The Kinetic Sculpture by Art+Com is a fascinating metaphorical translation of the process of form-finding in art and design. The interplay of mechanical and electronic components creates a dynamic art piece reflecting the precise exchange between a great number of individual elements and the single, coherent picture that emerges from them.714 metal spheres, hanging from thin steel wires attached to individually-controlled stepper motors and covering the area of six square meters, animate a seven minute long mechatronic narrative. In the beginning, moving chaotically, then evolving to several competing forms that eventually resolve to the finished object, the Kinetic Sculpture creates an artistic visualisation of the process of form-finding in different variations.
The installation is on display in the BMW museum, Munich, Germany.
Bride fight is an already older but still very unique and interesting installation by American artist E.V. Day (1967, New York). She Used heavy-duty fishing line and hardware to reassembled clothing items which where untangled into small pieces.
Taking as her subject an eruption in the traditional social fabric the idea of two “glowing” brides locked in mortal combat E.V. Day touches something dark in the American social unconscious. Her work does link to reality television shows about brides-to-be, like Bridezilla, where tension gets to a boiling-point because of all the planning and frustration. But although E.V. Day’s piece may trigger such fetishistic responses it is a work primarily characterized by the humor and anxiety that accompanies a transformation of tradition. Fierce but nonetheless liberating, Bride Fight feels more like the jouissance of exploded boundaries than the pathology of confined ones.
The bride fight installation developed from a series of installations called Exploding Couture, begun in 1999, in which Day suspended women’s dresses in space. For example, in Bombshell (1999), exhibited at the 2000 Whitney Biennial, Day took a piece of iconic attire (Marilyn Monroe’s white halter dress) and arranged it to feel as if the forces of the implied figure are so powerful that the garment literally blows off, as if outgrowing its stereotype.
The visual result of the works are extremely light sculptures with architectural features.
The conceptual artist Tobias Rehberger is generally known for his 3D installations, this exhibition of 2D work marks a departure for the German artist; it is the first time he shows his wall-based posters and paintings at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst In Frankfurt, The city where he is also professor of sculpture at the Städelschule.
The selection of works in the exhibition will range from posters the artist designed of his own accord for products of personal significance to him – whether sportswear manufacturer “Adidas” or the farmer “Bauer Mann” in the Frankfurt Kleinmarkthalle – to his wild postings as integral elements of exhibitions.
Rehberger has replicated the logos exactly rather than subverting them by altering the iconography of the brands or products. He takes the view that these images stand as his own works of art simply because he has chosen to create them and believes that it is his aesthetic choice, and the subsequent materialisation and destination of the work, that prevents the posters from being viewed as marketing or advertising. This idea is one that Rehberger has explored repeatedly, notably with his installation of a working cafeteria as his contribution to the 2009 Venice Biennale, which won the Golden Lion Award.
As with these posters, he was posing the question “what can be considered art and why?”
The exhibition in the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt will run until the 2nd of May, 2010
Photo top: Tobias Rehberger, “Was Du liebst, bringt dich auch zum Weinen”, Detail Mixed Media, Venice Biennale 2009 Courtesy: Galerie Neugerriemschneider Berlin; shot by: Wolfgang Günzel, Offenbach | Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt
The turbo wave of the 80′s left its mark on the industry and on the whole cultural situation in Western Europe. The sound effect gives sensation of real physical power. This music genre, which originated in the Balkans, and its impact are the inspiration for the work of Serbian artist Baptiste Debombourg. The music becomes a conceptual model of behaviour and is translated into wall deformed by the power of a musical wave. This installation is melted with the architecture of the surrounding space and so becomes part of it.
Photos: Baptiste Debombourg | Patricia Dorfmann Gallery Paris | Galerie HO Marseilles | Galerija10m2 Sarajevo
On Kawara, a Japanese conceptual artist living in New York City, made since 1966 a long series of “date paintings” (the Today series), which consist entirely of the date on which the painting was executed in white lettering set against a solid background. Other series of works include the “I Went and I Met” series of postcards sent to his friends detailing aspects of his life. A second series of postcards, I Got Up At, rubber-stamped with the time he got up that morning, and a series of telegrams sent to various people bearing the message “I am still alive”.
In 1971 he started with his work called ‘A Million Years’. This ten volume piece was produced concurrently with a series which would later be seen as his defining work. ‘A Million Years’ was, just as its title states, a series of numbers counting back the last million years from 1969. It was later accompanied by ‘One Million Years (future)’ which counts forwards from 1980. In 1993 Kawara transformed One Million Years (Future) from a written to recorded state. The impetus for this metamorphosis was an exhibition for Dia Center for the Arts that ran from January 1, 1993, to December 31 of the same year. The below video made by New York art tours gives an impression of ‘One Million Years”
The exhibition was comprised of three parts, a selection of one thousand Today paintings, the ten volumes of One Million Years (Past) and the recording of One million Years (Future), in which a male and female voice continuously, year after year, count into the future. A segment of this recording was transformed into a CD. With the exhibition the viewer plays a more passive role, entering into the space where the recording plays continuously, whereas with the CD the amount of time is limited, 74 minutes, and contains a set number of years (1994 AD to 2613 AD), thus transforming the infinite time of the exhibition into the finite time of the CD. With the CD the viewer is able to manipulate the duration and chronology of the CD, thus entering into a far more active relation to the work. You can listen to a part of the work in the below Ubuweb podcast.
Photos: On Kawara | David Zwirner Gallery | Sources: Ubuweb, Wikipedia | Video: New York Art Tours Youtube channel
