A Colorful Winter is a new series of works by photographer Florent Tanet currently on display at the famous Le Bon Marché department store in Paris through February 16th. The clever arrangements of common fruits and vegetables against pastel backdrops play with color, scale, and shape creating whimsical still lifes meant to act as a reprieve from a dreary winter. If you liked this also check out the work of Sarah Illenberger or Sakir Gökçebag. Also don’t miss Carl and Evelina’s Homage to Calder. You can see much more Tanet’s work on his website. (via ignant)
The Avante/Garde Diaries recently released these two brief clips of an interview with master art forger Mark Landis who for the last 20 years created dozens if not hundreds of convincing art forgeries including works by Picasso which he then donated to institutions around the United States including over 50 art museums. Landis would often arrive at the museums dressed as a jesuit priest with elaborate stories of how he had acquired the artworks he subsequently donated. Incredibly, after a 2007 investigation it was determined that Landis may not have actually broken any laws. He never once tried to profit from the fake artworks but instead seemed to gain enough satisfaction from fooling curatorial staff members at various institutions. While the interviews above by the Avante/Garde Diaries are not a comprehensive documentary, they are a fascinating glimpse into the world of this rather bizarre man.
Last year curators Matthew Leininger and Aaron Cowan collected some 90 forged artworks by Landis, as well as his “jesuit father” costume (donated by the forger himself) and held an exhibition called Faux Real at the Dorothy W. and C. Lawson Reed Jr. Gallery in Cincinnati.
For his MFA Thesis Exhibit last September, Pennsylvania artist James McNabb created a beautiful collection of architectural wonders using discarded wood. He describes his process as “sketching with a band saw,” and says initial intent was not to build skylines, but instead began with the creation of the individual wooden pieces which resembled tools or other strangely familiar objects. After he built nearly 250 of them in a day they collectively began to resemble a miniature city. You can see many more works from the exhibition on his website.
Sit back, turn up the volume and set this video to full-screen. Behold the lastest stop motion music video from animation duo Katarzyna Kijek and Przemysław Adamski (previously here and here) for Japanese singer-songwriter Shugo Tokumaru. The video was launched just this morning courtesy of Pitchfork and features a brilliant, continuous parade of what must be thousands of cut paper and foam core silhouettes set to Tokumaru’s quirky track Katachi.
Before inviting Scott Carter to show in your exhibition space, be sure you’ve done your homework and have a stellar insurance policy, the Chicago artists’ medium of choice is drywall and wood cut directly from the walls of the gallery. Blurring the lines between sculpture and installation Carter first develops digital prototypes which he then translates into the myriad components needed to construct the furniture and other sculptures that comprise each exhibition. The eviscerated and ragged walls then form the backdrop to each piece like a curious set of physical blueprints, not unlike wooden insect skeleton models you might have played with as a kid. Scott currently has work at Beers.Lambert Gallery in London through January 26th and will have another solo show there in 2014. See much more of his work via his website (flash).
San Francisco-based artist Jeremy Mann lives and works in San Francisco where he executes these sublime, moody cityscapes using oil paints. To create each work he relies on a wide range of techniques including surface staining, the use of solvents to wipe away paint, and the application of broad, gritty marks with an ink brayer. The resulting paintings are dark and atmospheric, urban streets seemingly drenched in rain and mystery. Mann’s work is in no way limited to cityscapes, he also paints the human figure, still lifes, and landscapes. He currently has work at John Pence Gallery and you can see many more of his cityscapes here. (via my darkened eyes)
Some figurative sculptors carve their artworks from unforgiving stone while others carefully morph the human form from soft blocks of clay, but artist Jonty Hurwitz begins with over a billion computer calculations before spending months considering how to materialize his warped ideas using perspex, steel, resin, or copper.
Born in Johannesburg in 1969, Hurwitz now lives and works in London where he is somewhat of a renaissance man, focusing both on his artwork and micro-loan website Wonga which he co-founded in 2007. His anamorphic sculptures rely on scans of objects (hands, faces, frogs) that are then distorted digitally and fabricated, but when placed in front of a cylindrical mirror the projected reflection reveals the original object. Still, other works deal with pixelated or sliced human forms that are only viewable from a single perspective. A scientist at heart, Hurwitz explains to me that his artwork is his way of “expressing calculations visually,” and also a way to experiment with cutting-edge manufacturing and fabrication technologies. Of the more mind-bending anamorphic pieces he shares:
For the anamorphic pieces its an algorithmic thing, distorting the original sculptures in 3D space using 2πr or πr3 (cubed). Much of it is mathematical, relying on processing power. There is also a lot of hand manipulation to make it all work properly too as spacial transformation have a subtle sweet spot which can only be found by eye. Generally I will 3D scan my subject in a lab and then work the model using Mathematica or a range of 3D software tools. I think the π factor is really important in these pieces. We all know about this irrational number but the anamorphic pieces really are a distortion of a “normal” sculpture onto an imaginary sphere with its centre at the heart of the cylinder.
I strongly urge you to watch the two embedded videos above to get a sense of how remarkably precise each artwork appears up close. What I’ve shown you here is honestly just the tip of the iceberg, please head on over to his website, Facebook, Saatchi profile, and Youtube to see more of his artwork. He’ll also have a piece on display at the Kinetica art show in London in February. All the photography above was taken by Niina Keks, Otto Pierratto, Richard Ivey, Alex Brenner and Jonty Hurwitz and provided courtesy of the artist.
Update: If you’d like to read more about the history of anamorphosis in art, Wikipedia has a great article, tracing the known roots of the technique back to a 1485 artwork by Leonardo da Vinci. You can also explore the anamorphism tag here on Colossal.
Update 2: I want to include one more quote from Hurwitz regarding the historical context of anamorphosis:
I have always been torn between art and physics. In a moment of self-doubt in 2003, I wondered into the National Portrait Gallery and stumbled across a strange anamorphic piece by William Scrots (Portrait of Edward VI, 1546). Followed shortly down the isle by The Ambassadors (Hans Holbein, 1533). My life changed forever. I rushed home and within hours was devouring the works of Escher, Da Vinci and many more. In a breath I had found “brothers” in a smallish group of artists spanning 500 years with exactly the same dilemma as me. Within two months I was deep in production of my first work. My art rests on the shoulders of giants, and I am grateful to them.
Begins June 2013! The MFA in Visual Narrative program at SVA is a groundbreaking approach to visual storytelling. Comprised of three eight-week summer sessions in NYC and two academic years online, this low-residency program places equal emphasis on creative writing and figurative visual expression: the education of the artist as author.
![[Sponsor] School of Visual Arts Story: Visualized | MFA Visual Narrative sponsor](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20130123180637im_/http://engine.adzerk.net/v/0/37527_50571_20_0/v.gif?r=1346354354 "[Sponsor] School of Visual Arts Story: Visualized | MFA Visual Narrative")
