Art

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Art

Light Sculptures by Makoto Tojiki

The Man with No Shadow, 2009

The Horse with No Shadow, 2010

The Blue Bird 2009

Japanese artist Makoto Tojiki works primarily with light, exploring its use in installations, figurative sculptures, as well as kinetic pieces. His No Shadow works shown above are among my favorite, using long strands of lights to create representations of people and animals. See much more over in his gallery.

Art

A Condemned House Explodes Onto the Streets of Austin

A few days ago I happened upon a rather unique art project called Last New Year in the Austin American Statesman, showing photos of a dilapidated home recently transformed with a number of installations by a small arts collective called Ink Tank. The premise for the project was fascinating: the ensemble imagined a fictional group of people living in the home who would react to the prophesied end-of-times 2012 date. One of my favorite pieces from the show is a giant installation called The Purge by artist Chris Whiteburch who decided to imagine how the house itself would confront the impending doom. The result is a structure purging its contents, all manner of debris and structural material shooting violently through a window into a giant wooden splash.

One of the most fascinating things about this project to me was its similarity to Inversion House, another modified house installation created by sculptors Dan Havel and Dean Ruck in 2005, roughly 150 miles east in Houston. The resemblance is uncanny in that they are essentially exact opposites. Via phone Whiteburch says the similarity is purely coincidental and that he wasn’t even aware of Inversion House until somebody mentioned it after seeing his work. Photos courtesy Julie and Adam Schreiber.

 

Art

Snow Drawings at Rabbit Ears Pass by Sonja Hinrichsen

Step by step this massive snow drawing was trampled into freshly fallen snow by artist Sonja Hinrichsen with the help of 5 volunteers last month at Rabbit Ears Pass in Colorado. I love that a piece so expansive and yet so temporary can be created with a few pairs of well choreographed snow boots. If you like this, also check out the beach drawings of Jim Denevan. The photos above are by Cedar Beauregard and you can see many more here. (via reddit)

Update: It turns out Hinrichsen completed another piece just a week later. Check out the video below.

Update: Want even more snow drawing madness? Don’t miss the work of Simon Beck.

Art

Street Art by Sam3

Street Art Utopia just posted an enormous collection of work by street artist Sam3 spanning the last few years but includes a number of pieces I’d never seen before. If you like what you see, also check out his blog and maybe pickup some stuff in his shop. (via street art utopia)

Update: He also made this fun stop motion video.

Art

Do Ho Suh’s ‘Cause & Effect’: A Vortex of Little Orange Men

This giant tornado of piggybacked men is an installation by Korean artist Do Ho Suh that is currently on display at Western Washington University (photographs above depict it in alternate configurations). Via Western:

“‘Cause & Effect’ evokes a vicious tornado. This vast ceiling installation is a composition of densely hung strands that anchor thousands of figures clad in colors resembling a Doppler reading stacked atop one another,” said Do Ho Suh, adding that the artwork is a “physical realization of existence, suggesting strength in the presence of numerous individuals. The work is an attempt to decipher the boundaries between a single identity and a larger group, and how the two conditions coexist.”

Suh has been all over the news lately with his recent Fallen Star Lands installation in San Diego, and his Floor piece in Singapore similarly depicting the might of many thousands of tiny men. See many more views of this piece and other works here. (via the stranger, korea.net, herry lawford)

Update: I received clarification from WWU, Cause & Effect is still being installed and will not be on view until June of this year.

Art

Pinned Skin Collages by David Adey

Using carefully cut fragments of printed skin from the photographs of celebrities in popular magazines, artist David Adey creates elaborate, pinned collages reminiscent of the most complex entomological displays. In some instances he reconstructs the original photos using component pieces cut into myriad geometric shapes and symbols, each placed perfectly on the canvas with a single pin. Other times he creates giant whirling textures as with his piece Swarm, a process that can take up to 200-300 hours. The patience required for all of this simply boggles the mind. Adey currently has a solo show at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. (via lustik)