Friday, April 20, 2012

All Art Friday

All Art Friday

All Art Friday Spotlights

✦ Slip into a white lab coat the next time you experience a block. According to this study about "enclothed cognition", you need a jacket, not a thinking cap, to get creative. Interestingly, a "visual artist's coat" won't have the same effect, researchers find. (My thanks to ArtInfo for this article link.)

✦ Korean artist An Min Jeong (b. 1981), who lives and works in Seoul, creates marvelous artworks using her own body measurements. Be sure to visit all three of her online galleries. For each piece the artist describes how she creates her intricate, finely drawn body portraits using signs and symbols and what she is illustrating. She'll leave you in awe.

"Minjeong An Breaks Life Down Into Technical Terms", Huffington Post, January 25, 2012

✦ The Education and Community Programs department of Walker Art Center recently partnered with Minnesota Artists on a monthly series of personal essays, interviews, and exchanges with and by local artists. The series, titled "The Family Business", shines a light on "the lived experience of Minnesota's working artists", allowing them to speak in their voices about "the day-by-day juggle of art-making with the rest of their responsibilities." You'll find the first, second, and third installment on "Motherhood and Being an Artist", on the Walker's ECP blog; a group of exceptional photographers is involved.

✦ For the odd, the unusual, the little known, and the just-plain-fun, check out the Walker Art Center's engaging Art News from Elsewhere roundups.

✦ San Francisco photographer Sharon Beals travels the world to capture the beauty of birds and their nests. A collection of her gorgeous images has been published in Nests: Fifty Nests and the Birds That Built Them (March 2011), available from Chronicle Books. (See preview below.) You'll want to spend some time on her Website! Prints of Beals's images are available for purchase.
Nests: Fifty Nests and the Birds that Built Them

Sharon Beals's Birds' Nests and Eggs on Flickr

Sharon Beals's Blog, On This Earth

Exhibitions Here and There

✭ At The Dayton Art Institute, 45 works by 48 contemporary artists are featured in "Changing Landscapes". On view through June 17, the exhibition is described as "a snapshot of how three generations of artists working in fiber media are documenting, navigating, and responding to the tremendous economic, political, and social changes that have transformed China over the past decade."


Zhang YuYizhuang, Wuxing (The Five Elements), 2006
Five Panels, Each 14" x 32"

The Dayton Art Institute on FaceBook, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube

✭ Next month, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles opens "Ends of the Earth: Land Art to 1974". The historical-thematic exhibition, which runs from May 27 to August 20, aims to provide an overview of the Land art movement by presenting more work by more than 80 artists and projects from North and South America, United Kingdom, Japan, Israel, Iceland, Northern Europe, and Eastern Europe. An illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition.

Currently on view at MOCA is "Cai Guo-Qiang: Sky Ladder" for which the dramatic creation of a gunpowder drawing is show in the video below. Be sure to browse through the informative blogposts at the link. Cai's work, which I have seen, is conceptually compelling and thought-provoking. I find his gunpowder drawings to be fascinating.


MOCA on FaceBookTwitter, and YouTube

MOCA Blog

✭ Graphite drawings and a single monumental sculpture, Trace of a Fictional Third (see image below),  by Syrian-born Diana al-Hadid is on view through September 2 at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The marvelous, complex sculpture, seen in additional images here, reflects al-Hadid's interest in the themes of time and motion and her influences, including Biblical and mythological narratives. It is on loan to the museum courtesy of The George Economou Collection.


Diana al-Hadid, Trace of a Fictional Third, 2011
Steel, Polymer Gypsum, Wood, Fiberglass, Paint
120" x 240" x 156"
Copyright © Diana al-Hadid
Photo Credit: Jason Wyche

Diana al-Hadid at Marianne Boesky Gallery

VMFA on FaceBook, Twitter, and YouTube

2 comments:

Louise Gallagher said...

Such rich offerings Maureen.

The findings of the study on 'lab' coats is fascinating. makes sense. I always feel different when I'm 'dressed to the max' for business versus 'dressed down' for play. My 'attitude' shifts. But to find that people pay more attention depending on the use of the white coat -- amazing!

And the bird's nests are beautiful! Thanks for all this beauty on thsi beautiful Friday morning.

Debbie said...

A beautiful array! Thanks.