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    New work by WRDSMTH in Chicago, USA

    Street artist WRDSMTH has recently entered into an exciting partnership with the newly launched luxury cannabis edibles brand, The Bettering Company (TBCo.).WRDSMTH, renowned for his ability to inspire and motivate through his art, finds a kindred spirit in The Bettering Company. Both entities share a common mission deeply rooted in driving positive change and fostering improvement. This partnership serves as a promising beginning to a series of collaborations with artists, signifying an ongoing initiative that aims to merge art and cannabis in unique and impactful ways. Together, WRDSMTH and The Bettering Company are poised to create a space where creativity and luxury converge, delivering experiences that transcend traditional boundaries.TBCo. has made a noteworthy entrance into the market as a premium cannabis brand, offering a meticulously curated selection of edibles infused with real fruits, herbs, teas, spices, and jams. These gourmet creations are crafted by skilled chefs and consistently maintain their vegan and gluten-free qualities, catering to consumers who value the thoughtful artistry behind their consumption.Take a look below for more photos of WRDSMTH’s latest project. More

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    Take a Swing Around ‘Par Excellence Redux,’ a Mini Golf Course of Playable Artworks at Elmhurst Art Museum

    
    Art
    Colossal

    #Chicago
    #games
    #golf

    July 22, 2021
    Colossal

    All images courtesy of the Elmhurst Art Museum, shared with permission
    Now open at the Elmhurst Art Museum is Par Excellence Redux, a miniature golf course featuring a widely varied collection of playable artworks. Curated by Colossal’s founder and editor-in-chief Christopher Jobson as part of an open call, the two-part course pays homage to the wildly popular Par Excellence that opened in 1988 at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The designs range from a challenging optical illusion to a maze-like castle with the potential for a hole-in-one to Annalee Koehn’s fortune-telling piece first shown 33 years ago in the initial exhibition.
    Chicago sculptor Michael O’Brien conceived of the original Par Excellence, which opened to lines down the block and subsequently sold out daily. It was recognized nationally in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Chicago Tribune, among others, and went on tour throughout Illinois before returning to Chicago as a rebranded commercial project called ArtGolf, which was located at 1800 N. Clybourn in Lincoln Park on the site that’s now occupied by Goose Island Brewery. Although artist-designed golf courses are shown at a variety of Midwest museums—you can see versions at the Walker Art Center, The Sheldon, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art—Par Excellence is widely regarded as the first.
    The Front 9, which runs through September 26, features artists Julie Cowan, Current Projects, Andrea Jablonski & Stolatis Inc., Annalee Koehn, Latent Design, Jesse Meredith, Gautam Rao, Robin Schwartzman & Tom Loftus (aka A Couple of Putts), and the museum’s Teen Art Council. Open October 13, 2021, to January 2, 2022, The Back 9  shows work from artists Wesley Baker, KT Duffy, Eve Fineman, Joshua Kirsch, Annalee Koehn, Vincent Lotesto, Joshua Lowe, Jim Merz, David Quednau, and Liam Wilson & Anna Gershon.
    Try your hand at the first nine holes by heading over to Elmhurst’s site to book a tee time, and remember that Colossal Members get 25% off.

    #Chicago
    #games
    #golf

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    Sentrock Captures the Sights of Chicago’s Pilsen Neighborhood in a New Series About Mental Health

    
    Art
    Illustration

    #birds
    #Chicago
    #health

    June 3, 2021
    Grace Ebert

    All images © Sentrock, shared with permission
    In honor of Mental Health Month this May, Chicago artist Joseph Perez, who works as Sentrock, created an illustrated series celebrating the people and scenes around his studio in the city’s Pilsen neighborhood. “I started doing it just for myself, to take an hour or two and share my thoughts or reflections for that day or the day prior,” he tells Colossal.
    Lively, expressive, and deeply empathetic, the resulting illustrations draw on Sentrock’s background as a graffiti artist and his connection to those around him. They tell a story about the neighborhood that’s historically been rich with Latinx culture and portray the sights and experiences shared by the community through a distinctly personal lens. The artist explains:
    I started allowing myself to reflect on the past, present, the current situations I found myself in. I allowed myself to reflect on my everyday life, whether boring, exciting, or just my imagination of the moment. I started to capture the people outside my studio, whether friends or strangers. My purpose for this was to initiate a connection with the people around me, the community.
    Sentrock began with reference photos of friends, family, and community members before reinterpreting them in bright, vivid renditions of his signature bird character. Usually depicted as a beaked mask, the recurring image is Sentrock’s analogy “to humanity: a person who is able to find or escape to their freedom by placing them in a different reality.” In the new works, the character travels from person to person, sometimes worn by kids skateboarding down 18th Street and others by the artist himself, like in the moving portrait of him and his mother.
    Head to Instagram to see the full series and original images, and if you’re in Chicago, keep an eye out for the designs, which Sentrock plans to wheat paste around the city.

    Portrait of the artist with his mother

    Self-portrait

    #birds
    #Chicago
    #health

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    “UMI” by Daniel Popper in Chicago, Illinois

    Multidisciplinary artist Daniel Popper recently worked on new large scale sculptural works. “UMI” – meaning life in Swahili and mother in Arabic, is 1 of 5 new works of Daniel Popper from the Human+Nature exhibition opening at the Morton Arboretum.For this exhibition the artist tried to explore some new techniques, working with 3d sculpting and the same time experimenting with new materials and building techniques. Made from steel & GFRC (Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete), sculpture “UMI” stands 20ft tall. The pieces by Daniel Popper will on display for 1 year.Take a look below for more photos of the stunning piece. More

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    A Tiled Wave Ripples Across Olafur Eliasson’s New Installation in Downtown Chicago

    
    Art

    #Chicago
    #installation
    #pattern
    #public art
    #street art
    #waves

    January 19, 2021
    Grace Ebert

    “Atmospheric wave wall” (2021), 30 x 60 feet. All images courtesy of CNL Projects, shared with permission
    Last week, artist Olafur Eliasson (previously) unveiled a massive, wave-like artwork that mimics the rippled surfaces of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan. Comprised of 1,963 curved tiles, “Atmospheric wave wall” sits between the two bodies of water at Willis Tower and shifts in appearance based on the sunlight, time of year, and position of the viewer. It’s the Danish-Icelandic artist’s first public project, which was curated by CNL Projects and commissioned by EQ Office, in Chicago.
    Speckled with orange pieces, the blue-and-green motif is constructed with powder-coated steel and based on Penrose tiling, a design with fivefold symmetry, which fills the undulating border. At night, a light shines through the street-side work, emitting a glow through the tile seams and further altering the appearance of the textured facade. Eliasson says about the work:
    Inspired by the unpredictable weather that I witnessed stirring up the surface of Lake Michigan, ‘Atmospheric wave wall’ appears to change according to your position and to the time of day and year. What we see depends on our point of view: understanding this is an important step toward realizing that we can change reality.
    Follow Eliasson’s latest projects on his studio’s site and Instagram.

    

    #Chicago
    #installation
    #pattern
    #public art
    #street art
    #waves

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