art

Corey Haim’s Artwork

Amy Laviero :: Wednesday, March 31st, 2010 3:30 pm

Although many are familiar with Corey Haim’s acting work, few have been introduced to his art. Haim, who died at his home a few weeks ago, enjoyed painting in his spare time, creating artfully designed abstractions with bright, thickly layered acrylic paint. Seven of his creations hang in museums in Sweden, Switzerland, and Germany, and one recently sold in Belgium for $7,400. Haim’s official website recently created a gallery of his artwork, which you can check out here.

Haim passed away from an enlarged heart and fluid filled lungs on March 10th, though the official cause of death will not be determined until the toxicology report is complete. Investigators subpoenaed nearly twenty doctors who may have provided Haim with unnecessary prescription drugs.

Death Star Watermelon

Adam Kearney :: Monday, March 22nd, 2010 3:30 pm

It’s officially Spring, so it’s time to get those new picnic tablecloths and brush off the barbecues. And if you’re a complete Star Wars fanatic, you should appreciate the genius behind this galactic-class creation, courtesy of Make, Craft, and Flikr user Silverisdead.

Smoking Kills, With Style

Adam Kearney :: Monday, March 22nd, 2010 3:00 pm

Now I think it’s strange when I see some actor in an ’80s movie puffing on a cig like it’s no big deal. You have Ray Stanz in Ghostbusters for instance, lighting ‘em up like they were $1.00 a pack. He was the rolemodel for a whole generation of kids, hell I was pretending to be Ray on the playground in kindergarten, smoking what appear to be Marlboro Reds and nobody batted an eye. Now we are bombarded by public-funded advertisements depicting the horrible deaths all of us smokers will statistically succumb to. The worst of these, I believe, is that poor woman who had her fingers removed from smoking-related circulation problems, and whose images graced the advertisements of nearly every subway station in NYC last year. But for some real artistic advertisements, the ones I would much rather see tax dollars spent on, check out the “50 Most Creative Anti-Smoking Advertisements.”

Spencer Tunick’s Latest Project Met with Mixed Reactions

Amy Laviero :: Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 12:50 pm

During his latest photo-shoot, art photographer Spencer Tunick enlisted 5,200 volunteers to strip down in front of Sydney’s famed Opera House. The installation is the latest of over 100 Tunick has organized and was commissioned by Austrailia’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, which began last Saturday and which is one of the world’s largest and most flamboyant. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is being met with mixed reactions. MORE »

MGMT Unveil Album Cover for Congratulations

Amy Laviero :: Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 5:10 pm

Last week we posted the track listing for MGMT’s upcoming album, Congratulations, and today we give you the spectacular album cover which was unveiled earlier today.

The duo commissioned artist Anthony Ausgang, who is known for his “lowbrow” artwork depicting cartoon characters. They gave him a short description of what they were looking for, but left it up to him to create the piece. Some blogs are referring to it as the worst album cover they’ve ever seen, but I kind of love it.

Thoughts?

Boingboing recently conducted an interview with Ausgang where he addresses his thoughts on Lowbrow and Pop Surrealism art, and explains how he met up with MGMT. MORE »

Review: Patti Smith and Steven Sebring: “Objects of Life”

Amy Rose Spiegel :: Friday, February 12th, 2010 1:15 pm

Last week, I caught the last day of the eye-popping, intricate Josh Dorman exhibit curated by the writer Paul Auster at the Mary Ryan Gallery. The pieces were so incredibly detailed that as I stood in front of them and examined each one, I still felt like I wasn’t able to see every part of each one. There was so much going on - it was almost visually exhausting, but it was the kind of exhaustion that comes with an accomplishment, like the pleasant ache of climbing a mountain or finishing something else one works hard on. Maybe I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to see anything else after being so engaged by Dorman’s artwork, but when I saw that the most recent exhibit of Patti Smith’s artwork was directly across the street at the Robert Miller Gallery, I knew I had to go. Smith is one of my favorite musicians, and up to that point, I hadn’t really seen any of her visual art, and I was interested in seeing what she had put together.

Calvin And Hobbes Creator And Comic (Strip) Genius Bill Watterson’s First Interview In 20 Years

Amy Rose Spiegel :: Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 2:50 pm

For me and so many others, the comic strip “Calvin and Hobbes” has always been essential reading. I obsessively collected the anthologies as a kid. I still have most of them today, which is the only reason I haven’t purchased the beautiful collection of every strip, from beginning to end, which was released in recent years. When I lived with my boyfriend last winter, we would joke about the fact that there was a “Calvin and Hobbes” book (sometimes two) in every room of the apartment at all times, which we neither planned nor minded one bit. We’d read them in the kitchen as we waited for things to come out of the oven, on the couch in the living room, or on our stomachs on the bed. They were always freshly funny and often poignant, despite how many times during the course of our lives we had read them.

Josh Dorman Turns Maps Into Dream Landscapes

Amy Rose Spiegel :: Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 5:20 pm

Josh Dorman’s current exhibition at Mary Ryan Gallery in the West Village consists of gorgeous drawings and paintings on old maps and dark (in the figurative and literal sense) graphite drawings of whales and a nautilus. It’s hard not to think of time when you look at them. I was struck by the elaborateness of every piece and was stuck imagining the artist at work for long, long stretches. More than this, though, I loved the juxtaposition of the antiquated maps and the wholly contemporary artwork inflicted upon them. What would the cartographers think?

I highly recommend checking the exhibition out. The works seem muted online; it’s tough to see the textures of the maps and the color of the fresh paint against them. Despite this, they’re still stunning when you visit them at the website above. The work is strange, intriguing, and oddly beautiful - everything that I believe that an exhibition should be.

art