In 1997, South Korean artist Lee Bul's "Majestic Splendor," an installation of bedazzled rotting fish, was removed from New York's MoMA because the stink was too much for visitors. To prevent the odor problem from interfering with Bul's new retrospective at London's Hayward Gallery, he put the fish in potassium permanganate. Of course, potassium permanganate is frequently used as a firestarter and can easily lead to a blaze when combined with tiny amounts of other common chemicals. From Frieze:
On receiving advice, the gallery decided to withdraw the artwork, but it spontaneously combusted mid-removal.
‘Following expert advice regarding the materials used in Lee Bul’s Majestic Splendor we took the decision, along with the artist, to remove the artwork from the exhibition. During the de-installation, a small fire broke out and the fire service attended,’ a spokesperson for the Hayward told frieze.
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The Atlantic posted a big-picture gallery of unusual homes from around the world. My favorite is this profusely overgrown shack built on top of a high-rise tower in Guanghzhou. The owner has evaded legal service for 10 years. Photo: Reuters / China Daily Read the rest
I love Yuri Shwedoff's subdued, atmospheric renderings of vestigial technology and the people who still see it, still wear it. The lansdcape wears it, too, and it evokes for me a deeper relationship with technology rather than the darker one often implied by postapocalyptic art. Here it's not disused. If anything it's less alien. It just fits somewhere else in the human imagination. Read the rest
Vlad Savov went on a tour of the Bang & Olufsen Museum in Struer, Denmark—a wonder closet of cool audio gear.
The very earliest Bang & Olufsen product was actually a component rather than a full-fledged radio. The Eliminator, as it was called, made batteries unnecessary and allowed you to plug your radio directly into the mains. A couple of years after the Eliminator’s introduction, Peter Bang and Svend Olufsen moved their work out of the Olufsen family farm and into a factory in the nearby town of Struer in northwest Denmark. This is where the main B&O manufacturing facilities remain to this day.
In terms of their design inspiration, these first B&O radios were like the original skeuomorphic iPhone OS of their time. They adapted the styling of familiar pieces of home furniture to their technological purposes.
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Boing Boing reader Michael Matise shot some wonderful photographs of miniatures and models at New York Comic-Con 2013, and shared them in the Boing Boing Flickr Pool. A few are below. Here's the whole set. Michael tells us more about the photos below. Read the rest
This weekend, we hopped into the car and made the 6-hour trip to New York to check out its fast-growing Comic-Con. Since its founding in 2006, explosive growth now makes New York Comic-Con one of the largest such events in the country. Even the mighty Javits Center in Manhattan could hardly contain the throng, estimated at more than 120,000 over four days. Here, Superman and Batman consult the useless maps provided in the convention guidebook. Photo: Rob Beschizza Read the rest
Yoshitoma Nara lives at the intersection of punk rock, Japanese pop art, and Western cartoon culture filtered through the lens of post-World War II Japan. His drawings, paintings, sculptures, and large installations are populated with adorable-yet-menacing children and animals that whisper to the misfit in all of us. Chronicle Books has just published a long-awaited catalogue raisonné of Nara's work, and we're proud to present an exclusive gallery of selections from within.
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Different species' galls are highly distinctive, often providing protection or nourishment for the creature growing within. Some are even useful to us; ink was traditionally made with tannic acid gleaned from oak galls. Enjoy this gallery of growths, blisters and curious protrusions from the plant kingdom.
