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Sunday, July 31, 2005
more graffiti in Singapore - anti-death penalty
More graffiti in Singapore - well actually just a few stencils in the housing estate known as Jurong West: "Abolish the Death Penalty: We are Not Murderers". Even though the stencils were erased quickly the images have been making their way across the internet. I received them by email from friends. The graffiti was also mentioned in tomorrow.sg, who have created a tag "death" to follow discussions of the subject. Follow this link from the singaporeist blog.Technorati Tags: public art, stencils, Singapore
Labels: Singapore
# posted @ 10:05 PM
Saturday, July 30, 2005
a new public art database - in St Louis, USA
Gee, perhaps one day we can have a listing of public art databases around the world. Singapore, St Louis, Taiwan, more are coming up every day. This database is very well put together, even if the size of the pictures is a bit ungenerous. It is a creation of the Regional Arts Council of city and county of St Louis.
I've only been to St Louis once, in 1982 or something, when some classmates and I drove over from New Hampshire for a couple of weeks in the summer. We had a great trip, I remember, debutante balls and river rafting in the Ozarks, all terribly exotic to me. But one of my strongest memories was, wait for it, the Arch, by Eero Saarinen.
A lovely modernist gesture - and a work that was NOT PHALLIC, not in form anyway. Impressive and monumental. In the words of the judges of the contest to choose this monument ""had the inevitable quality of the right solution". To this day when I meet someone from St Louis I tell them how much I like the Arch... A bit crazy, I admit. Anyway, this page of public art in Central St Louis, includes “the Arch”.Technorati Tags: public art database, USA, sculpture
Labels: USA, web resources
# posted @ 5:08 PM
Boing Boing: Nightmarish statue at The National Bowling Stadium in Reno, NV
Boing Boing blogs a posting on Nightmarish statue at The National Bowling Stadium in Reno, NV. The "realistic" bronze figures have a ghoulish look about them, and the action that the sculptor is seeking to capture, a family running forward to the lanes, becomes completely distorted.
This is quite a common effect with such realism, especially if there is an attempt to give some action to the scene. More formal sculptures don't quite have the same feeling. I'm interested in the "creepiness" of realistic statues of the human form, and the relationship between such statues and ideas we have about non-material human presence (through memories, spirits, ghosts, etc).
An article I wrote on Chinese sculptor Wang Keping talks about this a bit.Technorati Tags: sculpture, public art
Labels: USA
# posted @ 10:40 AM 0 comments | add a comment
Friday, July 29, 2005
public sculpture: "flustered that anyone would filch it"
An exciting story from Northern New Jersey! # posted @ 11:55 PM
Noguchi's Last Project
Sorry, the link from asahi.com: does not have an image. Apparently the sculptor conceived the Moerenuma Park in his last years.
Everything about the park reflects Noguchi's philosophy and his sense that his art should 'serve a purpose.'
# posted @ 11:51 PM
a new activity for Beihai - China's first national sand sculpture contest
Strangely doesn't look like there's much variety here.... The winner is 'Hometown to south pearls', created by Zhang Yangen, an associate professor of Guangxi Arts Institute. The theme was towns of the southern silk route. No doubt the choice of the "hometown of the south pearls" holds some reference to China's peaceful southwards expansion!Labels: China
# posted @ 11:41 PM
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Lovely Flickr set on The Iron Men
Lovely set of photos on Flickr (by Lizinha) of artworks (the Iron Men, by Anthony "Angel of the North" Gormley. This installation is on the Sefton Coast (sorry Lizinha, no idea where that is really...). Gormley's work is attracting a lot of ihttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifnterest lately. In fact, he's coming to Singapore's Institute of Contemporary Arts later in the year.Labels: web resources
# posted @ 10:47 PM 0 comments | add a comment
Top Ten Most Popular Public Artworks in Taiwan
This is an official government site on public art in Taiwan. They have a polling/voting facility, and here are the winners. Site is entirely in Chinese, but looks like a very deep database. # posted @ 8:37 AM
Ephemeral, property-friendly public street art
Mr Stevenson (or is that Mrs Tevenson?) declares that "I Like Drawing ™". He (I guess) draws in marker on trash bags in public places. Perfect! Looks fun too. # posted @ 12:21 AM
Monday, July 25, 2005
Hong Kong gets a statue for Bruce Lee
This AP story in Singapore's TODAYonline tells of Hong Kong's plan to unveil a statue of Bruce Lee later in the year. The story claims that the statue will be a world's first, but it is certainly not the first statue of Bruce Lee to be announced. We recorded the story of a Bruce Lee statue in Mostar, Bosnia, late last year. And why did the Bosnians want a statue of Bruce:"Out of all the ethnic heroes and those who have a material interest in acting as victims, we have chosen Bruce Lee. Now they can rack their brains trying to decide whether he is he Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim), Croat, or Serb," said Veselin Gatalo, one of the initiators of the idea.
An interesting element of the Hong Kong statue is that fans are being given the opportunity to vote online for Lee's pose (though I haven't found the website yet). The poses "all feature Lee in his classic poses - all with a bare torso and his signature weapon the nunchaku." The artist is "Deng Xiaoping sculptor" Cao Chongen, a professor of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art.
See also the BBC story here.Labels: China
# posted @ 1:36 PM
Sunday, July 24, 2005
Great installation in sacramento airport - by Seyed Alavi
What better use for inkjet printing on carpets than this installation for an airbridge at the Sacremento airport. The "flying carpet"!Labels: USA
# posted @ 11:53 PM
Space Invaders hit Hong Kong
More public art inspired by video games. Wow, maybe this is a whole new genre! (see recent stories here and here). This particular public art invasion has a pretty nifty web site.Labels: China
# posted @ 11:41 PM
Here's a location for public art - Korea's DMZ
See the article in The Taipei Times. Not sure if the DMZ counts as 'public space', or if you can really say these works address a specific public. This public is constituted by the act of its destruction. For what is less "a public" than two armies facing each other? # posted @ 5:12 PM
Saturday, July 23, 2005
China to make statues for former AP reporter Iris Chang
People's Daily Online -- China to make statues for former AP reporter Iris Chang: "
China will make two statues for Iris Chang, the late former female reporter of the Associated Press, for her exposure of 'atrocities committed by Japanese aggressors' in China and the spirit to 'dig up the historical truth'.
A group of eminent Chinese artists and scholars discussed the clay model of the work in Beijing on Tuesday.
No visual of the models provided.Labels: China
# posted @ 12:32 PM
Friday, July 22, 2005
Talk about 'Text in the City' - Jenny Holzer in Pittsburgh
See the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette headlined Blue light special of a different kind tells a good story. This installation by Jenny Holzer will lead to an entire novel about Pittsburgh being broadcast in lights... it will take about ten hours for the novel to be "read".Labels: USA
# posted @ 5:06 PM
World Sand Sculpture Festival Brighton 2005 - a photoset on Flickr
Some wonderful photos posted by "sculpture grrrl on Flickr. The World Sand Sculpture Festival Brighton 2005 is apparently the world's first, organized by INAXI HOLLAND Sculpture Events.
The sand is from the Netherlands, and the theme is ancient Egypt. There's also more at www.sandsculpturefestival.com # posted @ 12:36 AM
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
redpolkadot: chalk art by the river
A talented Singapore blogger and photographer blogs a "chalk by the river" day during the recent Singapore Arts Festival. This is becoming more and more popular form of public art, a safe graffiti that people enjoy. # posted @ 6:30 PM
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
New Idea from Canada: Fee on Billboards to Fund Public Art
A new project called The Beautiful City Billboard Fee (BCBF).
The BCBF proposes that billboard companies pay an annual fee with the proceeds used to commission public art. If initiated, the BCBF will add a grassroots touch to the “Year of Creativity 2006” and provide further support for the Mayor’s “Clean & Beautiful City” initiative. The BCBF could fund the renewal and celebration of local communities through creative expression.
According to a Pollara opinion poll (whatever that is), the majority of Canadians support this fee idea. It certainly has a logic to it!# posted @ 11:41 PM
Where old Soviet sculpture goes to retire...
Grutas Sculpture Park in Lithuania was a personal intervention by Viliumas Malinauskas, featuring public art which no longer has a public - the art celebrating Soviet heroes of the revolution. The Sculpture Park opened in 1999.Standing near a towering figure of Lenin, Eliana Dulinsky, a Brazilian of Lithuanian descent, defended the park as 'a necessity'.Moscow also has its Park of the Fallen Heros, near the New Tretyakov Gallery. A bit sad and depressing. I was there in September a year ago, and so share a few snaps with you:
'Otherwise, Lithuanians would have done what other countries do, and destroyed symbols of their history,' she said.
'I suppose that now communists come here with nostalgia, while Lithuanians come from all over the country with rage,' she said.# posted @ 11:25 PM
A side of Botero we didn't see in Singapore
Long and useful article from the LA Times on Botero's recent political paintings, that highlight the Abu Ghraib images and violence in Colombia. Not a side of his work we saw in Singapore recently, but do remember that the Bird, a twin of the one that sits in Singapore, was blown up by narco-terrorists in Medellin some years ago. # posted @ 11:14 PM
Sunday, July 17, 2005
Political graffiti in Singapore - making the front page of the papers at that!
What would be commonplace in most cities is front-page news in Singapore. Commentators on the internet bulletin boards are calling this grafitti artist a hero - though certainly I wouldn't give him or her marks for artistry: it is an angry violent sort of graffiti.
See the thread at hardwarezone.com, one of the most popular online forums in Singapore. or come here to read the article in the New Paper, which hews more to the graffiti is bad and "be rational" perspectives. The last sentence in the article, in case anyone forgets, is "Those found guilty of vandalism will be fined up to $2,000 or jailed up to three years and will receive between three and eight strokes of the cane."Labels: Singapore
# posted @ 10:59 PM
Digital Techniques for public murals
This from the UCLA/SPARC Cesar Chavez Digital/Mural Lab, an initiative of the Social and Public Art Resource Center, a muralist/public art team based in Los Angeles. The importance of the Mexican muralists in the style developed here is clear, but the use of digital techniques seems to be bringing the work into different directions.Labels: USA
# posted @ 3:35 PM
New Stations of the Cross
An Episcopalian church in Connecticut, USA, just issued a press release entitled Memorial to the Innocent Victims of War - New Stations of the Cross for a Connecticut Church Stir Controversy. The Stations of the Cross, depicting the suffering of the Christian prophet Jesus is one of the great artistic themes of public religious art in the West. Here artist Gwyneth Leech interprets her "stations" with reference to the suffering of those involved in contemporary conflicts: Darfur, Iraq, what in the US they call "the Middle East" (but they mean Palestine). Jesus before Pilate is portrayed in the orange prison suit of the Guantanamo detention center. Jesus stripped of his garments is based on Abu Graib photos.
The paintings are on wood, displayed inside the church, which is open seven days a week to visitors.
[update Aug 18: according to Community Arts, these paintings "are under fire" from conservative Christians. Not sure of the intensity or direction of fire...]Labels: USA
# posted @ 3:18 PM
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Super Mario & Reality: question blocks in public space
This headline will only make sense if you know what a Super Mario Question Block is. If you do, you will understand the wonder and joy of discovering some hanging in the air in real life. The website linked to gives you instructions on making your own, to suspend around your neighborhood. A public art meme... # posted @ 10:20 PM
Singing benches & bins in Cambridge UK - robotic public art
Terrific BBC story headlined Singing benches let loose in city. The art collective Greyworld has unleased these gadgets on public spaces, moving bins and benches that make noise. Apparently the robots can learn to relate to each other in different ways, but I doubt that they can differentiate the humans in their vicinity. Not a cheap project - it cost the Arts Council and the British National Lottery some 100,000 pounds. # posted @ 2:03 PM
Monday, July 11, 2005
Unfortunately not the first time... sculpture kills boy
THis story in the The New Zealand Herald tells of a small boy killed when a sculpture he was climbing on fell over on top of him. It was a 1.4m stone statue apparently. We blogged a similar case in Korea some eighteen months ago. # posted @ 11:03 AM
Sunday, July 10, 2005
San Diego Takes a Stand: Bland is Good
There is lots of weird public art out there, and this new sculpture in San Diego of fish jumping between two statues of fish cannery workers (on can pedestals) certainly qualifies. What is more rare is a mainstream newspaper article that takes issue with the work so directly, and with such a good headline (as in title of this blog posting).
Labels: USA
# posted @ 12:10 PM
Saturday, July 09, 2005
A panel to oversee public art in Nigeria?
A long interview with the new President of the Society of Nigerian Artists. The bit that relates to public art is at the end of the long article so scroll down.
Titbits include this rant on the proper positioning and placement of public sculptures# posted @ 11:44 PM
"You will discover that most of the sculptures in Nigeria are [placed] too low, that is why mad people can go there and deface the works by pasting posters on them. The Herbert Macaulay statute situated in Sabo area of Lagos, people went to put a cap on it. At Broad Street, various sculptural pieces situated in the ever busy street are seen from a distance. The pedestal itself sometimes appear somewhat like a story building and the wall when viewing it from a distance. The Obafemi Awolowo's and Tai Solarin's statutes are too low, which makes it possible for people to tamper with them."
What happens when owners of public art go bankrupt?
One of the contradictions that create this field of public art, is that public art is generally owned by someone. It is property, and often "private property" at that. what happens when the owners of public art go bankrupt? Who gets the asset? or liability more likely as public art does require upkeep and its asset value may be hard to realize.
This article on the BBC tells the story of some notable public art pieces owned by the Liverpool Architecture Design Trust. # posted @ 12:17 PM
