Cosmic Delights and Distant Discoveries Unfold in ‘Astronomy Photographer of the Year 15’

Mehmet Ergün (Germany), “The Great Solar Flare,” highly commended in the “Our Sun” category. All images © the photographers, courtesy of Astronomy Photographer of the Year, shared with permission

In its 15th year, the Royal Observatory Greenwich’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition (previously) welcomed more than 4,000 entries from photographers in 64 countries, who set their sights on the night skies. From solar flares to dancing auroras to distant galaxies, the winners of this year’s contest highlight the endless wonders of the cosmos and the astonishing technological advances that allow us to see lightyears away in unprecedented detail.

The overall winning image, “Andromeda, Unexpected,” was the result of a collaboration between astrophotographers Marcel Drechsler, Xavier Strottner, and Yann Sainty. The trio discovered an enormous plasma arc next to the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), spurring a transnational scientific collaboration to further investigate the phenomena.

We’ve shared a few favorites here, and you can see all shortlisted images in the contest’s online gallery. If you’re in London, you can visit the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich starting on September 16 to see more than 100 prints on display.

 

Andreas Ettl (Germany), “Circle of Light,” runner-up in the aurorae category

Marcel Drechsler (Germany), Xavier Strottner (France), and Yann Sainty (France), “Andromeda, Unexpected,” galaxies category winner and overall winner

Runwei Xu (China) and Binyu Wang (China), “The Running Chicken Nebula,” winner of the Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year award

Paul Montague (Australia), “Neighbours,” highly commended in the galaxies category

Katie McGuinness (U.K.), “Close Encounters of the Haslingden Kind,” highly commended in the “People and Space” category

Angel An (China), “Grand Cosmic Fireworks,” winner in the skyscapes category

Ethan Chappel (U.S.), “Mars-Set,” winner in the “Our Moon” category

Haohan Sun (China), “Moon at Nightfall,” highly commended in the Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year category

Peter Ward (Australia), “Dark Star,” runner-up in the “Our Sun” category

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At Elmhurst Art Museum, Contemporary Figurative Artists Reconsider Picasso’s Artistic Legacy Fifty Years After His Death

Laura Berger, “Reflecting, Refracting.” All images © the artists, courtesy of Elmhurst Museum, shared with permission

Commemorating the 50th anniversary of Pablo Picasso’s death, Elmhurst Art Museum joins a global movement of shows looking back at the artist’s work to present Picasso: 50 Years Later, a celebration of his unmistakable influence on modern art.

Organized in three parts, the exhibition introduces Picasso in the context of his contemporaries, like Alexander Archipenko, Fernand Léger, and Joan Miró. The museum also debuts a series of linocut prints from a private collection, which will later embark on a tour titled Picasso and the Progressive Proof. And Chicago-based contemporary artists Laura Berger, Liz Flores, Richard Hull, Leasho Johnson, and José Lerma highlight how the artist’s legacy is reappraised and reimagined in figurative work being made today.

Picasso: 50 Years Later continues through January 27, 2024, in Elmhurst, Illinois. Visit the museum’s website for more information and to plan your visit.

 

Pablo Picasso, “Bacchanal with Kid Goat and Onlooker” (1959), linocut proof. Image © 2023 Estate of Pablo Picasso and Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Left: José Lerma, “Potato Gave (Left Profile)” (2016), acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30 inches. Right: Liz Flores, “Mujeres 5” (2023), oil on pastel paper, 9 x 12 inches

Liz Flores, “A Day to Rest” (2023), acrylic on canvas, 48 x 60 inches

Richard Hull, “The Night” (2022), oil and wax ground on linen, 72 x 48 inches

Leasho Johnson, “Man Standing in Cane Field” (2020), charcoal, watercolor, distemper, acrylic, spray paint, oil stick, and oil paint on canvas, 30 x 24 inches

Larger Berger, “A Lightness, a Flight”

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RISD Launches New Program to Boost Corporate Creativity

It’s no secret that businesses want more creativity. In one recent study, 77 percent of CEOs said they struggle to find the innovation and creativity skills they need. At the same time, creativity has never been in more demand. The basis of competition is shifting as technology continues to reshape industries. In a post-pandemic world, people are questioning long-held assumptions about the workplace. Attention is increasingly turning to the impacts of business on communities and the environment. Unfortunately, corporate cultures tend to limit the very creativity they need and organizations get stuck reproducing the “best practices” of the past. RISD is launching a new program that aims to help.

RISD has always embraced the power of art and design to shape the world and the value of creative thinkers to take on its big challenges. The college is committed to educating students and the public and contributing to society through critical thinking and innovation across disciplines. Of course, educating future artists and designers is central to that mission, but RISD doesn’t believe creativity should be restricted to a chosen few.

RISD ExED is a new initiative to create educational opportunities for business people regardless of their level of formal design training. Its goal is to enable people from any industry to transform their work with new insights and inspiration while exploring the intersections of art, design, and business.

 

RISD’s riverside campus in Providence, Rhode Island

ExED’s first pilot program, the Art of Creativity, is designed for people from any field who want to reinvigorate their own work as an opportunity for creative practice. RISD’s tradition of studio education means participants won’t just be sitting in lectures. A mix of on-campus, online, and on-the-job activities will help participants reconnect with their own creative aspirations, build habits that foster creative practice, tap into the creative power of groups, and lead creative work in their own organizations.

The Art of Creativity is an open-enrollment program that individual learners can sign up for themselves. The on-campus launch of the inaugural cohort will take place on December 5 and 6. ExED is offering early registration discounts for participants who sign up by September 30.

To register, visit risd.edu/exed/art-of-creativity.

Over the coming years, RISD ExED will be developing a portfolio of programs for executive and corporate audiences that draw on faculty from across the institution and the expertise of the extended RISD community. The next program in their pipeline, The Design Lab, will allow a single company to convene collaborators around a tough business challenge and approach it in a new way through the lens of design. Additional program titles have yet to be announced, but if RISD’s track record as a place for experimentation and exploration is any indicator, they promise to be interesting.

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An Enormous New Book Celebrates 308 Latin American Artists Across Three Centuries

Sol Calero, “La Escuela del Sur (The School of the South)” (2015), mixed media, installation view. Photo by Andy Keate. All images courtesy of the artists and Phaidon, shared with permission

Dubbed the essential survey of artists living and working across Latin America, a monumental new book catalogs three centuries of output across 20 Spanish and Portuguese-speaking regions. Latin American Artists: From 1785 to Now, forthcoming from Phaidon, spans 352 pages of contemporary and historic paintings, sculptures, installations, photographs, performances, and more. Large imagery accompanies brief texts introducing 308 artists who’ve made significant contributions to the canon, including Frida Kahlo, Tomás Saraceno, Leonora Carrington, and Ernesto Neto. Arranged alphabetically, the tome brings together myriad styles, techniques, and methodologies to highlight the vast range of work coming from the region.

Latin American Artists: From 1785 to Now will be released on October 4, and you can pre-order your copy on Bookshop.

 

Simón Vega, “Tropical Space Hostel” (2019), wood, metal sheets, plastic, found objects, and light, 98 2/5 × 137 4/5 × 98 2/5 inches, installation view, Summit Tulum, Tulum, Mexico. Image courtesy of MAIA Contemporary

Sandra Eleta, “Edita (la del plumero) Panamá (Edita (The One with the Feather Duster) Panama)” (1978–80), from the series ‘La servidumbre (Servitude),’ 19 × 19 inches

Sonia Gomes, “Sol” (2018), stitching, bindings, different fabrics, and laces on wood and wire, 36 1/4 × 47 1/4 × 39 3/8 inches. Photo by Bruno Leão. Image courtesy of Sonia Gomes and Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo / Brussels / New York

Tomás Saraceno, “NGTS-2 b/M+MB” (2017), stainless steel, rope, fishing line, metal wire, and mirror panels, 25 5/8 × 41 3/8 × 41 3/8 inches. Image courtesy of Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los Angeles

Claudia Martínez Garay, “Chunka Tawayuq Pacha (PACHA #14)” (2022), tufting, 98 3/8 × 61 3/8 inches. Image courtesy of GRIMM Amsterdam / New York / London

Eduardo Navarro, “Instructions from the Sky” (2016). Photo by Timothy Schenck, commissioned and produced by Frieze Art Inc. for Frieze New York

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Stephanie Shih Wedges Mass Culture Against Loss in ‘American Gothic’

All photos by Robert Bredvad, courtesy of Harkawik, shared with permission

In a world saturated with logos, branding, and advertisements, is it possible to find comfort in commercial objects? By reconnecting with fragments of her childhood, ceramicist Stephanie Shih replicates domestic items from the ’80s and ’90s, portraying mundane goods with potent emotion. 

Molding each sculpture by hand, the Brooklyn-based artist uses stoneware clay to create hollow forms. She paints each with underglaze and adds a clear layer to some, achieving a finish similar to plastic or glass packaging. Extensive lettering appears in the form of logos, ingredients, nutrition facts, and even newspaper articles, all done freehand. 

The artist’s forthcoming solo exhibition, American Gothic, borrows its name from Grant Wood’s prominent Great Depression painting. Referencing an artwork identifiable with American culture, Shih directs viewers toward the dissonance between Asian immigrants and their children when generational identities become intertwined with consumer goods. Viewing her sculptures as “stuck in time,” she focuses on uplifting the evocative qualities of obsolete objects, in contrast to their fleeting existence in the real world.

Shih explains that while personal reflections are welcome, “the work isn’t exactly about nostalgia. Whereas nostalgia implies sentimentality and longing, for me, these objects gesture toward a sense of loss: lost time, lost usefulness, meanings lost in translation, lost selves.”

American Gothic opens at Harkawik Los Angeles on September 16. See more on Shih’s Instagram and website.

 

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In an Open-Source Stamp Kit, ‘BlockFace’ Gets Tactile With Type

For hundreds of years, typography was an innately physical medium, beginning with ornate metal designs followed by mass-produced wood varieties that were cheaper and could be scaled up or down. In the 21st century, we think of typefaces and fonts as things that come in digital packages, but artist and designer Will Mower aims to bring interaction and tactility back to the art form. His BlockFace Kit, a modular stamp set, plays with elemental shapes that invite creativity and imagination without requiring the space for large sort drawers or expensive presses.

Produced in collaboration with Open Press Project (previously), BlockFace relies on a combination of 3D-printed and laser-cut pieces that attach to the stamp pieces, which you can choose to make yourself with provided instructions or purchase fully constructed. The complete kit comes with a magnetic case, black and red ink pads, and a printed manual that teaches six styles: Bauhaus, lowercase, slab serif, Grotesque, Standard, and curved. The real joy, of course, is in creating your own!

BlockFace is in its final couple of days on Kickstarter, where you can view a demonstration video and pre-order your own. Find more updates on Instagram. (via Creative Boom)

 

All images © Will Mower

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A Heartbreaking Documentary Follows Mohamad Hafez as He Processes the Indelible Imapcts of the Syrian War

“This knob here is a radio switch, but what I see in it is an exploded engine,” says Mohamad Hafez (previously) in the opening of a new short film. The project of Jimmy Goldblum for The New Yorker Documentary series, “A Broken House” is a heartbreaking glimpse of the artist’s life and work and the horrific impacts of the Syrian war.

Born in Damascus, Hafez originally came to the U.S. on a single-entry visa to study architecture. After the September 11, 2001, attacks, travel restrictions changed, and he realized that he had to stay in the U.S. or risk not being able to return to complete his degree. Hafez missed weddings, funerals, and births and an immense homesickness grew. At one point asked himself, “If you can’t get home, why don’t you make home?” That prompted what’s now a mainstay of his practice, which involves constructing architectural miniatures of his native city using found objects. “I wanted to build the Damascus of my memories,” he says.

 

Although “A Broken House” begins with the artist’s studio in New Haven, Connecticut, the majority of the documentary follows the aftermath of the civil war. Goldblum and Hafez visit a refugee camp and speak with a father living there, and they spend time with the artist’s mother in Beirut, who refuses to leave her home in Syria, because it’s the closest city Hafez can travel to without being ensnared in the war.

Ultimately, the film highlights how the war has caused an immense loss of life and destroyed important cultural and historical sites. Hafez reflects this damage in his miniatures, which often feature dust-coated rubble, chipped paint, and fragments of bombed-out buildings. “If something did not look right,” the artist says about his work, “I took a hammer to it, and I snapped it, and I would throw ash on it, and I would burn it.” Although Hafez is intent on humanizing refugees, he tends to leave the ruins devoid of people to instead focus on the grim aftermath of war without blood or bodily harm.

Learn more about the artist in this conversation with Colossal from a few years back, and explore his latest works on Instagram.

 

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