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Local Art Critic Calls Cops on Exhibition

There are two kinds of naked in the art world: "Performance art" and "Call the police."  Saturday's show at Conner Contemporary Art (in Washington D.C.) featured both, which made for a lively opening night.

The gallery in the Trinidad neighborhood of Northeast Washington invited art lovers to see three solo exhibits. In the large front room was "Infinity," a "conceptual installation" by D.C.-based artist John Kirchner. The artist stripped a 1955 Chris-Craft motorboat, flipped it upside down and (just for opening night) asked three performers to sit, stand and pose pensively on the hull.

Without, you know, clothes.

The two-hour performance was the highlight of the evening. "We probably had 500 to 600 people that night," said co-owner Leigh Conner. As a precaution, Conner posted someone at the door to make sure no unaccompanied kids slipped in. After the show was over, the performers -- two women and a man -- donned clothing and sipped wine with the crowd. "It was a great art event," Conner told us.

About this time, the cops showed up. Although no one had complained to the gallery, someone called the police. Although the lights of the exhibit were low, passersby could see the performers through the windows. One policeman came into the gallery and asked Conner, "Were they naked?" Yes, she answered. Were they going to be naked again that night? Nope, she said. "Okay, then," said the officer and, after chatting a bit about the exhibit, left.

The incident quickly made it onto the local blog Frozen Tropics: "Apparently we've reached the point that we don't have any real crime over here because 5th District Officers responded to a call about naked people at an art gallery. ...Thank God we have an alert citizen out there on the watch for naked people engaged in performance art."

No other complaints; looks like most of the neighbors were prepared to turn the other cheek. "That's the thing about art -- it's very subjective," said ANC Commissioner Tina Laskaris, who attended the opening. "I like illustrators like Norman Rockwell, but that doesn't mean things like this should be necessarily...how should I say, undervalued."

 

Via The Washington Post

Movie House Pulp: Tyler Stout's Frenetic Posters

 
Master graphic designer Tyler Stout has created this movie poster for Let the Right One In, a killer Swedish Vampire movie, based on an even better book.  As we talked about last week, a new U.S.-produced take on this story will be hitting theaters in a couple of weeks, under the title Let Me In.

Wildly lush and frenetic with imagery, I've always grooved on Tyler's illustrations, the best of which visualize films of the bombastic 1980's and early 90's, and live music (concerts and festivals) like The Decemberists, Death Cab for Cutie, Bonnaroo.  Here are some of Tyler's other movie posters, all of which are available for purchase thru his website.

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NASA's 1970s Space Colony Designs

In the 1970's, NASA's Ames Research Center collaborated with Princeton and Stanford universities to study the posibilities of the human colonization of our solar system.  Under the direction of Princeton physicist Gerard O'Neill, the working group developed concepts for giant spaceships that would eventually orbit around Earth, The Moon, or other planetary bodies.  Based on these initial findings, NASA held design competitions regularly with hopes of adding pictures to the data. 

Here is a intriguing set of images, developed at NASA Ames in the 70s, with the guideline that the facaility be large enough to house 10,000 people. 

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According to NASA "These orbital space colonies could be wonderful places to live; about the size of a California beach town and endowed with weightless recreation, fantastic views, freedom, elbow-room in spades, and great wealth. In time, we may see hundreds of thousands of orbital space settlements in our solar system alone. Building these settlements will be an evolutionary event in magnitude similar to, if not greater than, ocean-based Life's colonization of land half a billion years ago."

The full Who's, What's, Where's, and How's of the Settlement Project are available from NASA. 

Pier Pressure: Banksy's Politically Charged, Dolphin Ride Mocks BP

 
If you think this dolphin looks furious — it is — and with good reason!

This colorful kiddie ride comes courtesy of gleeful art prankster Banksy, an artist well known for his graffiti and politically charged installations. In his most recent creation, the artist transformed a coin-operated ride into a searing statement against the BP oil spill. Wrapped in a real tuna net and fully oiled, this dolphin is fully operable, and ready to take you on a ride that’ll get you forgetting about all the eco-damage BP has done  – and like BP, all you’ve got to do is throw some money at it.

More from Banksy

 

Via Inhabitat

Ghost in the Machine: Portraits Channel Rock's Finest Using Cassette Tape

 
Erika Iris Simmons' one-year foray into cassette-tape portraiture happened after noting how similar the coiled, stringy reels of old cassettes resembled Jimi Hendrix' hair. Since then the 26-year old self-taught artist has added similar likenesses of Kurt Cobain, John Lennon, Patti Smith, Michael Jackson, and other legendary musicians and icons to her impressive body of work.

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Simmons, who lives in Atlanta and works under the moniker iri5, produces most of her art works with discarded and recycled materials—many of which she receives via donation. Part-sculpture, part-portrait, she underscores each cassette-tape rendering with an astounding accuracy, compounded by the uniqueness and the difficulty required mastering such unconventional materials.

Her "Ghost in the Machine" series, currently on view at Wisconsin's Peninsula School of Art, is a somewhat philosophical manifesto to the notion that our spirits live on in our bodies long after we're gone (much like the tape spun around the wheels of a cassette). It's a fitting tribute to both the late icons she depicts, as well as her particular medium—a material on the verge of being obsolete.

To see more from the Ghost in the Machine series, check out iri5's flickr page. For more info about donating to Simmons' art projects, check out her wish list, which includes old lace, a butterfly net, graduation tassels, among other odds and ends.

 

Via Cool Hunting