From the long, graceful turn of a rabbit’s ears to the cozy embrace of polar bears, Nikichi summons the emotional nuances of intimacy, solitude, and contemplation in his delicately carved sculptures. Carefully exposed wood grain shapes knees and cheeks, paws clasp together in repose, and winged visitors perch on delicately-hewn noses.
The Hokkaido-based artist has been sculpting animals for around a decade, interested in the ways that people relate to fluffy, recognizable creatures like bunnies and cats by anthropomorphizing their expressions and actions as a means of understanding and connecting to them. He fuses human and animal characteristics to explore what he describes as “the story of human sociality and life by overlapping the wildness and instinctiveness of animals,” populating a harmonious, mythical world.
How does the connection between our bodies and memories change as we age? Artist Casey Curran (previously) attends to this question in a new series of kinetic sculptures. Titled Carrion Blooms, the works reference degeneration and decay and how the body’s stamina wanes. “We can all recall those days when our energy seemed endless, twenty-four-hour benders where we somehow managed to cram everything in; work, school, hobbies, friends, and family. The time felt limitless with possibilities,” Curran says.
Hand-cranks animate laser-cut insects and flowers made of mylar, which flutter, blossom, and retreat to their static positions. Emphasizing inevitable transformation and the fleeting nature of life, the artist likens the gilded skeletal structures to scaffolding, a prized foundation “to place the future on…Carrion Blooms is about how we change over time, how we use our days differently with age, and what it means to let go of the past,” he says. “What will be left when we are gone, and who will remember the arrangement we made?”
Carrion Blooms is on view from April 1 to May 6 at Heron Arts in San Francisco, and you can find more from Curran on his site and Instagram.
Renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky approaches his latest project with curiosity about the future of human impact and globalization. From the diamond mines of South Africa to the richly textured landscape of Namibia’s Tsaus Mountains, African Studies spotlights the sub-Saharan region and its reserves of metals, salt, precious gemstones, and other ores. “I am surveying two very distinct aspects of the landscape,” he says in a statement, “that of the earth as something intact, undisturbed yet implicitly vulnerable… and that of the earth as opened up by the systematic extraction of resources.”
Taken over seven years in ten nations—these include Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Madagascar, and Tanzania—the aerial photos, which are compiled in a forthcoming book published by Steidl, present a dichotomy between a region irrevocably altered by humanity and one of immense possibility. Burtynsky’s interest in the continent began in the early Aughts when working on a series about China, which he explains:
For that project, and while researching several topics including the Three Gorges Dam, urban renewal, and recycling, I learned how the new Chinese factories were being created. At the time, heavy machinery was literally being unbolted from concrete floors in Europe and North America, then shipped and refastened to the floors of gigantic facilities in China. This represented a paradigm shift of industry, and it seemed obvious that China was rapidly becoming a leading manufacturer for the world. I realized even then that the African continent was poised to become the next, perhaps even the last, territory for major industrial expansion.
Particularly since 2013 when it launched its Belt and Road Initiative, China has invested billions of dollars in expanding its global presence, with many African nations as targets. This growth, along with international competition for access and power on the continent, has widespread economic, environmental, and governmental impacts, which Burtynsky explores through the series.
“Oil Bunkering #9, Niger Delta, Nigeria” (2016)
Photographed via helicopter, plane, or drone, his images juxtapose the natural beauty of the landscape with the unnerving scars of human impact. Long tailing ponds, or waste sites from mining with the potential to contaminate the area with toxic chemicals, appear frequently in the project, while photos like that of the Dandora Landfill center on the direct effects of consumerism on local people. The largest waste repository in Kenya, the dump site attracts locals who scavenge recyclable plastic to sell, despite the rampant threat of cancer and infertility.
While much of African Studies is shot outdoors, Burtynsky heads inside for part of the project, documenting the interiors of manufacturing plants. “I hope to continue raising awareness about the cost of growing our civilization without the necessary consideration for sustainable industrial practices and the dire need for implementing globally organized governmental initiatives and binding international legislations in order to protect present and future generations from what stands to be forever lost,” he says.
African Studies is currently available for pre-order on Bookshop. Photos from the series are also on view at two New York spaces: Sundaram Tagore through April 1 and Howard Greenberg Gallery through April 22.
A spectrum of glowing light pulses through 23 inflated columns that ascend from the ground in Pneuhaus’s (previously) new public installation, illuminating an invisible world just beneath our feet. For Grove, the Rhode Island-based design collective drew inspiration from an ancient biological structure known as the mycorrhizal network. Often referred to as the “wood wide web,” the underground system is characterized by a complex symbiotic relationship between certain types of fungi and the roots of trees, enabling them to communicate with one another and share nutrients.
Grove‘s inflatable, branching arches invite visitors to gather and wander through a colorful, forest-like installation, drawing parallels between the web and the support networks communities rely on to nurture unity and growth. “Nature builds in relationships,” Pneuhaus says, “(and) for Grove, we followed that lesson to create a transportive space designed to excite and support community gathering.”
To construct the complex, organic shape, Pneuhaus utilized a unique algorithm inspired by the way slime molds move around in search of food. “Integrating this kind of living logic enabled us to design a form that expresses a truly root-like connectivity,” they say.
Grove was designed for BLINK Cincinnati to mark the festival’s return following cancellations due to the pandemic. Find more on the collective’s website and Instagram.
“I’ve always been drawn to art in different ways, but sculpting clay by hand seems to come most naturally to me. I think it is my most effective means of communication,” says Janny Baek, whose playful, abstract ceramics blur the line between form and function. Drawing on fundamental compositional elements like color, line, and volume, she creates characterful shapes from clay that “advocate for the strange, uncategorized, undefined, changeable, hybrid, multiple, alien, and pleasurable.”
After studying ceramics in college, Baek worked as a sculptor for animation and toys before pursuing graduate studies and a career in architecture. As an architect, she used digital tools like parametric 3D modeling, which employs computer algorithms to create advanced designs, and while she enjoys the possibilities of technology, she was pulled toward working with her hands. “As life becomes increasingly screen-based, I also made an intentional choice to engage in a physical mode of making. I’m learning a lot about sculpting with each piece I make,” she says. “Even though I do it a lot, I still find it very intriguing and mysterious.”
Baek’s pieces incorporate colors in gradients or patterns onto textured surfaces that show where she has rhythmically pushed and formed and the clay with her fingers, emphasizing the connection between maker and object. Asymmetrical and bulbous, her otherworldly sculptures are redolent of boulders, cacti, coral, or micro-organisms. Ambiguity is a core tenet of her practice, especially as it relates to transformation and growth. “This is a central theme in my work because I think this active moment is an opportunity for questions rather than answers and wondering rather than deciding.” She continues:
I make forms that may seem like hybrids of familiar things or something with unexpected qualities that may make something appear strange or foreign. I see this as a entry point for questioning our assumptions and allowing ourselves space for reflection and curiosity. As a Korean immigrant growing up in the U.S., I understood that minimizing my differences was important in order to cause less friction or discomfort to others. Now, I perhaps feel some strength and joy in revealing the stranger side of something through my work.
Baek’s first solo exhibition The Pleasure of Growth continues through May 20 at Culture Object in New York. Find more on her website, and follow updates on Instagram.
From Katsushika Hokusai’s unmistakable views of Mount Fuji to contemporary landscapes by Asano Takeji, Ukiyo-e Search collects a wide variety of Japanese woodblock prints. Programmer John Resig built the online database back in 2012, and the archive now boasts more than 223,000 individual artworks from the early 18th century to today. Encompassing an array of styles, subject matter, and aesthetic impulses, the database is organized by artist and time period, and the system facilitates easy comparison of copies held at museums and institutions around the world
Find some of our favorite works in the database below, and head to the archive to dive into Ukiyo-e history. (via This Isn’t Happiness)
Katsushika Hokusai, “Kirifuri Waterfall at Kurokami Mountain in Shimotsuke” (ca. 1832)
Yoshida Hiroshi, “Sailboats: Forenoon (Hansen, gozen)” from the series ‘Inland Sea (Seto Naikai shû)’ (1926)
Asano Takeji, “Twilight In The Village, Nara” (1953)
Shoson Ohara, “White Herons and Willow” (1926)
Bakufu Ohno, “Cherry Blossoms” (1950)
Utagawa Kuniyoshi, “Mount Fuji on a Clear Day from the Sea off Tsukuda” (1843)
Astrophotographers Andrew McCarthy (previously) and Jason Guenzel recently teamed up to create a staggering look at the sun that showcases the textured, fiery details of its atmosphere. Comprised of more than 90,000 individual images, “Fusion of Helios” showcases the usually invisible solar corona, the outermost layer that tends to be hidden by the sun’s powerful glare. “To get a scientifically plausible look at it, we used NASA’s SOHO data as a reference to geometrically transform Jason’s 2017 eclipse photo to match the features,” McCarthy shares. “The result is a blend of science and art, and my favorite piece of work I’ve been a part of.”
Jets of plasma known as spicules appear like wispy fibers cloaking the sun’s surface, while a tall column shoots from the upper right. This solar eruption, which McCarthy likens to a tornado, stretches the same height as 14 planet Earths as it rapidly swirls and sheds balls of plasma the size of the moon.
Check out a video of the twister-like phenomenon on Instagram, and find prints of “Fusion of Helios” in both McCarthy’s and Guenzel’s shops. (via Kottke)
