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Posts Tagged ‘art’

The Mystery of Picasso : time-lapse study of the great painter

The great Spanish painter Pablo Picasso’s process is revealed in this neat video. Filmed by Henri-Georges Clouzot with time-lapse photography, the video premiered in the 1956 documentary The Mystery of Picasso.

The Mystery of Picasso

Posted: 6th, September 2019 | In: Celebrities | Comment


Annette Messager turned dead sparrows into art

Annette Messager sparrows

In 1971, Annette Messager was invited to participate in a show at Galerie Germain in Paris. She should come up with something to do with wool. She made a lamb’s wool jumper for a dead sparrow.

I found my voice as an artist when I stepped on a dead sparrow on a street in Paris in 1971. I didn’t know why, but I was sure this sparrow was important because it was something very fragile that was near me and my life. Like the people I love, these small birds were always around me, yet they remained strange and mysterious. So I picked up the sparrow, took it home and knit a wool wrap for it. Why? I can’t say. You want to do something and don’t know why – all you know is that you have no choice, that it’s a necessity.”

One dead sparrow in a hand-knitted jumper became part of a collection that the finder and artist Annette Messager in 1972 called ‘Les Pensionnaires’ (‘The Residents’).

Spotter: Flashbak

Posted: 17th, July 2019 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment


Plastic bag walks across the road – video

I say, I say, i say, how did the plastic bag cross the road? First insert a frozen chicken, then warm in the sun and wait.

Posted: 16th, March 2019 | In: Gifs, Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment


Corbyn’s Blue Period: Laura Murray, Minted Aristocrats and a £50m Picasso

Corbyn Picasso

Gabriel Pogrund has huge news. A scoop! “EXCLUSIVE: The mystery of who sold Picasso’s “Child with a Dove” for £50M in 2013, one of the most expensive artworks ever, is today solved.” Who?! “It was the family of Laura Murray, Corbyn’s top aide, who also gifted her a £1.4m house. By me & @ShippersUnbound.”

A tale of minted former communists, nepotism, huge sums of cash, the randy Spanish goat and the man who would lead the nation. What a story this promises to be. A little aside before we tuck in: Laura Murray us being sued by Rachel Riley, co-presenter of ITV’s Countdown, for alleged libel. Now read on in the Times

Today it can be revealed that her family was behind the anonymous sale of one of the most expensive artworks in history, Pablo Picasso’s L’Enfant au Pigeon (Child with a Dove), which was sold for £50m in 2013. She also owns a share of a £1.3m north London property transferred to her by her mother, reportedly saving up to £500,000 in inheritance tax.

Murray is the daughter of Andrew Murray, 60, a key Corbyn adviser who comes from Scottish aristocracy and whose grandfather served as the imperial governor of Madras. He left the Communist Party after 40 years in 2016.


Who dares say socialism doesn’t pay? These people sound like a well-stocked elite. If we vote for them, do we all get to be their equals? Bread today – Picasso’s and pricey London pads tomorrow!

The Times adds:

Laura Murray, great-granddaughter of the 2nd Baron Aberconway, an Eton-educated Edwardian industrialist, and Lady Aberconway, his wife, who was bequeathed Picasso’s masterpiece by the art collector rumoured in the family to have been her lover, Samuel Courtauld. The Aberconway family’s decision to pull the work from public display at the Courtauld Gallery in London and put it up for sale through Christie’s, the auction house, in 2012 became a cause célèbre.

Get those Bullingdon Club application forms in the post. Corbyn and chums can yet be saved. If Picasso’s Blue Period is good enough for them, so too is Boris Johnson’s.

The identity of the seller was a mystery at the time, although speculation pointed to the branch of the family that still owns Baron Aberconway’s 5,000-acre estate in north Wales. In fact, the transaction was overseen by Laura Murray’s mother, Susan Michie, an academic, and her uncle, Jonathan Michie, an Oxford economist and university friend of Labour’s communications director, Seumas Milne. Both declined to comment.

But is it a scoop, really? In 2010, the Guardian told us:

The painting came to London in 1924 with Mrs RA Workman who was, along with her husband, a major collector of impressionist and post-impressionist art. She sold it a few years later to Samuel Courtauld, and on his death in 1947 he left it to his friend Lady Aberconway, and it had been in her family ever since.

The facts were known for years. And a quick look at a family tree could trace a line from the toff to the Trots. But the timing of the Times’ report is interesting.

Comment from Murray and the Labour Party features there none.

Posted: 10th, March 2019 | In: Money, Politicians, The Consumer | Comment


Cold War Steve: Steve McFadden stars in an exhibition by Twitter’s greatest artist

Cold War Steve mcfadden

 

The art of Cold War Steve is to feature in an exhibition at The Social, London. Called A Brief History of the World (1953 – 2018), the show’s running thread is the presence of British actor Steve McFadden, famed for playing tough nut Phil Mitchell on the BBBC dystopian soap opera, EastEnders. There’s fun to be had in spotting famous faces from the world stage and British telly. Personal favourites are poleaxed TalkSport DJ Alan Brazil and the late Cilla Black offering a quizzical look to us from the montage – a look that says ‘Who invited you?’ and ‘What the bloody hell am I doing here?’

Christopher Spencer, the talent behind @ColdWarSteve explains it simply: ” The more incongruous they were, the funnier.” And, boy, are they funny:

 

Cold War Steve mcfadden Cold War Steve mcfadden Cold War Steve mcfadden

 

More from @ColdWarSteve on Twitter.  A Brief History of the World (1953 – 2018) is at The Social from October 15.

Posted: 27th, September 2018 | In: Celebrities, News, The Consumer, TV & Radio | Comment


There’s a huge mural to Mark E Smith outside a chip shop in Prestwich

Mark E SMith Mural

 

Dave Haslam tweets this huge mural of The Fall’s former frontman Mark E Smith (5 March 1957 – 24 January 2018) being painted outside a chip shop in Prestwich by graffiti artist Akse P19.

 

Posted: 25th, September 2018 | In: Celebrities | Comment


Spain restores a 16th century relic and the result is unusual

To Estella, Spain, where a local expert is undertaking the “restoration” of the five centuries old painted wooden effigy of St. George at the Church of St Michael.

“The parish decided on its own to take action to restore the statue and gave the job to a local handicrafts teacher,” Mayor Koldo Leoz tells The Guardian. “The council wasn’t told and neither was the regional government of Navarre… It’s not been the kind of restoration that it should have been for this 16th-century statue. They’ve used plaster and the wrong kind of paint and it’s possible that the original layers of paint have been lost.”

You an blame the tools, but leave the artisan out of it:

 

Church Spain restoration St George

Original: Right; Restored version: Left. Or is it the other way around?

 

Spanish restorers have a rich history of this sort of thing.

Posted: 27th, June 2018 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment


James Joyce crayon marked manuscripts for Ulysses and Finnegans Wake

ulysses-manuscript joyce crayon

James Joyce crayon marks on his manuscript for ulysses

 

James Joyce wrote Finnegans Wake “lying on his stomach in bed, with a large blue pencil, clad in a white coat, and composed most of Finnegans Wake with crayon pieces on cardboard,” says Maria Popova. “The large crayons… helped him see what he was writing, and the white coat helped reflect more light onto the page at night.”

His obituary in the NYTimes noted:

While living in Zurich Joyce began to suffer from severe ocular illness and eventually underwent at least ten operations on his eyes. For years he was almost totally blind and much of his later writing was done with red crayon on huge white sheets of paper.

 

joyce_ulysses crayon

 

crayon james_joyce

 

“Joyce used a different colored crayon each time he went through a notebook incorporating notes into his draft,” adds Derek Attridge in a review of The Finnegans Wake Notebooks at BuffaloThe crayons were “a scrupulousness which has never been satisfactorily explained”.

And steeped in deep meaning, of course, Unlkess the witer was a great meketeer. As he said: “I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant – and that’s the only way of insuring one’s immortality.”

Spotter: Flashbak, Open Culture

Posted: 26th, June 2018 | In: Books | Comment


Margaret Calvert creates Women At Work

Margaret-Calvert-Woman-At-Work

 

Margaret Calvert has produced her first print. Called Woman at Work, the print riffs on her fonts for British Rail and designs for the UK’s road signs with, such as ‘Man at Work’ – that silhouette of a man digging inside red-rimmed triangle.

Calvert has said of the man digging: “Man having difficulty with a large umbrella… Of course, once you see that, it just looks like a large umbrella, but I don’t mind that.”

“Not every project I’ve been involved in turns out as brilliantly as my Woman at Work print,” says Margaret, “having started life as an abandoned roadworks sign (jokingly referred to as a man having difficulty with a large umbrella) and ending up as a painting in the Royal Academy’s 2008 Summer exhibition. Now translated into a magnificent print by the superb skills of Matthew Rich, giving it a completely new dimension. The experience of working with the Jealous team has been inspirational.”

Spotter: It’s Nice That, Flashbak

Prints at www.jealousgallery.com

 

Posted: 28th, April 2018 | In: The Consumer | Comment


Former Chelsea midfielder Michael Essien honoured with mishappen statue

Football fans in Ghana have paid tribute to former Chelsea midfielder Michael Essien. They’ve erected a weird statue in his honour. The life-size totem to Essien stands in Kumasi, Ghana’s second city.

 

essien-statue-chelsea-ghana

Via

Photo: @addojunr/Twitter

Did the artist ever seen Essien in the flesh, or just view him on 8ibit video games?

 

Posted: 4th, January 2018 | In: Chelsea, Sports, The Consumer | Comment


Pimp my cement mixer: artist creates the disco ball truck

cement glitterball

 

Public art is uplifting.  Benedetto Bufalino pimped a truck into a Disco Ball Cement Mixer.

 

 

 

Spotter: Designboom

Posted: 9th, December 2017 | In: The Consumer | Comment


Reported to Nutshell Laboratories: Frances Glessner Lee’s Incredible Dolls’ House Murder Scenes

 

There’s a TV series in the work of Frances Glessner Lee (1878–1962), whose hand-made dioramas of murder scenes were used to train US detectives to “convict the guilty, clear the innocent, and find the truth in a nutshell.” It might be tad slow, as Lee manufactures a crime scene – assisted by carpenter Ralph Moser, a typical study took the duo three months and cost $3,000 to $6,000 (equivalent to $40,000 to $80,000 today). (Moser built the structures of the rooms and most wooden elements, like tiny working doors, windows, and chairs. He constructed every piece to Lee’s strict specifications, so much so that Lee once rejected a rocking chair made by Moser because it did not rock the same number of times as the original) – but have you seen some of the bilge on TV?

Lee even wrote up reports as “Reported to Nutshell Laboratories”. It’s all there: the crime; the character; the will-they won’t they romance; the wit. Call me TV, I have ideas…

 

 

Much more on Flashbak

 

Posted: 25th, November 2017 | In: The Consumer | Comment


New 3D Zebra Crossing has drivers in Iceland on high alert

Ísafjörður, Iceland, crossingzebra

 

Mind the gap when crossing the road in Ísafjörður, Iceland, where the usual zebra-crossing has been given a third dimension by street painting company Vegi GÍH and the city’s environmental commissioner Ralf Trylla. The idea is to promote art and make drivers pay more attention when approach the crossing.

 

Ísafjörður, Iceland, crossingzebra

 

Given the sensational scenery in Iceland, the zebra might be necessary in keeping drivers’ eyes on the road.

 

Spotter: Iceland Magazine,  Swissmiss

Posted: 26th, October 2017 | In: Politicians, Strange But True, Technology | Comment


Peter Dahmen’s stunning pop-up books

 

Pop-up books done well are gorgeous. So here’s a peeks at the work of Peter Dahmen and his video Most Satisfying Video of Pop-Up Cards.

 

 

Spotter: The Kid Should See This

Posted: 26th, October 2017 | In: Books, Gifs, The Consumer | Comment


‘Artist’s Shit’ tinned on May 1931 goes for millions of dollars

Piero-Manzoni-poo 1961

 

In 1961 Piero Manzoni sorted his turds into 30 gram piles and placed each serving into one of 90 cans, which he then sealed and signed. And tins of “Merda d’Artista” are changing hands for loads money.

Oddity Central has more:

In 2007, the Tate art gallery in London, bought one of Manzoni’s 90 cans for £22,350 ($30,000), and while that may seem like a lot for what is literally just canned crap, they actually got a great deal. In 2007, another can of “Merda d’Artista” was auctioned off in Milan, for a whopping £81,000 ($108,000). Crazy, right? Not really, just another good deal, because Manzoni’s cans of poop are currently worth around $300,000 apiece. Last year, someone bought can no. 54 for £182,500 ($242,000).

Sound investment or something for Paul Calf?

 

 

Spotter: BB

Posted: 16th, September 2017 | In: Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment


Artist turns train tickets into geodesic spheres

Recycle your old travel cards, plastic bottles and playing cards like Nick Sayers, who turns detritus into geodesic spheres. His stuff is held together with joints made by cuts. No glue.

 

travels cards sphere playing cards spheres art

Spotter: make

Posted: 12th, July 2017 | In: The Consumer | Comment


Emery Blagdon and His Healing Machine

 

In an unheated shed near Stapleton, Nebraska in the late 1950s, visionary artist Emery Blagdon began twisting pieces of old wire into patterns with pliers, attaching aluminum foil, beads, ribbons and an infinite array of everyday cast-off items. His work became part of a unique environment that he created, believing it could generate natural energy from the earth and help people attain better health. Spurred on by personal tragedy, Blagdon’s obsession to create a “Healing Machine” was life-long as he believed people could be cured by his work.

 

emery blagdon

Spotter: PBS

 

Posted: 11th, July 2017 | In: Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment