c ontemporary artist s
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Antoine Helbert
K o h e i N a wa
C l au d e a n d FranรงoisX av i e r L a l a n n e
Studio Job
D av i d K r a c o v
Yinka Sh o n i b a r e
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Antoine Helbert Hybrids i l lu s t r at i o n s
Contemporary art created by Antoine Helbert fascinates us for its creativity, unexpected figures, colorful paintings that captivates everyone attention. Hybrids is a series of illustrations combining the features of animals and people. In Hybrides, Helbert applies the less glamorous scaly feet and caruncles of birds to humans, and the combs and bright feathers of male birds to female humans. It is not clear in each illustration whether the bird additions are costume, growth, or innate to the humans: in some it is a complete cover of feathers over skin; in others, it seems like the coloration or texture could be makeup or accessory. Antoine Helbert’s works are certainly creative and interesting images; however, they’re a little on the creepy side. The pictures remind me of something you might see in movie or a magic world like the ‘Chronicles of Narnia’? Historical evocations, the medieval scenes, imaginary universes multiply are helbert’s inspiration. He learned all his skills at School of Decorative Arts in Strasbourg. He enters very young, its passion for painting, design, illustration, lead him into a degree as… an interior designer! No form of expression stand along in this disconcerting artist. Complex, brilliant, seems words that aren’t able to fulfill his artistic work.
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C l au d e and Franรงois - X av i e r La l a n n e oversizeD MAGIC
In NY people can experience French sculptors Claude and FrançoisXavier Lalanne fantastical world with “Les Lalanne,” a striking new exhibition at Paul Kasmin Gallery. On view is one of the couple’s rare collaborative works. For more than 50 years, the French sculptors Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne worked closely together to create two of the twentieth century’s most whimsical bodies of work. In 1967, the artists Francois-Xavier and Claude Lalanne moved from Paris, where they ran in a circle with the likes of Yves Saint Laurent, Pierre Bergé, and Constantin Brancusi, to the small French village of Ury, near Fontainebleau. Over the years, Les Lalannes, as they are known, transformed their farm into something of a fairytale safari, carving out garden paths populated with their surreal sculptures of animals in a manner that appeared incidental, as if the works were in their natural habitat. “It’s absolutely magical,” says the garden designer Madison Cox a longtime friend of the artist couple. Cox has always been enamored of Claude’s artistry with organic matter— while her husband, who died six years ago, is known for his oversized sculptures of beasts, Claude, at 91, is still making intricate jewelry from fossilized flora and fauna— and has designed Les Lalannes, an exhibition of the couple’s work that opened at Paul Kasmin Gallery in New York, to channel the sense of discovery he found when he visited their gardens in Ury. About the show he says: “You turn a corner and there’s a surprise,” ;“I envisioned the gallery as it were an exterior. There’s a series of spaces that become a labyrinth. It isolates the work, so you don’t get to meet all the pieces at once.” This is some exhibition you should defintly visit and get inspired!
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Da v i d K r ac o v colorfull m e ta l s c u l p t u r e s
Regarding the start of Spring, and the colorfull idea that the word reminds us, today I present the most colorfull metal sculptures, just like the epoch demands. Meet David Kracov amazing metal sculptures. “Reflections 3-D”, the creation above, is made of exactly 2,977 individual, hand-painted butterflies, and each butterfly represents the exact number of lives lost on 11 September 2001. This metal sculptures are handmade and hand painted by the designer, turning a steel form into this bright creations. The butterfly presence in each creation is David’s signature trademark. And why does he use at least one butterfly, sometimes visible and sometimes hidden? For him each butterfly is a tribute to the delicacy and value of a child’s life.No form of expression stand along in this disconcerting artist. Complex, brilliant, seems words that aren’t able to fulfill his artistic work. A favorite one is the “Book of Life”, so check here the video showing the primitive shape of the book after being painted. The video shows the sculpture in a raw metal stage, after the steel is formed and the butterflies are attached, waiting for the next stage of painting. The pages are each curved by hand and the butterflies are bent by hand, one-by-one. The “Book of Love” is something special either. David Kracov can definitely make our Spring brighter with his talent!
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Kohei Na wa C ontemporary Sculptures
Japanese artist Kohei Nawa, is no unknown artist to the world most wanted galleries, being considered by many to be at the forefront of contemporary art in Japan. Mostly know for is Pixel Cell work, where he glues to the surface of objects transparent glass spheres. He was around all the world to collect inspirations, but now it’s mostly at is “factory” Sandwich, in the suburbs of Kyoto that he creates and changes ideas with new talents that com all over the world to work with him. Talking about his influences Kohei affirms “I personally do not concentrate on Japanese culture, instead I am more interested in human nature that applies to all cultures.”, for example for the “Beads” series he started with a search in the internet for stuffed animals as a starter, but why lots of deers? Because its the bigger stuffed animal produced in Japan. But Kohei doesn’t always work with stuffed animals as we can see … his research in the web is bigger.
And “beads” isn’t the only serie from Kohei. In the “Swell” series he uses the figurines as mold but then layer them with heavy coats of foamed polyurethane. The work of Kohei is more than “covering” usual objects, it’s rather a creation of a new dimension by morphing those objects into something never seen before. Check out below his interview for bananastv and learn a bit more about this huge creative mind or visit his website and see all the fantastic series that he already created.
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Studio Job CRAS H ED LOVE
Belgian artists of Studio Job designed two new sculptural pieces of furniture, presented in collaboration with carpenters workshop gallery. The first work “train crash table”Job Smeets and Nynke Tynagel have symbolised their romantic break-up as a head-on collision between two steam trains. The second piece named the ‘robber baron buffet’, is an addition to the robber baron suite, originally conceived by studio job in 2006. the collection celebrates and shames both art and industry.
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Y i n ka Sh o n i b a r e C ontemporary colonialism
We love the art work from Yinka Shonibare MBE. The BrithisNigerian artist was born in London and moved to Lagos, Nigeria at the age of three. He returned to London to study Fine Art first at Byam Shaw College of Art (now Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design) and then at Goldsmiths College, where he received his MFA, graduating as part of the ‘Young British Artists’ generation. He currently lives and works in the East End of London. In is work you can feel the diferent traditions, from the antique british fashion design to the african patterns that give so much life to his artwork, it’s just amazing the humor that can be felt in is last work “Champagne Kids”. “Over the past decade, Shonibare has become well known for his exploration of colonialism and postcolonialism within the contemporary context of globalisation. Shonibare’s work explores these issues, alongside those of race and class, through the media of painting, sculpture, photography and, more recently, film and performance. Using this wide range of media, Shonibare examines in particular the construction of identity and tangled interrelationship between Africa and Europe and their respective economic and political histories. Mixing Western art history and literature, he asks what constitutes our collective contemporary identity today. Having described himself as a ‘postcolonial’ hybrid, Shonibare questions the meaning of cultural and national definitions. Shonibare was a Turner prize nominee in 2004 and awarded the decoration of Member of the “Most Excellent Order of the British Empire”. He has added this title to his professional name. He was notably commissioned by Okwui Enwezor At Documenta 10 in 2002 to create his most recognised work ‘Gallantry and Criminal Conversation’ that launched him on an international stage. He has exhibited at the Venice Biennial and internationally at leading museums worldwide. In September 2008, his major mid-career survey commenced at the MCA Sydney and toured to the Brooklyn Museum, New York in June 2009 and the Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC in October 2009 . In 2010, ‘Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle’ became his first public art commission on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square.”
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