The French Impressionists disdained laborious academic sketches and tastefully muted paintings in favor of stunning colors and textures that conveyed the immediacy of life pulsating around them. Yet the breakthroughs of Monet, Pissarro, Renoir and others would not have been possible if it hadn’t been for an ingenious but little-known American portrait painter, John G. Rand.
Like many artists, Rand, a Charleston native living in London in 1841, struggled to keep his oil paints from drying out before he could use them. At the time, the best paint storage was a pig’s bladder sealed with string; an artist would prick the bladder with a tack to get at the paint. But there was no way to completely plug the hole afterward. And bladders didn’t travel well, frequently bursting open.
Excerpt from an article written by Perry Hurt at The Smithsonian. Continue HERE
The worlds of architecture and scientific illustration collided when Macoto Murayama was studying at Miyagi University in Japan. The two have a great deal in common, as far as the artist’s eye could see; both architectural plans and scientific illustrations are, as he puts it, “explanatory figures” with meticulous attention paid to detail. “An image of a thing presented with massive and various information is not just visually beautiful, it is also possible to catch an elaborate operation involved in the process of construction of this thing,” Murayama once said in an interview.
“You know, this explains a lot. Because all my life, I’ve had this unaccountable feeling in my bones that something sinister was happening in the universe and that no one would tell me what it was.” Arthur Dent.
Comic artist Matteo Farinella will collaborate with neuroscientist Dr. Hana Ros of University College London to create Neurocomic.
Neurocomic will be a graphic novel that takes the reader on an exciting and visually captivating adventure through the brain, populated by quirky creatures and famous neuroscientists. Giant squid, talking sea slugs, mysterious trap doors, submarines, parachutes and underwater battles transport the reader on a fantasy journey that fascinates and helps them to understand how the brain works.
Neuroscience is receiving increasing public attention, as our society faces the complex problems of ageing diseases and mental disorders.
The medium of comics has repeatedly proved incredibly efficient as education material, for its clear yet informal approach. The authors aim to combine the two, to create a visually captivating adventure that shows how cells use electricity to communicate, how drugs work, and what happens during brain disorders. The graphic novel will be released in the UK in 2013, together with a short documentary by director Richard Wyllie, who is following the process of collaboration behind the book, in order to explore the interaction between science and drawing. The project is fully supported by a Wellcome Trust People Award.
Maps are ideally supposed to be objective depictions of reality, but they can also be used as an instrument of propaganda, portraying the world not as it is but as it is imagined by the cartographer. A recent post on the Russian historical website includes a collection of such maps , referred to as “symbolic maps”. Like the farcical stereotype maps discussed in an earlier GeoNote, these maps—often labeled “comical”, “satirical”, or “humorous”—can express rather negative and sometimes even belligerent views towards other countries; unsurprisingly, such maps grew in popularity during World War I (see map produced in 1915, on the left). They were, however, fashionable throughout the late 19th and early 20th century, when maps of this genre were produced in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Russian, and Japanese.
18 years old Mads Madsen retouches historical photos (sepia and b&w.) Until now he has chosen mostly well known male figures in politics, literature, humanities, and entertainment.
Looking forward to find an expanded palette soon, both in gender and color. See More HERE
Benjamin Betts’ Geometrical Psychology, from 1887, contains a sequence of delicately toned geometric figures intended to represent no less than ‘the evolution of human consciousness from the animal, zero, or starting point, through to the culmination of human possibilities – the transcendental’. Originally educated as an architect, Bett’s resolved to to end his career determined to visualize the internal through his idiosyncratic topological models.
OWEN SCHUH: “Through research and experimentation I choose mathematical functions that model the interactions and structure of living systems. Cellular Automata, circle packing, fractals and other topics in discrete mathematics form the basis of my work. These functions bear the structure of life, but operate in the parallel world of the mind: a world of simulacra inhabited by numbers and abstract relationships. The mathematical formula is a virus that depends on a host to carry out its peculiar kind of life until it terminates or the medium or the artist is exhausted. In the end the painting is really only the physical trace of this activity – a shell left behind on the beach.”
In recent years the world has borne witness to numerous confrontations, many of them violent, between protesters and authorities at pivotal gatherings of the world’s political and economic leaders. While police and the media are quick to paint participants as anarchistic thugs, accurate accounts of their ubsequent treatment at the hands of authorities often go untold — as well as the myriad stories of corporate and government corruption, greed, exploitation, and abuse of power that inspired such protests in the first place. In this startling, politically astute graphic novel, Gord Hill (The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book) documents the history of capitalism as well as anti-capitalist and anti-globalization movements around the world, from the 1999 Battle of Seattle against the World Trade Organization to the Toronto G20 summit in 2010. The dramatic accounts trace the global origins of public protests against those in power, then depict recent events based on eyewitness testimony; they go far to contradict the myths of violence perpetrated by authorities, and instead paint a vivid and historically accurate picture of activists who bring the crimes of governments and multinationals to the world’s attention.
As the Occupy movements around the world unfold, The Anti-Capitalist Resistance Comic Book is a deft, eye-opening look at the new class warfare, and those brave enough to wage the battle.
A powerful and historically accurate graphic portrayal of Indigenous peoples’ resistance to the European colonization of the Americas, beginning with the Spanish invasion under Christopher Columbus and ending with the Six Nations land reclamation in Ontario in 2006. Gord Hill spent two years unearthing images and researching historical information to create The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book, which presents the story of Aboriginal resistance in a far-reaching format.
Other events depicted include the 1680 Pueblo Revolt in New Mexico; the Inca insurgency in Peru from the 1500s to the 1780s; Pontiac and the 1763 Rebellion and Royal Proclamation; Geronimo and the 1860s Seminole Wars; Crazy Horse and the 1877 War on the Plains; the rise of the American Indian Movement in the 1960s; 1973′s Wounded Knee; the Mohawk Oka Crisis in Quebec in 1990; and the 1995 Aazhoodena/Stoney Point resistance.
With strong, plain language and evocative illustrations, The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book documents the fighting spirit and ongoing resistance of Indigenous peoples through five hundred years of genocide, massacres, torture, rape, displacement, and assimilation: a necessary antidote to the conventional history of the Americas. Includes an introduction by activist Ward Churchill, leader of the American Indian Movement in Colorado and a prolific writer on Indigenous resistance issues.
Gord Hill: Gord Hill is a member of the Kwakwaka’wakw nation in British Columbia. He has been active in Indigenous resistance, anti-colonial, and anti-capitalist movements since 1990. He is also the author of The 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance, a slim volume of history published by PM Press (and distributed by AK Press) in 2009 that is a companion to the graphic novel.
Ward Churchill: Ward Churchill is a writer, political activist, and co-director of the American Indian Movement of Colorado. He is the author of numerous books on political and Indigenous peoples’ resistance, including On the Justice of Roosting Chickens, Struggle for the Land, and Acts of Rebellion.
Danny Quirk on his Resumolio: “Being a witty individual, knowledgeable in the sciences and a talented artist, I wanted to make something that showed the level of work I was capable of with a conceptual twist. I wanted to make something that would catch the eye, and leave the viewer impressed. In the past, it seems that resumes put an artist at a disadvantage. All their color was to be deduced to black and white, 12 point font, lacking the one thing that they were trying to show—their artwork. SO, having made a bunch of pieces for Dr. Frank Scali’s manuscripts, thought it could be kind of cool to make a resume based off a medical textbook, that would also show off the portfolio, thus giving rise to the ‘Resumolio’ . All the images used in this are hand made, and done in watercolor. The type was laid on in Photoshop.”
“Clark is adept at taking the theoretical concepts of modernism and minimalism and reapplying them to conditions that are not ideal. With a laboratory full of objects culled from thrift stores he sets about reconsidering modernist painting and minimalist sculpture. While Jared’s use of rescued objects may liken him to those artists classified as making found-art, it is his affinity for the flatness of painting that imbues his work with a sense of newness. Jared’s sense of surface and texture serves to pull these pieces together, flattening and overriding their natural objectness in favor a privileged plane, a new painted image.
Given the extent of Jared’s materials it is easy to first consider his work a series of unrelated arrangements, a sprawling mess of objects. Certainly his choice of materials, which for the moment includes: cutting boards, luggage, soap, craft paintings, ceramic figurines, map pins, painted rocks, and Styrofoam, are chosen for the express purpose of challenging his connections to painting as associated with abstraction and modernism. Often with minimal intervention Jared succeeds in addressing major considerations of abstract painting, especially mark making and color. However I find his engagement with format and the consideration of the artist’s hand his greatest concerns. How these objects find themselves arranged is strictly through Jared’s manipulation. Yet it is the prompt of their form, either through color, scale, or character, that informs Jared as to what he is to make of them, creating an odd relationship between artist and object, disguising who exactly manipulates who.”
Excerpt from a text written by Andrew Kozlowski, 2011 at Jared Clark’s website
Eye-drawings, «Augenzeichnungen», are drawings done directly with the eyes, without the slightest interference of the hands – the organ of perception being turned into the organ of expression. By means of technical aids (infrared-, video-, and computer- techniques) human eye movements are traced and digitized during the visual process of looking at something, so as to be able to do an ink-jet print out of these movements eventually. The body of works called Eye-drawings not only investigates the process of looking at everyday objects in the form of photographs or real three dimensional items, but primarily circles around issues of research and the visualization of abstract motives and processes e.g., time, reading, writing, drawing, light, and afterimage, culminating in the denial of the gaze: nothingness – the invisible is made visible by means of a trace.
The most despairing image in Chris Ware’s magnificent new graphic novel, “Building Stories” — and there are plenty of candidates — depicts a dumpy middle-aged couple, naked in their bedroom. She’s just dropped her clothes to the floor; he’s lying on the bed, oblivious to her, his face and chest illuminated by the iPad propped on his belly.
You will never be able to read “Building Stories” on a digital tablet, by design. It is a physical object, printed on wood pulp, darn it. It’s a big, sturdy box, containing 14 different “easily misplaced elements” — a hard-bound volume or two, pamphlets and leaflets of various dimensions, a monstrously huge tabloid à la century-old Sunday newspaper comics sections and a folded board of the sort that might once have come with a fancy game. In which order should one read them? Whatever, Ware shrugs, uncharacteristically relinquishing his customary absolute control. In the world of “Building Stories,” linearity leads only to decay and death.
Excerpt from an article written by DOUGLAS WOLK, New Yorker. Continue HERE
Gallery 2 presents Dongi Lee’s solo show Garden of Uncertainty. Lee has spearheaded pop art in Korea and is well known for the character, Atomaus. The exhibition brings 13 paintings he produced from 2007 up to the present together, focusing on showcasing the broad spectrum of his world through diverse pieces we have never met under the same roof.
Mixture of seemingly inharmonious elements
Lee has attempted to combine the medium of acrylic painting with diverse subject matter and expressive methods. He created the Atomaus character through the combination of two celebrity cartoon characters, Atom (Astro Boy) and Mickey Mouse. Since 1993 when Lee first conceived Atomaus, he had no intention of lending any identity to the character. Likewise, he would not give any identity to this exhibition. In the show jolly, familiar works like Atomaus Eating Noodles and Flower Garden are harmonious with pieces that address profound, gloomy themes such as death and violence. His pieces on display vary in medium: animation images, SF images, and abstract images. In the Double Vision series produced in 2008, Lee fused heterogeneous genres into one scene.
Diverse references of K-drama, K-pop, art history, and philosophy
His work refers to pre-existing images rather than creating ones. Lee referred to Robert Morris’ conceptual work for I-Box; appropriated Caravaggio’s painting for A with the Head of A; and reinterpreted Freud’s portraits and religious themes. Works addressing his recent concern for K-Pop, or the Korean wave (Hanryu, the increase in popularity of South Korean entertainment and popular culture) is dominant. (In the art scene the term K-Pop is used to refer to different meanings, pop art that was pervasive since the late 1990s in Korea.) One example is a work that portrays Super Junior, an idol group. Lee took the motif of a Woman with a Mobile Phone from the image repetitively appearing in Korean dramas. He views drama characters perfectly manipulated as imaginary images similar to animation and game characters. Lee points out that contemporary people gradually become accustomed and desire to identify themselves with such images. These images have ambivalent features, sublimity and abstractness despite their superficial existence.
Garden of Uncertainty
Through this show we can review Lee’s art world and his view of art as a whole. Exploiting the Oriental concept of the garden, the artist denotes that the show is to present a middle position between his world and the external world, which is the state that is neither completely his nor others.
Have you ever tried to paint the Styrofoam balls in a model solar system, only to have them disintegrate in front of your eyes? Well, I learned the hard way, that Petroleum based paint products will dissolve Styrofoam. But student artist Takashi Masubuchi used these paints to his advantage to create his senior thesis exhibition project. To create “drip,” Masabuchi climbed up onto a gigantic cube of Styrofoam, slowly and carefully dispensing drips of black paint onto the surface. The acidic paint ate away at the Styrofoam, creating organic forms that mimic the process of decomposition.
The project is about dying 35 pigeon in the city of Copenhagen A «pigeon apparatus» was build with this purpose. The machine works as a bird trap with a conveyor belt mechanism, ones inside the machine the pigeon get automatically airbrushed in different colors. The machine was installed for a week on a roof in Copenhagen. Text by JULIAN CHARRIÈRE. See +++ HERE
Director/DP Noah David Smith recently teamed up with humble and Publicis to shoot a touching film for UBS featuring artist, Stephen Wiltshire. After spending the early years of his life as a mute Stephen found his voice through drawing. Later diagnosed with autism, drawing began to be the way he communicated with the world. At age nine he began to speak and his art continued to flourish.
Stephen Wiltshire has the amazing talent of drawing city skylines from memory. Having spent only a few hours in a helicopter flying from Brooklyn to the tip of Manhattan, he memorized the city skyline and headed back to a studio to begin his drawing. Stephen then spent the next 3 days sketching the skyline. The panoramic drawing will be featured on a billboard that will be displayed at JFK airport terminal.
An absurd comedy that explores the mind of one of the 20th century’s most controversial painters.
The Francis Bacon Opera chronicles an interview between Francis Bacon and Melvyn Bragg, as seen on an episode of the South Bank Show in 1986. Explosive opinions blend with tenderness and wit throughout the course of the conversation, as Bacon and Bragg’s inhibitions are steadily diluted by alcohol. Touching on topics ranging from art, addiction, sexuality and death, composer Stephen Crowe has used the frank and inflammatory interview word-for-word as the opera’s libretto, underpinned by a score that is as spontaneous and imaginative as his subject’s brushstrokes.
This work turns what was a discussion about art back into a work of art in its own right, fusing opera with popular culture, television and art history.
Palazzi di Parole is a project by Nicolo Quirico. The works are medium to large size, the size is determined by the structure of the building photographed, which is printed directly to pigment technology, a collage of pages from antique books. The result is a print-rich layers of matter and the result is always different. The books are multilingual, so why are our cities, multiethnic and multicultural, and are selected from those published during the lifetime of the building. The first works are dated 2010, there are pictures of Milan, Como, Lugano, Paris, Marseille, Barcelona, New Delhi … the project is evolving.
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