Artist and animator Stephen Cunnane directed these wonderful videos to help artists animate bugs, birds, and other animals.
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She thought it was an old Greek religious icon. It was a lost masterpiece worth $6 million or more. Read the rest
In 2017, Banksy painted a giant mural on a wall in Dover, England depicting a worker chiseling a star off the EU flag, by way of a comment on the Brexit vote; now, parties unknown have painted over that mural, whitewashing it. Banksy is philosophical about this development: "Oh. I had planned that on the day of Brexit I was going to change the piece in Dover to this. But seems they've painted over it. Nevermind. I guess a big white flag says it just as well." (via Naked Capitalism) (Image: Dunk, CC BY) Read the rest
In 1969, visionary designers Charles and Ray Eames directed this cinematic ballet of more than 100 spinning tops from around the world. The score is by famed Hollywood composer Elmer Bernstein (The Ten Commandments, The Magnificent Seven, Airplane!, etc.). From the Eames Office:
Tops had its genesis in an earlier film produced for the Stars of Jazz television program in 1957. The Eameses decided to make a longer, color version in 1966, which they worked on in spare moments between other projects.
The film is a celebration of the ancient art and craft of top-making and spinning. One hundred and twenty-three tops spin to the accompaniment of a score by Elmer Bernstein. Using close-up, live-action photography, the film shows tops, old and new, from various countries, including China, Japan, India, the United States, France, and England.
Charles’s fascination with spinning tops went back to his childhood; in this film he found a perfect vehicle for demonstrating their beauty in motion and for making visual points about the universality of tops, the physics of motion (MIT physics professor, Philip Morrison, often showed the film to students and colleagues), and the intimate relationship between toys and science.
(via Aeon) Read the rest
Of all the shitty luck! Burglars stole a working 18-carat gold toilet from Blenheim Palace in Britain. The golden potty was part of an art installation, police said. Read the rest
Enjoy this beautiful song "Everyone Hides" from Wilco's forthcoming 11th album, Ode To Joy, out on October 4.
The album is also available in a limited-edition vinyl box set designed by my Grammy-winning pal Lawrence Azerrad who co-produced the Voyager Golden Record: 40th Anniversary Edition with Tim Daly and me. Check out the specs on this extravagant and exquisite objet d' art:
Exclusively available through the Wilco store, the Ode to Joy Deluxe Vinyl Box Set features a limited edition hand-numbered slipcased pop-up art book which includes:
• Ode To Joy LP on 180 gram vinyl • LP jacket and inserts exclusive to this edition • A 22-page clothbound hardcover embossed book printed on 100 point archival paper. The book features collages and unique hand assembled paper constructions that animate and reveal album lyrics including pages engineered with pull out die cut pockets, spinning wheels, paper doors, and unfolding gatefold spreads. • Autographed by the band.
Produced in Chicago, IL with six color printing, metallic inks and collages designed by Wilco’s long-time collaborator Lawrence Azerrad, the limited edition Ode To Joy art book is a rare archive of this work.
Mindbending work by Portugal-based graffiti artist Rodrigo Miguel Sepúlveda Nunes, aka Vile. See more at his Instagram feed, vile_graffiti.
(via Kottke)
View this post on InstagramRead the rest
Listen to the wonderful outsider musician Daniel Johnston, who died last week, cover The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows." The cover was included on the 2006 compilation "Do It Again: A Tribute to Pet Sounds."
(via r/ObscureMedia) Read the rest
PixelDanc3r (also on Instagram) made this adorable and intricate map of the USA in a pixel-art style similar to the overworld maps from 16-bit era games.
USA PIXELART MAP!!Thank you very much to @neomammalian for the support and give me this opportunity!! 😃
FULL HD MAP 👉https://t.co/7HQZmtYkYj 👈#pixelart #pixelanimation #pixelworld #usa #unitedstates #country #art #map #cartography pic.twitter.com/EZRWfpUcVq
— Danc3r (@PixelDanc3r) March 8, 2019
Two years ago, I informed you of the fully-functional golden toilet created by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, then available for use at the Guggenheim. The installation, currently on tour, was stolen last night from Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. One man was arrested; police are hunting for the rest of the gang—and for the precious pissoir.
A gang broke into the Oxfordshire palace at about 04:50 BST and stole the artwork, Thames Valley Police said.
The working toilet - entitled America, which visitors had been invited to use - has not been found but a 66-year-old man has been arrested.
The burglary caused "significant damage and flooding" because the toilet was plumbed into the building, police said.
The toilet was previously assailed by a yarn bomber.
**OFFICIAL STATEMENT**
Following the Thames Valley Police statement we can confirm ‘America’, the art piece by Maurizio Cattelan has been stolen in the early hours of this morning.
We are saddened by this extraordinary event, but also relieved no-one was hurt.
— Blenheim Palace (@BlenheimPalace) September 14, 2019
It’s therefore a great shame an item so precious has been taken, but we still have so many fascinating treasures in the Palace and the remaining items of the exhibition to share.
— Blenheim Palace (@BlenheimPalace) September 14, 2019
david.li/paint is a spectacularly gloopy painting app online. You can set paint fluidity, bristle count and brush size, and of course pick any color you like. What I like about it (as opposed to pro apps like Corel Painter or Artrage that offer similar natural media simulations) is that it's just a loaded messy brush that doesn't make it easy or clean itself up for you. The limitations force you to work with it! Author David Li published the source code. Read the rest
After Suzanne Forbes graduated from art school, she worked as a penciller for DC and a courtroom artist for CBS and CNN; today, she lives in Berlin, where she is a prolific "documentary artist," rendering scenes from the U-bahn, sex parties, and other scenes around town. They're Creative Commons (NC-ND) licensed, and supported by donors on her Patreon. (Thanks, Pat Ketchum!) Read the rest
I'm thrilled to report the release of The Family Acid: California, the book I published with Timothy Daly, my Ozma Records partner and co-producer of the Voyager Golden Record: 40th Anniversary Edition. Limited to just 1,500 clothbound copies, it's a far-out photo album from a very unconventional family.
For more than 50 years, photographer Roger Steffens has explored the electric arteries of the counterculture, embracing mind-expanding experiences, deep social connection, and unadulterated fun at every turn. After serving in Vietnam at the end of the 1960s, Steffens immersed himself in California’s vibrant bohemia. Since then, with his wife Mary and children Kate and Devon, he has sought out the eccentric, the outlandish, and the transcendent. Just as often, it finds him, grinning, a camera in one hand and a joint in the other. Steffens took the spectacular snapshots in this new collection between 1968 and 2015 during his family's freewheeling adventures throughout the visionary state they call home.
Steffens is an intrepid explorer of the fringe but he’s also a family man. He met his wife Mary under a lunar eclipse in a pygmy forest in Mendocino, California while on LSD. Soon after, they conjured up a daughter, Kate, and son, Devon. Family vacations took the foursome up and down the West Coast, from the gritty glam of Hollywood’s Sunset Strip to reggae festivals in Humboldt, fiery protests in Berkeley to the ancient redwoods of Big Sur and the wilds of Death Valley. Along the way, they’d rendezvous with likeminded freaks, artists, musicians, and writers, from Bob Marley and Timothy Leary to actor John Ritter and war photographer Tim Page, the inspiration for Dennis Hopper’s character in Apocalypse Now. Read the rest
I have always liked Marina Abramovic, from her earliest works to the latest ones.
This is a really incredible game-inspired DIY art project. Read the rest
Kick-ass political posters were a big deal generations before the moral panic over whether the #resistance was too concerned with instagrammable anti-trump signs; democratized access to layout, design and publishing tools have made the new authoritarian era into a golden age of brilliant protest art, as is evidenced by the Internet Archive's collection of protest posters from the Hong Kong uprising. Read the rest
Tom Deininger, previously seen on Boing Boing, is a Boston-based assemblage artist who creates incredible sculptures and 3D "paintings" from plastic garbage.
Deininger created the self-portrait below from "studio trash kept for two months. The size of the self portrait was determined by the trash."
