Otherwordly Ceramic Forms by Janny Baek Evoke Growth and Transformation

All images © Janny Baek, shared with permission

“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.

 

 

 

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Explore Hundreds of Thousands of Japanese Woodblock Prints in a Ukiyo-e Archive

Torii Kotondo, “Hair Combing” (1932)

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)

Tsuchiya Koitsu, “Sengaku Temple” (1933)

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An Astounding Composite of 90,000 Images Unveils the Sun’s Hidden Atmosphere

All images © Andrew McCarthy and Jason Guenzel, shared with permission

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)

 

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Blackened Plywood Shards Rupture Inside Yorkshire Sculpture Park’s Chapel in a Leonardo Drew’s New Installation

“Number 360” (2023) installation view at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Photos by Jonty Wilde, images courtesy of the artist, Goodman Gallery, and Galerie Lelong & Co., shared with permission

In the cavernous 18th-century chapel at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, a new installation by artist Leonardo Drew (previously) explodes toward the ceiling in a massive plume, scatting shards, dust, and tiny fragments of material around the space. Titled “Number 360,” the work is comprised of blackened and painted plywood that brings chaos and destruction to the otherwise stark, quiet sanctuary. The central surge of the installation reaches five meters tall to fill the entirety of the chapel’s nave, while small paths are left clear to move through the immersive rupture.

Born in Tallahassee but raised in Connecticut’s notorious Bridgeport Housing Project, Drew spent much of his childhood scrounging waste materials and repurposing them into what were his earliest artworks. This commitment to regenerate what’s been left to decay remains central to his practice today, and many of his pieces reuse materials from earlier projects. “Number 360,” for example, utilizes the same fractured plywood as that of “Number 341,” which the artist made in 2022 for Art Basel: Unlimited in Switzerland.

To achieve the rough, grainy texture of the individual components, Drew mixed sand into acrylic paints, a choice that stems from several visits to porcelain studios in Jingdezhen, China, where he witnessed the ceramic works exploding in the kiln, leaving earthen particles and shards in their wake. The artist also evokes the high-pressure nature of that process, conveying a tense and violent energy in an otherwise calm space.

“Number 360” is on view through October 29. Find more from Drew on his site and Instagram.

 

“Number 82S” (2021), at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut. Photo courtesy of Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art

“Number 341” (2022), Art Basel: Unlimited, Switzerland. Image © the artist and Jon Cancro, courtesy of Goodman Gallery, Galerie Lelong & Co., and Anthony Meier Fine Arts

The artist Leonardo Drew, with “Number 341” (2022), Art Basel: Unlimited, Switzerland. Image © the artist and Jon Cancro, courtesy of Goodman Gallery, Galerie Lelong & Co., and Anthony Meier Fine Arts

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Interview: Christoph Niemann On Wit, Distilling an Idea, and How the Internet Has Made Us Better Readers

“Turning The Table” (2022), from the book ‘Idea Diary.’ All images © Christoph Niemann, shared with permission

The act of drawing, of envisioning an idea and conveying it visually, produces the same feelings in Christoph Niemann as it did when he was a child. A wildly successful artist, author, and animator with a keen wit, Niemann reiterates in a new interview that “there is no trick” to making the creative process easier.

It’s actually kind of comforting that the reality of drawing is that there’s no secret. Most artists have doubt. I’ve always wondered: is there a secret? Is there something I don’t know? Is there a trick that people have to make less difficult? From what I’ve found, there isn’t! What I’m doing today is exactly the same thing, with different tools, with different input, but exactly the same thing that I was doing when I was 12.

In this conversation, Niemann discusses his practice and process, how he consumes news and culture, and how his openness when experiencing a new city or space has changed since the pandemic began. The conversation veers from poetry, distillation, and the purpose of art to the downsides of pitching and finally, to his profound and enduring love for the humble act of putting ink on paper.

Read the interview.

 

“Sunday Sketch (Tangerine)” (2014), digital

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Join Us for a Colossal Workshop on Decorative Ceramic Techniques with Sophie Woodrow

All images © Sophie Woodrow, shared with permission

Artist Sophie Woodrow (previously) joins Colossal for a technique workshop on decorative patterns for clay. In this two-hour session, Woodrow will teach students how to create the textured motifs she utilizes in her figurative porcelain works on small pinch pots. Attendees are invited to work on their preferred material to learn coiling, chequering, dotting, and more, which can be translated to a variety of projects. As this is a technique workshop—see some examples of motifs below—the goal is not necessarily to finish the session with a completed project, although participants may do so.

Register here, and if you’re a Colossal Member, be sure to use the code in your account for $10 off. 10 percent of the proceeds for this workshop will benefit the Chicago Abortion Fund.

Woodrow’s ethereal porcelain figures make connections between human culture and the natural world. She first coils then incises and imprints to create a richly textured surface that harmonizes with a simple graphic form. References are conjured to cultures far away and long ago, engaging our memories and imaginations.

 

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In His Largest LEGO Work Yet, Ai Weiwei Recreates One of Claude Monet’s Most Famous Paintings

Ai Weiwei, “Water Lilies #1” (2022), LEGO. All images © the artist, shared with permission courtesy of Galleria Continua. All photos by Ela Bialkowska/OKNO Studio

Known for incorporating recognizable, everyday objects into monumental sculptures, Ai Weiwei (previously) has created acclaimed installations using bicycles, life vests, and seeds and flowers made of porcelain that often challenge political issues such as the social unrest of his native China, the global refugee crisis, and themes of liberty and freedom of speech. Since 2014, he has utilized LEGO as a medium but not without some controversy along the way due to the political nature of his work. Now, Ai has completed his largest LEGO piece to date in a recreation of “Water Lilies,” one of French Impressionist artist Claude Monet’s most iconic artworks.

Monet’s Water Lilies series was inspired by the artist’s garden in Giverny, France, featuring a foot bridge over a pond teeming with wildlife. This idyllic setting was the design and creation of Monet himself, who at the turn of the 20th century had the nearby River Epte partially diverted in order to bring his vision to life. Ai challenges our perceptions of natural beauty and reality, replacing brush strokes with plastic bricks redolent of digital pixels, using a more saturated color palette, and embedding shadows that evoke a hint of unease.

Both accessible and recognizable, LEGO allows Ai to broach difficult topics in a format that is more approachable. On the right-hand side, he has placed a dark portal depicting the door to the underground dugout in Xinjiang Province where he and his father, Ai Qing, lived in forced exile in the 1960s.

Composed of nearly 650,000 pieces in 22 colors, “Water Lilies #1” is part of Ai Weiwei: Making Sense, the artist’s forthcoming exhibition at The Design Museum. which runs April 7 through July 30 in London. Follow more updates on Instagram.

 

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