Iconic LA mural of Ed Ruscha by
Iconic LA mural of Ed Ruscha by Kent Twitchell painted over by unknown dumbshits. (via eclectic times)
Update: A photo of the mural from May 22, 2006. (thx, mark)
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kottke.org posts about art
myDaVinci takes your photo and pastes your
myDaVinci takes your photo and pastes your face onto the Mona Lisa. Not a fan of Leonardo? Try being the Girl with a Pearl Earring or American Gothic. (via ais)
Quite a few photographic homages to Rene
Quite a few photographic homages to Rene Magritte. I love this updated classic.
10,000 sheep drawn by workers hired through Amazon’s
10,000 sheep drawn by workers hired through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service. Average wage for the artists? $0.69 per hour. (via waxy)
Rob Gonsalves
The work of Canadian artist Rob Gonsalves is part Salvador Dali, part Rene Magritte, and part M.C. Escher. This is one of my favorite images of his, called Tributaries:
I also quite like Community Portrait. Here’s some of his other stuff and a book of his images.
Artist Jeremiah Palecek has recently been painting
Artist Jeremiah Palecek has recently been painting pieces inspired by video games, including Super Mario Bros.
Plan is a photographic project by Aneta
Plan is a photographic project by Aneta Grzeszykowska and Jan Smaga consisting of overhead views of apartments. “Such an unusual effect was achieved through the use of a special technique: the overall picture of a room is an aggregate of dozens fragmentary photographs taken from above, and then merged using a computer.” More here. A bit NSFW.
Short interview with Chris Ware upon the
Short interview with Chris Ware upon the occasion of a show of his work at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. “I’ve found that anything I do [to] carefully plan and pare down in advance feels utterly false and constructed once I actually do it, having nothing of the sort of accident and unevenness of real life that I hope to, at least, modestly edge towards.”
Interview with photographer Alec Soth. “I feel
Interview with photographer Alec Soth. “I feel like a large part of photography is like a performance. And the photograph is like a document of this performance, of this encounter with the world.” Many interviews with photographers often end up sounding very similar, but I enjoy reading them anyway. (via eyeteeth)
In March of 2004, an artist named Tofu
In March of 2004, an artist named Tofu began constructing a map comprised only of the hometowns of American men and women killed in Iraq (map detail). “One of the disturbing by products of this work are the maps of various states with many rectangular pieces missing where I cut out towns.” (via moon river)
Do rich artists make bad art? “When
Do rich artists make bad art? “When you become as rich as [Warhol or Dali], being as rich as this becomes your story. If you don’t make art about being a multimillionaire, you are being dishonest. If you do, you can hardly claim the universality of great art.” (via rw)
Dazzle ships
Some photos and sketches of WWI ships painted with “Razzle Dazzle” camouflage. “The primary goal of dazzle painting [which took visual cues from cubism] was to confuse the U-boat commander who was trying to observe the course and speed of his target.” (via cf)
Sand animation art. Watch the videos…it’s
Sand animation art. Watch the videos…it’s cooler than it sounds. (thx, brock)
Wired Magazine profiles Josh Davis. Davis typically
Wired Magazine profiles Josh Davis. Davis typically gets too much credit for being controversial and too little for his work. His speeches/appearances are well worth seeking out; they’re entertaining, informative, and inspiring.
Whitney Biennial 2006, through May 28 in NYC. NY
Whitney Biennial 2006, through May 28 in NYC. NY Times review. Momus describes his first day as a performance artist at the Biennial.
James Nieuhues’ ski report paintings
The Captain of Design himself points us to the ski trail maps of James Nieuhues. Nieuhues is a prolific fellow…he’s done paintings for most of the large ski resorts in the western US.
Fractal bacteria
Pruned has collected some lovely petri dish scenes full of fractal patterns.
Billions and billions of bacterial landscape architects pruning — no less in environments poisoned with antibiotics — other bacterial landscape architects, dead or alive, to form dazzling arabesque parterres. The self-organizing embroidery of organisms in constant Darwinian mode.
More here. See also ferrofluid.
A statement on art statements. “I have
A statement on art statements. “I have no way of actually proving this, but I am convinced that many photographers do not have all that stuff from their statements in their heads and then go out to shoot the photography. I have the suspicion that some of them, after having shot their photos, have a hard time writing something that can pass as a statement, because ‘I just wanted to take beautiful photos of rubble piles’ somehow doesn’t appear to be acceptable.”
Who knew David Sedaris’ family was so
Who knew David Sedaris’ family was so full of art experts? “I don’t know if you realize it, but it seems that Picasso is actually Spanish.”
A 1904 photograph by Edward Steichen was recently
A 1904 photograph by Edward Steichen was recently sold at auction for more than $2.9 million, the most anyone’s ever paid for a photo at auction. (via consc)
Book covers inspired by Rene Magritte art. (via do)
Book covers inspired by Rene Magritte art. (via do)
Dorian Lynskey “[charted] the branches and connections
Dorian Lynskey “[charted] the branches and connections of 100 years of music using the London Underground map”, much like Simon Patterson’s The Great Bear. (gs)
Mark Rothko’s Seagram murals were to hang
Mark Rothko’s Seagram murals were to hang in the then-new Four Seasons restaurant in NYC. How did they come to hang instead in the Tate Modern in London?
Averaging Gradius is a movie of 15 simultaneous
Averaging Gradius is a movie of 15 simultaneous games of Gradius layered on top of each other. Robin says: “So what you see, instead of a single ship going at it, is a fuzzy cloud of ships — bright where strategies overlap, faint where someone does something especially daring (or dumb).” Very cool; reminds me of Jason Salavon’s amalgamation of Playboy centerfolds.
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.
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.
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