Chris Jordan is a Seattle-based lawyer-cum-photographer whose latest series is definitely worth checking out.
Translating real data about consumption of objects and resources into oversized, beautiful photographs really conveys the massive quantity of waste we produce, without feeling pushy or pedantic. The messaging is simple, but the impact is strong.
Check em!
Toothpicks :: Depicts 8 million toothpicks, equal to the number of trees harvested in the US every month to make the paper for mail order catalogs.
Cell Phones :: Depicts 426,000 cell phones, equal to the number of cell phones retired in the US every day.
Prison Uniforms. :: Depicts 2.3 million folded prison uniforms, equal to the number of Americans incarcerated in 2005.
All in all a great exhibit. Check the touring schedule on his site.
Alice Wang is from Taipei, Taiwan. She recently graduated with a First Class degree from Central St. Martins College of Art and Design BA (hons) Product Design and is now studying MA Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art.
She often uses products to illustrate various human behaviours, social taboos and social trends. Her products question why people do what they do and how it will evolve over time leading onto other possible behaviours.
Alice Wang's commercial product prototypes seem found from the future, and are very clever technological thought exercises. They all demonstrate a great deal of insight into technology's relationship with human society. And while some of her projects are very much art experiments, others are prescient and very possible.
How about the audio sticks project, where she "aims to discuss how digital music will change our values towards music and explore possible future music scenarios"?
Tracey Morgan: I'm gonna make you a mixtape. Do you like Phil Collins? Alec Baldwin: I have two ears and a heart, don't I? [from the excellent show 30 Rock
Another thought-provoking, and very funny, project is her Pet Plus+ project, which is all about how people use pets as social surrogates (for boyfriends, girlfriends, children, etc.).
It's sad that I can really see this in use.
How brilliant is that leash?
She also has several other project on the go, including her latest, Nanoweapons, a scary and thought-provoking look at weaponized nanotechnology that is much too disturbing visually to post here. Or Peer Pressure, below, which is all about technology catered to social insecurities.
These headphones are multidirectional. Your music plays to your ears, and popular top 40 music plays to the outside world. Other proejcts include a phone that text-messages itself, and a printer that outputs fabricated complimentary emails about oneself for co-workers to 'accidentally' see.
This site is very cool - a live clock which tells the time with user-submitted clock photos. Continually pulling new sets of photos, and coordinating with your computer's clock, Craig Giffen's site is a very cool digital art project.
Here are some of the best from a half hour period.
7:57 - San Francisco CA 7:59 - Avon Beach, England 8:01 - Marhamchurch, UK 8:08 - Waukesha, Wisonsin 8:20 - Pleasant Hill CA 8:26 - On Clinton Street, Portland OR
And check out this awesome hometown contribution - from Maple Ridge, BC.
...and by 8:07 Fluffy was licking the electrical socket again, yearning for it all to stop
I love discovering artists I didn't know before, or, frankly were too ignorant to know about and thus attend the show they did in my city six years ago cough-cough. In this particular case, it took the madhouse that is MySpace to find this stuff.
How great is this piece in particular - done with 99 replicas of wolves, made from painted sheepskins?
I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one. Unless you mean these 99 wolf bitches up in here!
Daaaamn. There's so much commentary about 'the rat race' in here, he should just have hung up a Dilbert cartoon.
Aw shit guys, sorry we're late. I heard this group leap was going to be off the hook! Wait... what the?
Cai Guo-Qiang is a Chinese artist who has been working for decades, making a whole lot of awesome.
He does much of his work in gunpowder, which is cool for two reasons:
1. Both a symbol of man's violent tendencies, and, as one of the Four Great Inventions of Ancient China, a cultural symbol, gunpowder adds layers of meaning to his pieces.
2. EXPLOSIONS RULE!
Check this one, where an unsuspecting viewer's random step triggers an explosion in the gigantic circuit board.
This piece is called I am the Y2K bug.
Cute! He made a cloud!
Or these, part of a series called Inopportune, and executed in two seperate shows:
Inopportune: Stage One, where cars are pierced with tubes of light.
Toured in 2004. Kit from Knight Rider sent to secret underground base... just in case.
and Inopportune: Stage Two, where tigers are pierced with arrows.
Toured in 2006. Tony the Tiger also sent to secret underground base... hilarity ensues.
Not to nitpick, but it must be said: Cai Guo-Qiang's website is kind of crappy. Visually it's fine, but from a user-interaction perspective, the main nav system is pretty much blind, jumpy and impossible to navigate intelligently.
There are a couple ways around the site, thank goodness, but I constantly find myself amazed at how many sites are designed without proper thought to repeat visitors, wayfinding systems and content accessibility.
[-sound of wrestling-] "Get away you nerd!" "Never!! People need to know!!!!" [-more wrestling-] "Seriously! Urgh-Ow! [loud-THUNK-]
One thing that makes photography such an interesting medium is that it documents and captures something real. Whether the subject is found accidentally or constructed artifically (see the amazing Cindy Sherman), it happened.
So how great is it to find a photographer who is not only making beautiful images, but is also documenting something important and fascinating?
Enter Julie Dermansky, an artist across a range of media, but best by far at photography. Some of her photo sets interest me more than others, but just take a moment to enjoy my personal favourite - Natural History Museums around the World.
Clockwise from top left: Elephant Fetus - Kruger National Park's Elephant Museum In South Africa Ethiopian Hyena: Natural History Museum in Addis Ababa Giant Squid: Capetown's natural history museum Desert Landscape: Former display in Las Vegas' Natural History Museum Bird with nut in mouth: Pretoria's Transval Museum Ape: Capetown’s NH Museum
Not impressed? Well how about when she explored the storage rooms at the Everhart Museum of Science and Art in Scranton PA , and found a muthafucking BOX OF WEASELS. Yes, you heard that right - A BOX OF WEASELS PEOPLE. Have mercy.
Holy crap! It's a box of weasels! Insert joke about lawyers at a baseball game here.
Or how about you get ready for your head to blow off, when you see what she found in Pretoria, South Africa. Only maybe the greatest piece of taxidermy ever performed. The creativity! The artist's touch! Manifique!
Leopard, Transval Museum. Eating the... eyes... of a... seriously though, the eyes?!?
Now this crew - Tochka - out of Japan does animation, graphics and comics. Their Pikapika project is a hypnotic little abstract animation piece, using the same technique Pablo did: flashlights on long exposures. They stitch the photos into this film, which was nominated in the Ottawa International Animation Festival. [Psssst, I know that's a pretty pathetic honour, but don't tell Tochka okay? They were led to believe it was the Canadian Cannes.]
Corporations are sponsoring amazing pieces of art, which have little/nothing to do with their product, in the hopes that they will be associated with the imagination/innovation that characterizes the piece.
We get more art. Artists get more money and artistic freedom. Television and advertising get more pretty.
I'm going to duct tape my cynical brain shut and call it a win-win.
So on that note, this is a completely amazing anime short, done for General Electric's Imagination at Work campaign. Enjoy!
It's a production of BBD and Green Dot Films, directed by Three Legged Legs, who include a great selection of production stills on their website.
Three Legged Legs have actually done many great little shorts - including the completely amazing one below, called Los Angeles Let's Be Friends
That last one is inspired by the also great work of artist/illustrator Jeff Soto. His stuff is cool enough to warrant a separate post though, so... stay tuned.
In the meantime: go samurai monster anime cuteness! Holla!
... who looks at these images of Pete Goldlust's carved crayons, and thinks 'man, this guy really needs to get laid.'?
Each crayon here represents, I estimate, 10 hours that would have been better spent pleasing a woman. Or man. Or whoever - hey, like Digital Underground said... dowhatchalike!
Some of his polymer clay work. These look less like turds than a lot of his other work in this media. Pretty, ethereal turds... but still...
From a 2005 collaboration with artist Julie Hughes, entitled Turned Out and Doubled Over
Now I'm not really an architecture nerd or anything, but as someone who's seen her share of urban centres, I knows what I likes and I likes the new Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, which opened in October.
As much as I can appreciate the bright, shiny, modernist building designs that seem to be the standard way to revitalize urban areas, I think there is something truly visionary in Andrew Zago's experimental approach to the museum's design. As he explains,
I didn’t want to romanticize it but the city had a depth of character, a real substance and integrity. And while you want to do away with the problems, you don’t want to lose that quality.
It really, really works.
The space is a converted car dealership, and the design incorporates all the grit and decay of the space into its aesthetic. Kudoes to you Andrew Zago, kudos to you.
Barry McGee, graffiti art darling, did a graffiti installation across the outside.
Not only that, but supposedly this little dude is one of McGee's mechanical mannequins. I repeat: mechanical mannequin. I know. Awesome.
While we were in Seattle, KT and I were able to catch a fantastic retrospective of an artist I've been meaning to blog about for a while - Vik Muniz - at the Seattle Asian Art Museum.
Vik Muniz was born in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1961. Muniz started out as a sculptor, but successively became more interested in photographs of his sculptures than in the sculptures themselves.
So he basically creates images using highly perishable or unstable media, and photographs them. A direct descendant from Warhol, his interests in mass production and popular culture drive the subjects of his work - largely reproductions of famous images or artworks. His technical execution is amazing, and the relationship between medium and subject are insightful and clever.
Enough gush - just check some of it out:
Some guy checking out Portrait of Alice Liddell, after Lewis Carroll [Alice in Wonderland], which is made completely from toys and candy.
Saturn, after Goya, contrasted with Goya's original work.
A shot from one of my favourite series - Pictures of Clouds
Double Mona Lisa, after Warhol, done in peanut butter and jelly.
Part of the Sugar Children series, reproductions in sugar of photographs taken of the children of sugar plantation workers in St. Kitts.
This whole 'Look at me! I'm drawing with peanut butter!' thing could come off as contrived, but Muniz is really insightful and painstaking in his execution, which keeps the dialogue at a higher level.
His work reminds me of a passage in a book I am reading (and looooving) right now - Ghostwritten by David Mitchell:
The last of the cherry blossom. On the tree, it turns ever more perfect. And when it's perfect, it falls. And then of course once it hits the ground it gets all mushed up. So it's only absolutely perfect when it's falling through the air, this way and that, for the briefest time...'
I guess what I'm suggesting is that Muniz would agree, and that he works to create and then capture these brief moments of constructed perfection. The show's on until January 14th. If you're in Seattle over the next month or so, try to check it out.
So Takashi Murakami, that demented disco dwarf, has been furtively putting together a totally amazing collective of Japanese pop artists, called Kaikai Kiki. Check it out:
Murakami, with part of his Balloons series, which were hung in Grand Central Station.
All of the artists in the collective are worth checking out. Clockwise from top-left: I'm sure they love you: Rei Sato Elephant Underpants vs. Apple Half: Chinatsu Ban The Scene: Mahomi Kunikata Moon: Aya Takano Kuwanetto: Mr.
But I have to highlight one particular member of the Kaikai Kiki Krew, namely Chiho Aoshima, who does incredible, ethereal digital illustrations and installations. Her City Glow, Mountain Whisper installation, seen below as it appeared in the Union Square subway station in NYC, and the Gloucester Square station in London is totally breathtaking.
City Glow...
Mountain Whisper.
Another Chiho work, called Magma Spirit Explodes. Tsunami Is Dreadful
Finally, very cool, is this ad campaign for Louis Vuitton featuring Takashi Murakami's characters.
This is a collaboration between Louis Vuitton, obviously, and Takashi Murakami, in a pleasing little animated short based on Alice in Wonderland.
Okay, a big w-t-f to McDonald's over their 365black campaign. I guess the program officially started in 2002, but is still running strong as seen in this Rolling Stone ad I caught yesterday:
Get it? He's not a starving artist when he can afford items on the Dollar Menu!
Copy deck at bottom:
Whether it's a Double Cheeseburger, fries, or Hot Fudge Sundae, I can create anything from a meal to a snack out of McDonald's Dollar Menu. Enjoying good food every day doesn't make me less talented. Take a look at my work. I call this my happy period.
The artist, Hebru, is actually pretty tight, what in a 'figurative neo-pop derivative of Basquiat' kind of way:
Some of Hebru's work - as seen on his myspace page.
But the 365black campaign? Jeezus.
Hey! It's Getty Images #200254000-001!. Keywords: 'black youth - non-threatening'; 'the kids we're supposed to depict only wish they had clothes this nice'.
Communications-wise, in name, execution, everything, it just seems embarassingly condescending. Case in point: their website.
It has profiles of the 'leadership officers', which taught me that both the president and chief marketing officer of McDonald's USA are black. Two more dedicated men, doing whatever it takes to keep poor Americans reaching deep into thin wallets for more poly-saturated fats.
The site also has their 'ad campaigns', with a loft introduction about how for more than 30 years, McDonald's has demonstrated its appreciation for the African American consumer base by giving back to the communities where we do business. Sounds great, except the ads aren't about the community at all, rather are just some of the ads featuring black actors and urban culture (breakdancing burger wrappers!) they've run recently.
Seriously, if this program is about celebrating African American achievements, where are they? Even the artist isn't on their website, despite having his name listed with it in the ad. Am I missing something?
Some multinationals with questionable ethics run amazing advertising campaigns (Coke, Nike). To be honest, I never really love the Mickey Dee spots. At the same time, these are some memorable ones from advertising past:
1967 - McDonald's first national ad. Children of this era may remember one or more of the derisive 'Jingle-Bells-Batman-Smells' variations that it generated. Mcdonalds is the kind of place. They serve you rattlesnakes. They spit right in your shakes. etc.
How better to spend a rainy day than painting, smoking and baking cake with Nate-Dogg and Lil' B?
Hot cake is fur-tastic!
Nate's been working on a series of dark, cartoony portraiture of hot women, so we decided to collaborate on a big piece for the series. It was good times - always interesting to put on someone else's artistic style for an afternoon.
Our girl-posse art piece. The girl on the right that looks like Mena Suvari? All me, baby. Except for what Nathan did.
Other Nate-tastica.
This girl reminds me of my friend Nikki.
Hey! It's a hot chick done in neon and glitter!
In other exciting news, we - the polygamous family roommates - transformed the bottom floor of our house into an art/creative studio this weekend. So expect to see lots more painting/drawing/amazingness in the next little while, as we settle in for rainy season.
"I like women who look like me. Generally, you're attracted to women who look like you, because the most beautiful thing in nature is your own reflection."
:: supreme douchebag Terrence Howard, in a pretty revealing Elle magazine interview.
That last one is inspired by the also great work of artist/illustrator 
by David Mitchell:
