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‘Silent Night’: Disturbing Photos of Houses Decorated for Christmas

By Judy Berman on

Spend enough time in Brooklyn’s Dyker Heights neighborhood or tune in to too many second-tier cable specials about people obsessed with constructing elaborate Christmas light displays, and you might come to the conclusion that there’s a distinctly dark side to America’s holiday home decor arms race. Finnish photographer Markus Henttonen conveys precisely that… Read More

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Photography

One Room Transformed Into 14 Unbelievably Surreal Fantasy Landscapes

By Brie Hiramine on

Korean artist Jee Young Lee eschews Photoshop. Through painstaking attention to detail, she transforms her tiny 3.6 x 4.1 x 2.4-meter studio into surreal, fantastical settings. The sometimes-unsettling scenes from Body of Work take inspiration from Korean fairy tales and Lee’s personal life, ranging from a literal interpretation of a common Korean expression to an industrial take on her neighborhood in Seoul. But her work, which we spotted on BOOOOOOOM!, still seems a little unbelievable, even when you know she’s spent weeks or months on each set. The results are breathtaking. … Read More

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Art

Monstrous Album Cover Remixes

By Alison Nastasi on

Musicians put their best face forward for publicity’s sake, but artist Lomaho Kretzmann sees through the facade in his series of monstrous album cover artworks. Remaking vintage LP art with paint, giving the figures a Bizarro-style makeover, the remixed covers create a new and absurd narrative that shatters the stars’ illusion of cool. Because the images aren’t photoshopped, Kretzmann’s monsters recall subconscious notebook doodles that often reveal our inner demons and desires. Take a closer look in our gallery. … Read More

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Photography

Regal Photos of Samurai Men in Storm-Ravaged Japan

By Alison Nastasi on

The 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and the explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant complex that ravaged Japan has not quelled the country’s rich cultural traditions. Soma Nomaoi is an annual celebration honoring samurai culture in Fukushima, which dates back more than one thousand years ago. The disaster death toll is staggering. Many people were forced to relocate due to radiation, but the surviving Nomaoi men have banded together in the face of tragedy and honored those lost by continuing to observe the gathering. We learned about artist Noriko Takasugi on My Modern Met, who spent a month photographing Fukushima’s Nomaoi and believes the event is “an embodiment of their identity and fight for survival.” Read some their personal stories, and see Takasugi’s regal photos of the men amongst their storm-ravaged surroundings in our gallery. … Read More

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Photography

Lauren Poor’s Striking ‘Shrines’ Photos Evoke Girlhood Spirituality

By Judy Berman on

Photographer Lauren Poor’s vibrantly colored artwork taps into a sort of girlhood subconscious, creating a more intense than delicate dream world decked out in feminine ephemera like makeup, flowers, and fairy wings. In her 2012 project Shrines (spotted via Bust), this aesthetic takes on a spiritual bent, placing photos of girls and boys in frilly clothing and surreal face paint inside homemade shrines of cardboard, paint, and candles that evoke the trappings of religions from around the world. Click through to view the series, and visit Poor’s website — as well as Rookie — to see more of her work. … Read More

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Art

‘Sunday Night Movies’: Gorgeous Watercolor Recreations of Iconic Film Scenes

By Jason Diamond on

We get excited whenever something arrives in the office from Drawn and Quarterly, but the latest one held an extra-special surprise: Leanne Shapton’s Sunday Night Movies, a collection of watercolor stills recreating scenes from some of the greatest films ever made. Page after page of monochromatic illustrations make this book a cinephile’s dream — so if you have someone like that in your life, consider it a late addition to our recent list of 2013′s best books to give as gifts. … Read More

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Photography

Thought-Provoking Nude Photos That Challenge Conventional Ideas About Attractiveness [NSFW]

By Judy Berman on

The media would have us believe that “attractive” and “unattractive” are fixed categories, and that all of humanity can be neatly sorted into one or the other. In practice, of course, beauty isn’t even a continuum; it is, as the cliché goes, in the eye of the beholder. And the images we see in mass culture of supposedly attractive people are made-up and coiffed and Photoshopped to the extent that they often barely resemble their subjects. … Read More

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Art

How Ai Weiwei’s Alcatraz Project Changes the Meaning of Prisons as Public Art Sites

By Jason Diamond on

The New York Times makes it seem like a match made in heaven: “Ai Weiwei was one of the most famous prisoners in recent history. Now he’s taking on one of the most infamous prisons of all time” — that prison being Alcatraz, the San Francisco facility that was closed down in 1963 and turned into a famous tourist destination. The piece goes on to report that the renowned Chinese dissident artist chose the location because he is “interested in exploring conditions in which individuals are stripped of basic human rights,” but that Ai is “not thinking about work that will directly connect to my own detention” by the Chinese government in 2011. … Read More

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Art

Remarkable, Intricate Sculptures Made from Candle Wax

By Tom Hawking on

One of the best things about the internet is the fact that it provides a constant showcase for the most weird and wonderful corners of human creativity. Like, for example, these remarkable works by Indonesian artist Ferdi Rizkiyanto, which have been doing the rounds on Tumblr this morning. They’re intricate, evocative sculpture made out of… candle wax. As in, the actual wax running off a lit candle. To be honest, I have no idea how you’d even begin to make something like this, but it’s many kinds of awesome. Click through to check out more pictures. … Read More

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