Daily Art Fixx - Art Blog: Modern Art, Art History, Painting, Illustration, Photography, Sculpture » Sculpture

Willie Cole: Sculpture

Wendy Campbell — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:00:20 +0000

Born in 1955 in Somerville New Jersey, Willie Cole transforms everyday items into sculptures “melding the social, political, and cultural perspectives of urban African American experience. He frequently ritualizes his found “western” objects, creating potent global artistic hybrids. Many of his sculpture’s forms and motifs are directly derived from African art.”

Cole has a B.F.A from The School of Visual Arts, New York and currently lives in Mine Hill, New Jersey. His work is in numerous private and public collections including the Museum of Modern Art (New York), The Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), and the Walker Art Center (Minnesota). He is represented by Alexander and Bonin Gallery in New York.

To see more, visit WillieCole.com or see the source links below.

Sources: Frye Art Museum, Albright-Knox Gallery

Jason deCaires Taylor: Museo Subaquatico de Arte

Wendy Campbell — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:00:57 +0000

Fascinating video from internationally acclaimed eco-sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor. Creating underwater living sculptures, deCaires Taylor offers viewers “mysterious, ephemeral encounters and fleeting glimmers of another world where art develops from the effects of nature on the efforts of man. His site-specific, permanent installations are designed to act as artificial reefs, attracting corals, increasing marine biomass and aggregating fish species, while crucially diverting tourists away from fragile natural reefs and thus providing space for natural rejuvenation. Subject to the abstract metamorphosis of the underwater environment, his works symbolize a striking symbiosis between man and nature, balancing messages of hope and loss.”

“Taylor’s sculptures change over time with the effects of their environment. These factors create a living aspect to the works, which would be impossible to reproduce artificially. As time passes and the works develop biological growth, they redefine the underwater landscape, evolving within the narrative of nature.” (from artist website)

Discover more at UnderwaterSculpture.com.

DAF Group Feature: Vol. 94

Wendy Campbell — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:00:34 +0000

Your Monday Mixx – Enjoy!
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DAF Group Feature: Vol 93

Wendy Campbell — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:00:42 +0000

Another Monday Mixx – enjoy!

DAF Group Feature: Vol. 92

Wendy Campbell — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:00:30 +0000

Your Monday Mixx – on Tuesday – Enjoy!

Jeff Koons: Neo Pop Art

Wendy Campbell — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 15:00:58 +0000

Born on January 21, 1955, in York, Pennsylvania, Jeff Koons studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art (BFA 1976), in Baltimore and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

“Since his emergence in the 1980s Jeff Koons has blended the concerns and methods of Pop, Conceptual, and appropriation art with craft-making and popular culture to create his own unique art iconography, often controversial and always engaging. His work explores contemporary obsessions with sex and desire; race and gender; and celebrity, media, commerce, and fame. A self-proclaimed “idea man,” Koons hires artisans and technicians to make the actual works. For him, the hand of the artist is not the important issue: “Art is really just communication of something and the more archetypal it is, the more communicative it is.”"

Koon’s moved to New York in 1977 where he began working at the membership desk of the Museum of Modern Art. He quickly became known for his outrageous hair and clothing, and for his salesmanship. During this time, he created sculptures using inflatable flowers, and rabbits mixed with plastic, plexiglass, and mirrors. In order to finance his “The New” series, Koons left MoMA in 1980 to sell mutual funds and stocks at First Investors Corporation. This series featured vacuum cleaners and shampoo polishers encased in plexiglass atop fluorescent lights.

In 1985, Koon’s presented his “Equilibrium” series which included sculptures made of basketballs floating in tanks of water, or encased in glass. In 1986, Koons’ 41 inch high stainless steel rabbit gained a great deal of critical attention. His “Luxury and Degradation” series in 1986 depticts “consumerist decadence” and featured images of liquor advertisements and stainless steel renderings of liquor travel bars. In his “Banality” series of 1988, Koons expanded on the “Luxury and Degradation” series producing sculptures including Michael Jackson and Bubbles the monkey, as well as a series of “ads” where Koons mocks himself and his own celebrity. His “Made in Heaven” series in 1990 depicts the artist with his wife, Ilona Staller, in a variety of hard-core pornographic poses.

Since the mid 1990′s, Koons has continued to produce sculpture but has also focused on paintings that contain pop-culture references as well more abstract composition.

Criticism of Koons’ work is varied. “Some view his work as pioneering and of major art-historical importance. Others dismiss his work as kitsch: crass and based on cynical self-merchandising”.

Koons’ work has been exhibited around the world and is in numerous public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Guggenheim Museum, The National Gallery, Hirshhorn Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Tate Gallery (London), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Museum Ludwig (Köln, Germany), and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum.

For more information about Jeff Koons, visit JeffKoons.com.

Sources: Guggenheim, Wikipedia, JeffKoons.com, Walker Art Center
Image Sources: TheGirlsNY via Flickr, Artnet

Art-e-Facts: 5 Random Art Facts – XXII

Wendy Campbell — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:00:45 +0000

1. Art Competitions were part of the modern Olympic Games from 1912 to 1952. Medals were awarded for works of art inspired by sport, divided into five categories: architecture, literature, music, painting, and sculpture.

The juried art competitions were abandoned in 1954 because artists were considered to be professionals, while Olympic athletes were required to be amateurs. Since 1956, the Olympic Cultural Programme has taken their place. (wikipedia)

2. The famous marble sculpture Pietà created between 1498 and 1500 by Michelangelo Buonarroti, was the only work he ever signed. The story goes that Michelangelo overheard a pilgrim say that the work was created by rival sculptor Christoforo Solari. In a fit of rage, Michelangelo took hammer and chisel and scrawled: “Michelangelo Buonarroti, Florentine, made this” across Mary’s breast. According to Italian Biographer Giorgio Vasari, he later regretted his passionate outburst of pride and determined to never again sign a piece of his work.(BBC)

3. Tattooing has been a Eurasian practice at least since around Neolithic times (about 10,700 to 9400 BC). Ötzi the Iceman, dating from the fourth to fifth millennium BC, was found in the Ötz valley in the Alps and had approximately 57 carbon tattoos consisting of simple dots and lines on various parts of his body. These tattoos were thought to be a form of healing because of their placement which resembles acupuncture. Other mummies bearing tattoos and dating from the end of the second millennium BC have been discovered, such as the Mummy of Amunet from ancient Egypt and the mummies at Pazyryk on the Ukok Plateau. (wikipedia)

4. Decoupage is the art of decorating an object by gluing colored paper cutouts onto it in combination with special paint effects, gold leaf and so on. Commonly an object like a small box or an item of furniture is covered by cutouts from magazines or from purpose-manufactured papers. Each layer is sealed with varnishes (often multiple coats) until the “stuck on” appearance disappears and the result looks like painting or inlay work. The traditional technique used 30–40 layers of varnish which were then sanded to a polished finish. This was known in 18th century England as the art of Japanning (Asian lacquer work) after its presumed origins. (wikipedia)

5. Corbis Corporation, privately owned by Bill Gates, was founded in 1989 and owns the licensing rights to over 100 million digital images and 500,000 video clips. Gates started the company with the belief that people would someday decorate their homes with a revolving display of digital artwork using digital frames. Corbis’s collections include historical and editorial images from photojournalists, museums, and cultural institutions including Andy Warhol Foundation, Ansel Adams, The Smithsonian Institution, The National Gallery, London, The State Hermitage Museum, Christie’s Images, and the Bettmann, Hulton-Deutsch, Sygma and Brett Weston collections, and others. (Wikipedia, New York Times)

DAF Group Feature: Vol. 91

Wendy Campbell — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:00:57 +0000

Your Monday Mixx – Enjoy!

Simon Boses: Sculpture

Wendy Campbell — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 15:00:33 +0000

Born in Bethlehem, Israel in 1974, Simon Boses grew up in St. Petersburg, Florida and has a BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art for ceramics.

Of his work, Boses says, “Cartoons are like vanilla ice cream. We all grew up with them. There is something very familiar about the simple lines and shapes. Perhaps in that fact lays their ability to engage us. I grew up in a house that was filled with art from other cultures. I found the stylized lines and forms of cartoons echoed in the art of many cultures. African masks, Egyptian tablet figures, Coptic portraiture and Australian aboriginal bark paintings were among those that captured my imagination and inspired me to weave a thread of symbolism into my work. This is where my own mythology comes in.”

To see more, visit MudMonkey.com.

Many thanks to Kevin Titzer for introducing DAF to Simon Boses work!

DAF Group Feature: Vol. 90

Wendy Campbell — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:00:37 +0000

Your 90th Monday Mixx! Enjoy!

Christopher Conte: Sculpture

Wendy Campbell — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:00:07 +0000

Norway native Christopher Conte was raised and currently lives in New York. Conte has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and worked in prosthetics making artificial limbs for amputees for 16 years as a Certified Prosthetist. At the same time, he privately created biomechanical sculptures and 2008 became a full-time artist.

Conte’s sculptures combine original cast components with found and recycled parts using materials ranging from bronze to carbon fiber and often including materials from the aerospace industry and medical fields.

“While a strong connection with future technologies is present in all of Chris’ work, ancient techniques such as lost-wax bronze casting have become an integral part of the process as well. The process involved in creating just one sculpture can often take weeks or even months.”

Conte has exhibited across the United States and his work has appeared on The Discovery Channel, in Discover Magazine, Wired Magazine, MTV Networks and in Popular Science Magazine.

To see more, visit Microbotic.org.

DAF Group Feature: Vol. 89

Wendy Campbell — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 14:08:19 +0000

Your first Monday Mixx of 2012 – Happy New Year everyone!

Henri Matisse: 1869-1954

Wendy Campbell — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 17:37:06 +0000

Painter, sculptor, printmaker, designer, draughtsman, and writer, Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse was born on December 31, 1869 in Le Cateau-Cambrésis, France. Before studying art, Matisse worked as a solicitor’s clerk in Saint-Quentin and took a law degree from 1887 to 1889 in Paris.

Matisse studied drawing at the Ecole Quentin Latour and began painting in the winter of 1889 while recovering from appendicitis. He gave up law to study painting at the Académie Julian in 1891 under painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau and took drawing and perspective courses at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs. Matisse joined the studio of Gustave Moreau in 1892 and passed the entrance examination of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1895. In 1898 he married Amélie Parayre with whom he had two sons.

Matisse’s early works were essentially based on the study of the Old Masters “firmly based on reality, in a restricted tonal palette influenced above all by his copies after Dutch masters and Chardin and by exhibitions he had seen of the work of Jean Baptiste Camille Corot and Edouard Manet.”

Matisse exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1901 and had his first solo show at the Galerie Vollard in 1904.

Matisse, along with André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck became one of the principal figures of Fauvism, which has its base in Impressionism. “In reviving the study of the nude human figure, Matisse’s work was partially a reaction against what he perceived as Impressionism’s neglect of this traditional subject.”

Like other avant-garde artists in Paris at the time, Matisse was interested in influences beyond the realist tradition. Between 1904-05, he spent summers painting in the Mediterranean which resulted in his abandonment of the traditional Impressionist palette in favour of what would become his characteristic style of “flat, brilliant colour and fluid line”.

From 1906 – 1910, Matisse became increasingly successful and his art began to be exhibited and published outside of France. Writer and art collector Gertrude Stein, as well as art collectors Etta and Claribel Cone, began acquiring Matisse’s work. During this time, he was also introduced to Picasso with whom he would have an “intermittent rivalry”.

“Matisse’s work during this period falls into three categories: figure compositions, still-lifes and interiors, and portraits. He moved away from the Fauve style and experimented with a new language of the human figure stimulated primarily by Gauguin’s primitivism, but also by Cézanne’s compositions of bathers, by classical decorations, by African tribal sculpture and by the challenge of Picasso.” (MoMA)

Between 1010-1917, Matisse created what many critics say are the best works of his career. Inspired by his travels to Spain, Russia, Morocco, his further response to Cubism was to create larger, more exotic and colourful paintings.

In 1918, Matisse relocated to Nice, France where creatively he focused on the female form, landscapes, interiors, still-lifes of flowers, and light itself. During this period, he maintained a habit of working outdoors but this production did not result in major works. In 1925, Matisse traveled to Italy and Sicily after which he painted fewer canvases and seemingly gave himself the “task of resolving in drawings, sculptures, prints and paintings the articulation and balance of mass of the seated and reclining female nude.”

Matisse virtually gave up painting in 1929 to focus on a series of over 200 etchings, drypoints and lithographs. “Drawing was essential to Matisse’s paintings of the later 1930s, as was an expressive distortion of the female form in order to capture the mood or personality of the model, for example by exaggerating the length of her body in languid repose.”

In 1928, Matisse moved to Cimiez, a suburb above Nice. In 1941, surgery for a tumor left him disabled and unable to travel. This led to his grand interior paintings between 1946 and 1948, the decoration of the Chapelle du Rosaire at Vence from 1948 to 1951, and to his final works – a series of paper cut-outs.

Matisse died of a heart attack on November 3, 1954 at the age of eighty-four. He is buried at the cemetery of the Monastère Notre Dame de Cimiez, near Nice.

For an in depth biography, visit the MoMA website.

Sources: MoMA, Guggenheim, Wikipedia (images) Olga’s Gallery (images)

DAF Group Feature: Vol. 88

Wendy Campbell — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 15:00:49 +0000

Your Boxing Day Monday Mixx – Enjoy!

Meredith Dittmar: Now You See It, Now You Don’t @ FIFTY24MX Gallery

Wendy Campbell — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 15:00:44 +0000

American sculptor Meredith Dittmar’s (featured) latest exhibition “Now You See It, Now You Don’t” is a collection of works made over a 15 month period. “During that time, my husband and I did IVF to get pregnant, my father had a severe stroke at 67 rendering him paralyzed and brain damaged for 14 months, my twin sons were born at 26 weeks gestation and spent three months in the NICU. Eventually my father passed away and today our sons are a year old, happy and healthy and beating the odds. This period brought in full force, the beautiful intensity of the human story – the cycle of life death. “

Dittmar’s polymer clay sculptures depict human-animal-plant-energy amalgams that contain threads of common elements and colors to express deep levels of union across themes of biology, technology, and consciousness.

Now You See It, Now You Don’t runs through January 21, 2012 at FIFTY24MX Gallery in Mexico City.

To see more, visit CorporatePig.com.

DAF Group Feature: Vol. 87

Wendy Campbell — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:42:47 +0000

Your Monday Mixx – Enjoy!!

Zorikto Dorzhiev: Steppe Story @ Hay Hill Gallery

Wendy Campbell — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 15:00:40 +0000

Born in 1976 Ulan-Ude (Siberia), Zorikto Dorzhiev has emerged as one of Russia’s most acclaimed young artists, with his work exhibited in 2008 at the Council of Europe and the Beijing Olympics, and his recent series Steppe Story shown for two months at St Petersburg’s Russian Museum in 2009. Dorzhiev studyied at the Buryat Republican College of Arts in Ulan-Ude, Zorikto and trained with Professor A.M. Znak at the Krasnoyarsk State Institute of Arts from 1996-2002 and until 2005, with branches of the Russian Academy of Arts in the Urals, Siberia and Russia’s Far East.

With precise draughtsmanship and vivid colour, Dorzhiev displays subtle humour and gift for caricature. Nomadic Buryat life is his main subject. To Zorikto, “a nomad is an artist, a poet, a philosopher, and often a loner.” His Oriental aesthetic involves refined, elongated silhouettes, with his subjects ranging from sensuous females to warriors on horseback evoking Buryats’ Mongol ancestors. (from Hay Hill Gallery)

Steppe Story runs through December 24, 2011 at Hay Hill Gallery in London, UK. Be sure to check out their website for more information. Moscow’s Khankhalaev Gallery also has a large selection of his earlier work online.

Henrique Oliveira: Tridimensionals

Wendy Campbell — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:00:28 +0000

Born in Ourinhos, Brazil in 1973, Henrique Oliveira has a BFA in painting and a Masters in Visual Poetics from the University of São Paulo, Brazil.

Oliveira’s installations that he calls “tridimensionals” are huge constructions that combine sculpture, painting and architecture. Often supported by walls and using PVC tubing, he creates his installations by arranging countless pieces of painted flexible plywood that he finds mostly on the streets of São Paulo.

As a student, Oliveira was looking for new ways to bring texture to his paintings when he noticed the deterioration of a wood fence (tapumes in Portugese), on a construction site. The wood, open to weather and other elements, separated into multiple layers and colours that reminded him of the painting process and of brush strokes. Oliveira gathered the fence remains from the finished construction and used it to create his first installation.

Oliveira has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows in Brazil and the United States. He currently lives and works in São Paulo. To see more of Oliveira’s work, including his traditional paintings, visit HenriqueOliveira.com. There is also a great video on YouTube from the Rice Gallery where the artist explains his process.

Anonymous Paper Sculptures – Edinburgh, Scotland

Wendy Campbell — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 15:00:36 +0000

In March 2011, an anonymous artist left the first of ten intricate paper sculptures at various arts based locations around Edinburgh, Scotland. The Scottish Poetry Library found a paper sculpted tree mounted on a book with a tag addressed to the library’s Twitter name. The tag read: “It started with your name @byleaveswelive and became a tree.… … We know that a library is so much more than a building full of books… a book is so much more than pages full of words.… This is for you in support of libraries, books, words, ideas….. a gesture (poetic maybe?)”

Other sculpture gifts and notes followed. In June 2011, the National Library of Scotland received a sculpture of a gramophone and then Edinburgh’s Filmhouse found a tiny cinema made of books. In July, the Scottish Storytelling found a paper dragon sitting on a window sill. In August, two more sculptures appeared at the Edinburgh Book Festival, and another at the Central lending library. In September, more sculptures were found and a final one with a note indicating the completion of the artists journey:

“It’s important that a story is not too long ……does not become tedious …….You need to know when to end a story,’ she thought. Often a good story ends where it begins. This would mean a return to the Poetry Library. The very place where she had left the first of the ten. Back to those who had loved that little tree, and so encouraged her to try again …….and again. Some had wondered who it was, leaving these small strange objects. Some even thought it was a ‘he’! ……. As if! Others looked among Book Artists, rather good ones actually…….But they would never find her there. For though she does make things, this was the first time she had dissected books and had used them simply be- cause they seemed fitting….Most however chose not to know….. which was the point really. The gift, the place to sit, to look, to wonder, to dream….. of the impossible maybe…….A tiny gesture in support of the special places…..So, here, she will end this story, in a special place … A Poetry Library ….. where they are well used to ‘anon.’”

Read the full story and see more photos at ThisCentralStation.com. Photos by Chris Scott.

DAF Group Feature: Vol. 84

Wendy Campbell — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 14:33:12 +0000

Your Monday Mixx – on Tuesday – Enjoy!!