A Comedy of Flies

Click any image for larger view.



Click any image for larger view.



Click any image for larger view.





Click any image for larger view.





MAGNUS MUHR is a 39 YEAR OLD PHOTOGRAPHER from Sweden who, in his spare time, likes to invent the most hilarious scenarios for dead flies. Thanks Magnus, for giving the world a good laugh.

Via Magnus Muhr Photography.

Jupiter Artland

(Above) Life Mounds by Charles Jencks, (photo by © Christopher Dingwall). Click for larger image.

(Above) Map of Jupiter Artland. Click for larger image.

(Above and below) “Firmament” by Antony Gormley. Click for larger image.


Click for larger image.

(Above) “Xth Muse” by Ian Hamilton Finlay. Click for larger view.

(Above and below) “Knitted Web” by Shane Waltener.” Click for larger view.

Click for larger view.

(Above and below) Earthworks by Charles Jencks. Click for larger view.


Click for larger image.

Click for larger view.

(Above and below) “Weeping Girls” by Laura Ford. Click for larger image.


SPOTTED ON FLICKR, some extraordinary images from Scotland, where upon some research I have found that a new outdoor sculpture park opened just a year ago outside of Edinburgh. The site is the idea of one Nicky Wilson, a former art teacher married now to Robert Wilson, chairman of a large homeopathic medicine manufacturer named Nelson’s.

Looks to me like a must-see if you find yourself in Scotland.

The collection includes:

• A series of site specific works by Andy Goldsworthy.
• A large-scale figure by one of the UK’s finest sculptors Antony Gormley.
• A four acre landform by Charles Jencks whose recent work is on view at the Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh.
• A huge orchid by Marc Quinn
• Anish Kapoor’s amazing “Suck”
• A series of work by Ian Hamilton Finlay
• Site specific works by Cornelia Parker, Alec Finlay, Peter Liversidge, Laura Ford and Shane Waltener

Most images via Jim Wolffman’s Photostream on Flickr.

Want to learn more about Jupiter Artland? Go to their web site here.

Found Postage Stamp Collages

Click on any image for larger view.


Click on any image for larger view.


Click on any image for larger view.



Click on any image for larger view.



IT’S ALWAYS FUN TO FIND SOMETHING WORTH taking home at a flea market. Better yet, it’s good to find something quite outside the ordinary where a creative act has taken place. My friend, photographer and raconteur Francois Robert, spotted these stamp constructions a year or so ago at a flea market. Apparently, someone was moved to recycle a collection of used postage stamps—the impetus for many a folk artist throughout history. Whether it be a few hundred bottle caps, popsicle sticks, old sewing spools, soft drink pop tops—whatever— if there are a lot of something, creative people will often find a way to put the objects to use.

Sound Panels from Dubble Bubble

REMEMBER THE ODD LITTLE COMICS IN DUBBLE BUBBLE GUM? As we grow up, most of us lose the practice of chewing big honking wads of bubble gum like this, but when you do get an opportunity to chew a piece as an adult, it’s a direct slide to the past. The blogger STEVE RODEN from Pasadena, CA at the “mity-fine” blog site Airform Archives assembled this group of “sound panels”— all treasured and saved from 1940s colored ink on wax paper Dubble Bubble comics. Remember, these panels are tiny, smaller than a postage stamp and usually way out of printing register. That’s the part I like the best, as evidenced in these enlargements.

Via here.

Rare Artist’s Palettes

(Above) Palette of van Gogh.

(Above) Palette of Seurat.

(Above) Palette of Renoir.

(Above) Palette of Moreau.

(Above) Palette of Gauguin.

(Above) Palette of Delacroix.

(Above) Palette of Degas.


WHAT CAN AN ARTIST’S PALETTE tell you about that artist? Possibly a lot. Interesting how Georges Seurat’s palette, so organized with massive amounts of white, makes you feel like you can match the palette to his style. Van Gogh’s palette, thick with paint—showing the struggle and fight of creating his many masterpieces. Delacroix’s palette may be my favorite. The color is so beautifully controlled, and he has dozens of “dark” and restrained colors. And with Gauguin, I wonder, can we see the color of the Tahitian landscape there?

I remember once getting the opportunity to hold in my bare hands one of Babe Ruth’s baseball bats, and one of his gloves. It was a rare and extraordinary experience few can say they have done. How would I feel to hold a palette that was once held by van Gogh or Gauguin? Incredible.

Via The Telegraph.

Pipe Dreams

(Above) Painting on canvas by Rene Magritte, 1928-1929.


(Above and below) Groups of pipes for sale on eBay.


PIPES ALWAYS REMIND ME OF THE SURREALISTS, Rene Magritte and Marcel Duchamp. Magritte’s famous painting “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (“This is not a pipe”) confounded the critics when he first exhibited it. Indeed, Magritte was correct. It was not a pipe, it was simply the image of a pipe. You couldn’t smoke it, it was an illusion—a flat 2-D representation of a pipe.

I would never collect pipes. I do not smoke and God knows I do not need another collecting obsession. But when I saw these two collections of pipes on eBay, it made me reflect on the essence of collecting. Looking at so many pipes together in one place, you begin to see differences. Seeing a large group of similar things helps one see the subtle changes, shapes, colors, textures and styles before you. Being a collector means being able to look at 48 pipes (or whatever) in front of you, and immediately being able to pick out the rare one, the modern fake or at the very least, ask the questions in your head that are necessary to begin to categorize them. Connoisseurship means knowledge. For the pipe collector, you’ll understand which pipes draw smoke the best, which ones have the best bowls, which woods are best.

Interested in buying a group of pipes? Just go here. The Magritte painting, if it were ever to come up for auction, would cost you some cool millions.