Paris-based photographer and street artist JR thinks bigger than most of his peers. His black-and-white wheat-pasted images are gargantuan in scale, taking over entire faces of buildings and extending to the rooftops.
His work is often subtly socially conscious. JR takes evocative photographs of marginalized people from around the world and blows them up to massive proportions. Towering over you, it's difficult to escape thinking about who these people are, and what their stories are.
One of his latest projects is located in Soho in London. It depicts residents from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, and was installed to coincide with his solo show at the Lazarides Gallery
Summer's end doesn't mean New York's done with free festivals. In fact, one of the city's most unique art festivals gets going this weekend.
The 12th annual DUMBO Arts Under the Bridge Festival will take over more or less an entire Brooklyn neighborhood this Friday through Sunday, with hundreds of public art projects and open studios.
As you might expect if you've ever been to über-artsy DUMBO, you won't catch many painting or photography exhibits here. Art in this case is more along the lines of interactive exhibits like Politaoke, which lets you karaoke along to your favorite political speeches; and a "borderless installation" that has something to do with eating a pile of potatoes.
Open House London is an annual event where private buildings and houses are opened up for the architecturally curious to explore. More than 700 different locations were available to tour this year. Sure, the traditional styles were represented, with names like Victorian, Bedfordshire and Elizabethan. But yawn!
If you wanted to see some really edgy dwelling design, the real action was with the soon-to-be classic: recycled tube carriages.
Village Underground is an office complex made up of four former London Underground Tube carriages that were lifted on top of a giant brick Victorian arch. The cars were gutted and re-fitted with clean looking modern office spaces, then completely covered in graffiti.
It's all part of a social enterprise project, funded by the local government. The offices are now rented out to various members of the creative community as a place to work and socialize.
New York will get another big time public art installation before its waterfalls have even been put away for the winter. Tadashi Kawamata's "Tree Huts" will start going up in Madison Square Park beginning September 23, and the exhibition officially opens October 2.
The pieces, which basically look like treehouses, will be created on site, using at least some found materials from the park. Maybe that means Shake Shack burger wrappers will be involved?
The huts will be similar to installations the artist created for Art Basel 2007 and other recent shows in Europe. It'll be the first time Kawamata's worked in New York since 1992.
If bidding on movie posters and overpriced contemporary art isn't your thing, London can still entice the trendy glasses crowd. The Tate Modern will host Rothko beginning September 26.
The first major show of his work in more than 20 years, it'll focus more on the artist's later work. His series of paintings for the Seagram Building in New York--a commission Rothko never finished--will be reunited for the first time.
Smart museum goers will book their £12.50 ($22) tickets online to avoid the sort of insane queues that Londoners love. The show continues through February 1, 2009.
Next time you're in Reno, Nevada, take a little gambling break and keep your eyes peeled for the subversive street art of the Glenn Group.
The group recently won an award at the 2008 Society for Environmental Graphic Design Awards for guerrilla street signs illegally installed around the city to commemorate Valentine's Day and Christmas. The signs, which featured feel good sayings like "Love your enemies" and "Reindeer parking only" were designed to look official, down to the reflective metallic letters and everything.
Reno isn't known for it's street art, and the Glenn Group was hoping to add some subtle excitement and playfulness through symbols of daily life. Probably a good idea. Better to start small, than say, bombing the side of a building with a huge graffiti mural.
Through October 3, the University of the Arts London is hosting an exhibit of iconic album cover art. Called Spin: The Art of Record Design, the show was curated by GQ UK Editor Dylan Jones, The Horrors' Faris Rotter and famous cover designer Peter Seville.
The trio hand picked covers from the past four decades that truly captured the spirit of the music, the artist and the time period.
Some of the albums in the show include: Cream, Robert Plant, Uriah Heep, Madness, Adam & the Ants, The Clash, James, Chemical Brothers, Hard-Fi, Lemon Jelly, The Gossip, Beth Orton and Adele.
Looks like a very cool show, and being that most music is straight-to-digital these days, it's a rare treat to see actual cover art in person.
We love it when the right things end up in the right place, like the excellent, soon-to-open (Sept. 27) new space for the Museum of Arts and Design. You can't miss the building: It's the sleek, tower originally done in 1964 by Edward Durell Stone on Columbus Circle.
With more than double the exhibition space of the current location (including, for the first time ever permanent gallery space), a restaurant on the ninth floor (with sweeping views of the park) and a Tiffany & Co. Foundation Jewelry Gallery on the second floor, it's definitely a step up for the museum.
