Archives For Thomas

The Photographs of JR

October 19, 2013 — Leave a comment

JR: Blow Up

The Renegade Artist Spreads His Work Around the Globe in Filmmaker Matt Black’s Latest Portrait

Now a TED Prize-winner, semi-anonymous JR grew up in the suburbs of Paris and began tagging and “exhibiting” on the streets as a teen. When he found a camera on the Metro, he started taking photographs. Now he’s shaking things up with a new system that allows everyone to print and post works in their own neighborhoods, all for free. “It’s true art. That’s why people want to participate,” says Black, who caught up with the self-described “photograffeur” as part of his Reflections series. Today JR, who views the city as “the biggest gallery in the world,” also shows in more traditional spaces, including Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin and the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Los Angeles MoCA, collaborating with artists such as Jose Parlà and Takashi Murakami. “He’s creating this monster project,” reflects the director, “showing that we’re all human—all equal.”

Via Nowness

 

 

Kimbra: Settle Down (Live)

New Zealand’s Pop Prodigy Multiplies Into a Formidable Beatboxing Chorus

One-woman, iPad-looping sensation Kimbra performs her breakout hit “Settle Down” in our exclusively commissioned and dynamic short by directors Us.

Us directing duo Christopher Barrett and Luke Taylor filmed a single take of the track to capture the live energy of Kimbra’s performance, visually recreating her vocal loops in post-production. “She builds the entire song using just her vocals, some beatboxing and her iPad,” they explain. “It’s often quite hard to distinguish many layers of sound, so we wanted to break down the structure of her performance, and highlight what she was actually doing.” Currently touring the States with indie rockers Foster the People, NOWNESS caught up with Kimbra on the road to snare her choice of dance moves and drum kits.

viaNowness.com

In the commercial world of portrait, still life and fashion photography everything starts with Irving Penn.  There is not one photographer of note up until the 1990’s you could name whom he has not influenced. Photographers based entire careers making pictures informed by Penn’s incredible photographs (that are just as good today as ever).  This survey of his work is installed beautifully and all the hits are here to feast your eyes on.

 

Via pacemacgill.com

Gerhard Richter Film

October 16, 2013 — Leave a comment

A nice little Gerhard Richter Film about his once famously top secret painting techniques… (Film by Corinna Belz.)

 

 

The notoriously secretive creative process of reclusive German artist Gerhard Richter is exposed in filmmaker Corinna Belz’s new fly-on-the-wall documentary, Gerhard Richter Painting. Belz spent three years as an observer in Richter’s Cologne studio capturing mesmerizing footage of the artist producing his radical abstract works. As we witness him mixing layer upon layer of bold primary colors, smearing the wet paint with a giant squeegee and scraping at the surfaces of the canvases, Richter’s masterpieces appear before our eyes. “You get the feeling the paintings are staring at you,” says Belz, who met the painter while filming his vibrant pixelated stained glass window for the Cologne Cathedral. “There’s a physicality to Richter’s paintings. I wanted the viewer to become immersed in the subtly suspenseful cycle of the process.” Belz’s poetic film coincides with Richter’s 80th birthday and a major retrospective at London’s Tate Modern spanning five decades of his varied work.

via Gerhard Richter Painting on Nowness.com

One of my favorite artists… Theo Jansen has been creating new life forms that live on the beaches and feed on the air and wind since 1990. He is the Leonardo da Vinci of beach creatures. His goal is to get them to be self-sustaining wind creatures. He just might one day succeed.

 

His TED talk is one of the most watched ever.