I wonder if you’ve seen the work of Kelvin Okafor?
His sensational, life-like pencil drawings are confounding art critics and gallerists the world over.
Connoisseurs have been scratching their heads and even mistakenly cataloguing his work as photographs; photorealism taken to the extreme.
As many of you know, I’ve worked with a multitude of artists over the years, crafting their artwork into beautiful editions. Indeed, as pencil drawings are a speciality of mine, it would perhaps be the ultimate challenge to work with Kelvin on faithfully documenting such beautiful drawings…
Pencil drawing of Amy Winehouse by Kelvin Okafor
Kelvin’s drawings also put me in mind of Chris LaPorte, who I wrote about here.
Whenever I hear Chris Burden’s name, my ears prick up.
He’s an artist who, to my mind at least, never fails to be interesting through his engaging ideas and fresh angles on life.
Nearly seven years ago, Locus+ asked me to make high resolution scans of two sketches made by Chris, detailing their thoughts and intentions for the fantastic collaboration, Ghost Ship.
If you have a moment, it’s well worth taking a look at this project. As Locus+ describe:
“Commissioned to coincide with the Tall Ships Race, 2005, Ghost Ship involved the construction and development of a crewless, self-navigating sailing boat, which undertook its maiden voyage between Fair Isle, Scotland and Newcastle upon Tyne. Audiences were able to track the boat’s progress via a live, daily updated website.”
With the kind permission of Locus+, I’ve unearthed the sketches from my hard drives for you to see here:
© Locus+ and Chris Burden 2005
© Locus+ and Chris Burden 2005
So, back to Metropolis II…
On hearing of Burden’s latest piece, I was once again all ears and for good reason. Currently installed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, his sculpture ticks so many boxes for me on so many levels!
As the Huffington Post write:
“It’s a classic piece of German expressionist cinema reimagined as a complex piece of installation art — or the best ski-electrics set ever, depending on your perspective.
“Artist Chris Burden has built a model city based on Fritz Lang’s classic 1927 film Metropolis that features over 1000 toys cars soaring through its metallic skyscrapers at speeds of up to 230mph. Rarely has a moody dystopia and a critique of capitalism been such fun.”
Here is the piece for your delectation, all captured beautifully via the medium of the moving image…
One day all too soon, we’ll look back at the styles that fashioned photography (both still and moving) in and around ‘The Noughties’.
It’s my guess that the phenomenon known as drop-focus, tilt and shift or perspective control will be seen as one of the main signifiers of the current era.
The Waterfall Project
Implemented well, this is an approach I happen to like; I enjoy the feel of the model village often achieved with this method of capture.
For me, at least, it tugs at the childhood heartstrings and seems to instil utopian, feel-good emotions.
So, I thought you might like to share in this particularly fine example—a French ad made to celebrate their improvements and progress on the railways over recent years:
RESEAU FERRE DE FRANCE from W & CIE on Vimeo.
If you fancy seeing big cameras strapped to the front of trains, a bit of green screening (and your French is up to scratch), you might like to see this ‘making of’ video too…
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