Layers

posted in: Form 0

 

‘Zhangye Danxia Landform Geological Park’, Gansu Province, China
Photo via ifly50

The Danxia landform is located 600 miles west of Shanghai. Over millions of years, horizontal layers of sand and silt were formed and uplifted into their current sandstone state by shifts in tectonic plates. Oxidization of iron and other minerals is responsible for the spectacular range of colors.

 

Charles Clary, ‘Layered’, cut paper embedded in drywall with wallpaper,  2016
Photo via freeyork

Carved layers of paper in bright hues contrast with the roughness of drywall and ripped wall paper. Clary’s conceptual thinking is related to the organic form of land formations and viral colonies and how they interact with and affect surfaces.

 

Layered paint chip from partially demolished Belmont Art Park graffiti property, Los Angeles, CA
Photo via genealogy

The magnified paint chip is “about 1 cm thick, and appears to consist of about 150-200 layers of paint“. The fate of the graffiti property was set in motion in 2004. Losing its edgy nature to residential development was lamented by artists and art enthusiasts “based on the fact that for two decades the yard’s walls . . . served as an unsanctioned gallery of West Coast graffiti art“.

 

LEGO Simplified

posted in: Medium 0

 

In 2004 LEGO “decided to remove almost half the pieces from the LEGO catalogue, forcing designers to return to a simple approach to product innovation. The designers were also given clear instructions to reduce the confusion that had been created by the demand for originality in the 1990s. We had to revive the spirit of ‘simplicity and the pleasure of building things and creativity’, recalls [product design manager] Jorgensen”.

 

Nathan Sawaya, ‘Yellow’ LEGO, The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia PA, 2006
Once a New York City corporate lawyer, Sawaya is now a LEGO master.
Photo via boredpanda

 

Skyscraper firm, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, LEGO model in ice, 2013.
The simplicity of white bricks of LEGO Architecture Studio reflect LEGO’s ‘back to the basics plan’.
Photo via wired

 

Olafur Eliasson, ‘The collectivity project’, on the High Line at West 30th Street, New York, NY, 2015
With two tons of white LEGO bricks Eliasson strives to make the concerns of art relevant to society at large.
Photo via streetartnyc

 

Salt as Medium

posted in: Medium 0

 

Motoi Yamamoto, ‘Bellevue’, salt, Laband Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 2012
Photo via itsnicethat

Using salt as a medium, Yamamoto has meticulously sculpted an exquisite salt installation. It is one of many installations from the ‘Labyrinth Series’. Many of Yamamoto’s works resemble labyrinths or medical imagery of the brain.

 

Jonathan Schipper, ‘Detritus’, salt and 3-D printing in a boiler room, 2013  
Photo via coolhunting

‘Detritus’, is a salt installation “where a custom-built, room-sized 3-D printer crafts a miniature world in decay. Set in a reclaimed boiler room turned gallery space, the robot is suspended from the 40-foot ceilings and deposits a specially formulated saline paste onto a 12 ton desert of salt, and is programmed to build a desolate landscape filled with ruined buildings, trashed tires, and discarded objects.”

 

David Dimichele, ‘Salt and Asphalt’, from ‘Pseudodocumentation Series’, lightjet print 2007
Photo via mymodernmet

“David DiMichele’s ‘Salt and Asphalt’ is part of “a series of large-scale photographs depicting grandiose installations in fantasy exhibition spaces. DiMichele creates this work by first building scale models of exhibition spaces, and producing original artworks in drawing, painting and sculpture mediums, which are sited in the spaces and then photographed to create the final works.”

 

Ice as Medium

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Jim Denevan, ‘Drawing on Ice’, Lake Balkai, southwestern Siberia, 2010
Photo via jimdenevan

Jim Denevan and team created a nine square mile ‘ice drawing’ described as a “brilliant pattern . . . Russian pilots who initially refused to do a second pass of the project gave in after seeing how beautiful it was.” The project is a remarkable achievement in teamwork logistics and geometric precision in a remote and bitterly cold location.

 

Nele Azevedo, ‘1,000 Melting Men’, Gendarmenmarkt Square, Berlin, Germany, 2009
Photo via juxtapose

The warmer months of Berlin provided appropriate temperatures for the ‘melting men’ installation. The impressive abundance of carved ice figures made their statement slowly melting and ceasing to exist. Nele Acevedo has re-created the installation internationally in the promotion of global concern for polar regions.

 

Andy Goldsworthy, ‘Ice Spiral (Tree Soul)’, Dumfries, Scotland, 1995
Photo via beautifuldecay

‘Ice Spiral’ is an expression of Andy Goldsworthy’s ability to expose nature’s beauty in sensational form. In Scotland’s frosty winters, Goldsworthy dons fingerless gloves to create the icy fragile beauty of ‘land art’ sculptures on an intimate scale.

 

Iridescence

posted in: Light 0

 

Occurrence of iridescence in nature has inspired artists and architects to mimic the phenomenon with playful and entertaining works using man-made iridescent materials, at times cleverly enhanced by customized lighting. As angles of light change, disturbed refraction or interference of light causes subtle modifications to create changing displays of the rainbow colors of iridescence.

 

Oil slick reveals the colors of iridescence that capture the imagination.
Photo via commonswikimedia

 

Hiro Yamagata, ‘Quantum Field X3,’ Installation, Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain, 2004
Man-made iridescence with laser beams projected on holographic panels of the two cube buildings.
Photo via guggenheim-bilbao 

 

The tiny squid’s symbiotic relationship with bioluminescent bacteria creates stunning iridescence.
Photo via otlibrary

 

SOFTlab, ‘Ventricle’ installation at Southbank Centre’s ‘London Festival of Love’, England
Solar-mirror film exhibits synthetic iridescence supported by aluminum framework.  
Photo via designboom

 

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