I just found the most niche weblog
I just found the most niche weblog ever: Hay in Art, which consists of pictures of art that feature hay in them.
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kottke.org posts about Art
The NY Times spends some time at
The NY Times spends some time at home with Paula Scher. The gallery displaying her work is right around the corner from Eyebeam….I think I’ll head over there today.
Edward Burtynsky at the Brooklyn Museum of Art
I can’t remember where I first ran across Edward Burtynsky’s photography, but I’ve been developing into a full-fledged fan of work over the past few months. From a Washington Post article on Burtynsky:
Burtynsky calls his images “a second look at the scale of what we call progress,” and hopes that at minimum, the images acquaint viewers with the ramifications — he avoids the word price — of our lifestyle. But what if viewers just see, you know, some dudes and a ship?
“Another photographer might focus on the loss of life or pollution,” acknowledges Kennel of the National Gallery. “He uses beauty as a way to draw attention to something. It’s a very particular strategy.”
The Brooklyn Museum of Art is displaying an exhibition of Burtynsky’s photos until January 15. Well worth the effort to try and check it out. The scale of modernity, particularly in his recent photos of China, is astounding. In Three Gorges Dam Project, Dam #4, this huge dam seems to stretch on forever and you don’t know whether to goggle in wonder or shrink in horror from looking at it.
An original painting by Adolf Hitler recently
An original painting by Adolf Hitler recently went for 11,000 euros on eBay.
New York City is in danger of
New York City is in danger of losing its creative class as the high cost of living drives people to other cities.
John Lasseter at MoMA
MoMA just opened their show about Pixar last week and on Friday, we went to a presentation by John Lasseter, head creative guy at the company. Interesting talk, although I’d heard some of it in various places before, most notably in this interview with him on WNYC. Two quick highlights:
- Lasseter showed colorscripts from Pixar’s films (which can be viewed in the exhibition). A colorscript is a storyboarding technique that Pixar developed to “visually describe the emotional content of an entire story through color and lighting”. They are compact enough that the entire story fits on a single sheet and if you’re familar enough with the films, you can follow along with the story pretty well. But mostly it’s just for illustrating the mood of the film. Very cool technique (that could certainly be adopted for web design and branding projects).
- Near the end of the talk he showed a 2-3 minute clip of Cars, prefacing it with an announcement that it had never before been shown outside of Pixar.[1] Some of the CGI wasn’t completely finished, but it was certainly enough to get the gist. When the first preview trailer for Cars was released, I was skeptical; it just didn’t look like it was going to be that good. Based on the clip Lasseter showed and some of his other comments, I’m happy to report that I was wrong to be so skeptical and am very much looking forward to its release in 2006.
At 15 minutes long, the Q&A session at the end of his talk was too short. The MoMA audience is sufficiently interesting and Lasseter was so quick on his feet and willing to share his views that 30 to 40 minutes of Q&A would have been great.
[1] For you Pixar completists and AICN folks out there, the clip showed Lightning McQueen leaving a race track on the back of a flat-bed truck, bound for a big race in California. As the truck drives across the US, you see the criss-crossing expressways of the city stretch out into the long straight freeways of the American west, the roads literally cutting into the beautiful scenery. A cover of Tom Cochran’s Life is a Highway plays as the truck drives. The world of the movie features only cars, no humans…the cars are driving themselves.
Just Van Gogh!
A quick note about the Van Gogh show at the Met that’s closing at the end of the month: if you’re in NYC, go see it. Admittedly, I’m a fan of Van Gogh, but I thought this was one of the best museum exhibitions I’ve ever seen. The exhibition features drawings (as well as a few paintings) from his short 10-year career as an artist, and you can really see how much he progressed during that time and how much his drawings and paintings were related. I can’t wait to go back over to the MoMA and look at Starry Night and The Postman and view them not as paintings, but more as drawings done with paint.
Speaking of the Mona Lisa, scientists have
Speaking of the Mona Lisa, scientists have discovered through the use of emotion-recognition software that she was indeed happy.
Cory Arcangel is committing Friendster Suicide tonight
Cory Arcangel is committing Friendster Suicide tonight at The Believer Dec/Jan issue launch party at PS1. You can also follow along at home: “Friendster me sometime before [the performance], and around 8:40 EST on Thursday(ish), I assume if you keep reloading your browser window on Friendster, I think I will simply disappear from your friend list.” Antisocial networking.
Paul Schmelzer’s project to collect autographs of
Paul Schmelzer’s project to collect autographs of his (Paul’s) name from famous people. So far, he’s got scrawls from David Sedaris, Yoko Ono, Frank Gehry, and Pat Buchanan, but has been turned down by Mikhail Baryshnikov.
Christian Marclay will be premiering his new
Christian Marclay will be premiering his new piece, Screen Play, at Eyebeam on Nov 11th. Damn the luck, I’ll be out of town. I loved Marclay’s Video Quartet piece.
A series of art projects based on
A series of art projects based on Flickr. The Flickr tag cloud tshirt is clever; the printing on the shirts is reversed so that you can read them in the mirror…”the [Flickr user’s] narrative is actually addressing himself while claiming to address others”. (via ia)
Reap is an art project “exploring the
Reap is an art project “exploring the notion of marking and capturing time: time as memory, as process, as moments, as metamorphoses and metaphors”. I like the apple rotting one. (thx susan)
Opening tomorrow at the Met Museum in
Opening tomorrow at the Met Museum in NYC, an exhibition of drawings by Vincent van Gogh. October 18, 2005 through December 31, 2005.
Two Da Vincis long held in private
Two Da Vincis long held in private collections to go on public display for the first time.
James Surowiecki on the Mei Moses Fine
James Surowiecki on the Mei Moses Fine Art Index and why investing in art “mutual funds” might not be such a good idea. Here’s more on the Mei Moses Fine Art Index.
They’re building a Prada store just outside
They’re building a Prada store just outside the town of Valentine, TX (population: 187) with no door. It’s art!
Fun bunch of Flickr photos from mleak
Fun bunch of Flickr photos from mleak depicting bugs and slugs shilling for the man: Pepsi Ladybug, Nike Water Strider, FedEx Grasshopper, Coke Slug, and Adidas Spider. (via bb)
“Floating Island” is a mini version of
“Floating Island” is a mini version of Central Park being towed around Manhattan by a tugboat (photos here)…it’s a conceptual art piece by Robert Smithson. This weekend, a group of folks in a motorboat tried to board the floating park and install a miniature version of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s The Gates. When the captain of the boat towing the island “looked out across the East River Thursday afternoon and saw another piece of conceptual art gaining on him, he did not view the development kindly”.
Cory Arcangel has gone INSANE and is
Cory Arcangel has gone INSANE and is offering original signed posters of his work for like $20. The posters feature the haunting landscape of the old school Famicom driving game F1 Racer.
The MoMA has acquired The Plum Blossoms
The MoMA has acquired The Plum Blossoms by Henri Matisse (picture), the whereabouts of which have been unknown for 30 years.
And as long as we’re on the
And as long as we’re on the subject (you didn’t think we were even on a subject, did you?), I’m a fan of how Maciej is displaying his oil paintings. For each of his newer paintings (like this one of a West Village scene), he’s documenting the progress of the work as it goes along so you can see how the painting becomes a painting.
Update: Eric writes that he uses this technique for displaying how his art progresses as well (sample).
Pan of the newish MoMA building in
Pan of the newish MoMA building in NYC. I like the new building, but I agree that there are too many people sometimes; they’re certainly not having a problem with that $20 admission price. (via cdl)
Update: a rebuttal by Greg Allen.
Flickr set of glitch art created when
Flickr set of glitch art created when digital satellite TV goes a little wonky.
Art experts choose 10 of the worst paintings hanging in Britain.
Art experts choose 10 of the worst paintings hanging in Britain.
Short interview with Josh Davis. More of
Short interview with Josh Davis. More of his work can be found at joshuadavis.com and once upon a forest.
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