Category: Art & Illustration

Kinetic Sculpture

Oooh this is nice!

The Kinetic Sculpture consists of 714 metal spheres, hanging from thin steel wires. Each sphere can be moved individually, and through some amazing software, moving shapes can be created.

The Kinetic Sculpture is created by ART+COM, a digital media design agency based in Berlin, Germany, for the BMW Museum in Munich, Germany.

ART+COM have animated a seven minute long mechatronic narrative – a dance in mid-air. (Thx, Floris!)

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Couple vases

The couple vases, made of porcelain, are designed by Germany-based Christine Ruff. Ruff, who studied ceramic design after an education in ceramics decorating, sees her work at the intersection of art and craft.

However clean and neutral it is, the form play of vases attracts your eye. Reflecting their form on the opposite, a bound is created between the two vases despite their outward differences.

“For a time like ours, when people’s taste seems to return to baroque, no-frills is rather refreshing, I think”

The pairs are available in either white or black matte glaze, or black and white.

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Neo Gramophone

Not minimalist, but I think you’ll enjoy the aesthetics: the Neo Gramphone.

At the moment, The Neo Gramophone is just a sculpture. The idea is however to give it a speaker function, so you can hook it up to your computer, or to give it Bluetooth connectivity.

The Neo Gramophone is the brainchild of German product design graduate Lars Amhoff, and his partner Christin Krause. The duo operates under the flag of The Substain. Their mottos are Quality over quantity and Art over empty design for the masses. Here’s what they say about the design:

The Neo Gramophone is the image, simplicity and feeling of a traditional gramophone transported in the 21st century.

I say: make it happen, guys!

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Carmen Herrera

This is one insprirational story:

Carmen Herrera was born in Cuba in 1915, and started painting in the 1930’s. Through six decades, she created her radiantly ascetic work in relative solitude, and never sold a painting. That all changed in 2004: at the age of 89, Ms Herrara sold her first painting.

With that first sale, her world changed rapidly. Collectors started to avidly pursue her, up to the point where her paintings have entered the permanent collections of institutions like the Museum of Modern Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and the Tate Modern.

Herrera has been on a lifelong quest to pare down her paintings to their essence, even though a large part of her work dates from well before the rise of Minimal Art in the 1960’s. Wow!

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Donald Judd

Donald Judd (1928-1994) was one of the originators of Minimal Art, which it came into being in the 1960s.

Minimal Art reacted against the symbolism, spontaneity, and emotional intensity of Abstract Impressionism. Rather than expression, Minimal Art artists sought after objectivity. By removing ‘distractions’ like composition, theme, representation and so on, they wanted to allow the viewer to experience the work as a whole, and in its own respect.

Judd’s work is highly geometrical, and many of his works are arrangements of repeated, freestanding objects. Judd used humble and honest materials such as metals, industrial plywood, concrete and color-impregnated plexiglas. His works tends to constrast with their environment, creating an interesting tension.

Overall, Judd has led the way for many of his peers, and minimalism as such.

Respect!

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Klaus Stadt

The work of German artist Klaus Stadt is governed by the systematic thinking of the Constructionist movement.

But although Stadt is a constructivist, because he sculpts his work with just a few elements or colours, his work has a beautiful minimalist aesthetic.

His reliefs, drawings and plastiks/sculptures are consistently built from simple geometric shapes, such as squares or cubes. Through thoughtful placement in the canvas or space, Stadt creates a sense of movement and depth.

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Papercuts

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” That’s what Michaelangelo said, some 500 years ago. I could also easily have been a quote from contemporary artist Peter Callesen, were it not that Calleson’s material isn’t marble – it’s paper.

When I look at a sheet of A4 paper, I see a printable object. Callesen however sees little stories, hidden within them: failytales, romantic encounters, or dramatic tragedies.

Through delicate cuts, the artist allows tiny, fragile figures to erect themselves from the paper – but without ever escaping where the material they came from.

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Endoresuhoridei

The 2008 series Endoresuhoridei (‘Endless holiday’) of minimalist painter Sakamoto Tokuro brings about a sense of innocence and nostalgia.

Surrounded by nothingness, the playground objects are depicted in their purest form. The colourful plastics, selected to invite children to play, tell the story of the careful design of the objects. Through these paintings, Tokuro seems to want the honor the designers of these symbols of childhood innocence and times past.

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The Daily Figure

Every day, illustrator Kyle T. Webster posts a sketch he’s made on his aptly-named blog The Daily Figure.

The subjects of his drawings are often female figures, which he elegantly brings to life with just a few lines,  trusting the Gestalt principles.

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