Whatever you think of what’s going on in the Vatican right now, at least we can all appreciate this. When I visited back in 1989, the whole back wall was covered for renovation, which was unfortunate. Having studied the Chapel in Mrs. Wallace’s incredible Humanities class at Brentwood, it was a truly awesome experience seeing it in person. Now you don’t even have to travel to Italy to get a sense of the brilliance of Michaelangelo (although it certainly helps.)
I love these maps by Christoph Niemann on the New York Times site. Especially this one:
Here’s the artists bio from the site:
Christoph Niemann’s illustrations have appeared on the covers of The New Yorker, Newsweek, Wired, The New York Times Magazine and American Illustration. His work has won numerous awards from the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the Art Directors Club and American Illustration. He is the author of “The Pet Dragon,” which teaches Chinese characters to young readers. The Abstract City chapter “I LEGO N.Y.” has been released as a board book. After 11 years in New York, he moved to Berlin with his wife, Lisa, and their three sons. His Web site is christophniemann.com.
An exhibition of Henri-Cartier Bresson is coming to New York’s MOMA in April. Here are the notes from the MOMA website:
Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) is one of the most original, accomplished, influential, and beloved figures in the history of photography. His inventive work of the early 1930s helped define the creative potential of modern photography, and his uncanny ability to capture life on the run made his work synonymous with “the decisive moment”–the title of his first major book. After World War II (most of which he spent as a prisoner of war) and his first museum show (at MoMA in 1947), he joined Robert Capa and others in founding the Magnum photo agency, which enabled photojournalists to reach a broad audience through magazines such as Life while retaining control over their work. In the decade following the war, Cartier-Bresson produced major bodies of photographic reportage on India and Indonesia at the time of independence, China during the revolution, the Soviet Union after Stalin’s death, the United States during the postwar boom, and Europe as its old cultures confronted modern realities. For more than twenty-five years, he was the keenest observer of the global theater of human affairs–and one of the great portraitists of the twentieth century. MoMA’s retrospective, the first in the United States in three decades, surveys Cartier-Bresson’s entire career, with a presentation of about three hundred photographs, mostly arranged thematically and supplemented with periodicals and books. The exhibition travels to The Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta.
Might take some time, but eventually the show will travel out west to SF where I will definitely see it.
Until recently, I had a poster of this Bresson image, En Brie hanging in my place:
Here’s the time lapse video of the the making of In Bed. It’s truly amazing to watch this hyper-realistic sculpture by Ron Mueck come to life. (follow the link to the video)
If you’re lucky enough to be in Melbourne, you can see a showing of his work at the National Gallery of Victoria.
“Inspired by how some animals can blend into their environment, Liu Bolin from China uses camouflage principles to create amazing contemporary art.”
Has to be seen to be believed. More here. The one with the bulldozer is amazing. I had to work hard to find Liu. Really incredible.
Literally giving new dimension to a Picasso classic:
I’ve seen the King Tut exhibit twice before, once in 1979 at the LA County Musuem of Art, again 10 years ago at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, but I’m psyched to see it again tonight at the De Young Museum in SF. It’s a truly remarkable collection. Here’s Tutankhamun on Wikipedia in case you’re interested.
And for the truly nostalgic, there’s this:
Yesterday, we went to see this tiny, curvy cobblestoned street in Vila Madalena called Rua do Batman where the walls of all the houses are covered in graffiti. The art is changed periodically as the artists wish. Not all of it is great. Some is very odd in fact, but most of it is incredibly colorful and beautiful.
I am trying to upload the photos from here in Brazil. It is slow going, but eventually, they will all be here on Flickr.
I think the logo for the Yellowjackets is kinda wimpy. You can see it on the website. Doesn’t exactly inspire much of anything. The jerseys are these purplish red sun bursts which besides being pretty ugly, don’t exactly say “yellowjackets” to me. I think something a little more muscular as well as black and yellow would be better. I found some stock art (I will download and pay for it if the club decides it wants a new logo) and played around with some ideas and came up with the above image. How cool would that look on the back of a jersey?
I just bought this picture from a talented artist I found while surfing on the web. I’m not really one for buying original art, but this one just speaks to me in volumes.