expect that things will be relatively up and running in NYC by next week’s COTC post.

Photo: Charles Sykes/AP via gizmodo.

November 1, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Katherine Bernhardt: Swatch Watch Paintings

Katherine Bernhardt, originally from Missouri but now based in Brooklyn, paints large expressionistic portraits of women from glossy magazines as well as easily recognizable consumer objects. She has worked on store installations and magazine covers using this same style of acrylic paintings. I particularly like her paintings of Swatches.

Photos: Carbon Gallery; artnet; and Galeria Marta Cevera

via Carbon Gallery

October 29, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Shelley Miller: Cake Icing Graffiti

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The other night I attended a talk at the New Museum about the future of Nuit Blanche in NYC. One of the panelists was an organizer of the Nuit Blanche in Toronto and she spoke about an artist included in this year’s event that instantly intrigued me: Shelley Miller a street artist who creates her work with cake icing and presented an interactive piece titled Throw-Up.

Shelley Miller is a Montreal-based artist whose installations, sculptures and public works have been exhibited across Canada as well as India and Brazil. Much of her work is created using sugar and cake icing. Her murals and street art tags made with these cake-decorating techniques reference history and other cultures. Some examples are her murals depicting the history of sugar, linking the port of Montreal into the global network of sugar’s history and the slave trade that supported this industry. Miller’s graffiti tags, also made with icing, at closer look recall the decorative scrolls of arabesques and calligraphy from ancient mosques, temples and pottery spanning the history of decorative arts.

The ephemeral aspect of this work adds another interesting dimension when it begins to melt, causing a dripping effect. All around impressively done!

Photos courtesy of the artist.

October 29, 2012 by collabcubed - 1 Comment

James Turrell at the Guggenheim

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UPDATE: See the post-visit post on this exhibit here.

Yes, it’s true! It seems like such a natural fit…Guggenheim rotunda… James Turrell skyspaces and skyscapes… but somehow it hasn’t happened until now. Well, not really now, but next summer: June 2013.

This is James Turrell’s (previously here, here, and here…yes, I’m a fan) first exhibition in a New York museum, though he’s had exhibits at galleries such as Pace, in addition to the long-term and ongoing site-specific installation at PS1 titled Meeting, and the very cool installation in 505 Fifth Avenue’s lobby. The top two renderings above give a pretty good idea of how the museum’s central void will look filled with Turrell’s signature style mood- and color-changing light in this new work. Other works from throughout the artist’s career will be displayed in the museum’s Annex Level galleries.

It should be noted that the bottom photo is not from the Turrell renderings, but rather a photo of the exterior taken years ago when the museum had their Dan Flavin exhibit. One can only assume that there will be a similar glowing effect (likely with a different color palette) from Turrell’s skyspace.

James Turrell will run from June 21–September 25, 2013.

Top two renderings courtesy James Turrell and the Guggenheim Museum. Third photo: Bridget´s Bardo, 2009, Kunstmuseum, Wolfsburg, Germany.Bottom photo of the Dan Flavin exhibit by David Heald © Guggenheim Foundation

via GalleristNY and Guggenheim Museum’s facebook

October 26, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

NYC Culture on the Cheap: HalloWeekend

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This weekend! Free and cheap things to do 10/26 to 10/28 in NYC. Cultural events in art, architecture, music, film, dance, theater, design, food and general fun. This week’s listings include a smattering of spooky Halloween-related events.

1. Design/Architecture/Talks – Designers & Books Fair 2012 is a live New York City event at the intersection where design, architecture, and books meet. All weekend at FIT. Tickets range from $25 to $50. See schedule.

2. Architecture – The brand spankin’ new FDR Four Freedoms Park is now open to the public (see post). All weekend. 9am to 5pm. FREE

3. Art/Technology/Science – ReGeneration: an exhibition that explores the connection of cultural vitality to immigration, urbanization and sustainability through art, technology & science. All weekend (starting Sat 10/27 through 1/13). $11 Adult $8 Kids & Students. FREE Fridays, 2-5 pm; Sundays, 10-11 am

4. Architecture/Art – Past Futures, Present, Futures presents 101 unrealized proposals for New York City. 2nd Part of the exhibit (Present Futures) opens Fri 10/26 with reenactments. 7pm. Through 11/4. FREE

5. Film/Discussion – Encore screening of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night. Fri 10/26, 7pm. $25.

6. Theater – How to Break at Here Theater. All weekend. Check schedule for times. $10 in advance. $18 less than 24-prior. Students with ID FREE.

Alternatively: Tim Burton Burlesque, Fri 10/26, 9pm to midnight at Bar Matchless. $5 in costume; $7 if not.

7. Film –Holy Motors at Walter Reade & Film Forum. All weekend. $13.

Alternatively: Scary Movies at Walter Reade Theater Fri 10/26 and Sun 10/28. See schedule. $13

8. Film – Friars Club Comedy Film Festival. Fri 10/26 & Sat 10/27. See schedule for films & times. $10.

9. Art/Architecture – The blps Project (see post). Spot pill-shaped stickers on and around the High Line—from smokestacks to the Standard Hotel—on surfaces that usually go unnoticed. Kind of like an Easter egg hunt without the chocolate. In conjunction with the Richard Artschwager! retrospective at the Whitney. All weekend. FREE

Alternatively — Leo Villareal’s Buckyball light installation in Madison Square Park (see post). All weekend. FREE

10. Walking Tour – Haunted Tours of NYC. All weekend. Nightly at 8pm. $20 Adults $15 Kids. 90-minute tour.

Alternatively — Walking tour of Green-Wood Cemetery: Celebrate the fall season with tales of murder, mayhem, spirits and ghosts on our annual autumn tours led by Green-Wood’s historian Jeff Richman. Includes a visit to the Catacombs, usually closed to the public. Sat 10/27 & Sun 10/28 at 1pm. $20

11. Comedy – Jos Houben: The Art of Laughter. Renowned actor from Théâtre Complicité and longtime collaborator of Peter Brook presents a hilarious comedy about comedy. Sat 10/27 at 7pm. $20 with Code FIAF20.

12. Music – Justin Townes Earle with Low Anthem and Joe Pug at Pace. Fri 10/26 & Sat 10/27. At 7:30pm. $5 for Students. $25 and up everyone else.

13. Readings/Fun – Utilities Included: A Night of Brooklyn Writers. Six local writers kick out the jams for Halloween weekend Brooklyn-style. Sat 10/27 7pm at the Pine Box Rock Shop in Bushwick. FREE

14. Art – One of our favorites! John Baldessari Double Play at Marian Goodman. Fri 10/26 & Sat 10/27 through 11/21. FREE.

15. Tour – A Very Spooky Boat Tour of Newtown Creek. Sat 10/27 from 4:30 to 6:30pm $20 Leaves from South Street Seaport.

Alternatively – Halloween Dead Celebrity Ball: Costume Ball aboard the Jewel Yacht. Fri 10/26 at 8pm.

16. Food/Fun – 11th Annual Pickle Day will celebrate the rich history of pickle vendors of the Lower East Side and this time they are bringing back the pushcarts! Sun 10/28 on Orchard Street. 12 to 5pm. FREE

17. Food – Landhaus Farm to Sandwich Grand Opening Party at the Woods. Sun 10/28, 2 to 6pm. FREE with RSVP

18. Readings/Comedy – Bare! True Stories of Sex, Desire & Romance with John Flynn, Amy Sohn & many more. Brings together storytellers, comedians, sex educators and others to share true tales from their own experiences of sex, desire and romance. At the Bell House. 8pm $10

Art/Fun/Interactive – Bird on a Wire: a projected interactive display created for a pair of storefront windows at the corner Mercer St. and Washington Pl. By calling a number a passerby can set birds perched on telephone wires into motion. Cool! All weekend through 10/29. Opening Fri 10/26 at 8pm. FREE

AND Coming up this week – The Gay Death Halloween Variety Show, Tues, 10/20 at 8pm at The People’s Improv Theater with Scott Schachter and his Fun, Fab Weirdo Friends for a Macabre filled Sinful Night of Devilish Comedy: Nick Cobb; Skinny Bitch Jesus Meeting and more. $5

Check back for updates and take a look at our previous Culture on the Cheap posts for ongoing suggestions. Have fun!

October 25, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Limited Area: Robert Schlaug

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I love all of these photographs from German photographer Robert Schlaug’s series Limited Area. Using digital manipulation, he drags pixels of color across (or, more often, up and down) to the edges, creating walls and cliff-like effects. Schlaug says he is interested in “Raising awareness in times of total sensory overload” as well as “Isolation or in distinct contrast to the surroundings—suddenly developed a unique form of language and suprisingly gets an aesthetic quality. The banal becomes the particular.”

via but does it float via this isnt happiness

October 25, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Umbrellas vs. Flash Mob

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October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and it seems that people have moved on from simply sporting a pink ribbon on their jacket lapel. Two, very different, creative approaches to raising awareness took place this past week, among many others I suspect. One, though bright pink and hard to miss, was a little more subdued and consisted of an installation created with 400 pink umbrellas forming a canopy over the street (much like an Ingo Maurer installation) in Sofia, Bulgaria. The other, a bit more of an in-your-face and slightly controversial approach, was a “bouncing boobie” flashmob in central London supporting the breast cancer charity Coppafeel!. From the mouths of Coppafeel!: “The whole point of Coppafeel! is that we go about awareness in different and engaging ways – we like causing a bit of a stir.” And cause a stir they did.

Photos: Reuters; Снимка © Булфото; Coppafeel!; National Pictures; Rex Features; Habermonitor.

via voa and onenews

October 24, 2012 by collabcubed - 2 Comments

High Trestle Trail Bridge: RDG

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Completed last year, the High Trestle Trail Bridge in Boone County, Iowa was designed by public artist David B. Dahlquist of RDG Dahlquist Art Studio in response to a “call for artist” competition issued by the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation. Purely sculptural, as opposed to functional or a structural part of the bridge, the final design has a blooming quality, or maybe camera-shutter-like effect, head on. Surprisingly, from the side, one can appreciate how spaced out the individual steel archways actually are. It’s interesting to see the lit-up nighttime version which has such a different, more futuristic look. Either way, I’d say it’s a very successful and striking design.

If you like this bridge you might also enjoy the Twist Bridge.

Photos: Kevin Eberle; Jason Mrachina; Phil Roeder; and RDG

October 24, 2012 by collabcubed - 1 Comment

Cracking Art Group: REgeneration in Milan

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Cracking Art Group is a collective made up of 6 international artists that was formed in 1993. The group considers “cracking” the process which transforms the natural into artificial; organic into synthetic. Their interventions involve huge colored plastic animals invading spaces, usually as a cry for awareness. By selecting recycled plastic and adapting it to their own purpose, Cracking Art Group is attempting to hold back control of the process and turn it towards fulfilling the movement’s social and environmental commitment to reinstating humanity as part of nature, not apart from it.

Their most recent intervention titled REgeneration took place earlier this month (October 5th through 13th) in Milan at the Duomo. In collaboration with the cathedral and Opera d’Arte, Cracking Art Group created and placed 50 blue snail sculptures on the Duomo’s roof to call attention to the much-needed repairs and restoration. 100 smaller limited edition snails were also created and sold at the Glauco Cavaciuti Gallery with net proceeds going towards to the restoration of the cathedral.

via tribeart

October 23, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Leo Villareal: Hive, Cosmos, & Buckyball

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Well, artist Leo Villareal (previously here) has certainly been busy these past few months with two of his public art installations debuting in NYC and another one in upstate NY at Cornell University. Last month his Hive installation — a series of LED tubes that playfully reference games, in particular John Conway’s Game of Life, the best known cellular automata program — was unveiled at the Bleecker Street transfer station. Hanging from the ceiling, the illuminated hexagonal honeycomb has bright colored lights moving across the sculpture, exploring the brain’s compulsion to recognize patterns and make sense of them.

Up at Cornell University, Villareal’s installation titled Cosmos was just debuted last night at the I.M.Pei-designed Johnson Museum. The constantly changing work is composed of nearly 12,000 energy-efficient LEDs on a grid hanging from the ceiling of the museum’s Mallin Sculpture Court. Software designed by the artist and his team will generate new patterns throughout the life of the installation. The work was named Cosmos in honor of Carl Sagan whom Villareal admired and who spent a lot of time at Cornell.

Last, but certainly not least, the Buckyball, a Buckminster Fuller-inspired installation of a geodesic sphere within another geodesic sphere will light up Madison Square Park in NYC starting this Thursday, October 25th through February 1st, though some have already caught glimpses as the artist set up the work this past week. Part art, part science & technology, part structural engineering, all three installations are sure to appeal to most everyone.

Here’s a preview of the Buckyball in action as well as the Hive below that:

Photos: MTA; Lindsay France/Cornell; Madison Square Park Conservancy; artinfo; and inspir3d

October 23, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Blps Project! Richard Artschwager

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Here’s another fun art-around-town event happening in NYC starting this week. In conjunction with the Whitney Museum and their retrospective Richard Artschwager! which opens this Thursday, High Line Art is installing a series of blps in various locations on and around the High Line. The blps were introduced by Artschwager (who is now 88) in the late 60s; the name was coined by the artist and is pronounced “blip”. This is not the first time that blps will be adorning NYC, or any other urban landscape for that matter. Artschwager’s black and white caspule-shaped blps — ranging in size from 1 to 5 feet high — have been part of many public interventions over the decades with the purpose of highlighting and drawing people’s attention to architecture and surfaces that usually go unnoticed.

So far, High Line Art has installed a large blp on a smokestack (see top 5 photos), one of their glass elevators (6th photo from top), and one of the glass windows that overlook the street from the High Line (bottom), in addition to others at the Standard Hotel and at least one other uptown by the Whitney. Many more are planned to go up, so keep an eye out. Should be fun to find them all.

And if you’d like to own your own blp, you can purchase one here.

Photos courtesy of High Line Art; Whitney Museum; Steven Holl Architects; artnet; db-art; and baeditions.

via @HighLineArtnyc

October 22, 2012 by collabcubed - 7 Comments

Freya Jobbins: Dollfaces

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I’m not going to deny that these are a little disturbing, but they’re also pretty incredible. Australian artist Freya Jobbins takes her inspiration from artists such as Guiseppe Archimboldo’s and his fruit & veggie paintings, Ron Mueck’s oversized humans, and Gunther Von Hagen’s plastinated corpses. Add to that her interest in the relationship between consumerist fetishism and the emerging recycling culture within the visual arts and the result are her humanoid faces and busts made of pre-used dolls and toys.

This puts a whole new spin on the term dollface.

via junkculture and THEmag

October 22, 2012 by collabcubed - 4 Comments

Tania Mouraud: Typography Murals

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I wasn’t familiar with Parisian artist Tania Mouraud and her work, but she has been painting since the 1960s. It’s not surprising that Mouraud studied languages before her foray into the art world. Though her work ranges from painting to sculpture and, more recently, video, much of Mouraud’s art reflects her concern with the elusive nature of language. I especially like her typographic wall murals. I’ll confess to not being able to decipher them all on my own — or at least not without my eyes starting to criss-cross in all directions — but I like the fact that they appear to be abstract geometric paintings that upon closer look actually spell out phrases.

So, in case (like me) you need a little help, here are the names of the works from top to bottom, except for the 5th one down, which I couldn’t find or figure out:

WYSIWYG; HowCanYouSee?; I Haven’t Seen a Butterfly Here; Dieu Compte les Larmes des Femmes (God Counts the Tears of Women); ????; I Have a Dream; WYSIWYG; I Have a Dream; and I Had.

Photos courtesy of the artist; HuffingtonPost; and PerezArts

October 22, 2012 by collabcubed - 2 Comments

Inflatable Trampoline Bridge in Paris: AZC

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This is already making the rounds and likely to be everywhere soon, but it’s just too fun not to post about, especially since we do like a unique bridge. Paris-based architecture firm Atelier Zündel Cristea (AZC) proposed the above bridge in response to a competition brief for A Bridge in Paris. With enough bridges already in existence over the river Seine to facilitate the flow of both vehicular and pedestrian traffic, AZC thought it would be fun to offer a more playful way to get from La Rive Gauche to La Rive Droite and vice versa: an inflatable bridge equipped with giant trampolines, allowing visitors to bounce across the river. Each section measures 30 meters in diameter with a trampoline mesh stretched in the center. Held together by cord and inflated with air, the bridge forms three subtle arches.

Though AZC’s design received third prize in the competition, I have a feeling that it will become a reality via someone, somewhere, even if only as a temporary structure. It’s just too great not to.

via designboom and cool hunter