Monthly Archives: January 2012
JR’s TED Prize wish: Use art to turn the world inside out
JR’s TED Prize wish: Use art to turn the world inside out.
Working anonymously, pasting his giant images on buildings, trains, bridges, the often-guerrilla artist JR forces us to see each other. Traveling to distant, often dangerous places — the slums of Kenya, the favelas of Brazil — he infiltrates communities, befriending inhabitants and recruiting them as models and collaborators. He gets in his subjects’ faces with a 28mm wide-angle lens, resulting in portraits that are unguarded, funny, soulful, real, that capture the sprits of individuals who normally go unseen. The blown-up images pasted on urban surfaces – the sides of buildings, bridges, trains, buses, on rooftops — confront and engage audiences where they least expect it. Images of Parisian thugs are pasted up in bourgeois neighborhoods; photos of Israelis and Palestinians are posted together on both sides of the walls that separate them.
HERE IS LINK TO MY SUBMISSION: Future, Hope, Fear
JR’s most recent project, “Women Are Heroes,” depicts women “dealing with the effects of war, poverty, violence, and oppression” from Rio de Janeiro, Phnom Penh, Delhi and several African cities. And his TED Prize wish opens an even wider lens on the world — asking us all to turn the world inside out. Visit insideoutproject.net …
“I would like to bring art to improbable places, create projects so huge with the community that they are forced to ask themselves questions.”
JR, Beaux Arts Magazine
Public Space! Intervention of Hearts at the Vancouver Art Gallery | NowPublic News Coverage
“intervention of hearts” painted by Vancouver Public Space Network. The VPSN are a local organization devoted to the appreciation and celebration of public space in the city and are to thank for a raucous ongoing programme of events including roundtables, community consulation on issues as diverse as Eco-Density, surveillance, and public art. Go, VPSN!
Continue reading at NowPublic.com: We Love You, Public Space! Intervention of Hearts at the Vancouver Art Gallery | NowPublic News Coverage http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/we-love-you-public-space-intervention-hearts-vancouver-art-gallery#ixzz1j50Xn1vw
FLUXO » Dead Drops
‘Dead Drops’ is an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space. USB flash drives are embedded into walls, buildings and curbs accessable to anybody in public space. Everyone is invited to drop or find files on a dead drop. Plug your laptop to a wall, house or pole to share your favorite files and data. Each dead drop is installed empty except a readme.txt file explaining the project. ‘Dead Drops’ is open to participation. If you want to install a dead drop in your city/neighborhood follow the ‘how to’ instructions and submit the location and pictures.
via FLUXO » Dead Drops.
Dead Drops ‘How to’ – NYC from aram bartholl on Vimeo.
FLUXO » appropriation of public space
FLUXO » appropriation of public space.
appropriation of public space
Urban intervention project from Epos 257 in Prague: The appropriation of public space with no apparent intent
Duration: 54 days (September 04 — October 27, 2010)
Location: Palackeho square, Prague — the so-called ‘Czech Hyde Park’ — allegedly the most liberal spot in the country, approved by the authorities for holding any unannounced public gatherings.
Have we grown accustomed to having our living space curbed by just anyone? Is public space a mere myth?
In the current society, our living space is defined by legal norms and regulations, the same way as fences demark the choices of our free movement.
Only by attempting to cross those boundaries, we learn how limited the space we live in really is — that we are not as free as it may initially seem. We are getting the sense that the individuality of today is destined to an existence amidst restrictions.
Gadfly Online.
“I have joyously shut myself up in the solitary domain where the mask holds sway, wholly made up of violence, light and brilliance.”
—James Ensor
The Joy of Quiet – NYTimes.com
The urgency of slowing down — to find the time and space to think — is nothing new, of course, and wiser souls have always reminded us that the more attention we pay to the moment, the less time and energy we have to place it in some larger context. “Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries,” the French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote in the 17th century, “and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.” He also famously remarked that all of man’s problems come from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
When telegraphs and trains brought in the idea that convenience was more important than content — and speedier means could make up for unimproved ends — Henry David Thoreau reminded us that “the man whose horse trots a mile in a minute does not carry the most important messages.” Even half a century ago, Marshall McLuhan, who came closer than most to seeing what was coming, warned, “When things come at you very fast, naturally you lose touch with yourself.” Thomas Merton struck a chord with millions, by not just noting that “Man was made for the highest activity, which is, in fact, his rest,” but by also acting on it, and stepping out of the rat race and into a Cistercian cloister.
Van Gogh: Up Close – National Gallery of Canada
Van Gogh: Up Close
25 May 2012 – 03 Sep 2012
This will be the first major project devoted to the Dutch artist by a Canadian institution for over two decades. Presented in Canadian exclusivity in Ottawa, Van Gogh: Up Close will break new ground in exploring the artist’s representation of nature in particular his innovative use of the close-up view. The artist depicts nature in very particular ways: he experiments with depth of field and focus, zooms in on a verdant tuft of grass or a single iris and or provides shifting perspectives of a farmer’s field or the corner of a garden. This exhibition will feature approximately 50 paintings including works that have rarely been shown publicly, as well as a selection of Japanese prints. Organized by the National Gallery of Canada and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.Presented by Sun Life Financial.
via Van Gogh: Up Close – Exhibitions – National Gallery of Canada | National Gallery of Canada.
Exhibition: ‘Gustave Moreau and the Eternal Feminine’ at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne « Art Blart
A really ood notice but I like Moreau. He is always one of my favourites at the Musee d’Orsay.
The Sirens (detail)
Whilst many of Moreau’s works are filled with mythical female characters, in life he was surrounded by two key female figures: his mother and his girlfriend, Alexandrine Dureux. Moreau lived with his mother until her passing in 1884, while Dureux lived nearby. After Dureux’s death in 1890, Moreau transformed his family home into a museum, creating massive ateliers for the display of more than 5,000 of his own works of art, as well as dedicating rooms to his father, his mother and Alexandrine Dureux. Left to the French nation in Moreau’s will in 1898 and officially opened to the public in 1903, the Musée Gustave Moreau remains one of the world’s most unique and extraordinary single-artist museums.
Exhibition: ‘Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome’ at the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas
One of the most influential figures in the history of art, Caravaggio (1571-1610) overturned the artistic conventions of the day and created stunningly dramatic paintings, both sacred and secular. This ambitious exhibition explores the profound impact of his work on the wide range of painters of Italian, French, Dutch, Flemish, and Spanish origin who resided in Rome. Arranged by theme, it includes over 50 paintings, with Caravaggio’s compelling images juxtaposed with those he inspired. This is the second largest display of his paintings in North America and only the third Caravaggio exhibition to be held in the United States.