Brooklyn Museum's "reOrder"

After seeing photos of the Brooklyn Museum's new "reOrder" exhibit (March 4, 2011-January 15, 2012), I just had to go see it in person. The renderings online looked so massive, so larger-than-life, so...glow-y. And after visiting in person, the installation is far more stunning than the pictures even give it credit.

reOrder consists of huge fabric sculptures made of flat, round frames with heavy white fabric folded and stretched from one circular frame to another below it, at varying heights and diameters. Each fabric monolith appears lit from within with a slightly blue-toned light, so that they all give off a luminescent, mystical glow. They're set up in the 10,000-square-foot hall on the first floor, which is capped with a flat glass roof. The small, green-tinted panes of glass that checker the ceiling pair perfectly with the luminescence of the exhibit, and only add to the otherworldly environment.

Each structure is rooted to the floor with heavy-looking white bases, some of which have a bulbous protrusion encircling it at just the right height to use as a bench (which museum-goers were only too happy to do). The clunky bases coupled with the light umbrellas give the installation an overall feeling of being ethereal yet solid at the same time, an effect made all the more pronounced when standing in the center of the hall, craning one's neck upward at these floating, oversized sunshades surrounding you on all sides. It was like walking through a sparkling white forest, and felt, in a word, magical.

For you architects out there, the Museum is also displaying videos of the building process and the installation and assemblage of the exhibit within the hall, sped up into time-lapse clips. It's fascinating, to say the least (and can also be viewed on the Brooklyn Museum's website).

Whatever you do, do not miss this exhibit. (It'll be on display for 10 months, so you've got no excuse not to go!)

You can find more information on this and other exhibits at brooklynmuseum.org.

And here are some photos I took (which, due to my camera's increasing quasi-brokenness, don't really do the site justice):

Everybody go to the museum!

Thanks, crummy camera, for making this shot blurry.

This dad and his daughter were really sweet. Start 'em young (art lovers, that is)!

The right outer wall.

The left outer wall.

Art Cake

I found this great collection of pop culture-themed cakes on Flavorpill today. One of them was just so great that I had to publish it here:

It's a Mondrian rainbow cookie! I really want to try making this myself...

Oh, and here's the full article: http://flavorwire.com/123229/50-pop-culture-cakes

blogging fun

New post at animeintro.

Also found this fantastic artist yesterday. David Horvitz does all kinds of conceptual things that require some serious audience participation. For one thing, he's taking one photo of the sky every day for this entire year. He'll mail them to you for free. I signed up yesterday. Here is yesterday's sky (it's in NYC):



My favorite thing he does is offer for people to pay him a certain amount of money, which he'll then use to go to a specific place and mail you an item. Most of the options are big (expensive) trips to foreign countries (which I totally wish I'd thought of first!), but some are as small as giving him $5 for him to mail you one of his secrets.

I have two favorite cheap ones. One is giving him $10 to write a letter of apology to someone he knows. He'll send one copy of the letter to its recipient and one to you. He has an example of a letter on his website. This letter is really simple, but so touching for some reason. So far, 12 people have bought apologies. I think this is absolutely genius. It's incredibly voyeuristic, but also sort of vicariously relieving. Even if you're too scared to make your own random apology, you can be part of someone else's. I think I might purchase an apology letter in the coming days.

My other favorite is for people to pay him a dollar to think about them for one full minute. Twenty-one people have bought a minute of time, by far the largest number of people to participate in any of these projects. I think this is very telling. People are actually so full of themselves that they're willing to pay someone--a complete stranger no less--just to think about them. But on the other hand, a couple people paid David to think about someone else. Someone named Jim Darrough paid him to think about his step-mom who had passed away four days prior. Quote:

I thought about Jim Darrough's step-mother, Arleen, who passed away on February 24th, 2008 at 3:32 am Pacific Time. Jim was holding her hand at this time. I thought about Arleen from 1:18am to 1:19am on February 28, 2008 in New York.

Ok, that's actually really moving. As is this one:

I thought about Luca Kunz's mom who is in a hospital in Switzerland from 3:12am to 3:13am on February 29th, 2008 in New York. I went a little over a minute to make it stronger.

People love their families so much that it helps them to know that a stranger knows who the family member is, and is actively thinking about them.

I think that the entire body of work just speaks to the interconnectedness of everyone on Earth. And it's as easy as dropping an envelope into a mailbox. Maybe that's too obvious of an explanation, but I think it's rare that you see such a blatant physical manifestation of this. I look forward to reading more about David's exploits.

luuuuuurve

I found yet another artist in my internet travels with whom I've fallen in love. Audrey Kawasaki's paintings are STUNNING. She paints these charming art-nouveau inspired wispy girls on wood. The girls have oversized, incredibly expressive eyes and juicy lips, an obvious anime/manga influence. Most of the figures are transparent, so you get to see the woodgrain through them, which gives the paintings a natural, warm feeling. Audrey also retains a sense of edginess by incorporating explicit and metaphorical sexual imagery, as well as the occasional skull or animal skeleton.

Here is a big ole' image dump of some of my favorites from her website:















Audrey currently has a solo show at the Copro Nason gallery in Santa Monica. I desperately wish I could be there. And even though the show only opened three days ago, all her prints and originals are already sold out. All her prints in her personal website's store have also been sold out for some time now. Curses! I really need to take a trip to California one of these days to check out their art scene. Goodness knows there's no shortage of local talent here in New York, but the art establishment in Cali seems more lighthearted, varied, and less elitist, if I'm basing my impression on the art alone. Bits of California culture in general (skateboarding, movie-making, pop culture...) seem to be allowed (embraced?) into the art scene there. For someone to be big in New York, their art has to be Very. Serious. It's like... lighten up! You'd never see something anime-inspired in Chelsea. Maybe Brooklyn, though... Good thing I live there :]

heehee

Ok, this cracks me up to no end:

It's a vinyl toy designed by Amanda Visell. Its name is "Baby-Eating Crocodile."

HA!

And here are two illustrations from her website to accompany it:





HILARIOUS!

The figure was originally part of a multi-artist show at Gallery 1988 in LA, and now the whole series of toys are being released as a blind-box set. I think the set as a whole is kind of meh, though, which is especially disappointing given the awsomeness of Visell's contribution to the collection. As an art show, all the different styles may work, but as a blind-box set, there's not enough cohesion. And it's not just the art styles that differ wildly, it's also the level of detail. The individual boxes are $7.99 each, which is about average (i.e. expensive as hell), but I wouldn't want to pay that for (or even own, for that matter) a couple of these.

Anthony Ausgang's Clean One, for example, features bright, fun colors, but the character's lack of detail gives it a flat and boring look overall. Peter Gronquist's Stella and 'Roo is also unsatisfying. There's a seem right down the center of its tummy! What's that about? Who thought that was a good design choice? The colors, too, are bland. Designer toys are usually immaculately put together and cleverly colored, so this one looks cheaply made by comparison.

On the other hand, Greg Simkins' Scurvy Nevil is highly detailed and intricate (not to mention, ADORABLE). I covet this little trinket like nobody's business. Joe Ledbetter always comes through with amazing toy creations, and his Ledkin and King of the Deadbeets are no exception. This is how you do mock 2D. The creatures, being actual toys, are obviously physically three-dimensional, but his heavy black outlines and solid, stark color blocks give the little guys the feeling of being drawings on a page.

About half of these toys are really creative and weirdo, while the others aren't particularly special. And even though they're sold as a set, none of them match. They're better as singular pieces; but in that case, I don't want to shell out eight bucks in the hope of getting a Joe Ledbetter or Amanda Visell toy, only to end up with some ugly thing I don't want. Let's face it, $8 is too much to pay for a three inch chunk of plastic anyways (not that it's ever stopped me before...), so if I'm going to actually pay that, it has to be for something unique and clever whose design looks like it received a lot of work. The odds of getting that in this case aren't high enough. My advice? Wait a couple months, then buy them pre-opened on ebay.

looooove

Found more illustrators whose work I adore, this time through the Vinyl Pulse site.

First up is Sarah Joncas, a Canadian artist whose ultra-feminine work has a decidedly Dali-esque feel to it. These are so pretty it kills me.




Then we have Camilla d'Errico, another Canadienne. Her adorable girls have incredibly expressive eyes, and the girls in helmets are especially quirky and cute. Check out her "Birds and the Bees" series in the Recent Work section for some incredibly sexy (and slightly demented) cuties. Meanwhile, here are two of my other favorites:



These two artists are in a joint show at Thinkspace in LA.



I wanna go! Vinyl Pulse only lists shows and stuff for California. What about us NY'ers??

...

The Society of Illustrators is currently hosting an online exhibit of art that responds to the war in Iraq, by contemporary graphic artists and illustrators.

I rarely write about personal things in here, but this is one time when I really feel compelled to. I met a wonderful man through an online dating site last May. After messaging back and forth for a few weeks, we met for a date, and ended up really hitting it off. Long story short, Joe and I have been together for about seven and a half months now.

Now comes the unusual part. He's in the military. And I'm a staunch pacifist. He's still extremely liberal and atheist (as am I) and we share many of our world views. But in the past, I always maintained that I couldn't date someone in the military because I assumed the thought of (or knowledge of) him having killed someone would change the way I felt and/or treated the guy. Granted, Joe hasn't been sent abroad or seen combat yet, but there have been a few instances already in which he was slated to go to Afghanistan, but then the situation changed for him. Every time he gets a phone call or e-mail from the military, my heart skips a beat. What if things are changing again, and now he does have to go? Would our relationship survive him being gone for a year (or potentially more)? Would he even survive?

Honestly, it's something I don't even want to think about, but unfortunately I have to.

Since meeting Joe, my attitude toward the war, toward the U.S. government, toward soldiers in general, have all undergone a shift. I hate the reasons for going into Iraq, but recognize that at this point, the American military presence cannot just pick up and leave. I mean, with the way things have developed, Iraq is damned if we do and damned if we don't; but at least General Petraeus seems to be making some headway, and a new, hopefully more realistic and responsible, administration will be put in place in less than a year. As for the current administration, my opinion has done nothing but get worse and worse (not that it was even remotely positive to begin with...). Never in my life have I felt so distrustful and disgusted by the U.S. government. Even with elections looming, I still have very little faith in the government anymore. I've always known that politicians are inherently evil (such is the nature of the beast), but by now, I've pretty much lost all faith that these people are trying to help Americans. I'm even leary of Obama, who I support and fully intend to vote for in the primary. I just have a lot of doubt that his message of hope will follow through (though I have way more doubt among the other candidates, both Republican and Democrat).

As for my attitude shift toward soldiers... Well to be honest, I used to hold a lot of disdain for them. I know this was an unfair assessment; there are a lot of different reasons people choose to join the military, and as far as I can tell, blind support for the Iraq war is very rarely one of them. Wanting to kill people is never a reason (or if it is, then that person will in all likelihood get kicked out or not make it through training). After meeting Joe, though, after revisiting Suzanne Opton's photographs of soldiers at Fort Drum in light of the disappearance of some of them, after watching National Geographic's "Inside the Green Berets," after reading the cards sent into PostSecret each week from soldiers... now when I see soldiers in airports, recruiters on the street, etc, all I feel is sadness. Not because I pity them, but because I think I now share at least a little sense of empathy. The entire Iraq war has been such a huge, devastating mistake. Iraq's culture, cities, and civilians have been pillaged and destroyed. What started out as a "pre-emptive strike" has devolved into a mess of sectarian violence, civil war, and destruction. It's not fair that American lives are being sacrificed to this monster, much less the thousands of Iraqi lives.

It's all a big, irresponsible, disgusting mess.

So here is my presentation of the Society of Illustrators' "Artists against the War" exhibit. I'm posting the pieces that spoke to me the most, and my response to them in both artistic and personal parameters:


R.O. Blechman's "Support Our Troops"I love this drawing's simplicity. Its message is clear: blind patriotism is suffocating and prevents anything productive from getting done. I hate hate hate hate the blind patriotism that is foisted upon us by conservative media and the current administration. We're told that if we don't support the war, then we're not supporting the troops. This is completely bass-ackwards. I support removing our troops from harm's way; and I don't like being told that being anti-war makes me anti-soldier. Those fucking "Support our Troops" magnetic bumper stickers, which this piece is referencing, are straight-up stupid. How is forking over a dollar for a car decoration supporting anything? These people who wear their indignant patriotism on their sleeve are ridiculous. Are they sending encouraging letters to the troops, writing congress to demand that the troops receive adequate supplies, or doing anything even remotely constructive? No, they're buying magnets to stick on their gas-guzzling cars (which is part of the reason we're over there in the first place), and then maintaining a mindset that tells them they're part of the solution when in actuality they're doing nothing.



Serge Bloch's "Cannon Fodder" This one in particular is infinitely frustrating for me. How could politicians with no military experience (ahem Bush cough Rumsfeld) so carelessly ship sons and daughters, parents, husbands, wives, friends, companions... into such a quagmire? No plan, no exit strategy, barely any strategy at all for that matter, no real committment to catching Bin Laden, despite the fact that he was the one who masterminded the 9/11 attack, not Saddam Hussein. It's just so enraging! People are not cannon fodder, damnit! But they're certainly being treated as such.



Milton Glaser's "The Losses of War"
Honestly, I think this one just speaks for itself. Many of these pieces are deceptively simple, such as this. One little image evokes a deep gamut of painful facts and thoughts and emotions. This prosthetic arm stands for more than a soldier's lost hand. It stands for lost limbs; lost lives, families, homes; the forgotten minefields remaining in poor, war-ravaged countries; loss of innocence; loss of life; destruction of a culture, of history... of hope...



Gary Kelley's "Manifesto" This is probably my favorite. The figure looks so beaten. It could represent anyone involved in the war. The pacifists who are ignored or insulted, the Iraqis who are being invaded and killed from all sides, the soldiers forced to fight an unjust war... The darkness, simplicity, and skewed, half-fetal position of the figure are haunting. And the quote at the bottom is truly disturbing. It says "Naturally the common people don't want war... but it is the leaders of a country who determine policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along... all you have to do is tell them they're being attacked, and denouce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger." Sound familiar? The man who said this was Hermann Goring, a leading nazi officer who ended up being tried and found guilty of war crimes. This is interchangeable with the rhetoric that was spouted to justify the war in the first place and is still being spouted desite the obviousness of what a mistake the war is. Eerie. Just... positively frightening.



Peter Kuper's "This is Not a Comic"
Of course I love this one--it references modern art! It also points out the contradictions at play not just in the Iraq war, but in issues we've faced throughout the Bush administration's tenure. Everything has been glossed over. Iraq was not an "invasion," it was a "pre-emptive strike;" destruction of animals' habitats and encouragement of pollution and consumption isn't "damaging" because there's no such thing as "global warming," and even if there were, it won't kill us in our lifetime; the removal of our "rights" is acceptable because we're "fighting terror;" ignoring the genocide in Darfur is acceptable because it doesn't suit American economic interests to intervene. There is so much going wrong in this country. And so many people are just complacent. I hope the new election brings out droves of voters, from both sides. It's time people start caring.



Koren Shadmi's "Tasting Victory"
I have mixed feelings about this one. Visually, it's very powerful. The red on the dress really stands out and is quite brutal, disturbing even. The painting is right to argue that this war is not comparable to those of the past. The "enemy" now is totally amorphous. There are no clear "good guys" and "bad guys," leaving out a sense of glory in fighting. On the other hand, this piece presents a very grim impression of soldiers in this war: faceless, violent, killing machines. I know there has been some very publicized horrible activity at the hands of American soldiers (torture at Abu Ghraib and that rape and murder of the 14-year old girl and her family, for example), but the vast, vast majority of soldiers are not attacking innocent people on purpose. I feel like this piece stands for the opposite of the blind patriotism I discussed above. Any extreme, obstinate frame of mind is going to be wrong. There is always more than one side to every issue. True, soldiers who have committed crimes must be punished for their deeds, but in general, in the case of Iraq, the blame needs to be spread among those responsible for starting and proliferating the war, not on those who are stuck carrying out irresponsible orders.

i'm in love...

...with these drawings by French illustrator Annette Marnat.











Her drawings are so French. The sketchyness and loose lines, slight cartoony quality, and exaggerated shapes, wrapping up to create an overall quirky feel, are trademarks of French illustration (see Toulouse-Lautrec, these guys, and pretty much any Franco-Belgian comic) , as well as some of my favorite effects in illustration and animation overall. I love love love love love these. Thanks to my French skills, I was also able to glean the following from what little information about her exists on the interwebs:

Annette was born in 1982 near Roanne (central France, northeast of Lyon) and now lives in Lyon. She studied at the Émile Cohl School, also in Lyon. She's had her illustrations printed in various publications and now works as a children's book illustrator, including the "Pavillon Noir" ("Black Ship," approximately) adventure series, which, near as I can tell, is about kids who are pirates.

I wish I could find more about how she creates the work on her blog. Some look like they're pastel, but the backgrounds, lighting effects, and repeating patterns are clearly computer-generated, so I'm wondering if they're not entirely done on the computer, with different built-in effects and textures.

!!!

This is FANTASTIC! (So fantastic that I'm using bold, italics, and caps lock. Wow!)

One
Two
Three

Read all three parts in order! It's short, I promise.

I love this! It reminds me of my grandmother because she tried to teach me how to draw a face in profile once when I was little, and it was just as ugly as this guy's face drawing (but I still loved it and definitely still have at least one notebook with my version of her faces). It also reminds me of the "How to Draw" books I used to covet as a little kid. I used to take them out of my elementary school library so often that the protective plastic covering actually got all ripped up on a few and my mom bought new plastic to re-cover them because she knew the school would never do it.

More illustration that I've fallen in love with.

These are by Seiko Omori. The 3D girls look a little stoned, but they're so charming and sweet. And then the 2D ones are more like fashion illustration--so edgy and cool with their dash of anime style. I love that Omori utilizes two diametrically opposite styles, but they somehow still feel cohesive together. I think it's the rosy cheeks and faraway glances that do it.




(This is my favorite 2D one. I think I may have to print it onto transfer paper and make a purse or tee-shirt out of it.)

(Love those pouty lips!)

P.S. Sorry for so many image dumps lately! I just can't help but share it when I find illustrations I like (being a wannabe-illustrator myself and all). Plus, it helps me to remember them for my own projects and stuff :]