Silhouette Masterpiece Theater

Wilhelm Staehle's Silhouette Masterpiece Theater is both beautiful and twisted. Whee!

Fork Bracelet!

Jewelry + stress relief all at once. What more could you want from your cutlery?

Piven Portraits

Hanoch Piven's cutesy mixed-media portraits of various politicians and artists are simple but oddly accurate. Seen above are, of course, Larry King, Bill Clinton, and Marilyn Monroe. Check out his recently-started blog for more images.

The Best (And Worst) Ideas of 2006

The New York Times Magazine's 6th Annual Year in Ideas documents some wonderful, funny, and downright weird creations of 2006. My personal favorite:

"The popularity of the iPod has given new urgency to an old criticism of the portable music player: namely, that it isolates the listener by tuning out the world around him. As one response to this problem, Noah Vawter, a graduate student at the M.I.T. Media Lab, has created a pair of headphones that tunes the listener back in.

The device, which Vawter calls Ambient Addition, consists of two headphones with transparent earpieces, each equipped with a microphone and a speaker. The microphones sample the background noise in the immediate vicinity — wind blowing through the trees, traffic, a cellphone conversation. Then, with the help of a small digital signal-processing chip, the headphones make music from these sounds. For instance, percussive sounds like footsteps and coughs are sequenced into a stuttering pattern, and all the noises are tuned so that they fuse into a coherent, slowly changing set of harmonies."

Some other favorites from the list: Reverse Grafitti, Phantom Pianists, and Spit Art.

A Guide to Modern Art

I am, generally speaking, a big fan of so-called "modern art." Occasionally, however, a trip to the MoMA or -- in this case -- studying for my art history exam reminds me just how much I detest some of the exercises in idiocy that have been produced in the past century.



Take Marcel Duchamp, for instance. On the left we have Nude Descending a Staircase, perhaps one of my favorite paintings ever. On the right? A urinal. Flipped upside down, signed, and entitled Fountain. Now, I have no doubt that this is an intellectually stimulating piece, that it has sparked intense discussion about the nature of creation and authorship, blah blah whatever, but it is not art.



Here we have Kazimir Malevich. On the left is Suprematism, a quaint little study of color and form. On the right? Black. Really, it's almost as astonishing as Red, but not quite as insightful as White on White. Okay! We get it! The first time it's brilliant and ingenious and new -- the 28764th time, it's just annoying.



And the list goes on: Mark Rothko's fields of drab color, Dan Flavin's fluorescent lightbulbs (I mean, really), Gene Davis' arbitrary striping. Can someone revive the Renaissance, or at the very least bring back the impressionists? Please?

International Poster Gallery

For anyone else also obsessed with French art nouveau posters, the International Poster Gallery offers a stunning selection of rare vintage posters and lithographs (not just French, though those are the ones that caught my eye).

The collection of war & propaganda posters is pretty extensive as well: these Spanish Civil War posters are beautiful.

They're fairly expensive -- but they're all originals each embossed with the original printer's mark.

Etchings

I came upon Matthew Tung's artwork while poking around Flickr... he has some lovely drypoint etchings and sketches up on his website. They're very moody and delicate -- definitely worth a look.

Cardboard Faces

     

These are pretty amazing.

Fun With Cutlery

As a nice followup to my last entry, I've always been fascinated by one particular artist who always stations himself outside of the Met with jewelry and figurines made from forks. The just-too-high pricetags have stopped me thus far from purchasing any (though his collection of fork-musicians is delightful), but when I ran into someone selling spoon bracelets and rings in Union Square this morning, I decided to poke around a bit on the web.

Fork-Art.com boasts an impressive collection of statuettes (the dragon is fairly amazing), with everything from penguins to dentists. The jewelry is beautiful as well, though slightly uncomfortable looking. Slightly more understated are the spoon rings that I've been seeing everywhere lately, and this DIY coin ring would be worth experimentation if only I had a dremmel. Darn.

Don't Forget to Recycle

I've recently become a big fan of jewelry and other household objects constructed from recycled materials, like these vinyl cuffs made from old LP records. (Elsewares also sells record bowls made from warped LPs, but Deborah Merlo's DIY version is just as good (and more exciting). Other items from Elsewares include these beer & soda can bracelets, bowls made from ticket reels, and street sign coasters. I suppose the real question is how hard it would be to make some of these products yourself, for a fraction of the price...

Matchsticks

Oh. My. God.

Art Opening on October 19

If you live in NYC and you're free next Thursday night, come to Gallery Viet Nam in Tribeca for the opening of artist Le Van Tri. In addition to being a brilliant painter, he was my art teacher for several years and is finally bringing his work to the U.S. after having shows throughout Europe and Asia. Stop by at the reception to meet the artist and have a glass of wine.

Gallery Viet Nam [ MAP ]
Thursday, October 19
6 - 9 p.m.

Icosahedrons Galore

Being both a math nerd and somewhat obsessed with folding intricate origami constructions (like hyperbolic parabolas), Richard Sweeney's paper sculptures are enough to make me drool.

Personal Injury Warning System

Always thought that standard warning signs were too vague? Jonathan Corum brings you slightly more specific caveats.

The Eye of the Needle

Really, really, tiny sculptures by Willard Wigan.

From Concert Halls to Cufflinks

While I am mostly scandalized that one of my favorite architects is now designing a jewelry line for Tiffany & Co, I must admit ... Frank Gehry has quite an eye. And let's face it -- his strong suit has always been design, never execution (or silly details like creating buildings that can actually, um, stay standing). So maybe this is for the best?

Random Blog of the Week

Process Recess is the blog of James Jean, an SVA grad who lives in Los Angeles and has had illustrations published in the NYTimes, the LA Times, WIRED magazine, and The Rolling Stone. His work is a mesh of Photoshop effects and hand-drawn art, often with a political twist. Very interesting, definitely worth some browsing time. His website provides an archive of illustrations, paintings, and comic book covers, and his blog shows a little more behind-the-scenes work.

For Modern Art Skeptics

...Jason Polan brings you the Every Piece of Art in the Museum of Modern Art Book for only $20, which, I might add, is the price of admission. For an extra $80, Jason will take you to the MoMA himself for a guided tour, draw your favorite piece of art for you, and buy you a pretzel.

Linkage

1. Create your own Jackson Pollock masterpiece, for the insufferably bored & hyperactively creative.

2. The craziest origami ever.

3. Shop Composition is an amazing online boutique of all things svelte and sexy. And look at the gadget section! The Holga! The fisheye camera! The Oktomat! Be still, my heart.

4. Swiss Army Knives are keeping up with the times, and still looking sexy.

Gallery Hopping

I was pretty horrible first semester about taking trips to art galleries around the city, but now that I'm actually working at one, I figure I ought to at least make the most important stops.

Static Museum Exhibits of Note:



MoMA:

John Szarkowski: Photographs
February 1–May 15, 2006

John Szarkowski was actually the MoMA's Director of Photography from 1962 to 1991 and helped to establish Lee Friedlander, Gary Winogrand, and Diane Arbus during his tenure at the museum. I was already inclined to like Szarkowski because he's my first semester Photo I professor Thomas Roma's mentor and friend, but loyalties aside, the exhibit is wonderful and certainly worth the trip. While I suppose one could argue that photography is in itself primarily an exploration of light and shadow, Szarkowski in particular pays detailed attention to shadowplay and also has a keen eye for framing strong horizontal and verticals lines. I realize that sounds incredibly inane and unimpressive, but go with me on this one.



Met:

Robert Rauschenberg: Combines
December 20, 2005–April 2, 2006

Robert Rauschenberg's 67 combines at the Metropolitan Museum of Art are bizarre mixed-media collages involving clocks, sneakers, baseballs, old newspapers, and other sundry esoteric items (like goats, for instance). Considered a member of the Neo-Dada movement, Rauschenberg is a successor of one of the worst artists in existence. Even though I tend to stay away from any art that somehow associates with Dadaism, I thought these were all fairly interesting and even meaningful (unlike, for instance, a signed urinal). At the very least, they're colorful and captivating. But if you're still bored, play I Spy with the explanatory placard's media list... can you find the can opener and the shoelace?

Embarassingly, the Met and the MoMA are the only two major galleries I've ever visited in this city, but I'm making it a personal goal to stop by the Guggenheim, the Whitney, and the Frick Collection by the end of the semester.