"Lap Dance"

Via Colossal via the Awesomer.

These are Beautiful

What beautiful execution of a fantastical, far-fetched idea.  Modern art is being (one might say "has been") co-opted by graphic design, which itself has been co-opted by advertising.

Via Boing Boing.

Russian Landscape Artist Konstantin Kryzhitsky and Knowing the Artist

James Gurney, who writes the great art blog Gurney Journey, asks what a painting can tells us about an artist.  Speculating from the painting Peyzazh 1895 (below) by the Russian painter Konstantin Kryzhitsky,  of whom gurney was unaware (me to), Gurney asserts Kryzhitsky "had a deep soul, a love of mystery, melancholy, and music, and a keen sense of nature's moods that must have come from long walks through the countryside. This painting couldn't have been done by a flippant, urbane, or shallow person."

I'm not sure that so much about an artist can be gleaned from a single painting.  I certainly have my doubts that Kryzhitsky was not urbane.  Assuming the artist is not attempting to mislead about herself or himself -- and is, of course, not a forger or a machine -- still we may know very little of an artist from a work or series of works.  Of course, it depends on the work.  I could say very little about Ellsworth Kelly, for instance, just knowing some of his work.  As to Kryzhitsky, taking the assumption that he puts himself genuinely into his work, and looking at many of his landscapes, I see someone awed by nature both as to its beauty and scale, someone who wanted to show humankind as small in relation to that vastness, someone who had trained as an academic painter and had extraordinary technical skill, and someone who very sensitive and smart.

Peyzazh 1895 is, to my lights, a fantastic painting: from the illusion of smoke from the break in the trees, from the juxtaposition of built and natural world, to the question it raises of whether one is entering or leaving the estate, to the feeling of coldness and sense of place so real (but not slavishly realistic) that I can feel being there.  This last point flows readily across many of his works -- below the break a sample (and final comment):

Sculpting the Aging Process

Peter Han calls himself a designer not an artist.  He is an artist.

In the video below he not only demonstrates his art, but, wittingly or not, gives a clear sense of what makes art, literally and figuratively.

Han's incredible work can be seen on his website and through some screenshots at Colossal.

The Paintings of KwangHo Shin

From Behance the oil paintings of Korean artist KwangHo Shin (신광호) which I fthink are beautiful, technically smart, and moving:

The Incredible Drawings of Cath Riley

Cath Riley is an incredible U.K. based artist working in pencil. There's a delicacy to all her work, but I am particularly drawn -- um, no pun intended -- to her drawings of "flesh" since these close-up images are particularly sensitive and sensual. (They are reminiscent, to me, of the famous passage in Bernini's The Rape of Prosepina where Pluto is grabbing Prosepina's thigh -- that's a pretty incredible thing of which to be reminiscent.) Some images (mostly below the break) -- I note, by the way, that a number of these beautiful images are for sale:

"The Eagleman Stag" by Mikey Please

This is an extremely well conceived and well executed animated video. Since I am posting a lot of videos lately, I thought I'd toss this one out there.

MetaFilter -- which was the source of this for me -- has a nice short write up with a link to a really good making of video as well as links to many other videos by Mikey Please.

In general, MiFi has been white hot lately with awesome stuff.

Li Hongbo: "Pure White Paper"

"This" is incredible, "this" being paper sculptures by Li Hongbo (李洪波). It's an incredibly great idea, incredibly well executed, and one ripe for future development. Surprising and sweet.

The Surreal Art of Mu Pan

Mu Pan is an artist living now in Brooklyn and born in Taiwan who blends aspects of Chinese and Japanese screen art with bizarre reinterpretations of historical events, kitsch from movies and manga, and an aesthetic sensibility that seems borrowed directly from Hieronymus Bosch. Very strange and often (not always) compelling. A few examples (diptych/triptych in originals):

Mu described himself as angry. That seems apt. Via Io9.

The Yang Short Form

The Yang short form, which is also known by variants of "the 24 form," "the 24 movements," "the simplified form," etc., is the official "sport" or "wushu" form of t'ai chi ch'uan (太極拳, also romainized as taijiquan). Although it is primarily derivative of the Yang branch of t'ai chi, Yang masters often disavow it.

Yet, putting those disputes and various mystical gildings to the side, it is still quite beautiful. I thought this performance, by Gao Jiamin, was particularly taking:

Here it is from the back and here are some of the key moves with their English names. And, for reference, here's a video of famous practitioner Chen Man-Ch'ing doing his shortened form of the Yang style (I'd embed this one as it is quite beautiful, too, but doing so has been disabled ... which, frankly, is just obnoxious).

A User's Guide to Art Speak

Photo from Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

At The Guardian Andy Beckett discusses "art speak" -- something that's now been dubbed "International Art English" in a widely circulated article by an artist and an art critic. Mr. Beckett describes it:

If you've been to see contemporary art in the last three decades, you will probably be familiar with the feelings of bafflement, exhaustion or irritation that such gallery prose provokes. You may well have got used to ignoring it. As Polly Staple, art writer and director of the Chisenhale Gallery in London, puts it: "There are so many people who come to our shows who don't even look at the programme sheet. They don't want to look at any writing about art."

With its pompous paradoxes and its plagues of adverbs, its endless sentences and its strained rebellious poses, much of this promotional writing serves mainly, it seems, as ammunition for those who still insist contemporary art is a fraud. Surely no one sensible takes this jargon seriously?

David Levine and Alix Rule do. ...

      * * *
They christened it International Art English, or IAE, and concluded that its purest form was the gallery press release, which – in today's increasingly globalised, internet-widened art world – has a greater audience than ever. "We spent hours just printing them out and reading them to each other," says Levine. "We'd find some super-outrageous sentence and crack up about it. Then we'd try to understand the reality conveyed by that sentence."

"International Art English" is a great neologism. IAE is the patois of the ignorant attempting to describe the ineffable.

I am so happy with that last sentence, I should stop. But ...

"Glass Microbiology" by Luke Jerram

"Glass Microbiology" by Luke Jerram, and incredible colorblind artist, consist of blown and shaped glass sculptures in the form of viruses and bacteria. They are vaguely -- very vaguely -- reminiscent for me of the incredible glass flower collection at Harvard created at the end of the 19th century to aid in the study of botany.

Jarem, by the way, has a substantial body of other beautiful and thoughtful sculptural and glass work. Here's a few examples of his glass microbiology work (more below break) or by clicking on any picture):

E. coli

The Golden Rectangle, Golden Ratio, and Phi as Design Criteria

James Gurney, of the wonderful blog Gurney Journey and Dinotopia fame, has a series of five posts on the golden rectangle and it's key ratio 1 : 1.618 ... (which is known as the golden ratio or φ). The crux is that the importance of the rectangle and the ratio is overstated and, while not belittling "mystical feeling" (my phrase and quotes), the supposed mystical role of the ratio is not factually grounded. He says it alot better than I could. So here's a list of his posts (with a brief description for each):

Part 1: Mythbusting the golden mean (the Parthenon) This post -- with extensive links at the end -- outlines the well established view and evidence that the Parthenon is not based on the golden rectangle or golden mean.
Part 2: The golden mean and Leonardo This post discusses Leonardo's "Vitruvian Man" drawing and that it reflects the ratios advocated by Roman scholar and architect Vitruvius, which are not the golden mean. that doesn't mean that Leonardo was unfamiliar with φ, but it is not evident it was central to his work.
Part 3: How the golden mean caught on with artists This post discusses the occurence of
φ in nature and how this developed a sort of mystical relevance for many which was given a sort of historical gloss.Part 4: The golden mean and the human body This post discusses the use of the golden mean by a number of artists, most notably Bauhaus architect/designers and Le Corbusier, and takes a middle view that we can learn from their work but it is not factually accurate on all counts.
Part 5: Last question about the golden rectangle The last question Gurney asks is whether the assertion that work designed with the golden rectangle/golden ratio is, in fact, more aesthetically pleasing. It can be if that is what appeals to the viewer, but it is not inherently so.

Bonobo: Cirrus

In the words of Mark Farauenfelder of Boing Boing, "best viewed after licking your pet Sonoran Desert toad."  (My experience was the toad is actually not necessary -- this is just a great video.)

Images of Unmixed Paint

From Imgur the found abstract art of paint with tints prior to mixing -- very beautiful more exciting than watching paint dry. (And I have no recollection where I first saw this.)

Techniques of the Master Painter

Reference photo. All images from Gurney Journey, though
some originated in this article.

Blobby Photoshop "artist filter" adaptation

Master painting

James Gurney, author/artist behind the book series Dinotopia, who, among other things is an excellent plein air painter and very knowledgeable about technique, has a really interesting post about "image parsing" at his main blog, Gurney Journey. The thrust of the post is that:

Machines like Vangobot may develop the hand skills to manipulate the brushes and paints, but will they ever have artistic judgment? Is it possible for a computer to be programmed to see and interpret the world in the same way that an experienced painter does?

These are qualities of the "eye" or "mind" or even the "soul" more than the "hand." Blog reader M.P. invoked a quote from nineteenth century drawing instructor James Duffield Harding who characterized the great artist as having an instinct for "selection, arrangement, sentiment, and beauty" rather than just replicating reality.

      * * *
Note the difference in this master painter's interpretation. The details in the faces are accurately drawn, but rougher brushes are used for the foliage. The drapery is painted efficiently with big slashing strokes. The sky is painted loosely with spots of light. The sidewalk tiles are in perspective, but they're just suggested with thin dashing strokes. The colors are warmed up and intensified.

For a computer to do this, it would have to understand what it was looking at, and have an instinct to do all these subjective interpretations. It would need to be able to handle a lot of brushes in a variety of ways depending on what forms it was painting.

He's toying with us.

The Deep End by Jake Fried -- When Art is Not Beautiful

The Deep End from Jake Fried on Vimeo, via Colossal.

Ceramics by Kate MacDowell

Kate MacDowell is a ceramicist who handbuilds in porcelain -- as someone who works in clay (although I primarily throw), I can tell you how hard this is. Her great craft to the side, however, what matters most is her vision, and, for that, the work speaks for itself ... a few images:

Firewall -- a Cool Video Installation

Firewall, by Aaron Sherwood and Mike Allison, uses a Microsoft Xbox Kinect sensor to measure the depth and location people push on a stretched sheet of spandex and then, via the magic of computer processing, displays certain visuals and the music. Via Colossal.