Filthy Lurker’s sculptures walk the fine line between site specific installations, street art, and teenage gags. His website states that “his art is sparkling with humor, recklessness, and shocks you to look at the world in a new way.” What do you think? Is he merely a prankster who works on a large scale or does Mr. Lurker have something profound to say?
Global Rainbow is a large scale, spectacular outdoor laser projection created by the artist, Yvette Mattern. It consists of seven parallel beams of high specification laser light, representing the spectrum of the traditional seven colors of the rainbow, and is designed to be projected across large open sites, particularly densely populated areas. With the projection, the artist intends to encompass geographical and social diversity in its reach and symbolize hope. (via)
Using hundreds of thread spools and a clear viewing sphere, Devorah Sperber creates pixelated images of pop culture icons, famous logos, and reinterpretations of blue chip artworks. These works not only make viewers take a second look at the threaded installations but use the “wow” power of optical illusions to make us reconsider these famous icons and masterpieces from arts past.
Mia Pearlman’s site specific cut paper installations are ephemeral drawings in both two and three dimensions that blur the line between actual, illusionistic, and imagined space. Sculptural and often glowing with natural or artificial light, these imaginary weather systems appear frozen in an ambiguous moment, bursting through walls and windows, or hovering within a room.
Pearlman’s process is very intuitive, based on spontaneous decisions made in the moment. She begins by making loose line drawings in india ink on large rolls of paper. Then selected areas are cut between the lines to make a new drawing in positive and negative space on the reverse. Created on site by trial and error, a 2-3 day dance with chance and control takes place during each and every installation. Existing only for the length of the installation, the weightless world totters on the brink of being and not being, continually in flux.
Something is different lately. The Earth has shifted its axis and now everything seems to have moved to the right by a couple of inches. A dark wind blows. The birds aren’t flying south like nature normally commands them to, and you can tell the animals know something we don’t. These are Strange Daze, Beautiful/Decay’s revelation of the phenomenal and paranormal minds of artists. In a world-surreal, where every night holds a full moon, strange has become an adjective that plagues and ponders our daily existence.
Seek creative passage through the barren void in the company of this book’s featured artists, as we first find Olaf Hajek, a painter whose work holds séance to colorful spectre. Encounter Shamus Clisset, who plays host to a glimpse into his work and its otherworldly humor-macabre. Become self-aware of a hole in your head as splashes of psychedelic work by Fredrik Åkum drip onto your synthetic brain. Witness the chemical rainbow that glows around the work of Timo Vaittinen, pulsating its life and character. Uncover Hew Locke’s sculpture and its ability to pierce through joint and marrow, straight into one’s fifth eye. Examine Jeremy Dower’s visceral work, which will haunt you like a howling spirit through the realms of both the flesh and digital until finally Neil Krug, whose photography will leave you coma-bound in a visual fever.
In line with apocalyptic forebodings, celestial encounters, and unexplained experiences, Strange Daze presents an astonishing collection of artwork that is documented proof of many famous speculated phenomena. Never one to disappoint Beautiful/Decay Strange Daze is filled to the brim with works that will shake the foundations of human culture forever if released to the masses.
Also Featuring: Christine Gray, Michael Willis, Raymond Lemstra, LNY, Kira Leigh, Todd Ryan White, Jeanti, Justin Williams, Robby Day, Andrea Wan, Henry Gunderson, Berto Legendary H, Nicholas Kennedy Sitton, Ben Beshaw, and Brendan Flanagan.
Get your hands on one of the 1,500 hand numbered limited edition copies of Beautiful/Decay Strange Daze Books by clicking the links below!
Only 99 copies Book:8 will be available on the B/D Shop. Get your copy before we sell out!
Have you ever walked into a gallery or museum and wondered “How did they ever install that giant sculpture or painting?” Well WRAPIT-TAPEIT-WALKIT-PLACEIT comes to the rescue with a collection of amazing behind the scenes shots of gallery assistants and museum installers moving, assembling, and dissembling all your favorite works of art. Go through their deep archives or submit your own behind the scenes images and share what it takes to make art magic happen. (via)
Christina West’s sculptures give her permission to stare. We are told not to stare because the act is rude. It might make someone else, the one upon which our gaze is fixed, feel uncomfortable. So we steal glimpses, don’t let our eyes linger too long, pretend not to see, and are encouraged to retreat within ourselves. But the moments when I am compelled to stare, are the moments when she feels most alive. Other people are compelling subjects and objects of contemplation because we will never be in their heads as completely as we are in our own. Despite the fact that, fundamentally, people are essentially the same, this lack of direct access to interiority makes others a perpetual mystery. It cloaks every interaction in uncertainty and ambiguity. But it is exactly that mystery, uncertainty, and ambiguity that make the inquiry worth returning to. And it is such complexity of understanding that she strives to infuse into her large figurative installations. West’s sculptures do not provide answers or assertions, but embrace uncertainty through the provocation of more questions. The figures are permanently frozen mid-gesture in a moment that encourages the generation of ambiguous narratives. Stripped from the context of previous actions, the figures’ personalities, motives, intentions are malleable and unfixed in the viewers’ minds. Who they are is in a state of flux dependent on the stories viewers create.
Kyle James Dunn’s intricate patterned sculptures are created using a plasma cutter and lots of patience. The imagery revolves around the American idea of vacation and the island get away. A pervasive cultural myth that presents itself in literature, art, Hollywood film, and more, this fantasy is projected onto real places regardless of local cultures or economies. As such, its tropes–the desert isle, the Aloha shirt–exist in a fantasy realm outside of a specific time or place. They create a seductive language of artifice and leisure that is both costly and escapist to uphold.
is a printed book series and daily art blog with a focus on experimental, grotesque, and groundbreaking art.
hat methi: these pictures are very... hat methi: these pictures are very...
pepa prieto: Thank you very much ! Amir+...
easton: Genius. I do not throw that term...
Ben: Awesome and devastating….
mark: they remind me of R. Crumb drawings
Amy gee: I love the softness of this art
Sadie F: perfection.
bill: cool images, nice interview!
Kris Bazen: These are INSANE!!! Made me...
