Archives For Thomas

“For 20 years now, New York-based photographer Spencer Tunick has been creating human art installations all over the world, calling together volunteers by the hundreds or thousands, asking them to remove their clothes, and photographing them in massive groups. His philosophy is that “individuals en masse, without their clothing, grouped together, metamorphose into a new shape.” He aims to create an architecture of flesh, where the masses of human bodies blend with the landscape, or juxtapose with architecture. Collected here are images from several of his installations as they were being composed”.

Via The Atlantic

 

My favorite Chinese artist’s don’t copy tired and old western styles of painting like Zhu Jinshi (who for some reason is a very successful painter). I like Chinese Artists who exhibit their Chinese DNA in their work.You can’t help but love these  subversive self-portraits about Yue Minjun’s cynical take on the “new” China. The kind of artist you want to have a beer with.

Immediately humorous and sympathetic, Yue Minjun’s paintings offer a light-hearted approach to philosophical inquiry and contemplation of existence. Drawing connotations to the disparate images of the Laughing Buddha and the inane gap toothed grin of Alfred E. Newman, Yue’s self-portraits have been describe by theorist Li Xianting as “a self-ironic response to the spiritual vacuum and folly of modern-day China.”

via saatchigallery.com

via Galleri s . e

Georges Méliès was a huge inspiration for Martin Scorsese and his last film HugoCharlie Chaplin described him as “the alchemist of light.” Below are his two most famous films: Le Voyage Dans La Lune followed by The Impossible Voyage each shot in a large glass greenhouse  and outdoors, with incredible set design, each frame hand colored and now restored.

Le Voyage Dans La Lune

 

The Impossible Voyage (Music by The Musician’s Lounge)

I miss this band… Top ten concerts (and business suits) of all time. Jonathan Demme did the documentary

 

Music Break: Talking Heads Girlfriend is Better [Live]

The Germans seem to be the only people who can document James Turrell’s work correctly.  This is an excellent tour of his installation in Germany at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg and a short overview of The Rodan Crater Project.

This is one of his largest Ganzfeld works named for the “visual effect produced by the phenomenon of perception caused by exposure to an unstructured, uniform stimulation field”.  Really disappointing the Guggenheim could not exhibit one of these incredible works for his retrospective in NYC.