Chris Burden‘s the ” What My Dad Gave Me” mock skyscraper at the Rockefeller Center is in the same genre as Electric Fountain in that its purpose is ambiguous and serves as reminder of the isolation and disconnect in much of modern living. The work was assembled entirely from replicas of Erector set pieces and [...]
”Electric Fountain” was presented by the Art Production Fund in cooperation with Deitch Projects and showcased the work of Tim Noble and Sue Webster in front of the Rockefeller Center in New York. Fountain required 3390 LED bulbs, 527 meters of neon tubing, weighed 61,000 pounds and reached 35 feet high on a 30 foot [...]
Some art projects are just too difficult to produce and realize. The Art Production Fund in New York is a non-profit organization known for their assistance in realizing contemporary art presentations that often require innovative production strategies. Art Production Fund is like venture capital for the unusual in the city that never sleeps. These projects, [...]
In the work of David Levinthal, toys and dolls are often confused with the real and live. This causes audience consternation through a grey zone of ambiguity between the artificial and the real. His work seems obvious, which it fulfills on a nostalgic level, but on a deeper level does not apparently explain itself, which [...]
”Ever since I began working with toys, I have been intrigued with the idea that these seemingly benign objects could take on such incredible power and personality by the way they were photographed. I began to realize that by carefully selecting the depth of field and making it narrow, I could create a sense of [...]
Book art photographer Thomas Allen has created pop art from recycled pulp novels of the 40′s-60′s period. The work involves cutting figures from vintage publications and then folding them up and out of the cover. The juxtaposition of the images has allowed the creation of new storylines as if they are sequels to the original [...]
Conceptual art dealing with the circulation of power and criticism of sexism are the trademark and visually recognizable signature of American collage artist Barbara Kruger. She is famous for her layered photographs that challenge society’s view of consumerism and feminine exploitation and manipulation in the market economy. This view was exemplified by Formula One racing [...]
In (part A) we saw some of what Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset have been doing artistically to shake and shape the customary meanings we associate with spatial relationships. Their intention is to create room for new and different interpretations beyond an established tradition of social and economic change as an incremental experience. This expression [...]
Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset are Berlin based artists specializing in land-art works and installations. They have treated nature as part of a cultural iconography and part of a socio-economic capitalist system in the Western world. Its a form of structural three dimensional trompe-l’oeil where playful deception is employed to facilitate an institutional structural critique.This [...]
Richard Wollheim, the British philosopher of art stated that although the art industry is constitutionally bound to cover the new and uncover beauty, individual artists have been bowing to a stylistic conservatism for the past 100 years leading to a lack of new images of aspiration and desire. Furthermore, the modern art worlds arbitrary and [...]
