Category: Art & Illustration

Doug Wheeler

If you happen to be in New York, do consider seeing Doug Wheeler’s light and space installation at the David Zwirner Gellery in Chelsea. It might reveal many new and fascinating things about the way you see, experience and perceive reality. And the best part: you will participate in this experiment both as a subject and as an observer…

Doug Wheeler (b. 1939) is a pioneer of the so-called “Light and Space” movement that flourished in Southern California in the 1960s and 1970s. His works appeared in such venues as Tate gallery, London (1970), Salvatore Ala Gallery, Milan (1975), Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1983), Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao (2000) and many others.

The installation I saw on the weekend was ambiguously titled SA MI 75 DZ NY 12. It is a large scale exhibit that brings you as close to stepping into the void as a person can get without enduring any imminent danger. You enter the white oblivion and walk toward what you know is the back wall. The shape of the room and the special way it is lit eliminate any depth perception. You feel that your eyes are failing you, all you can see is the infinite whiteness. The experience is thrilling and unsettling at the same time. People’s reactions to the room vary. Some linger on the edge, some freeze in the middle, some reach out, trying to feel the space around them. I kept going forward, and eventually my feet felt the curve. And this was the moment when I saw the room for the first time, its size, its shape, its texture. It was quite a discovery! The light in the room changes gradually from bright to dark in a 32-minute cycle, so you can test your senses within fluctuating light modes.

Doug Wheeler’s SA MI 75 DZ NY 12 installation is on display at David Zwirner through February 25, 2012.

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Wish You Were There

Based in Manchester, England, freelance artist, illustrator and designer, Rob Bailey has created this beautifully illustrated series of thirty landscape drawings – Wish You Were There. They were originally based on the blank address lines on the reverse of a postcard.

These minimal illustrations, measuring 30cm x 50cm, successfully present a reduction of visual elements without compromising the space and shape of the landscapes.

I think individually these wouldn’t produce the desired impact, but as a collection, would make for wonderful wall art.

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Sky series

I love the vibrant, colorful, photographs in the Sky series by Eric Cahan. The photos, often without any reference to the earth, show a surreal limitless space and were taken at bodies of water in California, Florida, and New York.

To me, the sun is the ultimate source of light, so it only seemed natural to pursue that source – Cahan explains.

Using four different cameras ranging from 6 x 7 film to digital he explores the magical light during a sunrise or a sunset. The magic light reminds me of early flights and makes me want to plan new trips to discover places I have never been before.

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Absolute Purity

This unusual ad is a part of Absolut’s ongoing campaign on the subject of purity. Every year a different artist is asked to express his or her vision in a form of an advertising piece for the Absolut vodka brand. Last year it was a fun gaudy-looking project by Paul Graves, the year before that – a stunning work by Dan Tobin Smith. This year’s contribution to the theme came from German artist Simon Schubert.

Schubert approached the idea of purity quite literally and did what he does best – a sheet of folded paper (artist’s remarkable folded works brought him international fame for a reason). The concept of purity is beautifully expressed through a poetry of wrinkled paper, brought to life by shadows and light…

The ad is currently on display inside the busstop on Avenue de l’Opera in Paris. The campaign was conducted by Being advertising agency.

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Luca Brandi

Born in Florence, Italy in 1961, abstract painter Luca Brandi has produced a wonderful collection dating from 2001-2011.

Inspired from a very early age whilst working in various churches in the city of Florence, Brandi studied under Paolo Galletti, who taught the theories on the separation of geometric form through painting and colour. After studying the works of Richard Serra, Brice Marden and Frank Stella, Brandi discovered a passion for minimalist art. He then began working on new works based on the layering of metallic colours that are still the basis of his work today.

Brandi explains:

I eliminate as much as I can to express the beauty of the human spirit. Due to this, I often use metallic colours, in an attempt to bring the spectator to meditate through colour, materials, reflection, and silence.

→ Watch a video of his works on display

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Shadow Art

Japanese artist Kumi Yamashita (1968) is known for creating realistic imagery from invisible sources. Her shadow art has earned Yamashita international recognition with works appearing in such venues as Seattle Art Museum, Boise Art Museum, Yerba Buena Centre, San Francisco, the Esplanade in Singapore, Hillside Gallery in Tokyo and the Kent Gallery in New York. The pieces are comprised of ordinary everyday things and a single light source, which brings these objects to life. Alphabets and building blocks, scattered across the wall, become realistic human figures, coloured resin plates give shape to facial silhouettes, and credit card imprints create portraits.

Yamashita’s precision is staggering. It is amazing to see how these sophisticated, coherent and very detailed images have been originated. These works are exhaustively complex in execution and yet manage to remain simple and minimal to the eye.

Kumi Yamashita will be having solo exhibitions at the Sato Museum, Tokyo and the Dillon Gallery, New York in 2012.

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Composition Light

Composition Light is a project recently completed by Canadian born designer Miya Kondo. The collection is comprised of a series of light sculptures that vary in size and colour. Used in combination, the objects can create different effects. Depending on the position of the elements and their relation to each other, the quality of light is modified and the ambiance of the space altered.

Miya Kondo explains:

Light acts as an interpreter for how we experience space – our emotional experience of space, time and place. We can be captivated by the influence of light on the shape of objects, on the atmosphere around us and the feeling of our surroundings.

The installation of the Composition Light project recently took place during the Dutch Design Week 2011.

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Sculpting Sound

The Swiss artist Zimoun is currently exhibiting his latest installation at the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida (USA), which runs until January 08 2012. Zimoun, previously featured on Minimalissimo, builds architecturally-minded platforms of sound using simple and functional components, which result in unique and quite beautiful soundscapes.

The Sculpting Sound installation, curated by Matthew McLendon is an example of structural simplicity in an industrial-like setting, which reveals an intricate relationship between the artificial and the organic. Zimoun’s creations often use multiples of the same prepared mechanical elements to examine the creation and degeneration of patterns.

If I was in the vicinity, this would be a must-see. Fantastic.

→ Watch the Sculpting Sound video

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Steel Landscapes

These minimalist wall sculptures by Cecilia Vissers are made from steel and aluminium and inspired by the Scottish and Irish landscapes. The pieces are characterized by simple compositions, powerful lines and laconic shapes. The surfaces retain the natural texture of the material, creating inspiring visual effects.

I want my sculptures to be entirely simple, to be viewed quickly, the focus is on the smooth and flat surface, my abstractions are grounded in the landscapes of Scotland and Ireland, the remoteness and silence.

Cecilia Vissers’ work will be displayed as part of a group show at Acquire Space in London from November 13-27, 2011 and in a solo exhibition at Masters & Pelavin Gallery in New York, February 23 to April 5, 2012.

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Rest Days

Luca Sironi is a Milan based photographer and filmmaker who recently completed his conceptual photography project titled Rest Days. The project comprises 24 colour photographs depicting a series of closed shop shutters.

Sironi explains:

The shutters hide what’s inside, becoming apparently identical to each other, and in their repetition, looking more and more like a minimalist series of ordered anonymous headstones.

The photos, taken in the towns of Bussero, Caponago, Carugate, Cernusco soul Naviglio, Gorgonzola and Pessano con Bornago, represent the change over the last 25 years in people’s social habits on Sundays (our typical rest day) in the areas these shops reside. In recent years the result is as if shops have changed their function, becoming symbols of the inhibition that consumerism exercises on spontaneous social aggregation, rather than useful daily facilities.

I love the impact these photos make as a collective.

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