Inspired by the film noir era of the 50′s and the symbol of the femme fatale of the modern neo noir era, the seductive woman starts as the focus.

With the classic snub nose .38 special to lead into the outer area of the sleeve.

Fun and refreshing session. To be continued in London…

Great session with Jonas from Germany. Still a few sessions to complete the chest piece…

You may remember the start to Pio’s sleeve back in LA.

Always fun to work a second session with a client as committed as Pio. Collection to continue in London….

Andrew from UK soldiered through his first tattoo.

And Peter came through from Holland to begin his sleeve.

Long nights ahead, stay tuned…

“‘Everybody Street’ illuminates the lives and work of New York’s iconic street photographers and the incomparable city that has inspired them for decades. The documentary pays tribute to the spirit of street photography through a cinematic exploration of New York City, and captures the visceral rush, singular perseverance and at times immediate danger customary to these artists.

featuring : Bruce Davidson , Elliott Erwitt, Jill Freedman, Bruce Gilden, Joel Meyerowitz, Rebecca Lepkoff, Mary Ellen Mark, Jeff Mermelstein, Clayton Patterson, Ricky Powell, Jamel Shabazz, Martha Cooper, Jeff Mermelstein, and Boogie, with Max Kozloff and Luc Sante.”

“From sidewalk antics in Harlem with Bruce Davidson to people-watching with Magnum veteran Elliot Erwitt, a new feature-length documentary by Cheryl Dunn chronicles the pioneering photographers making their mark on the streets of New York. For three years the photographer and filmmaker—whose work has shown at the The Hole, MoCA and OHWOW—trawled archives, visited old haunts and relived the heyday of Studio 54 to trace the history of NYC photography. “I wanted to meet my idols so I went to the streets and followed their footsteps,” says Dunn of the Kickstarter-funded feature. “You stand there for five minutes, you’re going to see something funny.” Having been shown at the Tate Modern in London, and also featuring Bruce Gilden, Joel Meyerowitz, Rebecca Lepkoff and Mary Ellen Mark, the film premieres this week at Hot Docs Film Festival in Toronto. “It’s a meter for culture and what’s happening in the world,” adds the filmmaker. “You never finish the mission; the street is constantly evolving.”

source: everybody street, nowness

All work no play, once again. Here’s a sneak peek into recent activity…

“A motorcycle stunt rider turns to robbing banks as a way to provide for his lover and their newborn child, a decision that puts him on a collision course with an ambitious rookie cop navigating a department ruled by a corrupt detective.”

BOSTON.- “To provide insight into their military prowess and lifestyle, as well as the artistry of their elaborate armor, helmets, and accoutrements of warfare that bear witness to the “way of the warrior,” the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), hosts the US debut of Samurai. The exhibition, on view from April 14 through August 4, 2013, showcases more than 140 works from the Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Collection of Dallas, Texas, one of the finest holdings of samurai armor in the world. Among the works featured are 21 full suits of armor, including one formerly owned by the Yoshiki branch of the Mori clan, a prominent family whose origins date to the 12th century.

Sets such as these were handed down from father to son. A ceremonial suit of armor for a boy (warabe tosei gusoku, late Edo period, 19th century) also are on view. At a young age, the sons of samurai began military training in weapons and received strict religious and academic instruction. Around the age of 12, they would receive their first armor and sword.
Fearsome warriors clad head-to-toe in decorative armor, samurai of 12th- through 19th-century Japan symbolized the power, honor, and valor of the country’s military elite. Led by omnipotent warlords, called shoguns, samurai have long fascinated the public.”

source: artdaily, Photo: Courtesy of The Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Museum, Dallas© Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

When in Rome…

“ROME- I grandi fotografi (Life. The great photographers) exhibition at the auditorium is on April 30, 2013 in Rome. The exhibition showing some 150 pictures taken from 1936 when the US magazine Life magazine premiered will be open from May, 1 to August 4, 2013.”
source:artdaily, photos by Gabriel Bouys

Another great I’ve come to respect and study is Belgian artist Wim Delvoye, and the genius of his work and career. Its common to see contemporary artists to go the route of being controversial and use that as a crutch to build a vehicle to engage the politically convoluted fine art world. But few stay true to their guns regardless of the amount of love- or hate, and can be as consistent and thorough from concept to execution as Delvoye.

“Wim Delvoye (born 1965 in Wervik, West Flanders) is a Belgian neo-conceptual artist known for his inventive and often shocking projects. Much of his work is focused on the body. He repeatedly links the attractive with the repulsive, creating work that holds within it inherent contradictions- one does not know whether to stare, be seduced, or to look away. As Robert Enright wrote in Border Crossings, “Delvoye is involved in a way of making art that reorients our understanding of how beauty can be created.” Wim Delvoye has an eclectic oeuvre, exposing his interest in a range of themes, from bodily function, to the Catholic Church, and numerous subjects in between. He lives and works in Belgium, but recently moved to China after a court of law judged his pig tattoo art projects illegal.

Growing up, Delvoye attended exhibitions with his parents, and his love of drawing eventually led him to art school. Delvoye has said that the pessimistic expectations for Belgian art students freed him, essentially making him realize that he “had nothing to lose.” Shortly thereafter, Delvoye began painting over wallpaper and carpets, coloring in the existing patterns and defying the tendency towards free expression vibrant in the art world at the time.”

source: images © WimDelvoye

Tribute to all the firefighters out there.

Inspired by Igor Mitoraj, the theme is based off ruins of statues and broken angels.

More progress to come with the full sleeve…

“‘Vertical Horizon’, by french graphic artist Romain Jacquet-Lagreze is a photographic journey between the buildings of the relentlessly growing metropolis of Hong-Kong. The image series takes a deep dive into the city’s thick atmospheres, showcasing a visual record of its wildly diverse built environment. Presented in a hard-cover book, the collection of unique compositions contemplate the raw nature of Chinese culture and the expression of its sheer vivacity.”

source: desigboom, image © romain jacquet-lagreze

Here are some recent features out now. Thanks to all for the love and support. A special thanks to Total Tattoo for visiting the studio back in London. Keep print alive, and pick up your issue…

“The partners took said iconic style to a pop-up shop in London recently, which saw a massively successful turnout for the two veteran artists and other members of the Lowrider family. Hypebeast  got the opportunity to speak with the two while the pop-up shop was occurring, and candidly conversed about their personal history of tattooing, aesthetic influence, and favorite work. For those overseas looking to get inked by one of these artists, Jose will be touring Rome from April 24 – May 14 and Jun will be in Paris from May 6 – 18. Enjoy the video above.”

source:Hypebeast

We couldn’t quite get to block in the sleeve, but most of the components are in. One more pass to go…

Thanks to Sandy for sitting like a rock. Final session in London.

Take a look at the latest series ChurchTanks by Kris Kuksi…
“My art warns us that this appeal is irrelevant, and that we should be slow to create a need for it. The themes I use also teach us that although death may pursue us arbitrarily, we should never neglect to mourn the tremendous loss of individual potential. In personal reflection, I feel that in the world today much of mankind is oftentimes a frivolous and fragile being driven primarily by greed and materialism. I hope that my art exposes the fallacies of Man, unveiling a new level of awareness to the viewer.”

source: KrisKuksi

“Ron Mueck has been invited to present his new sculpture at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain from 16 April to 29 September 2013. This is his first major exhibition in Europe since the hugely successful Fondation Cartier exhibition of 2005.
In addition to six important recent sculptures the show includes three produced especially for this event. A new film recording their creation has been made for the occasion by Gautier Deblonde. Revealing the reclusive artist at work further emphasizes the sensitivity and power of Ron Mueck’s sculpture and highlights its particular resonance for our time.”

“Based in London, Ron Mueck has had highly acclaimed exhibitions around the world from Japan to Australia, New Zealand and Mexico, but shows of his new work in Europe have not been frequent occurrences. Mueck works slowly in his small North London studio, making time itself an important element in his creative process. His human figures are meticulously detailed, with surprising changes of scale that place them as far from academic realism as they are from pop art or hyperrealism.”

source: fondation cartier images © Ron Mueck

Another pass to go…

Superman the character was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster in 1933 and sold to Detective Comics, Inc in 1938. Superman first appeared in Action Comics #1 (June 1938) and subsequently appeared in various radio serials, television programs, films, newspaper strips, and video games. With the success of his adventures, Superman helped to create the superhero genre and establish its primacy within the American comic book.

Siegel may have been inspired to create the Superman character because of the death of his father. Mitchell Siegel was a Jewish immigrant who owned a clothing store on Cleveland’s near east side. He died during a robbery attempt in 1932, a year before Superman was created. Although Siegel never mentioned the death of his father in interviews, both Gerard Jones and Brad Meltzer believe it must have affected him. “It had to have an effect,” says Jones. “There’s a connection there: the loss of a dad as a source for Superman.” Meltzer states: “Your father dies in a robbery, and you invent a bulletproof man who becomes the world’s greatest hero. I’m sorry, but there’s a story there.”

Influence on early Superman stories is the context of the Great Depression. The left-leaning perspective of creators Shuster and Siegel is reflected in early storylines. Superman took on the role of social activist, fighting crooked businessmen and politicians and demolishing run-down tenements. This is seen by comics scholar Roger Sabin as a reflection of “the liberal idealism of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal”, with Shuster and Siegel initially portraying Superman as champion to a variety of social causes. In later Superman radio programs the character continued to take on such issues, tackling a version of the Ku Klux Klan in a 1946 broadcast. Siegel and Shuster’s status as children of Jewish immigrants is also thought to have influenced their work. Timothy Aaron Pevey has argued that they crafted “an immigrant figure whose desire was to fit into American culture as an American”, something which Pevey believes taps into an important aspect of the American identity.

 source: forbes, warner bros

“ROME.- The exhibition Louise Nevelson, promoted by the Fondazione Roma, organised by the Fondazione Roma-Arte-Musei with Arthemisia Group and held in the Museo Fondazione Roma situated in Palazzo Sciarra, will be open to the public from the 16th April to the 21st July 2013. The exhibition, supported by the American Embassy in association with the Nevelson Foundation of Philadelphia and the Fondazione Marconi of Milan, will show over 70 works by the American sculptor of Russian origin, Louise Berliawsky Nevelson

Louise Nevelson (September 23, 1899 – April 17, 1988) was an American sculptor known for her monumental, monochromatic, wooden wall pieces and outdoor sculptures. Born in Czarist Russia, she emigrated with her family to the United States in the early 20th century. By the early 1930s she was attending art classes at the Art Students League of New York, and in 1941 she had her first solo exhibition. A student of Hans Hofmann and Chaim Gross, Nevelson experimented with early conceptual art using found objects, and dabbled in painting and printing before dedicating her lifework to sculpture. Usually created out of wood, her sculptures appear puzzle-like, with multiple intricately cut pieces placed into wall sculptures or independently standing pieces, often 3-D. A unique feature of her work is that her figures are often painted in monochromatic black or white.  A figure in the international art scene, Nevelson was showcased at the 31st Venice Biennale. Her work is seen in major collections in museums and corporations. Louise Nevelson remains one of the most important figures in 20th-century American sculpture.”

“Sri Kumaré is an enlightened guru from the East who has come to America to spread his teachings. After three months in Phoenix, Kumaré has found a group of devoted students who embrace him as a true spiritual teacher. But beneath his long beard, deep penetrating eyes, and his endless smile, Kumaré has a secret he is about to unveil to his disciples: he is not real. Kumaré is really Vikram Gandhi, an American filmmaker from New Jersey who wanted to see if he could transform himself into a guru and build a following of real people. By the time he is to unveil, Vikram realizes why other gurus don’t unveil themselves: he cares too much for his disciples who have now made serious and substantial changes to improve their lives, and they claim it is all because of Kumaré. When Kumaré reveals his greatest teaching of all: his true self, the reaction will shock, surprise, and even inspire all who see it.”

Zaha Hadid is going in this year. Take a look at the latest…

“For Milan Design week 2013, Zaha Hadid has paired with product designers and lanners at Lab 23 to develop a series of urban sculptures for seating and resting. The fluid curves of the benches appropriate the formal language of ice formations, while the sinuous strata recall the layered lines of intersecting glacial crevasses. The object meets the ground at the crest of two sweeping curves that envelope a stepped void. The tectonic choice of resin quartz, a durable engineered stone, allows the filler crystals to refract light and create a shimmering depth. The Serac bench is part of an ongoing collaboration that pairs environmentally friendly materials with street furniture and dynamic designers.”

source:zaha-hadid, designboom, image © jacopo spilimbergo

“Italian sculptor Aron Demetz teamed up with Korean sculptor Shan Hur. Together they created a fascinating piece of work called ‘The Tainted’. Demetz explores the human figure with his wooden sculptures and shows incredible skills in carving wood. He uses the material to highlight the harmony as well as the conflicts between man and nature. We are especially intrigued by the contrast between the smoothly carved figures and the harshly treated surfaces.”

source: ignant.de

A good start to Brian’s sleeve with the great Malcolm X…

 Education = freedom. I can still remember reading his Autobiography as a kid, and how intense of an impact it made in learning how to apply the mind beyond the classroom.

If you haven’t read the autobio, check out one of Spike Lee’s old school greats, and a young Denzel in “X”,  based off of Malcolm X’s book…

More to come with Brian….

The Springtime of the Renaissance, showcases Sculpture and the Arts from 1400-60 on April 6, 2013 in Florence. The exhibition is held at the Palazzo Strozzi until August 18 and scheduled at the Louvre Museum in Paris from September 26 to January 6, 2014

“The exhibition proposes to illustrate, in theme-based sections, the origin of what is still known today as the “miracle” of the Renaissance in Florence, doing so principally through masterpieces of sculpture, the branch of figurative art in which that new season first saw the light of day.
The first section is devoted to the rediscovery of the ancient world during the “rebirth” that occurred between the 13th and 14th centuries – from Nicola Pisano to Arnolfo di Cambio and their successors – and following assimilating the expressive richness of the Gothic style, especially of French origin.”

source: palazzostrozzi, photos:Gabriel Bouys

“Julian (Ryan Gosling) is a respected figure in the criminal underworld living in Bangkok. He and his brother Billy run a Thai boxing club which is a front for drug smuggling. When Billy is murdered, their mother Jenna (Kristin Scott Thomas), the head of a powerful criminal organization arrives from London seeking revenge.  She sets out to settle the score in this crime thriller from director Nicolas Winding Refn.”

LONDON.- “Michael Hoppen exhibits for the first time in the United Kingdom a comprehensive vintage selection of Brett Weston’s Nudes and Dunes. Born in 1911, the son and apprentice of legendary photographer Edward Weston, Brett applied himself to photography from an early age. Moving with his father to Mexico aged thirteen he was introduced to Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco and Tina Modotti. His father’s radical sense of composition and his exposure to modern art imbued him with a developed sense of form and a fascination with abstraction. Weston began photographing the dunes of Oceano, California in the early 1930’s and continued to photograph the desert throughout his career. In the late 1970’s and into the 1980’s he developed the Underwater Nude series, harnessing the mercurial quality of the water in the same way he had the desert sand. Often quoting painters as more influential to him than photographers, he maintained a strong sense of design: an inherent ability to reduce his subject to pure form.”

source: © Brett Weston, artdaily

“South Korean artist Young-Deok Seo continues his Meditation series where he turns ordinary bicycle chains into extraordinary figurative sculptures. Through his construction the artist continues to comment on man’s disintegration into a mechanical universe by using a cold, hard material. Using the human form as his template, the accomplished sculptor mimics the intricate shape and curves of the human face, deep in thought, for his Meditation series.

Each of his figurative creations for this collection depicts a unique face in a moment of serene meditation. The intricately detailed visage of each large-scale structure is both meticulously sculpted and intriguingly fragmented. The disembodied heads are visually perceived as one entity despite the spaces purposely left between each chain link. From a distance, one sees only the perfect silhouette of the faces, but upon closer inspection the viewer is able to notice the textured and fragmented imperfections.”

source:modern met, youngdeok.com

LONDON – ” Disarm at Lisson Gallery is a solo exhibition by Mexican artist Pedro Reyes, comprising mixed-media works and a live musical performance relating to the artist’s ambitious international project in which illegal firearms were used to fabricate musical instruments. The exhibition at Lisson Gallery includes musical instruments created from firearms, including revolvers, shot-guns and machine-guns, which were crushed by tanks and steamrollers to render them useless. These were offered to the artist by the Mexican government following their confiscation and subsequent public destruction in the city of Ciudad, Juarez.

From the 6,700 destroyed weapons he received from the Mexican Secretary of Defense, Reyes created two groups of instruments which will be exhibited together for the first time at Lisson Gallery. The first, a series titled Imagine, is an orchestra of fifty instruments, from flutes to string and percussion instruments, designed to be played live. The second, Disarm, is a never-before-exhibited installation of mechanical musical instruments, which can either be automated or played live by an individual operator using a laptop computer or midi keyboard. For Reyes the process of transforming weapons into objects of positive utility ‘… was more than physical. It’s important to consider that many lives were taken with these weapons; as if a sort of exorcism was taking place, the music expelled the demons they held, as well as being a requiem for the lives lost.’”

source: © PedroReyes.net artdaily.org designboom

A few passes left to go.

]]> http://www.juncha.net/conversion/feed/ 0 http://www.juncha.net/women-are-heros/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=women-are-heros http://www.juncha.net/women-are-heros/#comments Tue, 26 Mar 2013 02:43:16 +0000 admin http://www.juncha.net/?p=5036 JR is the one. Take a deeper look at his 2008 project, “Women are Heros”….

“In order to pay tribute to those who play an essential role in society but who are the primary victims of war, crime, rape and political or religious fanaticism, JR pasted huge photos of the faces and eyes of local women all over the outside of the favela, suddenly giving a female gaze to both the hill and the favela.”

“It’s a project made of bric-a-brac, like the favela itself. We had to adapt to this world where the roofs of houses are made of plastic and children’s revolvers are made of steel. We managed to get by in spite of the steep streets, the unsteady houses, the unpredictable electric cables and the exchanges of gunshots where the bullets sometimes go through several houses at once” – JR.

source: JR.net

Moving forward we’ve been doing some due diligence on a re-branding project with Lowrider, in the mix with industrial design and the other projects in circulation. Understanding the difference between branding as a science and creative direction as an art and learning how to fuse the two in harmony can become a long and tedious process. But also challenging and enhancing at the same time. And no one knows this better then Graphic designer Ludovic Houplain and his partners François Alaux and Hervé de Crécy of H5 agency who is soon to release their new “LogoBook” this April. The book compiles 2,500 logos from past and present, and a massive database of more than 40,000 consumer graphics that was used for their Oscar winning short film “Logorama”. Take a look…

“In the introduction Houplain describes the process by which “Logorama” came to be—based on ideas from music videos for Alex Gopher and, later, one for George Harrison that was ultimately rejected for legal reasons. Regulations around broadcasting company trademarks evolved the project into a purely artistic endeavor lauded by critics. Leading up to the tabbed index philosopher and sociologist Gilles Lipovetsky presents “A Branded World,” an essay analyzing the “hyper-consumption” of our present culture and the role of Logorama in desensitizing the inherent purpose of logos to convey some sort of deeper emotional meaning. The book’s stance on branding coupled with its navigable listing makes it a great tool for both artists and designers, as well as the culturally curious looking to add a colorful and informative resource to their library.”

source: coolhunting, Images by Kat Herriman

As a student you can always flip through art history books and see the huge Christo and Jeanne-Claude, island wrapped installations, but you never really start to appreciate their work once you take a step back and look at art for what it is – an experience. Although their work is visually impressive a result of its scale, the artists have repeatedly denied that their projects contain any deeper meaning than their immediate aesthetic impact. The purpose of their art is simply to create works of art or joy and beauty and to create new ways of seeing familiar landscapes.

Art critic David Bourdon has described Christo’s wrappings as a “revelation through concealment.” To his critics Christo replies, “I am an artist, and I have to have courage … Do you know that I don’t have any artworks that exist? They all go away when they’re finished. Only the preparatory drawings, and collages are left, giving my works an almost legendary character. I think it takes much greater courage to create things to be gone than to create things that will remain.”

Now four years after his wife’s death, Christo continues to carry on the torch with his first solo public installation in Germany…

“In his first major public work since the death of his partner Jeanne-Claude in 2009, Christo’s ‘big air package’ is already reported to be both the largest ever inflated frameless envelope and the most expansive indoor sculpture ever created. While the artist typically works at the monumental scale of the city or building, the 90 meter high inflatable boasts a volume of 177,000 cubic meters and uses 20,350 square meters of semitransparent polyester fabric as well as 4,500 meters of rope. Despite lacking a skeleton, the 5 ton form fills the interior of a former gas tank, amplifying the ethereal quality of the space with diffused light. Christo describes the experience as ‘virtually swimming in light’ as a result of the vast expanses of fabric.”

source:image © wolfgang volz, designboom, christojeanneclaude.net

All in one. Take a look at a round-up of recent inspirations…