Jeff Koons cuteness

A lot of people said in the comments that most of my posts (and contemporary art in general) are kinda creepy. Well, I thought to bring you some cute stuff by American artist Jeff Koons. Here's a giant colored puppy, it's totally made of flowers oh my god so cute. It is part of the permanent collection of the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao (the one with that cool structure designed by Gehry).

Those are actually real flowers. It's some kind of living sculpture.
More cuteness by Koons on the next page

Jeff Koons | Guggenheim Koon's page

Jaume Plensa at YSP

If you live near Wakefield , Yorkshire (UK) you may want to go visit the Yorskhire Sculpture Park which presents some works by Spanish artist Jaume Plena. The exhibition includes a 50-metre curtain of poetry made of suspended steel letters, large illuminated sculptures in the landscape, and engraved gongs that visitors can strike to fill the gallery with sound. OK, the sculptures and all are really cool, but you can even play a damn gong!! I'd go just for that. You'll be able to visit it until 22.01.12. Click read more to see the other works (gongs included) and a video of the installation process.

Jaume Plensa | Yorkshire Scupture Park

Art, legal issues and trials (and errors)

October 21, 1926. Marcel Duchamp is on a ship heading for the USA. Along with Messieur Duchamp there are 20 sculptures made by Romanian artist Constantin Brancusi. At the time import/export laws declared that ordinary merchandise was subject to duty at 40 per cent, while art was not. When the sculptures came to customs check the custom official said: “This is not art, this is some kind of industrial item. You’ll pay the full cost.”

Bird In Space - Brancusi
“That’s not even a bird. Has no wings nor beak”

The whole thing grew up on press and media turning soon into a big, and still today famous, US court case which asked: when is a sculpture not a sculpture? The two contestants were the US government and the sculptor, Constantin Brancusi. Among the expert witnesses were Jacob Epstein and the great photographer Edward Steichen, while also drawn into the dispute were Marcel Duchamp (of course), Ezra Pound, and Henri-Pierre Roché, author of Jules et Jim. The point of the legal issue soon became the eternal question: “what is art?” Well, the trial itself lasted about two years, but in the end the court sentence was: “Yes, it’s a bird”. Marcel Duchamp received his money back.  Today Constantin Brancusi is considered one of the most important sculptors of the 20th century.

Next time you see a contemporary work of art, think twice before saying: “meh, it’s just a gimmicky”.

Brancusi | Telegraph article

Rafal Bujnowski - Negative painting

'Milena' is a painting made with the use of reverse color palette. Rafal Bujnowski, artist from Poland, realized it in 2005. The proper image should be developed by the viewer's imagination, or by taking a photograph and reversing it into negative, you can see it after the jump.

Rafal Bujnowski | Raster Gallery

Maurizio Cattelan

Pope John Paul II struck down by a meteorite:

A gigantic middle finger sticking straight up from an otherwise fingerless hand, outside of Milan's stock exchange:

Since the early 1990s, this kind of work by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan has provoked and challenged the limits of contemporary value systems through its use of irony and humor. He teases the art world without ever falling into the naive trap of thinking he can subvert a system of which he is part. Click read more the see other works by Cattelan.

Maurizio Cattelan | Interview

Jeremy Geddes

The White Cosmonaut (2009)

Jeremy Geddes | Interview | Blog

Ron Mueck - Hyperrealism

 Mask II (2001-2)

Hyperrealism is one of the most innovative and interesting contemporary movements. It is a genre of painting and sculpture resembling a high-resolution photograph. Hyperrealism is considered an advancement of Photorealism by the methods used to create the resulting paintings or sculptures. The term is primarily applied to an independent art movement and art style in the United States and Europe that has developed since the early 2000s. Ron Mueck is an Australian born and London based sculptor who reached popularity in mid 90's and he's considered one of the movement's most representative artists. You can see some photos of his sculture's making process here

Colleges and Academies of Fine Arts

I'm not really sure if arts can be taught. You can learn the history of art, the artists, the past movements, but you can't learn how to make a work of art. You can learn all the techniques and become a good painter or a good illustrator, designer or drawer, but that won't make you an artist. Of course I do realize that studying is a good start point (after all I'm an art student myself...), so I've decided to dedicate a post to the most renowned schools, colleges and academies of fine arts around the world.What you think? Is art a matter of studying or not? Can someone be an artist without ever studying it?

The Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze was founded in 1563 by Cosimo I de' Medici under the influence of Giorgio Vasari. While the Company was a kind of corporation which every working artist in Tuscan should join, the Academy was constituted only by the most eminent artistic personalities of Cosimo’s court, and had the task of supervising the whole artistic production of the medicean state. The extraordinary contribution of academics including Michelangelo Buonarroti, Francesco da Sangallo, Agnolo Bronzino, Benvenuto Cellini, Giorgio Vasari, Bartolomeo Ammannati, Giambologna, increased the prestige of this institution.

Robert Capa

 

Robert Capa (born Endre Ernő Friedmann 1913 -1954) was a Hungarian combat photographer and photojournalist; On June 6, 1944 (D-Day) he swam ashore with the second assault wave on Omaha Beach, but instead of guns and weapons he was armed with two Contax II cameras mounted with 50 mm lenses and several rolls of spare film. Thanks to him we have today one the most real and intense war reportage of all times. There are different explanations about why his photos are so blurred, the official story is that most of his photos appears out of focus because a darkroom assistant in London, when processing Capa's images, had used too much heat and the emulsions melted.  Because of that error, of the 106 photographs Capa took that day only eleven survived. Someone says (and Capa himself) that it’s a stylistic choice, since the out of focus best represents how those moments were lived by the american soldiers; That is also why he decided to call his book “Slightly Out of Focus”. Someone else explain that Robert Capa's hands were badly shaking in the excitement of the moment (something which he denied). This is one of these cases were reality mixes up with legend, and we probably won’t ever know the truth about this, but what we surely know is how important his photos are, as historical documents and as photographic and artistic works. Director Steven Spielberg used Capa's photos to depict his WWII scenario in "Saving Private Ryan". More in the next page.

Robert Capa | Magnum Photos | Slightly Out of Focus

Sepe

As well as painting in the street polish artist Sepe works for galleries. He created this beautiful paintings between 2009 and 2011. Not much of him is known except the fact that he's collaborating with Intoxicating Demons, a german organisation for management of young and talented artists worldwide. His works reminds me the expressionism of Egon Schiele, particularly those in black&white . Enjoy more of his works after the jump.

Sepe | Intoxicated Demons

The Eternal Flame of Mother Russia — t-radya

T-radya is a street artist from Russia, who made these great paintings of dead WWII russian soldiers. He placed bandages on wooden boards and ignite them to obtain this particular burned effect. They used molotov to ignite the boards...

 

via | t-radya

David Lachapelle

David Lachapelle is an american photographer, who reached popularity in the early 90’s, after he’s offered a job by Andy Warhol himself at the“Interview Magazine”.  At the end of the decade, Lachapelle was already the “It” photographer of the pop pantheon, while every pose of his photos was becoming more outrageous."I'm sure there are people who are shocked by his work, or remain uncomfortable by his work. It's loud and brassy and it's in-your-face"  director of the International Center of Photography, Willis Hartshorn, said. He has made portaits for most of the living artists like Madonna, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Elton John, Keith Richards, Christina Aguileira, Gene Simmons, Micheal Jackson (well this one not really living) and many many others. Postmodern, provocative, sensual and someone would say blasphemous, he's for sure one of the most visionary photographers living. More after the break, If you like his works you can always check his rich galery

Amon Tobin - ISAM Audio/Video live performance (2011)

On May 2011 Amon Tobin released his new album "ISAM". I really loved his last work in 2007 "Foley Room", and I awaited this new one for a long time. It's quite different from what I expected, and even if I'm still not totally convinced from this new album, I must say that the audio/video live shows he has recently done are truly amazing and breathtaking!
As I can read visuals are designed in conjunction with Blasthaus, VSquared Labs, Vita Motus Design, Leviathan and others.
Click read more to see two videos of the A/V performance and listen to the album.

BLU

Blu is an Italian street artist. His real identity is actually unknown since many some of his early works were illegal (and smaller I suppose), or made withouth permission. Astonishing!! After the break more of his works.

A deluxe version of death

When Hamlet finds Yorick’s skull, in the famous Shakespeare’s tragedy, he starts asking himself if life is worth the effort and pain, especially in consideration of the fact that everyone of us is destinated to become dust.  If Hamlet  found Damien Hirst’s skull, instead of Yorick’s, maybe his point of view would’ve been less pessimistic.

“For The Love Of God” is a human skull replica, cast in platinum and encrusted with diamonds, made by Hirst in 2007, and it’s one of the most chattered about piece of contemporary art nowadays.  It contains 32 platinum plates with 8,601 diamonds, using a rare and magnificent 52 carat pink diamond in the center, studded with 14 pear-shaped diamonds, and it has been sold for £50 million (80.93 million US$) while the true worth of the skull is estimated to be between £7 million and £10 million. In september 2007 the dailymail wrote : "Everyone in the art world knows Hirst hasn't sold the skull. It's clearly just an elaborate ruse to drum up publicity and rewrite the book value of all his other work."  Well, at least this is made with diamond, not human faeces. I spare you the details about the interpretations given for this opera, since my English (at this point you probably already noticed) is yet to be improved!

Jonathan Monk

Art Basel is an international contemporary art fair held each June in Basel, Switzerland.
Here just a few works showed in Basel this year.

Piero Manzoni - Artist's Shit (Merda d'artista, 1961)

In 1961 an Italian artist named Piero Manzoni pooped in a tin can:

And then he sold it. 
He “produced” 90 of these cans, and labeled with stickers in different languages, stating:

Artist's Shit
Contents 30 gr net
Freshly preserved
Produced and tinned
in May 1961 

Where is the art in this shit? We surely know where the shit is, but is this really art? In my opinion, the fact that a lot of people from high society and intellectual critic, since  1961, declare themselves disgusted  by this work, and keep to argue how bad and degrading this is, is enough to be considered an artistic work.

Wikipedia states  “A tin was sold for €124,000 at Sotheby's on May 23 2007; in October 2008 tin 083 was offered for sale at Sotheby's with an estimate of £50-70,000. It sold for £97,250”. People is paying that much for a can of shit? Maybe shit is not art, but having the ability to sell is surely an artistic skill.

Fumi Mini Nakamura

Erwin Olaf

Most Famous Performance Artist as Live Installation Art from Nigel Tomm on Vimeo.

The Fountain - Marcel Duchamp

Let's start with a classic one. The Fountain by Marcel Duchamp - 1917
Yea, this is actually a toilet. Upside down. A lot of people (still today) ask themselves if this is art. What you think?

And this is Levine's reinterpretation, in 1991:

I bet everyone of you would like to piss on a golden piece of contemporary art. I did it once.

Welcome to my new blog. I will post some art, design, creative stuff, from 1900 to nowadays. Hope you'll enjoy it.

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