Things I've Been Looking At Recently

Jean Tinguely -
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Very Small Objects -
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My tutor David Fusco told me about VSO after watching me arrange my shells like this -
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Is it not fantastic to have a system for naming and recording hoarded fragments? It reminds of the scene in Everything is Illuminated where the old lady has hundreds of labelled boxes, one of which is labelled "dust".
He also showed me these Caddis Fly sculptures by Hubert Duprat -
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I think that it's very interesting to have thought of taking some creature which scavenges and uses only what it can find to build a home and putting it suddenly in an environment where it can have expensive, glittering materials instead of twigs and debris. It makes me wonder what it would be like to surround people in slum dwellings with valuable building materials to replace their corrugated tin and timber rafter homes. 

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What if they found corrugated gold? What if their reused timber was polished mahogany? What if their scavenged rope washing line was pure hand-spun silk? 

-sb

Jerzy Goliszewski + Ofra Lapid

I first came across Jerzy Goliszewski on Society6 (his society is here and his blog is here).

Jerzy is a Polish artist, based in Warsaw, who focuses on site-specific projects - something I've always inexplicably admired - I find it brave somehow. Quoting from his website, Jerzy "is most interested in complicated and complex structures. He strives to use simple and natural materials."

The end results are poignantly mystifying.
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His blog showed me the beautiful work of Ofra Lapid who also has a blog, here.

Ofra builds models of these derelict buildings from photographs taken by an amateur photographer from North Dakota who obsessively documents the decaying process of these houses.

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So graceful yet melancholic.

-sb

Tony Cragg

Went to see Tony Cragg at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art -
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Looking inside the larger sculptures was like finding a hollowed out tree - I could have sat inside it all day, watching snippets of life go past from the numerous tiny openings where space overlapped space.

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As you walk around each sculpture faces appear and disappear. Some warp into recognisable yet unplaceable lines while others are very clearly human profiles.

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The surfaces were one my favourite parts - such unbelievable smoothness! The most beautiful of all the materials had to be the wood - each line echoing the last layer, highlighting every curve and every turn.

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-sb

I'm Jealous of Gavin Weber

"There is one moment, in the first few seconds, when you look at a piece of art and know that you love it. It’s the moment when, if you’re an artist yourself, you look at it and feel a rush of uplifting inspiration… and total soul-crushing jealousy all at the same time. It’s when you walk away thinking, “Damn, I wish I thought of that.”"
I'm quoting The Jealous Curator here - I think we all know that jealous feeling where you think "that's what I want my artwork to look like!"
To tell the truth, I get that feeling just about your blog, TJC!
I thought I'd mention TJC because it just exactly describes why I want to post about Gavin Weber today. Now let's see why -
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Gavin Weber
2-3, 2008
Graphite on Paper

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Gavin Weber
Circulate II, 2008
Steel, Vinyl Tape

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Gavin Weber
Circulate II, 2008
Steel, Vinyl Tape

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It's so futuristic/industrial - reminds me of Tsutomu Nihei's artwork for Manga comic Blame! -
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Tsutomu Nihei

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-sb

Fossilized Seabed Ripples

This evening, my mother and I watched Andy Goldsworthy's film Rivers and Tides -
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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0307385/
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- lots of very truly beautiful images - I especially like the lines of the walls and leaf chains, but then I am a line obsessive!
There is a part where he says he is capturing the movement of a pool of fresh water meeting sea water really struck me.
I thought about movements and the idea of freezing a moment in a sculpture or drawing.
One movement I love is the surface of the sea as it washes over itself on the shore and out at sea.
It's something I've tried to capture before but could never quite get - I mused aloud over this and my mother pointed out that fossilized seabeds are the closest thing to capturing that movement -
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/31003535@N07/3040479166
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I'd love to own a piece of that, or to cast it in silver, like Maya Lin's Yangtze River -
I can't actually find a photo online - it's truly beautiful - the shape of the Yangtze River cast in silver.
-sb