Kid Ontology Sings The Blues

In 1980, an artist named Bill Brand had an idea to create a sequence of paintings, lining the walls of the Q subway line on its way from Brooklyn into Manhattan, that when viewed through a sliver-long opening on a subway car would produce a flickering, moving, abstract image. This massive zoetrope was refurbished and cleaned last Fall, and retroactively given the quaint, World’s Fair-esque title the “Mass Transiscope”. Says Brand: I think it was such a preposterous idea that no one bothered to say no”

Read more about the piece here. Video below.

Kenji Hirata’s art is dense, brightly colored, hyper-symmetrical, otherworldly and optimistic. He cites as influences, “Jamaican dance hall sound systems, sci-fi futurism, billboards and hand painted signage of South East Asia”. I respect his conscious goal of recreating musical worlds visually; this seems to be something most artists inevitably allude to, fumble around, or reference obliquely.

Here’s a pretty amazing stop motion video that Hirata did to a tune by DJ Klock:

Hirata is currently in a two person show at Fifty 24 SF Gallery in San Francisco until June 24th.

These photos, of a 1:1 replica of Mobile Suit Gundam built in Odaiba, Japan, lit up at night, are just breathtaking. More photos here.

Korean artist Gwon Osang creates lifelike sculptures using photographs of his subjects, attached to mannequins. The result is a subversion of the utility of photographs as keepsakes of memory; Osang imagines an android like world in which the isolated images aggregate to form a whole that is, in its disrupted, fractured grammar, merely a warped sum of its imperfect parts. As collections of images, the photo-men and women of Osang’s sculptures at once present a multitude of perspectives, angles, colors, and approaches with which to approach the human body, and articulates the dreamlike breakdown that occurs when we do not sweep our loved ones into the visual shorthand of our binocular view.

I particularly like the sculptures that are unemotional, casual, and affectless. They have the grim, squeamish, pixelated demeanor of a Sims character. The horror of The Sims, to me, comes from its morbid boredom and routine. It is the sense that these dumb, blocky sculptures have grasped a basic idea that underpins human existence: that of routine, and mindnumbing boredom.

Osang’s sculptures express our inability to comprehend that we contain multitudes, that we are also creatures of light, that our bodies extend in angles and break into fractals. Even his mutant-bodies, with two heads, small heads, and duck heads, seem strangely accurate and proportional. It is hard to put the same visual boundaries and apply the same laws to creatures composed of light as it is to creatures of flesh and blood.

Read more here.

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Portland based illustrator Nas Chompas commits bright, cartoony, cozy & pastoral scenarios to paper.

It makes you want to play with (fake, cartoon) bears in the great outdoors. Wrestling in the (post-processed, saturated) clear blue water, stripping naked and flailing bloodied monster knuckles, rolling your animal body into the (curved, pen-marked) thistle and starving through the (glitter and glue starred) night, your only food the pheasants you’ve strangled to death and eaten raw. (not really.)

Ivan Mayorquin is an artist based in Mazatlin, Mexico. Very cute and intense.

The art of Alex One! Is fun! He likes ducks! What the fuck!

I know, my posts are getting more and more eloquent. Alexone’s art work is up in Carmicheal Gallery in Hollywood until May 28th. Rock on, young jedi.

Adam Wallacavage’s photos mirror his restless, hobby-laden lifestyle: The Philadelphia based photographer, sculptor, spear-fisher and carpenter catalogs a Dionysian carnival in his photographs, a funhouse mirror of outsiders, dandies, skaters and graffiti artists. At a young age, Wallacavage photographed friends skateboarding in Philadelphia, which got him his start snapping pictures for skate magazines like Thrasher. Currently, he shoots photos for popular art magazines like Juxtapoz and Swindle. He owns a home in South Philadelphia that he has been renovating with a nautical theme–creating plaster Octopus chandeliers and adding in portholes. (The chandeliers were so popular that they later featured in a gallery show at NYC’s Jonathan Levine Gallery) They may seem strange or like novelty items, but to Wallacavage it’s important that the octopi have a function and utility. As with his photos, the bizarre is more fun when it has a basis in reality. He was nice enough to answer some questions for me.

Why did you settle down in Philadelphia?

It’s a great city, close to everything and easy to get around. My family is here as well as so many friends.

You started out photographing skater friends–Do you prefer to photograph people whose interests are extensions of your own, or do you prefer to climb into the worlds of others, as you do while photographing subcultures for Swindle?

I like it all. I shoot photos down the street at FDR skatepark of my friends just for fun for the FDR myspace page and just goof around with it. I love shooting things for magazines as it give me a chance to meet new people and see things that are somewhat exclusive.




Are you still renovating your home? Are there any new additions you plan on making in the future?
It’s a slow process but yes. I usually spend about a year thinking about an idea then just kick it out rather quickly when the inspiration hits.

Do you have dinner parties at your house? If so, what do you serve? Do you have a lot of guests over?
I used to all the time, usually just BBQ’s in my Tikki bamboo backyard. The dining room is close to the back so it’s really nice. I normally just invite about 5 people and let the word spread and the place fills up fast.

You were one of the founders of Space 1026, the collective and art space in Philadelphia. How did that begin, and what is your relationship with the space/collective now?
I was living in Philly waiting for the rest of the founders move back from Providence. Once they found a space and started getting things figured out, I started working on it. It was a struggle at first but a lot happened in a short amount of time. I’m really proud and surprised that it lasted so long. I’m not much involved any more, but try to help out when people need things.
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How did you go about compiling 15 years worth of work for your book, “Monster Size Monster”? As you compiled the book, what threads or recurring motifs in your photographs did you notice that you hadn’t before?
I was simply asked by Roger Gastman if I wanted to do a book, and said yes! It wasn’t all that hard since I just pulled about 300 photos I liked and had Tony Smyrski arrange them in a way he saw fit. He did most of the work. Since the format was super random, it wasn’t hard to do. I liked it because the final result showed me what I was doing with photography for the past 20 years and I didn’t understand what I was doing with it before.

What are some aesthetic touchstones from your childhood in Philly and NJ that persist in your photos?

Philly is mainly art and skateboarding, whereas NJ is Wildwood and the craziness of the architecture and the boardwalk, as well as the friends I had down there who really inspired me at a very young age with music and art.

What do you enjoy about your work for magazines like Swindle and Juxtapoz? Do you choose what assignments you do, or do you generally photograph whoever you are asked to?

I started working for a well paying ad agency about 11 years ago and stopped shooting for magazines for about 4 years which was a major mistake because it killed my creativity in what I was shooting. Magazines are about shooting your own vision over doing a “job” for a client and developing your personal style. Once I started again, I loved it as well as the freedom and the things I saw and people I met. I shoot for whatever I’m asked to do and I also just do whatever I want for whatever, like my blog or for other internet related things. I just like having fun with photography first then seeing what comes of it later.

I like that your photographs are real people and situations, but your subjects exist on the fringe of reality and can seem surreal. What do you think the appeal is of finding things that seem odd and embellished within everyday life, rather than inventing something fictional?
It’s just the things that interest me. I like taking a real situation and making it surreal and blending the two worlds with composition, lighting and lenses.

Thanks to Adam Wallacavage. For more Q&A’s, check out the archive.