themissive:

Untitled by Jen Lee 2011

source

Elspeth Diederix - Maquette (2008)

Elspeth Diederix (born Nairobi, Kenya, 1971) is an artist who is always on the move. Travelling for her is a way of life. Even though most of her photographs are taken in exotic locations, evidence of this is seldom found in her work. Purposefully she herself remains on the outside. Instead of being absorbed by the setting of her subject, she prefers to maintain a high degree of detachment. This enables her to create a sense of alienation and in her photographs she achieves this by stripping everyday objects of what normally one takes for granted. There comes a moment when everyday objects lose their sense of familiarity, acquire another meaning and seem to become almost abstract. Such moments are used by Elspeth Diederix as a starting point for her images.

website

 

Yoko Ono - Cut Piece

Ono’s work related destruction to interpersonal, often intimate, human relations. This element was particularly thought-provoking in ‹Cut Piece›, one of many actions she did as DIAS [Destruction in Art Symposium]. Ono had first done the performance in 1964, in Japan, and again at Carnegie Hall, in New York, in 1965. Ono sat motionless on the stage after inviting the audience to come up and cut away her clothing, covering her breasts at the moemnt of unbosoming. ‹Cut Piece› entailed a disrobing, a denouement of the reciprocity between exhibitionism and scopic desires, between victim and assailant, between sadist and masochist: and, as a heterosexual herselft, Ono unveiled the gendered relationship of male and female subjects as objects for each other. 



more info here 

Helmut Lang: Make it Hard | The Fashion Legend on His Renegade Act of Artistic Reinvention

Iconic designer turned artist Helmut Lang shredded 20 years of fashion history for his last exhibition, repurposing 6,000 garments from his eponymous label into a series of terrestrially textured, stalactite columns that stretch from floor to ceiling. On view at the Fireplace Project in East Hampton, Make it Hard comprises 16 sculptures that meld natural and synthetic fibers with plastics, metals, leathers, fur, feathers and even hair. “The fight against entropy and decay is always going to be a losing battle,” says international curator Neville Wakefield. “So why not make of that destructive energy something new?” It should be noted that Lang’s most adored designs were saved from the cut, when in 2009 and 2010 the designer donated a large volume of his work to select fashion, design and contemporary art collections worldwide. A leading figure of 90s minimalism, the Austrian-born Lang has left a lasting mark on the industry. Following his brand’s acquisition by the Prada Group six years ago, Lang relocated to a Long Island studio to focus on his artistic career. “In the autobiographical sense, the material of people’s lives has always been the subject of their art,” says Wakefield. “The only difference here is the level of identification and investment that the public has in that material.” Nowness has asked Lang about his dramatic endeavor. 

Read the article here 

Louis-Léopold Boilly | Still-Life of Flowers in a Glass Vase | 1790 - 1795

freundevonfreunden:

HUH Magazine - Plastic Rooms by Penique Productions

The Spanish art collective Penique Productions produce work all centered around the same idea - entirely lining various rooms and environments with brightly coloured plastic. Venues include flats in London, the Museum of Mexico City, and gallery spaces in Spain. (via HUH)

Kirstie van Noort - Ceramic Work

Coloured Bowls 1st Edition

“These bowls made out of porcelain are the result of a half year experimenting with oxides and porcelain clay. My goal was to get new colours by mixing different types of oxides.
for this research i used cupper-, nickel-, chromium-, manganese-, and cobaltoxide. By mixing these oxides with white porcelain in different percentages you get different grades of a colour.

After making small series with the oxides I was fascinated by the colours they have and the sound they make. I decided to make them bigger. And while working with the bigger bowls i discovered that the influence of different oxides is very big. The bowls have their own, new unique form and colours, which I think is beautiful.”

website:  Kirstie van Noort

Amethyst by Koen Hauser

Amethyst is a site-specific installation with images and sound. Slowly dissolving slides reminisce the process of decay. The automated slideshow is projected in a dimly lit but richly decorated room, the visual style of the imagery referring to fashion photography.



Koen Hauser created this work on the occasion of Salon/1, by whom he was invited to show his work in Museum van Loon during the Amsterdam Fashion Week 2010.




website Koen Hauser

via RMag 

Jim Hodges

Jim Hodges’ latest, two-part exhibition has opened at the Gladstone Gallery in New York City — mounted across both gallery spaces in Chelsea. For the last two decades, Hodges has utilized a broad range of materials  — both precious and commonplace — to transform quotidian objects into reflective sculptures. Merging the personal, political and universal, Hodges seeks to evince the immemorial; timeless discourses of identity, loss, mortality and love.

 

Using manipulated, mirror-like elements — inspired by his recent trip to India — Hodges features a greater focus on color, saturation and performance. His artwork creates a space for introspection, investigating notions of time, movement, and imagination. Employing organic shapes and synthetic materials, Hodges’ sculptures exemplify the importance of cross-disciplinary creation and analysis.

via TrendTablet

 

themissive:

“…within the imagery you have a kind of ‘ideological failure’, [which] is how I put it. I look out for that, I mess around with it because I think it makes you question not only an artwork, but also an image, and with that reality and truth.”

A2 by Michaël Borremans 2004
[read interview]

themissive:

Plastic 40 by Heidi Leverty

“It is common to associate recycling with words like garbage, junk, maybe even mess and chaos, but behind the discarded items beautiful textures, shapes and colors can be found. Photographer Heidi Leverty has used discarded objects as her primary focus of study from behind the lens for the past eight years, bringing out beauty in what would be considered the end-of-the-line items that have been tossed away. ” ~  vertical-review.com

Still life, flowers in a blue jug 

oil on canvas painting by Van Diemonian (Tasmanian) artist and convict William Buelow Gould (1801 - 1853).
Painted c1840 after Gould had received his Certificate of freedom.
It is signed in the lower left corner “W.B.Gould, Painter”.
Actual size (framed) 690 x 560 mm.

source : wikipedia 

A New Film for Dasha Zhukova Reveals the Passion Driving the Tattoo Scene

Shelter by Henny van Nistelrooy

Shelter is a collection of space dividers composed of Bute fabrics, meticulously unthreaded in to new geometrical patterns.

In response to the brief “Shelter” by JJAM Curators Collective for London Design Festival, Henny van Nistelrooy has developed a collection of space dividers. The collection makes original use of the fabrics supported by renowned Scottish textile manufacturer Bute Fabrics. In reaction to the machine woven structures Henny has been unthreading the fabrics by hand in order to create new geometrical designs within the fabric. By doing this the tightly woven, opaque textile become translucent and the relation between the different threads that make up the fabrics becomes clear.

The project has been inspired by a recent journey Henny made to China. Here the beautiful architectural features appearing in many Ming/Qing imperial palaces and gardens have been of influence in the use of color and shape. These space-dividing screens reflect the geometrical shapes of some of the many windows that can be found in the many historic buildings I visited during my trips to Beijing, Hangzhou and Suzhou.

Materials:

Bute textiles, various wool

Poplar

Dimensions:

Mustard circle: 120 cm diameter

Commission from:

JJAM Curators Collective

Supported by:

Bute Fabrics 

website

via Design.nl 

Flow My Tears II by Mai-Thu Perret 

As one of the young generation of artists weaving melancholy, satirical but also optimistic stories around the visions and shapes of twentieth-century avant-garde movements, Mai-Thu Perret (1976, Geneva) is an exceptional talent. Her texts are a mixture of historical fact and fiction. In her sculptures and objects, she parodies the history of lofty ideals employing a matter-of-fact ‘I can do that too’ aesthetic. Using papier-mâché figures, ceramic wall reliefs and handmade flags, Perret improvises on classic modernist themes, systematically going beyond the dividing lines between consumer, decorative and autonomous objects. In her exhibition Land of Crystal , Perret visualises that conceptual thinking and the strategy of claiming existing images does not rule out craftsmanship or a sincere conviction in the magic effect of sculpture.

via Galerie Francesca Pia