Isaac Cordal

spanish-born, brussels-based artist isaac cordal has developed a miniature environmental installation series entitled 'waiting for climate change'. the collection of small sculptures were created by cordal as a commentary upon stereotypes of individuals from various backgrounds confronting the issue of climate change in their differing ways. the artist's treatment of each miniature character speaks to a passivity many people feel towardsthe seemingly futile state of the earth's health. cordal's temporary works exist in public spaces; the absence of walls surrounding the exhibit allows for the pieces to be accessed by passers-by in addition to the viewers who would normally seek out the artist's work.

the assemblage of carved figurines, all measuring no larger than 25 cm, have been placed throughout thirty locations across nine coastal municipalities of the flemish coast. in addition to the miniature subjects displayed on the beaches of de panne, belgium, and other sea-side locations, the artist has also developed several pieces to be shown at villa de chalutier, located in de panne as well.

cordal's 'waiting for climate change' has been developed for the fourth triennial of contemporary art by the sea in 2012, beaufort04. - source is design boom.  link here to see and learn more. 

Sebastian Errazuriz, Artist

chilean-born, new york-based designer sebastian errazuriz has created a sculptural door for the chilean art gallery 'departamento 21'
(apartment 21), located in a residential apartment building in santiago. until now, the gallery has always stood behind an unmarked door
with no indicators to announce the presence of the art space. departamento 21's director commissioned errazuriz to re-design the entry door
of the gallery as its own unique art form.

sebastian errazuriz tells designboom:
'while attempting to come up with a concept I tried to resist 'designing a door.' I didn’t want to create a door that was sculptural or pictorial;
I wanted the door to hopefully continue to blend with the rest of the building and maintain its apparent anonymity as just another a normal apartment.
nevertheless I also wished to leave a small clue that would invite the passerby to stop, look twice, and maybe suspect that things where different.

it occurred to me that we have used door viewers for a couple hundred years… we have been stupidly squinting and closing our eyes for all this time;
why not have two viewers instead? we have had binoculars for even longer. the two viewers are placed inverted inside the door, thus allowing people
outside to approach the door and look inside the apartment and see the current exhibition, which remains illuminated even when the gallery is closed'.

it is through the piece that the artist presents a digestible paradigm turned upside down. he invites the viewer to reexamine a consistent facet of reality
that had previously been 'hidden in plain sight'. -source is design boom.  link here. 

Harvard Students

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

Adam Stack (above), a Graduate School of Arts and Sciences student in the Department of Anthropology, believes the "Cast in Bronze" workshop has transformed his approach to teaching. "The class gave me a whole new array of ways to use objects, and not only bronze objects, in discussion and lab sections in class," he said.

“One of the great things about doing this kind of hands-on experience, the same as fieldwork, is that it challenges you to think about materials or a subject in an entirely new way,” Blier said. “As teachers and scholars, it’s important that we provide as many opportunities as possible to get students into the realm of challenging what they know about their field of study, and finding new ways of looking at objects or cultures.” - source link here.

Kelsey Schirard, Student Work

Tools that make a sound.  

Inspired by sounds made by insects.  

Glass

Wire

Wood

Paper

String

Paint

Student Work, Tara Stephens

Sae Jung Oh, Artist, Korea

Link here to learn more about the art department at Cranbrook and see more student work.

saejungoh.com

Alina Szapocznikow; Sculpture Undone, 1955-1972

Showing at the Museum of Modern Art, October 7, 2012 - January 28, 2013.  Link here.

A sculptor who began working during the postwar period in a classical figurative style, Alina Szapocznikow radically reconceptualized sculpture as an imprint not only of memory but also of her own body. Though her career effectively spanned less than two decades (cut short by the artist’s premature death in 1973 at age 47), Szapocznikow left behind a legacy of provocative objects that evoke Surrealism, Nouveau Réalisme, and Pop art. Her tinted polyester casts of body parts, often transformed into everyday objects like lamps or ashtrays; her poured polyurethane forms; and her elaborately constructed sculptures, which at times incorporated photographs, clothing, or car parts, all remain as wonderfully idiosyncratic and culturally resonant today as when they were first made. Well known in Poland, where her work has been highly influential since early in her career, Szapocznikow’s compelling book of work is ripe for art historical reexamination.Alina Szapocznikow: Sculpture Undone, 1955–1972 offers a comprehensive overview of this important artist’s work at a moment when international interest is blossoming. Spanning one of the most rich and complex periods of the 20th century, Szapocznikow’s oeuvre responds to many of the ideological and artistic developments of her time through artwork that is at once fragmented and transformative, sensual and reflective, playfully realized and politically charged.

Katharina Fritsch, Artist

Figurengruppe. 2006–08 (fabricated 2010–11). Bronze, copper, and stainless steel, lacquered, dimensions variable. Gift of Maja Oeri and Hans Bodenmann (Laurenz Foundation). © 2011 Katharina Fritsch

Conceived in 2006–08, the work features nine life-size sculptures of, among other figures, St. Michael, a Madonna, a giant, and a snake, all rendered in precise detail and finished in bold colors. Religious symbolism and references to mythology abound, yet any fixed meaning remains open and elusive.

Source is Museum of Modern Art.  Link here. 

Tim Hawkinson, b. 1960, American

 

Hawkinson is renowned for creating complex sculptural systems through surprisingly simple means. His installation, "Überorgan"—a stadium-size, fully automated bagpipe—was pieced together from bits of electrical hardware and several miles of inflated plastic sheeting.

SaveSave

Bug Dorms

Charles Ledray

Above image is from Bass Museum of Art.  Link here.

"Tiny suits, miniature ceramic vessels in towering vitrines, hand-embroidered baseball caps, Charles LeDray’s work is a poetry of material, scale, and cultural resonance rich with history and emotion. Well known for his exquisitely crafted objects, working in a range of materials from fabric to human bone, LeDray’s work touches on loss, pathos, and absence. These objects, each exquisite in their separate ways, are also meticulously made by hand, bringing awe to our experience of them, each object virtually singing or humming from beneath the crushing conceptual weight of the immense labor involved in their own creation." -Bass Museum of Art

Above image is from Artes Magazine.  Link here.

Cricket Cage, 2002. Human bone, 3 3/8 × 3 3/8 × 1 7/16 inches. Photograph by Tom Powel. Courtesy of Sperone Westwater.  Source link here.

Filipe Soares, Artist

"Portuguese artist Filipe Soares has created this wonderfully detailed and whimsical series of miniatures titled ‘Floating Dreams.’ The pieces, which demonstrate Soares ability to produce aesthetically pleasing scenes above and beyond the added factor of its size, convey numerous scenes of human interaction ranging from the biblical to capitalist. The artistic talent Soares exercises in these pieces is clearly far from miniature." -source is format.  Link here.

Plaster Experiments, Student Experiments

Marcel Duchamp, Artist

"Étant donnés (in English: Given) is Duchamp's last major work. It was produced in secrecy over a number of years after the Second World War, from 1946 to 1966, and, after Duchamp's death in 1968, was permanently installed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Étant donnés may therefore be considered to be Duchamp's artistic testament, his conclusion to art. The old wooden door of the work, the immediate 'facade' of Étant donnés, meets the onlooker in a small room behind the large, well light exhibition room, where the rest of the Duchamp works are found. The small room is a kind of 'appendix' to the large room. It does not lead anywhere and, at first glance, only contains the door, behind which the rest of the work is installed. When you enter the small room and look to the left, there is a stucco wall that stretches from floor to ceiling and from wall to wall. In the center of this stucco wall there is a large, arched brick doorway that forms a frame around the old wooden door. It is obvious that the door cannot be opened, but in the middle of the door, at eye-level, there are two small peepholes." -source is Marcel Duchamp - Étant donnés: The Deconstructed Painting by Pia Høy, translated by John Irons.  Link here. 


"“Marcel, Marcel, I love you like Hell, Marcel.” So ran a mash note written to Marcel Duchamp in 1923 by the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, one of the scores of women, and many men, for whom Duchamp was a personal fixation, erotic, aesthetic or otherwise." - source is NY Times, Holland Cotter, 2009.  Link here to read more. 

"Untitled (Erotic Object)," circa 1950s

Almost every surviving scrap of physical material related to "Étant Donnés" has been gathered, all evidence of Duchamp's fascination with craft and the naturalistic effects it could achieve: flesh that was smooth but not slick; skin that looked warm but not too flushed. - NY Times, link here

Photo: Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris/Estate of Marcel Duchamp

Th

"Untitled (Left Arm)," 1959

The nude in "Étant Donnés" is largely pieced together from casts of the voluptuous figure of the sculptor Maria Martins, with whom Duchamp had an intense affair from 1946 to 1951. -NY Times, link here

Photo: Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris/Estate of Marcel Duchamp

Here is what the encyclopedia has to say....

A tool is an implement or device used directly upon a piece of material to shape it into a desired form. The date of the earliest tools is extremely remote. Tools found in northern Kenya in 1969 have been estimated to be about 2,600,000 years old, and their state of development suggests that even older tools may remain to be discovered. -source is Encyclopedia Britannica, link here

Andy Ducett, Artist, Minnesota, USA

andyducett.com