Photo By Gail
At first glance, Disco Bomb (1989) looks like a joke you might spot after midnight: a mirrored disco ball topped with a synthetic orange wig. But in the hands of German artist Martin Kippenberger (1953 – 1997) , that punchline becomes a pointed meditation on surface, identity, and cultural excess.
Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Martin Kippenberger, Disco Bomb
All Photos By Gail
For many artists working in the 1960s and ’70s, ideas often superseded the physical making of art. These ideas were typically ideological, structural, and philosophical in nature and conveyed in the form of words, grids, and graphs. By the 1980s, Thomas Schütte and other artists ushered in a return to representation, which some critics described as a response to a “hunger for images.“ Around this time, cherries, watermelon, and other kinds of comestibles became motifs in his work.
Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Thomas Schütte, Melonely
Photo By Gail
After discontinuing his studies at the Munich Academy of Art, German Expressionist Franz Marc(1880 – 1916) spent time in France and the Alpine town of Sindelsdorf, where he painted relentlessly.
Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Franz Marc, Tiger
All Photos By Gail
Anyone who’s visited Vancouver knows it’s a beautiful city with endless natural wonders to enjoy and explore. It makes sense that much of their public art also thematically emulates and plays with nature. A perfect example is The Drop (2009) which was conceived and created by Inges Idee, a group of four Berlin-based German artists: Hans Hemmert, Axel Lieber, Thomas Schmidt and George Zey. The group’s activity focuses on art in public spaces, with The Drop being their first installation in North America. Continue reading The Drop, Vancouver BC Waterfront
Photos By Gail
A headless cow? A bench to sit on? Actually, it’s both! German-born artist Julia Lohmann (b.1977) investigates the contradictions in our relationship to animals using off-cuts of leather, and other meat-industry waste products in her design. The Waltraud Cow-Bench (2004) is an appropriately cow-shaped upholstered leather bench, a “bovine memento mori,” the designer calls it. Continue reading Eye On Design: Waltraud Cow Bench By Julia Lohmann