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Art

Floating Worlds Drift By in Murals by Cinta Vidal

In Hong Kong. All images © Cinta Vidal, shared with permission

For Cinta Vidal, everything depends on how you look at it. The Barcelona-based artist is known for her gravity-defying projects that manipulate architecture and household objects to create inverted environments dissimilar to daily life. Like her smaller-scale inverted works, Vidal’s murals are concerned with human subjectivity and feature both peculiarly arranged architecture and objects like books, chairs, and even a canoe floating through the air. They cover walls throughout Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and Barcelona, among other cities around the world.

Whether it be a young girl seated on an oversized globe or a man peering over a balcony that’s tipped at a 90 degree angle, the works consider how perspectives are informed by a subject’s position.

Everyone has their own view on the world, and my work is my way of expressing this idea: it’s impossible to view something from every perspective at the same time. There’s always a choice, a perception. In my work there also lies a desire to take things out of context, releasing them into the air and, by doing so, giving them new value.

The artist tells Colossal that once she chooses a location to paint a mural, she studies the areas nearby. Vidal intends each project to become part of the existing environment, often prompting her utilize the color already on the building’s surface as her background. “Paint(ing) a mural is about interact(ing) with the wall and everything that surrounds it,” she writes. To get the latest on the artist’s creations, follow her on Instagram.

International University Barcelona.

“Refuge”

At the Honolulu Museum of Art

At a public library in Cardedeu

“Floating Napa” in Napa Valley, California

In Calgary

“Backstage” in Long Beach

“Viewpoints” for Thinkspace in Los Angeles

Design

Giant Seesaws Transform New York City’s Garment District into Light-Filled Urban Playground

All images © Alexandre Ayer/Diversity Pictures LLC, shared with permission

New York City’s Garment District recently received a dose of cold-weather fun with Impluse, an interactive installation of 12 oversize seesaws that glow and emit sound when someone hops on one end. Originally shown at the Place Des Festivals in Montreal in 2016 before traveling to cities like Chicago, Boston, Scottsdale, the installation allows users to produce their own light and sound shows that transform the city’s dreary January streets. The seesaws range from 16 to 24 feet and contain LED lights that vary in intensity and speakers that play random musical sequences.

Designed by Lateral Office and CS Design, Impulse encourages people to come together in a “public space all year round, both summer and winter months, by engaging ideas of urban play,” the creators said in a statement. “Inspired by the iconic cover of the Joy Division album ‘Unknown Pleasures,’ as well as Steve Reich’s serial, minimal music, which plays with repetition, rhythm and syncopation, Impulse project explores how architecture can visualize sound.” You can be part of the communal display by visiting the installation, which is on Broadway until January 31, or if you’re not in the city, by checking out the Garment District on Instagram.

Art

Color-Blocked Animals and Geometric Shapes Transform Neglected Home in Installation by Okuda San Miguel

All images © Justkids, shared with permission

Spanish street artist Okuda San Miguel is bringing vibrancy once again to a formerly untended area of Fort Smith, Arkansas. His recent project, “The Rainbow Embassy,” was curated by global creative house Justkids for the Unexpected, an effort to revitalize dilapidated areas in Arkansas through a series of immersive arts initiatives. For the installation, Okuda painted a neglected house that occupied a lot adjacent to Darby Junior High School with a series of multi-colored geometric shapes and lines. The structure even has two faces resembling animals painted on its sides.

“This project gave me the possibility to expand on my previous work, adding in more architectonic dimension and completing my vision of mythical animals,” Okuda says. He wants his work to bring “a touch of imagination and play into the daily lives of the neighboring community and students and Darby Junior High, as they will get to enjoy the installation and watch as it evolves through the seasons.”

Okuda is known for his metamorphic projects, including his work on churches in Morocco and Spain and on a 19th-century French castle. If you’re in Fort Smith, head downtown to check out the permanent installation. Otherwise, find more of the artist’s vibrant transformations on Instagram.

Art

New Book Collects ROA’s Black-and-White Creatures in Photographs from Around the World

All photographs © ROA, shared with permission. Atlanta, Georgia, United States

Those unable to experience the black-and-white murals of Belgian artist ROA (previously) in person can admire photographs of his works in the recently published Codex. Released by Lannoo Publishers, the 352-page book contains four chapters centered on Eurasia, Africa, America, and Oceania, regions where ROA’s depictions of local animals blanket building walls. The photographs portray a snake wound around itself, six different species perched on vertical ledges, and an alligator on its back with its tail scaling a fire escape.

ROA works directly on the building, foregoing sketches and projections, and uses the architecture to inform the ways he paints birds, rodents, and other native creatures. Captivated by anatomy, the artist attempts to animate his paintings, giving energy and life to species often disregarded by humans. “Exploration of nature, more specifically of the animal world, can lead to increased empathy,” he says. “It teaches you something substantial about how one should live a good life.” The monochromatic murals’ scale often makes animals larger than their real-life bodies, securing and emboldening their monumental presence.

Codex, which is available now, also incorporates writing from RJ Rushmore, Lucy R. Lippard, Johan Braeckman, Gwenny Cooman, Robert R. Williams, and Kathy De Nève.

Johannesburg, South Africa

Puerto Rico

Vardø, Norway

São Paulo, Brazil

Perth, Australia

Las Vegas, Nevada, United States

Art

8th Annual Light Festival Illuminates Amsterdam with Glowing Sculptural Installations

“Butterfly Effect” by Masamichi Shimada. All photographs, unless noted, © Janus van den Eijnden

This year’s Amsterdam Light Festival, running November 28, 2019, to January 19, 2020, lights up the European city with illuminated art installations. The festival, now in its eighth year, attracts tourists and engages locals at a time when the city is cloaked in darkness for about sixteen hours each day. Visitors to the Light Festival use a phone app to guide themselves through Amsterdam’s city center, perusing twenty light works by artists from around the world. This year’s show theme was “DISRUPT!” and artists reflected the concept in pieces that ruminate on climate change, national history, technology, and more. See some of our favorites here, by Masamichi Shimada, UxU Studio,  Sergey Kim and others. You can explore the full line-up and programming on the Amsterdam Light Festival website.

“Butterfly Effect” by Masamichi Shimada

“Neighborhood” by Sergey Kim

“Neighborhood” by Sergey Kim. Photograph courtesy of the artist

“Nacht Tekening” by Krijn de Koning 

“Big Bang” by UxU Studio

“Big Bang” by UxU Studio

“Order Disorder” by Lambert Kamps

“Order Disorder” by Lambert Kamps

“Atlantis” by Utskottet

“Surface Tension” by Tom Biddulph and Barbara Ryan

“Surface Tension” by Tom Biddulph and Barbara Ryan

Art

Towering Holographic Dinosaurs Stalk the Streets of Paris in Projections by Julien Nonnon

All photographs (c) Julien Nonnon, shared with permission

A T-Rex is inhabiting the streets of Paris. Artist Julien Nonnon has given life to extinct creatures in his latest work, “Prehistoric Safari,” by using video-mapping technology to project images of the dinosaurs in the Jardin d’Acclimatation, a long-established Parisian amusement park. Nonnon says the digital art form, which is at the intersection of photography, video, architecture and scenography, has allowed him to produce 17 3D-projections of species that occupied the Cretaceous period. A T-Rex flaunting its yellow eyes and a triceratops brandishing green horns appear at nightfall on building sides in holographic form.

The artist tells Colossal that this project is centered on pop culture and “was inspired by the adventure books of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne and Michael Crichton, as well as Steven Spielberg’s movies.” In addition to the 3D-projections, Nonnon also directed a mini film titled “Dino Escape,” which depicts a dinosaur invasion of Paris’s streets and includes an interactive quest for audience members to retrieve a T-Rex egg and bring it to present day.

The show runs through January 5. Find more of Nonnon’s work on Instagram. (via Journal du Design)

Art Design

A Traffic Jam of Sand Cars by Leandro Erlich is Blocking Miami Beach

All photographs © Greg Lotus

There’s a traffic jam on Miami Beach thanks to Leandro Erlich (previously). Erlich’s installation, titled “Order of Importance,” is an effort to put conversations surrounding climate change front and center. Commissioned by the city of Miami Beach and curated by Ximena Caminos and Brandi Reddick, the installation features 66 life-sized cars and trucks erected on the beach at Lincoln Road. Made of sand, the vehicles blend in with the surrounding beach and highlight the temporary nature of their construction. They will be allowed to deteriorate until the exhibition closes December 15.

“The climate crisis has become an objective problem that requires immediate solutions,” Erlich says. “As an artist, I am in a constant struggle to make people aware of this reality, in particular, the idea that we cannot shrink away from our responsibilities to protect the planet.”

Caminos added that the exhibit, “like an image from a contemporary Pompeii or a future relic, also alludes to our fragile position in the large universal canvas. It interacts with the climate crisis facing the world, particularly the rising sea level.”

Erlich, who resides in Buenos Aires and Montevideo, is known for combining architecture, sculpture, and theater to create surreal works that alter traditional conceptions of natural environments. “Order of Importance” is his largest installation to date. You can find more of his work on Instagram and his site.

 

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A post shared by Leandro Erlich official (@leandroerlichofficial) on Dec 4, 2019 at 7:39am PST