I’m really enjoying these suspended installations by French artist Isa Barbier who uses feathers hung on filament to create abstract geometric volumes. These two works above are definitely my favorite but you can head over to Documents d’artistes to see much more. (via ferme-asile, jean-louis pitteloud)
Big Air Package is the latest project from artist Christo installed at the Gasometer Oberhausen in Germany, a facility that still holds the record as the largest disc-type gas holder in Europe that was converted into an exhibition hall in the 1990s. Big Air Package is the largest ever inflated envelope without aid of a skeleton (Gasometer Oberhausen bills it as “the largest indoor sculpture in history”) and reaches 90 meters high, with a diameter of 50 meters and a volume of 177,000 cubic meters. The work was conceived in 2010 and is Christo’s first major work after the passing of his wife and artistic partner Jeanne-Claude in 2009. Via the official press release:
Big Air Package, Project for Gasometer Oberhausen, Germany was conceived in 2010 by Christo and will be on view from March 16 to December 30, 2013. The sculpture, which is installed inside the former gas tank, was made from 20,350 square meters of semitransparent polyester fabric and 4,500 meters of rope. The inflated envelope is 90 meters high and 50 meters in diameter. It has a total weight of 5.3 tons and a volume of 177,000 cubic meters. [...] The “Big Air Package” nearly spans the distance from wall to wall of the Gasomter, leaving only a small passage to walk around the sculpture. Two air fans creating a constant pressure of 27 pascal (0.27 millibar) keep the package upright. Airlocks allow visitors to enter the package. Illuminated through the skylights of the Gasometer and 60 additional projectors, the work of art creates a diffuse light throughout the interior. Inside the sculpture, an extraordinary experience of shape, space and light is provided.
Christo says that “when experienced from the inside, that space is almost like a 90-meter-high cathedral,” which is easy to see just looking at these incredible images. The installation opened this weekend and will remain on view through December 2013. You can see many more photos courtesy Wolfgang Volz here. (via farewell kingdom)
As part of the 2012 Festival Arbres en Lumière, an outdoor tree light festival in Geneva, Switzerland, artist Cédric Le Borgne (previously) installed a pair of large birds just off Rue de la Fontaine. Titled Le Désir et la Menace the birds were constructed from wire and lit
from below in a style previously seen in his figurative works giving the forms a glowing, weightless appearance. See much more over on his website. (via ruines humaines)
Currently on view at the Lancaster Museum of Art and History is an impressive swirling vortex of colored flagging tape titled Rewritten by machine on new technology by LA artist Megan Geckler. I’ve long been a fan of Geckler’s site-specific tape installations that transform the interiors of art museums, retail spaces, and even shipping containers into densely layered planes of occasionally vertigo-inducing line and color. Though I haven’t seen this particular piece in person, it’s fascinating to see how she’s layered colors from red to white creating the illusion that not only is the piece in motion, but that it almost seems to glow from within. Watch the video above to see the installation come together, and if you’re in the Lancaster, California area you have until March 10th, 2013 to check this piece out. All imagery courtesy the artist. If you liked this, don’t miss the thread works of Gabriel Dawe.
U.S.A. (burnt/unburnt) is a 2011 installation by Paris-based artist Claire Fontaine (previously) constructed from thousands of green matches that were inserted into a wall at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art as part art of “Evidence of Bricks” at the 2011 Time-Based Art Festival. Fontaine has made somewhat of a name for herself with her match installations and flaming geography, most recently completing a similar U.S.A. map at Queens Nails Gallery in San Francisco. Unlike the installation in Portland above, the Queens Nails artwork was actually set on fire, and while it may not have gone exactly as intended, the final post-flame artwork is impressive nonetheless. Photographs above for PICA by Dan Kvitka.
Update: Hyperallergic has the scoop in the latest US Map fire.
Measuring just 4 x 4 x 8 meters this small, windowless room might normally be considered a claustrophobic nightmare if it were’t lined from floor to ceiling with dozens of mirrors creating a reflective universe that seems to stretch into infinity. Titled “The Phoenix is closer than it appears,” the room was constructed by artist Thilo Frank at the Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg, Denmark. The Matrix-like space also features a swing that allows visitors an opportunity to view hundreds of cloned reflections swinging at all possible angles. I can think of quite a few illicit substances that should probably not be consumed before entering this room. (via designboom, myedol)
Ten years ago Chicago artist and designer Matthew Hoffman decided to print a batch of 100 stickers that read simply “You Are Beautiful” which he gave to friends and colleagues who found the phrase to be inspiring, hopeful, and infectious. Requests for the stickers began to trickle in so Hoffman started selling them in small batches online at You-Are-Beautiful.com. Demand quickly began to swell, so much so that he’s now printed over 500,000 of them. Soon the stickers were accompanied by numerous public art installations in Chicago and eventually the message began appearing around the world on fences, street overpasses, and sidewalks. To celebrate 10 years of ‘You Are Beautiful’ Matt is putting together a book with help from Kickstarter that documents the evolution of the project including photography, stories, and tons of really awesome rewards including his hand-cut wood signs and of course tons of stickers. Join me in helping Matt get this thing off the ground, there’s just three days left.
Update: You Are Beautiful has also partnered with Threadless for a t-shirt design contest.
Using hundreds of second-hand shirts Finnish environmental artist Kaarina Kaikkonen creates site-specific installations suspended above roadways or inside large warehouse spaces. Her most recent work Are We Still Going On? (top images), was conceived at Collezione Maramotti, a private collection of contemporary art in Reggio Emilia, Italy, and involves hundreds of children’s shirts hung in rows to resemble the interior hull of a giant ship. The shirts are organized by color on each side of the skeletal boat to represent a sort of symbolic dialogue about gender. You can learn more over on Art Texts Pics and see a brief video of the piece here. (via global art news)
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© 2010-2013 Christopher Jobson, all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. I try my best to attribute images, videos, and quotes to their creators and original sources. If you see something on Colossal that's misattributed or you would like removed, please contact me. The Colossal logo and name Colossal are the trademarks of Christopher Jobson.
