Pantone colors of human flesh
Artist Angelica Dass pairs photographs of people with the Pantone colors of their skin colors.
More of the project can be found on her Tumblr. (via designboom)
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kottke.org posts about art
Edward Burtynsky has a drone
In an interview with Nicola Twilley and Geoff Manaugh, photographer Edward Burtynsky talks about his use of film and drones, his current big project photographing water, and the challenges of finding ways to photograph the ubiquitous.
I’d say, actually, that I’ve been careful not to frame the work in an activist or political kind of way. That would be too restrictive in terms of how the work can be used in society and how it can be interpreted. I see the work as being a bit like a Rorschach test. If you see an oil field and you see industrial heroism, then perhaps you’re some kind of entrepreneur in the oil business and you’re thinking, “That’s great! That’s money being made there!” But, if you’re somebody from Greenpeace or whatever, you’re going to see it very differently. Humans can really reveal themselves through what they choose to see as the most important or meaningful detail in an image.
Burtynsky is a favorite around these parts.
Pineapple under OC
This story involve: ninjas, Orange County, and SpongeBob SquarePants. Depending on who you ask, artist Todd White, lead character designer of SpongeBob SquarePants, either hired a gang of ninjas to hold hostage a gallery owner for several hours while they stole all his work from the gallery or sent his manager, his lawyer, and an off duty LAPD officer to take his art back from a gallery owner who fraudulently reproduced and signed his work.
Claiming that she had been assaulted and imprisoned, Howell told the cops that she only agreed to be recorded by the men because she was scared. “She was extremely afraid for her life,” the officer noted. Terrified for her safety, according to the report she gave the police, she told Eddy and the others what they wanted to hear and signed the settlement only because she had been coerced. She suspected that the caper was designed to eliminate her from White’s life and allow him — and Lavoie, who now worked as White’s office manager — to take over her lucrative gallery themselves. Later that month, she filed a lawsuit against White seeking $7.5 million for physical and emotional trauma. The settlement she had signed that night had no merit as far as she was concerned, and she would continue her business at the Hyatt as normal.
And to round out the art theft beat, a Salvador Dali drawing was stolen out of a NYC gallery in broad daylight last week.
The man who stole a drawing by the Surrealist painter Salvador Dalí on Tuesday wore only the most basic of disguises: that of an everyday gallery visitor, walking past the Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst works on display. And he brought only the most basic of tools for his heist: a black shopping bag.
What a wascally wabbit.
Update:
The drawing mentioned above has been returned.
Cool Anatomical Sculptures of Lego People
Artist Jason Freeny is making these neat anatomical sculptures of Lego people.
You can see more of his work in progress on his Facebook page. Reminds me of Michael Paulus’ work. (via colossal)
The watercolor version of Blade Runner
Swedish artist Anders Ramsell has recreated about twelve minutes of Blade Runner using 3285 different watercolor paintings. Wow.
See also Stamen’s watercolor maps. (via ★thefoxisblack)
Extreme wind videos
Turns out that video of people in front of really powerful fans is better than just photos.
(via laughing squid)
Amazing book sculptures
I’ve seen a lot of art and sculpture made out of books but the detail and texture of these sculptures by Guy Laramee really sets them apart.
(via colossal)
More living still lifes from Alexa Meade
Just got a note from Alexa Meade, whose work I featured on kottke.org two years ago. Since then, she’s been around the world working on her art; she’ll soon be in DC for an event at the National Portrait Gallery. I thought it would be fun to circle back and look at some of her work from the past two years.
Keep in mind that these are photographs of real people painted to look like paintings. In some ways, it’s more like sculpture than painting. This is Meade standing next to one of her subjects/objects:
You can see more of her work on her site or at Flickr.
Drawings of the LHC in the style of Leonardo da Vinci
Dr. Sergio Cittolin has worked at CERN for the past 30 years as a research physicist. He has also made several drawings of the Large Hadron Collider in the style of Leonardo da Vinci.
Symmetry magazine profiled Cittolin a few years ago.
As a naturalist, da Vinci probed, prodded, and tested his way to a deeper understanding of how organisms work and why, often dissecting his object of study with this aim. “I thought, why not present the idea of data analysis to the world within the naturalist world of Leonardo?” Cittolin says. In the drawing below, the CMS detector is the organism to be opened; the particles passing through it and the tracks they leave behind are organs exposed for further investigation.
Cittolin brings a sense of humor to his work. For example, after betting CMS colleague Ariella Cattai that he could produce a quality drawing for the cover of the CMS tracker technical proposal by a given deadline, he included in the drawing a secret message in mirror-image writing-which was also a favorite of da Vinci’s. The message jokingly demanded a particular reward for his hard work. The completed picture was delivered on time and within a few hours Cattai cleverly spotted and deciphered the message. She promptly presented him with the requested bottle of wine.
(via ★johnpavlus)
Face Flapping Photography
Tadao Cern sets people up in front of powerful fans and takes their pictures. Instant fun house:
Many more of Cern’s photos are available on Facebook. (via colossal)
When life gives you graffiti, make money
Last week, graffiti “artist” Kidult painted the word ART in pink paint all over the Marc Jacobs store in Soho. The store’s staff cleaned it up, but not before snapping a photo of it and dubbing it Art by Art Jacobs. And then, in an awesome twist, Marc Jacobs put the photo on a tshirt and offered it for sale: $689 or $9 less if you want it signed by the “artist”. The Observer’s Foster Kamer has the story.
Jacobs, in this situation, has made one hell of a commentary about the absurd commoditization that some street art has yielded, and how easily ostensibly subversive art can actually be subverted, facile as it so often is, and it may be the best take on the matter since Exit Through The Gift Shop.
I’m going to pay for those quotation marks with lots of email and tweets, aren’t I?
Update: Kidult has answered back with a tshirt of his own that pictures the “artist” tagging the store. $10.
Puffin Clouds
Not sure if these are straight photos or digital composites or whatever, but I like the images from Paul Octavious’ Puffin Clouds series.
(via @itscolossal)
Matthew Cusick’s map collages
I love love love these collages made up of mappy bits from Matthew Cusick.
(thx, mouser)
Monet’s Ultraviolet Vision
In a review of the Color Uncovered iPad app, Carl Zimmer highlights something I hadn’t heard before: Claude Monet could see in ultraviolet.
Late in his life, Claude Monet developed cataracts. As his lenses degraded, they blocked parts of the visible spectrum, and the colors he perceived grew muddy. Monet’s cataracts left him struggling to paint; he complained to friends that he felt as if he saw everything in a fog. After years of failed treatments, he agreed at age 82 to have the lens of his left eye completely removed. Light could now stream through the opening unimpeded. Monet could now see familiar colors again. And he could also see colors he had never seen before. Monet began to see — and to paint — in ultraviolet.
The condition is called aphakia.
American girls pose with their American Girl dolls
Ilona Szwarc made a series of portraits of American girls with their American Girl dolls.
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