City of Shadows: Alexey Titarenko

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ALEXEY TITARENKO is a Russian photographer who produced this great series of photographs nearly 20 years ago called City of Shadows. His work in this, one of my favorite series, is worth a revisit.

Learn more here. Titarenko is represented by Nailya Alexander Gallery and more information about his work can be found by emailing the gallery here: info@nailyaalexandergallery.com

Titarenko’s work is © copyright.

The Future Belongs... to Roland Tiangco

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ROLAND REINER TIANGCO LIVES AND WORKS IN BROOKLYN, NY. He is a recent graduate of the Parsons New School for Design.

The poster you see here is part of a series of posters—posters that push the boundaries of design. Here’s how it works: the recipient gets the poster in mail, and hands get dirty from powdered pigment on one side of the poster. Eventually the person figures out that the spot varnished type on the clean side of the poster “holds” the pigment to reveal a secret message. The person interacts with the message by rubbing off the “dirt” from hands to the clean side of the poster.

Now, this concept would piss most recipients of the real world off, but I like it. I like this a lot! Imagine 6 million residents getting this in the mail. There would be mass hysteria, make the 6pm national news, and just might make Mr. Tiangco the biggest name in design—after he settled with a few nasty people who would want to sue him for ruining their clothes. And, of course, Homeland Security would freak out that the mailing denotes an “unknown powdery substance.” (So, DON‘T DO IT, ROLAND! You’ll be famous soon enough!)

The size is 19” x 25” open, 10” x 13” closed & packaged. The poster is hand-silkscreened, with envelope. The edition is limited, and is available for purchase for $80 (for those of you who don’t mind getting your hands dirty!)

So, yes folks! The future of design, of science, of art—of anything, belongs to those brave souls who are willing to push the boundaries, who have the courage to explore, to dig deeper, to zig where others zag, and for those who are willing to hear “that’s a stupid idea!” from the small-mindedness of others who seek refuge in the comfort of those places and paths we have already been.

Learn more about the very interesting Roland Tiangco here.

The Transformative Work of Kate McDowell

I JUST DISCOVERED THE PORCELAIN WORK OF KATE McDOWELL. I love the idea of taking a centuries old traditional medium and reinventing it like this. While her subject matter may not be for everyone, her “art” crosses many boundaries. This woman, this art, is great. Best I let her talk about her art. Read on…

“In my work this romantic ideal of union with the natural world conflicts with our contemporary impact on the environment. These pieces are in part responses to environmental ‘stressors’ including climate change, toxic pollution, and GM crops. They also borrow from myth, art history, figures of speech and other cultural touchstones. In some pieces aspects of the human figure stand-in for ourselves and act out sometimes harrowing, sometimes humorous transformations which illustrate our current relationship with the natural world. In others, animals take on anthropomorphic qualities when they are given safety equipment to attempt to protect them from man-made environmental threats. In each case the union between man and nature is shown to be one of friction and discomfort with the disturbing implication that we too are vulnerable to being victimized by our destructive practices.

I hand sculpt each piece out of porcelain, often building a solid form and then hollowing it out. Smaller forms are built petal by petal, branch by branch and allow me the chance to get immersed in close study of the structure of a blossom or a bee. I chose porcelain for its luminous and ghostly qualities as well as its strength and ability to show fine texture. It highlights both the impermanence and fragility of natural forms in a dying ecosystem, while paradoxically, being a material that can last for thousands of years and is historically associated with high status and value. I see each piece as a captured and preserved specimen, a painstaking record of endangered natural forms and a commentary on our own culpability.”

See more of Kate’s work here.

Silhouette Masterpiece Theatre

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WILHELM STAEHLE DESCRIBES HIMSELF “as a horribly disfigured gentleman who often frightens small children when he emerges from the seclusion of his sprawling estate on the eastern coast of the Americas.” Obviously his tongue-in-cheek, macabre humor extends to his artwork, where he spends his time “hand-cutting peculiar silhouettes when he is not sporting for wild game and dressing his disturbingly broad collection of taxidermy.”

Learn more about this artist, and visit his cool on-line shop by simply clicking here.