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Very Public Display of Emotion: Lindau, Germany’s ‘Feel-o-meter’

By Caroline Stanley on

Dreamed up by Julius von Bismarck, Benjamin Maus, and Richard Wilhelmer, the Fühlometer (aka “Feel-o-meter”) is an interactive public art installation located on top of a lighthouse in Lindau, Germany, that monitors the moods of passersby via a digital camera, and then adjusts its own illuminated expression accordingly to happy, sad, or indifferent. Click through to see a clip of the device in action, as well as some additional photos. … Read More

Art

Christo’s ‘Over the River’ Project Gets Government Approval

By Caroline Stanley on

After years of debates between environmentalists, politicians, and locals, Christo Javacheff’s massive, $50 million Over the River installation — a work that will suspend swaths of fabric over select segments of a 42-mile stretch of the Arkansas River in Colorado — has finally received the necessary approval by federal regulators. While some additional permits are… Read More

Art

From The Gates to ‘Dueling Tampons:’ The Most Ridiculed Works of Public Art

By Christine Jordan on

We know that “everyone’s a critic” is just a saying, but, when it comes to public art, seriously, everyone is a critic. We can’t blame bored teenagers, confused moms, and everyone in-between for poking fun at the usually-gigantic installations imposed on cities who want to convert their everyday spaces into an open-air museum. As much as we love some good highbrow criticism of these sorts of pieces, we’re just as interested in the controversies these works create on the street. After the jump, check out nine hyped works of public art and the dirty nicknames, biting jokes, and larger scandals forever swirling around their legacies. … Read More

Art

Take a Cross-Country Public Art Road Trip

By Rozalia Jovanovic on

With Rob Pruitt’s sleek monument to Andy Warhol recently unveiled in Union Square and Sol Lewitt’s modular structures being installed in City Hall Park (both installations are presented by New York’s Public Art Fund), we’ve been contemplating innovative art that’s accessible outside the traditional context of museums and galleries. In the coming weeks as you take to city streets, benches, park lawns, (and garages!) keep an eye out for what’s going up around you. That skeletal advertising billboard may not be an actual advertising billboard but one of three works by artist Kim Beck. In celebration of Beck, Lewitt, Pruitt and other artists whose work is on public display this spring, take a virtual road trip with us from New York to Seattle to explore some of the most exciting works, both recently unveiled or well-renowned, in some Flavorpill cities. … Read More

Travel

The Best Cities for Young Artists

By Annemarie Dooling on

Where have all the young artists gone? Well, they’ve been priced out of Melbourne, New York, Barcelona, and all of those other city enclaves that promised low-rent and lots of encouragement. But new art communities are popping up every day on unexpected parts of the globe. Creative hubs, city funded projects, and lots of public works are just some of the perks these locations offer to young artists who seek refuge. Click through for our eight favorite cities for young artists, and leave a comment if we forgot your favorite. … Read More

Art

French Sculptors Invade Florida Botanic Garden

By Paul Laster on

French sculptors Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne took over Florida’s celebrated Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden last week with an installation of more than 20 of their surrealistic and animal-inspired sculptures. Presented in conjunction with Art Basel Miami Beach, the whimsical works are spread throughout the highly cultivated Coral Gables institution’s grounds, where they will remain on view through May 2011. … Read More

Daily Dose

Daily Dose Pick: Ball-Nogues Studio

By Shana Nys Dambrot on

Aesthetic super-studio Ball-Nogues is like the 21st-century love child of the Factory and the Bauhaus.

Ball-Nogues is a one-stop shop for art, architecture, public projects, and design objects, both concepted and largely manufactured on-site in its cavernous Downtown LA Gallery District space. The studio’s conceptually avant-garde, eco-friendly, urban romanticism has been lauded in museums, showrooms, and festivals, garnering a rep for laid-back luxury. … Read More

Art

Antony Gormley’s Naked Men Perched on NYC Buildings

By Paul Laster on

British artist Antony Gormley conquers New York’s Flatiron District with his legion of naked men, inhabiting pathways and sidewalks in and around Madison Square Park and perched on ledges and rooftops of buildings from 14th to 34th streets on Manhattan’s East Side. Cast from the artist’s own lean body in iron and fiberglass, the 31 anatomically correct statues, which make up the installation Event Horizon, literally swarm the park. Finding them is a bit like playing “Where’s Waldo?,” yet once spotted, they bring to mind the angels watching over Berlin in Wim Wenders’ film Wings of Desire. … Read More

Art

National Museum of Women Panders with Public Art

By Kelsey Keith on

Three giant ladies in bathing suits, coming to a town near you (as long as you live in Washington, DC). The National Museum of Women in the Arts is installing new public art by the late Niki de Saint Phalle in front of its headquarters on New York Avenue NW; the sculptures are meant to be “showstoppers, as contemporary as the last splash of pop art, as exaggerated as Las Vegas showgirls.” Just what our nation’s capital needs in the form of cultural institution-approved public art: go-go dancers as seen through a distorted Pop Art… Read More

Art

The Great Pasties Debate

By Kelsey Keith on

One would think something titled the Erotic Heritage Museum and located in the T&A capital of the American West would be allowed to embrace the art of the birthday suit. And one would be wrong, at least in the public sense. The Las Vegas museum’s Ho-Down Mural Project has violated the county’s sign code that bans visible areola of female breasts. Thus: pasties! If that’s not indigenous local culture, we don’t know what is. And… Read More