ghosts in string and windows

Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota creates immense installations with string, furniture, windows, and live people.

What I thought, on first glance, was a frenetic charcoal drawing, was actually a photograph of a white room, with a piano and chairs completely cobwebbed in black strings.  The strings are attached to the walls, the ceiling, the floor, the furniture; they wind around each other and are woven in such a way that they define space and become shapes - or beings - themselves.

Other recurring items she uses are old windows from Berlin construction sites, hospital beds, children's school chairs, and shoes.

...but it's the string that gets me.  A ball of yarn sitting on a desk is such a quiet, soft, unassuming thing.  This artist turns it into a horrible, anxious tangle, a web of uneasiness...it almost looks organic, like an intelligent, plotting Spanish moss, ready to grow around you and swallow you up if you stay too still, too long.

Life On Mars

VIMBY - Mars-1

Just ran across this great little spotlight on my friend Mario, AKA Mars1.  Over the years Mario's work has become increasingly more abstract, complicated, detailed, skilled and beautiful.  I can only imagine what he's cooking up next, as it will no doubt be other-worldy.

State of the Arts

I was lucky enough to make it down to Art Basel Miami earlier in December and I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to share some first hand glimpses of the amazing sculptural works that were on hand. 

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 While this is only a VERY small cross-section of the sculpture that was represented, these very few examples still show the vast range of mediums, techniques and individual voices that can be conveyed in the dimensional form.

shards

Andy Paiko is a U.S. artist who blends form and function in his glass pieces.



Check out both his "Sculpture", as well as "Sculptural Vesselware" on his website, for striking designs, some holding organic shapes. I really like how layered and ornate the work is - a jar that only needs to be five inches tall has a gigantic layered finial on top, just to show off. Glass is a beautiful and difficult medium to work in, and I really appreciate this artist's work.




Special thanks to DF reader CuriousArt who turned me on to Andy's work!

Darker Forest

What began as cottage industry catering to wealthy Victorian tourists in the Swiss town of Brienz in the early 1800's, Black Forest wood carvings escalated to a highly respected and sought after art form being exhibited in many great international exhibitions in the late 19th and early 20th century.

While the style is undeniably the inspiration for many new products in home decor as well as the driving force behind many an artisan, it's difficult to find a central resource on the web. That being said, I am more than happy to showcase some of our favorite carvings to save you the surfing. Enjoy.

it's been so long

Our apologies to you, Darkened Forest readers. We realize that it's been almost a month since our last post. Chris and I have both had a lot going on, between work, art shows, preparations for ComicCon, and home rennovations...that doesn't leave either of us nearly enough time for blogging.

But I'm going to try and make it up to you this week, while Chris is at Comic Con.

For my first trick, behold the art of Paul Toupet:


His fondness for rabbit masks, rotting fabric, and tattered cotton ticking has every ingredient to make me love it instantly.



His website is, admittedly, a bit of a pain - made in flash with load-times seemingly for no reason at all. But the work is great, taking inspiration from old tribal masks, baby dolls, and childhood toys from a forgotten age.

The work is ambitious, especially considering the fact that the artist is somewhere in the vicinity of 28 years old.

Swan Lake

The Silver Swan is an automaton from the 1700s, and is kept in England's Bowes Museum.



This description is from the Wikipedia entry:

"The swan, which is life size, is a clockwork driven device that includes a music box. The swan sits in a "stream" that is made of glass rods and is surrounded by silver leaves. Small silver fish can be seen "swimming" in the stream. When the clockwork is wound the music box plays and the glass rods rotate giving the illusion of flowing water. The swan turns its head from side to side and also preens itself. After a few moments the swan notices the swimming fish and bends down to catch and eat one. The swans head then returns to the upright position and the performance, which has lasted about 40 seconds, is over. To help preserve the mechanism the swan is only operated twice a day."

Here, you can see a video of the Swan's performance, and even better, the enraptured wonder of the viewers in the background. Such art, technology, craftsmanship, and flawless motion are spectacular, especially considering it runs on clockwork and was created over 200 years ago!

a tale of two rabbits

It just so happens that Chris and I are both participating in an upcoming custom vinyl show featuring artists' takes on Frank Kozik's Smorkin' Labbit (see Figure 1 below):


Chris overhauled his into a new species of jaunty and amazingly cute ungulate...



...which is clearly herbivorous, spending its days quietly stalking low-lying plants.


Mine ended up like something excavated from the attic of a centuries-old home...



...complete with bendable wire ears, rotting frills, and a little cart that rolls when you pull it.



The show is at Rivet Gallery in Columbus, Ohio - I think we'll both be at the opening on the night of May 3, so if you're in the area, be sure to stop and say hello.

back and forward

The Etsy shop of Builder's Studio cranks out some amazing things. From gorgeous retro-futuristic robot miniatures...



...to handmade Ray Guns, sized both for holding in the hand, or hanging on a chain around your neck. And what is even better? They're made of wood! The old, rustic patina-style finish on these pieces is wonderful, and though many of the shapes seem very "wood-like", the metallic sheen plays a trick on you and really makes you think you are looking at hammered, weathered metal.

old is new

Continuing the theme of artificial artifacts and pickled cryptids, feast your peepers on the work of ALEX CF. He has quite a capable handle on creating authentic looking pieces that really seem to have history to them.
Before you go on your next vampire or werewolf hunt, I'd suggest consulting Alex for all your supply needs.

life from the clay

Ron Mueck gets a lot of well-deserved attention on the ol' interweb, so I figured why not some more.
I was lucky enough to first encounter his work not through a computer monitor, but in person during the touring Sensation show at the Brooklyn Museum of art. Among the several pieces of his that were present in the show was a sculpture entitled "dead dad" which was a 3 foot long hyper realistic nude sculpture of his dead father, laying on the floor. Much like Robert Lazzarini's work, as mentioned in a previous post, Ron Mueck's work throws your perception for a loop. It's so real, every pore and hair in it's right place, but so unreal because the scale is off, sometimes not by much, sometimes gigantic, and other times very small.

I was very happy to find out that Ron Mueck had also worked for the Jim Henson Creature shop, and was the voice of Ludo in the film Labyrinth.

Take some time to curl up with this amazing short documentary about his art and process for creating these masterpieces. FYI there is a good deal of (artistic)nudity in this following film, for the weak or prude of heart. LINK

splitting hares

Beth Cavener Stichter seems to have the same affliction I do - an unexplainable affinity for rabbits and goats.

Visit her website to see her amazingly alive, visceral, fleshy creations. Be sure to go to the "Materials and Techniques" section and click on the capybara to see the unbelievable amount of work and patience that goes into the large pieces - work that you never see, but is crucial to the piece. I love her sense of weight and movement, all the muscles seem heavy, the skin falling in fleshy piles where you'd expect it to.

speaking of household rodentia....

That last post made me remember a film I saw last fall. Christiane Cegavske supposedly put thirteen years of her life into Blood Tea and Red String, a feature-length stop-motion film. Nods to modern animators such as Jan Svankmajer are apparent, but it's pretty original, and I enjoyed seeing the clever and creative solutions she employed (cellophane for water, for example). When I saw it in the theater, the print looked really dark, and my hope is that once transferred to DVD that problem has been taken care of.

The soundtrack is cute, the pennywhistle-styled music seems appropriate for the forest-dwelling characters, and the "what-era-is-this-from" sound of it seems right in line with the anachronistic, low-tech look of the animation, so like works from other animators in the last 25 years (Brothers Quay, etc.), it's not immediately obvious what year this was even made.

Most impressive is the sheer construction of everything - for being the vision of one artist, the puppets are extremely detailed, the clothing, the props, the sets, it's all well thought out and cohesive. It's not perfect, but it's quite well done, and I'm impressed with her overall vision and follow-through.

I'm pretty sure you can rent it on Netflix, so if you have room in your queue, it's definitely worth your 1.5 hours.

skewed view

A few years back, I ran across a sculpture of a skewed phone booth at Art Basel in Miami, that made my brain just plain stop working for a few moments. Later I would find out that Robert Lazzarini is in the habit of sculpting this brand of craziness on a regular basis. Sadly for you internetters, these things really have to be seen in person to get the full effect, but the installation photo below might give you an idea of what you're looking at.