VW Beetle sphere
Indonesian artist Ichwan Noor made this amazing thing, a 1953 Volkswagen Beetle formed into a sphere:
Advertise here with Carbon Ads
This site is made possible by member support. 💞
Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.
When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!
kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.
Beloved by 86.47% of the web.
kottke.org posts about art
Small-batch, artisanal high-fructose corn syrup
Maya Weinstein has created a DIY kit for making your own HFCS (high-fructose corn syrup). You may have already guessed that it’s an art project and that the artist lives in Brooklyn.
The DIY High Fructose Corn Syrup Kit (DIY HFCS KIT) begin as a journey to uncover the mysteries of processed food. Often times at the grocery store while reading common food labels one cannot distinguish what certain ingredients are or where they came from. The DIY HFCS Kit is a way to visualize as well as interact with the food science behind industrialized ingredients, it is citizen food science for everyone, everywhere. The ingredient chosen for this particular kit is one that is seen a lot in processed and pre-made foods, it is pretty much everywhere, and it goes by the name high fructose corn syrup. The interesting thing about high fructose corn syrup is that the ingredient pops up in so many foods; from cereal to bread, yogurt to ice cream, frozen dinners to canned soups; but high fructose corn syrup is never actually seen on its own. One of the main reasons for this is because it is a highly processed industrialized ingredient created in large factories behind very closed doors. The method for making for high fructose corn syrup was not easy to uncover, nor were the ingredients, but with a little help from some friends and a whole lotta research and testing the Kit was finally created.
Weinstein was planning a Kickstarter campaign for kit sales but “they didn’t really understand what I was doing, they said my business plan was unclear”. (via @CharlesCMann)
Portraits made using found DNA
Heather Dewey-Hagborg collects hair, chewed gum, and smoked cigarettes, pulls the DNA out of them, and uses the genetic information to produce models of what the people who used those items might have looked like.
From this sequence, Dewey-Hagborg gathers information about the person’s ancestry, gender, eye color, propensity to be overweight and other traits related to facial morphology, such as the space between one’s eyes. “I have a list of about 40 or 50 different traits that I have either successfully analyzed or I am in the process of working on right now,” she says.
Dewey-Hagborg then enters these parameters into a computer program to create a 3D model of the person’s face.” Ancestry gives you most of the generic picture of what someone is going to tend to look like. Then, the other traits point towards modifications on that kind of generic portrait,” she explains. The artist ultimately sends a file of the 3D model to a 3D printer on the campus of her alma mater, New York University, so that it can be transformed into sculpture.
Art forgery is high art in its own right
We all know that art forgeries are just cheap rip-offs of real art. What Jonathan Keats’ new book presupposes is, maybe they’re not?
Forgers are the foremost artists of our age.
I’m not talking about the objects they make. Their real art is to con us into accepting the works as authentic. They do so, inevitably, by finding our blind spots, and by exploiting our common-sense assumptions. When they’re caught (if they’re caught), the scandal that ensues is their accidental masterpiece. Learning that we’ve been defrauded makes us anxious — much more so than any painting ever could — provoking us to examine our poor judgment. This effect is inescapable, since we certainly didn’t ask to be duped. A forgery is more direct, more powerful, and more universal than any legitimate artwork.
See also Uncreative Writing, fake is the new real, even if it’s fake it’s real, and this paragraph from Joe Posnanski’s piece on pitching phenoms:
You have to understand that to a boy of the 1970s, the line between comic books and real life people was hopelessly blurred. Was Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man, real or fake? Fake? Well, then, how about Evel Knievel jumping over busses on his motorcycle? Oh, he was real. The Superman ads said, “You will believe a man can fly,” and Fonzie started jukeboxes by simply hitting them, and Elvis Presley wore capes, and Nolan Ryan threw pitches 102 mph, and Roger Staubach (who they called Captain America) kept bringing the Cowboys back from certain defeat, and Muhammad Ali let George Foreman tire himself out by leaning against the ropes and taking every punch he could throw. What was real anyway?
The CIA and Abstract Expressionism
From a 1995 article in The Independent, an account of how the CIA promoted and funded US and other Western artists during the Cold War, including abstract expressionists like Rothko and Pollock.
The decision to include culture and art in the US Cold War arsenal was taken as soon as the CIA was founded in 1947. Dismayed at the appeal communism still had for many intellectuals and artists in the West, the new agency set up a division, the Propaganda Assets Inventory, which at its peak could influence more than 800 newspapers, magazines and public information organisations. They joked that it was like a Wurlitzer jukebox: when the CIA pushed a button it could hear whatever tune it wanted playing across the world.
The next key step came in 1950, when the International Organisations Division (IOD) was set up under Tom Braden. It was this office which subsidised the animated version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, which sponsored American jazz artists, opera recitals, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s international touring programme. Its agents were placed in the film industry, in publishing houses, even as travel writers for the celebrated Fodor guides. And, we now know, it promoted America’s anarchic avant-garde movement, Abstract Expressionism.
(via @sippey)
Digital time travel
Flóra Borsi inserts herself into historic photos, as though she were there photographing events with a contemporary camera. This is my favorite:
Borsi states she was inspired by “a Charlie Chaplin movie”, which is likely this clip shot in 1928 at the premiere of a Chaplin film which shows a woman who looks like she’s talking on a cellphone. See also Girl with a Pearl Earring and Point-and-Shoot Camera. (via @coudal)
Huge photos of small currencies
For a project called The Fundamental Units, Martin John Callanan used a very powerful 3D microscope to take 400-megapixel images of the lowest denomination coin from each of the world’s 166 active currencies. This is the 1 stotinki coin from Bulgaria:
And this is a small part of that same coin at tremendous zoom:
More information is available here.
Drawing all the buildings in NYC
James Gulliver Hancock is on a mission to draw all the buildings in New York City.
Hancock’s blog has spawned a book and prints are available as well. (via brain pickings)
Retouching the classics
For his Alpha Beauties project, artist Nazareno Crea retouches paintings and sculpture from throughout history, a process which normalizes each period’s ideal of female beauty to that of the present day. That is, much skinnier, with smaller noses, higher cheekbones, and larger breasts.
Similar projects: Venus and Eye of the Beholder.
The anti-drone hoodie
Designer Adam Harvey, who gave the world the anti-paparazzi purse and dazzle camouflage for the face, has developed a hoodie that makes the wearer invisible to the sort of thermal imaging utilized by surveillance drones.
This is the most New Aesthetic thing I have ever seen. The Guardian has more:
“These are primarily fashion items and art items,” Harvey tells me. “I’m not trying to make products for survivalists. I would like to introduce this idea to people: that surveillance is not bulletproof. That there are ways to interact with it and there are ways to aestheticise it.”
I imagine that at some point, anti-drone clothing will eject chaff as a countermeasure against incoming drone-launched missiles. (via @DavidGrann)
Sartorial zoo animals
Yago Partal pictures animals dressed up in their finest duds. Some of these are better than others…this is one of my favorites:
Prints are available.
Intricate body calligraphy
Israeli artist Ronit Bigal does intricate calligraphy on the human body and photographs the results.
Update: I read the page wrong…the calligraphy is printed on the photographs to follow the contour of the skin, not on the skin itself. Still cool. (thx, @lorp)
Tilda Swinton is sleeping at MoMA
At random and unannounced times throughout the year, actress (and apparently performance artist) Tilda Swinton will be sleeping in a glass box at MoMA.
It’s part of an unannounced, surprise performance piece called “The Maybe” that will be taking place on random days all year. A MoMA source told us, “Museum staff doesn’t know she’s coming until the day of, but she’s here today. She’ll be there the whole day. All that’s in the box is cushions and a water jug.”
Clearly some crowdsourced announcement system is needed…perhaps istildaswintonsleepingatmomaornot.tumblr.com? Also, in keeping with the theme of “my kid could do that” in contemporary art, both my kids slept at MoMA in chairs with wheels on them.
Big break in the Gardner Museum Heist
Yesterday, the FBI announced major advances in solving the biggest art heist in history. The break in occurred at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990 when a night watchman opened the door to men dressed as police. Works by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Degas, and Manet valued at over $500M were taken and have not been seen since.
“The FBI believes with a high degree of confidence in the years after the theft the art was transported to Connecticut and the Philadelphia region and some of the art was taken to Philadelphia where it was offered for sale by those responsible for the theft. With that confidence, we have identified the thieves, who are members of a criminal organization with a base in the mid-Atlantic states and New England,” Richard DesLauriers, special agent in charge of the Boston office of the FBI, said.
The guard who opened the door, Richard Abath, was looked at pretty closely again last week, though he’s not mentioned specifically this week.
Glitch art blankets and textiles
Artist Phillip Stearns makes blankets and tapestries out of glitch art. Some of the source images are taken from intentionally short-circuited digital cameras.
All items are woven in the US and cost $200 and up (plus shipping).
We Buy White Albums
Artist Rutherford Chang only collects first pressings of The Beatles’ The White Album on vinyl. Dust & Grooves recently interviewed Chang about his collection.
Q: Are you a vinyl collector?
A: Yes, I collect White Albums.
Q: Do you collect anything other than that?
A: I own some vinyl and occasionally buy other albums, but nothing in multiples like the White Album.
Q: Why just White Album? why not Abbey road? or Rubber Soul?
A: The White Album has the best cover. I have a few copies of Abbey Road and Rubber Soul, but I keep those in my “junk bin”.
Q: Why do you find it so great? It’s a white, blank cover. Are you a minimalist?
A: I’m most interested in the albums as objects and observing how they have aged. So for me, a Beatles album with an all white cover is perfect.
Q: Do you care about the album’s condition?
A: I collect numbered copies of the White Album in any condition. In fact I often find the “poorer” condition albums more interesting.
Chang’s collection is currently on view at Recess in Soho, NYC until March 7th. Gotta get down there and see this. (via mr)
Crouching photographer, hidden celebrity
Chris Buck takes pictures of celebrities after giving them 30 seconds to hide. Here’s Cindy Sherman:
Buck’s photos are on display in NYC for a couple more days at Foley but are also available in book form. (via digg)
The paper sculptures of Li Hongbo
This video of artist Li Hongbo demonstrating the complexity of his paper sculptures will blow your mind. More wild images at Dominik Mersch Gallery.
(via ★stellar)
Downton Abbey characters drawn as dogs and cats
These are all so perfect but I’m having a hard time deciding which is the most perfect….the Mrs Patmore tabby or the Dowager Countess Sphynx?
Prints are $22 a pop on Etsy and likely to go quickly. (via @mathowie)
Laser-cut wooden maps of underwater contours
There’s not much to say about these gorgeous, wooden, laser-cut bathymetric charts of various bodies of water except that just look at them!
(thx, mouser)
Great photorealistic painting
A Path Between Rice Fields is a gorgeous painting by Makoto Aida that caught my eye the other day.
(via ls)
Just screaming and painting
I have a lot more respect for painters now. Who knew it was such an intense sensory workout?
This is taken from a longer video piece with less screaming that will be on display at the Walker Art Center in 2013.
Inspired by Bob Ross-style instructional television programs, the Seoul-based artist says “the theme of this video is the existential nature of contemporary art (and culture) as well as of artists.” Characteristic of Beom’s deadpan humor, the narrator’s demonstration shows how to apply paint while engaged in “a long scream that sounds like when you’re hurt”; “a scream induced by psychological pain”; and “a more pained, wronged, and regretful scream.”
(via ★spavis)
Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop
NYC’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has an exhibit running until January 27, 2013 featuring over 200 photos employing old timey trickery.
For early art photographers, the ultimate creativity lay not in the act of taking a photograph but in the subsequent transformation of the camera image into a hand-crafted picture.
Hold me closer, blurry dancer
A new series of photographs from Shinichi Maruyama shows the nude human form in motion. (Totally SFW.)
According to Petapixel, these are not long exposure shots (like these).
Although the photographs look like long-exposure shots, they’re actually composite images created by combining ten thousand individual photographs of each dancer. The result is a look in which each model’s body is (mostly) lost within the blur of its movement.
You may remember Maruyama from his hand-thrown water sculptures.
Hairy people
Sicilian artist Valerio Carrubba takes portraits and modifies them with MOAR HAIR!
(thx, david)
Cuts of wood
Billion, by artist Vincent Kohler, shows the different pieces of wood derived from a log. It reminds me of the iconic butchery map showing the different cuts of meat. The sculpture, interestingly, is made out of polystyrene.
(via dens)
Girl with a Pearl Earring and Point-and-Shoot Camera
This forgotten Vermeer has been floating around for a few months but I just saw it. Love it:
Anyone know who did this? I spent a few minutes trying to find out but got dead-ended in a Tumblr/Imgur attribution black hole. (via ★ryanvlower)
Update: The creator of the image is supposedly Mitchell Grafton, although I couldn’t find any airtight attribution. (thx, all)
Barbican’s Rain Room
Artists in the UK have created a ‘Rain Room’ inside the Barbican that gives the impression from the outside that it is pouring rain. 3D cameras make it so the rain stops when you walk through it. That is, the rain is everywhere you aren’t, and you don’t get wet at all.
(via ★adamkuban)
Update: Neglected to mention the Rain Room is an installation by rAndom International artists Stuart Wood and Hannes Koch.
Rothko defaced at Tate Modern
A 1958 Mark Rothko painting worth millions of dollars, Black On Maroon, was defaced by graffiti at the Tate Modern on Sunday. The vandalism was some sort of ‘artistic statement’ by a guy with a neck tattoo.
Questions will be asked about security at the gallery, where the Rothkos are not protected by glass and are separated from visitors only be a low-level barrier that can easily be stepped over.
Typically, each room is monitored by a single gallery attendant.
It was Rothko himself who stipulated how his work should be displayed at the Tate.
The defaced painting was one of a series commissioned from Rothko in 1958 for the Four Seasons restaurant in New York’s Seagram Building, but never installed.
In 1969, the artist donated nine of the paintings to the Tate on the proviso that they be displayed “as an immersive environment”. He died the following year.
Self-Portrait of a Tree As a Young Sapling
This is Cedro di Versailles, a sculpture by Giuseppe Penone, carved out of a five-ton cedar log from Versailles.
To create the piece, Penone removed the outer rings of the tree to reveal the younger tree within. (via ★spavis)
Socials & More