I was listening to NPR this morning and they had an interesting piece on Shepard Fairey’s Obama Posters. Fairey created the posters to raise money for the Obama campaign, and they have been a wild success. However, there is a roaring aftermarket trade on ebay for the posters (with none of the money raised going to the artist or the campaign) and also a lot of piracy-including by Republican groups who co-opted Fairey’s design by changing the “Hope” emblazoned across the bottom to “Nope”.
It is interesting to see how the commodification of art affects artists whose work plays with ideas of ownership. Listen to the podcast for the full story.
I know, I know, the title is too cutesy, but I couldn’t resist.
I love art and I love moss (I had a moss garden as a child), and here are two of my loves united. Hooray.
Anyway, this piece—Mossanger by Anna Garforth— is really interesting and beautiful, although the website doesn’t really give a lot of info. If you are in London, swing on by and check it out.
Right now, I’m teaching art to children ages 4-6, and its interesting to see how they draw. Their art is really compelling, but they all, without fail, draw certain objects as symbols. And unless you learn to draw using your eyes, and not the conventions your brain is telling you to draw, you will always draw using symbols. Drawing is a curious discipline.
This article, about how the mirror “has become a powerful tool for scientists to explore how the brain interprets (and misinterprets) information”, reminded me of how difficult it was to learn to draw.
Olafur Eliasson’s projects may be cloaked beneath a shiny patina of art-speak, but if you can ignore the layers of blather, you’ll find that his work is really interesting and beautiful. He’s like a post-post-modern Turner. (argh! - that was kind of artspeaky too! Old habits die hard!) Anyway, moving along, his Brooklyn Waterfall’s project opened yesterday, and the first YouTube videos have been posted!
All I can say is *wow*. I wish that I could go and see them in person.
PS - I also just missed seeing this work a few years ago. It looked phenomenal. However, I was lucky enough to see this Unilever sponsored work at the Tate. Wheee!
