Kara Walker's Fons Americanus

October 29, 2019 by Arseny Vesnin in 2019, Art, United Kingdom, Events, USA, Portfolios

“My work has always been a time machine looking backwards across decades and centuries to arrive at some understanding of my “place” in the contemporary moment.”

— Kara Walker

Fons Americanus is a 13-metre tall working fountain inspired by the Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace, London. Created by artist Kara Walker for the 2019 Hyundai Commission, it is one of the most ambitious installations in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall to date.

Rather than a celebration of the British Empire, Walker’s fountain explores the interconnected histories of Africa, America and Europe. She uses water as a key theme, referring to the transatlantic slave trade and the ambitions, fates and tragedies of people from these three continents. Fantasy, fact and fiction meet at an epic scale.

Based in New York, Kara Walker is acclaimed for her candid explorations of race, sexuality and violence. She is best known for her use of black cut-paper silhouetted figures, referencing the history of slavery and the antebellum South in the US through provocative and elaborate installations.

Fons Americanus is on display at Tate Modern until 5 April 2020. You can explore the artwork in more detail on @tate

@kara_walker_official

Rodrigo Chapa

October 25, 2019 by Arseny Vesnin in 2019, Art, Mexico, Photography, Portfolios

Rodrigo Chapa is a Mexican artist who has been working with photography for the past decade. “In his series “Ausentes” (Absents), he makes reference to abstract expressionism by composing images with color field backgrounds and a dancer as the subject. He captures the movement and improvisation of the dancers, in which the record of the physical manifestation of the subject becomes the work of art.” via @trendland

@rodrigochapat

Nima Tayebia

October 24, 2019 by Arseny Vesnin in 2019, Art, Italy, Portfolios

Italian artist Nima Tayebia creates dystopian portraits of someone who has lost a memory or was vanished from a timeline. Using chiaroscuro techniques inspired by Black Period of Goya and mixed with later El Greco these artworks won’t leave you for free. Scary but intriguing …

@nimatayebian

David Umemoto

October 23, 2019 by Arseny Vesnin in 2019, Art, Canada, Portfolios, Sculpture

Canadian artist David Umemoto creates Escher-esque concrete miniature pieces that evoke temporary buildings or monuments standing on far-away lands.

“The images conveyed in the mind by these works are numerous. They refer to the archaic and the ephemeral, despite the solidity and the modernity of the medium. Appearing before our eyes are pre-Columbian rock dwellings, god statues from the Andes or Easter Island, steles deteriorated by rain, remnants of modern cities having survived a cataclysm, fragments of Babylonian cities, colonial settlements brought down to their foundations, cenotaphs abandoned in the jungle…”

@david_umemoto

David Moreno

October 22, 2019 by Arseny Vesnin in 2019, Art, Spain, Portfolios

Spanish artist David Moreno “draws” sculpture using steel rods creating "digital slit-scan” effect for his wall mounted “Floating Favelas” series

cof

@davidmoreno_art

Lars Fisk

October 21, 2019 by Arseny Vesnin in 2019, Art, Portfolios, Sculpture, USA

Since 1995, Lars-Erik Fisk has reimagined familiar and common-place objects into spheres, which he considers a "basic form… that we can all understand, but is at the same time the least likely form for these subjects to assume.”

Transforming objects in this way engenders a fascination with the mundane and elevates otherwise unnoticed details of one’s everyday surroundings to works of art that demand attention.

Made primarily by hand in the artist’s Brooklyn studio, each circle is designed to engage ordinary elements from parking lots, subway tiles, car parts and pencil stubs. The eclectic material palette uses the components of these architectural and urban facets – namely steel, glass and asphalt – and turn them into perfect spheres; transforming the simple theory into a potent array of sculptures.

@larserikfisk

Wooden Distortion by Paul Kaptein

October 16, 2019 by Arseny Vesnin in 2019, Australia, Art, Portfolios, Sculpture

Working predominantly in sculpture and drawing, Paul Kaptein’s practice is informed by notions of Pneuma and Sunyata in exploring the fluid space between form and emptiness. Motivated by the energies that exist beneath the surface of things, his work is activated through glitches, warps, spaces, gaps, holes and fissures.

Exploring the body as the interface between quantum, relative, technological, spiritual, material, psychic and conscious states, my work collapses distinctions of internal and external binaries and linear temporalities to explore notions of identity and boundaries of self.

@paulkaptein

Alexander Suvorov Art

October 11, 2019 by Arseny Vesnin in 2019, Art, Portfolios, Russia

Russian designer Alexander Suvorov trains his creative muscles by creating competitive hyper realistic art featuring gentlemen vehicles

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Art Front Row (@artfrontrow) on Jul 20, 2019 at 12:59am PDT

@alsuv

Apparatuses for (Extra)Ordinary Acts

October 08, 2019 by Arseny Vesnin in 2019, Art, Greece, Illustration, Portfolios

Apparatuses for (Extra)Ordinary Acts (artist Charitini Gkritzali) is a sequence of depictions of the complex relationship between humans, objects and surrounding spaces. They attempt to illustrate this relationship’s present form, designate the way it is currently experienced, analyse it, and reflect over it in a descriptive or connotative manner. In this context, several factors and concepts deeply familiar to humans appear anaemic, unsound or expired: time, senses, individuality, conscience. The succession of apparatuses is cyclic. It exceeds progression and graduality, evoking doubt over its representational robustness. Ultimately, Apparatuses for (Extra)Ordinary Acts lead to the reformulation not only of human’s relationship with objects and surroundings, but with the very notion of realness and representation’s utopic nature.

@charitini.gkritz

Delicatessen on 6th by Lucy Sparrow

October 03, 2019 by Arseny Vesnin in 2019, Art, United Kingdom, Portfolios

Lucy Sparrow strikes again. After her successful show of felted and knitted grocery store “8’ Till Late” that sold out in a few days she’s back with a new pop-up shop “Delicatessen on 6th” with a lot of felted and knitted fresh food, seafood and other veggies we adore so much! Head to Rockefeller Center, NYC to grab your piece of art for the affordable price. The project is the biggest activation to date in Art Production Fund’s “Art in Focus” public art series.

Opened through October 20, 2019

@sewyoursoul

Illustrative Art of Samuel Rodriguez

October 02, 2019 by Arseny Vesnin in 2019, Art, Illustration, USA, Portfolios

The San Jose based artist Samuel Rodriguez benefits from the mix of street art background and classic art education and has done some amazing illustrative art so far. He is mostly focusing in two types of portraiture which he refers to as, ‘Topographical Portraiture’ and ‘Type Faces’. The Topographical Portraits Rodriguez creates, are made by stylizing a portrait with topographical lines and shapes, in a similar manner to those found through images on geographic maps.

@samrodriguezart

The Immigrant by Michael Murphy

October 01, 2019 by Arseny Vesnin in 2019, Art, USA, Portfolios

The Immigrant - is a 3D halftone sculpture by Brooklyn-based artist Michael Murphy. When you view the 2,300 wood balls from forty feet away you see an image of Murphy’s partner Natasha Vladimirova. The work calls attention to the positive contributions immigrants make to our communities. Natasha is an immigrant and it is with her help that this piece was made possible. This tribute is intended to introduce positivity to a negative and overly politicized conversation.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Art Front Row (@artfrontrow) on Aug 5, 2019 at 11:59am PDT

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Art Front Row (@artfrontrow) on Sep 28, 2019 at 1:41pm PDT

@perceptual_art

@thecanvasbyq

Gavin Worth's wire sculptures

September 26, 2019 by Arseny Vesnin in 2019, Art, Egypt, Portfolios, Sculpture

Gavin Worth is a sculptor and artist based in Egypt. As well as painting, he makes these amazing sculptures out of wire. Each sculpture is subtly complex, built out of grouped wire, with the wire only forming a clear image once it’s viewed from the right angle.

“My wire sculptures tell stories of simple human moments: a woman adjusting her hair, a face gazing from behind tightly wrapped arms, a mother gently cradling her baby. The honest, unguarded moments are the ones that I find to be the most beautiful”

— Gavin Worth

@gavinworth

Murals by Nicola Alessandrini

September 23, 2019 by Arseny Vesnin in 2019, Italy, Street Art, Portfolios, Art

If you put a little of Bosch’s anthropomorphism, a bit of Egyptian wall paintings and shake it with modern street art - you definitely meet Nicola Alessandrini. Italian artist creates intricate murals full of sacral meanings and signs as well as graphic artworks that won’t let you go

@nic.alessandrini

Wade and Leta ╳ Seaport District Sculptures NYC

August 06, 2019 by Arseny Vesnin in 2019, Art, USA, Street Art, Portfolios

A seascape of sculptures in a historic New York City district. In celebration of the 2019 summer season at South Street Seaport, The Seaport District approached Wade Jeffree and Leta Sobierajski (or simply creative duo Wade&Leta) to create a large scale series of sculptures to liven the district for the summer of 2019. Inspired by coral and camouflage and the languid movements of algae and seaweed, their sculptures drift and sway as if being gently pushed by an underwater current.

They wanted to emulate the feeling of drifting through an unexplored world splashed with color and pattern by creating cavernous structures that would evoke an overwhelming seascape of multi-dimensional sculptures of varying heights and colours. A material inspiration comes from the nearby boats that have been docked at the Seaport’s harbour over many years; like boats, the material will gradually weather over time, replicating the way elements shift and change our environmental landscape as the seasons progress

@letasobierajski

@wadejeffree

Painting Machines by Lolo & Sosaku

July 15, 2019 by Arseny Vesnin in 2019, Art, Argentina, Japan, Portfolios

Lolo (Buenos Aires) and Sosaku (Tokyo) investigate the possibilities of sculpture as an expanded field. The nexus that unites his works is the search for an object in contact with his surroundings and with the spectator. An object that seeks friction, friction, and tension. His work moves between different languages such as sculpture, installation, kinetic art and painting. Its modus operandi: to constitute itself as a subject, and from its machinic materiality, to point to transcendence, to mysticism and to the unknown.

@loloysosaku

One Thousand Stories by JR

June 12, 2019 by Arseny Vesnin in 2019, France, Art, Motioncollector, USA

In his easiest manner of a humanist, French artist JR recently finished a large scale project “One Thousand Stories” - the Chronicles of San Francisco, and a video mural of 1206 San Franciscans now on the view at @SFMOMA

View this post on Instagram

Sunday Morning @sfmoma

A post shared by JR (@jr) on Jun 9, 2019 at 12:43pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

The Chronicles of San Francisco, a video mural of 1206 San Franciscans @sfmoma 📸 @marc @camille

A post shared by JR (@jr) on May 24, 2019 at 2:41pm PDT

The film directed by Tasha van Zandt is currently exhibited at SFMOMA alongside of JR’s mural. After a first mural in Les Bosquets, a neighbourhood near Paris where he has worked for many years, JR chose San Francisco. A city very rich in contrasts, whose recent history could be told in a powerful way through a mural. Since the visit of Diego Rivera in 1931, San Francisco has a long muralist tradition. The city features immense innovation and wealth as well as one of the highest rates of homelessness in the country. In, 2018, JR and his team spent a month roaming the city of San Fransisco, parking their 53' trailer truck in 24 different locations, to capture anyone who wished to participate, directly from the streets. As a result, over 1,200 people have been filmed, photographed and interviewed; each person choosing the way they are represented in the fresco.

@JR

Liu Di

June 03, 2019 by Arseny Vesnin in 2019, Art, Digital Art, China, Photography, Portfolios, TOP 2019

From a massive animal sitting amidst a sprawl of slum housing to a giant man with a hyperrealistic face that nevertheless seems to be more plastic than flesh, jarring contrasts are often used to great effect in establishing the sense of surrealism in the works of Chinese visual artist Liu Di

In Animal Regulation, Liu reevaluates the relationship between civilization and nature by placing gargantuan animals in unexpected urban settings.

@liudi_a

Sanctum by Levi van Veluw

May 30, 2019 by Arseny Vesnin in 2019, Art, Netherlands, Portfolios, TOP 2019

Dutch artist Levi van Velum created an immersive installation “Sanctum” curated by Angel Moya Garcia

“The installation Sanctum, developed especially for Tenuta Dello Scompiglio, testifying of a fictitious religious conviction, engages all the senses of the visitor. The last room where visitors ended their journey in Kerguénnec, "The relativity of the matter", becomes the starting point for a more elaborate proposition in the expositive space of Dello Scompiglio. Levi van Veluw based Sanctum on of the first religious buildings, the Tabernacle, also called the tent of meeting. This tent served as a place of worship and symbolised God’s presence amidst those who had gathered.”

@levivanveluw

Artrium - The Beginning

May 23, 2019 by Arseny Vesnin in 2019, Art, Street Art, Motioncollector

Artrium is a new space born in Moscow a year ago and you may remember calligraphy artist Pokras Lampas doing his work inside pedestrian passage last year. This year team @ArtriumMoscow went further and invited world leading street artists to create legend murals from the walls of the building.

11 Artists are: Shepard Fairey (@obeygiant), Felipe Pantone (@felipepantone), Tristan Eaton (@tristaneaton), Ben Eine (@einesigns), @PichiAvo, Okuda San Miguel (@okudart), Pokras Lampas (@pokraslampas), @Faith47, @WKInteract, Faust, Haculla.