Have you ever wondered what will happen to all the cathode ray tube televisions now that most people have switched to flatscreens? Chinese artist Zhang Xiangxi has re-purposed a few of them into a diorama like record of some of the rooms from his life- his old workspace in Guangzhou, the workers’ dormitory he once lived in, his parent’s sitting room, and the interior of a train carriage. He even created his “dream home.” He hollows out the old televisions, then intricately sculpts miniature furniture, wall art, and yes-even televisions! He doesn’t try to make perfect little dollhouse worlds, he includes all of the clutter that a real room would have.
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Hollowed Out TV Sets Become Miniature Worlds
Faceted Sculptures in the Urban World
A gigantic face emerges from the pavement, its features faceted into sharp geometric forms, its color various shades of urban gray. With unseeing eyes cast upward towards the sky, it dwarfs passerby like a sleeping modern day giant born of the city. This is the work of Brussels based David Mesguich, an artist who has been working with polypropylene plastic to build impressive sculptural forms. His work blends the aesthetic of street art with that of the digital world, bringing something that appears computer generated to life before us. [Read more...]
Remarkable Sculptures on Humans and Nature
Viewed from the back, Olga Ziemska’s Stillness in Motion is only a bush of twigs, or at the most a tied bundle; but walk around to the front and you come face-to-face with a womanly figure cut with precision into the round wood sticks. Such is the case with much of this artists surprising work, at once looking familiar and then changing into something wholly unexpected. [Read more...]
Bec Wonders Invites You to “Step Inside”
Sometimes walking into an art gallery is anything but inviting. We enter into a space often as quiet as a library (or quieter), find expensive art with little or no clue to its meaning… and all of it has a strict “no touching” policy. That’s one of the many charms behind Edinburgh based Bec Wonders’ recent exhibition – as its name perfectly expresses, viewers were invited to “Step Inside” the artwork itself. [Read more...]
East Meets West: Zhu Jinshi’s ‘Boat’ Installation
It’s a huge structure, but it weighs only a small fraction of most things its size. That’s because the floating tube featured here is built out of 8,000 sheets of rice paper, 800 shafts of bamboo, and cotton. Chinese abstract artist Zhu Jinshi installed the 12-meter long hanging structure, called Boat, last month at Art13 London, a new international art fair where the highly experiential piece featured as the centerpiece for the show. [Read more...]
24 C.O.R.E. Projects Approved for Burning Man 2013
The “Circle of Regional Effigies,” better known as C.O.R.E., is a collaborative exhibition of art installations built from regional burning man communities around the world. Whether in France, China or Idaho, groups of “burners” come together to design, build, and eventually burn their effigy. The structures cannot exceed 20 ft by 20 ft (6.1 m by 6.1m) and must consist of mostly wood material. Typically, the designs for C.O.R.E. have some inspiration from symbols of a particular region. Last year, there was a longhorn bull from Houston, trees and clouds from Seattle and a Cod from Boston. Recently the C.O.R.E. installations for this year’s burn were approved… and there are some notable differences from last year. [Read more...]
Massive Ice Typography With A Message
Environmental artist Nicole Dextras creates larger than life installations with a message to share, but the message only lasts as long as the weather permits. For her series Signs of Change, Dextras used wooden forms to create ice words that ranged from 18inches to 8 feet tall and placed them in various locations throughout Canada from the highly trafficked metropolis of Toronto to the pristine corners of the Yukon. The angle from which they are viewed as well as how far along they are in the melting process determine how a person might interpret them. She uses coloring in some of the sculptures to make them stand out more and make sure her message gets noticed and takes photographs and time lapse videos to record their life and eventual death. The medium of ice shows the transient nature of all things. [Read more...]
We Love Friday! – Stunning Blown Glass
Long before people started making glass, it could be found in nature; when lightning struck sand or volcanic eruptions caused rock and sand to fuse together (obsidian). Humans first made glass around 2000BC, but the level of skill increased dramatically with the invention of the blowpipe in 30BC. Blowing glass has been popular since medieval times, and although the creations and techniques have gotten more interesting, the tools remain the same. According to Sea Life Creations, “The craft of glassblowing was passed from father to son, and from master to apprentice. From its beginnings, the formulas and procedures used in glassmaking were closely guarded. At times in history, the penalty for disclosing secret techniques was death!” Thankfully the tradition has been kept alive and there are amazing glass blowers all around the world. Here is a collection of some of the most interesting blown glass creations from Instagram. [Read more...]
Massive Aqua Dice Make a Splash
Since life is so largely due to chance, Max Mulhern came up with an awesome idea for a project. With funding from France’s version of Kickstarter, Kiss Kiss Bank Bank, he raised over 5,000 Euros to construct massive aqua dice to be released into the sea near the Canary Islands where Christopher Columbus set sail. The dice were released on 12/12/12 and have a GPS tracker to monitor their journey. They are headed toward Western Sahara and will be an interesting surprise to those along the coast. [Read more...]
A Lush Suspended Field Demonstrates the Cycles of Life
Think of it as a trampoline which grows a verdant carpet of plant life. Floating well above the floor a net of fabric springs to life in the form of bright green sprouts. The piece allows viewers to interact with the space, climbing up through manhole like openings in the fabric, poking their heads into its green rolling landscape and climbing onto its springy surface. [Read more...]
















