This is “Pony”, a motion-sensitive kinetic sculpture by Tim Lewis. Unsettling and beautiful:
“Tim Lewis combines mechanical devices and sculpture to investigate, test and experiment with his own doubts and perception of the world.” (via)
Lewis, recently interviewed about his work by Dazed Digital, makes a compelling statement about the power inherent in tangibility:
I think that when you first approach a piece of art, and you imagine it and draw it, there’s a sense that it will always remain somewhat in your imagination. Its only when you take the 2D object and re-work it into the physical 3D world that it becomes somewhat more real. It no longer just exists in your eyes and mind, but instead has to react with the floors and walls around it in the physical world. For me, kinetic art highlights the importance of bringing both inventions and imagination into a physical existence.
Lewis’ work is regularly exhibited and promoted by the folks who run the Kinetica Museum and related events in Spitalfields, London. Their annual Kinetica Art Fair is coming up in February. As it has for the past several years, the Fair will bring together “galleries, art organisations and curatorial groups from around the world who focus on universal concepts and evolutionary processes though the convergence of kinetic, electronic, robotic, sound, light, time-based and multi-disciplinary new media art, science and technology.”
Are any of our UK readers going? Please do report back! It sounds amazing.
“We are presenting for sale a limited edition bronze sculpture of a centaur couple in love’s embrace. The sculpture is entitled UNBRIDLED LOVE. The statue is cast in bronze by the traditional lost wax method. Each sculpture is individually patinaed and will therefore appear slightly different from any other. The sculpture is newly cast upon order. Delivery time for this statue is three months. Each statue is hand detailed, numbered in a limited edition of 50, and signed by the artist. All image and production rights are retained by the artist. $4850″
It would seem that Coilhouse’s favorite power couple, the Joslins, are going for complete and total art world domination in late 2011! These two lovelies have been consistently inspiring, supporting, and contributing to us since the very beginning. Jessica was our biggest feature in Issue 01 of the print magazine, and we just published a lavish interview with Jared in Issue 06. (Which, btw, is still available in our shop… but not for long! Get it while you can.)
We love these two! Here’s a quick rundown of Jessica and Jared’s various exploits in recent months:
“Devil’s Kiss” by Jared Joslin. Oil on canvas, 24 x 36 inches, price upon request.
Jared’s newest oil painting “Devil’s Kiss” is the first in a new series of paintings exploring the high life and thrill of masquerade balls of the 1920′s. Says Jared:
“In this dream-like whirl of frenzied delight, set in a snow globe atmosphere of streamers, confetti and balloons, I intend to explore and depict stolen moments, passionate persuits and secret longings. Moments marked by intense pleasure in a state of high celebration.”
Meanwhile, Jessica’s gorgeous creatures are scampering all over the place! Comet (pictured below) is going to London for the “Wild Life” group show at Stolen Space Gallery, opening tomorrow, Dec 2:
Comet, by Jessica Joslin.
Agate (pictured below), as well as Almond and Silver (shown after the jump) are all headed to Roq La Rue in Seattle. Opening Dec 9, 6-9pm:
Hans Reichel—the criminally under-appreciated German experimental guitarist—passed away in his hometown of Wuppertal yesterday at the age of 62, according to a West German newspaper. Virtually unknown on this side of the Atlantic, Reichel was a self-taught guitarist who may be best remembered for his radical homemade guitars and his invented instrument, the Daxophone.
Picking up music at an early age by teaching himself violin, Reichel (like just about everybody else) became enamored with rock music in the ‘60s, picked up a guitar and played in various blues-based groups before all but abandoning music to study graphic design (Reichel would go on to be a fairly well known typesetter). Reichel returned to music in the early ‘70s with his folky and unpretentious improvisational approach to the guitar differentiating him from the field of European improvisers at the time. His idiosyncratic take on the guitar drew the attention of legendary German avant-garde label, FMP, who would go on to release the majority of his work—much of which has never seen proper North American distribution. Reichel collaborated with a wide range of like-minded players, including cellist Tom Cora and guitarist Fred Frith.
Though he will never be a household name, Reichel’s contributions to the avant-garde are considerable and will be sorely missed by fans of forward-thinking music. Fare thee well, Hans.
It’s a huge and unexpected loss.
Thank you, Hans Reichel, for bringing so much joy, beauty and oddness into the world.
Click here to read previous Coilhouse coverage on Reichel’s wonderfully strange creation, the Daxophone.
Editor’s note– Please give a warm welcome to our newest guest blogger, Caroline E. Willis! Caroline describes herself as “a writer and occasionally an archaeologist.” She also has a highly entertaining blog ”about dressing up and hitting people with latex.” Needless to say, we like Caroline a lot.
“Sentimental” by Kathie Olivas, 2009, oil on canvas, 30”x40”. (Via)
“Most of us can agree on the artistic value of a Monet or Titian, but this work is for a daring audience, an audience open to exploring the strange beauty and the ecstasy inherent in our culture’s aversions.”
~Carrie Ann Baade
Guest Curator of the Cute & Creepy exhibition, FSU Museum of Fine Arts.
Drive past enough hazy bayous and bent oaks, sacrifice enough November butterflies on the altar of your windshield, and you’ll find something creepy in the heart of Florida. Carrie Ann Baade has collected the works of 25 fellow artists- works of beautiful, grotesque, adorable art- for the Cute & Creepy exhibition that’s currently taking Tallahassee by storm.
Over two-thousand people attended the opening- four times more than any other opening at the museum thus far, and some strange lure continues to draw unprecedented numbers to this show- a lure as hard to define as the subject of the show itself. Cute & Creepy is an exploration of boundaries, but the artworks on display do not so much “cross the line” as seem unaware that any boundaries exist. Each object is wholly itself; it is the viewers for whom categorization fails.
Toddlerpede 2.0” by Jon Beinart. 2011, mixed media sculpture, approximately 36”x36”x36”. Photo by Caroline E. Willis.
This beautiful video footage was recently shot by the Asia Society Museum in New York City, where Korean artist U-Ram Choe‘s most recent triumph, a shimmering, golden, “breathing” sculpture, is being premiered.
Most of Choe’s elaborate kinetic sculptures are assembled from stainless steel and acrylic, and motorized with robotics that he himself develops and programs. The above work, called Custos Cavum (“Guardian of the Hole” in Latin) is a particularly delicate and elaborate piece created as a response to this tenth-century Shiva Nataraja sculpture. (Custos Cavum is part of the Asia Society’s “In Focus” series, which invites contemporary artists to craft new works inspired by pieces from the museum’s permanent collection. Choe’s new work is being shown with the Shiva sculpture.)
Choe has stated that his creation is “a creature [that] protects the flow of communication between the two realms that assures mutual respect. In this fable, the guardian is a symbol of coexistence just as the Hindu god, Shiva, is a symbol of balance and harmony.” (via)
A captivatingly atemporal silver gelatin print from 1995:
“Hall of Thirty-Three Bays” by Hiroshi Sugimoto
(Our 400px column width definitely ain’t doing the composition any favors; it’s worth taking the time to view this stunning image as large as possible.)
The work of Tokyo/NYC-based artist and photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto reflects a lifelong fascination with infinity and eternity. He has “spoken of his work as an expression of ‘time exposed’, or photographs serving as a time capsule for a series of events in time. His work also focuses on transience of life, and the conflict between life and death.” (via)
The story behind this particular image: these are the fiercely protected, rarely viewed 1001 statues of the Sanjusangendo, a 390-foot-long wooden temple in Kyoto containing thirty-three bays, also known as Sea of Buddha. Sugimoto was determined to show the statues as they were meant to be viewed during the Heian Perod (794-1185). It took seven years for Sugimoto to get permission to enter the “Hall of Thirty-Three Bays” with his camera equipment and capture the eight-hundred-year-old Armed Merciful Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara figures just as the early morning sunlight hit them, simultaneously illuminating one-thousand-and-one haloes. The resulting imagery is both ancient and somehow futuristic, infinite and immediate.
A woodworker in Marrakesh creates a chess piece (a King, specifically) using a skew chisel, a bow lathe and his hands and feet. At one point it looks as though he has made some sort of error; one of the lines is askew, at odds with the rest. It is only a short time later that you realize that what he’s done is carved a free-floating ring! Simply astonishing. I’ve watched this video three times now and each time I am blown away by the man’s proficiency.
Thomas Negovan of Century Guild is an incredibly brilliant and intuitive creative force whose latest curation, “Grand Guignol II: HÄXAN – Satan + The Women Who Love Him” opened to the public tonight (Saturday October 22nd) at the Century Guild salon in Chicago. The art –which, as you might guess from the name, focuses on dark femininity and the demonic– assembled for this group show is astonishing:
“Austin Young’s 1999 portrait of avant-garde diva Diamanda Galás; Georges de Feure’s 1893 Japonist conjuration of wickedness “Friends of the Devil in the Flesh” ; Gustav Klimt’s ultra-seductive “The Witch” (1919) ; and “Italian Art Nouveau master Adolfo Hohenstein next to modern Italian artists Malleus, painter Gail Potocki, and sculptor Stanislav Szukalski.”
Carlos Schwabe’s “Destruction”
(Un)holy fucking shit, right?!
Thomas says ”This is far and away my favorite show I’ve curated. Ever.” As of this moment, he tells Coilhouse that most of the works are available, but they’re going to fly off the walls shortly, so if you’re in Chicago, you gotta go see this jaw-dropping collection of pieces brought together for one luxuriant, once-in-a-lifetime event. Incroyable.
Numen / For Use are an art and design collective who create organic, web-like structures from adhesive tape. Their temporary installations are large and stable enough for several adults to crawl through, and the effect is not unlike being trapped in a giant spider’s web.
After climbing up a step ladder, you find yourself suspended in a series of glistening caverns, the frosted plastic obscuring your view of the outside world.
Photo by Fred Kroh.
Their latest project, Tape Melbourne, took eight days to complete, with three artists and fifteen volunteers working nine hours every day. The exhibit used thirty kilometers of tape to build, with more tape to repair and fix the structure on a nightly basis.
The Numen / For Use website contains more examples of their work, including images and videos of the construction process. You can explore their newest installation at Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia for a few more days; from now through September 24th, 2011.
Photo courtesy of Federation Square
More photos of the installation after the jump. (Editor’s note: This is our cherished intern Connie Chen’s first blog post for Coilhouse. Thank you, Connie!)
