Friday, July 24, 2009

Top 10 July 24

So here is yet another top 10 based on the nuggets i found from a week worth of browsing the world wide web.

Except for surfing last week I left New York and went up the Hudson to a nice little town called Beacon. The town was very small and relaxed with a lot of cafes and little galleries, but the main reason for the trip was to visit Dia art museum, and if you haven't been there, same on you...this place rocked. get your info HERE and book your train tickets now.

Anyway if you cant go right now, takes some time and check this weeks top 10 out.
Hope you like it.
/J

Thursday, July 23, 2009

1. Sam Jinks




A naked man is hung up by the armpits at the far end of a room. He makes a sad impression, not just because of his dangling indisposition, but because of his diminutive proportions. Every visible detail of the skinny body is presented, but child-size.

This grim figure by Sam Jinks is answered in the intimate gallery at West Space by a face on the near wall, which is initially concealed as you enter the white room. It's a scary apparition: a male of whiskery aspect whose mouth has entirely dissolved into the flesh of the face, leaving a smooth and gentle volume between nose and bristly chin. The glazed eyes stand out with reddened thyroidal frenzy, almost as if expressing the suffocation involved in losing your nostrils and mouth.

The scary thing about both sculptures is not what might be happening to the figures - though this is sinister - but rather their comprehensive level of detail. The verisimilitude in the treatment removes you from the comfort of analogous images in the history of art. In the tradition of figurative sculpture, the agonised figure - from Ghiberti to Kollwitz - is bathed in aesthetic heroism.

The allure of a robust sculptural medium is not for Jinks. Rather, with skills that exceed the standards of the wax museum, Jinks makes the skin look like skin, which is luminous and penetrated by light. You could imagine seeing pores and follicles if you took a microscope to the surface.

Jinks' two sculptures are spooky on many levels. The suspended man, with his drooping head and transcendent air of concentration, recalls the sacred archetype of Christ on the cross. It's as if, like Christ, he is hung up for maximum humiliation in a punishment that might be rehearsed in holy rituals for an obscure redemptive purpose.

Meanwhile, the electrocuted face across the room, though a bit sensational, reminds you of the Medusa, except that the coils of snaky hair are reduced to stubble, and instead of turning someone else into stone, the visage petrifies itself.

Both works are wall sculptures. The body isn't just stuck up on the wall: it is stationed in an abstract shrine, for the unique purpose of hanging up a naked man. Though apparently oblivious to his environment, the man delicately fingers the plane behind him.

The sculpture has a powerful presence, which at times is confused with a man's. This is unusual with sculptures. You'd never confuse a Bernini for a real human. You just accept that it's an illustrious effigy and not a real person. But, as with the realist sculptures of Ron Mueck, the proximity to human textures is uncanny. The slightly puffy belly, the hardness of the ribs, the lankness of the unsupported legs: it's almost too lifelike.

Offsetting this freakish resemblance, another feature of Mueck's sculpture is apparent: it's the unsettling scale. In the history of sculpture, most figures are either smaller or larger than life. In traditional aesthetic terms, Jinks' naked man is the wrong size. The figure is too small to be real, but too big to be a doll or figurine. The dwarfism with perfect proportions seems semantically inconvenient and disturbing when the figure turns real in your imagination. It's an embarrassing size for a man to have, as the mature body has the scale - but not the shape or detail - of a boy's body.

He's a modern man, with a modern haircut, the prickly result of electric clippers. You've seen that kind of guy on the tram. But the incongruous presence is naked - a bit unflattering at that scale - and he's hanging up in a most unbecoming way. You feel that perhaps, like Christ, he could choose to get down from the scaffold; but his destiny is somehow bizarrely pious and he suffers with divine patience.

The sculpture is skilful and paradoxical: a figure that oscillates in your awareness between being art and being a man; a stripped down sign of a tortured spiritual history.

See more of Sam Jinks work HERE

2. Alex Prager




Photographer Alex Prager has the ball rolling in 2009. She just came off a piece for Details, having the chance to shoot the venerable Stan Lee, and you can catch her latest collection “The Big Valley” at Yancey Richardson through the end of March. Her style is immediately cinematic, and “The Big Valley” in particular takes you back to some of celluloid’s more memorable moments, slyly referencing films like Valley of the Dolls and Birds.

Yancey Richardson Gallery
535 West 22nd Street, Suite # 3 | Yancey Richardson Gallery Alex Prager
New York, NY 10011

See more of Alex's work HERE

3. The Dead Weather - Treat Me Like Your Mother


New music video "Treat Me Like Your Mother" for The Dead Weather directed by Jonathan Glazer. The new album Horehound is in stores on 7/14/09. The Dead Weather is: Alison Mosshart, Jack White, Jack Lawrence and Dean Fertita.

Check out The Dead Weather: HERE
Check out more of Jonathan Glazer HERE

4. Fruit Shaped Sticky Notes



Japanese company D-Bros has launched a collection of sliced fruit sticky notes. It is certainly a clever idea, and well executed as a product.

Get your sticky notes HERE

5. Jo Hamilton - Crochet work



Here are some really cool crochet portraits by Jo Hamilton.

See more work by Jo HERE

6. Peter, Bjorn & John - Nothing to Worry About

So here is one of my favorite music directors at the moment, Andreas Nilssons.
He is the man behind many of the best music videos at the moment with bands such Fever Ray, White Lies and Jose Gonzales just to mention a few. This music video is about the rockabillies in Yoyogi Park. Every sunday afternoon these dudes and dudettes gather in a massive Tokyo park and... well, they do what you see here. for hours on end. it's as glorious as it is inexplicable.

See more of Andreas Nilssons work HERE

7. James & Karla Murray - Storefronts




James & Karla Murray are professional photographers and authors who specialize in urban and low-light photography using both film and digital formats. Their latest body of work has been published in “STORE FRONT- The Disappearing Face of New York” (Gingko Press, November 2008). Prestel will publish our upcoming book, “GRAFFITI MIAMI,” in April 2009. They also have two best-selling, landmark books on New York City graffiti art, "Broken Windows-Graffiti NYC" (Gingko Press 2002) and "Burning New York" (Gingko Press 2006). They currently have an exhibition at the Brooklyn Historical Society in New York, "Counter/Culture-The Disappearing Face of Brooklyn's Storefronts." James & Karla Murray's photographs have been exhibited at The New-York Historical Society in New York City and in galleries throughout the New York metropolitan area and Miami. Their work is housed in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage in Washington, D.C. and the New York Public Library. Our photographs and articles have appeared in numerous publications, including Peel Magazine, Mass Appeal and Time Out New York. Past clients have included Altoids- The Curiously Strong Mints, Embedded Music artist Bisc1 and Mass Appeal Magazine. They also have a photographic installation currently on extended display in one of the famed art rooms at The Carlton Arms Hotel in New York City located at the corner of East 25th Street and 3rd Avenue. We live in New York City and Miami.

See more of James & Karla Murray's work HERE

8. Carsten Oliver Bieräugel




Awesome illustrator, check out his blog HERE

9. Do Bem - Suco De Laranja 100% Fruta

do bem - Suco de Laranja 100% fruta (MPC de torradas) from Hardcuore on Vimeo.


Art direction and Creation
Hardcuore - www.hardcuore.com

Design and Animation
Breno Pineschi e Rafael Cazes

Audio Effects and MPC Tropical Soundtrack
Joao Brasil

Colaboration / Thanks
Marcos Leta e Joana Angert

10. Bleeding Billboard


The local governments of Franklin District Council and Papakura District Council in New Zealand have taken remarkable precautions in order to decrease fatal car accidents. The first heavy rains after summer, bring the highest death toll on New Zealand roads. In order to lower the road toll they placed a bleeding billboard. The billboard features a young boy whose eyes, nose and ears bleed when it rains. And the message reads: “Rain changes everything. Drive to the conditions”.

The Bleeding Billboard was developed by Colenso BBDO and was awarded with a Bronze Design Lion at Cannes International Advertising Festival. Local, national and even international media picked up the story, driving awareness for weather conditions and driving habits. Online the video generated almost 1 million YouTube views. As a result, the district of Papakura faced zero death tolls.