By John Baichtal at 1:02 pm Thursday, Dec 1
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In The Cult of Lego, my co-author Joe Meno and I devote a whole chapter to art, both works created with bricks as well as art using more traditional media featuring Lego as the subject matter.
Despite the success of museum exhibitions such as Nathan Sawaya's nationally-touring "Art of the Brick", inevitably some people claim that Lego is not a serious artistic medium. While I don't see how someone can look at Sawaya's amazing works, or those by such mainstream artists as Olafur Eliasson and Douglas Coupland which feature the bricks, and not agree it's art, nevertheless there are doubters.
Enter Lego fan and philosophy professor Roy Cook, who wrote an essay contending that yes, Lego can be art.
From The Cult of Lego:
As Lego makes its way into galleries, it’s sure to provoke a reaction from visitors who don’t think it belongs there. Conversely, the artists featured in this chapter obviously disagree. Who is right?
Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer. Scholars have debated the concept’s definition for centuries and continue to do so to this day. However, most theorists agree that art involves three criteria: form, content, and context. Roy Cook, a Lego fan and professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota, wrote an essay arguing that Lego, by this definition, can clearly be called art. He uses the following criteria:
Form refers to the medium and the skill used to manipulate that medium, Cook’s essay explains. A work must typically display masterful technique to be considered art. Surely numerous models demonstrate a high level of skill. As with any technically demanding medium, there will always be works that stand out as being exemplary.
Content is the statement the piece makes or the meaning behind it. Even if this message is so obscure that only the artist can grasp it, there has to be some sort of thought behind the piece. It seems like a given: If artists desire to make a statement with a Lego model, they can do it.
Context refers to the culture and artistic tradition into which the work is placed. Andy Warhol’s soup cans outside the context of Pop Art probably would not have been considered art. As Cook points out in his essay, there is no widespread artistic tradition surrounding Lego. Just as novels were considered trash literature in the 18th century and graphic novels battle for legitimacy today, Lego simply doesn’t have the acceptance it needs to be considered legitimate art. That doesn’t mean that Lego can’t be art; there simply is no longstanding body of formal, accepted Lego art to place a model within.
[The photo at the top of this post depicts art by James "AME72" Ame, whose work may be found in The Cult of Lego.]
By Mark Frauenfelder at 12:45 pm Thursday, Dec 1
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I love Thumbtack Press, because they make excellent art prints, offer high quality framing of the prints they sell, and pay their artists a very good commission. I've been offering my work at Thumbtack Press for years, and couldn't be more pleased with their service and product quality.
Today, they introduced my latest print, Flower, Daughter of Googam, which is based on a painting I did for a Jack Kirby Museum benefit art show. You can buy the print in a variety of formats and sizes, including stretched canvas, which looks very much like a painting.
Flower, Daughter of Googam on Thumbtack Press
By Bill North at 6:36 pm Wednesday, Nov 30
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The Fire Fly has landed! On November 10, “Randy Regier: H. Maxwell Fisher’s Underground Toy Emporium and Spaceship Parking” opened at Jim Kempner Fine Art, 501 West 23rd Street, NYC, where it remains on view through December 23.
According to the gallery’s press release, “Jim Kempner Fine Art, in collaboration with Mr. Fisher’s eldest son, H. Maxwell Fisher II, is pleased to announce the estate sale of the toy store’s entire remaining – and for that matter, what was indeed the store’s opening day – stock.” Apparently, the basement of the building the gallery currently occupies was, many years ago, the site of Fisher’s stillborn toy store.
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By Maggie Koerth-Baker at 6:43 am Thursday, Nov 10
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One a recent art crawl in St. Paul, Minnesota, I ran across the work of Michael Bahl.
Dressed in a white lab coat, Bahl bills his work as "post-osteological interpretation." Basically, he's built both skeletal monsters, and an ostensibly real research history to go with them. This creature, for instance, is a Chalicotherium laurentian. She is an adult female, part of a trio of fossil animals that includes an adult male and a juvenile. Here's Bahl's statement on the C. laurentian family.
Discovered in 1887 by Harold Vanselow, a maverick dinosaur hunter and at one time a member of the Othniel Charles Marsh team from the Yale Peabody Museum, this Chalacothere was named appropriately enough after the Laurentian Divide in Northern Minnesota where tributaries of the St. Lawrence River divide and flow in two directions.
Dating from the Miocene era, the bones of these creatures retain the rich, deep color of the Iron Range where they once roamed in large herds. The purpose of the male's secondary head has been much debated, some experts believing it to be fully functional while others maintain it was most probably used in the mating ritual.
Research indicates that the family grouping seen here was first exhibited in the late 19th Century at a private museum in London and assembled by Walter Vernon, the well-known enfant terrible of those early years of prehistoric osteological display. Vernon's philosophy was explained in a lengthy article which appeared in 1901. He stated that he felt his specimens acknowledged not only the accurate presentation of a skeleton, but the millions of years that the bones had been part of the earth itself and the impact the internment had on them. "Tribute must be paid to the beauty given to these beasts by the greatest of artists -- time."
The exhibit caused a furor in scientific circles largely because no other specimens or even fragments had been unearthed. It was both hailed as a work of art and villified as "expressionistic". Matters were complicated further by the disappearance of Vanselow's notebooks and meticulously detailed maps. The exhibit vanished in 1904 after fire destroyed the hall in which it was housed, and as if by unspoken agreement it was quietly forgotten.
Then, in 1994, the bones were rediscovered embedded in the foundation of a home in South St. Paul, Minnesota. They had been packed in crates originating in Prague circa 1914 and, since the house had been built in 1939, it is not known where the remains of this might species had been kept. Although some structural repairs were necessary, the specimens are otherwise presented here in the splendidly ancient condition in which they were found.
By Maggie Koerth-Baker at 8:11 am Wednesday, Nov 9
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This amazing shot was taken in Norway by Ole Christian Salomonsen. It's one of the many photos featured in National Geographic's upcoming photo book, Visions of Earth. You can check out a video preview of some of the other photos on YouTube.
By Maggie Koerth-Baker at 7:31 am Tuesday, Nov 8
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At the Atlantic, science historian Suzanne Fischer has a really interesting post up about the development of pointe shoes. In the early 20th century, at a time when all sorts of technologies were remaking the way people lived, worked, and played, pointe shoes were doing the same thing for ballerinas.
In particular, Fischer writes, pointe shoes were almost the dance equivalent of Henry Ford's assembly line—they standardized bodies and turned dancers into a sleek, modern commodity.
... the new shoes forced dancers' bodies to move in new ways. Dancers on this pointe regimen developed characteristically long, lean leg muscles. Balanchine also encouraged dancers to let the shoes remake their bodies, including developing bunions that gave the foot just the right line. And as their bodies were remade, dancers became "like IBM machines," modern and indistinguishable. This had consequences for labor, too. For one, stars became a less central feature of dance companies as dancers became more interchangeable, and second, dancers came to spend hours working on their shoes -- altering, gluing, and caring for them. In fact, in 1980 dancers threatened to strike -- not over hours or pay, but for better pointe shoes, and better management of them.
Via Alexis Madrigal
Image: get the pointe III, a Creative Commons Attribution No-Derivative-Works (2.0) image from chrishaysphotography's photostream
By Maggie Koerth-Baker at 10:50 am Tuesday, Nov 1
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I love serendipity. On the same day that Anja Austerman posted this awesome knit hat to my Google+ feed, Kevin Zelnio also posted a link reminding me of the existence of the The Museum of Scientifically Accurate Fabric Brain Art. Xeni posted about the museum here back in 2008. But it's awfully fun to contrast the super-detailed brain art on display there with this more whimsical variety.
What happens when you combine science, art, and humor? Join Marc Abrahams of the Ig Nobel Prizes and Brian Wecht, a theoretical physicist and half of the music comedy duo Ninja Sex Party, for a live chat on the connections between creativity and research.
The chat starts today at 3:00 pm Eastern time.
— Maggie
By Maggie Koerth-Baker at 8:27 am Wednesday, Oct 26
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David East drew this detailed, beautiful piece from a 2008 photograph of astronaut Ron Garan working on the exterior of the International Space Station. It's damn fine work.
Look below the jump to see the photo East's drawing was based on.
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By Mark Frauenfelder at 3:56 pm Tuesday, Oct 11
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This Saturday (October 15) at 5pm, legendary rock club Maxwell's in Hoboken will open its Kirby Enthusiasm art show in its front room. More than 30 visual artists have contributed work paying tribute to "The King of Comics."At 7pm, in the back room, the Kirby Enthusiasm rock show will start, with WEEP (featuring the Venture Brothers' Doc Hammer), WJ & The Sweet Sacrifice and (formed for this occasion) The Boom Tubes!
If you're at New York Comic Con, Maxwell's is easy to get to from the Javits Center - take a ferry at 39th Street across the Hudson to Hoboken North and walk a few blocks to 1039 Washington St.
The art is awesome - the music is gonna rock - Kirby Enthusiasm!
Here's my contribution to the show: A 24x24" painting of Carroll Baker starring in the reel-to-reel tape audiobook, Flower, Daughter of Googam.
There might be a 12x12 print for sale at the show, which is based on the Illustrator preliminary drawing I made. I'll find out if it is available for sale online.
Kirby Enthusiasm Art Show
By Maggie Koerth-Baker at 5:25 am Monday, Oct 10
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This gorgeous photo of a statue in England called The Angel of the North was taken by Justin Quinnell, over the course of three months, using a pinhole camera made out of a beer can. Yes, the parabola is the path of the Sun, with the highest peak being June 21. New Scientist has more information on how Quinnell made this photo. (Via Roger Highfield)
By Maggie Koerth-Baker at 8:35 am Friday, Oct 7
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This Tron-o-saurus is part of Dinosaurs & Robots, a gallery show by artists Scott Elyard and Raven Amos, which opens tonight in Anchorage, Alaska. For more info, check out the video trailer that Elyard made.
Via Glendon Mellow, who you should follow for all your science-themed art needs.
By Mark Frauenfelder at 3:15 pm Wednesday, Sep 21
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I've spent an inordinate amount of time over at Monster Brains, a blog filled with thousands of scans of comic books, movie posters, science fiction paperbacks, model kit boxes, and other media starring monsters. Here are a few noteworthy ones.
A rather unusual weapon to have on the cover of a kids' comic book from the 1960s.
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By Mark Frauenfelder at 4:14 pm Tuesday, Sep 13
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Titan Books gave me permission to present samples from the new art book, The Definitive SF Works of Chris Foss. It's available in a standard edition for $21.14, and a special edition for $75 that comes in a slipcase with an alternate cover, an extra 8-page cover gallery and a signed Chris Foss print in an envelope.
Foss’s groundbreaking and distinctive science fiction art revolutionized paperback covers in the 1970s and 80s. Dramatically raising the bar for realism and invention, his trademark battle-weary spacecraft, dramatic alien landscapes and crumbling brutalist architecture irrevocably changed the aesthetic of science fiction art and cinema.
Featuring work for books by Isaac Asimov, E. E. ‘Doc’ Smith, Arthur C. Clarke, A. E. Van Vogt and Philip K. Dick, and film design for Ridley Scott and Stanley Kubrick, this volume brings together many rare and classic images that have never been seen or reprinted before. The first comprehensive retrospective of Chris Foss’s SF career.
All images © Chris Foss courtesy ChrisFossArt.com
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By Maggie Koerth-Baker at 9:29 am Tuesday, Sep 13
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Filmmaker Kim Pimmel combined ferrofluids, a magnet, soap bubbles, and dye to create this mesmerizing short video. Science + art = awesomesauce.
Video Link
Thanks, Brian Thomas!
, my book about the future of energy in the United States, will be published April 10th.
