Kyle Bean’s What Came First?
In light of the Easter holiday, here is a simple but clever creation by UK designer Kyle Bean. Described concisely as a “chicken made from eggshells,” his sculpture whimsically illustrates the age-old question and all of its philosophical implications.
For more interesting work by Bean (favourites include Apps and Aerotropolis) see his website here.
THE ART PROCESS: Ursus Wehrli and The Art of Cleaning Up
Ursus Wehrli is an artist who likes to keep things tidy. He’s most well known for his entertaining TED Talk Tidying Up Art where he presents the work of famous artists like Jaspen Johns and Paul Klee except in a deconstructed and organized output. In his upcoming book The Art of Cleaning Up, he extends this overly-rational form of modern art to the world around him with just as much efficiency.
Take apart -> put in order: a simple concept with deeply satisfying results.
His TED Talk is a must-see.
Richard Fauguet, Untitled (2000-2005)
In this untitled work, contemporary French artist Richard Fauguet traces the trajectories of a ping pong ball during an imaginary game. The resulting sculpture is an incredibly precise mapping of the ball’s spatial impressions that recalls the aesthetic of chronophotography. Reviewer Robert Nelson writes for The Age (2005):
” The work is a history, because it tells the story of just a few strokes of imaginary table tennis, of which you have so little consciousness that you’re more consumed with the rules or the thought of who’s winning. But here, the phenomenology of the tock-tick ti-ti-ti is grotesquely monumentalised, leaving no room in the space for any other moment.”
See more of Fauguet’s work here.
Tania Kovats
These sculptures by Tania Kovats draw from geography as an historical record. Her works take on the appearance of sections of the earth, extracted from their origins and constructed with both scientific and artistic precision. Paradoxically both abstract and accurate, these various geo-projects are Kovats’ own interpretations of the landscape genre. As the artist describes,
“The landscapes that interest me the most are geologically explicit landscapes where you can clearly read the narrative of formation or erosion. This leads me to landscapes that are often remote – cliff edges, deserts, odd geological incidents… The way our experience of landscape is culturally mediated is of central concern to me. Much of my thinking over the last few years has meant I have looked to geology to help read landscape to further understand how landscapes are made outside of what we affect upon them. No landform exists forever but only within a particular time span in the earth’s history. I see landscape as a series of incidents coming into being.”
See more of Kovats’s land projects here, here, and here.
And, “Is Geography the New History?” – a 2009 article in the Economist.
- Erin Saunders
The Art Process: Glass Art
“Glass art is usually understood to refer to large modern works of art, typically one-off creations, which are substantially or wholly made in glass” according to wikipedia. This, I did not know of.
Someone recently brought up this art process to me and I’m not even going to pretend that I didn’t cringe at the thought of stained glass windows and carnival jewelry. But to be honest, once I got into scouring around the internet to see what sort of contemporary glass art I could find, I stumbled upon some really impressive stuff.
When it comes down to it, working with glass is not something easily done, meaning fewer people are practicing this process, therefor legitimizing those who do. I have major respect for any man or woman who is standing in front of a pot of flames, melting sand into scolding art material (I’m hoping it’s as heroic as I’m imagining). Regardless of how exactly it’s done, I’m betting it’s much easier to look at than to make, so let’s do just that.
The most fascinating work example I can produce is that of a mister David Chihuly. This one-eyed visionary has been producing glass art sculptures and objects since 1941 and it shows. The first four images of this post show major, colorful sculptures by Chihuly of snake-like and vegetation-emulating objects. Wicked.
On a more minimalist level, let’s take a look at the last two images of this post to see the work of Matt Eskuche fromPittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He ignores the common luxurious attitude of glass and recreates literal trash for a living, with a very modest but semi-mind-bending outcome.
- Jess
ps. I just noticed both Melissa and Lee posted about glass art this week as well! subconscious theme of the week, guys?
