art

Rise

~ Katy Kelleher ~ Leave a comment

I recently listened to an episode of This American Life about superpowers. One of the three stories in the show was about a man who began asking all his friends and acquaintances a simple question: Would you rather be able to fly, or make yourself invisible? At the end of his segment, he theorized that maybe there is a fundamental difference between people who wish for flight and those who desire invisibility. Maybe some people have more to hide, which makes flying the more noble—more honest—option. Or maybe the people who choose invisibility are more honest. They recognize that creeping, insidious, universal desire to fade slowly away. To sneak off, quietly and without a trace.

This is a very long and roundabout way of introducing the work of Japanese artist Natsumi Hayashi. In her series, “The Girl Who Loves To Levitate,” she glides above the ground, seeming to float effortlessly through the air. Of course, this is pure illusion. Every image takes multiple shots, as she runs back and forth between the camera and the pose, where she must jump into the air at exactly the right time. I imagine it’s a tricky process, but the results are lovely.

In a lot of ways, I always figured myself as the invisibility type, but Natsumi’s pictures make me reconsider. Though I never really thought of it this way before, flying could feel an awful lot like swimming. The freedom of limbs suspended, the ease of motion, the simple fluidity of body in water—if that’s not like flying, I don’t know what is. Swimming has always felt so easy to me. I don’t need to fake nonchalance or push further (I’ll leave that to the Phelps of the world), it just is.

Maybe I would choose flight, after all.

{Via}

Winner’s Circle.

~ Katy Kelleher ~ Leave a comment

French illustrator and author Laëtitia Devernay recently won this year’s V&A Illustration Awards for her book, The Conductor. I have to confess, I had never heard of her before reading this roundup of winners, but I absolutely love her style. I’ve always been fascinated with children’s books, partially because I think it’s amazing how we present the world to kids, but also because the defining feature of children’s literature is mixing images and text. A truly great picture book is a piece of art. If you’re not on board with this statement, just take a trip to the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art (I went last summer for work and ADORED it) and you’ll see what I mean.

Or maybe you wont. Which, that’s fine, but we probably wouldn’t be friends.

More pictures after the jump…

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Little, Tiny Things

~ Katy Kelleher ~ Leave a comment

Artist Kenji Sugiyama recreates the experience of going to an art museum on a very, very small scale. Using pasta boxes as his four walls, he creates lilliputian scenes of people gazing at art. He completely captures the weird physical motions of a museum (visitors standing quietly, still, heads forward and arms at their sides, poised as if about to take off, gestures of mock-thoughtfulness, etc.). Aside from thinking anything tiny is adorable (I don’t know why, I just do!) Sugiyama’s work is also just plain impressive. Can you imagine making something so intricate and detailed? My big clumsy fingers can’t.

More pictures…

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It’s Been Too Long.

~ Katy Kelleher ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been neglecting my blog. Things have been so busy with my day jobs (which is a good thing! I sometimes sound like I am complaining, but it’s a very, very good thing) that I haven’t had much time for personal writing of any sort.

But today I was pulled out of my blogging rut when I saw these pictures of land art installations by artist Sylvain Meyer.  I love land art, and Meyer’s pieces remind me an awful lot of the first artist I ever knew by name: Andy Goldsworthy. When I was in elementary school, I had a friend who came from a very cultured family. My family was incredibly science-oriented, which meant I spent almost zero time at art museums—but a lot of time visiting submarines, science exhibits and battle grounds. But when I was eight, I remember spending one sleepless night at my friends house, leafing through this giant coffee table book and wondering how long it would take for the sun to rise so I could go home. Goldsworthy got me through the night with his perfectly arranged rocks and woven windows of grass.

Meyer’s art has a very similar feel, though it is slightly more… organic, is the word I want to use. It’s a little softer. He makes sunbursts out of dandelions and turns trees into claw-footed beasts. It flows more easily, and doesn’t have any of the harsh geometric edges that I associate with Goldsworthy.

Anyway, I’ll finish this like I do most blog posts, by just telling you how much I like it. Because I do.

Here are some more images:
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Three Nice Things

~ Katy Kelleher ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes, I don’t think there is enough art (and writing and culture) devoted to capturing happiness. Stefan Sagmeister’s show at UPenn is great because it’s just that: happy stuff. Using typography and photography to illustrate inspirational sayings, it’s a bit like Pinterest got an art show… but in a good way!

But it’s not just light-weight eye candy. Sagmeister also incorporated some science into the show:

To contextualize the maxims that appear throughout the exhibition, Sagmeister has gathered the social data of Harvard psychologists Daniel Gilbert and Steven Pinker, psychologist Jonathan Haidt, anthropologist Donald Symons, and several prominent historians. A 12-minute segment of the Happy Film, a feature length exploration of whether it is possible to train the mind the way we train the body, will also be on view.

Cool. Especially since Daniel Gilbert is so great—he gave one of my very favorite TED Talks. It’s about how to be happy (of course) and the importance of synthetic happiness. Turns out, how we conceptualize happiness can really limit our enjoyment of things. Not everything has to be external for it to be real. Obviously, he explains it MUCH better than I am, so go watch it here.

Finally, though it’s a little unrelated, Sagmeister’s art reminded me of a great video that I think I found via the Jezebel commenting section. But don’t let that stop you from watching it! It’s a really great video on what being “pretty” means, and why you should never, ever want to be “just pretty.” Trust me on this one, it’s pretty cool.

 

Image: “Trying to look good limits my life” Art direction: Stefan Sagmeister. Design: Stefan Sagmeister, Matthias Ernstberger. Photography: Matthias Ernstberger. Client: Art Grandeur Nature.

Resting.

~ Katy Kelleher ~ Leave a comment

It has been a really great weekend, full of beaches and cocktails and gardening and everything else that I like. But now that it’s over, I’m pretty exhausted—in the best possible way.

For no other reason than it’s beautiful, I wanted to share this image from Sir Lonie. He does these fabulous Schiele-esque sketches and they’re all licensed under creative commons. When it comes to images, there’s so much internet thievery that’s done with the best of intentions (we all just want to share something pretty!) but when it comes down to it, it’s still stealing. It’s really nice to know that this drawing—and all of his pieces—are intended for precisely this purpose.

Check out his drawings (and animation). They’re pretty great.

Good Night.

~ Katy Kelleher ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been meaning to post about Robert Knight’s photos for a long time now because they are ghostly and fantastic and utterly strange. For his series “Sleepless,” the Hamilton College professor/artist took long-exposure photographs of people tossing and turning in their beds. The project was inspired by his own issues with insomnia (which is something I can relate to in a very big, very unfortunate way). The result is a cluster of images that capture the restless movement of a body in a bed while obscuring all identifying features of the subject. I find it creepy, touchingly intimate, and oddly beautiful.

You can read more about “Sleepless,” which also includes videos and installations called “sleep boxes,” at Knight’s website.

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I Love Public Art, Part III.

~ Katy Kelleher ~ 1 Comment

As previously mentioned, I adore public art. I mean, I kind of just generally love art as a principle of life, but I really like the stuff that makes its way out of the museums and onto the streets, where it can confuse, excite, terrorize or please the populace just by existing.

But I realize a lot of people just ignore public art, seeing it as just another part of the cityscape—or worse, they let their eyes glaze over it as they search for the nearest Starbucks or whatever. I know. Why would you do that? It’s so nice! However, sometimes you can’t ignore it, like with Lawrence Argent‘s “I see what you mean.” Continue reading →

Such Great Heights.

~ Katy Kelleher ~ Leave a comment

Parisian architect Didier Faustino turned an old, unused billboard into a swing set. Though I get shivers just looking at it (acrophobia is a very real thing), I think it might be worth the nausea to see a city from this perspective. It must feel like flying.

Faustino himself has some pretty cool stuff to say about the piece, which he calls “Double Happiness:”

Double Happiness responds to the society of materialism where individual desires seem to be prevailing over all. This nomad piece of urban furniture allows the reactivation of different public spaces and enables inhabitants to reappropriate fragments of their city. They will both escape and dominate public space through a game of equilibrium and desequilibrium. By playing this “risky” game, and testing their own limits, two persons can experience together a new perception of space and recover an awareness of the physical world.

It sounds a little like the justification they use on “The Bachelor” every time they have one of those weird fear-dates—though I suspect the producers on that show are far more interest in reusing their favorite metaphor: falling off structures as a painfully heavy handed analogy for “falling” in love. Faustino makes this entire process sound vastly more interesting (and a little bit trippy).

Anyway, I like it. Found via.