3Darts - Sculpture

2008-06-26T20:15:00.000-07:00

Someone stole a John Seward Johnson Junior piece from a park in Vancouver.. now.. if you don't know what his work looks like then you might be thinking someone nabbed it for the artistic and sculptural value. Go here to the article and take a look and decide for yourself.

My guess is that it has more to do with the price of bronze..

2007-12-26T22:15:00.000-08:00

I'm supporting Ron Paul for the Republican primary. I'm not as concerned with the Dem candidates, so when the primaries are over hopefully I'll get to decide between Paul and a Dem if it's not Clinton, or maybe I'll just STAY HOME. i.e. .. I'm pissed off at the Repubs and the Dems for putting the US in the can. To me Hillary or any of the other Republicans aren't any better than voting for Bush - they're all for the same corporate/military/NAFTA agenda which has sent this country down the shitter. There are plenty of Dems in power and yet our country is going down like a plane in flames so as with the last several elections I'm not drinking the kool-aid of either party.

Don't believe me? Even the banks in Danmark have started projecting our demise.

2007-12-06T18:17:00.000-08:00

If you use public wi-fi hotspots such as ones found at McDonalds or Starbucks you just lost a major chunk of privacy to Big Brother today. No, I'm not wearing my tinfoil hat (shiny side out thanks!) on this one. It's a legit new bill called the SAFE Act signed into law yesterday.

Essentially what it says is if a someone providing an "eletronic communication service" or "remote computing service" to the public learns that someone is using their Internet tubes to transmit illegal images then they're supposed to promptly report the person to the authorities. 1984?

There's a number of scary issues here like... what constitutes an illegal image? Child pornography of course, but how about:

certain obscene visual depictions including a "drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting."

So you'd better be careful about what sculpture you're looking at next time you're sitting at a Starbucks.

So will this be a law that people just ignore? Not hardly.. Failure to comply with the SAFE Act would result in an initial fine of up to $150,000, and fines of up to $300,000 for subsequent offenses. AND if they comply with it they're immune from civil lawsuits and prosecution.

Now, you might think that this will only affect criminals and so it doesn't impact you at all, right? Wrong. In order for a company to comply with this they'll essentially need to store data that goes across their wires for at least a short time. There will need to be filtering and monitoring in place, and once they find something they'll invariably need to open their records for further investigation. Records that will include your data if you happened to be in the vicinity - available to the feds without warrant.

Two more points while I'm on this rant..

1 - This wasn't really needed. Internet providers already are required by another federal law to report child pornography sightings to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which is supposed to report it to the police.

2 - Not one Democrat opposed the SAFE Act. Two Republicans did: Rep. Ron Paul, the presidential candidate from Texas, and Rep. Paul Broun from Georgia.

Which leaves me with this question: Why did the Democrats push this through and open up a massive loophole that will allow the government to essentially snoop on anyone who uses a public wi-fi hotspot AND push the burden onto businesses to police their customers and snitch on them?

2007-11-17T20:10:00.000-08:00

A big pink heart by Jeff Koons sold at auction for $23.6M. One positive way to look at this is it topped the price paid for the Damien Hirst diamond studded skull.

full article here

2007-11-16T20:55:00.000-08:00

This past week it was announced that RISD (Rhode Island School of Design in case you live under a boulder) is considering opening a satellite campus in Charlotte, NC. Here's an article.

Let's take a look at this. The Charlotte leaders are trying to put together an "incentive" package to lure the school there. Um. It's a shame there aren't any Universities in NC that could be incentivized to open a design focused art school in Charlotte. And this bolsters the image that Charlotte is nothing but a banking town and is devoid of art and artists.

This also smacks of some "old boys" at work cough*kickback*cough. You see.. RISD is within spitting distance of Johnson and Wales in Providence RI. J&W set up a shop in Charlotte and is doing well there. It's not a stretch to say that the J&W folks probably had some good things to say to some folks at RISD about their little venture into Carolina.

Will it be a good thing for RISD? Yep. They'll find students who don't want to travel all the way to RI for school, and would like something more prestigious than the local colleges and universities.
Will it be a good thing for Charlotte? Yep. They'll get more talented artists in the area, and more of their talent will stay in the area.

How could it be better? The leaders of Charlotte need to look beyond a quick fix. Look around the region and find someone interested in starting a new design school and put your money into that venture instead of sending it to RI. Get your own identity instead of buying into a brand.

2007-11-13T21:14:00.000-08:00

Disastrous sale sends Sotheby's shares falling by 37% in one day

So did you feel the Earth move? Nope?!

Prices had been going up steadily for 11 years but investors hit by the mortgage crisis are starting to hold onto their money. Museums have been affected as well since donations for acquisitions are down.. so they can't get in on the game at the auction house.

Oh, and has the price of art by living artists climbed at such a rate? Nope. Maybe a drop in the market isn't such a bad thing.

2007-11-08T17:55:00.000-08:00

Public art is a tough gig. It's not for the feint of heart and not just because it doesn't pay well except in rare cases. It's the mountains of paperwork and rejection you have to climb to get to the point that paydays are consistent, the criticism from people who don't speak art, and the bull$hit you have to put up with to appease everyone. There is also that narrow little path between taking loads of time to come up with the perfect/unique proposal (when you probably won't get short listed anyway) for a site, and taking what you normally do and repackaging it to look like it was dreamed up just for a specific site.

I say all of that not from personal experience. I started down the path of public work and quickly realized it wasn't for me. So I get to listen to friends bitch about their experiences and nod with little understanding. But I do listen.

So when Tara Servatius took a second aim at Thomas Sayre, the sculptor and gallery owner from Charlotte NC, I kind of chuckled with understanding. You see.. she said pretty much the same thing last time, and when I saw that first article it really stung. It's not that what she said hasn't been said before about other public artists in other cities. It's old rhetoric and it's old the second time around too. What is so bothersome is the exposure of how horrendously messed up the whole public art system is and the lack of understanding she's exhibiting and spreading.

I'm not defending what Sayre is doing as right, but it's what should be expected with the system in place. What he is doing is fairly commonplace in the public art game. It's almost the sane thing to do given how much is involved in submitting proposals. With a few exceptions it's more hassle than it's worth to create proposals for public art that are truly unique.

So now that I think about it what was so bothersome about both of her articles was that Servatius singled out an artist rather than taking aim at the whole public art selection process. Maybe she'll take some time and sit down with artists who have tried the public game and gave up in disgust rather than doing what Sayre did. She'll likely find artists who applaud her for outing Sayre as a rubber stamp public sculptor, but she'll also find quite a few who understand why he's doing what he's doing.

2007-11-05T20:31:00.000-08:00

Take a look at this poll. .

http://www.ask500people.com/questions/art-has-no-bearing-on-the-real-world-anymore

The poll was "

Art has no bearing on the real world anymore."

and 100 people from around the world responded. It's reassuring to see that the majority (even though a small majority..) thought that statement was hogwash, but what floored me was the small minority in the US who agreed with it.. . ... and the opposite in Europe. The majority of the people who agreed with that statement were in Europe. wow..

2007-09-06T08:49:00.000-07:00

The video is simply amazing..

Theo Jansen presentation on his walking kinetic sculpture (all powered by wind.. no electrics) from the 2007 TED

Please Digg it up.

2007-09-05T20:41:00.000-07:00

I just have to laugh at this.. and also be a little scared:

(this came in an e-mail today)

Dear friends,

We are artists team based in China mainland.We are professionally doing reproduction of all kinds of oil paintings and acrylic paintings and other.

We have cooperated with many galleries in Europe and USA on oil painting for several years. We have 15 top realistic oil painters and we can produce about one hundred of oil paintings per month. we can do various subject paintings including portrait,animal,landscape,boats seascape,still life . Also,we can make paintings according to your special request .We'll always give you the best price with the best quality.We are looking forward to your early order.

If you have other questions,please let us know.

Best regards.

I kept the original orange text for effect (and it is quite effective, yes?).

Now for those of you who aren't artists and just happened to stumble upon this, you might not see the problem in this proposal. You can't walk in a Wal-Mart five feet without bumping into something made in China. And if you continue your walk to the back of the store you probably will have a hard time finding anything made in the US of America. It's the American way these days (and in the past too since we are consistent) to exploit for profit. So sending your paintings over to China for mass production would seem to be the smart and profitable thing to do. You've probably seen the paintings in your local mall that were painted in China. So this is nothing all that shocking.

If, however, you're an artist you might be thinking... umm.. exactly the same thing. At least that's what I heard from a sculptor a couple of years ago. He's been making trips to China where they have him as a guest and watch him work. (ding, ding, ding.. hello.. they're stealing your ideas...) He's also doing all kinds of interesting little garden sculptures and sending them to China to be mass produced. Does he think they're counterfeiting any of them? "Oh no.. they wouldn't do that and disgrace their family".

Here's a clue for you.. there are 3 to 5 MILLION people in China working in the counterfeiting industry. The cost to businesses in the US alone is around 60 BILLION Dollars.

Now, go send your paintings and sculpture to China. Yeah.. uh huh.

2007-08-22T19:46:00.000-07:00

Alright now.. let's consider this one for a moment. Martin Luther King, who helped guide the US of A through a terrible time of civil rights unrest, spoke volumes against the damage to society done by slavery, etc.. etc.. is getting a monument in Washington.

Now ponder that a moment. Since it's going to be in the capital you know already it's going to be a traditional monumental piece of sculpture right? He won't be on horseback (hehe.. ) but you can bet it won't be just some bushes and benches, right? It's going to be a giant sized bronze or stone likeness of him.

Any halfway sensitive person would probably also assume the artist would be from the US and would ideally be African-American, right? And if you wanted to really score some points you'd opt for making it from nice hard granite from his home state of Georgia, right?

The problem is.. apparently there aren't any sculptors left in the US who can carve stone. And the stone from Georgia? It's just too expensive.

So the result? Well.. let's follow the Wal-Mart model of course! Buy the stone from China, where slave labor can be used to cut and haul it. And while you're at it hire the sculptor from China as well.

It sounds absurd, right? But this is the US, where everything is being brought in from China, so unfortunately it's what is actually planned. Here's an article from the LA Times on it.. one from the Washington Post on it, and a web site devoted to it.

Now... go do your duty. Sign the petition to let the powers that be know that farming work out and buying the materials from China is just plain stupid.

2007-08-13T07:12:00.000-07:00

You sculptors out there who work with concrete (or have secretly wanted to work with concrete) check out the new concrete that can change color. When heat from an electrical circuit or some other source is applied to it then it turns a dark color.

So imagine a large blank wall in a bank that has a digital clock appearing mysteriously in the concrete.. a sidewalk that displays a different poem or quote each day for those walking along it or for people way up in buildings looking down at it.

It takes about 5 seconds to change color.. see a video here

Here's the main web site - Chromastone -
Oh.. and this wasn't developed by some mega corporation. Art students came up with it.

And here's another cool concrete - LiTraCon is translucent so you can put a colored light behind it and have concrete that changes color. Cool stuff.

2007-05-04T20:10:00.000-07:00

There's a weird fuzzy line between "landscaping" and public art, and every once in a while a city decides to dump a bunch of money into an area and they don't quite want it to be "sculpture" and they want it to be cutting edge and new.. and it invariably ends up as some gom of a landscape project with doo-dads mixed in that looks like a miniature golf course at the beach.

Here.. have a look at what just happened in Hollywood Florida. I'm sure this will be a great little park to go hang out in and listen to the traffic whir around you in circles. But.. hey.. at least it's not "man on a horse", right? And it says here they have a baobob tree. That's the tree of life, right? Cool. Are those native to Florida?

2007-04-25T17:11:00.000-07:00

The world lost an energetic and talented sculptor recently when Stina Gudjonsdottir passed away after a long battle with cancer.

I was fortunate enough to know her and be inspired by her. Even when she was dealing with chemo she was still cranking out and exhibiting some great sculpture. Somehow she found the energy to do it all.

See her work here:
http://www.tristatesculptors.org/member_detail.php?memID=114
and here:
http://www.art.net/stina/

2007-01-21T19:23:00.000-08:00

Alright all you open minded folks in the US. Here's a challenge for you. Wrap your head around the idea of a monument to prostitutes. A bronze statue no less. The practitioners of the "oldest profession" have been without representation of the monumental kind for too long!

Think it sounds far fetched? Or maybe you think your city needs one? And who would be commissioned to produce it? J. Seward Johnson perhaps?

Take a guess which city in the world will actually get the honor of having a monument to the prostitutes of the world? Yep. Amsterdam. The sculptor chosen for the honor is Els Rijerse, and don't worry her work is not at all like that of Mr. Johnson. The sculpture was comissioned by former prostitute Mariska Majoor. Majoor says "The statue represents a self-assured woman, her hands on her hips, looking sideways towards the sky, and standing on a doorstep. "

I can't wait to see it. It's not another man on a horse.

Reuters put this in their "oddly enough" section, and the story quickly got them slinging over on Scared Monkeys. It's not too late to find funding and be the first in the US. The media would be all over it.

2007-01-02T07:17:00.000-08:00

If you've ever been to stonehenge you know the stones are massive, and if you're a sculptor you probably looked at it and thought how it wouldn't be that hard to move the stones these days with heavy equipment. Well, take a look at how this guy is doing it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRRDzFROMx0

2006-11-09T08:15:00.000-08:00

If you've been following the "chopper" movement in the US (which has been fueled by the exposure on the Discovery Channel mostly) then you probably know that chopper builders are the most prominent sculptors currently in the US. Gasp! If you're a Fine Artist you probably just spewed your coffee, but here's why I say chopper building is the best thing going for sculpture right now in the US.

- The masses see these builders/artists on TV many times a week and the builders are struggling with form, color, mass, etc and talking through their decision process. The masses get to see someone designing. Imagine that.
- They are bringing interest to "hand crafted" metal work - ask any chopper enthusiast what an english wheel is and they can tell you. They sit and watch people cutting and shaping metal several times a week on TV. The viewers are learning that hand crafted objects are more interesting than the mass produced alternative.
- The choppers (despite what the builders say) are more for looks than riding. The long stretched wheelbase, the huge rear tire, the tiny front wheel (often minus brakes), etc. looks awesome, but is not the best mode of transportation. They don't handle well, they don't stop well, etc.. but they look great.
- The builders are commanding big bucks for their work.. $75,000 - $100,000 is a decent price for a hand crafted chopper.. and the people are paying. The people are paying not for increased performance, but for the looks - for the design. Get ON!

So.. with that in mind.. take a look at this.. The Detonator v4 6.0 designed by Daniel Simon. Now granted he's a designer, and a damn fine one at that, but he's not even a little bit hesitant to call that thing sculpture. He says "The Detonator v4 6.0 is pure sculpture with no intention of being a functional motor bike. The initial idea was to shape a radical bike using simple shapes such as cubes and cylinders, a heavy & brutal look, with a mix of retro style and modern simplicity."

...maybe what Daniel Simon is showing is that chopper building is forcing its way into the world of sculpture.

The motorcycle as sculpture is certainly not something that is totally new.. take a look at the V10 Tomahawk "motorcycle" build by Dodge back in 2003- using the engine out of a Viper

It can actually be ridden (yikes!) but again, is more for the looks and the statement.. it's a somewhat rolling piece of sculpture. And if you went through the "Art of the Motorcycle" exhibit at the Guggenheim back in 1998 then you saw motorcycles clearly presented as sculpture.

The difference today is not just that the motorcycle is being celebrated as "sculpture" -- but rather the builders are being celebrated as artists/sculptors and the public is getting to watch them work.

2006-11-09T07:42:00.000-08:00

Some big news out of Sotheby's recently that a piece of bronze sculpture by Barbara Hepworth set a new auction record when her piece Ultimate Form fetched $2.6 million.

It's newsworthy, as it's rare that the work of a female sculptor draws this kind of price. It's also a good indication that the art world is recognizing her and not just the male sculptors that she influenced (Henry Moore for one).

Hepworth (1903-1975) introduced the sculptors of England to the concept of piercing the mass with a hole to make it more transparent.. a concept her friend Henry Moore took and ran with.

Take a look at some of her work..
Read more about Barbara Hepworth

2006-11-08T07:39:00.000-08:00

Need that super clean look for your concrete sculpture? Need to make something that is super "green"? You know.. you want to get that extra edge and make your sculpture more environmentally friendly so you'll get that public commission, right?

Well.. here's your answer. An Italian concrete producer has developed a surface treatment for concrete that will EAT POLLUTANTS FROM THE AIR. No $hit. They say a street and sidewalk coated with the stuff have reduced pollutants 60% and the thing that will get most public sculptors going is this -- because it speeds up the oxidation process of the pollutants it makes the concrete self cleaning.

read some more about it here and if that link is broken then try this one or search around for "TX Active" which is the name of the stuff.

2006-10-25T23:16:00.000-07:00

So who is going to solve the semaphore? hmmm..

It seems that the piece of public art that Adobe put on top of their building (press release) in San Jose presents an encoded message and nobody has been able to crack the code.

The piece was created by Ben Rubin, and has quite a few tech folks trying to figure out exactly what the hidden message is.