Sculpture News
News: Artist to Schlep Mammoth Chunk of Ice from Greenland to NYC
It's an ambitious How-To project to say the least, or more specifically, an over-the-top political art installation by San Francisco artist Brian Goggin. You may have previously heard of Goggin for his "Defenestration" project—an installation of "frozen" furniture, being tossed mid-air from a San Francisco apartment building. But Goggin's latest project sounds significantly more challenging to execute, considering the elaborate game plan involved:
News: Polish Artist Recycles 300 Dead Computers into Giant Installation
Electronic waste (or e-waste) is becoming a bigger and bigger problem thanks to the rapid growth of technology. In 2009, the United States produced 3.19 million tons of e-waste in the form of cell phones and computers. It's estimated that 2.59 million tons went into landfills and incinerators with only 600,000 tons actually being recycled or exported. Recycling programs just aren't cutting it, so what's the next best thing? Art.
News: Mechanical Sculpture Spits Out 441 Perfectly Sphered Water Droplets
Beauty is a fine line between art and science for Pe Lang, a Swiss sculptor living and working in both Berlin and Zurich. The autodidact artist specializes in graceful, hand-built kinetic sculptures made of magnetic, electrical and mechanical devices, all of which are elegant and completely mesmerizing. "Positioning Systems - Falling Objects" is one of his newest contraptions, which feels like a mix of home waterfall fountains, mechanical metronomes and a busy manufacturing plant.
News: Build Your Own AT-AT Imperial Walker Snow Sculpture
It's been a legendary year for snow art. First there was the Eiffel Tower penis. Then the crash-landed AT-AT. Then the beautiful snowdecahedron and the skull-shaped igloo fortress. Found on Unreality Mag, the latest newsworthy snow sculpture is every Star Wars-loving little kid's dream: an AT-AT "pony ride". Okay, so it's freezing cold. And it's technically immobile. Who cares. It's awesome.
News: Amazing Tape Sculptures
In the DIY community, much is said about the versatility of duct tape. But it's hardly the only game in town. For proof, one needn't look any further than the impressive, diverse tape sculptures submitted to Scotch's second-annual Off the Role tape sculpture competition.
News: Edible (and Itchy) Icelandic Landscapes
Inspired by the vast and exotic geography of Iceland, Canadian-Hungarian artist Eszter Burghardt uses food and wool to reconstruct her memory of the landscape. The series, "Edible Vistas and Wooly Sagas", is molded from "poppy seeds, coco powder, coffee, milk, and chocolate cake crumbs" and Icelandic wool—there are endless herds of native sheep wandering the countryside. She then captured the dioramas with a macro lens.
News: AT-AT Made with Spare Computer Parts
Blacksmith Sage Werbock —also known as the Great Nippulini, "pierced weight lifting extraordinaire"—welded together this Star Wars Imperial Walker sculpture with a bunch of old computer parts and scrap metal. Currently listed on Etsy for $450, the AT-AT is artfully assembled as follows:
News: Snowdecahedron
Best snow art I've ever seen. And Wonderment has seen some good stuff: penis, AT-AT, more penis. (Ok, we like the little boy stuff.) But we also like math, and this snowdecahedron is one stylish geometric form plopped right in the middle of the sidewalk in Porter Square, Cambridge, Mass. Nice work, sushiesque.
News: Vintage Books Get Carved into Insanely Detailed Painted Landscapes
If print is a dying media, you might as well destroy books in the most beautiful way possible. Guy Laramée is a Montreal-based interdisciplinary artist who turns old books, such as the Encyclopedia Brittanica, into intricately-carved works of art using mostly a sand blaster and some paint.
News: Artist Turns a Penny into $207 by Morphing Lincoln into Homer Simpson
Pennies may only be worth $0.01, but if you want a coin with everyone's favorite donut-eating dad on it, you're going to need to shell out a little bit more.
News: Cigarette Ash City
In "Cigarette Ash Landscape", Chinese artist and photographer Yang Yongliang suspends a huge cigarette sculpture above a pile of black and white photos, fake grass and artificial flowers. Upon closer examination, the tip of the cigarette reveals a tiny city made of fastidiously layered, paper-cut urban skylines.
News: Peeing German Cop Sculpture Makes the Police Awfully... Pissed
The German police have their panties in a bunch over a highly inflammatory sculpture of a urinating policewoman by artist Marcel Walldorf. Entitled "Petra", the hyperrealistic figure depicts a female officer crouched, peeing with buttocks exposed. The most chilling detail is her riot baton casually propped on the wall next to her.
News: NYC's Secret Video Game World
While it's unlikely you'll encounter this caliber of insane pixelated madness in real-life, everyday New York City, you might be lucky enough to walk past a tangible "portal" of sorts. Below, images from Pixel Pour 2.0, an installation on Mercer Street in Soho.
News: Where Man and Machine Should Never Meet
Household appliances enslave random body parts in a series of sculptures entitled "Integration Series" by Joseph Barbaccia.
News: Apple Toys Destroyed With Bullets, Sledgehammers & Torches
We know it's fun to break stuff, but Santa sure isn't going to be as good to Michael Tompert next year. The San Francisco digital imaging and CGI artist destroyed a whole slew of brand-new Apple gadgets as a statement on "our relationship with fetish, fashion, freedom, and bondage."
News: Rainwater + Solar Power = DIY Rainbow Machine
Artist Michael Jones McKean has harnessed nature with his DIY rainbow machine, a mechanism that uses reclaimed rainwater and solar power to shoot man-made rainbows across the sky at whim. High powered jets and fountain nozzles shoot a heavy wall of rainwater into the air, creating a faux rainstorm. Sunshine does the rest.
News: Japanese Artist Mutates Underwater Creatures Into Beautiful, Glowing Specimens
UPDATE: Looks like the previously featured mysterious translucent skeletal specimens aren't the work of unknown scientists, but rather a project by Japanese scientist-turned-artist Iori Tomita. Tomita majored in fisheries as an undergraduate student, and has since used his knowledge to create a beautiful collection of mutated sea creatures, called “New World Transparent Specimens". Tomita creates his specimens by dissolving their flesh, and then injecting dye into the skeletal system.
News: Enter the Trippy Vortex of Optical Distortion
New York based studio softlab's latest installation "(n)arcissus" is an eye-bending site specific installation currently on display at the Frankfurter Kunstverein art center in Frankfurt, Germany. The piece, made with over 1,000 mylar and vinyl laser cut panels, hangs in a stairwell, measuring 9 meters tall from the lobby ceiling.
News: 1,200 Hot Wheels in Perpetual (NOISY) Motion
Chris Burden's latest piece is a portrait of L.A.'s hot mess of traffic, entitled Metropolis II. The artist has constructed a miniature highway system, complete with 1,200 custom-designed cars, 18 lanes, 13 toy trains and tracks, and a landscape of buildings made with wood block, tiles, Legos and Lincoln Logs. Burden tells the New York Times:
News: Eat Me Dresses
Love Lady Gaga's meat dress? Then check out Sung Yeonju's series entitled "Wearable Foods". The recent graduate of Korea's Hong Ik University creates garments out of a wide variety of edibles, including "Tomato #2", which was used by H&M for an ad campaign.
News: Madison Square Park's Eerie, Electrifying LED Ghost Land
Engineer-turned-artist Jim Campbell's recent installation "Scattered Light" converts New York City's Madison Square Park into a ghostly world of light bulb pixels. Campbell dangled 2,000 floating LED light bulbs programmed to display shadowy human silhouettes passing by.
News: Artist Paints the World Invisible
“Western Imports”, by artist Cayetano Ferrer, uses inkjet prints to create site-specific optical illusions in public spaces.
News: Vote Now to Electrocute This Artist
Oleg Mavromati's latest project, Ally/Foe, allows online voters the chance to electrocute the Russian artist at a mere fifty cents a pop. From November 7th to November 13th, viewers of Mavromati's livestream can pay to vote “innocent” or “guilty.” 100 guilty votes result in the artist voluntarily shocking himself in front of the camera, live, with his homemade electrocution machine.
News: See a Woven Rug? Look Again
Dutch designers Marcia Nolte, Stijn van der Vleuten, and Bob Waardenburg are the masters of illusion behind We Make Carpets. Look, then look again. What you initially see isn't what it appears to be...
News: Bicycle-Go-Round
Artist Robert Wechsler has salvaged and reassembled 9 bicycles into a carousel arrangement. The best part about the project? Wechsler leaves his bicycle-go-round in public places for strangers to ride. Imagine stumbling across one of these in a public park! Genius.
News: The Soccer Smoothie Maker + 29 More Wonderfully Useless DIY Inventions
UK-based designer Dominic Wilcox's Speed Creating Project presents the challenge of making something creative everyday, for 30 consecutive days. Wilcox's best results are pointless in an utterly delightful way. True junk drawer resourcefulness. My 7 favorites below; click through for all 30.
News: Lots and Lots of Panties Make For Good Mood Lighting
We've seen chandeliers made from paper, light bulbs and Chiquita banana cartons, so why not ladies' undergarments? Video artist Pipilotti Rist recently showcased her glowing underwear chandelier at New York's Luhring Augustine gallery. Rist's underwear of choice (granny panties) aren't exactly sexy, but there's something oddly interesting about the cascading, pastel skivvies.
News: Quivering, Pulsating Organs Give Life to Electronics
Just in time for Halloween, a collection of creepy, pulsating biological monstrosities designed by interactive media artist Mio I-zawa.
News: Bodies in Plain Sight
Choreographer Willi Dorner's curiously charming “human sculptures” invade New York City as part of the French Institute Alliance Française’s Crossing the Line festival. More images of Dorner's Bodies in Urban Spaces at the Wall Street Journal photography blog.
News: Massive Geometric Sculpture Resembles Tsunami of Black Caviar
Designed by a computer, milled by machines and assembled by a team of robots, Federico Díaz's Geometric Death Frequency 141 isn't necessarily the warmest work of art you'll see this year. But it is, nevertheless, quite a lot of fun to behold:
News: The Astonishing Car-Part Art of James Corbett
Car-part sculptor James Corbett can do things with an automobile that would make a Transformer blush! We call him the Rodin of the Hot Rod. The gallery below should give you an idea as to why.
News: Takashi Murakami Invades Versailles (Much to Old Art Fogie Chagrin)
As some of you may know, contemporary king of kitsch Jeff Koons exhibited at the French palace of Versailles last year. While the exhibition was embraced by many as an exciting context for contemporary art, predictably old fogies and critics of the art market balked.
News: Prosthesis From Hell
Artist Sascha Nordmeyer presents her concept Communication Prosthesis as the “ultimate communication tool,” or the solution to self-expression. Once inserted into the subject's mouth, the prosthesis forces strange (and horrific) expressions.
News: Psychedelic Paper Bunny Hole
A mass accumulation of $5 donations allowed NYC artist collective SOFTlab to install the below piece, entitled CHROMAtex, at the Bridge Gallery. The piece is constructed with each donator's name printed as a photo paper tile, laser cut and then assembled with everyday binder clips. Elegantly constructed! Previously, Elegantly Crafted Paper Chandeliers.
News: Artist With Death Wish (No Photoshop Used)
It is conceivable that Chinese artist Lei Wei has always dreamt of being a superhero. Or that he simply has the desire to fly. Or maybe he is constantly confronting a fear of heights. Whatever the impetus of his work may be, Wei creates illusions of a dangerous "reality".
News: 108 Garbage Bags Become 1 Giant Computer-Breathing Organism
Berlin based artist Nils Vöelker's plastic bag installation entitled "One Hundred and Eight" features 108 plastic bags that inflate and deflate by 216 individually controllable computer cooling fans. Völker originally intended the piece to be a giant display screen, but the end result became something much more compelling. Via Wired:
News: Zipper Motorboat "Unzips" the Ocean
Evocative of master Pop artist Claes Oldenburg, Japanese artist Yasuhiro Suzuki built a motorboat facsimile of a massively scaled zipper pull. From an aerial view, it's parting stream resembles a parting zipper. Absurdly fun. Previously, Soft and Squishy Sculptures.
News: The Barrel of a Gun Has Never Tasted So Sweet
In keeping with today's theme of dark and twisted sweets (edible blood slides), check out this German gun-sucking art project. For a piece entitled Freeze: Revisited, Florian Jenett and Valentin Beinroth made handgun replicas crafted from ice, in an array of flavors, including coke, black currant, licorice, and cherry.
News: The King is Back! More From the Anal-Retentive Pencil Tip Sculptor
Yes, that's Elvis Presley. Yes, that's a pencil tip. Yes, that's simply...insane. The Telegraph shares more work from the incredible Dalton Ghetti. Miss the last post? Check it out.
News: Dead Flylashes
Would you glue fly legs to your eyelids? More or less stomach churning than gluing your eyelids to your...eyelids? (Shudder.)