American Madness

Check out the photoshp contest here. Need I say more!?

Today’s Art edition is composed of some videos and photography.

ImprovEverywhere is a group that has done some fun things around NYC, like ‘Freezing’ in Grand Central (which was later copied on an episode ofLaw & Order: SVU). Their latest project, called ‘Human Mirror,’ took 8 sets of twins and created a mirror effect on the 6 train.

They also recently created a ‘wave’ of flashes across the Brooklyn Bridge to celebrate its 125th birthday. The idea sounds great, though personally I found the video a little underwhelming.

Steve Schofield is not a performance artist, but a photographer. While he has some great pictures of boxers and dancers, what got me to his site in the first place was a series entitled “Land of the Free.” The folks in these photos are people who dress up for their obsession. There are Trekkies, Cowboys & Indians, Sith Lords, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and even Elvis. Instead of the usual shots of these folks in convention centers or online for movies, they were all photographed in their homes. I’d say it is worth checking out. (more…)

Calling it ‘art’ is a bit of a cheat I guess. I mean, is it really art if it is just a picture taken from a satellite doing its job? There is no eye for the artistic behind the taking of these pictures and it just so happens that some one was smart enough to put the pretty ones together.

None the less, the pictures are pretty striking with some amazing colors so I figured I’d toss them up here for all to see. From EnvironmentalGraffiti we get the “30 Most Incredible Abstract Satellite Images of Earth.” These photos are all from 2000, when NASA went through over 400,000 pictures snapped by the satellite Landsat 7 and chose what they felt were the most beautiful for display at the Library of Congress.

Are they art? Maybe not, but they sure are pretty. You can see the other 29 here. You can even download them to use as desktop wallpaper.

Today’s installment of art comes from Jerusalem and Seattle.

First up we have some older work by Desiree Palmen. Between 1999 and 2006 Palmen worked with fabrics and paint to make jumpsuits that camouflaged nicely with their surroundings (if you are standing in a certain place that is). For fans of William Gibson’s Neuromancer, the idea seems similar to the “Mimetic Polycarbon” jump suit worn by the Panther Moderns,* except these don’t change with their environment. The jumpsuits are all painted with some consideration given to the way the individual will stand (or sit) and have a realistic look to them. Makes me wonder what they look like in real life. It is interesting to see the jumpsuits mixed with some of the older parts of Jerusalem (like in “Old City Suit“). There is even text to some of the projects (located on the main page) that discusses some of the ideas behind them.

Next up** we have the work of Chris Jordan. His work is billed at “Photographic Arts,” which seems like a questionable name for a medium until you start to look at his pictures, and I mean really look at them. His most recent project is called “Running the Numbers” and spans from 2006 to 2008. (more…)

Well, I guess it is technically for Thursday.

Starting tomorrow and running through October 13th, the city is getting 4 waterfalls. Olafur Eliasson’s “The New York City Waterfalls” has been installed around the city. Although organized by the City and the Public Art Fund, the project is totally funded from private supporters, corporations and other foundations, with no city funds being put towards it. Now on to the project itself

“The New York City Waterfalls” are 4 waterfalls that have been installed in various locations along the river. You’ll find them at at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge (in Brooklyn), Pier 35 (by the Manhattan Bridge), near the Brooklyn Heights Promenade (between Piers 4 & 5) and by Governors Island.

The waterfalls will be active between 7am and 10pm so if you travel along the bridges you may get a chance to see them during your daily commute. Otherwise you can venture out to see them in your free time.

the pictures from the ‘pre-dawn’ test look pretty stunning and it looks like this could be something incredible to check-out around the city this summer right around sunset.

The project is similar to one that Eliasson did in Austria in 2000 and Madrid in 2003, but on a much grander scale. You can learn more about him and his work here.

Well, I have given up on trying to make this a weekly column, so it is becoming an occasional column.

I’ve come across 2 sets of photos in the last two days. One set is pretty interesting and the other set is pretty incredible, both are definitely worth checking out.

The first set of pictures makes it to us all the way from Chili where the Chaitan Volcano has been pretty active recently. During some recent activity there also happened to be a lighting storm that added some incredible effects to the erupting volcano. The Daily Mail has a whole set of the images here.

Our second set of pictures comes from an exhibition titled “The Other Night Sky” currently showing at the UC Berkeley Art Museum. The exhibition shows Trevor Paglen’s photographs of 189 spy satellites that officially do not exist. The title of the exhibition is a play on Galileo’s The Night Sky and offers commentary on how these ‘unofficial’ satellites would paint the sky to astronomers of yesterday. Paglen is also responsible for a book about patches from military black-ops groups that has some great images of the official patches for these groups.

So we are going a little light with the art today:

First up we have Martin Beckett, I cam across his work right around the same time I found the superhero stuff last week, but it just didn’t fit nicely so I have been holding off on posting it. Beckett is a UK photographer with some decent stuff, but the stuff to really check out are his 360 degree panoramas. The rest of the stuff is nice, but nothing too outstanding.

Following up Beckett we have more of an art related post then actual art (though, looking at the images that is debatable): Crayola Crayons*. (more…)

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Mario Batali, Martha Stewart, Boogie, Jimmi Simpson, Brice Marden are just some of the faces you might recognize on the walls of Jose Picayo’s exhibition: “Mug Shots.”

That isn’t to say though that everyone whose picture is up on the walls of the gallery is famous.

Of the couple hundred photos up on the walls of the gallery, there were only about seven who we could readily identify.

Well, that is besides all the folks who showed up for the opening who had sat for their photos. (more…)

I feel bad that what, one week after I committed to doing at least one art post a week, I totally dropped the ball and didn’t follow up. Well, a few weeks later we have a follow-up.

I’ve been noticing a bit of a trend recently in turning comic books into movies. I know, this is nothing too new, but it has really been exploding as Marvel licenses every possible character out, DC re-images Superman and Batman (and tries to find a character that someone else might know) and Frank Miller turns everything he has ever done into a movie.

Well, now this trend is moving beyond just films and the art world seems to be jumping on the new-found obsession with Superheroes.

First up we have an exhibit at the Met: Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy. I’d probably have more to say about it, but I haven’t been to the exhibit yet. But I must say this is where I saw the start of the trend, after discovering this exhibit was at the Met (started last week), I keep seeing Superhero art.

Alessandro Cidda’s work found its way into my inbox this morning, close up shots of action figures, well, more precisely portraits of action figures. The originals are blown up to almost 3 feet tall (maybe a bit taller, my cm to inches conversion is a bit weak). The first two galleries on the website have some 33 portraits of all of your favorites (and some obscure) action figures, including Neo, Batman, Mr. Incredible, Jenna Jameson, the Crow and James Bond, to name a few. (more…)