Any strange art I run across, I'm posting it here. I haven't decided yet how strange is too strange, but I'm sure we'll figure that one out when we get there! }:-)
Submitted by Solstice on Mon, 05/31/2004 - 6:25pm.
I just went to an "opening" of the Creep Show, a collection of eclectic and weird art. The exhibit was a mix of sculpture, painting, photography, fabric and other art. The metalwork was wonderful.
If anyone lives near that town, the Worcester Artists Group had the exhibit in what seems like an old warehouse. I am not sure what the name of the place was but it would be wortht the the trip.
BERLIN - Coffins shaped like a fish, a giant onion and a Mercedes saloon have gone on show in Berlin in an exhibition on sepulchral culture aimed at reminding Germans they can go out in style.
This is really interesting! Strange, but interesting! :jawdrop:
Artist uses a palette of cheese and ham
Cosimo Cavallaro's installation uses 312 pounds of ham
The Associated Press
NEW YORK - An artist best known for decorative cheese has broadened his palette, or palate, to ham.
Cosimo Cavallaro, who once repainted a New York hotel room in melted mozzarella, has covered a bed in processed ham. “I feel like I am back in my mother’s deli,” the artist said Thursday.
His installation in a street-level gallery space of the Roger Smith Hotel in midtown Manhattan involved slicing 312 pounds of ham and tossing the meat on top of a four-poster bed. The installation, which took 3½ hours, will be kept in the air-conditioned room for two days.
Yes, believe it or not, I'm including this as art. I've seen TV shows and articles on this before and after getting over the initial squeemishness of the whole thing, came to the conclusion that this is just as much art as it is science. It's an amalgamation of the two. Plus, it really drives home the idea of Weird Art; for that reason alone, it is included here.
Exhibit featuring real human bodies makes U.S. debut in LA
NORTH ADAMS -- An actual garden of rocks discovered by a Beaver Street man will find a place in a Contemporary Artists Center art exhibit slated to open on Aug. 7.
Mass MoCA Assistant Curator Nato Thompson said he was taken by surprise on Tuesday when 54-year-old Donald Maynard of 309 Beaver St. showed up at the museum and told Thompson that vines creeping along Maynard's yard were "growing rocks."
Thompson said he was even more stunned when Maynard pulled two foliage-bearing vine strands from a plastic bag and Thompson saw that chunks of rock were indeed dangling from slender, fragile-looking vine sprouts.
"I loved it, I just loved it," Thompson said during a telephone interview on Tuesday. "It looks like a necklace and reminded me of something from 'Ripley's Believe it or Not.'"
Thompson has been working with friends on a "Detourism" art exhibit at the arts center that focuses on local discoveries. Maynard's rock-and-vine find seemed a perfect fit for the exhibit, Thompson said. The arts center is located on Beaver Street just a short distance from Maynard's home.
WASHINGTON - A cartoonish painting of President Bush in the nude has been taken down from the wall at the City Museum of Washington. The picture, called "Man of Leisure, King George," adopts the pose of a famous Impressionist painting, Edouard Manet's "Olympia," that scandalized Paris in 1863, and now hangs in the Gare d'Orsay Museum in Paris.
The painting by local artist Kayti Didriksen, shows a caricature of Bush, reclining in the nude on a chaise lounge, his head propped up by pillows.
Instead of the female servant who stands behind Olympia's couch, a man in suit and tie resembling Vice President Dick Cheney stands nearby, holding a cushion with a crown and a miniature oil rig on top of it.
The painting was part of a "living room art" show called "Funky Furniture" — a variety of painted furniture and other items that were set up in the museum last week.
Expected to formally open this month, the show, including the Bush painting, was abruptly shut down Monday after some of the artists' themes were considered unsuitable.
In addition to the Bush painting, the exhibit included a decorated church pew with pictures and writing that accused former President Reagan of ignoring the AIDS crisis and an end table decorated with drug paraphernalia with a quote from former District of Columbia Mayor Marion Barry, who was jailed for drug possession.
"This is not what we were bargaining for. We thought we were getting functional furniture," Leslie Shapiro, co-chairman of the museum's board of directors, told the Washington Post.
The City Museum of Washington, operated by the Historical Society of Washington, D.C., is primarily a place where local and regional history is on display. The museum's executive board decided the museum was "not an appropriate venue" for the exhibit.
Art-O-Matic 2004, a confederation of local artists which organized the project, now is looking for another space to house the exhibit, said Jim Tretick, a member of the group's board of directors.
LONDON (AP) -- A rabbit becomes a pot plant and a beheaded owl is turned into a desk tidy: by the alchemy of art, British university student Ebony Andrews is turning dead animals - including pieces of roadkill - into provoking artworks.
LONDON - Ebony Andrews is making a killing — turning roadkill into art.
Andrews, 22, said her artwork is a commentary on how we humans view animals as commodities. She turned a beheaded owl into a desk organizer, and put the insides of a dead squirrel into a remote control for a DVD player.
Wreaths
The demure symbol of Christmas.
By Bryan Curtis
Posted Monday, Dec. 19, 2005, at 6:25 PM ET
Until now, the Christmas wreath has provoked no public controversy whatsoever. One reason is that the wreath is the most demure of holiday symbols. One could imagine the row that would occur if a Christmas tree—say, the iconic one in Rockefeller Center—were cut down and carried off. Yet in 2002, when wreaths were removed from the necks of the lions that guard the New York Public Library (the statues had grown too fragile for decorations), the event elicited only a drowsy headline in the Daily News: "Lions' Wreaths No Mane Event." There is no laudatory carol called "O Christmas Wreath," and no call for a public wreath-lighting. The wreath's state of metaphysical uncertainty figures to end, however, thanks to Dana Wilner and Clare Weiss, two employees of the Department of Parks & Recreation. They're the curators of an art exhibit, now in its 23rd year, called "Wreath Interpretations." The idea, according to Wilner, is to "create an atmosphere of extending the idea of what could be a wreath."
So what could be a wreath? The history of the wreath is so tangled, so choked with symbolism, that the wreath has come to mean everything and nothing: a perfectly secular symbol of Christmas. Among the first people to embrace wreaths were ancient Persians, who wore diadems made of fabric and jewels—the wreath standing in for wealth and power. The Greeks awarded wreathlike headwear to early Olympic champions—the wreath, in that case, meaning victory. Germanic tribes used wreaths to anticipate the end of the long winter, a tradition which under Christianity morphed into the familiar advent wreath, with candles lit in the weeks leading to the Christmas. For the current wreath craze in America, we may thank the European settlers who, anticipating the future colonialism of Martha Stewart, brought wreath-making techniques to the New World.
"Wreath Interpretations," which drew entries from artists and botanists from around the five boroughs, can accommodate almost any conception of the wreath. A "Wreath Interpretations" wreath may offer a political statement or simply a paean to the Parks Department (a frequent theme). It may be constructed from organic or manmade materials. It may be round or square. It may have a hole in the center or not. In fact, because of the somewhat atrophied state of New York's wreath community—the organic wreath-makers, in particular, were largely silent this year—anyone who takes the time to create a wreath, no matter how quasi-definitional, will likely find it displayed in "Wreath Interpretations."
Wreaths
The demure symbol of Christmas.
By Bryan Curtis
Posted Monday, Dec. 19, 2005, at 6:25 PM ET
Until now, the Christmas wreath has provoked no public controversy whatsoever. One reason is that the wreath is the most demure of holiday symbols. One could imagine the row that would occur if a Christmas tree—say, the iconic one in Rockefeller Center—were cut down and carried off. Yet in 2002, when wreaths were removed from the necks of the lions that guard the New York Public Library (the statues had grown too fragile for decorations), the event elicited only a drowsy headline in the Daily News: "Lions' Wreaths No Mane Event." There is no laudatory carol called "O Christmas Wreath," and no call for a public wreath-lighting. The wreath's state of metaphysical uncertainty figures to end, however, thanks to Dana Wilner and Clare Weiss, two employees of the Department of Parks & Recreation. They're the curators of an art exhibit, now in its 23rd year, called "Wreath Interpretations." The idea, according to Wilner, is to "create an atmosphere of extending the idea of what could be a wreath."
So what could be a wreath? The history of the wreath is so tangled, so choked with symbolism, that the wreath has come to mean everything and nothing: a perfectly secular symbol of Christmas. Among the first people to embrace wreaths were ancient Persians, who wore diadems made of fabric and jewels—the wreath standing in for wealth and power. The Greeks awarded wreathlike headwear to early Olympic champions—the wreath, in that case, meaning victory. Germanic tribes used wreaths to anticipate the end of the long winter, a tradition which under Christianity morphed into the familiar advent wreath, with candles lit in the weeks leading to the Christmas. For the current wreath craze in America, we may thank the European settlers who, anticipating the future colonialism of Martha Stewart, brought wreath-making techniques to the New World.
"Wreath Interpretations," which drew entries from artists and botanists from around the five boroughs, can accommodate almost any conception of the wreath. A "Wreath Interpretations" wreath may offer a political statement or simply a paean to the Parks Department (a frequent theme). It may be constructed from organic or manmade materials. It may be round or square. It may have a hole in the center or not. In fact, because of the somewhat atrophied state of New York's wreath community—the organic wreath-makers, in particular, were largely silent this year—anyone who takes the time to create a wreath, no matter how quasi-definitional, will likely find it displayed in "Wreath Interpretations."
Wreaths
The demure symbol of Christmas.
By Bryan Curtis
Posted Monday, Dec. 19, 2005, at 6:25 PM ET
Until now, the Christmas wreath has provoked no public controversy whatsoever. One reason is that the wreath is the most demure of holiday symbols. One could imagine the row that would occur if a Christmas tree—say, the iconic one in Rockefeller Center—were cut down and carried off. Yet in 2002, when wreaths were removed from the necks of the lions that guard the New York Public Library (the statues had grown too fragile for decorations), the event elicited only a drowsy headline in the Daily News: "Lions' Wreaths No Mane Event." There is no laudatory carol called "O Christmas Wreath," and no call for a public wreath-lighting. The wreath's state of metaphysical uncertainty figures to end, however, thanks to Dana Wilner and Clare Weiss, two employees of the Department of Parks & Recreation. They're the curators of an art exhibit, now in its 23rd year, called "Wreath Interpretations." The idea, according to Wilner, is to "create an atmosphere of extending the idea of what could be a wreath."
So what could be a wreath? The history of the wreath is so tangled, so choked with symbolism, that the wreath has come to mean everything and nothing: a perfectly secular symbol of Christmas. Among the first people to embrace wreaths were ancient Persians, who wore diadems made of fabric and jewels—the wreath standing in for wealth and power. The Greeks awarded wreathlike headwear to early Olympic champions—the wreath, in that case, meaning victory. Germanic tribes used wreaths to anticipate the end of the long winter, a tradition which under Christianity morphed into the familiar advent wreath, with candles lit in the weeks leading to the Christmas. For the current wreath craze in America, we may thank the European settlers who, anticipating the future colonialism of Martha Stewart, brought wreath-making techniques to the New World.
"Wreath Interpretations," which drew entries from artists and botanists from around the five boroughs, can accommodate almost any conception of the wreath. A "Wreath Interpretations" wreath may offer a political statement or simply a paean to the Parks Department (a frequent theme). It may be constructed from organic or manmade materials. It may be round or square. It may have a hole in the center or not. In fact, because of the somewhat atrophied state of New York's wreath community—the organic wreath-makers, in particular, were largely silent this year—anyone who takes the time to create a wreath, no matter how quasi-definitional, will likely find it displayed in "Wreath Interpretations."
Wreaths
The demure symbol of Christmas.
By Bryan Curtis
Posted Monday, Dec. 19, 2005, at 6:25 PM ET
Until now, the Christmas wreath has provoked no public controversy whatsoever. One reason is that the wreath is the most demure of holiday symbols. One could imagine the row that would occur if a Christmas tree—say, the iconic one in Rockefeller Center—were cut down and carried off. Yet in 2002, when wreaths were removed from the necks of the lions that guard the New York Public Library (the statues had grown too fragile for decorations), the event elicited only a drowsy headline in the Daily News: "Lions' Wreaths No Mane Event." There is no laudatory carol called "O Christmas Wreath," and no call for a public wreath-lighting. The wreath's state of metaphysical uncertainty figures to end, however, thanks to Dana Wilner and Clare Weiss, two employees of the Department of Parks & Recreation. They're the curators of an art exhibit, now in its 23rd year, called "Wreath Interpretations." The idea, according to Wilner, is to "create an atmosphere of extending the idea of what could be a wreath."
So what could be a wreath? The history of the wreath is so tangled, so choked with symbolism, that the wreath has come to mean everything and nothing: a perfectly secular symbol of Christmas. Among the first people to embrace wreaths were ancient Persians, who wore diadems made of fabric and jewels—the wreath standing in for wealth and power. The Greeks awarded wreathlike headwear to early Olympic champions—the wreath, in that case, meaning victory. Germanic tribes used wreaths to anticipate the end of the long winter, a tradition which under Christianity morphed into the familiar advent wreath, with candles lit in the weeks leading to the Christmas. For the current wreath craze in America, we may thank the European settlers who, anticipating the future colonialism of Martha Stewart, brought wreath-making techniques to the New World.
"Wreath Interpretations," which drew entries from artists and botanists from around the five boroughs, can accommodate almost any conception of the wreath. A "Wreath Interpretations" wreath may offer a political statement or simply a paean to the Parks Department (a frequent theme). It may be constructed from organic or manmade materials. It may be round or square. It may have a hole in the center or not. In fact, because of the somewhat atrophied state of New York's wreath community—the organic wreath-makers, in particular, were largely silent this year—anyone who takes the time to create a wreath, no matter how quasi-definitional, will likely find it displayed in "Wreath Interpretations."
Wreaths
The demure symbol of Christmas.
By Bryan Curtis
Posted Monday, Dec. 19, 2005, at 6:25 PM ET
Until now, the Christmas wreath has provoked no public controversy whatsoever. One reason is that the wreath is the most demure of holiday symbols. One could imagine the row that would occur if a Christmas tree—say, the iconic one in Rockefeller Center—were cut down and carried off. Yet in 2002, when wreaths were removed from the necks of the lions that guard the New York Public Library (the statues had grown too fragile for decorations), the event elicited only a drowsy headline in the Daily News: "Lions' Wreaths No Mane Event." There is no laudatory carol called "O Christmas Wreath," and no call for a public wreath-lighting. The wreath's state of metaphysical uncertainty figures to end, however, thanks to Dana Wilner and Clare Weiss, two employees of the Department of Parks & Recreation. They're the curators of an art exhibit, now in its 23rd year, called "Wreath Interpretations." The idea, according to Wilner, is to "create an atmosphere of extending the idea of what could be a wreath."
So what could be a wreath? The history of the wreath is so tangled, so choked with symbolism, that the wreath has come to mean everything and nothing: a perfectly secular symbol of Christmas. Among the first people to embrace wreaths were ancient Persians, who wore diadems made of fabric and jewels—the wreath standing in for wealth and power. The Greeks awarded wreathlike headwear to early Olympic champions—the wreath, in that case, meaning victory. Germanic tribes used wreaths to anticipate the end of the long winter, a tradition which under Christianity morphed into the familiar advent wreath, with candles lit in the weeks leading to the Christmas. For the current wreath craze in America, we may thank the European settlers who, anticipating the future colonialism of Martha Stewart, brought wreath-making techniques to the New World.
"Wreath Interpretations," which drew entries from artists and botanists from around the five boroughs, can accommodate almost any conception of the wreath. A "Wreath Interpretations" wreath may offer a political statement or simply a paean to the Parks Department (a frequent theme). It may be constructed from organic or manmade materials. It may be round or square. It may have a hole in the center or not. In fact, because of the somewhat atrophied state of New York's wreath community—the organic wreath-makers, in particular, were largely silent this year—anyone who takes the time to create a wreath, no matter how quasi-definitional, will likely find it displayed in "Wreath Interpretations."
I just went to an "opening" of the Creep Show, a collection of eclectic and weird art. The exhibit was a mix of sculpture, painting, photography, fabric and other art. The metalwork was wonderful.
If anyone lives near that town, the Worcester Artists Group had the exhibit in what seems like an old warehouse. I am not sure what the name of the place was but it would be wortht the the trip.