klamauk – or hullabaloo, in a good way

check out the music label klamauk (which basically means hullabaloo) from mainz, germany. founded by tilman schwarz, michael fluhr and karsten brommenschenkel in august 2008. the label focuses on techno and house (or as they’d describe it: microfunk) releases.

not only do i actually like the music but the guys running the show came up with a cool web device. because the first vinyl release was a black and white print with individual hand coloration from each artist the guys from klamauk wanted to keep the individual element to their releases alive even for mp3 cover art. the website was realized by euro rscg 4d in duesseldorf, germany.

design your cover at klamauk.net/digital and listen to their music at juno or itunes.

mwm graphics

diversity and quality are two things coming to mind when i look at what matt w moore does professionally. he is a designer, illustrator and generally a creative mind i guess. and, it’s pretty hard to stand out these days where you can find pretty much everything over and over again, where the same thing with just a different name on the tag is only a mouse click away.

doesn’t happen that often that you find someone who does wallpapers, snowboards, art, packaging and other stuff with such a high quality level and unique style.

check out his site and work. mwm graphics

flash mob action

most of you probably have seen the frozen grand central flash mob action in new york but in any event i came across it again and it’s worth it to watch twice.

for those who didn’t know, a flash mob is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief time, then quickly disperse. the term flash mob is generally applied only to gatherings organized via social media or viral emails, rather than those organized by public relations firms or for a publicity stunt.

rumor has it that bill wasik, senior editor of harper’s magazine, created the first flash mobs in 2003. in one more than 100 people converged upon macy’s ninth floor rug department, gathering around an expensive rug. anyone approached by a sales assistant was advised to say that the gatherers lived together in a warehouse on the outskirts of new york, that they were shopping for a “love rug”, and that they made all their purchase decisions as a group. funny.

trash art

very graphic, like it. the italian artist moreno di trapani has created a unique installation in reaction to the garbage crisis in naples, italy. di trapani placed hundreds of stuffed garbage bags into an empty building in the northern city of tradate. the building facade overflows with the bags, which “ooze out of the windows and out of the doors; the garbage piles up on the balcony.”

trainloads of naples garbage (some of which had radioactivity levels eighty times the norm), collected by the italian army, have been shipped to hamburg, germany last year to be processed. love it.

let the germans process the trash.

(photo by gianpietro malosio, text partly from jennifer allen, artforum)

LED sheep

samsung, one of the consumer electronic companies that usually does stuff more on boring side of life landed now a big hit with their viral video “extreme sheepherding” done by the viral factory.

it is definitely entertaining to watch. having that said i can’t push upcoming thoughts about sony’s extremely successful color campaign aside. the fact that the two companies are direct competitors makes me, from a creative perspective, feel just slightly uncomfortable. anyways check it out so you know what people talk about right now.

artless, shun kawakami

pretty interesting guy this shun kawakami from japan. born 1977 in tokyo he became an artist and designer, co-founder and head of artless inc. an art and design studio that focuses mainly on graphic arts and design, interactive, installation, video and exhibition.

get lost on the artless website, pretty interesting, the site itself as well as their work – artless.co.jp

wow – eico hanamura

let’s go back to the 60s for a second, across the ocean, far far away. interesting pop-art, manga, kitsch japan style illustration by artist eico hanamura. interesting personality and story, read the interview from pinmag.

eico-hanamura.com

“pins and threads” by debbie smyth

like this a lot! it is art that’s not only thoughtful but also artful and artistic in a literal sense. on a first glimpse just black and white, 2d graphical that turns with the second look into a delicate and complex 3d installation. debbie smyth was selected as one of the most promising graduates of 2008 for the dezeen talent zone. her installation pins & threads uses, as the title suggests, sewing pins and black thread to draw a series of electricity pylons across several canvas panels.

the technique transforms ordinary structures — often thought of as ugly blots on the landscape — into beautifully minimal graphic drawings, which are at once 2D and 3D, anchored to their panels but also floating in space.

debbie smyth graduated from the west wales school of arts in 2008 and describes herself as a constructed textile artist. her work employs “an array of mechanisms, she folds, collapses, inflates and interlocks her materials to transform two-dimensional lines and planes into three-dimensional shapes and space.”

martin kippenberger in moma

“the problem perspective” moma exhibition features work from martin kippenberger, one of the most influential artists of our time, from march to mid may.

martin kippenberger (1953–1997) produced a complex and richly varied body of work from the mid-1970s until his untimely death in 1997 at the age of forty-four. this ambitious, large-scale exhibition includes key selections and bodies of work from his entire career: paintings, sculpture, works on paper, installations, multiples, photographs, posters, announcement cards, books, and music. the exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue—published by MOCA and co-published by the MIT Press—which will constitute a comprehensive and scholarly examination of the artist’s career.

about martin kippenberger

moma website

more work by martin kippenberger

visual crap

allright, how many more times do i need to see a toilet paper in combination with a space to put down a killer idea? no more! same counts for napkins of all kind. we’ve seen it. ok? if this is advertising for a visual arts school then better do something that’s fresh, as the next guard of visual artists should be, and first and foremost: think! as claimed.

also, i bet in most cases there is going to be still crap on that toilet paper no matter if you wipe off your brain or a…

huh, you think salvador never died

here is a digital artist called eric sin but some of his work looks like salvador dali was using his computer and moved his mouse for him. other stuff looks like joshua davis was over for a coffee and some stuff is i guess pretty cool and genuine.

then all of a sudden it makes sense to me. the guy is 19 years old. shit, that puts it into perspective. first of all he is still finding himself, second of all it’s amazing what those kids can do nowadays. over are the atari days!

have to point again to depthcore.com for some really good digital work. don’t miss looking into it.

depthcore.com

op art

dave bollinger has created a series of works that are similar to op-art, squeezing the same basic shape into atightly packed and dense array. bollinger suggests, ‘most of these are intended to be viewed “from a distance” as a whole, not studied in detail up close’. the simple shapes create mesmerizing patterns that play with the eye, similar to optical illusions. well, i’d say after 10 minutes of starring on them i can see complex figurative images of dancing cows and other things. try that!

worksamples dave bollinger

fotofest beijing

not really recent but nevertheless interesting. some of the images have a truth and reality to it you don’t find that often anymore. in october 2006, fotofest international partnered with hewlett packard china and a team of chinese photographers and businessmen to sponsor an event bringing together 278 contemporary chinese photographers and 35 influential professionals from the professional and art photography world in europe, north america, china and australia – meeting place fotofest beijing 2006 (MPFB2006).

MBFB2006 was an unprecedented event in china. it was designed to open up new opportunities for contemporary chinese photography. it was the first time a large number of contemporary photographers in china were able to show their work to such a broad-based group of important international curators, commercial gallery owners, photography festival directors, editors, representatives of photo agencies, educators, and director/curators of artist spaces.

photographers came to beijing from all over china. some were long-time professionals and others were recent graduates of chinese art and film schools. for four days, the international reviewers met with chinese photographers on a one-to-one basis, looked at their work and shared professional knowledge. the range of photography presented was remarkably broad, from classical black and white documentary to conceptual color works.

website fotofest

room/building tetris

i love when people have strange and surprising ideas like these. the videos with people “playing” room or building tetris is quite cool. either way, electronically or manually controlled, it’s fun.

santa’s ghetto

interesting art project in israel, check out the website. “bethlehem is one of the most contentious places on earth. perched at the edge of the judaen desert at the intersection of europe, asia and africa in the state of palestine it was governed by the british following the collapse of the ottoman empire. after world war II the united nations voted to partition the region into two states – one jewish, one arab and there’s been fighting ever since.it’s obviously not the job of a loose collection of idiot doodlers to tell you what’s right or wrong about this situation, so you’re advised to do further reading yourself (this month’s national geographic has an excellent article all about Bethlehem).

we would like to make it very clear “santa’s ghetto” is not allied to ANY race, creed, religion, political organization or lobby group. as an organisation the only thing we’ll say on behalf of our artists is that we don’t speak on behalf of our artists. this show simply offers the ink-stained hand of friendship to ordinary people in an extraordinary situation.every shekel made in the store will be used on local projects for children and young people. not one cent will go to any political groups, governmental institutions or, in fact, any grown-ups at all. salaam.”

santa’s ghetto website