Posts tagged sculpture
from "Forever Bicycles," by Ai Weiwei, Taipei Art Museum, 2011 :: via Co.Design
Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei has an exhibition running through the end of this month at the Taipei Fine Art Museum—his first large-scale solo show, apparently, in the Chinese world. The show features a wide range of works in the border zone between sculpture and found object assembly. The knockout piece is undoubtedly this one, a layered vertical labyrinth of 1200 bicycles (sans seats and handlebars). The exhibition, incidentally, is titled Absent because Ai remains under a travel ban in China and won't be able to attend.
Nate: 
"Untitled" (Watts Towers), by Ryan Dickey, Wallula Junction/Flickr, 2009
The Watts Towers, a towering cathedral of folk art built as a passion project by Simon Rodilla, an Italian immigrant, are one of my favorite things about Los Angeles. I'd lived in the region for years before finding out about them in the companion book to Jacob Bronowski's BBC series The Ascent of Man. I was reminded of it all by this headline yesterday: Budget Cuts Threaten a Hidden Treasure in Watts. Part and parcel to the threat is that few Angelinos visit the Towers; when people come, they're usually foreign tourists.
Nate:
"Re-kindling," plywood, ink, spray paint, and acrylic paint, by Shawn Smith, 2008 :: via Waxy.org
"MorningStar" (detail; full image here), India ink, acrylic, graphite, wax marker on photo collage, by Alison Stigora, 2009 :: thanks Jay Walker
I love Alison Stigora's moving nearly-monochrome drawings and sculptural installations—in particular how she creates her thickets, nests, and networks of bleached or darkened branches equally well in two and three dimensions. ArtPneuma has posted a ten-minute interview with Alison about her creative process and her thoughts about the aesthetics of natural destruction.
Nate:
photo 
Dollar 009, by lolay
Dollar 009, by lolay
"Dollar 009," fiberglass and coated enamel, 6.3 by 2.6 meters, by lolay, photo by Tim Mills, IAM Bangkok
This picture was taken by IAM's Bangkok liaison during a recent gallery tour in Thailand, and I found it to be quite startling. At first glance, the sculpture by Thai artist Lolay of a futuristic female figure sitting on a bucket like a busker was pretty interesting to me on its own. But then I noticed the little people walking around under her and realized the huge scale of this piece, which stands over twenty feet tall at the Bangkok Arts and Culture Center. According to the artist's statement, she represents human beings adapting to unpredictable changes in the economy, environment, politics, technology, etc., and the 'Dollar' name pertains to the United States and how it affects the rest of the world in so many aspects.
Christy:
photo HIV, by Luke Jerram
HIV, by Luke Jerram
"HIV," 22cm, from the sculpture series Glass Microbiology, by Luke Jerram Smithfield Gallery, London, 22 September–9 October 2009 :: via Freakonomics Blog
Nearly all the images we see of viruses use false coloration, either for illustrative or aesthetic purposes. Glass sculptor Luke Jerram makes clear, colorless models of viruses and bacteria, working in consultation with microbiologests and under the glass-given physical constraints of gravity and fragility. The resulting works (including all the big names: E. coli, swine flu, Ebola, smallpox, and HIV) are stunning and sobering. Jerret's website quotes a note he received from an unnamed viewer: "I just saw a photo of your glass sculpture of HIV. I can't stop looking at it. Knowing that millions of those guys are in me, and will be a part of me for the rest of my life. Your sculpture, even as a photo, has made HIV much more real for me than any photo or illustration I've ever seen. It's a very odd feeling seeing my enemy, and the eventual likely cause of my death, and finding it so beautiful."
Nate:
image 
Woven and torn
Woven and torn
from "Recent Works - Joo Kim," Azusa Pacific University, 7 September–2 October 2009 :: image courtesy of the artist and Azusa Pacific University Department of Art
A few weeks ago I had the great pleasure of visiting with the faculty of the Department of Art at Azusa Pacific University—the only member of the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities that that offers an M.F.A. in studio art. Among the exceptional artists and scholars I met was Joo Kim, a visiting scholar at APU this year, whose show "Recent Works" is at the university's Heritage Gallery through this week. Her handsewn works in linen and other fabric are both accessible and difficult explorations of pain, loss, separation, and redemption—very much worth a visit if you are near Azusa, California, in the next few days.
Andy:
"Of the Peculiar," by Barry Krammes, Image, September 2009
Image Journal's current artist of the month is Barry Krammes, my favorite found-objects artist. This sculpture, Of the Peculiar, is an assemblage piece using an assortment of miniatures, scraps of toys, and other repurposed items which, when put together, create a scene somewhere between child's play and macabre theatre.
Christy:
image Burnt wood and India ink
Burnt wood and India ink
"With Expectancy We Wait," India ink 36" x 40", by Alison Stigora, 2008
One of the emerging artists I'm most excited about these days is Philadelphia-based Alison Stigora. "MorningStar," her upcoming solo exhibition at Saint Joseph's University (31 August–25 September), is sure to be rife with India ink and burnt wood—two of her favorite media.
Christy:
"Man on Flying Machine" (2008), by Yinka Shonibare, James Cohan Gallery :: via Daily Serving
The Nigerian-British artist Yinka Shonibare has made a whole fascinating series of race/class remix sculptures featuring mannequins of 18th-century European dandies dressed in period clothing cut from "African" Dutch-wax fabrics (made in Manchester and the Netherlands, purchased by the artist in Brixton Market, London). He's currently got a big exhibition up at the Brooklyn Museum.
Nate:
Untitled (13 1/8 x 10 x 3 1/2 in; private collection), by Joseph Cornell, 1942
This morning's reading: an Octavio Paz poem, translated by Elizabeth Bishop. 'Objects & Apparitions, For Joseph Cornell.' Here's a pair of stanzas to whet the appetite:
'"One has to commit a painting," said Degas,
"the way one commits a crime." But you constructed
boxes where things hurry away from their names.
Slot machine of visions,
condensation flask for conversations,
hotel of crickets and constellations.'
'"One has to commit a painting," said Degas,
"the way one commits a crime." But you constructed
boxes where things hurry away from their names.
Slot machine of visions,
condensation flask for conversations,
hotel of crickets and constellations.'
Nate:
Storm King Wavefield (2007–2008), 11 acres of earth and grass, by Maya Lin, part of the exhibition Maya Lin: Bodies of Water at the Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, NY, 9 May–15 November 2009, photograph by Jerry L. Thompson :: via NYTimes.com
Earthworks beauty in upstate New York, from the architect of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Nate:
excerpt 
Making wonderful curves
Making wonderful curves
Inspired in part by reading Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela, an artist has created a fruitful long-term creative partnership with the residents of an inner-city neighborhood in North Philadelphia.
Nate: 
Twenty years later, this area is still poor, with high unemployment but hope can be found at the Village of Arts and Humanities. That’s what the small art park has grown into—a tangible symbol of renewal that covers more than 120 formerly abandoned lots with murals, sculpture gardens, mosaics, flowers, community gardens, playgrounds, performance spaces, basketball courts, art studios, even a tree farm.
“The entire community seems to take part in the use of the spaces,” writes Kathleen McCarthy, who nominated the Village for Project for Public Space’s authoritative list of the world’s Great Public Spaces. “As we walked down the street, trying to find one of the parks, a man walking beside us directed us to the Park, and told us the history of it and the wonderful artist, Lily Yeh who started the park. He spoke with pride that this was a part of his community. We sat on the benches made of smashed tile and mirror, making wonderful curves and places to sit. Across from us, women sat and smiled, waved. Children ran over and asked us to hide them during a game of hide-and-seek…. I’ve never felt more welcomed in an unfamiliar place.”
repost 
Fighting time with marble
Fighting time with marble
Nate: 
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated Challengers of oblivion Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down, The square-limbed Roman letters Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well Builds his monument mockingly; For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun Die blind and blacken to the heart: Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found The honey of peace in old poems.
"Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S.," by Nam June Paik, Smithsonian Museum of American Art, photo by angela n (Flickr), 8 October 2007 :: via Intelligent Travel
I like how the Mississippi River seems to glow extra-brightly, a nod perhaps to a superhighway of a different era.
Nate:
video 
Making of a chair
Making of a chair
from "The Shell Chair by Charles Eames," Robust Flavor, 18 November 2008 :: via 37 Signals via Coudal ad infinitum
This (longish) video on the making of Eames fiberglass chairs circa 1970 is striking for its juxtaposition of tools and techniques that range from the quintessentially modern to the surprisingly old-fashioned (to the alarming—I don't think you're supposed to handle fiberglass with your bare hands!). And for the unbearably 1970s flute soundtrack. And for the chairs themselves, still cool and cozy after all these years.
Andy:
Cartonlandia (detail), by Ana Serrano, 2008 :: via designboom
I love the color and use of flatness and space in this collage-like sculpture by the young L.A. artist Ana Serrano.
Nate:
Fig Leaf Wardrobe, by Tord Boontje for Meta, Copper, enamel, bronze, and hand-dyed silk :: via MoCo Loco