April 5, 2010
UPDATE: Designboom has an extensive gallery of decreasingly abstract pictures.
Danish-Icelandic art star Olafur Eliasson and Chinese architect Ma Yansong have collaborated on Feelings Are Facts, a site-specific installation currently on view in the ‘Big Room’ of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing’s 798 Dashanzi Art District (astute readers will note that a photo of the atrium of the UCCA is the background of IYK).
I’ll leave the description of the project to the nice folks at UCCA:
Basing this project on a series of previous experiments with atmospheric density, Eliasson introduces condensed banks of artificially produced fog into the gallery. Hundreds of fluorescent lights are installed in the ceiling as a grid of red, green, and blue zones. By permeating the fog, these lights create colored walk-through spaces that, in Eliasson’s words, function to ‘make the volume of the space explicit’. The colored zones introduce a scale of measurement in the gallery, their varying size and organization referencing urban-planning grids. At each color boundary, two hues blend to create transitional slivers of cyan, magenta, or yellow, and so the visitors will create their own unique color spectrum when making their way through this seemingly endless space. The artists use this structural marvel to present inquiries into the nature of reality. What should be the basis of our thinking and judgement in a space where reality and illusion interconnect? As we stand amidst such accomplished phenomena, can we re-examine with greater concern our sensations and experiences of that which is around us?
–Feelings Are Facts press release
UCCA also has a bit of background info on the artists: I’m fairly well-versed in Eliasson’s oeuvre but I’m not going to pretend that I’d heard of Ma Yansong before. Another one to watch, I suppose.
Feelings Are Facts is the second time UCCA has had the pleasure to collaborate with the remarkable Ma Yansong, the first collaboration being the 2008 exhibition Christian Dior and Chinese Artists. An exceptional figure within the Chinese architectural world, Ma has managed to elude stereotypical classification and categorization. His work harbors a permanent element of surprise, capturing the viewer’s attention with an adept use of the most advanced materials and techniques to realize his bold architectural visions. His inventive architectural forms resemble organic even human-like entities, emitting undeniable life-like energy.
–About Artists, Jérôme Sans, UCCA Director
Olafur Eliasson & Ma Yansong
Feelings Are Facts
Big Room
Ullens Center for Contemporary Art
798 Art District
No.4 Jiuxianqiao Lu [map]
Chaoyang District
Beijing, China 100015
+86 (0) 10 8459 9269 / 8459 9387
Through June 20, 2010
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April 5, 2010
Matthew Picton‘s sculptures are right up my alley: he makes roadmaps into art.
DB; more at Toomey-Tourell.
Claire Burbridge & Matthew Picton
Absence and Presence
Toomey-Tourell Fine Art
49 Geary Street [map]
San Francisco, CA 94108
415 / 989-6444
Through May 1, 2010
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Connie Brown makes detailed, vintage-y (not to mention pricey) custom maps. She’s giving at talk at NYPL on April 10th. Much more info (and images) at NGS, linked below.
National Geographic Society via Boingboing.
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The Times has an interactive feature on taxi pick-ups (in Manhattan), a nice to their piece on taxi traffic and, by extension, Jonah Lehrer’s musings on commuting. Now if only there was some way to track the Cash Cab…
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April 5, 2010
*Updated on 4/7.
So I happened to be in Midtown on Saturday morning (long story short: I was trying to get to MoMA early enough to see Marina Abramović) and I decided to swing by the cube.
While I didn’t have a chance to see the iPad in person, I’ll probably swing by an Apple store some time this week to check it out. I don’t plan on getting one at this point but I’m intrigued by the device, which may or may not revolutionize computing and media consumption as we know it. If the iPad has been criticized for being some kind of hedonistic Swiss Army Knife for entertainment at the cost of productivity (citation needed?), I should think that it is rightfully billed as more of a grown-up supertoy than anything else—it is neither overgrown iPhone nor underpowered laptop; the iPad is something else entirely.
Furthermore, insofar as the iPad represents Apple’s foray into the space(s) currently occupied by netbooks, e-books, textbooks, regular books, magazines, newspapers, television, digital picture frames, portable gaming devices, board games, and (lest we forget) tablets, I think it has the potential to redefine media in new and possibly unexpected ways. The fact that it is an easy point of entry for a mass audience to own a piece of the Apple brand (/marketing machine) almost certainly belies its true significance, whatever that may be.
Of course, I suppose that anyone who is curious about said significance has already been inundated with news, reviews, photos, videos, etc.—the iPad has been broken, jailbroken, jailbait, photoshopped and photo-opped—from the likes of Engadget, Gizmodo, TUAW, et al. Love it or hate it, we’re far past the point of making jokes about its name.
For superbly-curated and less overwhelming opinions and aggregation, I recommend John Gruber’s Daring Fireball. Similarly, I still think that Dan Hill’s essay on the iPad is the best analysis of the its true significance (I buried a link to it in another post, but here it is again).
There are tons of demo (and demolition) videos already out there, but I happen to like this overview of magazine app art direction:
March 28, 2010
» Coconut Records – West Coast (3:30) – 5.2MB mp3 @ 204kbps
via DQM
Skateboard prodigy / creative polymath Mark Gonzales is holding a studio sale on Monday, featuring “Original Drawings + Skate Tees + Zines + Videos, DVDs and Much More.” I imagine it will attract the same crowd that constitutes the line outside Supreme when they drop new gear every season (the skateshop’s Soho outpost is actually just around the corner).
I wanted to appear like a dancer but not too feminine. The fencing uniform shows your body type but also means business.
–Mark Gonzales
Jocko Weyland profiled the Gonz for the New York Times a couple years back (with a further explanation of the above video). Weyland also happened to write a nice series of essays about China/Beijing for Vice.
March 18, 2010
Jack Siegel for Interview Magazine
The opening reception for Ryan McGinley buzzy solo show, “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere,” is sure to be a shitshow.
The exhibition features nearly a hundred portraits of the lithe, alternative and largely anonymous youth that seem to be McGinley’s favorite subject.
Ryan McGinley
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Team Gallery
83 Grand Street (at Greene St) [map]
New York NY 10013
March 18, 2010 – April 17, 2010
Opening Reception: Thursday, March 18, 6pm
UPDATE: Arrested Motion has photos from the opening; T Magazine has a video.
Also, gay porn star Bruce LaBruce interviews Karl Lagerfeld for Vice.
March 12, 2010
Eyebeam’s MIXER event series continues this weekend with an Olympic-themed art and design marathon. The Chelsea art + technology hub will host Benton-C Bainbridge, CHERYL, Conveyors of Misguided Hits and Misses, Double Happiness, Erik Fabian, Jeff Crouse + Aaron Meyers, NYC Resistor and Stephanie Rothenberg + Scott Kildall, as well as Tanlines, Maluca and Justine D for late-night music performances.
Full press release here.
March 11, 2010
Warsaw’s Homework is a design studio that has created amazing posters for cultural events and films. Their remarkably simple yet gorgeous style is a new interpretation of Poland’s tradition of playful visual puns in poster design. Homework’s regularly-updated blog has the latest news and work.
Homework is currently showing at London’s Kemistry, an independent gallery in Shoreditch that showcases outstanding graphic design.
Homework: Modern Polish Poster Design
Kemistry
43 Charlotte Rd [map]
London EC2A 3PD
+44 (0)20 7729 3636
March 12, 2010 – April 11, 2010
M-F: 10-6; Sa: 11-4
Guardian / DB
March 9, 2010
1.
February 25, 2010
Tam Tran, Battle Cry (detail), 2008
This is a selection of work from the 2010 Whitney Biennial, which opens today. A full slideshow can be viewed at the Whitney’s website.
Josephine Meckseper, Mall of America (video), 2009
2010 Whitney Biennial
The Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison (at E 75th St) [map]
New York NY 10021
February 25, 2010 – May 30, 2010
Edgar Cleijne & Ellen Gallagher, BETTER DIMENSION, 2010
Storm Tharp, Jodie Jill (detail), 2009
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February 19, 2010
(at least) Two openings tonight. Click images for more details.
Housebroken
Flux Factory
39-31 29th St (at 40th Ave) [map]
Queens NY 11101
On view Saturdays & Sundays through March 21, 2010
Opening Reception: Friday, February 19, 8pm-2am
Size Does Matter
curated by Shaquille O’Neal
Flag Art Foundation
545 W 25th St, 9th Fl (at 11th Ave) [map]
New York NY 10001
212 / 206-0220
February 19, 2010–May 27, 2010
Opening Reception: Friday, February 19, 6-8pm
