The Making of John Mayer’s ‘Born & Raised’ Album Artwork, Captured in 18 Minute Short Film

in Art, Design, Music | March 1st, 2013

This eigh­teen minute doc­u­men­tary takes you inside the work of David A. Smith, an Eng­lish artist who spe­cial­izes in “high-qual­i­ty orna­men­tal hand-craft­ed reverse glass signs and dec­o­ra­tive sil­vered and gild­ed mir­rors.” (Got that? You may want to read that last part again.) In some­thing of a depar­ture from ear­li­er projects, Smith designed an ornate “turn-of-the-cen­tu­ry, trade-card styled album cov­er” for John May­er’s album Born & Raised. His work is metic­u­lous and exact­ing. And this “Behind The Scenes” film, com­plete with com­men­tary from May­er and Smith, cap­tures the artist’s process in lov­ing detail. Now please sit back and enjoy.

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Take a Virtual Tour of the 1913 Exhibition That Introduced Avant-Garde Art to America

in Art, History, Museums | February 28th, 2013

armory show

One hun­dred years ago, Amer­i­ca had only just begun talk­ing about “avant garde” art. Before the famous “Armory Show,” no one was even using the term; after it, Unit­ed States’ art-watch­ers had many rea­sons to. It’s what they saw on dis­play at the exhi­bi­tion, mount­ed by two dozen artists entire­ly with­out pub­lic fund­ing. Prop­er­ly called The Inter­na­tion­al Exhi­bi­tion of Mod­ern Art, the show got its pop­u­lar name by start­ing out in the 69th Reg­i­ment Armory on Lex­ing­ton Avenue in New York. It then moved to Chica­go and Boston, pro­vok­ing shock, dis­missal, and some­times even appre­ci­a­tion across the East Coast and Mid­west. A lit­tle Van Gogh, Gau­guin, Cezanne, Picas­so, Matisse, and Duchamp can do that to you.

Or at least, they do that to you if you live in 1913 and have nev­er seen such bold destruc­tion and rein­ven­tion of visu­al art’s estab­lished forms. To mark the Armory Show’s cen­ten­ni­al, the Art Insti­tute of Chica­go has recre­at­ed its view­ing expe­ri­ence on the web. There you can explore the gal­leries as Chicagoans actu­al­ly saw them a cen­tu­ry ago, albeit in black-and-white. The site also pro­vides much in the way of con­text, offer­ing arti­cles on the exhi­bi­tion’s gen­e­sis, pro­gram notes, lega­cy, and more. You can learn more about the impact of the Armory Show in this recent NPR piece, which quotes Muse­um of Mod­ern Art cura­tor Leah Dick­er­man on the sub­ject: “It’s this moment in time, 100 years ago, in which the foun­da­tions of cul­tur­al prac­tice were total­ly reordered in as great a way as we have seen. And that this marks a reorder­ing of the rules of art-mak­ing — it’s as big as we’ve seen since the Renais­sance.”

via @coudal

Relat­ed con­tent:

Watch Icon­ic Artists at Work: Rare Videos of Picas­so, Matisse, Kandin­sky, Renoir, Mon­et, Pol­lock & More

Free: The Guggen­heim Puts 65 Mod­ern Art Books Online

Down­load Hun­dreds of Free Art Cat­a­logs from The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art

MoMA Puts Pol­lock, Rothko & de Koon­ing on Your iPad

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Captivating Collaboration: Artist Hubert Duprat Uses Insects to Create Golden Sculptures

in Art, Biology, Science | February 24th, 2013

Once upon a time, the lar­vae of the Cad­dis Fly were con­sid­ered pret­ty unas­sum­ing crea­tures, fresh­wa­ter dwellers whose appeal was lim­it­ed to trout and trout fish­er­men. That is until French artist Hubert Duprat came along with an aes­thet­ic offer they could­n’t refuse.

Left to their own devices, Cad­dis lar­vae con­struct pro­tec­tive cas­es from nat­ur­al mate­ri­als found in their habi­tat, patch­ing small pieces togeth­er with silken thread. A chance encounter with some prospec­tors at a riv­er in south­west­ern France led Duprat to won­der how the Cad­dis lar­vae might adapt if gold fig­ured more promi­nent­ly among their build­ing sup­plies. Thus began The Won­der­ful Cad­dis Worm: Sculp­tur­al Work in Col­lab­o­ra­tion with Tri­chopteras, an ongo­ing artis­tic exper­i­ment in a care­ful­ly con­trolled, sci­en­tif­ic set­ting.

Basi­cal­ly these birds are spin­ning their own gild­ed cages with what­ev­er lux­u­ry mate­ri­als Duprat intro­duces into their arti­fi­cial envi­ron­ment. The result­ing jew­el encrust­ed cre­ations would not be out of place in a Madi­son Avenue win­dow, though it’s pos­si­ble a near­sight­ed dowa­ger might mis­take the tiny jew­el­er for a cock­roach.

hubert-duprat

Whether or not one would opt to wear one of these blinged-out insect cas­ings were mon­ey no object, one has to admit their engi­neer­ing is a most unusu­al feat. It would make for one humdinger of a Sci­ence Fair project if only Duprat had­n’t patent­ed the tech­nique in 1983.

via Laugh­ing Squid

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pi in the Sky: The World’s Largest Ephemer­al Art Instal­la­tion over Beau­ti­ful San Fran­cis­co

Artists Turn Weath­er Data into Swirling “Liv­ing Por­traits” of Con­ti­nen­tal U.S. Wind Pat­terns

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is slow­ly fig­ur­ing out how a writer home­schools a graph­ic nov­el enthu­si­ast in sub­jects of a sci­en­tif­ic nature. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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New Stamp Collection Celebrates Six Novels by Jane Austen

in Art, Literature | February 23rd, 2013

jane-austen-stampsOn Jan­u­ary 28, 2013, lit­er­a­ture fans cel­e­brat­ed the 200th anniver­sary of Jane Austen’s beloved nov­el, Pride and Prej­u­dice.  The cel­e­bra­tion has appar­ent­ly spilled into Feb­ru­ary now that the Roy­al Mail has announced the release of a stamp col­lec­tion com­mem­o­rat­ing Jane Austen’s six nov­els: Sense and Sen­si­bil­i­ty, Mans­field Park, Emma, Northang­er Abbey, Per­sua­sion, and Pride and Prej­u­dice.

Said a spokesman for the postal sys­tem: “When you think of great British authors, Jane Austen inevitably comes to mind. Her nov­els have con­tributed immea­sur­ably to British cul­ture over the last two cen­turies.”

Angela Bar­rett illus­trat­ed the new set of stamps, which can be pur­chased online by UK res­i­dents for £5.30 includ­ing VAT. A pre­vi­ous stamp set came out in 1975, to mark the bicen­ten­ni­al of Jane Austen’s birth.

Note: Austen’s six nov­els can be down­loaded from our Free Audio Books and Free eBooks col­lec­tions, along with many oth­er great works.

via Austen Prose

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Read Jane Austen’s Man­u­scripts Online

Jane Austen’s Fight Club, Com­ing to a The­atre Near You

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Ansel Adams Reveals His Creative Process in 1958 Documentary

in Art, Film, Photography | February 20th, 2013

Today marks what would be the 111th birth­day of Ansel Adams, the Amer­i­can pho­tog­ra­ph­er who cap­tured the sub­lime pow­er of the wilder­ness, tak­ing icon­ic images of the Amer­i­can West, most notably in Yosemite Val­ley. (See pho­to gallery here.) Orig­i­nal footage doc­u­ment­ing the cre­ative life of Ansel Adams is sur­pris­ing­ly hard to come by online. So A/V Geeks and Devel­op Tube did us all a favor when they revived this 1958 doc­u­men­tary reveal­ing Adams’ tech­ni­cal approach to pho­tog­ra­phy, the cam­eras and relat­ed gear he car­ried to the field, and his thoughts on the artis­tic hori­zons of pho­tog­ra­phy.

Ansel Adams, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er (1958) is avail­able at YouTube and Archive.org. It will now appear in our col­lec­tion of Free Doc­u­men­taries, a sub­set of our meta col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Dis­cov­er Ansel Adams’ 226 Pho­tos of U.S. Nation­al Parks (and Anoth­er Side of the Leg­endary Pho­tog­ra­ph­er)

Alfred Stieglitz: The Elo­quent Eye, a Reveal­ing Look at “The Father of Mod­ern Pho­tog­ra­phy”

1972 Diane Arbus Doc­u­men­tary Inter­views Those Who Knew the Amer­i­can Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Best

Hen­ri Carti­er-Bres­son and the Deci­sive Moment

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Artists Turn Weather Data into Swirling “Living Portraits” of Continental U.S. Wind Patterns

in Art, Science | February 20th, 2013

Like an invis­i­ble sculp­tor, the wind slow­ly shapes the nat­ur­al world, bend­ing Mon­terey Pines along California’s coast to reach hor­i­zon­tal­ly towards the land, and whip­ping dry beach dunes into peaks.

Artists Fer­nan­da Vié­gas and Mar­tin Wat­ten­berg, work­ing as HintFM, used the aer­i­al view of wind blow­ing around the Unit­ed States as the tem­plate for a dynam­ic art piece, Wind Map. About every hour, Wind Map down­loads wind cir­cu­la­tion data from the Nation­al Dig­i­tal Fore­cast Data­base. The site’s image of the con­ti­nen­tal U.S. refresh­es with new data, show­ing the most cur­rent traces of wind pat­terns, in vary­ing shades of white depend­ing on wind speed.

Like grass on an expanse of hill­side, the wind becomes vis­i­ble against the dark back­ground of the coun­try. It’s pos­si­ble to see, vivid­ly, the wind’s strength as it swoops from the north west and the south, up into a sin­gle cor­ri­dor that blasts up from Mobile Bay in Louisiana to Chica­go and beyond.

HintFM calls the site a “liv­ing por­trait” of the wind’s foot­prints at any giv­en moment, but they make sure we know it’s art, not sci­ence. Please, they note, do not use the map or its data to fly a plane, sail a boat, or fight wild­fires.

But the Wind Map archive can’t help but offer mete­o­ro­log­i­cal val­ue. Watch the wind pat­terns as Hur­ri­cane Sandy brewed off the East­ern seaboard in Octo­ber and again when it hit land. Oth­er images in the archive gallery include days that pro­duced some beau­ti­ful whorls of wind.

The site includes links to infor­ma­tion about wind pow­er. Made vis­i­ble, the wind can be seen as the force it is, beau­ti­ful, pow­er­ful, har­ness­able.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch a Cool and Creepy Visu­al­iza­tion of U.S. Births & Deaths in Real-Time

Per­pet­u­al Ocean: A Van Gogh-Like Visu­al­iza­tion of our Ocean Cur­rents

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Read more of her work at . 

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Finding Vivian Maier: New Documentary Reveals the Vision of Obscure Chicago Street Photographer

in Art, Life, Photography | February 18th, 2013

The posthu­mous dis­cov­ery of Vivian Maier’s pho­tographs is an art world stun­ner on the order of Hen­ry Darg­er’s mas­sive In the Realms of the Unre­al.

The syn­chronic­i­ty makes one won­der.

He was a Chica­go-based cus­to­di­an.

She was a Chica­go-based nan­ny.

They shared a com­pul­sion to create—some might say document—but were so intense­ly pri­vate, the rev­e­la­tions of their respec­tive lives’ work threw every­one for a loop.

Employ­ers and neigh­bors found it hard to believe they’d had it in them. (View an online gallery of her work here.)

Cura­tors, mar­veling at the quan­ti­ty of their out­put and qual­i­ty of the vision, piled on superla­tives.

Some­thing tells me the prick­ly Ms. Maier would not have appre­ci­at­ed any com­par­isons to a man whose work fea­tured so many rep­re­sen­ta­tions of naked, her­maph­ro­dit­ic girl-war­riors being bay­o­net­ted, but death makes it dif­fi­cult to keep hold of the reins gripped so tight­ly in life.

For the fore­see­able future, Maier’s lega­cy rests in the hands of John Mal­oof, the young Chicagoan who bought her neg­a­tives from an unpaid stor­age unit for less than $400, hop­ing he might find some­thing of rel­e­vance for a neigh­bor­hood his­to­ry project. He got more than he bar­gained for, obvi­ous­ly, but the years spent scan­ning the unknown artist’s work is begin­ning to pay off in exhi­bi­tions, gallery rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and a book. Now he is near­ing com­ple­tion of Find­ing Vivian Maier, a doc­u­men­tary film that promis­es to shed more light on this fas­ci­nat­ing tale.

Would the sub­ject have want­ed this?

Per­haps that’s a ques­tion for the Hen­ry Darg­er Study Cen­ter at the Amer­i­can Folk Art Muse­um…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Lynch Talks About His 99 Favorite Pho­tographs at Paris Pho­to 2012

1972 Diane Arbus Doc­u­men­tary Inter­views Those Who Knew the Amer­i­can Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Best

Pho­tog­ra­phy of Lud­wig Wittgen­stein Released by Archives at Cam­bridge

Ayun Hal­l­i­day, a point and shoot hack, is relat­ed by mar­riage to anoth­er female street pho­tog­ra­ph­er with an inter­est­ing lens on his­to­ry. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Discover J.R.R. Tolkien’s Personal Book Cover Designs for The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

in Art, Books, Design, Literature | February 18th, 2013

The Fellowship Of The Ring Book Cover by JRR Tolkien_1-480

In some rare cas­es, adap­ta­tions and inter­pre­ta­tions of a lit­er­ary work can sur­pass the source. Despite hun­dreds of valiant efforts on the part of fans, film­mak­ers, game/toy design­ers, and radio pro­duc­ers, this has nev­er been true of the ful­ly-real­ized fan­ta­sy world in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hob­bit and The Lord of the Rings tril­o­gy. (not that it’s ever been anyone’s intent). As we not­ed in a post last week, Tolkien’s fic­tion­al world is so intri­cate, its sources so vast and var­ied, that Corey Olsen, “The Tolkien Pro­fes­sor,” has made it his entire life’s work to open that world up to stu­dents and curi­ous read­ers, most recent­ly with his eight-part lec­ture series on The Hob­bit.

The Two Towers Book Cover by JRR Tolkien_1-480

One might also add illus­tra­tors to the list of Tolkien inter­preters above who have—in the almost eighty years since The Hobbit’s pub­li­ca­tion and six­ty years since the first appear­ance of The Lord of the Rings trilogy—done their best to visu­al­ize Tolkien’s world. But per­haps no one did so bet­ter than the mas­ter him­self. Long known as a visu­al artist as well as a lit­er­ary one, Tolkien left behind over 100 illus­tra­tions for The Hob­bit, one of which adorns 2011’s Harper­Collins 75th anniver­sary edi­tion of the book. He also cre­at­ed these orig­i­nal cov­er designs for each book in The Lord of the Rings tril­o­gy.

The Return Of The King Book Cover by JRR Tolkien_1-480

ring-eye-device

In the long and com­plex pub­li­ca­tion his­to­ry of Tolkien’s most famous of works, it’s unclear if these designs ever made it onto books pub­lished dur­ing his life­time, but the sig­il in the cen­ter of The Fel­low­ship of the Ring design (left), with its omi­nous eye of Sauron sur­round­ed by elvish runes and topped by the one ring, did grace the ele­gant, min­i­mal­ist cov­ers of the first edi­tion of the tril­o­gy. Tolkien’s art­work received a thor­ough treat­ment in a 1995 mono­graph J.R.R. Tolkien Artist & Illus­tra­tor, which cov­ers over 60 years of Tolkien’s life as an artist, and the mag­ic of flickr brings us this com­pendi­um of Tolkien illus­tra­tions.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Lis­ten to J.R.R. Tolkien Read Poems from The Fel­low­ship of the Ring, in Elvish and Eng­lish (1952)

The Art of the Book Cov­er Explained at TED

Vladimir Nabokov Mar­vels Over Dif­fer­ent “Loli­ta” Book Cov­ers

Jack Kerouac’s Hand-Drawn Cov­er for On the Road

Josh Jones is a writer, edi­tor, and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

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