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An Illuminated Starburst Explodes and Punctures a Former Warehouse in Malaysia
Art
#architecture
#installation
#LED
#light
#site-specificDecember 27, 2021Grace EbertAll images © Jun Ong, shared with permissionA follow-up to the massive, six-pointed star that pierced a concrete building back in 2015, a new site-specific work by Malaysian artist Jun Ong bores through a former warehouse in Kuala Lumpur. “STAR/KL” is an illuminated installation comprised of 111 LED beams in various sizes that burst outward in the open-air structure, impaling the chainlink fence, support columns, and facade of the Air Building at The Godown art center. Described as an “extraterrestrial light being,” the glowing public work performs a hypnotic dance of flashes and flickers each night with an accompanying sound component by Reza Othman, who’s part of the experimental electronic and jazz project RAO.“STAR/KL” is up through March 26, 2022, although its light will fade gradually during the next few months until it extinguishes entirely. You can see more of the otherworldly piece and dive into Ong’s process on Instagram. You also might enjoy this radiant intervention by Ian Strange. (via designboom)
#architecture
#installation
#LED
#light
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Bars of Light Pierce a Dilapidated Sydney-Area Home in Ian Strange’s Illuminated Intervention
Art
#architecture
#installation
#light
#public art
#site-specific
#street artDecember 3, 2021Grace EbertAll images © Ian Strange, shared with permissionTagged with graffiti and marred by a chipped facade, a stately Victorian home in a Sydney suburb is the site of a brilliant site-specific installation by artist Ian Strange. “Light Intersections II” uses angled beams of light to impale the derelict structure and permeate outer walls, windows, and the ornate, metallic railing on the second-floor balcony. Illuminating the battered building, Strange’s monumental public work is one of his many projects that explores ideas of home through architectural interventions.The artist, who lives between Melbourne and Brooklyn, relies on the concepts of drawing to inform much of his practice, with a particular focus on how single marks alter perspectives and affect understandings of the material world. He explains:The lines of light in ‘Intersections’ are an attempt to place abstracted perspective lines back into the environment. These drawn perspective lines don’t appear in nature, but are staples in both painting, drawing, and architecture, used as a way of containing, representing, and changing the natural environment.Commissioned by the City of Sydney, “Light Intersections II” follows the artist’s 2019 project that installed a similar concept throughout the galleries and around the perimeter of Melbourne’s Lyon Housemuseum. Watch the video below for a tour of the radiant home, and explore more of Strange’s work on Instagram. (via Street Art News)
#architecture
#installation
#light
#public art
#site-specific
#street artDo stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member and support independent arts publishing. Join a community of like-minded readers who are passionate about contemporary art, help support our interview series, gain access to partner discounts, and much more. Join now! Share this story More - in Art
A ‘Staircase to Heaven’ Installation Ascends into the Sky as a Trippy Optical Illusion
Art#installation
#public art
#sculpture
#site-specific
#stairs
#steel
#videoNovember 12, 2021
Grace EbertAll images © Strijdom van der Merwe, shared with permission
South African artist Strijdom van der Merwe’s deceptive “Staircase to Heaven” sculpture is designed to make you wonder. When viewed straight on, the towering optical illusion appears to ascend into the sky at an incline, although the 4.5-meter-tall work actually lies on a flat plane. Van der Merwe partnered with Taiwanese artist Chou Sheng-hsien to create the trippy sculpture for the Nanhui Art Project in Taiwan, which commissioned 14 public works to be installed throughout Taitung County.
Built with steel square tubing that weighs about 240 kilograms, “Staircase to Heaven” is modeled after van der Merwe’s 2016 project, “Sculptures on the Cliff.” For more of the artist’s site-specific works and sprawling land art, check out his site. (via Laughing Squid)[embedded content]
#installation
#public art
#sculpture
#site-specific
#stairs
#steel
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Aerial Net Sculptures Loom Over Public Squares in Janet Echelman’s ‘Earthtime’ Installations
Art#earthquakes
#fiber art
#installation
#sculpture
#site-specific
#timeOctober 7, 2021
Grace Ebert“Earthtime 1.78” (2021), Vienna. All images © Janet Echelman, shared with permission
Suspended in public squares and parks, the knotted sculptures that comprise Janet Echelman’s Earthtime series respond to the destructive, overpowering, and uncontrollable forces that impact life on the planet. The Boston-based artist (previously) braids nylon and polyurethane fibers into striped weavings that loom over passersby and glow with embedded lights after nightfall. With a single gust of air, the amorphous masses billow and contort into new forms. “Each time a single knot moves in the wind, the location of every other knot in the sculpture’s surface is changed in an ever-unfolding dance,” a statement about the series says.
The outdoor installations are modeled after geological events that have extensive effects beyond their original locations and the power to increase the planet’s daily rotational speed. All of the titles allude to the number of seconds lost during a specific occurrence, with “Earthtime 1.78” referring to Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami and “Earthtime 1.26” speaking to a 2010 tremor in Chile.
Containing innumerable knots and weighing hundreds of pounds, the monumental nets are the product of countless hours and a team of architects, designers, and engineers who interpret scientific data to imagine the original form. Each mesh piece begins in the studio with techniques done by hand and on the loom, and the threads are custom-designed to be fifteen times stronger than steel once intertwined. This allows them to withstand and remain flexible as they’re exposed to the elements, a material component that serves as a metaphorical guide for human existence.
Echelman will exhibit an iteration of “Earthtime 1.26” in Jeddah from December 2021 to April 2022, with another slated to be on view in Amsterdam this winter. You can see more of the prolific artist’s works on her site and Instagram.“Earthtime 1.26” (2021), Munich
Detail of “Earthtime 1.26” (2021), Munich
“Earthtime 1.78” (2021), Vienna
“Earthtime 1.78” (2021), Helsinki
“Earthtime 1.78” (2021), Vienna
“Earthtime 1.78” (2021), Borås, Sweden#earthquakes
#fiber art
#installation
#sculpture
#site-specific
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Woven Bamboo Installations by Tanabe Chikuunsai IV Sprout from Ceilings and Walls in Tangled Forms
Art#bamboo
#installation
#site-specific
#weaving
#woodOctober 5, 2021
Grace EbertAll images courtesy of Mingei Gallery, shared with permission
Japanese artist Tanabe Chikuunsai IV threads strips of bamboo together into monumental works that appear to grow from walls and ceilings. His hollow, circular creations utilize a style of rough weaving that his family has practiced for generations—Tanabe’s father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all worked with traditional craft techniques and shared the name Chikuunsai, which translates to “bamboo cloud”—and result in installations that are massive in scale as they coil across rooms, stretch dozens of feet into the air, and loop around support beams.
Because his family has been steeped in the practice for decades, Tanabe began weaving as a child, and today, he continues to build on the traditions he learned early on, expanding from smaller baskets and pods to larger, site-specific works made with the pliable wood material. “The appearance of my grandfather weaving a basket was very beautiful and elegant. I felt art. Now I feel that bamboo is the most beautiful material, and I believe that bamboo art has endless possibilities,” he tells Colossal.
Tanabe currently lives in Sakai, near Osaka, and will show his spiraling constructions at the Baur Foundation in Geneva from November 16, 2021, to March 27, 2022. You can see more of his projects on Instagram.#bamboo
#installation
#site-specific
#weaving
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Artist Thierry Mandon Lives in Suspended Domestic Scenes Within the Ghost Rooms of Severed Buildings
Art#humor
#performance art
#public art
#site-specific
#videoSeptember 13, 2021
Grace Ebert“Tableau vivant” (2007-2008). All images © Thierry Mandon, shared with permission
Multidisciplinary artist Thierry Mandon casts himself as the subject of his satirical works as he reads in a bed hazardously suspended feet above the ground or sips a glass of wine at a halved dining table. The humorous and discomforting pieces, titled “Inside–Outside” and “Tableau vivant,” respectively, unveil a series of slow, solitary activities that, once outdoors, become a performative spectacle rather than a mundane moment. They speak to Mandon’s “search for harmony and for a stable unity between humans and their environment,” he says, as he literally slices and adheres domestic objects to a building’s facade.
“Each video portrays a character that, as a kind of archetype of the individual, is confronted by his human condition, his limits, his power, and helplessness,” Mandon writes to Colossal. “These themes are rendered by works where two elements, two worlds are exposed in a precarious balance.”
Mandon lives and works in Ardèche, France, and you can find a larger collection of his works on his site and Vimeo.[embedded content]
“Inside–Outside” (2015)
“Tableau vivant” (2007-2008)
“Inside–Outside” (2015)
“Inside–Outside” (2015)
#humor
#performance art
#public art
#site-specific
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Entangled Figures Grasp a Small Footbridge Above a Philadelphia Street in Miguel Horn’s New Installation
Art#aluminum
#installation
#public art
#sculpture
#site-specific
#street artAugust 31, 2021
Grace EbertAll images courtesy of Streets Dept, shared with permission
Clinging to a concrete footbridge in Philadelphia are two groups of figures in tangled clusters. The striking installation is attached to a 20-foot walkway arched over 1200 Cuthbert Street in City Center and is the latest work of artist Miguel Horn, who is known for his fragmented sculptures and large-scale installations comprised of CNC-cut plates. Each of the forms in “ContraFuerte” features topographic layers constructed with thousands of stacked aluminum pieces—Horn shares much of his process from initial sketches to clay prototypes on Instagram—which fuse together to create figures that appear in the midst of struggle. Similar to the artist’s previous works that directly respond to their location, the oversized piece is designed to “grapple with the task to sustain, or raise up a bridge that spans the width of the street,” Horn says. (via Streets Dept)#aluminum
#installation
#public art
#sculpture
#site-specific
#street artDo stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member and support independent arts publishing. Join a community of like-minded readers who are passionate about contemporary art, help support our interview series, gain access to partner discounts, and much more. Join now!
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