Ian Francis
Even Melissa Joan Hart’s favourite dog can’t take her mind off the stairs. Ian Francis is a young British artist and storyteller. His multimedia artworks and their titles are vivid, intimate snapshots of modern life, often with reference to television, world events, celebrities, and day-to-day living: ‘It’s about pornography and news reports from war zones instead of sex and death’, he says of his work.
Also by JULIA HENNOCK
The tightly-wound compact fluorescent light bulbs we’ve welcomed into our homes have a little sister. Plumen is low-energy, yet she’s trendy, twisted and a designer’s dream. Not yet in production, you can see Plumen hanging alone in MOMA.
Fancy a fern in the face? The Sky Planter will fulfill your greenest fantasies. It is designed to conserve water, save floor space and puzzle visitors. An internal reservoir system to feeds water directly to the roots, so no water evaporates or drips. And somehow the soil is ‘locked in’. Woo!
A brick of any other kind would look as sweet, believes artist Jan Vormann. She began filling crumbling walls with multi-coloured Lego bricks in Bocchignano, a little village close to Rome, and was then invited to continue her rainbow reparations in Tel Aviv and Yaffo. Beautiful appropriation or ugly sacrilege?
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This evolving art and architectural project is either making a statement about how small we really are in the greater cosmos or how helpless we are against the encroachment of urban development. I can’t work out which, but I like it. Read more
When I visited the Big Apple, I had a Mexican man serenade me with his Spanish guitar at the station. But why didn’t I see any crazy folk when I rode New York’s subway? Seriously, this post by Do While is hilarious and exposes people embarrassingly sleeping, wearing daring attire, and carrying pet rats in their mouths! Read more
Heavy metal and hip-hop are perhaps the most popular forms of rebellion for kids the world over. In Malaysia, metal — particularly black metal — has taken such a strong hold that the Fatwa Council there banned it, fearing that the music would compel listeners to rebel against religion. Contrary to the council’s intentions, black metal is as popular as ever in Malaysia, and is a recognizable cultural touchstone there, as indicated by the above clip from the 2005 film Filem Rock.
Melbourne’s Alice Euphemia has been a swinging shrine to Australian independent fashion for a decade now, hosting some of our favourites including Romance Was Born and TV amongst countless others. The success continues, with Alice Euphemia having opened a second store in 2007 in the old Craft Victoria building on Gertrude Street in Fitzroy, Melbourne. Read more
Our friends over at SNAP!, Montreal’s only free and independent arts and lifestyle magazine have just released their fourth issue in which they look back and celebrate the faded beauty of past eras, grandmas and grandpas, Polaroids, antique finds, old wisdom and vintage style. Yeeha! They also remember the best of 2008 in Montreal arts, with a variety of writers and photographers giving their take on their favourite cultural discoveries.
So much of the Baltimore scene seems geared towards day-glo-clad party people, so it’s nice that introspective, country-tinged folk is also well represented here in the form of Noble Lake, a Wye Oak-related project fronted by James Sarsgaard, who I hope won’t mind me calling the second coming of Townes Van Zandt.
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Busy P is the man. This design pays homage to one of the world’s most enigmatic pop-culture mavericks. The French maestro is almost single-handedly responsible for the success of both Daft Punk and Justice. The Midas Touch design references this with the golden robot (representing Daft Punk) and the golden cross (representing Justice) — the idea being that everything Busy P touches turns to gold.
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Nerd-attack! Man, this TARDIS zipper robe is so much cooler than any Star Wars crap people are hawking this days. This is for the true gangsta nerd.
Pitched as ‘Ulterior Motives in Contemporary Art’, Disorder Disorder is running until November 14 at Penrith Regional Gallery. It’ll be well worth the trip out west of Sydney: the Australian, Japanese, American and European cast reads like a warriors of street art roundup and includes Mike Giant, Ed Templeton, Anthony Lister [artwork above], Ozzie Wright, and Jonathan Zawada. Read more
Here are a couple awesome pieces by Matt Leines that were recently on display in the Doubting Thomases exhibit at Nudashank gallery in Baltimore. Gives me ideas for Halloween. Read more
Benjamin Edminston’s psychedelic heads seem to have some fearful wisdom behind their blissed-out eyes. Read more
Mathematics? Leave me out. Fashematics? Now you’re talking! This gem of a site is a runway equation that adds up to a whole lot of wonderful.
Using Kyoko Hashimoto’s popular design, these acrylic earrings are made with unique hand formed sterling silver sleepers that make them light enough for everyday wear. Part of Kyoko’s collection, I Blame the Uni, (pronounced ‘oo-nee’, the Japanese name for sea urchin) and inspired by her experiences in the underground club scene of Tokyo. Read more
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zarathrusta said | 28 February, 2008
very sexy