3 posts tagged “art”
Very close to the end of the semester now, so I'm afraid Vox will have to take a back seat once more as I get my ass kicked by final exams. Be back soon. If I survive.
In the meantime, enjoy this nice little clip, featuring a father and son from Amsterdam creating some calligraphic art side-by-side. From the notes: "Spontaneous jam sessions in our studio inspired us to make this film about the fun drawing letters." It does look like fun, doesn't it?
I wish I had enough books to do this. Unfortunately with all the moving I've done in the past couple of years, I've had to prune my already-meager collection quite a bit. As a result, an arrangement of my leftover selections would be a laughable (and aesthetically inferior) version of this one. Something about the color gradients has a soothing, calming effect. I'm especially drawn toward the cooler hues near the bottom of the shelves. Perhaps the next step would be to arrange the books so that the gradient runs vertically instead of horizontally; that is, displaying all the red books on the far left side, and working laterally until you end up with blue on the far right. Either way, it's an awesome idea: free, very personalized art -- and definitely a labor of love.
Apparently it's not an isolated incident. Another blogger had the same idea for his son's Dr. Seuss titles. And last winter, the Adobe Bookshop in San Francisco did just this in one night to their entire inventory of 20,000 used books! Yes. Twenty thousand. (Click on the Gallery link to see more photos.) In the NPR interview [Windows Media Audio], visual artist Chris Cobb said that the inspiration about the project came from taking "something very ordinary and subvert it and change its system ... to reveal something that you would never see otherwise." The result, a temporary exhibit called "There is Nothing Wrong in this Whole Wide World," is definitely something you won't see in an ordinary bookstore. Mind-blowing.
Does anyone else have enough books to tackle this project?
Alexandre Orion, a Brazilian photographer and graffiti artist, created a mural in a São Paulo city tunnel by wiping away soot and grime from its walls. As a commenter on Metafilter put it, it's a kind of "creative vandalism", but how many vandals do you know who actually make political/social statements without cans of Krylon?
In the video, cops show up to see what he's up to, and possibly (try to) write him a citation, but according to Orion, they let up.
When they had confirmed that I really was cleaning, they eased the authoritarian attitude and lowered their guns, a few smiled hesitantly, made a few remarks among themselves, and there were even a few words of support ... The skulls belong all to us. I wanted to bring a catacomb from the near future to the present, to show people that the tragedy of pollution is happening right now. I try to remind people of things they are trying to forget. [from Wired]
City officials, apparently at a loss as to how to nab him, ended up cleaning the soot off every tunnel in the city. Unfortunately the art was power-washed down the drains, but the statement had definitely been made.
