Archive

Maleonn Ma: Theatricus Surrealis

Shanghai, China native, and graphic design major from the Fine Arts College of Shanghai University, Maleonn Ma conjures up evocative still images weaving in a complex tapestry of memories soaked in surreal flakes. Measured, yet pushing on an unseen edginess, and bordering on imploding on the self, Maleonn’s work has theatrical roots, and often requires some form of stagecraft or the other – not excluding the usage of actors, costumes, props, decor, mood light and so on. This, one attributes to his family background in the Beijing Opera and the traditional performing arts, and his proximity to theater and the visual arts. Unfazed by titles, genres and typification of various kinds, Maleonn responds intuitively to his artistic journey, taking on projects of varying challenges and complexity, at times with a dash of humor. Take a look.

Read More…

Product Design: ‘Inspired Urban Living’ 2013.

1700 product concepts from over 60 countries made their presence felt in this year’s Electrolux Design Lab, in response to the brief of ‘Inspired Urban Living’. Industrial and product designers pitched in with some common themes addressing personal care and care of the near and dear ones – from healthier, cleaner homes to cooking, from appliance accessories to domestic robots. Product concepts emerging out of design schools are audacious at times, and one can see a hint of it in some of the concepts. Bio-mimicry appears to be catching on, along with the need for us to breathe non-polluted air. Not all of the concepts are going to go through to final development and prototyping – but for the very few that do, it will still remain a test to see if what looked good as idea sketches and concept notes, actually function as envisaged in the everyday real world. Take a look at some of the entries for the Electrolux Design Lab 2013.

Read More…

Riusuke Fukahori: Of Goldfish, Resin and Paint

Every generation throws up a talent so extraordinary, that the work produced by the artist finds resonance across cultures and peoples. Nagakute, Aichi prefecture, Japan based artist Fukahori invented and innovated a complex technique of poured resin, and layering of acrylic paint, to come up with extraordinary three dimensional life-like ‘sculptures’ of varied goldfish. A graduate of the Aichi Prefectual University of Fine Arts and Music, and an admirer of French impressionist Claude Monet, his work displays a singular focus and extraordinary passion in creating small to large resin-paint ‘sculptures’. The relationship between art and life has been debated for centuries now, and by his admission Fukahori negotiates his identity and his everyday via his thematic obsession with goldfish – an idea, a metaphor, a poem. Take a look.

Read More…

Ghana: VCR Theater Posters from the 1980s.

Mirroring the VCR days in India, the first VCRs reached Ghana in the 1980s to give rise to a rental structure and exhibition of video cassette movies, particularly in the urban centers of Accra and Kumasi. Quite like India again, a host of fixed and mobile VCR movie theaters rolled into business. Itinerant VCR businessmen would travel the country hooking up TVs and VCRs to portable generators even, in case of non availability of power, to create impromptu theaters of entertainment. A table and a couple of chairs were good enough. These VCR movie screenings were promoted via a large variety of colorful and exaggerated hand drawn and hand painted posters by self taught artists who often used discarded flour sacks as the canvas. In the idiom of popular street art, these posters exude a charming lack of sophistication, and therefore, is typically in opposition to high brow gallery art. This liberty of interpreting American and Hong Kong movies in a single frame for promotional purposes on the streets of sub-Saharan Africa, had given voice to a rather unique visual idiom – marked by childlike exaggerations, disregard for fidelity to content, emphasis on shock and gore, and a wicked touch of humor. Take a look.

Read More…

Jeremy Mayer: Typewriter assemblage sculpture

Oakland, USA, based Jeremy Mayer is a typewriter freak, and not in the expected manner of collecting vintage typewriters and restoring them to functionality, polishing and burnishing them to be stored in a personal museum of sorts. He does the opposite. He takes them apart – but with the sole intention of putting them back together in staggeringly imaginative sculptural articulations. I have a distinct affinity towards acts of purposeful and creative recycling, or in this case, re-assemblage, via which industrial produce that has lived its perceived utility and is discarded (considered ‘junk’) is put to use again in creative and imaginative ways. Mayer is an exceptional talent, for he uses no solders and welds, but works entirely with manual, and some might say, old fashioned tools, like the screwdriver and the pliers. If you have ever used typewriters, here is an opportunity to appreciate them, from a different perspective. Take a look.

Read More…

Teratology in the 18th C: Monsters and Artists


In 1775, French artists Nicolas-François and Geneviève Regnault published the influential ‘Les Ecarts de la nature ou recueil des principales monstruosités‘ (The Deviations of Nature or a Collection of the Main Monstrosities). Tapping into centuries old scientific, ethnographic, and cosmographic interpretive traditions of “the monstrous”, François and Regnault were guided by poet Boileau’s idea that “no monster exists that cannot be made pleasing through art”. This marks an important moment in teratology i.e the study of perceived abnormalities in the natural world, both real and imagined. Perceptions, whether individual or societal, of deviations from the norm hold a place of academic interest for me, for they are often lensed with an entire arsenal of valuations of what is acceptable and what is not. The term “monster”, which is derived from the Latin verb “monstrare” meaning “to show”, was used to describe a visually unusual creature from about the 1st century B.C. onward. Classical interpretations of “the monstrous” were to remain influential until the end of the 17th century. Then came the ‘aesthetization’ of the monstrous along with the coming of Christianity, when authors began interpreting such phenomena as having been brought forth by God to communicate divine judgments. By the end of the Middle Ages, unusual natural occurrences were increasingly perceived as “wonders,” or “prodigies”, terms which all focused on their strange and exceptional character. Wonders were seen as signs of God’s anger, or a sign of the power of nature, inspiring fear or admiration depending on the religious and political context.

Read More…

Tomasz Gudzowaty: The Monks of Shaolin

Polish photo-essayist Tomasz Gudzowaty has a deep commitment to documenting the often neglected area of non-commercial, non-mainstream sports and sporting activities. A law graduate from the University of Warsaw, he initiated himself into photography through work on nature, and then onto the social documentary, before arriving at his passion for non-commercial sports photography. Not unlike accomplished and critically acclaimed socially committed photo-essayists like W.Eugene Smith and Sebastiao Salgado, Gudzowaty chooses to express himself solely in the absence of colour, through remarkable black and white. The classic photo essay is often often identified as the one that is black and white – pitching itself into representing ‘stark reality’ as opposed to the distractions that colour might impose on the image, preventing the viewer from appreciating ‘the whole’. Non commercial sports also present unique moments, moments that Gudzowaty captures with mastery in his photo essay on the monks of the ancient fifth century Shaolin monastery in the Henan provice of China, a monastery well known for its martial arts practice of Shaolin Kung Fu. Take a look.

Read More…

Remembering Storm Thorgerson (1944-2013) : Wish you were here.

British artist, graphic designer and film-maker Storm Thorgerson has left an indelible mark on the minds of a generation or two of youngsters (or ‘oldsters’ for that matter) who grew up imagining the music of Pink Floyd. A graduate of the Royal College of Art, Thorgerson’s influences were many, and when he was brought in to deliver the artwork for the ‘psychedelic-progressive’ music of Pink Floyd in the late 1960s – early 70s, he mapped his interest in the surrealism of René Magritte, Salvador Dali and the inimitable Man Ray, to the atmospheric music of Pink Floyd. This touch defined the music, created spaces for imagining, and was provocatively original. Working with analogue, pre-Photoshop tools, Thorgerson was singular about his vision and uncompromising. However hard we may try, it is difficult to evoke Pink Floyd without Thorgerson. He passed away quietly, a few days back (18th of April, 2013). Storm Thorgerson. Wish you were here.

Read More…

Jordan Matter: Dancers among Us

New York city native Jordan Matter happens to be a great admirer of Henri Cartier-Bresson, and for a photographer who holds spontaneity dear to him, Jordan has more than enough reasons to smile about, in his photographic project, “Dancers among Us”. Over a period of three years (2009-11) Jordan teamed up with dancers of various dance companies like the Paul Taylor Dance Company, Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects, Elisa Monte Dance and others, to come up with images of spontaneous dance expressions in public locations across different cities in the USA. The striking poses of the dancers in each image are in stark contrast to the surroundings – humans, and the built environment. If you are having a bad (or good) day, this might just make you smile, or dance. Take a look.

Read More…

Frédéric Chaubin: Soviet Architecture. 1970-1990

Fascinated by the massive scale of Leonid Brezhnev era architecture, french magazine editor Frédéric Chaubin toured the former USSR for seven years (between 2003 and 2010), during which he stumbled upon 90 soviet buildings scattered across 14 former USSR republics, bearing the identifiers of what he calls ‘cosmic communist constructions’. His documentation is an important contribution to architectural history, especially of an era, of which not much is comprehensively known. Architectural Brutalism is somewhat evident in these structures that reveal a surprising freedom from the top-down directives of 1920s Constructivism and thereafter. These striking buildings, constructed on a huge scale usually from reinforced concrete, are anti-picturesque, their outlandish gravity-defying forms pitted against the landscape. Chaubin maintains that architecture reflects and expresses ideology and philosophy of that era. Take a look.

Read More…

1 2 3 4 5 7  Scroll to top