We recently had the chance to get ourselves to Oslo and were eager to discover the street art scene the city could offer and came across the wonderful pieces below.
Dan Witz and his 3D street art
New-York based street artist and real painter, Dan Witz masters the technique called “trompe-l’oeil” with his technique – he uses metal grate graphic that he backs with a 1/8″ thick plastic that give the lifting effect and then the 3D effect is achieved.
Head to the blitz website to check out the latest series entitled “What the %$#@?” (WTF) series and pocket you one up for just 30 dollars.
Check out the video about Dan Witz 3D street art:
Brazilian street art takes on the football world cup
The 2014 edition of the football World Cup has now been on for almost a week and it has already been labelled as the better edition of the last 20 years.
While most of us have been enjoying great goals from the safety of our couch, brazilian street artists have taken their art to the city walls of Brazil, mainly Rio De Janeiro and Sao Paulo to remind us of the dark side of the Great game as they put it.
Artist: Paulo Ito
Where: Sao Paulo
The mural shows a starving, crying child with only a football on his dinner plate serves to highlight the vast expense of hosting the World Cup when the money for food, schools and hospitals is needed so much.
“There is so much wrong in Brazil that it is difficult to know where to start,” Ito said. It seems the beautiful game has a dark side.” says Paul Ito
FIFA is not the most welcome and loads of artists ask the football association to go. Cranio is one if them it would seem. One of his mural shows a suited man throwing a sack labelled “public money” down the toilet.
Artist: B.Shanti from the Captain Borderline crew
What: Anti Copa Mural Project organized by Colorrevolution and Amnesty International
Where: Rio de Jainero (Brazil)
Dedicated to all brasilians who lost their home during the brutal eviction.
But not everything is negative, take a look at this street view project from Google showing you panoramic views of (happy) street art from Rio De Janeiro and Sao Paulo amongst others.
> https://www.google.com/maps/views/streetview/brazils-painted-streets?gl=us
Graffiti artists, put your cans away, this train ain’t your usual moving canvas
It is already early evening but you just have enough time to jump on that bus and get your favourite spray cans from your local art supplies shop.
Should the shop be closed by the time you get there, Bombing Science online shop will be there to the rescue, you happily reassure yourself.
You like painting on trains, very much so. But the Genbi Shinkansen train is not or should not be one of them since artists have already been there and have made it beautiful.
The world’s fastest art appreciation
“The world’s fastest art appreciation” is what East Japan Railways, the train operator running the service, calls it.
The high-speed Genbi Shinkansen opened last year on the Jōetsu Shinkansen railway line but we only learned about it recently.
The train carried out three round trips daily on most Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays, and while speeding through Japan (up to 210km/h), it gives its commuters displays of prominent contemporary artworks throughout its carriages.
Seven of the carriages in fact are used as “rolling art spaces”. All seven show a different artist and which gives passengers a vast choice of material to enjoy.
Even better, not only the indoors are used to display art. Indeed the windowless carriages of the Genbi Shinkansen’s are wallpapered with striking photographs of Niigata’s Nagaoka Fireworks Festival by photographer Mika Ninagawa
Art on display in each carriage
You can enjoy art throughout the entire train. Lose yourself from one end to the other and enjoy modern art created by prominent artists.
Kids have not been forgotten and should find joy in the specifically designed playroom where they can interact with modern art first hand.
We have included below photographs of our favourites carriages
Car #11
The artwork on display was conceived by incorporating the unique space, light and speed of the Shinkansen, and built around the themes of bountiful harvests, festivals and light. Take a seat and experience an amazing moment of change in which you discover the immensity of the light that surrounds us in the world.
Car #13
We selected this carriage because the art is mainly about landscapes and here at Art-Pie, we appreciate very much the subject. Sip on a coffee while looking at artworks inspired from the GENBI SHINKANSEN route, a traditional thoroughfare in use for centuries around the city of Joetsu with Mikuni Kaido being the name of an ancient highway in Japan.
Designs of the Year
I must admit I don’t often think about how design is all around me. I could say it is embedded in my life, from when I wake up to when I go to bed. My alarm clock, the typography in my book, the label on my favourite bottle of plonk and the lamp I switch off at night.
If you think design is just function, think again. Immerse yourself in the top floor of The Design Museum with their Designs of the Year exhibition.
This array of international pieces span: Architecture, Digital, Fashion, Furniture, Graphics, Product and Transport. Feast your eyes on this ‘look book’ across the design spectrum for the museums Design Awards. A high profile judging panel decide the best entries in each of the seven categories. The category award winners and the overall winner of the Design of the Year Award shall be announced in April 2012.
Turning function on its head, the Design Museum display also includes works poking fun at design in computer functions with – Your Browser Sent A Request That This Server Could Not Understand – an illustrated depiction of the internet by Koen Taselaar.
Designs of the Year looks outside the box; not just new spangled technology or expensive materials. Noma Bar (above) produces simple shapes, that reveal hidden possibilities, whose negative and positive spaces draw the eye every time. There are designs that are simplistic, that save lives. The Earthquake Proof Table by Arthur Brutter and Ido Bruno (below) is astonding in its clean back to basics design that could help thousands.
Shopping online and on the move is nothing new but South Korea have taken mobile and digital aspects to the next level. Homeplus Tesco Virtual Store is the result – below. Choose your item from their virtual store!
Augmented reality is given a breath of fresh air by Swappu, creating a ‘holo-deck’ feel, well, okay it’s not quite up to Star Trek level. The animations are great and the playfulness of it will be a hit for kids. Its a soft and easily lovable digital world that shall no doubt advance rapidly.
See the app in action here > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBmLWdjtzPw
One Thousand Cranes for Japan is a charity project that aims to inspire and bring people together to be part of a final creation. Members of the public can choose, download and print off the paper designs to fold into their own origami creation. A chance to be part of the designs final creation, it’s nothing groundbreaking, but it’s not meant to be.
The Comedy Carpet (below images) takes typography bold and big. It reminds us font is more than just Arial and Times New Roman selected on a computer screen. This gigantic installation, created by Why Not Associates, sprawls out in front of the Blackpool Tower and features over 160,000 granite letters embedded in concrete. It refers to the work of more than 1,000 comedians and comedy writers, giving a visual form to jokes, songs and catchphrases.
The Crates (below) by Naihan Li & Co is a product that is a must for the clothes obsessed, and those who need organisation of all their essential fashion items. See just how functional a plain industrial looking crate can be, reacting to our clothing hoarding and need for storage.
This work is in stark contrast to Sarah Burton‘s now infamous handmade lace that’s delicately on display. This painstakingly handcrafted work was stitched into the nations memories on Kate Middleton’s wedding dress.
The wide spectrum at the Designs of the Year should open up your eyes to the flexibility and intricacy of design and its ability to problem solve, whilst looking back to the past for inspiration.
With mass market production all to easy to snub, design is at an exciting point; using mass production processes to save lives but taking us back to simplicity, creating unique angles on our lives.
The Designs of the Year exhibition runs 8 February – 4 July at The Design Museum. For tickets and information click me!
BT ArtBox eBay charity auction
If you strolled in Central London recently, you must have come across these unusual looking phone boxes and maybe wondered what all this was about.
Peter Blake, Gerry Judah, Rob and Nick Carter, sculptor duo the DnA Factory and some 70 others artists and designers took part in the BT ArtBox project where they had to transformed the notorious red telephone box into a piece of art.
This project is sponsored by BT to raise money for ChildLine and all “artboxes” are u for auction until the 22nd July so get bidding today, it is for a gret cause.
Which ones do you like or have seen? We have included our top 5 below. See all BT ArtBox entries.
BT ArtBox by Gerry Judah
BT artbox ‘Utopia’ by Basson and Brooke
BT artbox ‘Dial M for monster’ by Lauren O’farell
BT Artbox ‘Colour Wash’ by Rob & Nick Carter
Four cities at Black Rat Press
In 2007 the global population living in urban environments passed the halfway mark, and that trend is accelerating. As cities become bigger and denser, and within the rigid structures of a mass-market society, truly meaningful personal interactions become increasingly elusive. The anonymising effects of scale and excess on the actor in the postmodern city can lead to a shared sense of social isolation.
In Four Cities Black Rat Projects will take a look at the four artists whose experience of urbanity propelled them to create within their environment in similar ways. With new works by represented artist Swoon, and secondary market works sourced from Os Gemeos, Banksy and Shepard Fairey, BRP will map the parameters of the street art movement across continents through the voices that emerged simultaneously as the strongest of their respective city scenes.
Artists featured: Swoon, Os Gemeos, Banksy, Shepard Fairey
Where –
Black Rat Projects
When –
20th May – 23rd June 2011 (Preview – 19th May – 6-9pm)
12 incredible watercolour tattoos
Too scared to get a real tattoo? How about a watercolour one, easily washable and as beautiful as the real ones. Here is a selection for you.
EnikOne x Keelan Dadd x Chevy
Los Angeles base artist EnikOne met Keelan Dadd, he gacve him a design, EnikOne picked a brand new Chevy Sonic car and applied that design. Over 2 days of great collaboration. We will also appreciate the skateboarding skills of Keelan dadd or and the sun always shine in LA.
Simon Stalenhgas’s sci-fi digital paintings
I always wondered if I could appreciate ‘digital painting’ as much as more traditional painting, what I mean by that is art which is made with brushes or pencils on some panels or canvases as opposed to via a computer.
Call me old fashion but I like thinking about artists spending hours in their studio, stroking or splashing paint on canvases but I must admit, I now also get exciting with this computer assisted method of painting that we call ‘Digital painting’
And how could you not be when you look at Simon Stålenhag | Art-Pie‘s works – keep on reading
About the artworks
Simon’s paintings and stories take place in an alternate version of Sweden in the 80s and 90s. The central location is the countryside of Mälaröarna, a string of islands and half islands just west of Stockholm. The background is this:
In the 1950s, the Swedish government orders the construction of a large particle accelerator. The state agency RIKSENERGI is tasked with developing this massive project. In 1969 the The Facility For Research In High Energy Physics is ready, located deep below the pastoral Mälaröarna-countryside. The local population soon calls it THE LOOP.
From it’s inception to it’s closure in 1994, The Loop was the largest accelerator in the world. The thousands of staff: scientists, engineers and maintenance workers, all serve Riksenergi during these years – and makes possible tremendous scientific advances. But the power of the Gravitron, the heart of the accelerator, proves difficult to control. The side effects of the project are dramatic. Strange sightings and bizarre rumours taints the scientific image of The Loop.
In the shadow of the weird machines filling the countryside, life continues as normal. The kids of Mälaröarna grew up living above the technological marvel of The Loop, but for them it was just a part of their very ordinary lives. Until strange beasts from another time showed up, that is.
About Simon Stålenhag
Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag burst onto the art scene in 2013 when his first series of paintings were shared on the Internet. His original blend of naturalistic landscape paintings with science fiction elements and a very low key recollection of growing up in the eighties struck a chord. Not just in Sweden, but all over the world.
Based in Stockholm, Sweden, Simon uploaded his first digital paintings onto the Internet in 2013, since then he has become something of a phenomena in the art and sci-fi communities. Simon shares his time between a small cabin at Mälaröarna (the setting that inspires his work) and an apartment in Stockholm.