French american band Hold Your Horses recreated famous paintings in their video “70 million”. I would have enjoyed art history lesson so much more that way!
Still, I am happy to see that I do remember quite a bit from my art classes. I can name without fear the works from Leonardo Da Vinci, Botticelli, Vermeer, Delacroix, Magritte, Mondrian, Manet, Frida Kahlo, Van Gogh and some others.
I let you discover these wonders in this playful video clip.
From the 21st of November until the end of the year, the streets of my city are lit with magic and festivity. This 3rd edition of The Lausanne Festival Of Light features ten artists from Switzerland, France, Germany and Finland who work with light, bringing it to life by means of projections, sculptures or clever staged productions.
Here are some of my favourite.
– Steve Bonny “5R”, under the Arches of the Grand-Pont.
The 5 letters R stand for Renoncez, Réparez, Réutilisez, Réfléchissez, Recyclez (give up, repair, reuse, think and recycle in english)
The blue neon lights come from a previous installation of 2013.
– Bernd Spiecker “Please have a seat”, St-François + passerelle du Flon
Benches are made to seat, relax and are conducive to conversation. The idea is to stimulate the interaction between people by means of lights, colors and art!
Bernd Spiecker has a vision to let 100 lightbenches wander around the world and to install them at famous places, like the Chinese wall, the Central Park, the Gorky Park or the Mont Blanc, so that people from every nation, religion and culture can have a seat and get the opportunity to communicate with each other.
– Jan Ising and Bartosz Navarra “Faces of Lausanne”, rue Centrale
According to the artists, it is not one person who represents the face of the city, but many people. The diversity of the inhabitants of a city and the variation in architecture and urbanism, determines the identity of a place. Faces is an interactive project always developing itself. Started in 2011, this 3-dimensional projection has travelled in many other cities and will one day wear the title “Faces of the World”.
With Christmas just round the corner, it is a perfect time to wander in a shimmery Lausanne. Enjoy and merry Xmas to all!!!
Brazilian artist Victor Nunes combines every-day objects with simple doodles to turn them into pictures of faces, animals and other patterns. He gives meaning to random objects in a fantastic way! Psychologists call it pareidolia, I personally call it amazing imagination. We should try to seek images like that in our surrounding more often, it would make our life so much happier.
I love the way he fills the space on the pages and all the intricate details hidden everywhere; I love the faces of his characters and the humor he uses; I love his brush technique using only few colors; I love absolutely everything about his drawings! This guy is a genius. He creates his own world out of his imagination, mixing steampunk, fairy tales and science fiction.
For the little story, Mattias Adolfsson is a freelance illustrator living in Sweden. He has worked with everything from computer games to children’s books and magazines. And like you can see, I am really fond of him.
Basically used to spread information or to promote artists, internet has changed many things among the artistic world. This new technology has opened new horizons and some artists love to explore different ways to use it. That’s the case of INSA who has been traveling the world creating incredible animated GIFs. This combination of spray and computer is called GIF-ITI (GIF+graffiti). It reminds me videos from BLU who also takes photos of his graffitis and bring them to life. I love the fact that those drawings only truly live when viewed online. A graffiti becomes something else.
Watch the making of here.
When I dropped in City Hostel Seattle, I directly saw the colorful frames on the walls. Little ones, big ones, round ones, wooden ones; a bunch of birds and other funny animals surrounding me. These artworks are made by a local freelance illustrator & graphic designer known as narboo. With some Greenwood Collective’s friends, he has a studio called The Space Is Ours where they have a show every second Friday of each month. Unfortunately, I’m not staying in Seattle long enough to see one.
Another exhibition I went to in Chicago is “Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good “. I had already seen it during the Venice Biennale in 2012, but I was too exhausted to enjoy it and went trough it really quickly. It has been updated since Venice and this time, I took my time to properly understand what it was.
This show presents urban interventions that bring positive change in our neighborhoods and cities. All the projects shown are devoted to the growing movement of architects, designers, artists, and everyday citizens acting on their own initiative to make the cities more sustainable, pleasurable, and safer.
The Chicago installation recreates the same lively exhibition design of pull-down banners, created by the design studio Freecell and the firm M-A-D. On the ground, you can follow the history of urbanism. Starting with the first city around 7500 BC up to nowadays, going trough unusual info like the broken window theory or the meaning of the word “flâneur”by Charles Beaudelaire. It was really interesting!
Okay, I am super excited and enthusiastic about the exhibition I saw today. So enthusiastic, that it blows my mind and made me forget how I wanted to start this post.
Well, now that I have just done it, let me explain why I’m feeling like this. The reason is actually a person: Stefan Sagmeister.
This Austrian-born but New York-based designer seeks happiness in his everyday life. His philosophy meets with my own beliefs so I felt really inspired while going through his exhibition, called The Happy Show. It’s an ass kicker for every person who’s looking, not directly for happiness, but who wants to find direction in his life.
Maybe I over-evaluate it, but what I read really speaks to me.
This show depicts Sagmeister’s ten-year of exploration of happiness. It reflects some “rules to live by” that he wrote in his diary. Which means you won’t see any of his design works, but you’ll learn a lot about his own personal thoughts. He presents analyses and social datas with infographics, video and scultures. What I liked was that his reasoning and comments were written on the wall. I could tell you all what I have heard and seen in here, but the best way for you is to see it by yourself. The exhibit is now in Chicago’s Cultural Center until September 23, 2013 (and it is free). Go get a happy moment!
If you can’t, I’ve taken some pictures and I found the video shown at the exhibit. I find it worth spreading around. Hopefully, you’ll think the same.
Want to try a new food experience? Just look at Ida Skivenes pictures. She recreates famous paintings with her breakfast. It takes her about five to fifteen minutes to assemble the plates and she eats everything after she photographs it. She also makes some animals, cartoons, logos and, in fact, anything recognizable.
After Eric Joyner, here is another artist I discovered at the Art Attack Gallery in SF. His name: Turtle Wayne. His passion: drawing turtles obviously!
When walking on Hyde Street with my boyfriend we saw a guy drawing on a door with only black pens. That was Turtle Wayne in action! The guy was very friendly and we briefly chatted with him. He was completing a drawing on the wall next to him, which took him about 20 days to create. This guy must know what a hand cramp is, the wall is covered with doodles from top to bottom! Inside the gallery, we found loads of little pictures he made showing “every day turtles”. His ideas go on and on and he’s on all social network. You can’t miss him.
stunningstuff 