Tag: art history

Anish Kapoor

Anish Kapoor, “Dismemberment: Site 1″, Mild Steel Tube and Tensioned Fabric, 2009, gibbs Farm, Kaipara Harbour, New Zealand

This work is an installation for “The Farm”, a private outdoor art gallery in Kaipara Bay, north of Auckland. Kapoor often creates outdoor sculptures as with the case with his first outdoor fabric sculpture. Anish Kapoor states “it is designed to withstand the high winds that blow inland from the Tasman Sea off the northwest coast of New Zealand’s North Island”.

It is 85 metres long and consists of two elliptical steel rings (one vertical, one horizontal), 27 metres across with 32 cables providing displacement and deflection resistance to the wind loads. It is covered in a custom deep red PVC-coated polyester fabric by Ferrari Textiles that weighs 7,200kg alone. It was created with the idea of enhancing views of the harbour to the west and mountains to the east channelling the forces of water, air and rock. It reminds one of red blood cells and veins with a membrane like quality to it that Kapoor describes as being “rather like flayed skin”.

Henry Moore

Henry Moore, “Mother and Child and Figure Studies”, Mixed Techniques on Paper, Colored Crayon, Charcoal, Pencil, Ink and Gouache, 25.5 x 18 cm

According to the Henry Moore Foundation, this work is probably page 7 from the Upright Sketchbook 1942. “ Although all known drawings of the sketchbook are horizontal, it is numbered upper right on the recto and upper left on the verso in vertical format…. The recto is interesting in that it provides the sketches for two larger drawings.”

Chattakan Kosol

Chattakan Kosol, “Yee Peng Festival in Chiang Mai, Thailand”

Yi Peng or Yee Peng is part of the festival of lights in Northern Thailand to show respect to Buddha. It’s date usually coincides with Loi Krathong which all of Thailand celebrates using floating lights on water. In Northern Thailand Yi Peng, which is celebrated alongside Loi Krathong, is different in that lights are placed into sky lanterns which float up into the air.

Loi Krathong still happens in Chiang Mai but the actual Loi Krathong floating lanterns on water event happens the day/night after Yi Peng.

Alongside the floating light ceremonies there are also parades, fireworks, displays of colorful lanterns and cultural highlights involving the Lanna. As Chiang Mai was the former capital of the Lanna Kingdom it holds the largest Yi Peng Festival.

The Chiang Mai Yee Peng Lantern Festival is Wednesday, November 1, 2017 to Saturday, November 4, 2017.

Concha Flores Vay

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Paintings by Concha Flores Vay

Concha Flores Vay is a self-taught artist from a small village in the province of Valladolid , Spain. She now lives in works in Alicante’s Province on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. Her work can be found in private collections in Spain, Germany, Holland and Norway.

“I express myself through my fantasy and creativity. My art-style is very childlike, I love colour, I like to create something different, I don’t follow any trend, I do what I like and the best I can without going out of my art-style, my work is spontaneous.” -Concha Flores Vay

Ray and Maria Stata Center

Ray and Maria Stata Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston

The Ray and Maria Stata Center for Computer, Information and Intelligence Sciences is built on the site of MIT’s legendary Building 20, a “temporary” timber-framed building constructed during World War II that served as a breeding ground for many great MIT-originated ideas. Designed by renowned architect Frank O. Gehry, the Stata Center is meant to carry on Building 20’s innovative and serendipitous spirit, and to foster interaction and collaboration across many disciplines.

The building is home to the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS), and the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. Its striking design—featuring tilting towers, many-angled walls, and whimsical shapes—challenges much of the conventional wisdom of laboratory and campus building.

When the building opened in 2004, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Robert Campbell wrote in the Boston Globe that the building is “a work of architecture that embodies serious thinking about how people live and work, and at the same time shouts the joy of invention.”

Reginald Marsh

Reginald Marsh, “Flying Concellos” , Etching and Engraving, Date of Plate 1936, Edition of 100, 8 x 10 in. Collection of the Art Students League of New York

Reginald Marsh is one of the best known chroniclers of 1930s and 40s New York. It has been said that Marsh was to New York what Daumier was to Paris and Hogarth was to London. His paintings, drawings, and prints capture the aura and pace of the ever-changing city at a particularly exciting time in its history.

Marsh was fascinated with the seedier aspects of New York, and he was an obsessive explorer of the great metropolis. It was in places such as Coney Island, the burlesque parlors and dance halls of Fourteenth Street, the Bowery, the streets, and the subway that the Yale educated, financially comfortable Marsh found the subjects he was looking for – Bowery bums, burlesque queens, musclemen, bathing beauties, and streetwalkers. Marsh returned repeatedly to his favorite locations, usually working on the spot with sketchbooks and taking photographs that were used as the source material for completed works back in his Fourteenth Street studio.

Michal Solarski

Workshop of Sacred Art:  Photography by Michal Solarski

In the south of Poland, a small Silesian town is home to a unique form of manufacturing that most rarely think about: religious sculptures. For more than 100 years, the Workshop of Sacral Art, founded by Kazimierz Schaefer in 1898, has been producing concrete and plaster statues of saints using traditional methods.

Now 117 years later, the factory is currently run by Schaefer’s granddaughter Barbara. More than 250 models of religious figures of differing sizes, including statues of Christ, popes and saints, as well as re-creations of the Christmas nativity scene, are being sold both locally and globally.

At its peak, the factory employed dozens of workers, but now only consists of five individuals. Despite the recent recession and competition caused by an influx of cheap plastic figures made in China, this manufacturing has endured, and the quality and aesthetic value of its creations remain second to none.

The Treasury at Petra

The Treasury at Petra, Reign of Aretas IV Philopatric, First Century AD, Sandstone Rock Carving

Aretas IV Philopatris was the King of the Nabataeans from roughly 9 BCE to CE 40. Aretas came to power after the assassination of Obodas III, who was apparently poisoned. Josephus says that he was originally named Aeneas, but took “Aretas” as his throne name. An inscription from Petra suggests that he may have been a member of the royal family, as a descendent of Malichus the First.

His full title, as given in the inscriptions, was “Aretas, King of the Nabataeans, Friend of his People.” Being the most powerful neighbour of Judea, he frequently took part in the state affairs of that country, and was influential in shaping the destiny of its rulers. While Aretas was not on particularly good terms with Rome, Augustus with great hesitation recognized him as king, After this recognition, Aretas placed a considerable army at the disposal of the Roman general.

Chris Sedgwick

Paintings by Chris Sedgwick

Inspired by the fear of death and in constant search for something that will transcend it, Chris Sedgwick is an American contemporary painter whose work mainly focuses on esotericism, occult spiritual symbolism, Cyphers, Ritual, and the Inner human condition. He began his career painting very dark color wise, highly influenced by Odd Nerdrum and Carravagio, but knew deep inside he must evolve his own style and character if he wants to be satisfied with his path and find a niche in the art world.

Gold leaf has been present since the beginning, as the artist was mainly sprinkling a little on the ground or in a circle in the composition to communicate the sacred, but at one moment he decided just to go ahead and paint fully on gold leaf. Sedgwick considers this a transition from painting the mundane world where rituals were taking place to painting the spiritual world where the rituals were meant to be effecting. Another significant transition occurred when he started using what he calls “constellation” forms and using outlines of figures against ethereal like backgrounds in the same piece that there would be a realistically painted form.

The transition to this “spiritual” plane lead him to start using glow in the dark paint and creating some works that include natural objects, such as The Last Magician, to represent a mirroring of the painting in the natural tactile world of nature by incorporating sticks and plant matter.

David Kassan

David Kassan, “Self Portrait in Motion, Oil on Panel, 2010, 101,6 x 66 cm, Private Collection

David Jon Kassan is a contemporary realist painter best known for his life-size realist portraits. The paintings combine figurative subjects with abstract background textures he says are inspired by such painters as Franz Kline and Robert Rauschenberg. Kassan says, “my effort to constantly learn to document reality with a naturalistic, representational painting technique allows for pieces to be inherent contradictions; paintings that are both real and abstract.”

David Kassan currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, and teaches painting classes and workshops at various institutions around the world. He received his B.F.A. in 1999 from Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY where he studied with Jerome Witkin. He continued his studies at The National Academy, and the Art Students League of New York, both in Manhattan. He is currently represented by Gallery Henoch in New York

Alex Roulette

Alex Roulette, “Unknown Lights”, 2010, Oil on Panel, 114.3 x 91.4 cm, Private Collection

At the core of Alex Roulette’s photo-realistic painting practice is an exploration of the process of male coming-of-age in contemporary American society. Emotionally, his work is intended to oscillate between an uneasy psychological isolation and the promise of adventure waiting at the horizon. Rooted firmly in both personal history and established cultural paradigms, he strives to present an honest and poignant tableau of adolescent transformation.

Consciously emulating the cinematographic mode, Roulette’s compositions could be stills from the ‘buddy films’ with which the artist identifies. In particular, he is concerned with the journeys from dystopia toward an imagined utopia that the male characters of such films undertake.

This past year, Alex Roulette had a solo exhibition called Fabricated Realism at the George Billis Gallery in New York in which this  2010 painting was shown. His work continues to have great aesthetic appeal and in 2010, Alex played more with unusual light sources and effects in his work. Sun flares, reflections, snowflakes and other natural and fabricated lighting replaces the strong shadows prevalent in his 2007-2008 work.

Rudolph Tegnér

Rudolph Tegnér, “Hercules and the Hydra”, 1918

Rudolph Tegner) was a Danish sculptor linked to the Symbolist movement. In the early 20th century his work caused considerable controversy in Denmark. A large number of his works are on display in the Rudolph Tegner Museum north of Copenhagen.

He travelled to Greece and to Italy as a young man, where he was particularly impressed by Michelangelo’s sculptures in the Medici Chapel. His first major work, A Faun (1891) was installed at Charlottenburg Palace. From 1890 to 1893 he collaborated with the Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland, and then moved to Paris, where he resided until 1897.

Tegner’s sculptures developed the stylistic innovations of Art Nouveau and the erotic realism of Auguste Rodin. This caused widespread debate in Denmark, which was still heavily influenced by the restrained neo-classical ideals of Bertel Thorvaldsen. Tegner, in contrast, emphasised violent monumental forms which were both eye-catching and provocative.

Mario Mera

Paintings by Mario Merz

A key member of the Arte Povera group, Mario Merz produced expansive mixed-media paintings, sculptures, and installations, through which he propagated an egalitarian, human-centered vision. Through art, he counteracted what he saw as the dehumanizing forces of industrialization and consumerism.

Together with compatriots including Jannis Kounellis and Michelangelo Pistoletto, Merz eschewed fine art materials in favor of everyday and organic matter, like food, earth, found objects, and neon tubing. In 1968, he presented his first igloo, which became a motif in his work, representing the fundamental human need for shelter, nourishment, and connection to nature.

By 1970, the Fibonacci sequence became central to his work, shaping the tables and spiraling forms for which he was known, and incorporated into his igloos and canvases. In these Merz sought limitlessness, against the confines of modern life.