Goodbye to Andrew Wyeth

"Always believe in yourself, and believe in love."
-Andrew Wyeth

The world has lost an incredible painter and a gentle and loving soul.

Andrew Wyeth passed away on Friday. He died while he was sleeping in his home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. He was 91 years old.

MSNBC has a nice little web-only video on Wyeth and his work:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

So far as we can tell, Andrew Zuckerman conducted the last interview and took the last portrait of Andrew Wyeth for his Wisdom Book. A remarkable man interviewing a remarkable man.

And here is Mr. Wyeth's obituary from the Times: "Andrew Wyeth, Painter, Dies at 91"

Bravo and aloha, Mr. Wyeth.

Fundament: Mapping the World, In 3D

A few years ago Worldmapper.org blew my mind. It's a website where they show you maps of the world, but not with the goal of showing you geographical data. The maps show you the state of the world, how the wealth is divided, where different religions are most common and how the population is distributed. If you've never seen it before it's a strong recommendation to check it out. (You'll be fascinated if the world interests you as much as it interests me).

But what I actually want to talk about is Fundament, by Berlin artist Andreas Fischer. Fundament is a sculpture that combines data with art, it would have done an excellent job in MOMA's Design And The Elastic Mind last spring.

 

It's maybe a bit hard to see, but it represents a map of the world. America on the left, Europe in the middle and Asia on the right; the world, as we know it. Except for the fact that it has been tweaked for a bit. The lowest layer is a piece of wood that has been crafted.

It looks like this. It represents the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) which is the amount of money that is 'earned' in a country. I'll give you an example to illustrate it, in the U.S. there are millions of people who earn money the GDP is the sum of all those incomes, and thus it's a measure for the welfare a country enjoys.

So what are the bars that run over it? They represent the so called derivatives volume. This gives an indiction how much business is done in one country or another.
Just a few last words by Fischer himself:

This sculpture is a statistical map, a hybrid between physical and conceptual space. The horizontal arrangement equates to the Mercator* projection of a world map and the vertical axis metaphorically corresponds to the financial activity of the country.

Nice!

The Mercator projection of the/a world is a cylindrical approach. The world is a sphere but it's hard to draw a sphere on a map. So the geographer Mercator proposed his idea: "let's assume the world is a cylinder then we can cut it at one point and roll it open." Then you indeed have a nice rectangular view of the world. The Mercator projection is pretty common actually, it's used for almost any world map and astronomers use it for mapping the skies.

SuperForester Taylor Presents: Two Great Images! (Updated!)

T,

These are great! Where did you find them?

Love,

J

-UPDATE:

Thanks to SuperForester Janet, who informed us that the top image is via Kevin Kelly's incredible blog.

From kk.org:

"These wooden bicycles are ridden in the Banaue region of the Philippines. During an annual festival celebrating the culture of the regional tribes, wooden bikes are raced by participants in native costume. Notice the cool foot-activated brakes. These photos are from the Flickr pool of Harry Palangchao."

Awesome! Cheers Janet.

Shadow Bird Hand Puppet Sticker

I've noticed these wonderful stickers all over Manhattan. Absolutely adore!

Who does these? Get in touch with us, we want to praise you.

If you are/know the person doing these, drop us a line: superforestnyc(at)gmail(dot)com.

Love!

Smart art

While many of us grew up being told to eat our veg, it's very likely we, instead, became skilled at avoiding them (i.e. by feeding them to the dog or slyly popping them into our pockets). Now that we're older, it's only natural that some of us followed up such vegetable-dodging creativity with amazing vegie art. Ju Duoqi, a female artist who lives and works in Beijing, has gone about recreating Western art masterpieces using vegetables such as tofu, ginger, lotus roots, coriander and sweet potato.

Of her work, Duoqi says, "In the summer of 2006, I bought a few kilograms of peas, and sat there quietly for two days peeling them, before stringing them on a wire and turning them into a skirt, a top, a headdress and a magic wand. I used a remote control to take a photo of myself in them, and named it Pea Beauty Pageant. That was my first work of vegetable art."


Read more about Ju Duoqi here.

The Person You Love is 72.8 Percent Water

Peter Horridge – 'The person you love . . .'
Quote by Alan Fletcher – the Art of Looking Sideways,
Art direction, Rob Duncan

Limited edition giclee print, run of 10 only on 100% cotton
Somerset enhanced paper, 50 x 70cm. £120 + p&p.

Wantee? Can has!

Saw on the beautiful and talented Swissmiss.

Miniature Mayhem with Slinkachu - Little People and Snails

We just were reminded about Slinkachu by none other than SuperForester Steven, (he of the Off-Grid Challenge.)

Slinkachu is a British artist, who sadly I know very little about. But that don't stop me from loving the miniature scenes that he sets up, photographs and leaves in place.

People:








Snails:





Want more little people? Little people blog.
Want more snails? Inner city snail blog.

Thank you to Steven for the grand intel!

Yayyy!

Plaf!

If you'd consult your Spanish or French dictionary and look up the word plaf you'd probably find out that it means splash (it's a bit of a slang word so you may not find it in a dictionary). But anyway, in the comming context it means splash.

Plaf is the result of a collaboration between MOMO and Eltono. Both being two really great art blogs/instances who do street art and related stuff.
Plaf can be seen as an outdoor exhibition through the entire metropolis of New York. The exhibited objects are so called "autonomous mechanisms", mechanisms that function on their own. In this art perspective it are just sculptures that move due to natural influences. For example the wind, the tides and the sun. In fact the objects in Plaf are a bit like Theo Jansens Strandbeest. Take a look.




This is in fact the first object in the outdoor exhibition and it was placed in the East River at Hallets Cove (an area in Queens). As you see the installation requires some wind and a bit of streaming water to start moving.

The coming time Plaf will be placing their autonomous mechanisms throughout the city. They'll even be giving out maps showing where you can find their work

via:wooster collective

-jdh

Mark Khaisman - Tapeworks

He was born in the Ukraine and can be seen as a painter that uses tape instead of paint. I'm talking about the contemporary artist Mark Khaisman.

Ok, well he's not what you'd call the classic painter. He actually puts tape on an illuminous surface (the very same tape used by FedEx for your packages).

That is indeed tape you're seeing. Using the fact that multiple layers of tape let less light through then a single layer Khaisman creates fantastic artworks like the one above.

Khaisman manages to put such an extreme amount of detail in his artworks, which is an astonishing fact, considering that he is restricted to using small rectangles.

As he once said: "Every artist knows, the more restrictions, the better the result." On his website you can find a variety of subjects. Varying from Romans to faces of woman (which remind me remarkably much of Roy Lichtenstein's work).

Anyway, Khaismans work is surely worthwhile.

-jdh

War Makes Dollars. Peace Makes Sense.

Good Morning All!!!

SuperForester Andrew and I were having a conversation the other day about World War 4.
My opinion is that WW4 is being fought right now.

"Wait! Wait!" you're saying. "What was World War 3?"

Well, since the Vietnam war, the U.S. has been involved with a great number of minor wars around the world. These collectively can be referred to as World War 3.

World War 4 is going on right now, and it is my favorite war yet as it doesn't have to involve any violence.

To me, World War 4 is a war of ideas. You have ideas leaning towards further violence, and ideas leaning toward pacifism and sustainable behavior.

This war is being fought with branding. Who can create the stickiest brand? War, or Peace?

War as a brand has been successful for a long time. But today we find ourselves at a very interesting idea-crossing: Our former "enemies" are now worth much more to us, in a purely economic sense, alive rather than dead. So it stands to reason that our current enemies could feasibly become our economic partners in the near future.

The old way of thinking was: Sell arms.

Arms can be used to fight wars, and if you're in the business of moving product (i.e. weapons) then wars are essential to your continued growth.

As long as people are fighting, you can sell arms to both sides and you and your shareholders will make money.

The new way of thinking that is just poking its head above ground is this: Keep people alive for as long as you can, and sell them goods, services, and experiences for the duration.

Arms gets you big money in the short term.
Peace (vacations, growth, collaboration,) gets you less money up front, but far more money in the long term.

Interesting.

The higher ups are beginning to realize that they can improve their bottom line with a platform of extended Peace.

I mean, if someone is going to live to a hundred and fifty, imagine how many pairs of pants they'll have to buy! How many vacations they'll take! Great news if you're in the business of selling pants or packaging vacations.

Terrible news if you're in the business of blowing humans up.

There is so much money to be made in extending life and amusing humanity that it's not even funny.

So World War Four is a Soft Revolution. No violence, just ideas.

Who has the best ideas wins.

War, violence, and aggression are old ways of thinking.

We'd never be so glib as to say that war never solved anything, or that no good has ever come of war.
My point is that since the invention of nuclear weapons, War is an artifact.

One goes, we all go.

(Who'd have thought that the Bomb would be the great equalizer? The ultimate peacemaker?)

So, here we are in 2008. I can sit here at my desk and chat with my friends all over the globe, people who 60 years ago, would've been my enemies.

Now I have no enemies, only collaborators and friends.

What a wonderful place to be!

Join us in the Soft Revolution. All that I ask is that you use your head, ask questions, and be peaceful in thought and action.

We here at SuperForest will always be on the side of Thought.

Our tools are humor, enthusiasm, and diplomacy. That's all we need.

Peace as a brand is sexy in a way war never ever can be.



Be excellent to each other.


Love to All,


Jackson

Perry Bible Fellowship

Don't get your knickers in a twist, Perry Bible Fellowship has nothing to do with the actual Bible. But it's got a lot to do with funny and bizarre comic strips.

Behold!










PBF is amazing. If you're in the mood for a larf: PBF.com

Nicholas Gurewitch makes The Perry Bible Fellowship

You can write to him at: 10 Thayer Street Apt. 3 Rochester, NY 14607

Awesome.

SuperForester Spoon Presents: Amazing Image!

Spoon says:

Good Wednesday!

I love this picture/t-shirt...just thought I'd share it.

J: Awesome, Spoon! Very SuperForest.

Want the shirt the above image comes on? Here it is @ threadless.

The wonderful art of Sofi Zezmer

A pen, a badminton shuttle, a key. All very common objects. They have no special meaning or so and they just do what they are made for. The key opens a door, the pen jots down a signature etc. At one point the key breaks and the pen gets empty and we throw them away. Too bad, because they can berecycled. You'll probably think "how can you recycle an empty pen?"

The Polish Sofi Zezmer can. Working in Germany she creates art that is composed out of common materials. Here are some of her sculptures.

Using the most ordinary objects such as bicycle horns, mirrors and badminton shuttles Zezmer creates the most colorful pieces of art. And the best part is that most of the stuff she processes into her sculptures has been used before and therefore is recycled!

-jdh

Wet Bugs

This morning Environmental Graffiti, one of my favorite blogs, had an amazing post with photographs of insects taken in macro. Well, I hear you think, there's an awful lot of photos like this on flickr and such. Though they're kinda special. Have a look.

The German Martin Amm, the extremely creative being behind these pictures, must have gotten out of bed real early to catch a glimpse of the morning dew on the insects. Anyway, Amm delivered a good job showing us the beauty of insects, and nature in general.

-jdh

Strandbeest

The beach. Who doesn't love it? A breeze, nice waves, some sun. Three ingredients for a perfect day. The Dutch artist Theo Jansen probably loves the beach too. Since he created a new "lifeform" on it.

He himself calls it a new lifeform, the rest of the world calls it art. I'm talking about Jansen's art project named Strandbeest (Dutch for 'beach animal'). The project features numerous 'kinetic sculptures' like the one above. In short it's a sculpture which can move, in this case it uses the wind.

Seeing such a 'creature' move is pretty fun. Take a look at Jansen's TED talk:



It made me laugh. I thought it was pretty impressive. Wooden creatures that change their walking direction when they get in touch with the water.

-jdh

TRASH: anycoloryoulike

Garbage is just part of the everyday scene in New York. Just some gray bags containing everyone's trash.
But the casual gray bag isn't safe anymore. Well, at least if we should believe a New York visual artist who goes by the name of Adrian. Take a look at his vision on the garbage bag.



Block by block he goes through NY to hand out the pink, polka dotted bags with the request to use them instead of the gray ones.
And apparently the New Yorkers dig it!


On the left there's a flick taken in West End and on the right there's SoHo.
Adrian considers TRASH: anycoloryoulike an art project, with the goal of linking the environment and art. Since garbage bags are a part of the environment in NYC I can only conclude he managed to link the two in a very good manner.
One last note, the bags are made entirely out of biodegradable materials.

-jdh

Natural artists

Sometimes the internet brings you art projects that amaze you. This morning, when I landed on the homepage of a UK artist named Tim Knowles I was simply astonished.



I stumbled upon one of his art projects named Tree Drawings. Which aren't drawings of trees but by trees.

Knowles simply attatched a few pens to the branches of the trees, put a piece of canvas under it and let the natural factors (wind and gravity, in this case) do their work.

The result is a very minimalistic piece of art (on the right there's what a Larch produced on a piece of canvas. With Larch being a common type of tree).



It's not rare that an artist uses nature as his inspiration. But to me it was sort of new that an artist uses nature to do his work, which isn't anything bad of course.



My personal favourite is called Circular Weeping Willow. Knowles must have spend an afternoon attatching the 100 pens he used for this one to the Weeping Willow that created this masterpiece. And I wonder where he got the circular disc, measuring 5,1 metres in diameter, that he used as a canvas.



Nevertheless Tim Knowles has managed to merge nature and art seamlessly in one project, and that's admirable. And the best part is that everyone can create Tree Drawings. Just pick an inspirational tree out of your garden and attatch some pens to it's branches.



-jdh

GreenPIX

With the Olympic Games coming up China almost reaches the headlines daily. Most of the time because of pollution and such things. However, thanks to a couple of bright New York architects this harmful trend can be put to a halt.


They designed a brilliant media appliance called GreenPIX (short for GreenPixel). The system stores solar energy while the sun is shining, and when darkness comes in there's illumination (like in the picture).
It's also called the zero energy media wall. Currently one of the first 'walls' is installed in Bejing, not far away from the site where the Games will be held (it's actually shown in the picture).
I hear you think, "what is the use of something like that?". For starters it's a nice piece of art, and furthermore it offers possibilities for the future. Imagine Times Square running on the sun, with not a single solar cell visible.
And at last, such an awesome piece of sustainable technology is inspiration for anyone brainstorming about being green.

-jdh

New Museum NYC

(photo via airoots.org)

Cripes!

Have I been asleep, in a cave, with my head under a rock?

How did I not notice this?! How did I not notice this ravishing, thrillingly wonderful building? And the fact that this incredible building is an art museum?!

I'm slipping.

This is the New Museum on Bowery. Easily one of the tastiest buildings in Manhattan.

"On December 1, 2007, the New Museum opens its first freestanding, dedicated building. Conceived as a sculptural stack of rectilinear boxes dynamically shifted off-axis around a central steel core, this innovative structure has a variety of open, fluid, and light-filled spaces, with skylights created by the setbacks between floors. The exterior is clad in a seamless, anodized aluminum mesh, which emphasizes the volumes of the boxes while dressing the whole building in a delicate, softly shimmering skin. The elegantly rough structure suits both the New Museum’s character as well as its neighborhood. The edifice appears as a shimmering beacon, visually mutable and dynamic, animated by the changing light of the day—a perfect metaphor for the ever-changing nature of contemporary art. Inaugural exhibitions include “Unmonumental,” an international group show in four parts, as well as exhibitions and special projects by YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES, Ugo Rondinone, Jeffrey Inaba, and Sharon Hayes."

You'll notice in the first picture the rainbow neon sign on the front?
This building screams "Hell Yes!", and I wanna scream "Hell Yes!" right back.

Here's their intel: New Museum Site

Look at their mission statement, it's four words!:


I love it!