paris-based artist julien mauve materializes scenes of abandoned architectural landscapes in a series of images which asks ‘what’s left of utopia’. the project acknowledges an impoverished urban panorama, of which the desolate somber cityscapes result from our built world. industrial structures, abandoned towers and neglected residential complexes are highlighted for their destructive and toxic affliction on space and humanity, forming a two-fold mixture of grief and hope. the characters in each picture are seemingly on the brink of disappearing within the fog that engulfs the scenery; ‘disembodied witnesses, they become actors in a play of which the ending is uncertain,’ describes mauve.considered at the time of construction to be symbols of progress, these edifices and emblems of a manufacturing-driven culture now reveal, in this series, more sinister tone.
These lightweight, airy dresses look like they’re about to be adorned to a fancy gala or dinner party. But as irony would have it, they will never be worn. In fact, the dresses are actually made from Carrera Marble, the same material as the world’s most famous naked statue – Michelangelo’s David. Starting out as a solid mass of marble that can weigh several tons, they are chiseled and sculpted down by Alasdair Thomson, a sculptor living and working in Edinburgh, Scotland.
His latest work, “The Identity Collection,” (named as if it’s a fashion line) explores “the way fabric hangs and folds, and is attempting to capture that lightness and gracefulness in stone.” Effectively ceding control over his subjects, Alasdair asked his friends and family to donate garments, which he then impeccably recreated out of marble. You can see more of Alasdair’s work on his website or his Instagram account.
Using models and materials originally built for the backdrop of model train sets, artist Thomas Doyle(previously) creates miniature dioramas with huge implications. Quaint scenes from suburbia are smashed into smithereens, characters are caught mid-homicide, and the front lines of military conflicts weave through mountains of consumer detritus. Cool Hunting recently sat down with the New York-based artist to learn more about the narratives behind his work, the interpretation of which he leaves entirely up to the viewer.
Artist and illustrator Gillian Lambert created this series of drawings called “Self-Deception”. The artist graduated from Kenyon College with a Bachelor’s degree in Studio Art. This series of illustrated self-portraits is intended to show the beauty of the grotesque, the repulsive, the awkward, the vulnerable, and the psychologically enigmatic.
giant photoshop eraser sticks to london streets all images courtesy of street eraser
two creatives behind the ‘street eraser‘ blog are merging the digital world with the analog, sticking their adobe-inspired art throughout london’s urban fabric. the giant playful labels illustrate the familiar grey and white checkerboard pattern, visible when using the eraser tool in photoshop. eliminating graffitti from traffic signs, color from mailboxes and portions of billboards, the intervention seemingly reveals a concealed world beneath our own. the team says of the digital tool interrupting everyday surroundings, ‘we rather like the idea that it’s hiding under the surface of everything around us.’
Mixed media artist Travis Bedel creates stunning collages that merge anatomical imagery with illustrations from science guides and textbooks. You can see much more of his work over on Tumblr, and he has prints for sale onSociety6 and Etsy.
iphone photography by sam alive reveals hidden landscapes all images courtesy of sam alive
new york city-based photographer sam alive uses his iphone to capture landscapes and scenes through a digital lens. the images describe both blurry backdrops and crisp scenery, set within the confines of the iphone screen. the environments that frame each photo are unrecognizable, reduced to colors, patterns and geometric shapes. sunsets, urban streets and ocean vistas are only barely perceptible through the chroma they display. juxtaposing the hazy setting is an in-focus hand, holding a device at the foreground of the images. within the screens, a sharp picture materializes — the new york city skyline, the brookyn bridge and portraits of people in the distance.
doug wheeler david zwirner, new york now through april 5th, 2013
long fascinated by the illusory quality of landscape, american artist doug wheeler presents a luminous installation at david zwirner, new york, their second solo exhibition of the artist’s work. occupying the ground floor gallery, ‘LC 71 NY DZ 13 DW’ is a light and space experience, taking viewers on a physical sojourn of gravity, dimension and time. best known for his seminal light environments developed in the 1960s and 70s, wheeler’s new ‘rotational horizon work’ visually and conceptually connects to his previous ouvure, yet emphasizes the way in which light almost imperceptibly changes along the horizon as the earth turns by mimicking the sensation of the earth’s rotational pull and curvature, wheeler alters the traditionally static viewing experience of a work of art, thereby destabilizing our innate sense of equilibrium and imparting the feeling of moving with the earth towards an unreachable horizon.
agravic stone table of the universe by tokujin yoshioka all images courtesy tokujin yoshioka
acquiring a new form in its third edition at milan design week 2014, the ‘marble across time’ exhibition, organized by turkish stones, shifts from the static expression conveyed through brief time snapshots, crystallized into a marmoreal vision, and to a metaphorical representation;take some time for yourself for a journey that starts back in the past and projects itself into the future. initiated by the istanbul mineral exporter’s association, and curated by erdem seker of RDM’s design and architettura, the presentation takes a chronological approach to the existence of marble from history to the present day and into the future
Cesar Biojo paints beautiful oil portraits, just to destroyed them immediately afterwards, creating a mesmerizing effect. The concept of time is introduced, depicting concepts inherent in the human being such as creation and destruction, the perishable and ephemeral. Cesar Biojo’s work recovers post-impressionist styles, resulting in a very personal language. Taking as starting point the quote of Jean Paul Sartre, “The gaze of the other makes us aware of ourselves”, his work becomes an introspective study of human beings, their conflicts, their nature and existence.
Japanese sculptor Yoshitoshi Kanemaki chisels these life-sized figurative sculptures out of giant pieces of camphor wood, a kind of evergreen. The strange pieces frequently involve two or more characters merged into a single form, which could been interpreted as commentary on mortality, or multiple personalities/perspectives. You can see much more over on Fuma Contemporary, Art Emporer and Elsa Art Gallery. (via Empty Kingdom, Juxtapoz,
this fucking genius kid who is CURRENTLY attending SAIC made this really fucking awesome piece and frankly makes me fucking angry how good he is/will be. What am i doing. fuck. (sorry about all the fucks)
‘I’m Not Worried About You’ is part of an ongoing series of site-specific installations by Jeffrey Michael Austin, exploring the plasticity of the oral and written word. By inserting familiar idioms into unconventional and inexplicit contexts, the installations conjure a curiosity and skepticism toward the scaffold between language and meaning. Jeffrey Michael Austin is currently pursuing his BFA in Sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
In this fun series of painted objects titled “It’s not what it seems” by artist Hikaru Cho, common foods are transformed with deftly applied acrylic paints to look like other foods. A banana is turned into a near photo-realistic cucumber, a tomato becomes a tangerine, and even an egg is made into a glistening eggplant. These are actually some of Cho’s “tamer” artworks, as she’s used these same skills with a paintbrush to alter human faces and body parts by adding extra eyes, zippers and mouths. (via Visual News)
Facades is an ongoing series of work by French photographer Zacharie Gaudrillot-Roy that imagines a world where facades have been completely isolated from buildings. He shares of the project:
The façade is the first thing we see, it’s the surface of a building. It can be impressive, superficial or safe. Just like during a wandering through a foreign city, I walk through the streets with these questions: what will happen if we stick to that first vision? If the daily life of “The Other” was only a scenery? This series thus offers a vision of an unknown world that would only be a picture, without intimate space, with looks as the only refuge.
The police and emergency service people fail to make a dent. The voice of the pleading spouse does not have the hoped-for effect. The woman remains on the ledge – though not, she threatens, for long.
I imagine that I am the one who must talk the woman down. I see it, and it happens like this.
I tell the woman about a man in Bogota. He was a wealthy man, an industrialist who was kidnapped and held for ransom. It was not a TV drama; his wife could not call the bank and, in twenty-four hours, have one million dollars. It took months. The man had a heart condition, and the kidnappers had to keep the man alive.
Listen to this, I tell the woman on the ledge. His captors made him quit smoking. They changed his diet and made him exercise every day. They held him that way for three months.
When the ransom was paid and the man was released, his doctor looked him over. He found the man to be in excellent health. I tell the woman what the doctor said then – that the kidnap was the best thing to happen to that man.
Maybe this is not a come-down-from-the-ledge story. But I tell it with the thought that the woman on the ledge will ask herself a question, the question that occurred to that man in Bogota. He wondered how we know that what happens to us isn’t good.
