Saturday, October 12, 2013

12/10/2013: WLASze Part 2: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences and zero economics

My first WLASze: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences and zero economics focused on sciences, so now is the time to switch over to the other side: arts.

Enjoy.


SaatchiOnline is profiling an excellent new talent: Jessica Kirkpatric
http://www.saatchionline.com/profile/153958


Superbly technical work merging compositional competence, deconstructing and altering the reality to create new representations of space and objects. Almost story-telling like quality of change in subtextual.


Hockneyesque geometry of inanimate spaces meets Dutch masters-evoking colour and light tonalities?..


On a similar note of space and emptiness, but with much more distilled sense of void and air, and more direct colours: Matt Phillips' work:
http://www.theartcollective.com/artists/matt-phillips/


Technically more devolutionary than Kirkpatric's work, and very different compositionally and tonally, but still, to me - very proximate in overall semiotics of space and geometry's dominance over the landscape.


And for a light-hearted moment to rest on:

Via M&C Saatchi Milan: video http://www.mcsaatchi-milano.com/
Full project here: http://www.protectyourlife.it/


MART of Bolzano, Italy is co-hosting a retrospective of Fortunato Depero's work in Barcelona: http://www.mart.tn.it/mostre.jsp?ID_LINK=682&area=137&id_context=4312
Depero is one of the core masters of Futurismo - a powerful pre-cursor to much of the modern art that emerged in the 20th century. Here's one his graphic design examples:


And another one - still alive today (actually MrsG has couple bottles still in the fridge…)

More classic work:



Beautiful example of architecture organically included in the landscape without the need to camouflage the building:
http://www.dezeen.com/2013/10/08/holiday-house-vindo%CC%88-by-stromma-projekt/


The point of the house geometry is to stretch the space along the horizontal lines to subtly position it within the vertical space of the forest and to float it above the rock formation. I love the simple elegance of devoting the view to the forest, and air and light flow of the house. It is elegant precisely because it strikes the balance between being organic to the site, yet not having to be obscure. Reminds me of the classic 'dacha' elegance of the old summer houses in Russia.


From strong imagery to weak content: as the BusinessInsider review aptly puts it, "Banksy's oeuvre has ceased to be groundbreaking or unique".
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/acclaimed-street-artist-banksy-has-completely-run-out-of-things-to-say-2013-10#ixzz2hFgN5837
Favourite quote: "His stale images of monkeys, gas masks, bobbies, shopping carts, and rats are now so ubiquitous they've lost all meaning.  Similarly, his medium of public graffiti no longer carries any significant risk since his brand of 'vandalism' is widely applauded and serves to actually increase property values.  ... Banksy's popularity endures simply because he's preaching to the choir."

Boom! Exploded. My personal view - the more I think, the more I agree with the reviewer. An artist cannot be simply tied to the audience nor can the artist be defined to be just a rubble-rouser. The artist must create the audience. Joseph Brodsky said that poetry is the process of creating an alternative world. In contrast, Banksy is simply depicting the perceived world of his audience. That is equivalent to taking endless pictures of ones' self reflected in the mirror and posting them all over the public domain… tedious even for a Flickr amateur…


To round off on a positive note… Russian Aeroflot launched a new 'budget' airline, called Dobrolet. Dobrolet comes with a hugely important brand name pedigree in art, being a trade name of the airline that once flew back in the 1920s as the precursor to Aerflot… Here are some images from Dobrolet graphic designs by Alexander Rodchenko:






For those unfamiliar with Rodchenko's work:
http://theartstack.com/artists/alexander-rodchenko
http://theartstack.com/artists/alexander-rodchenko-1


And for a smile… with some serious side to it too:
http://the-dimka.livejournal.com/6645.html
Just read the description and enjoy… H/T to MrsG.

1 comment:

Brian O' Hanlon said...

Some darn fine Russian art and graphics. I was always a bit fan of this stuff, for some reason. Brings back a lot of early memories to me, of a mis-spent youth.

Richard Meier, the architect, published a little volume of his collages quite a number of years ago. And if this Russian early 20th century stuff, is what one fancies, the little collages by Meier are also very cool.