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Gasp! This is the surreal work of Mexican artist Carlos Amorales, titled “Black Cloud”. The still images above are from the first time this was installed in 2007 {Yvon Lambert, Paris}, and the video is from the CURRENT installation at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. These black paper beauties will be covering the walls there until June 7th, 2020. Happy Monday.
Okay, let me explain how this post came together. I found the work of French artist Vincent Olinet, first, through those fabulous brooms at the top, titled “After the waves / the waifs / Shirley and Cyndie”, and assumed I had my post. But hold on… giant wooden lipsticks!? Oh, I have to write about those. Wait, he also has brand new colorful wig brooms!? Ah-mazing! Um, the lipstick can also be huge and installed outside? Oh my word, I love them in all of their oak & anti-UV glittery goodness! Whoa, blonde braids?!
Yep. That’s exactly what my last hour looked like… and I didn’t even show you his cakes.
Cigarettes won’t make you look cool… unless you do this with them! These “tiger-skin carpets” are made up of hundreds of thousands of cigarettes. Seriously. The first piece above was created from just over 500,000 cigarettes flipped both up and down to create the pattern, while the count for the second “rug” is 660,000. Insane. These beauties are the work of Chinese artist Xu Bing, and while they’re not new pieces, I just had to share them. Here’s a little more information from his site:
Top 3 Images : “First Class”, 2011 : A site-specific continuation of the Tobacco Project series, a project investigating the long and entangled relationship between human and tobacco. After executing the project in Durham (2000) and Shanghai (2004 – Bottom 3 Images), Xu Bing brought it to another important city related to tobacco: Richmond, Virginia, home of Philip Morris and mother company of the famous Marlboro cigarette brand. During the [two week] residency, he studied tobacco’s intimate relationship with the American continent and its early immigrant history.
After a bit of digging I also found this description, which I think explains these pieces beautifully:
“Xu Bing uses tobacco—as a material and a subject—to explore a wide range of issues, from global trade and exploitation to the ironies of advertising a harmful substance. As a print and bookmaker, he is especially fascinated by the visual culture of packaging and marketing tobacco … The tiger-skin rug is a potent symbol of human prowess: it confirms our superiority by transforming one of nature’s fiercest predators into a lifeless skin beneath our feet. Tiger hunting, long a royal and aristocratic sport across South, Central, and East Asia, was also favored by colonizers from the West, whose increased firepower caused greater loss to their prey. Xu Bing’s piece exploits these associations with luxury, status, and domination. The beauty of the tiger-skin pattern, its allusions to the dangerous thrill of the hunt, and the uncanny allure of the massive display of cigarettes ironically glamorize the addictive pull and risks of smoking.” ~ Blackbird, Fall 2011
If it wasn’t frowned upon, I would totally touch {and let’s be honest, try to taste} this entire show! These weird ‘n wonderful pieces are the work of Texas based artist Dan Lam. Her newest exhibition, titled “Supernatural”, is currently showing at Stephanie Chefas Projects in Portland. Here are a few words from the gallery about this work:
“In her latest collection of work, Lam continues to explore her otherworldly sensibility, creating sculptures that push the boundaries of color and form alike. We invite you to enter a world of the artist’s creation, populated by signature spiky shells, kinetic patterns, and vivid neon hues. Inanimate perhaps, but these surrealist objects brim with palpable life and movement.
With Supernatural, Lam walks the line between numerous dichotomies to uncover new modes of expression. By navigating the realm between attraction and repulsion, motion and stillness, seriousness and playfulness, softness and hardness, Lam wields magic power over each idiosyncratic vision. The experimentation remains palpable, but the work never so abstract as to disengage. Compelled by these seemingly disparate juxtapositions, the viewer is overcome with a range of complex emotions and creative ideas.”
Love. It. All. Sigh. Soooo many shows are up, without people being in attendance. Please go and check out all of these shows online. The artists and galleries have worked so hard to put these exhibitions together. Stupid global pandemic.
Yep, I love absolutely everything about this colorful, bizarre, craziness! This is the totally weird work of Portland based artist {and 2nd grade teacher!} Jessie Weitzel Le Grand. The majority of the images above are from a 2019 series titled “Bloom Tomb”. Here is Jessie’s poetic description of this installation:
A thought, like an ambient smell.
It wafts in like a fart.Hot trash. Musky shoes. It’s meant to be ignored. But this time, maybe—TURN NOW!
Finally see the metal FLY.
Where would you go? A place like no other.It’s either pitch black or a miracle.
A town of no rules, no pain.You have arrived.
LOVE! And the final piece above, titled “Drowsy Droop”, is part of Jessie’s show that is currently at Stephanie Chefas Projects in Portland until March 21, 2020… GO.
Oooh, don’t you want to touch alllllll of these pieces? This is the textile/fiber installation work of Colorado based artist Erica Green. I have to share her description for the first installation shown above, titled The Embers {2019}, because it’s almost as poetic as the work itself:
“When creating an installation, I begin with the architecture of the space. What struck me about the Gallery of Contemporary Art in Colorado Springs was the reflective glass doors and the ink black tile floor that ring the center chandelier space. I quickly sensed how these features could hold “The Embers.” The mended white fibers cascade from the ceiling and surround the thick, dark strips of felt that have stacked up on the tile floor. If you look closely, I believe you can see the fibers glow as they reflect off the surrounding surfaces. In some sense, they are both falling and floating.”
{found via Pennylane Shen’s Instagram; Photographs by : 1st installation by Stellar Propeller Studio / 2nd installation by Draper White}
*Gasp* I already loved these oil paintings so much, and then I saw the photos of the work installed and, yes, my heart skipped a beat… the scale, the beautiful altars on the floor, all of it! And those ‘in studio’ images are breathtaking. This is the most recent work by Puerto Rico-born, New York-based artist Iruka Toro. This show just came down from the walls of LaCa Projects in Charlotte North Carolina, but these are their words about “THE IRUKA ELVIS SPELL”:
Transcendence. Transformation. Surrender. In her third solo exhibition at LaCa Projects, these themes are evident in Iruka Maria Toro’s new body of work, which offers deeply personal insights into her recent name change and the evolution of her work in tandem with a constant exploration of her spiritual identity. Through a system of complex but connected clues into deeply-rooted belief systems, Toro invites viewers inside her world, with references to the tarot, magic, prayer, ritual, femininity, and medicinal practices. As if painting with a technicolor lens, Toro makes visible hidden spiritual dimensions through intense, color-saturated works, intimate and careful dissections of living flora, and juxtapositions revealing a unique and important relationship, echoing her steadfast reverence to the natural environment and its undeniable connection to humankind.
Sigh. Magic.
Well… I’m in love. This is the work of Indiana based artist Jessica Calderwood. Slip-cast vitreous china, steel, polymer clay, wool felt, sterling silver, plastic, milk paint and that’s only the list for ONE of the pieces up there! Here are Jessica’s words about her current sculptural work:
“My most recent series uses devices, such as drapery and stylized botanicals, to block out, cover, and hide parts of the human form. These hybrid forms become a negation, a censoring or denial of what lies beneath. These anthropomorphic beings are at once, powerful and powerless, beautiful and absurd, inflated, and amputated.
I am interested in using traditional craft media, both for their creative properties, as well as their historical references to ‘marginal craft forms’, including enamel, porcelain, felted wool, and polymer clay. Throughout this exploration, I have been working in a miniature scale, as well as large-scale figurative.”
{found via Momentum Gallery, Asheville}
I don’t know how I didn’t know about Dubai based artist Hassan Sharif until now. His work of transforming everyday objects into colorful piles and mobiles makes my heart race. Sadly, while researching him, I discovered that he passed away, at only 65 years old, in 2016 after a long battle with cancer. Here are a few words from his website:
“I’m not trying to make magic of some kind that would impress an audience as to how the work is created. There are no secrets. The philosophical or psychological question here is how, as an artist, I give myself the authority to make art.” – Hassan Sharif
Recognized as a pioneer of conceptual art and experimental practice in the Middle East, Sharif’s artworks surpass the limits of discipline or singular approach, encompassing performance, installation, drawing, painting, and assemblage. Beginning in the late 1970s, he worked as a cultural producer and facilitator, moving between roles as artist, educator, critic, activist, and mentor to contemporary artists in the U.A.E.
‘I give myself the authority to make art‘. Yes. In 2018 there was a retrospective of his work shown at the Sharjah Art Foundation, titled Hassan Sharif: I Am The Single Work Artist. Click on the title of the show to read more about that show, his work, and his life.
I am so excited for you to listen to this episode! American artist Phil Hansen is my guest today, and we’re going ‘old school’ with this one. Was he an art kid? Did he go to art school? How did he end up doing an absolutely inspiring TED Talk? Did he really make a portrait of Edgar Allan Poe out of earthworms? Is he seriously going to rip up one of his pieces and give the chunks to some of you!? Let’s find out! Listen right up there under Phil and all of the portraits of Phil, or subscribe here.
First things first, a few grabs from his fabulous TED Talk:
“Embrace the Shake” … such an inspiring story and message! To watch it in full, click right here.
Alright, next. Grabs from his project titled, “Just Peachy”, ie., Trump made from canned peaches, because, impeachment:
Apparently the whole thing turned to mold and required an air purifier for the room it was in, along with having it closed off from the rest of the building. Sounds about right.
Okay, moving on. Edgar Allan Poe’s portrait made from 7000 WORMS!?
Ew. But also, WOW. That’s dedication. *All worms were returned to the earth.
Ahhh, happy little stamps:
So, if you’ve already listened to the episode, you’ll know what this is about:
Yep! Get over to Phil’s instagram feed, @philinthecircle if you want a chance to win one of four framed pieces of this “destroyed” portrait … good luck!
Speaking of Bob, here’s the info for the event I’m doing at my local gallery that also happens to have a Bob Ross show opening in March!
Gah! I cannot wait to see a few Bob’s happy little landscapes in person! Also, how much do I love that my photo is next to Bob’s on an event calendar?! Okay, and with that I will say a huge thank you to Phil for “philling” in the circle for us, thanks to YOU for listening, and thanks to my family for letting me sneak away on our Hawaiian vacation to get this podcast up! There will be more ART FOR YOUR EAR next weekend. See you then!
Other links:
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