Gris Grimly makes adorable spooky art. I wish I could have had books with his illustrations as a child (he does do children’s books). Now he has a show of black and white work at the Hyaena Gallery in LA.
Great Edgar Allen Poe pieces…
I don’t think it was the intention, but I like to call this one “Vampire Iggy Pop:”
Aw, precious…
I love the humanoid “bone structure” of this robot:
See more on his website.
And see the rest of the Hyaena Gallery exhibit here
Why is Dino Snores only for children? A sleepover in London’s Natural History Museum sounds fantastic!
Dino Snores is suitable for children aged 8-11 years old. Accompanying adults are free. There must be a minimum of 5 children and 1 adult in your group.
Experience lots of thrilling activities and stalk the corridors as night descends and shrouds the huge hulking form of Tyrannosaurus Rex in shadows.
Activities include:
* a torch-lit tour of some of our famous galleries including the Dinosaurs
* snuggling down at midnight after the fun in the shadow of our Central Hall Diplodocus skeleton for the night.
The morning after, tuck into breakfast and other fun activities before the Museum opens its doors to the public.
SIGN ME UP! How do I become the “accompanying adult?”
Has anyone been to see Leonardo Da Vinci’s Workshop at Discovery Times Square in NYC?
Exhibition features:
Full scale models of Da Vinci’s inventions including his self-propelled cart, airplane, robot knight and mechanical lion
Innovative touch screen technology translates over 500 sketches from his actual notebooks into 3-dimensional models
Da Vinci’s most important paintings can now be viewed using avant-garde technologies and extensive 3D imaging and animations
I’ve seen Discovery Channel specials about building Leonardo’s contraptions based on his sketches, but I think it would be rather interesting to see these models in person.
The exhibition closes March 14th. If you see it, please let me know how it is!
Gallery Nineteen Eighty Eight in LA now has a large of exhibit of art inspired by the TV show Lost.
Even though I don’t follow the series, I enjoyed looking at some of these pieces. I’d imagine they are extra enjoyable for die hard fans of the show.
See the rest of the exhibit here.
I have to add the Corpus Interactive Museum to my list of European destinations.
Many young Americans consider Holland a desirable vacation spot for the plethora of legal debauchery, but the Dutch have won my heart with this amazing museum! Shaped like a human body, this building offers a larger than life tour through human anatomy.
The tour begins on an escalator ride through a wound in the calf. Once inside visitors experience the body’s reaction to a wood splinter. After the 3D fertilization movie, guests follow a block of cheese as it makes its way down the digestive tract. Other exhibits feature the heart, lungs, mouth, and of course the brain. A beanbag game even allows visitors to try and take down bacteria before it can cause an infection.
The video is in Dutch, but if you want a quick glimpse…
If anyone has gone, or gets a chance to go, you must tell me about it!
Found on Wellsphere
I’m pretty excited about Tim Burton’s upcoming MOMA exhibit (I love his aesthetic sensibilities). The museum has released a new promo video:
The exhibit begins November 22nd and runs through April 26th.
Anyone else plan on going?
I consider this site an “oddities” blog, and I find few things as odd as the plastic, alarmingly precocious world of child beauty pageants.
Susan Anderson has a new exhibit at the Kopeikin Gallery featuring these mini beauty queens.
From the author bio:
High Glitz, is shot on location at several of America’s child beauty pageants. Setting up her studio amidst the colorful spectacle, she captures the young girls at the height of their performance. Hours of preparation are spent on each child’s appearance, and her camera records it all in graphic detail. Children’s pageants are a fascinating subculture, but more than anything they represent a strange microcosm of America itself. Our own values of beauty, success and glamour reflected in the dreams of thousands of young girls
I find myself struggling through a very strong reaction when I look at these photos. Childhood is the one time in life that should be (relatively) simple. Sometimes I long for the days before the dawn of self-consciousness, when I would never consider things like makeup or extravagant hairdos. The business of being a “woman” was far off on a distant horizon.
What unnerves me most of all is the vague sense of discomfort that seems to lurk beneath the phony smiles and “flippers” (prosthetic teeth designed especially to give small children that Hollywood smile).
Perhaps I’m highly misinformed and I’ll allow for that possibility. I can’t get myself to research the topic of child pageants (or watch those horrendous reality shows) for fear of breaking down in tears at the sight of lost innocence, extreme pressure, and of course…a very unnatural sexualization.
No one could pay me enough to do this to a grade school child:
To me, these poor creatures seem lost in space and time; children with adulthood painted on. They must suppress all the natural movements, drives and freedom of childhood for the sake of frozen expressions and perfect posture.
Sure, I loved to play dress-up as a kid (still do!). But it was all about imagination and fun. In these pageants, I never know where the will of the child begins and ends…perhaps the children themselves don’t even know.
See more from the photo exhibit here.
Or visit the photographer’s website.
Found here
Damien Hirst, whom I’ve posted about here, certainly has an impressive body of (often controversial) work.
The Child’s Dream, is currently making its UK debut at the Tate St. Ives gallery as part of The Dark Monarch: Magic and Modernity in British Art exhibition.
The Dream:
Broken dream:
I’m terribly sorry, unicorn lovers. I didn’t mean to drown your childhood dreams in formaldehyde. I just find the installation rather captivating.
Now that I’m out West, I’ve been scanning the gallery websites (and discovering there are far too many things I want to see for one short trip!). I found myself chuckling out loud while viewing Big Tasty’s selections now on display at Hyaena.
Meat creations and slightly deranged animals abound!
This makes me laugh:
Overall, this is some really entertaining and just plain FUN lowbrow art.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a current exhibition of Irish figurative painter Francis Bacon (not to be confused with Sir Francis Bacon).
I particularly love his grim series of papal heads, tortured and seemingly fading (or rather, being pulled) in and out of reality.
See more from the exhibit here.
SheWalksSoftly 