Water Walk

I couldn't reference Jim Henson's Tonight Show performance without directing you to another surrealist, John Cage, performing one of his pieces, "Water Walk" on the 50s variety show, "I've Got A Secret".

Truly way ahead of his time. Thinking outside of a box no one even knew existed.

Jim Henson, the Surrealist

I found this posting on the Boing Boing blog, about jim Henson's more surrealist performance pieces. Here's what they say:

"Limbo: The Organized Mind" was a stock (but very surreal) bit Henson used to perform on variety shows in `60s and `70s. This clip is from an appearance on the Tonight Show in 1974 and features a disembodied floating face (called "Nobody") taking a surrealist trip through his own mind.

Parking Perfection

Coming from an art direction background at leading creative agencies BBDO, McCann-Erickson and Saatchi & Saatchi, Branislav Kropilak now calls himself an artist / photographer. Based in Barcelona, he graduated from the renowned Private Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava, Slovakia. Then went on to study at the Institute of Digital Photography in Prague.

His 2005 garage series is hauntingly attractive in its formality. Rarely seen in this empty state, these spaces start to resemble many empty dotcom cubicle farms that were popular here in SF a few years ago.

Tableau Tablecloth

This table top is designed by Maurice Scheltens, the Dutch photographer. Using photogram technique, this tablecloth is decorated with the silhouettes of the aftermath of a dinner party.

There are a lot more great projects, products and exhibitions at the droog design website.

The Big Kite Formation

This is absolutely amazing. I know it was YouTube'd close to a year ago, so it's not entirely groundbreaking news, but if you have not yet seen this yet, you must do so now.

Captured in Canada

Montreal based web designer Julian Roumagnac has been busy in his free time studying light and shadows through landscape photography. His hobby has turned into quite a large collection of striking images that make up his technically savvy photoblog.

Hey Taxi

Cabspotting is a ongoing project of the San Francisco Exploratorium. Using the taxi’s gps systems, artists worked to “reveal larger trends, or focus on specific events”.

The project hopes to reveal radically surprising and inspiring views of the systems interconnecting the communities of the Bay.

Shown above is Cab Tracker which averages the last four hours of taxi traffic with ten of Yellow Cabs current location.

Framed!

Instead of building your typical climbing wall in a Japanese fitness club, Nendo decided to incorporate interior design elements like picture frames, mirrors, deer heads, bird cages and flower vases to create a wall with hard-to-find holds and unusual finger grips. Talk about fitness in style!

Carpet Carpool

The multi-national design team Big-Game has designed a line of products called “plus is more”. The goal of the products was to bring a “plus”, while keeping the integrity of the original element.

Seen above is a rug called miles. Inspired by a child’s gestures during play, the floor covering acts both as a playground for kids and a unique alternative to a traditional carpet. Miles comes with three wooden cars.

Flatland

Six brave performance artists are residing in the teensiest Long Island City home imaginable: a four-story house only 24 inches wide. The move is part of a performative project at SculptureCenter called Flatland: Another Romance of Many Dimensions, wherein artists “strip away an entire spatial dimension” from their existences for three weeks to live like amoebas squeezed between two microscope slides. Each participant must engage their scant spaces, developing site-specific improv performances over the course of the exhibition. If an artist goes stir-crazy and leaves his room, he cannot reenter. The project ends on May 20 or when everyone has (understandably) walked out. Voyeurs can see the artists in their unnatural habitats throughout the run of the show via live-feed videos on their website, www.flatlandproject.com

Tony Chocolonely

An interesting documentary by Tony van de Keuken about slave labor and the chocolate industry. His website promotes his own line of "slave-free" chocolate and includes a trailer to the film.

A bit from the site: "One warm summer morning, Tony van de Keuken was reading a newspaper. On page 13 he found a short item about human trafficking in the cocoa industry. About children being sold at markets to slave traders. That was in 2002—one hundred and thirty-nine years after the abolition of slavery."

Sol LeWitt

The museum show that touched me the most in past years was the Sol LeWitt retrospective at the SFMOMA.

In the mid-1960s, he pioneered the Conceptual art movement, emphasizing ideas for the generation of art rather than working from physical materials. LeWitt published the influential Sentences on Conceptual Art which appeared in Art Language in 1969.

Sol LeWitt passed away last month at the age of 78, leaving behind a legacy of strikingly simple invention.

Magic Wooden Bus

I found this entry on BoingBoing about artist Lee Stoetzel's exhibit at the Mixed Greens Gallery online and in New York City. Quoted from Mixed Greens: "We build houses and think that we have controlled space, yet nature winds its way into those materials. The sculptures I have built light up to emphasize the power of natural form."

Jim Houser

I meandered upon Jim Houser's work at a skateboard shop awhile ago - and was immediately smitten. The basis for his paintings are a system by which he actively catalogs images and noises which command his attention – and he creates amazing installations which act to create a map of the contents of his head over the course of a particular period in time. It's actually much easier to look at his work than to explain it, you'll get the idea! Check out his most recent installation here, and work for sale here. You go Jim!