Electric Shadow

Zevs
2000

I wanted to do this five years ago, but lacked the nerve. Luckily, French street artist Zevs did it five years prior and a hundred times better. By tracing the shadows of street objects (posts, benches, garbage cans, etc.), the artist created streetscapes based on the fleeting je nais sais quoi of light hitting at just the right moment. Doing this, oft-ignored street objects are commemorated and their temporary accompaniments are made subtle constants.

Other beauties:

Buildings Made of Sky

Peter Wegner
2009

I like these as tall as those buildings are.

L'Hospice

Gilles Barbier
2002

Nothing makes superheroes more real than the throes of aging.

Slammer

James Hopkins
2008

Hopkins corrects the imbalance that the medium creates.

Benten Kozō Kikunosuke

Utagawa Kunisada I (Toyokuni III)
1860

This is a theatrical scene from the artist's imagination. The male actor plays a thief who dresses as a woman; the reveal is made by his tattooed arm peeking out, as only men bore tattoos back then. Despite that, I like to think of this as a self-portrait. I mean, I sit on furniture and drink tea with my arm out like that all the time.

A) Everything's gonna be alright

Julien Berthier
2004

or

B) Work No. 790

Martin Creed
2007

A.

Skulls

Julie Moon
circa 2007

Skulls are too dark to keep on display in plain sight in your home, no matter what the attraction is. Canadian artist Julie Moon smooths over the grim discrepancy with her ceramic skulls pictured here. At first glance, the skull is made a lovely object. On second thought, Moon resets the skull. The object, which is usually and expectedly so infused with male bravado, softens. In place of intimidation and death, the innate quality of the skull is brought back to mind: its home within and the sensitivity of it.

Smiling Skull

Gilles Barbier
2008

It's contagious.

Goethe

Jens Stegger Ledaal
date unknown

Friedrich Schiller died in 1805 and was buried in a mass grave. Twenty-one years later, the German playwright's mortal remains were exhumed. Karl Leberecht Schwabe, the mayor of Weimar, decided that the largest of the 20-something skulls in the grave could have only belonged to Schiller.

For safe-keeping in his home, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe removed his confidant's skull from the library where his entire skeleton was displayed. Goethe later wrote the poem "Lines On Seeing Schiller's Skull."

In 1999 it was revealed that a group of scientists exhumed Goethe's skeleton to conserve it in November 1970, nearly 140 years after his death. The German polymath's skeleton also comes with paleopathological interest. Opinions on the source of Goethe's stiff gait and posture were qualified, proving ankylosis (stiffened or consolidated joints) in his spine due to loss of intervertebral discs, spondylosis deformans (degeneration of intervertebral discs), and Morbus Forestier (fusion of several vertebrae).

Busts commemorate. Whether or not the back story is commemorated in the skull piece pictured above doesn't matter for my liking. Norway-based artist Jens Stegger Ledaal carved into a ready-made bust of Goethe, revealing what we know would naturally lie beneath. Most skull pieces I've seen are standalones that never reference the face or entire head. They are sculpted or embellished, but in this case features are removed in order to create. Grim might be a characteristic that comes to mind, but clever and brainy wins out.

Résidence secondaire

Julien Berthier
2008

Let this be a cautionary tale of using limbs in art. When I was in art school, a classmate made a plaster cast of his open palms with a bird's nest delicately placed in the center. I was dying to say something; I liked the piece because I thought he was being cheeky, using hands that looked severed. He explained that the piece was about nurturing and protection... so the class, including myself, remained silent. I am all for both those things in life, but less in sculpture.

A couple of years later, Arrested Development made me feel better.


The natural association between viewer and art is a good quality, but limbs, severed ones especially, make it too didactic or hackneyed. Bones, while relatable, are less familiar. People go their whole lives without seeing their bones; it's safer to use them in art for this reason. They are mysterious.

The standalone skull is a common face (ha) in art. They come with their own cautionary history: Halloween, poison, and pirates are a few. Even Hamlet. These beg for reconciliation, which could explain their place in art. Maybe it's anthropological, bad-assy, easy to contrast, about the figure, the form, or a well-traveled bridge to science. At first I thought skulls in art was overdone, but my appreciation has grown because of the next few posts, beginning with Berthier's topiary.

Here, the skull isn't a mere object. Instead of a shrub in the shape of a squirrel or flower, the skull turns the homely art of tree sculpting against itself. The greenery is reminiscent of a welcome mat, but screams keep away. Seeing it so large, though, beckons because it is so funny.

Le terrier & La cabane

Gilles Barbier
2008

My grafting house and desk plants and big trees suddenly feels less fun.

Boy Scout

Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset
2008

For now, ignore the part about the boy scout, and just get a load of that bed:

1) Impossible
2) Understandable
3) Love

Here comes the sun

Alejandro Cesarco
2004

I could watch this sun rise all day.

Welcome Home

Julien Berthier
2003

My heart just cartwheeled.

40 cm higher

Massimo Bartolini
1993-2001

When I was little, I used to imagine the ceiling as the floor. Imagine the windows closer to the floor, and having to walk around the light fixture. Imagine the floor feeling like spackle. Imagine no furniture on it. I wasn't going for minimalism, but something more like Bartolini's 40 cm higher. Imagine the floor 40 cm higher, swallowing everything on it. Imagine you're 40 cm higher, and everything else is 40 cm inconvenient.

Bellevue, July 17th, 1994 (Cooling Box #5)

Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset
2009

When Damien Hirst made Hymn (1996), the 20-foot sculpture of an anatomical model toy, his fabricator hesitated painting over the expensive, labor-intensive, impeccable bronze. Hirst's final justification was that the paint on the outdoor sculpture would be like skin, and eventually be worn down by the elements as such.

Elmgreen & Dragset is a couple living and working in Berlin. The couple's collaborative work brings mischief to mind, but it's done so sweetly that their subversiveness becomes earnest gestures. One work is pictured above, a painted bronze sculpture of a cooler installed at the 2009 Venice Biennale. Perhaps the impetus of painting this bronze (and Hirst's) was simply the absurdity of making the material look plastic.

Tetris 3-D

Jan Christensen and Bjørn-Kowalski Hansen
2010

I started out wanting to describe the brain activity of imagining Tetris long after a game is over. Eyes closed and trying to sleep, Tetris colors and blocks descend, rotate, and accumulate still. Awake, things appear rigid and inefficient; it's as if cars, people, sidewalks, everything could get by a little easier if only they could rotate like Tetris blocks. As far as brain activity goes, what's been found is a counter intuitive learning curve. As the Tetris game gets harder, the brain requires less energy to play it; this suggests that the brain becomes more efficient at handling the stimuli.



Artists Jan Christensen and Bjørn-Kowalski Hansen have created extra-large 3D Tetris blocks. By placing the large sculptures outdoors, it's as if the artists are referring to the inescapable quality of the blocks, but also turn them into conquered standstills. Another side of the work could be folding the insular Tetris game unto itself, making the overall piece something to be shared in public and that requires multiple hands to move.

Mantra

Stefano Arienti
2007

Much of Arienti's work involves reinterpreting and resurfacing various covers, from refrigerator doors to album sleeves. Mantras are recited to help with focus and meditation, and in my favorite piece, the Italian artist took cue from the record. Here, Arienti transcribed his own mantra with the one already there.

Variable Piece #34

Douglas Huebler
1970

I imagine it went like this:

DH: May I photograph your face?
W: Me, my face, whatever for?
DH: Why, you have a beautiful face.

BOOM.

And they all lived happily ever after.

Les articulations

Gilles Barbier
2008

Flags and speech bubbles babble between two articulation surfaces of a simple joint.

It's literal, and it's hilarious.

Stadium

Maurizio Cattelan
1991

Cattelan built an extra long table-football game that would accommodate as many players as an actual football/soccer game requires. I like it just as it is, ignoring the politics of the piece: art world as a mini society, but more sobering (Cattelan's home) Italian team played by Senegalese immigrants who suffered racism in Italy versus another team wearing a Nazi slogan on their shirts. Yes, those points and the game/war comparison make it a more serious piece, but in all honesty, the resounding groan of a lost victory in a World Cup game is far more beautiful to me.

Please water the plant and feed the fish

Juliette Blightman
2008

I would water and feed the hell out of these.

Thinking About Someone Special Who Lost Someone Special While Listening to Dolly Parton

Tad Hozumi
coming soon

I was looking for Tad's soccer paintings in honor of World Cup, since it is the only sport thing that conjures a warm fuzzy feeling for me. Something about many countries, one simple problem, quick recovery from loss, united rooting, and rooting for a country not one's own that does it. Instead I found a more recent work that, far from sport, radiates warmth in itself.

Thinking about meditation or yoga, it's not uncommon for one to hold an idea or person in mind, essentially sending healing energy to it. Thinking About Someone Special Who Lost Someone Special While Listening to Dolly Parton operates similarly, I would imagine, and does so in two ways. First, the consideration that thinking about someone special can help said person heal*. Second, music as a tool to conjure up a certain feeling, and music as a therapy**.

* There have been studies on this. I'll prove it in a forthcoming entry.
** There are studies on this too, but most people have experienced it firsthand.

Words and Years

Toril Johannessen
2010

Norwegian artist Toril Johannessen graphs the frequency of opposing words in academic journals. Underlying the work is an original dichotomy: drama and objectivity. I like Edward Tufte, but the beauty in Johannessen's series lives not only in presentation, but in the inquiry as well. Miracles, crisis, nature, Science, art, logic and love, hope and reality, expansion and recession... these meander my thoughts, but infrequently result in a calm, cool, and collected picture. Johannessen harmonizes the discord. See the series here.

Untitled

Jenny Walters
2006

Temporary Allegiance, a project on the UIC campus by artist Philip von Zweck, was your ordinary flagpole, but with an ever-changing repertoire of wavering commitment. Just as much it was a democratic means for several people to wave their veritable allegiances. LA-based artist Jenny Walters made my fave.

Harness

Robert Wechsler
2006

As the mouse tirelessly runs, the music box plays Brahm's Lullaby.

Grandpa used to wash my hands with gasoline

Clint Neufeld
2010

The exhibition that just ended at Parisian Laundry in Montréal featured the work of Saskatoon artist Clint Neufeld. The gallery's announcement said it best:

Nostalgia and memory play a key roll and act as the contextual impetus behind these aesthetic objects, rendering them useless of their design. They present a dichotomy of a romantic tension of memory and masculine and feminine clichés – delicate motif and car envy. Starting from the personal, Neufeld minds his regional prairie past and relationships with male figures in his life. Men who were not necessarily there emotionally but who, in their ways and language connected the artist to time and observing the extraordinary in the everyday.

The parts I like best are italicized. Thank you.

Wonderland

Yeondoo Jung
2005

In Yeondoo Jung's Wonderland series, the artist recreates children's drawings. Preserving their keen observations, fashion, and titles, Jung at once validates children's imaginations and filters them for adult eyes via c-print. "He didn't sleep for three days" is pictured above. Other favorites are "Modern Wedding" and "The Magician Turned the Wale into a Flower."

Up There

Malcolm Murray/Sky High Murals/Colossal Media Group

The guys, the city, the painting... the attention to detail, the doing things the hard way... the watching them paint... The only thing bigger than the turn on is the actual wall.

Rainy Day Posters

Jasmine Raznahan
circa 2008

A clear screen print on stainless steel needs rain to make its message clearer. The effect that Raznahan's poster has on passersby is not lost when advancing the image on her website.

Stitched Table

Uhuru
year unknown, also made to order

Butterfly joints are made, like sutures, to prevent a split in wood from breaking further apart. Using wood scrapped because of their splits, I used butterfly joints in such a way that their sentiment outweighed their function. Here, Brooklyn-based design and furniture company Uhuru operates on the same split-joint shtick. Although their material and design compete with the sentiment behind my pieces, their table still makes me warm and fuzzy.

Be Kind Rewind

Michel Gondry
2008

Mos Def and Jack Black play childhood friends who must recreate popular films after accidentally erasing the VHS copies belonging to a video store. Using found objects and everyday materials, Ghost Busters, Driving Miss Daisy, and Rush Hour are given new life as live-action dioramas. Think Wes Anderson meets Ed Wood. Above, Mos Def's character provides sound effects for a martial arts fight scene*. The play mat beside him is used in a scene to appear suspended from a tall building.

Director Michele Gondry is behind repurposing the turntable, play mat and, if you'll forgive my last spoiler, tinsel. The brilliance of tinsel is no longer attributed to foil.

In Be Kind Rewind, the exhibition at Deitch Projects in NYC**, Gondry reinstalled the video store from the film in the gallery, along with other sets. Inviting visitors to re/create their own movies, Gondry's message in the film -- to participate freely and actively in one's own entertainment -- echoed into the present; this, perhaps, is a nod to relational and performance art and participatory exhibitions. More importantly, the familiarity of the sets built in the gallery (café, office, waiting room, junkyard, etc.) were further encouragement for visitors to examine their everyday scenery and objects as materials.


*This reminds me of Oliver Laric's Kung Fu Percussion, which I love, but can't find on the artist's website anymore.

**Deitch Projects will close permanently this summer. The current exhibition by Shepard Fairey, which is the gallery's last, closes at the end of this month.

Paired Gold Mats, for Ross and Felix

Roni Horn
1994-95

The gallery text accompanying this piece at the ICA Boston reads, "The space between the gold sheets glows with an energy that would never exist without their delicate pairing."

Remove the gold, and you've got something remarkable.

Untitled

Plastic Pollution Coalition and Rethink
2010

The two porpoises in this Vancouver public sculpture are found caught in a large six-pack ring. Through their intervention, the Plastic Pollution Coalition and advertising firm Rethink draws awareness to the impact of pollution on wildlife, meanwhile pulling off a pretty ballsy PSA.

I just want to know where they got their cohones...

Untitled

Troutman Chair Co.
1997-present

Boarding a flight from Boston to Toronto, I caught a glimpse of this rocking chair at the gate. Turns out that there are a number of these rocking chairs in several airports, but the idea originates from North Carolina's Charlotte Douglas International Airport and their 1997 photography exhibition titled Porchsitting. I like the reimagined environment through displacement of rocking chair.

Untitled

Amy Cheung
2010

The exercise ball has been brought under the wing of numerous physiological contexts, from physical therapy to birthing to just plain sitting. Though unclear of my friend Amy's appropriation of the ball, her use of a papasan frame to contain it unveils a beautiful pairing.

Bouquet V

Willem de Rooij
2010

Made with florist Mireille Ruch, de Rooij's bouquet consists of one flower drawn from 95 different floral species. As one wilts, it is replaced with another of the same. Other arrangements include collaborations with Dutch artist Jeroen de Rijke (1970-2006): Bouquet II that references the robe colors of 2002 Nigerian beauty pageant contestants, and Bouquet IV that uses flowers selected for their gray-scale conversion and overall short range that eliminates stark black and stark white.

The Library of Rhizomatic Activity

Lucy Pullen
2005

Select books in various collections are covered in artist-made reflective dust jackets. As Pullen writes, when photographed, "the book appears to be consumed in a burst of bright white light, and disappears from the photograph." While the dust jacket conceals the book in normal light, in a darkened room it is a beacon.

Constellation

Chu Yun
2006

Makes me want to get busy in a darkened room with lots and lots of electronics. Plus, I like it when artwork requires the absence of conventional light.

Anything Frank Netter

Frank Netter

Photorealism shmotorealism. Unless we're talkin' medical illustrations in the style of Frank Netter. As only an artist can, Netter's gouache paintings infuse the sterility of medicine with command and palpable sensitivity. If you're wondering what my face looks like as I look at Netter's illustrations, sorry, only he could have drawn it.

Souvenirs

Michael Hughes
ongoing

Photographer Michael Hughes superimposes souvenirs over their inspiration, resulting in kitschy but sometimes beautiful reunions. Browse the photos in his Flickr set here.

5 Rooms

Jasper Niens
2009

There's something about people braving their way through a fun house that makes me want to throw some drywall and doors together, slap on some signage and call it art. Watch video of Niens's site-specific installation here.