"Between two such beings as he and I, the one a perfect volcano, the other boiling too, inwardly, a sort of struggle was preparing."
In February of 1888, a decade after Van Gogh found his purpose, he moved to the town of Arles in the South of France. There, he exploded into a period of immense creative fertility, completing more than two hundred paintings, one hundred watercolors and sketches, and his famous Sunflowers series. But he also lived in extreme poverty and endured incessant inner turmoil, much of which related to his preoccupation with enticing Gauguin — whom he admired with unparalleled ardor (“I find my artistic ideas extremely commonplace in comparison with yours,” Van Gogh wrote) and who at the time was living and working in Brittany — to come live and paint with him. This coveted cohabitation, Van Gogh hoped, would be the beginning of a larger art colony that would serve as “a shelter and a refuge” for Post-Impressionist painters as they pioneered an entirely novel, and therefore subject to spirited criticism, aesthetic of art. Van Gogh wrote to Gauguin in early October of 1888:I’d like to see you taking a very large share in this belief that we’ll be relatively successful in founding something lasting.
Despite his destitution, Van Gogh spent whatever money he had on two beds, which he set up in the same small bedroom. Seeking to make his modest sleeping quarters “as nice as possible, like a woman’s boudoir, really artistic,” he resolved to paint a set of giant yellow sunflowers onto its white walls. He wrote beseeching letters to Gauguin, and when the French artist sent him a self-portrait as part of their exchange of canvases, Van Gogh excitedly showed it around town as the likeness of a beloved friend who was about to come visit.Gauguin finally agreed and arrived in Arles in mid-October, where he was to spend about two months, culminating with the dramatic ear incident....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Fascinating back story to the fabled Van Gogh incident.
An architect by day and a master of illusion in his offtime, Ukranian Oleg Shuplyak, aka MrOlik, uses his technical skills as a trained architect to paint surreal optical illusions that contain portraits of other artists, authors and historical figures.
Is it real?! The chalk drawing of London's most popular underground train station looks to have that couple a bit off-balance as the man holds onto the wall.. it must be as good in person as it is digitally! Wait ..is that sign on the far left not real?!
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Creativity with your coffee. This amazing collection of 3-D sidewalk art, done in chalk, will absolutely stun you! Essential viewing. 10/10
Usually an abandoned place is something that can be seen in a horror film. For some reason, the desolate landscape is the perfect setting for them because they easily provide an eerie aesthetic and unsettling feelings. Because of the array of emotions abandoned locations can conjure, they have become popular settings for photographers to use too.
From abandoned malls to entire cities that have been left behind, there are a surprising amount of desolate places around the world. Did you know that even New York City has an island that hasn't been inhabited since the 60s?
These photo series showcase gruesomely abandoned locations like an abandoned veterinarian school in France that still has dead animals in it. And contrarily, it also features intriguing pop culture places like abandoned Star Wars film sets....
Portland artist Ron English has spent his career lampooning some of America's top brands, and he's got the cease-and-desist letters to prove it. Undeterred, English and Last Gasp Publishing have compiled his greatest hits in Status Factory. The picture book includes photorealistic oil paintings that mock such marketing icons as Marlboro Man (as a cigarette-puffing 10-year old), Mickey Mouse (in a gas mask) and Ronald McDonald (50 pounds overweight).
To elaborate on the thinking behind the candy-colored satires showcased in the gallery above, English talks to Co.Create about "reverse shoplifting," the perverse magic of saucer-eyed hucksters, truth in advertising, and how he uses diorama to make art from a kid's point of view....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Now that's a national lampoon! Props to artist Ron English
October 12th in Joshua Tree, California, artist Phillip K Smith, III revealed his light based project, Lucid Stead. Hundreds of people from New York City to Canada traveled to experience it. The installation is composed of mirror, LED lighting, custom built electronic equipment and Arduino programming, amalgamated with a 70 year old preexisting structure.
This architectural intervention, at first, seems alien in context to the bleak landscape but upon further viewing, imposes a delirious, almost spiritual experience. Like the enveloping vista that changes hue as time passes, Lucid Stead transforms. It also adapts personal perception, realigning one’s sensory priorities....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Creativity with your coffee: Is it a desert cabin or just light and mirrors? Wonderful art by Phillip K Smith III.
ON FRIDAY EVENING, inside an old-movie-house-cum-art-gallery at the heart of San Francisco's Mission district, Google graphics guru Blaise Agüera y Arcas delivered a speech to an audience of about eight hundred geek hipsters.
He spoke alongside a series of images projected onto the wall that once held a movie screen, and at one point, he showed off a nearly 500-year-old double portrait by German Renaissance painter Hans Holbein. The portrait includes a strangely distorted image of a human skull, and as Agüera y Arcas explained, it's unlikely that Holbein painted this by hand. He almost certainly used mirrors or lenses to project the image of a skull onto a canvas before tracing its outline. "He was using state-of-the-art technologies," Agüera y Arcas told his audience.
Neural networks are not only driving the Google search engine but spitting out art for which some people will pay serious money.His point was that we've been using technology to create art for centuries—that the present isn't all that different from the past. It was his way of introducing the gallery's latest exhibit, in which every work is the product of artificial neural networks—networks of computer hardware and software that approximate the web of neurons in the human brain. Last year, researchers at Google created a new kind of art using neural nets, and this weekend, the tech giant put this machine-generated imagery on display in a two-day exhibit that raised roughly $84,000 for the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, a San Francisco nonprofit devoted to the confluence of art and tech....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Neural networks are not only driving the Google search engine but creating art for which some people will pay serious money.
There’s no shortage of humor in Benedetto Bufalino’s work. From playable ping pong tables made from upside down cars, and aquariums built from telephone booths, Bufalino has a knack for turning the ordinary into the absurd.
The French artist’s most recent creative intervention invites pedestrians to a party at a construction site in Lyon, France, Bufalino has created the ‘disco-ball cement mixer’ that glimmers and gleams a radiant spectrum by night. as the mixer rotates, mirrored tiles cladding the truck reflect rays of light across the surrounding site. ...
Jeff Domansky's insight:
A disco ball cement truck and party? Only the French!! Benedetto Bufalino's most recent creative intervention invites pedestrians to a party at a construction site.
San Francisco artists Ransom & Mitchell blend photography, digital painting and 3D CG to produce portraits of sideshow acts seen in traveling Carnivals from long ago.
These pieces were created by Jason Mitchell & Stacey Ransom for The Rough and Ready Sideshow, a group show at the Bash Contemporary. The show also includes artwork by Stephanie Vega, whose work I shared with you last Halloween, Alexandra Manukyan and Aunia Kahn.
Director/photographer Jason Mitchell and set designer/photo illustrator Stacey Ransom create highly detailed and visually lush portraits and scenarios by combining their talents with elaborate costumes, hair and make-up, props, hand-painted backdrops and set design. Then they add their own unique style of digital illustration and 3D computer generation.
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Intriguing digital multimedia and creativity at it's best.
A recent project used nuanced imaging technology and classification systems to robotize the process of understanding how famous artists have influenced one another.
Could a computer program influence how we understand art history and the canon? Or, could an artificially intelligent algorithm do the work of art experts for them? A recent researcher project doesn't quite suggest such a reality, but it does demonstrate that machines can highlight subtleties within arts and culture that humans have previously never noticed.In a paper titled "Toward Automated Discovery Of Artistic Influence" by Babak Saleh and a team of computer science researchers at Rutgers, the academics explained how they used nuanced imaging technology and classification systems to robotize the process of understanding how famous artists have influenced and inspired one another.
For their research, the team chose 1,700 paintings by 66 artists, covering the 15th to the late 20th century. Using a technique that analyzes visual concepts called "classemes"—wherein objects, color shades, subjects' movement, and more are marked—the researchers created a list of 3,000 classemes for each painting, data which The Physics arXiv Blog compares to a vector. Then, they used an artificially intelligent algorithm to evaluate the vectors and look for similarities or overlapping qualities among the 1,700 paintings. ArXiv adds, "To create a ground truth against which to measure their results, they also collate expert opinions on which these artists have influenced the others."...
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Fascinating application of technology to art and creativity. Good read. 9/10
...If you happen to be on a road trip this August, driving down a highway through the middle of nowhere in North Dakota or New Mexico, you may suddenly see a giant modern painting at the side of the road in between fast food ads. In suburban malls, classic photographs will replace posters advertising movies or mobile phones. In cities, art will sprawled across buses and subway posters. All around the country, 50,000 billboards that normally try to sell something will be transformed into art.
Art Everywhere US is the American version of a project that began last summer in the U.K., where 22,000 billboards and poster sites were covered with British art. The event this year will be the largest outdoor art show that has ever happened....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
What a great project! The largest outdoor art show that has ever happened will roll out across the US this August. Watch for it, coming to a mall, roadside, or...
Robin Good: A great short video from PBS brings together the views and opinions of three great web designers: Jason Santa Maria, Jeffrey Zeldman, Whitney Hess.
From BoingBoing.net: "The explosion of the internet over the past 20 years has led to the development of one of the newest creative mediums: the website.
Web designers have adapted through the technological developments of html, CSS, Flash, and JavaScript, and have mastered the balance between creativity and usability.
Now with the advance of mobile, the greatest websites have taken user experience and responsive design to the next level, and continue our evolution from print to a digital world."
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Fascinating back story to the fabled Van Gogh incident.