For anyone who has lived or visited a narrow courtyard wrapped in buildings it can sometimes be a claustrophobic space with the sky limited in all directions, but the strange geometric gaps formed by the surrounding architecture are often fun to photograph. For instance art director Lisa Rienermann (scroll right) became famous for her award-winning alphabet formed from letters spotted in the space between buildings. However French artist Thomas Lamadieu instead used the constraints as inspiration for his imaginative illustration series Sky Art, where the artist drew within the narrow confines of rooftops and tiny slices of sky to create some pretty wild imagery. It would be fun to see different artists interpretations of the exact same spot. (via my modern met)
Dmichael.williams
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Sky Art: Thomas Lamadieu Illustrates in the Sky Between Buildings
Now and Now
Provoke No. 2., 1969 All Images © Daido Moriyama, courtesy of the Steven Kasher Gallery.
Steven Kasher Gallery is presenting an exhibition of new and classic photographs by the important Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama. This is the largest and most comprehensive exhibition of Moriyama’s work ever mounted in an American art gallery. Daido Moriyama: Now and Now will be on view from March 28th through May 4th, 2013. Steven Kasher Gallery is located at 521 W. 23rd St., New York, NY 10011. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11am to 6pm.
Tomei Expressway: The Road that Drives People, 1969
Rose, 1984
Imitation, 1995
Japan’s Scenic Trio, Mutsumatsushima, 1974
Record No. 19, Italy, 2010
Misawa, 1971
Lips, 1989
Artist Hong Yi Plays with her Food for 30 Days
For almost every day last month Malaysian artist/architect Hong Yi (who often goes by the nickname Red) created a fun illustration made with common (and occasionally not so common) food. Her parameters were simple: the image had to be comprised entirely of food and the only backdrop could be a white plate. With that in mind Yi set out to create landscapes, animals, homages to pop culture, and even a multi-frame telling of the three little pigs. The project, which still appears to be ongoing, has been documented heavily around the web, but if you haven’t seen it all head over to her Facebook and read an interview on designboom. Photos will also be appearing on her Instagram at @redhongyi.
An Alphabet of Animals Carved from Crayons and Other Miniature Pencil Works by Diem Chau
Armadillo, Boy, Cat, Dove, Elephant, Frog
Girl, Handstand, Iguana, Jellyfish, Koala, Ladybug
Manatee, Nautilus, Owl, Penguin, Quail, Rabbit, Seahorse
Tiger, Urchin, Viper, Wolf, Xiphosura (Horseshoecrab), Yoga, Zebra
An artist’s medium is as varied as imagination allows and you’ll find hundreds, maybe even thousands of them here on Colossal. But occasionally a medium itself is altered to create an artwork, as is the case with Seattle artist Diem Chau (previously here and here) who works within the narrow confines of graphite pencil leads and colored crayons to carve her delicate sculptures of animals and people. A native of Vietnam, Chau and her family came to America as refugees in 1986 and would later receive a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts after which she began exhibiting her works in New York, Miami, Seattle and Los Angeles.
Luckily we’ll finally get a glimpse of Chau’s miniature carvings here in Chicago at Packer Schopf Gallery opening this Friday. Almost everything you see here will be on view and the artist will be giving a talk at 1pm the following day on April 6th, 2013. See more of her new A-Z series on Flickr and on her blog.
Can You Guess the Owner? New Macro Photos of Animal Eyes from Suren Manvelyan
Photographer Suren Manvelyan took the web by storm back in 2011 with his Animal Eyes series, where he captured spectacular macro photographs of various critter’s eyes. Manvelyan is back with a new series of extreme close-ups which seem to peer right into the soul of various animals, even though it’s not exactly clear whose soul you’re looking at. I left captions off the photos above, but you can use the list below in order of appearance to check your answers. I got exactly one right.
1. Garden Tree Boa, 2. Gecko eublepharis, 3. Basiliscus lizard, 4. Gecko tokay, 5. Chinchilla, 6. Long-eared owl, 7. Fennec, 8. Raven.
Seminal Image #1085
Anatomy of a Murder
(Otto Preminger; 1959)
Walden - Diaries, Notes and Sketches, 1969. Mekas.
Walden - Diaries, Notes and Sketches, 1969. Mekas.
B is for Budziak #1Seminal Images #1086
Guy Budziak transforms film noir moments -- like this one from Ottto Preminger's 1950 masterpiece, Where the Sidewalk Ends, starring Dana Andrews -- into muscular, hauntingly spare woodcuts. Indulge in the joys of cultural pessimism and check chiseler.org for Budziak's graphic art. The Chiseler adorns all its essays on forgotten authors, neglected stars, and lost languages with surprising imagery... vintage movie posters, original illustrations by the great Tony Millionaire -- not to mention a miscellany of poetic visual detours. Our world-class writers include: Imogen Smith, Dan Callahan, Andy McCarthy, Brynn White, Jim Knipfel, David Cairns, John Strausbaugh, and, yes, Gunslinger's own... Tom Sutpen.
Flickr Finds No. 30
Cathy Hammer / New installation by Kaarina Kaikkonen
So here we are at our 30th edition of Flickr Finds, my personal challenge to ferret out the greatest photos found on Flickr every few weeks. It should be bi-weekly, it never is, but I think we all benefit from the quality versus the regularity. This is a really phenomenal week for photography, and if you like what you see here please click through each photo above to learn more about the individual photographers—this is truly only the tip of the iceberg for each of these artists. If you’d like you can check out previous Flickr Finds.
How to Make It in America Without Human Contact for 27 Years
This is a headline in Maine’s Kennebec Journal today: “‘North Pond Hermit,’ suspect in more than 1,000 Maine burglaries, captured.” This is a human being they’re talking about, so “captured” sort of makes it sound like he’s some mischievous bear or something. But that headline also leaves out the most important part: HE HAS NOT BEEN SEEN BY ANOTHER HUMAN BEING SINCE 1986. (Well, he said “hi” to a hiker in the early ’90s, but that is it.)
It’s a fascinating story—again, because HE HAS HAS BEEN SANS HUMAN INTERACTION FOR 27 YEARS—and you should go read it right now. But, as a primer, the man is a 47-year-old named Christopher Knight. He went into the Maine wilderness after the Chernobyl disaster, but only considers that a time-marker for when he decided to leave society and not actually a reason why, which, OK? (He doesn’t appear to have a “why.” “He didn’t give a reason,” Maine State Trooper Diane Perkins-Vance told the Kennebec Journal. “He said he frequently asks himself that same question.”) He survived, it seems, based on the details in the story and as the headline suggests, mostly by stealing food, drink, beer, and other supplies from local campsites. Knight was arrested (“captured”) while stealing from Pine Tree Camp, a nearby camp serving children and adults with disabilities.
Yet, still, he was close enough to other humans that, just by chance, you’d have to figure some lost camper would’ve stumbled upon him. How did he stay hidden, then? Serious attention to detail.
Knight went to great lengths to make the camp invisible from the ground and the air, even covering a yellow shovel with a black bag. Knight never had a fire, even on the coldest days, for fear of being detected. He covered shiny surfaces, like his metal trash cans, with moss and dirt and painted green a clear plastic sheet over his tent.
Knight even situated his campsite facing east and west to make the best use of the sun throughout the day.
Knight’s abilities at concealment at first made Hughes believe that he must be a military veteran.
“I don’t know how he learned that,” Hughes said.
Hughes, who spent eight years in the U.S. Marines and 18 years with the warden service finding and tracking experienced woodsmen, marveled at Knight’s meticulousness.
Knight, who led Hughes and Perkins-Vance to his campsite, carefully avoided snow, stepped on rocks when he could and even avoided breaking branches in thick growth. Knight usually put on weight in the fall so he would have to eat less in the winter and thus avoid making treks for food and risk leaving prints in the snow.
“Every step was calculated,” Hughes said.
“No Shiny Objects” also meant not owning a mirror. When authorities showed Knight a picture of himself taken by a surveillance camera, he had no idea who it was.