El Anatsui : Untitled (2008)

El Anatsui : Untitled (2009)

El Anatsui : Venice Biennale (2011)

“The works unmistakably refer to African traditional cultural practices and forms at the same time that they transcend them. The alchemical transformation of discarded metal fragments into art provides a sobering reminder of the mixed consequences of former colonialism, current globalization, rampant consumerism and waste. But this opulent beauty exudes power beyond political argument, embodying some hope for the way humans can change damage into progress. Says Anatsui, ‘I am changing the meaning of bottle caps. Metaphorically I am working with the lifting of the spirits.’” – Alexandra Anderson-Spivy, Artnet

El Anatsui : Wastepaper Bins (2004)

El Anatsui : Dusas II (2007)

El Anatsui (born 1944) is a Ghanaian sculptor active for much of his career in Nigeria. Anatsui's preferred media are clay and wood, which he uses to create objects based on traditional Ghanaian beliefs and other subjects. He has cut wood with chainsaws and blackened it with acetylene torches; more recently, he has turned to installation art. Some of his works resemble woven cloths such as kente cloth. Over this week I'll try and show a range of his work with his most recent pieces including recycled materials.

LeWitt in the Great Outdoors

New York's City Hall Park has been recently into an outdoor museum exhibit featuring one of the world’s greatest modern artists, the late Sol LeWitt. The park is storing a collection of LeWitt’s 27 most famous pieces of art throughout his career. It is the first outdoor exhibit detailing his extraordinary career. LeWitt was a leader in the Minimalism and Conceptualism movements, with specialized mediums ranging from photography, to works on paper to wall drawings, and 3-dimensional structures that explore different geometric forms such as pyramids and cubes. The selected pieces have been featured in museums around the world including London’s Tate Modern, Amsterdam’s Musée National d’Art Moderne, and Paris’ Centre Georges Pompidou. LeWitt died earlier this year and I ran a short piece on his work then, but if you're in NY with an hour or two spare, it could be worth the work to see so many LeWitts in the one place at the one time - especially in an outdoor setting.
Burn brightly, Pete

The Big Cow(s)

For almost 50 years Helsinki based sculptor Miina Akkijyrkka (that's her in the first photo) has been working with cows and on dairy farms, in their care as well as using them as a muse during her career as an artist. On her website, the section listed as models shows photo of cows. Miina purchases old vehicles from dealers and wreckers around Finland, cutting them up and reshaping them into monstrous sized cows (similar to something you'd expect to see in Star Wars).

Back to School

Back into the office today to load kilns and fire during the last week of my holidays. All going well, I'll empty the kiln in another 3 days, fire again and have all the work that is dried reloaded and the firing completed in time for students on Tuesday of next week. While I was there, I also took shots of some student sculpture and took some more shots of the cats and dogs the Year 10 students were working on before the break. Most of them went home under arms on trains and buses, but here are a few that remained in the classroom over the holidays. Burn brightly, Pete.

Apeeling Sculpture

Melbourne-based artist Robbie Rowlands creates these mind-bending segmented sculptures and installations from everyday objects and places. Enormous strips of floorboards are peeled up from abandoned buildings and street signs are sliced into rusty, serpentine artworks.

Motorcycle Rococo

Based on the concept of Taiwanese street life, design brand Yii and artist Rock Wang created this Rococo-style mirror using motorcycle parts for the Triennale di Milano.

"Yii"- pronounced as the letter E – is derived from three Chinese characters. The first represents the central idea in Eastern philosophy: the rotation between the sun and the moon, yin and yang- the changing and unchanging laws of nature. The second one represents exquisite craft, and the last one stands for ideas and creativity.

Carly's Dog (and Others)

No it's not over quite yet. I finished school on Friday with all my marking completed ( if not all returned to students). Now I just have to write some sculpture comments for students over the break and take some photos of individual pieces ( like Carly's orange dog above) before I go back in a fortnight. But in the meantime, I'm kicking back for a few days and catching up on old movies and new books. Burn brightly, Pete.

Driftwood Sculptures - Heather Jansch

Awaken and Free What Has Been Asleep

MICHAEL VELLIQUETTE’s New York solo exhibition Awaken and Free What Has Been Asleep features new paper sculptures and drawings and expands his continuing fascination with ornamental abstraction. His new forms come from a  “rite” of meditation, reflection and drawing and are influenced by the practice of sigilization - an occult-based method for developing personal symbols by which the words of a statement of intent are reduced to a formal design.

VELLIQUETTE paints and draws on heavyweight paper that he uses as the raw material for his wall-mounted sculptures using the processes of cutting, layering and gluing his colored paper shapes.

Fernando Botero: The Dream (1976)

Fernando Botero: Ballerina Asquadra (2007)

Book Sculptures of Su Blackwell

Recycle - Rethink

Korean sculptor Yong Ho Ji uses recycled tyres in a laborious construction process that can take up to three months to complete. He sculpts his initial forms out of wire and clay, builds plaster molds and, finally, makes resin forms. Old tyres are welded and screwed and glued together. Having grown up at the base of a large mountain in Korea, where his grandmother raised cattle and other livestock, the artist viewed tires and his deep sense of ecological responsibility as interconnected. To him, they would represent the important link between industrialization and environmental degradation.

Burn brightly, Pete

Doris Salcedo & Me....

Doris Salcedo: Istanbul Project

I was working with Year 9 students in the school library yesterday where they are undertaking research into artist's works & lives. One young lady had been given the task of researching Columbian sculptor Doris Salcedo who is known internationally for her installations and social commentary:

"Sir, I've looked everywhere but I can't find when Doris Salcedo died?"
     "That's because she's still living. She hasn't died yet."
"But she was born in 1958! Surely she's dead by now!"
(Doris Salcedo is two years younger than me.)

Burn brightly (while you still can), Pete

Louise Bourgeois: Femme Maison (1994)