Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na…Batman! On your finger, sort of! Ka-pow! Sorry, but these incredibly detailed, hand-crafted finger puppet designs by Tamara Maynes really bring out the kid in us. All original superheroes, each recalls iconic heroes and villains who we’ve seen in the pages of comic books and as blockbusters on the big screen. Angle Man is a bit like the aforementioned Dark Knight, thanks to his pointy-eared mask, while Rocket Woman reminds us of Wonder Woman, in all of her shiny red, white, and blue glory. And yet, they’re all unique. Are we looking at the world’s first finger couture? Click through to check out the Hero Fingers series as photographed by Julian Wolkenstein and spotted by Laughing Squid. Bang! Boom!
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In the his Noir series, artist Jonah Samson — a collector, blogger, and family doctor from Vancouver — arranges intricate scenes inspired by 20th century photographs, creating tiny, imaginative works that transport you to a world of old timey peep shows, double murders, and crime investigation. From drunken the tough guys puffing away on cigarettes to the blood splatters on the wall in a mock sepia-toned “vintage” photo, the details are uncanny. Take a look at some of this crafty noir fan’s painstakingly created pieces in our gallery.
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As we celebrate Mexican heritage on this Cindo de Mayo, let’s survey this season’s key photography exhibit: Photography in Mexico: Selected Works from the Collections of SFMOMA and Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, on view through July 8. The wide and engaging selection of 150 works from 1920s to the present includes both important Mexican photographers and inspired international artists.
“There is no one ‘Mexican photography,’ but one strand that runs throughout is a synthesis of aesthetics and politics,” curator Jessica McDonalds explains. “We see that with Manuel Álvarez Bravo, and we still see it in work made decades later.” From Manuel Álvarez Bravo’s definitive, surrealistic work in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution, through the mid-20th-century photojournalist documentation of Mexican life and the changing urban politics and culture in the ’60s and ’70s, including the emergence of critical theory and art photography, to the present day and meditations on the current issues particular to the U.S.-Mexico border region, this strand holds strong. Check out the slideshow of works from the exhibit, from Lourdes Grobet’s ’80s luchadores in full glory, to Graciela Iturbide’s Oaxacan woman with a crown of taxidermied iguanas, to Oscar Fernando Gómez’s contemporary series from the window of his cab. Read More »
Remember perler beads? The tiny plastic bits you played with as a kid? Wisconsin-based artist Steve Moore, aka PXL8R, hasn’t given it up. He’s created a series of celebrity portraits by arranging and ironing together the perler beads. Spotted by DesignBoom, each mosaic is 11″ x 11″ of uncanny. It’s IRL bit art! It’s art ‘n’ crafts Chuck Close! It’s reminiscent of the work of Jason Mecier, INVADER and Vik Muniz, but… did we mention he uses perler beads? Pretty cool. Each piece takes four hours of arranging, digital editing and, of course, careful ironing. From Stephen Colbert to Christopher Walken to Tina Fey, check out a selection of beady celebrities in our gallery.
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As an 1895 version of Edvard Munch’s The Scream heads off to Sotheby’s today, it could bring in as much as a record-breaking $200 million. Sotheby’s, the world’s largest auction house, is doing better than ever, with profits on the rise. And yet, the unionized professionals who handle the art are out of work. They’ve been locked out since July 29 of last year, after refusing to accept an unfair contract from Sotheby’s that called to cut pay, hours, and pensions; eliminate health benefits; and replace full-time employees with temporary, unskilled workers. For the people who have spent years — and some, decades — lending their specialized skills to handling some of the world’s most precious artifacts, it wasn’t acceptable.
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More than 80 countries across the world are celebrating May Day today. In New York, Occupy Wall Street marched through Lower Manhattan in solidarity with unions and immigrant rights groups. In Athens, thousands gathered to protest their government’s austerity measures. In Moscow, 100,000 citizens marched alongside President Putin, where thousands of Russians protested the presidential elections months earlier. The day holds a slightly different meaning for many, depending on the decade, the country, and the political group in power, but carries the same empowering, unified spirit. In these posters, you can see the uniting visual cues in design — muscular workers swinging powerful hammers, joint hands, billowing banners, the big fonts, the fists. Notice the differences in motif — a flower-throwing maiden, harking back to the date’s older, pagan, seasonal celebrations. Flip through a brief survey of vintage May Day vintage posters plucked from all over in our slideshow and explore.
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From her pouting baby years to her pubescent rebellions to her current life as a 30-something, Alison has always had her father’s camera on her. Photographer Jack Radcliffe’s images are strange in their intimacy and striking in their progression. There she is, screaming and bloody, just emerged from her mother’s womb. And then, there she is, half-sneering, with her cat-eyed make-up smeared, a swinging cigarette in her arm, hanging off a boyfriend who looks like trouble.
“My photographs of Alison, because of the nature of our relationship, are very much a father-daughter collaboration — Alison permitting me access to private moments of our life, which might, under different circumstances, be off-limits to a parent,” Radcliffe explains. See Alison’s growth captured in telling black and white portraits, as seen on Behance.
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From the self-deprecating domain of the Russian blogosphere that brought you incredibly bootleg movie posters, we present: the horrors from the LiveJournal community “Dedicated to Maniac Psycho Sculptors.” It’s a hub for dumping photos of children’s playgrounds that are more than a little bit… off — perilous swings, rusty slides, cavernous ditches, and, more importantly, the creepiest public sculptures you’ve ever seen. They are decapitated, shattered, and laden with inappropriate graffiti. Some are just dangerous. Some are accidentally suggestive. Some are terrible, decades-old works of folk art carved from tree stumps, now smiling with rotting, termite-gnarled mouths and otherwise looking less than approachable. They are all curious specimens of found art. Or maybe they’re just terrifying. Check out the worst of the worst and decide for yourself.
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What makes great album cover art, or rather, who? These memorable record cover artworks were born from close collaboration, or plucked by the musician’s discerning eye from a visual artist’s body of work, or created through some combination of the two. We’ve rounded up ten covers — some of the most iconic and a few somewhat obscure — made by famous artists and photographers, along with some quick liner notes about how they came to be. What do flowers have to do with Power, Corruption & Lies? Peel slowly and see… what? We answer all those questions and more below.
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Jim Jocoy’s photographs of the late ’70s punk scene in Los Angeles and San Francisco aren’t that different from the loads of morning-after shots flooding party photography sites every weekend in 2012, but then again, yes they are. Since the punk-rock scene exploded in New York and London and ricocheted to the West Coast, relatively toothless versions of this red sweater, black tights, swinging bottle of Jack look have popped up on the runway and in the streets every few years. What’s missing is that original, “anti-hippie, anti-disco, anti-parent and anti-’nice’” feeling, as documented in We’re Desperate: The Punk Rock Photography of Jim Jocoy, SF/LA 1978-1980. Here are a few choice shots of these kids, as ambushed by Jim Jocoy and spotted by American Suburb X. Get nostalgic for the days when studded cuffs really meant something as you count the polka dots and bloody noses.
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