There’s nothing more romantic than a stroll with the one you love — and since it’s been an unseasonably warm February in many places, you might be able to manage one this Valentine’s Day without freezing to death in your companion’s arms. As long as you’re outdoors, you’ll score points with your beloved (and spend exactly $0) if you plan your walk around a particularly romantic piece of public art. In case you’re strapped for inspiration, we’ve collected some of the best love-inspired specimens, past and present, from around the world, and our finds range from the dreamy to the outright bizarre. Claes Oldenburg’s Cupid’s Span in San Francisco, Jenny Holzer’s provocative projections, and, of course, Robert Indiana’s Love await you after the jump.
Jon Foy’s fascinating and unexpectedly personal documentary Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles hits DVD today. The film explores the strange urban mystery surrounding hundreds of tiles adorned with cryptic, metaphysical messages found across the U.S. and South America, which have perplexed people since the 1980s.
Other films have examined the unexpected and unrecognized genius, strange pathology, and obsessively creative works of outsider artists in similarly intriguing ways. Many of the documentaries themselves have taken a low-fi approach to their portrayal, creating a similar mood to the works being investigated. Others come from a straight documentary angle, but all are compelling portraits. Head past the break to check out other outsider documentaries that introduce some of art and music’s most expressive creatives on the fringe.
A Moscow street artist has been recently noticed by the press and dubbed “The Russian Banksy” or “Bankski.” While some of his work reminds us of Banksy’s style and humor, we’re not sure if the comparison is really fair yet. Until now, the work of 183 wasn’t much known outside of Moscow or the Russian LiveJournal community. He’s not a celebrity, so he can do things that Banksy wouldn’t — like set his graffiti mural of a rioter on fire so it looks like he’s torching an underside of a major bridge. The 183 oeuvre is quite varied, with concrete ruins spray-painted as giant Russian chocolate bars, portrait projections on smoke, hidden mixed media installations and, of course, the Banksy-esque stencils that got him a mini-wave of publicity. Since Banksy may have switched his focus to traditional sculpture, is there a new original street art prankster in town or this just another wannabe? Check out a few of our favorite 183 pieces and decide for yourself.
Legendary LA graffiti artist Tony “TEMPT 1″ Quan was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease back in 2003. Today, the degenerative nerve disorder has left him unable to move, speak, or breathe on his own. But thanks to a pair of seriously souped-up sunglasses (and some teamwork by an international crew of artists, tech geeks, and hackers) TEMPT is still creating new art — using a gadget now known as the Eyewriter. “Our writing culture was born of making something from nothing,” he explains. “I lay in bed exploding with ideas… that’s when I knew that I wasn’t done yet.” Click through to watch the trailer for Getting Up, an inspiring new film by TEMPT’s wife, Caskey Ebeling, which documents her husband’s incredible journey and had its world premiere at Slamdance earlier this month, where it won the Audience Award for Feature Documentary.
Plenty of street art is political or otherwise confrontational in nature — but some of it exists purely to put a smile on the faces of city dwellers going about their daily routines. This, at least, seems to be the goal of Steve Wheen, an artist who goes by the handle of The Pothole Gardener. Wheen’s project is exactly what it sounds like — an endless series of miniature gardens planted in potholes and other tiny patches of earth around East London. Along with adding a splash of green or a spray of flowers to the city’s streets and sidewalks, the Guerrilla Gardener decorates his miniature gardens with such delightful curiosities as itty-bitty chairs, telephone boxes, and even tennis courts. Click through to see some of our favorite Pothole Gardener creations, and then visit Wheen’s website for a whole lot more pictures and to learn about the project.
The photos below may look like a street artist’s paradise; they actually reminded us of Queens graffiti mecca 5 Pointz. In fact, they’re from an abandoned 1940s military encampment on the outskirts of suburban Taichung, Taiwan. After the local council resolved to demolish the buildings, an elderly resident named Huang Yunfu took a stand by covering the entire area with colorful paintings. See a few photos from the Rainbow Village after the jump, and then visit Poemas del río Wang for a whole lot more.
We’ve seen emotional journeys likened to roller coasters, but never to subway systems — until now. ESPO (aka Steve Powers) has just put up a new work in Brooklyn called Train to Always, which traces the connection from “so so” to “sort of” and “lonely” to “waiting.” Of course, there’s a stop for the hero shop it’s painted above, too. [via BLDGWLF]
Have you ever considered the artistic potential of packing tape? We hadn’t either, until we caught a glimpse of the gorgeous portraits Amsterdam-based street artist Max Zorn uses it to create. When illuminated, his intricate tape-on-glass works evoke the sepia-tone scenes of early photographs, while his subjects — couples embracing in cars, handsome men smoking, bar scenes straight out of film noir — are pure Old Hollywood (with a Girl with a Pearl Earring cover thrown in for good measure). Check out some of our favorite portraits after the jump, then visit Zorn’s website to see the rest and learn more about the project.
German artist Timm Schneider proves that you don’t need spray-paint and stencils to create interesting street art. Armed with styrofoam balls that have been fashioned into googly eyes, the artist transforms random objects and sidewalk architecture like trash cans, recycling bins, and metal poles into imaginative and expressive cartoon characters. Schneider’s creatures have been thrust into some pretty silly — and unfortunate — situations. Click through to see more of Schneider’s works. Read More »
This Black Friday, Doctor Popular, a self-described “game designer, illustrator, tailor, rapper, and super nerd,” created a diorama depicting the recent pepper spray incident at UC Davis in an unused news bin for Employment Guide on Market Street. “My hope was to install a piece to get people thinking about recent police violence while they were trying to do their holiday shopping,” he writes. “If I had more time I would have created many more dioramas based on scenes from New York and Oakland.” He adds, “I didn’t set out to create a Lego diorama, but it turns out that their “City sets” contained almost everything you need to create a protest scene. Seriously though, are the cities in Denmark filled with cops? There’s like a 2 to 1 ratio of police to civilians in these kits.” Is LEGO trying to tell us something? Either way, click through to see photos of Doctor Popular’s project, and let us know what you think in the comments! Read More »
