Posts Tagged ‘art’
01
Sep
2010
The Exquisite Book: 100 Artists Play a Collaborative Game
Conceptual horizons, or why the time to judge a book by its cover may have just arrived.
In the 1920’s, a collective of Surrealists invented exquisite corpse, a game-like collaborative creation process wherein each contributor tacks on to a composition either by following a strict rule or by being only shown what the last person has contributed. Now, Brooklyn-based designers Julia Rothman, Jenny Volvovski and Matt Lamothe have replicated the exquisite corpse idea in a brilliant collaborative illustration project that enlisted 100 of today’s most talented artist and designers to co-create a book by building on each other’s work. Today, the project comes to life as The Exquisite Book: 100 Artists Play a Collaborative Game — an absolutely remarkable tome nearly two years in the making.
Here’s how it works: Each artist contributed one page to the book. The first five were given a few starter words to inspire their drawing, then each of the following artists only saw the page that immediately preceded theirs and used images to build on the story. Besides this conceptual continuity, a more visual one — a horizontal line that starts on the left side of the page and ends on the right — drew the images together. Artsts were free to interpret the line ever which way they liked, which most did with incredible ingenuity.
The project is an instant piece of creative culture history, from the illustrated introduction by McSweeney’s Dave Eggers of 826 Valencia and Where The Wild Things Are fame, to the meticulous making of its cover, to the all-star roster of contributing artists. (Including many we’ve raved about previously — Lisa Congdon, Luke Ramsey, Meg Hunt and many, many more.)
Sample some of the goodness, then do yourself a favor and grab a copy of The Exquisite Book: 100 Artists Play a Collaborative Game — we haven’t been this excited about an extracurricular art book since Pixar’s The Ancient Book of Sex & Science.
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20
Aug
2010
CoolClimate: Addressing Climate Change Through Art
From polar bears to pop art, or how canvases connect disconnects.
Today, thanks to prolific media coverage and the work of hundreds of dedicated nonprofits, most rational people are fully aware of the severity with which climate change threatens humanity and the planet. There is, however, often a disconnect between that rational awareness and our emotional engagement with the issue. This disconnect is precisely what the 2010 CoolClimate Art Contest aims to address through the power of art.
The international competition calls for artists to create iconic images that challenge how we relate to global warming, spanning the entire spectrum of climate change hotpoints — from clean energy to air pollution to honeybee extinction.
Plastic Iceberg Year 3010
Artist: M. L. Dauray
Man Vs. Bees: or Bees as the Canary in the Coal Mine
Artist: Jeff Faerber
Climate Is Changing
Artist: h4nd
From an abstract representation of how global warming impacts a swimming polar bear in oil on canvas to a pop-artish reflection on environmental deterioration, the submissions so far encompass nearly every art genre and medium.
Subconscious
Artist: Pansa Sunavee
Poison Harms All Sea Creatures
Artist: bymarty
Global Warming
Artist: lyndaelyzoo
The competition is judged by an eclectic yet uniformly impressive jury featuring acclaimed comedian-turned-environmental-activist Chevy Chase, Philippe Cousteau, son of legendary marine explorer and activist Jacques Cousteau, and museum world heavy-hitter David Ross.
Step
Artist: PansaSunavee
Submission is open through September 6, so get in on the (climate) action or rally your artist friends to. Meanwhile, browse entries from the U.S. and elsewhere around the world.
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