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We Want to Hear From You! Take Colossal’s 2022 Reader Survey

Image © Paperboyo

We’re planning our editorial coverage, exhibitions, and programming ahead of 2023, but we want to hear from you first. Help us improve Colossal by taking this brief survey. Your responses help drive decisions about our programming, marketing, and other exciting changes.

Submit your responses before September 30 and enter to win one of three $50 gift cards from the MoMA Design Store. Take the survey.

Colossal

Calling All Art Lovers! Become a Colossal Member Today and Support Independent Arts Publishing

Sharing creativity is our greatest joy, and we rely on the generous support of Colossal Members to sustain our daily operations. For as little as $5 per month, you can read Colossal and our newsletters ad-free and get access to all additional member benefits, including discounts, early access, and a members-only newsletter.

Join today and support the creative stories that matter most. We’re so glad you’re here. ❤️

Member Perks ✨

• An ad-free reading experience on Colossal and in our newsletters
• Discounts from The Sketchbook Project, The Hyperallergic Store, Knit-Wise, The Jaunt, 20×200, Create! Magazine, and the Booooooom Shop
• A members-only newsletter with sneak-peeks into upcoming events, news, and of course, plenty of giveaways
• One percent of membership fees is always allocated to students. So far this year, Colossal Members have purchased nearly $1,500 of art supplies through DonorsChoose

What’s Next for 2022 and Beyond

• Colossal Workshop Series: We’re organizing regular tutorials and workshops with some of the most exciting and engaging artists
• We’re hiring an intern! With the support of members, we’re delighted to be able to grow our team and provide a recent graduate with experience in arts publishing

Animation Colossal Design

Interview: Production Designer Liz Toonkel Describes Creating the Adorable Universe of ‘Marcel the Shell with Shoes On’

A tiny mollusk with a big personality, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is famous for quirky antics and endlessly entertaining use of human-sized objects. In a new interview supported by Colossal Members, production designer Liz Toonkel discusses building the universe the adorable character occupies in the feature-length mockumentary released this summer from A24.

All of those little details that you wouldn’t think about, when you watch it they give it an inherent truth because everything feels like it does in our real world. Same thing with the garden. Those are real plants. That’s so rare in stop motion that you have real organic materials. It’s pretty much impossible to stop-motion animate with them because they decompose. There was a lot of thought put into how to bring organic, real life to the things around Marcel.

Colossal editor-in-chief Christopher Jobson recently sat down with Toonkel to discuss building a realistic micro world within a macro setting, the challenges of blending live-action with stop-motion animation, and why the tennis ball scenes are as impressive as the internet thinks. Read the full interview here.

Art Colossal

Interview: Sho Shibuya Discusses Ritual, His Impulse Toward Minimalism, and His Love for Ubiquitous Objects

All images © Sho Shibuya, shared with permission

Since March 2020, artist and designer Sho Shibuya has fostered a ritualistic creative practice of painting the morning sunrise on the cover of The New York Times, a routine he describes in a new interview supported by Colossal Members. The daily project was born out of lockdown and the COVID-19 pandemic, although it’s evolved into a broad body of work that transcends the artist’s original intent for the pieces.

The process of flipping through the newspaper, watching the sunrise, and then painting every morning is quite meditative… But I treat the paintings the same as eating or sleeping; a vital part of my daily routine. It’s a little mission for myself, to capture the sunrise every day as a visual diary.

In this conversation, Shibuya speaks with Colossal managing editor Grace Ebert about the ongoing series and the addition of more sculptural, conceptual works that respond to politics and current events. They discuss his pared-down, measured approach to conveying complex subject matter, the fluctuating relationship between concept and visual, and his fascination with humble, everyday materials.

Colossal

Get Our Art & Culture Favorites from London and Chicago Directly to Your Inbox

Left: Felipe Pantone’s “Quick Tide” in London. Top right: Gray Malin’s photo of Anish Kapoor’s “Cloud Gate” in Chicago. Bottom right: CoExistence’s elephant herd in London

Make your weekend plans with us! Each Thursday, we send out our favorite art and culture events around Chicago and London, including exhibition openings, artist talks, and other fun happenings. We also share news about our partnerships, where to see art featured on Colossal, and words from our friends. Sign up here to get this week’s edition directly to your inbox.

If you have an event you’d like us to consider or are interested in sponsoring these newsletters, submit your idea to [email protected].

Colossal

Welcome to 2072: Send Your Artwork to the Future with The Time Capsule Project

It’s 2072. We solved world hunger, you can teleport to Mars, and we really did figure out how to make gas from compost like in Back to the Future.

We know we can’t predict what the world looks like 50 years from now, but we still wanted to find a way to show our future selves and generations to come what means to live in 2022. Along with our friends at the Brooklyn Art Library, we’re launching The Time Capsule Project, a collection of 1,000 mini sketchbooks that will be buried in St. Petersburg, Florida, until 2072. The idea is to fill pages with artworks and stories that offer a glimpse of the moment we’re all living in and preserve today’s creativity for years to come.

The Time Capsule Project sketchbooks, which were generously donated by Scout Books, are available now in the Brooklyn Art Library shop, and there will be an exhibition in the fall of this year prior to burial. Submissions are due by September 16, 2022.