Richard Serra

Richard Serra's work terrifies me. Huge sheet metal sculptures that loom above and curl around you, his works are expansive and intimidating, they make the viewer, lo the person who is experiencing them, to feel very insignificant. Something grander, something lifeless yet will live forever, something alien. Serra's work is ominous but he is probably my favourite living sculptor.

He also seems to be my kind of guy, in this interview he sums up his attitude as 'I don't give a shit but I care quite a lot.' Which is something I can relate to.

Richard Serra also had some trouble concerning a site-specific work in Manhattan:

'In the early morning hours of March 15, 1989, the culmination of an eight-year struggle between government bureaucracy and the artist Richard Serra took place. Serra's site-specific structure, Tilted Arc,1981, was removed from 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan, despite overwhelming local and worldwide support for its remaining at that site. The General Services Administration (GSA) established a complex arrangement of checks and balances with the selection and commission of this work, but the response from civil servants and others working in and around the Plaza was uncompromising: Tilted Arc would have to go. William Diamond, the GSA's New York Regional Administrator, had recommended (after three days of hearings that seem to suggest a solution other than the one implemented) that the sculpture be relocated, with a panel selected by the GSA and including Serra himself. This ruling outraged Serra. He claimed that because the sculpture was site-specific, to remove it would be the equivalent of destroying the piece. In addition Serra filed a $30 million lawsuit against the GSA to prevent the government agency from removing the sculpture. He cited as his defense breach of contract, trademark violations, copyright infringement and the violation of First and Fifth Amendment rights (Serra, May 1989, 137). Unfortunately, after months of legal wrangling, the courts stayed the original decision, and Tilted Arc was no more.'

You can carry on reading: here, it is truly facintanating.

So, head over here to find the irritating Gagosian Gallery website.

Head here to view with friendly Google.

Quayola

THIS IS SO AWESUM.

Quayola is a visual artist who experiments with video, photography, design and live performance mediums and I find some of his works to be stunning. An emphasis on some mind. A good example is his project 'Partitura', a video of which you can see above.

Partitura is a custom software to generate realtime graphics aimed at visualising sound. The term “Partitura” (score) implies a connection with music, and this metaphor is the main focus of the project. Partitura aims to create a new system for translating sound into visual forms.

I do find this to be incredible, and something I want immediately. We have all experienced the crappy visualisers of audio on our media players and I for one can see no correlation of what is projected visually in relation to whatever I play. It doesn't actually transform the audio, there is no visual actualisation. What is cool is Quayola has seemed to have created something that does generate the audio into something visual.

I always imagine a film that is imbued by music, I always feel music has a story to tell. Sometimes the film isn't always a narrative, sometimes it is just shapes and colour and abstract form, a good example of this is Electric Wizard's 2010 record 'Black Masses' which in my head is a giant black ball of sludge.

I like this a lot, I would buy the 'Partitura' software if I could. I've already watched that video three times.

Hit up Quayola's website to read up on his works, they are very interesting: here

Henri Cartier Bresson

I feel like we've been neglecting great photographers of late and so here is the fantastic Henri Cartier Bresson.

The big thing I love about Bresson's black and white photography is his ability to tell an engaging narrative. His images display emotive stories that are relative to the viewer. Panic, anxiety, loneliness, whilst also able to capture great images of warmth and love.

Bresson held the ability to reveal emotion in an encapsulating black and white photo.

My personal favourite image is the one at the top of the post. A man sharing a moment of loneliness or despair on the step of a pavement with a stray cat, framed by huge forbidding walls. It has it's own melancholic beauty.

I do also very much enjoy the second image, all those children peering down in a curiosity spiral. It too is rather beautiful.

You can check out Henri Cartier Bresson's offical site: here

View more exceptional photographs: here

The Adventures of Tintin

I fucking LOVED Tintin when I was younger, I had all of the books and read them constantly when on holiday. I loved the fantastic yet rooted in reality storylines, Snowy the little fox terrier dog who had thoughts of his own, the vibrant colourscapes like that huge blue sky above.

Georges Prosper Remi, probably more known by his pen name Hergé, is most likely the best known Belgian having written and illustrated the most excellent adventures of Tintin. It is quite fascinating to read up on Tintin's author, who lived through the occupation of Belgium by the Nazis, and at one point of being falsely accused of being a Nazi sympathiser, that the man has an asteroid named after him is pretty neat and is now one of my life's goals. What's more there apparently is an unfinished Tintin comic floating around somewhere entitled 'Tintin and Alph-Art' which would be interesting to see the light of day.

Anyway, I'd thought it'd be cool to honour Hergé by means of a dedicated post, he was a dearly talented illustrator and a genuine auteur. You can engross yourself with Hergé: here.

Hit up the official Tintin website and you can find out about a tour through Brussels where you can follow Tintin, I am excite!: here. It also fun facts too.

Did you guys read Tintin?

(Or Asterix actually, but I mean to have a future post on his greatness too...)

Louise Bourgeois

I feel bad for being so negligent towards (((Hyperpower))) over the past week so I've decided to come up with a good'un for this here post.

Louise Bourgeois has been acclaimed as a key contributor to contemporary art, and nothing is more revealing of her contribution than her awesome 'Maman' (1999) sculpture, which to me is horrifying to say the least. Spiders are goddamn horrible.

The sculpture, resembles a spider, duh, is over 30ft high, with a sac containing marble eggs. The title is French for Mother. Which is interesting considering it's a huge spider taking on the unexpected motherly role.

It is with sadness to report that it is nearly a year since Louise Bourgeois' death at 98, I hope you guys find something interesting about her astounding body of work.

Find some surprisingly good info: here.

And as there isn't a good online archive of her works, Google is your friend: here.