Modern Art // Current

10 Unbelievable Female Bodybuilders

Some might say that professional and extreme bodybuilding is all about pushing the... more

digitalfever
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12 months ago
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The Rape Tunnel

what a visionary

pyrexscholar
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1 month ago
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Child Prodigy or Exploited?

I have to highly recommend this documentary film, "My Kid Could Paint That." I... more

JImmyjumpnjive
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1 month ago
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Made IN Nigeria Furniture

"IO Furniture headed by female entrepreneur Muni Shonibare was founded in 1987 in... more

BaniProductions
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2 months ago
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Maggots make modern art

Hundreds of maggots have been rescued from becoming fishing bait and turned into... more

sophosthegreat
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2 months ago
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Maria Sochaniewicz

Abstract art on canvas and work on paper. Drawings, illustrations, photography

ariannas
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3 months ago
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Tribute to van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh oil paintings slideshow. Video music and lyrics by Jon Ber www.jonber.com

jonber
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3 months ago
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What "it" is.

People always ask "What is it?" when looking at Jorge's art work. This video tries to... more

jorgeoswaldo
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6 months ago
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Is Chicago's Art Institute showing signs of 'star-chitecture'?

"Chicago’s cultural power has been fuelled not by the genius of its own artists but by the wealth of local industrial magnates eager to garland their city. Tom Pritzker is typical of them: the chairman of the Hyatt Hotel chain and the Marmon Group conglomerate and much else, he’s a lifelong Chicagoan. He heads the institute’s board and he funded Gehry’s pavilion. He’s also aware of the prestige that Chicago once had as a beacon for modern architecture. It was here that steel-frame construction was first perfected in the 1880s, making way for the first skyscrapers, and great names have put down influential buildings in the area, from Louis Sullivan to Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe.

A “second Chicago school” emerged in the 1960s when Fazlur Kahn introduced a new method of steel construction and gave birth to a new generation of tall buildings, including the Sears Tower, which, when it was topped out in 1973, was the tallest in the world. Sears remains America's top spot, and those with an iron stomach for heights may be pleased that the building is opening glass enclosed viewing platforms in June. They will extend 4.3 foot beyond the building on inch and a half glass so you can get the window-washers' view down from the 103rd storey.

But Chicago’s light has dimmed as a capital of architecture. Santiago Calatrava hopes to build a 150-storey twisting “spire”, which will supplant the Sears as North America’s tallest, but the proposed site remains a heap of rubble, and the recession may dampen his ambitions. Hence the city has put great hopes in Piano’s Modern Wing. It is serene, efficient, and yet it disappoints. It offers up no singular image: there is no bold gesture, no Tate Modern Turbine Hall that one might learn to love. In fact, the designs that Gehry and Piano have supplied for Chicago point to the twin dangers of “star-chitecture”: bombastic, signature gestures on the one hand, predictable products on the other.

It is telling that the most exciting building currently nearing completion on the Chicago skyline is the first skyscraper by Jeanne Gang, and the largest project yet awarded to an American firm headed by a woman. Called Acqua, it’s a skyscraper-as-waterfall, with curving balconies undulating in and out to evoke rocky outcrops, and areas of reflective glass to suggest cascading torrents. Sometimes, genuine innovation needs new blood.""Chicago’s cultural power has been fuelled not by the genius of its own artists but... more