Sky Art: Thomas Lamadieu illustrates in the sky between buildings

For anyone who has lived or visited a narrow courtyard wrapped in buildings it can sometimes be a claustrophobic space with the sky limited in all directions, but the strange geometric gaps formed by the surrounding architecture are often fun to photograph. For instance art director Lisa Rienermann became famous for her award-winning alphabet formed from letters spotted in the space between buildings. However French artist Thomas Lamadieu instead used the constraints as inspiration for his imaginative illustration series Sky Art, where the artist drew within the narrow confines of rooftops and tiny slices of sky to create some pretty wild imagery. It would be fun to see different artists interpretations of the exact same spot. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

via: Colossal

Umbrella art installation

1. Umbrella house in Houston

 
Photo: Image: photine
The "Parasol Project" by Jo Ann Fleischhauer is a spectacular installation with a deeper meaning: the artist chose to contrast how emotions are portrayed in modern times versus the Victorian Era. The images on the parasols, which mimic floral designs, are actually colour-infused Magnetic Resonance Images (MRIs) - contemporary emotional representations - while the parasols themselves represent the desires of women in Victorian times, who used parasols to convey unspoken emotions to men.

 
Photo: Image: cybertoad

2. Red umbrella ball in Shanghai

 
Photo: Image: CuriousGeoff
This bold ball of red umbrellas is nice to look at amidst a backdrop of construction.

3. Multi-coloured umbrella light ball in Korea

 
Photo: Image: Nagyman
This umbrella ball is reminiscent of a huge beach ball.

4. Umbrella installation in Melbourne mall

 
Photo: Image: jikon
Colourful umbrellas make us smile, but these black umbrellas sure do pack a punch, especially when they're contrasted with the whiteness of the surrounding space; viewed from below, it's almost like a huge flock of black umbrella-shaped birds is flying overhead. A bit creepy.

 
Photo: Image: jikon

5. Milan Design Week 2007

 
Photo: Image: marta.b
Umbrellas can act as pretty cool lamp shades in this outdoor installation.

6. Floating umbrellas in a Japanese mall

 
Photo: Image: modus

7. Umbrella installation in Greece

 
Photo: Image: Ava Babili
This outdoor installation of translucent umbrella "trees" is simply beautiful.

 
Photo: Image: Ava Babili

8. Beach umbrellas in Gorman, California

 
Photo: Image: KeithJ

This umbrella installation by Christo and Jean-Claude, which finally came to fruition in 1991, was an international affair, with 1,760 yellow umbrellas set up in Gorman, California and 1,340 blue umbrellas erected in Ibaraki, Japan. The total project cost was $26 million, and it attracted 3 million people from around the world.
 
Photo: Image: Dddeco

9. Channel 4 building on Horseferry Road, London

 
Photo: Image: surprise truck

Certainly not as ambitious as the Christo project, Channel 4 in London still managed to turn a few heads with their "raining umbrellas" and their number 4 umbrella.

 
Photo: Image: surprise truck

10. Peter Holden's syncopated umbrellas

 
Photo: Image: rainasun
Artist Peter Holden animated his black umbrellas, setting them to open and close to Singin' in the Rain.

11. Paper parasols at the Bellagio

 
Photo: Image: cdbeowulf
Vegas is known for going big or going home, and this exhibit at the Bellagio is no different. Pretty paper parasols dangle from the sky in the ever-changing gardens at this landmark hotel.

 
Photo: Image: cdbeowulf

12. Casa Bruno Quadros in Barcelona

 
Photo: Image: Vagamundos
The Casa Bruno Quadros is adorned with umbrellas because it was built in the 1890s to house an umbrella shop.

13. Hanging umbrellas in Insadong, Seoul, Korea

 
Photo: Image: xoxoryan
Passersby posing for photos under the blue-sky umbrellas in Korea.

14. Umbrella tree in Seoul, Korea

 
Photo: Image: silveroses69

15. Rainbow coloured umbrella installation in the A.L.I.C.E. Museum Exhibition at Seoul Arts Center

 
Photo: Image: brandon

17. Umbrellas in Battery Park, New York

 
Photo: Image: liquidx

Artist Victor Matthews painted a butterfly on 3,000 open umbrellas and set them up in Battery Park for his “Beyond Metamorphosis” work. That's a lot of work!

18. Umbrella light canopy

 
Photo: Image via Inhabitat

"Cumulus Light Canopy" by Steven Haulenbeek uses white photographers’ translucent “shoot-through” umbrellas to create variously sized configurations of umbrella lighting. They look just like the beautiful, fluffy clouds they're named after.

Upside Down House Whimsically Fallen from the Sky

French artist Jean-François Fourtou loves to play with the ideas of perspective and childhood worlds of imagination and magic. In his past work, Mes Maisons (My Houses), he experimented with viewers' perceptions of scale by placing his subjects in disproportionately large or small living spaces. This time around, Fourtou plopped an upside down house right in the center of his property in Morocco, disorienting his viewers and creating a bewildering experience of "home."
Tombée du Ciel (Fallen from the Sky) is an architectural structure inspired by Fourtou's grandparents' home in France. Imagine living in this topsy-turvy world, where the bathtub is on the ceiling and you can effortlessly climb into the house through the second story window. Fourtou's work reflects remnants of his own childhood memories, and just like the nature of most memories, this installation is twisted and turned and spun around until it's just a fraction of reality.
If you are fascinated with upside down architecture, you'll also enjoy this interesting design by Polish architects Irek Glowacki and Marek Rozanski.

Jean-François Fourtou on Aeroplastics Gallery
via [CollabCubed]

Jenny Holzer: Big letters give us little truth

Big letters give us little truth!
That is what I thought when in 2003 I saw an installation of Jenny Holzer.

Jenny Holzer is a conceptual projection artist from Ohio who attended Ohio University and Rhode Island School of Design. She started out focusing on painting and printmaking and then moved to projection text projects in New York City. The main body of her work occurs in public spaces. She started using LED signs and street posters and expanded her medium to include all types of signs, benches, stickers, paintings, photos, and so forth. She uses text written by others including famous authors and words from different sources such as US Army documents or minutes from interrogations of soldiers in Abu Ghraib. The theme of Holzer’s work revolves around social issues such as violence, feminism, war, and sexuality. She wants to open up thoughts and perceptions.

Her work "Truism" collect a serie of phrases, some are common myths while others are just phrases on random subjects, written in the form of slogans.

Truism was displayed in storefronts, on outdoor walls and billboards, and in digital displays in museums, galleries, and other public places, I think Holzer installation is a strong form of art because provoke a thought in viewers. Jenny Holzer’s work is innovative and powerful. She is able to make social statements using her art in public places where the impact is the greatest. I applaud her use of her art to increase conciousness and make people stop and think.– instead of “pretty” art, she is creating art with meaning.

A LOT OF PROFESSIONALS ARE CRACKPOTS
A SENSE OF TIMING IS THE MARK OF A GENIUS
DECADENCE CAN BE AN END IN ITSELF
DYING SHOULD BE EASY AS FALLING OFF A LOG
EATING TOO MUCH IS CRIMINAL
GOVERNMENT IS A BURDEN ON THE PEOPLE
HOLDING BACK PROTECTS YOUR VITAL ENERGIES
IT IS MAN'S FATE TO OUTSMART HIMSELF
LISTEN WHEN YOUR BODY TALKS
MEN ARE NOT MONOGAMOUS BY NATURE
POLITICS IS USED FOR PERSONAL GAIN
SLOPPY THINKING GETS WORSE OVER TIME
TECHNOLOGY WILL MAKE OR BREAK US
WORDS TEND TO BE INADEQUATE

via: Jenny Holzer

The RedBall project

Artist Kurt Perschke’s RedBall Project, an ongoing site-specific installation, has been traveling the globe, adopting cities as its canvas. From Barcelona to Busan to Sydney, the sculptural performance has garnered public, critical and media attention worldwide. From September 1 – 25, 2008, The RedBall Project Chicago sponsored by Target will migrate throughout Chicago’s unique architectural landscape and history – each location carefully considered by the artist. Site locations include Millennium Park, Spertus Museum, Hyde Park Art Center, IIT’s McCormick Tribune Campus Center, the Chicago Cultural Center, and more. The RedBall will also be found atop bridges and wedged into alleys, as Perschke’s decisions address not only architecture and urban space, but also anticipate the flow of people, traffic and the observer’s eye.
Compressed into each site, the 15-foot inflatable sphere changes its own shape as well as the space it inhabits, directly reflecting our experience of metropolitan density. Perschke conceives that RedBall is “a surrogate to our own body’s navigation of urban environment and ultimately a transferable act of imagination.” His interest is presenting the public with a momentary experience in their every day. He adds, “In that moment the person is not a spectator but a participant in the act of creativity. That invitation to engage, to collectively imagine, is the true essence of the RedBall Project. And like all good sculpture, the RedBall Project brings out the impulse to touch.”

Philippe Ramette: surreal photos

 

None of these photos are photoshopped.

French artist Philippe Ramette loves to create such thought-provoking photos!

It works!

The French artist Philippe Ramette believes nothing should ever be faked. His improbable, gravity-defying poses might look like classic Photoshop, until you notice they are peppered with little incongruities. “You see a tension in my hands, my red face is far from serene as the blood rushes to it, my suit is ruffled.”
A sculptor, Ramette rose to fame in the 90s as part of the French contemporary art scene, creating strange wooden and metal instruments and objects. Photography was the logical next step, and through it he has created an odd, neo-romantic universe, using a carefully planned, rational approach to create totally irrational situations. In France, his bizarre images have been compared to the work of Buster Keaton and the world of silent cinema. For him, they are a statement about gravity, weightlessness and man’s relationship to the landscape.
Ramette, who still sees himself a sculptor rather than photographer, goes to extraordinary lengths to create his implausible set-ups, building hidden metal supports that he calls “sculpture-structures”. Metal rings tether him by the ankles as he hangs motionless from the Grimaldi Forum building in Monaco (previous page), his trousers and tie strapped down and his hair gelled flat to give the impression of being upright. Above a winding road in southern France, a metal seat hidden by his suit juts out from a slab of rock, holding him up. Both photos are then turned on their heads. Every image is the exact reproduction of one of his drawings; sketches that he considers to be film storyboards, reconstructed by his faithful team while he directs the image. “I never question whether it’s going to be complicated,” he says.

In Balcony 2, he is standing on a balcony in the middle of Hong Kong harbour, contemplating the sky while seemingly managing to levitate above the water. He says the image first came to him in a dream in the mid-90s. For the shoot, a watertight tank served as an underwater float for the balcony, put in place by a barge and crane. Ramette then secured his feet on supports, leaned back and clung to the wood. During the initial attempts, he was soaked by waves and had to swim to safety.
He craves an effect of absolute, implausible serenity. For the series Rational Exploration Of The Undersea, he wore lead weights under his suit and around his ankles, having convinced a team of divers to work with him in a minutely rehearsed underwater escapade off Corsica. When Ramette needed air, a diver would swim over with an oxygen tank, but before shooting his team had to wait for the whipped up sand and bubbles to clear in order to achieve the effect of stillness. “There I was in a suit on the seabed, weighed down and able to walk underwater as if on land, unaffected by the currents. For me, that was a real pleasure,” he smiles.

Source: Feeldesain