Pixelshow 2010 – Fat Monkey  By Florentijn Hofman 

ArtSlant Prize 2013: Robin Kang - Playing with Machines

by Joel Kuennen

Robin Kang - First Place, ArtSlant Prize 2013

Robin Kang interrogates machinery. From her roots as a photographer (BFA) and through her MFA in printmaking at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, it’s always been about how the machine affects the artwork produced and what exactly can be done within that process of translation: idea to object. Her latest projects involve two very different explorations. Using digital jacquard looms, she recreates patterns taken both from ancient weaving cultures as well as the silicon culture of microprocessors, all the while interrupting and reinterpreting through the loom. Her concurrent project, BRXL Blocks, is an interrogation of architectural space through the use of very lightweight, transparent bricks made of PET plastic. These piecemeal constructors are farmed out to agencies of production in China.

Kang’s BRXL Block installations leverage our relationship to the architectural. Installed, they take many forms: towers, walls, even extensions to preexisting architectural features. They sway as gallery-goers pass, so fragile and ethereal are they. When she began this project, Kang says she was coming from a place of industrial critique, a critique of the loss of craft. However, as she came to hold and play with these objects, she found they evoked another theme. “This other element of the object itself came up during installation…I placed myself in this child-like place, just playing with blocks again… The fact that people respond to that and have a desire to play with these objects is exciting for me.” One high-profile playmate is the Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, who has one of Kang’s blocks in his office and has been known to toss it to visitors, enjoying the surprise on their faces as they exert themselves to catch what appears to be a glass brick.

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"The Rivar" /2017 creating process

Tiny Whimsical Porcelain Creatures

Anya Stasenko and Slava Leontyev is a duo of Ukrainian artists creating tiny whimsical porcelain creatures. Each sculpture is painted with a wildly imaginative and creative array of painstakingly detailed and brilliantly colorful designs. Given the tiny size of these creatures (most measure anywhere from 4 to 40cm), it was all the more surprising that Stasenko and Leontyev weren’t actually trained to work with ceramics. One is a graphic artist and the other is a painting teacher. They chose to work with ceramics simply because of economic reasons and because of the relative ease with which the material can be worked. In fact, they are downright humble about their work, stating that it is nothing remarkable, as they aren’t even trained ceramicists

[Last Days] Tomás Saraceno's Biosphere works are on display in the Long Gallery at GOMA as part of #Harvest until Sun 21 Sep. Read more on our blog

Milo Moiré, a performance artist and psychologist based in Duesseldorff, Germany decided to strip down to nothing but words — the names of the articles of clothing she normally would be wearing. Then she walked outside, down the street, onto a bus, and lined up for a ticket to Art Basel, the extremely exclusive event that happens every year at the intersection of Switzerland, Germany, and France. Along her 1-hour journey, men and women stopped, stared, smiled, took pictures, and generally let her do her thing. Until some authority at Art Basel ordered her to put on some clothes or leave. http://www.lematin.ch/suisse/milo-moire-voit-refuser-acces-lexposition/story/30876553

Blurred Lines by Adam Lupton

Adam Lupton is a Canadian painter, whose work serves to examine the psychological and sociological struggles of modern society. In his own words, his painting to set the internal and external dialogue on the face of many reports. His recent work in the face of the election results, the same term in different levels of a single surface. It calls into question our free will and the way we think of space, time, destination and himself. Thinking of quantum and string theory as a reference, asks: “If every decision becomes a reality parallel to the life or another, we are as free as we think we are?

Postcards for Ants: A 365-Day Miniature Painting Project by Lorraine Loots

Jacob van Loon de Tondi Watercolor and graphite on wood 35x35″