Thursday, April 3, 2008

Wow! Foot power!

If you ask me (and I know you didn't), there just aren't enough things being done with shoes that recycle the energy you generate as you walk. This project, done by designer JooYoun Paek, combines shoe power with inflatable furniture to create a chair you pump up as you walk. And *so* stylish, too. Does Bjork know about these?
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/arts/20.html

Calvin Jones - "art should be in peoples lives..."

Seraphim gallery - Philadephia - http://www.seraphingallery.com/

'The Peace Wall' - Artist: Jane Golden
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1649278_1421212,00.html

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

a laundry list of social issues on which to comment

http://www2.nysun.com/article/71613

like a mix between an evangelical tent revival announcement and a 19th-century circus poster...

I disagree when author states that artist "only comment," well that's more than you have done, so...

I agree turning up the volume is needed with commenting on social issues. Poor guy getting a review like this, better luck next time.

the global geo-political-iPod-McMansion-Freedom Loving-oil skyrocketing present...
http://www.stiftungleostrauss.com/bunker/?p=224

I disagree somewhat, muralists continue to move people globally, and unite people under a cause, highlighted by the paint on the wall

Irish Murals of Belfast
http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/mccormick/photos/no946.htm

Take a mural tour in Philly
http://www.muralarts.org/tours/

Art Education in Philly
http://www.muralarts.org/education/

These are great, community murals in mosaic
http://www.muralmosaic.com/murals.html

Diego Rivera Mural Project
http://www.riveramural.com/

Suresh Muthukulam
http://www.keralamurals.com/

When in LA
http://www.lamurals.org/Murals.html

Something from nothing

Uses guns in his sculpture
http://www.randafricanart.com/Trashformations_East_article.html

This has potential.

http://www.sandrabromley.com/gs/in_1.html

Don't take my gun away...
http://www.efernandez.info/fernandez/Series/Direct%20Metal%20Sculpture/Gun.htm

Yes, but guns are in the hands of 14 year olds. I oppose violence, but agree people have the right to bear arms. The question is, why are guns in the hands of youth, going to schools, on mindless rampages. If those same kids were ever listened too, and given an outlet. If art and music were not slashed from school curriculum. If there were not such an emphasis on standards, as if there were a standard child. Then, maybe more kids would actually want to go to school. Shoving unwelcome material down ones throat does not make one ask for more. Could it be the gun, a traditional line of defense against intruders, and wild animals, now have become the only sound that is heard by the young, and silenced. This sculpture has nothing and everything to do with ending the need for youth to commit acts of violence in the United States. The grizzly bear, now found only in ALaska, Montana, and parts of Washington, as well as Canada, used to be the bitter foe of the homesteader. A seemingly all powerful creature, but a bullet silences him. Now I think of a misunderstood child, who thinks everyone, their teachers, principles, student body, town, family, even their place of worship, has abandoned them, said you are not good enough, or you are not up to standards, or don't wear that band t-shirt that represents who you are, or that piercing, and don't be who you are. It's jump on the bandwagon, or be left behind. That is just what happens, right there, and left behind all at the same time, with their only solace, a violent video game, probably created by someone equally dissatisfied with the hand life deals, but with marketing business sense to create it. A game is not a game, it is very serious, and a life, for some. A relative of mine is a gamer, and nothing comes between them, and their game, except a power outage, its a life. There are all kinds of games to play, some with wizards, and some with special agents like James Bond, and some like the much publicized do om. It's sad in a way, do om, would be all a lost person would see, everyday, do om. It might convince someone to just give up, and be heard just once. Resentment turn into hate, when allowed to thrive. It is the number one motivator in crime, next to just plain total loss of reason, or insanity, which follows it. Guns, a symbol of control. For one unable to control anyone around them, or their test score, the place their locker is, their neighbors, the words springing from lips, a gun and a trigger are all there is to control, and suddenly, there is a total control of everything. It's very tragic, but control is something people seek in life, and some desire it more than others. Some breeze through life, never needing to be in control, because they have it easy. Others pour their blood sweat and tears into becoming controller of something. Rulers, and the ruled, in macrocosms, and microcosms across the world,a nd through time. So the incidents at high schools in the US are nothing new, just repeats of an ongoing battle, that plays itself in many ways, and landscapes. There is a solution, and the solution is to let them be heard. How can people be heard? I think of Diego Rivera to answer this question, and Siquieros, and Orozco. They changed reality around them, with art. The change should not end, but must continue, evrywhere, and the mantra is brushes - not - guns - art - not - guns - expression - not - implosion. I've been to all the big cities, and the small towns. The places where people are allowed to express who they are, are happier, and more peaceful. The places of repression, foster violence all around. NY is asymbol of unity for the entire world. Every nation is represented here, and mixed together is thei beautiful rainbow of culture, communication, and vision. NY is dusted in lead, crumbling,a nd solidifying, like a giant puzzlebox, of doors, passageways, that endless visits to, open more doors, but never fully solve. Melting guns is like having faith, not just making peace.

Sandra Bromley and Wallis Kendal - http://www.mindfully.org/tshirt.htm

This sculpture speak, very literally to me, knotted gun, stop the violence. When I look at is though, I see something else too, silenced voices, the repressed, the loss of reason, and I see this symbolizing someone in a mental instituation, all doped up, waiting to explode, in a strait jacket. I think of prison too when I see this. Prison does not shut people up, and does not nessesarily make then well. Most cases, they become better criminals. Sometimes time will change people, and they may decide to heal while there, but not always, like a knotted gun, they sit in prison, still full of ammunition. Just because bullets are not firing does not mean they won't.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/4229473.stm

This is very moving, the image of the child soldier. This makes me remember seeing the movie Blood Diamon d about ivory coast children forced to fight. It makes you wonder what can be done, by you, mere person. Well here is something powerful that has been done, this sculpture, and what a message it sounds across the world, all the way to my desktop computer.

Make a giant martini glass from guns and put it in the desert, not what I would have done...here it is...

http://www.mccullagh.org/image/950-13/gun-sculpture.html

Gun barrels to use, in Italy

http://www.norseaodyssey.com/Slide_Shows/Europe/Italy/Central_Italy/slides/Gun%20sculpture.htm

Want to melt your guns...Here is a place to start...the flowerpot crucible

http://www.backyardmetalcasting.com/book_fp.html

Melt anything...

http://www.backyardmetalcasting.com/ironcasting01.html

Art metal forum

http://www.artmetal.com/project/TOC/proces/cast/ag_cast.html

Melting metal
http://users.ticnet.com/mikefirth/meltmetl.htm

Public Art, site-specific art, Social Realism, Sculpture gardens...in your neighborhood

Site-specific art is artwork created to exist in a certain place.
As much about the location, as the message it sends, it's about who sees it.

Outdoor site-specific artworks also include dance performances created especially for the site; the choreographer uses the site as inspiration for costumes and movement repertoire. Some artists make a point of commissioning music created by a local composer especially for the dance site.

Indoor site-specific artworks may be created in conjunction with , or by the architects of the building. The art is more or less, permanently attached to a the site. Buildings can be site-specific art too.

Artists who do this kind of work:
Robert Smithson, Andy Goldsworthy, Rowan Gillespie,Christo, Richard Serra, Guillaume Bijl, Betty Beaumont Mark Divo, John K. Melvin, Leonard van Munster, Luna Nera, Simparch, Sarah Sze, Stefano Cagol , Seth Wulsin.


Environmental Art -

Greenmuseum.org

art dealing with ecological issues and/or the natural environment, by
raising awareness of the fragility of nature: landscape-based photography, painting, drawing, book-works and site-specific art.
investigating natural phenomena (includes scientific illustration as well as interdisciplinary art practices)
using natural materials gathered outdoors (such as twigs, leaves, stones, soil, feathers; which is often called Nature Art)
not contributing to environmental degradation (includes ‘green’ work made from bio-degradable or recycled materials; & ‘Eco sculpture’ which is sensitively integrated into a natural habitat)

relates to other aspects of their 'environment', such as the formal, the political, the historical, or the social context.

Arte Povera
Giovanni Anselmo
Alighiero e Boetti
Pier Paolo Calzolari
Frank F Castelyns
Rossella Cosentino
Gino De Dominicis
Luciano Fabro
Jannis Kounellis -
Alighiero e Boetti
Pier Paolo Calzolari
Frank F Castelyns
Rossella Cosentino
Gino De Dominicis
Luciano Fabro
Jannis Kounellis
Mario Merz
Piero Manzoni
Marisa Merz
Giulio Paolini
Pino Pascali
Giuseppe Penone
Michelangelo Pistoletto
Gilberto Zorio
Mario Merz
Piero Manzoni
Marisa Merz
Giulio Paolini
Pino Pascali
Giuseppe Penone
Michelangelo Pistoletto
Gilberto Zorio

Giovanni Anselmo
Alighiero e Boetti
Pier Paolo Calzolari
Frank F Castelyns
Rossella Cosentino
Gino De Dominicis
Luciano Fabro
Jannis Kounellis
Mario Merz
Piero Manzoni
Marisa Merz
Giulio Paolini
Pino Pascali
Giuseppe Penone
Michelangelo Pistoletto
Gilberto Zorio

Giovanni Anselmo
Alighiero e Boetti
Pier Paolo Calzolari
Frank F Castelyns
Rossella Cosentino
Gino De Dominicis
Luciano Fabro
Jannis Kounellis
Mario Merz
Piero Manzoni
Marisa Merz
Giulio Paolini
Pino Pascali
Giuseppe Penone
Michelangelo Pistoletto
Gilberto Zorio

http://www.archivioalighieroboetti.it/biography_alighiero_boetti.asp

Kinetic art - the energy possessed by a body by virtue of its motion

If art could move mountains, and not just move.
kinetic - Yaacov Agam Jonathan Borofsky Daniel Buren Pol Bury Alexander Calder Marcel Duchamp Arthur Ganson Bruce Gray Theo Jansen Starr Kempf Frederick Kiesler Gyula Kosice Gilles Larrain Julio Le Parc Len Lye George Rickey David C. Roy Andrew Smith Nicolas Schöffer Jesús Rafael Soto Mark di Suvero Takis Jean Tinguely Panayiotis Vassilakis Lyman Whitaker
lumino kinetic sculptors - Ellis D Fogg
kinetic op artists - Nadir Afonso Getulio Alviani Carlos Cruz-Díez Ronald Mallory Youri Messen-Jaschin Abraham Palatnik Bridget Riley Victor Vasarely

This is intersting to browse...for kinetic art
http://www.tate.org.uk/collections/glossary/definition.jsp?entryId=148

Calder is definately an influence
http://www.ifar.org/911photos/thumbpub5.jpg

To do:
Find art under your nose
http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/travel/09weekend.html

NY walking tours

http://nymag.com/guides/cheap/walkingtours/

Booklyn Artists Alliance - http://www.booklyn.org

Cyclotron - history of medicine interesting - by student of Diego Rivera
http://history.library.ucsf.edu/imagelib/mural1.jpg

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Changing the world by melting guns, one at a time

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3979163.stm

Here is another one...

http://www.sashaconstable.com/articles_details/33_PeaceArtProjectCambodia.php

very cool...

Something to do...

http://www.wmf.org/

I know this is a few years old some of it, but its still as current as ever.

http://www.womenshealthmatters.ca/art-not-violence/index.htm

http://www.takingitglobal.org/

Melt your guns

This is cool, melt your guns, free yourself...
Think of all the people who could be saved by participating is such a profound experiment such as this. Look at the beauty that is possible from something once so ugly.
This is truth, a metamorphosis, and is the kind of thing I like to see from artists in this world, bringing people together in peace. This is the very stuff that inspires me to practice my art. This is why I walked into a metalworking class 6 years ago, no expectation, I just knew there is something permanent about working in such a soild form, such as metal, or stone, but metal is what called to me. I love this piece not just because it's beautiful but because it's public, and carrys the message, continually,a nd becomes part of the landscape, a positive additon to it, and a memorial all together.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/guns_into_art/2167721171/