Cool Hunting

Nineteeneightyfouria: Shepard Fairey Interview
Many regard Shepard Fairey as one of the godfathers of the modern urban art scene and he's widely known as one of the hardest working men in the business. His Obey Andre the Giant figure can be found all over the world, oftentimes in some surprising locales. Unique stencil, collage, photography and painting techniques have made him possibly the worlds most well-known street artist....

Jeff Bark: Woodpecker
Jeff Bark's newest works are the subject of his solo show, Woodpecker, at the Michael Hoppen Contemporary Gallery in London; it's his second show at the gallery. Bark's newest works are so multilayered it makes my brain hurt—in the best way possible. The photos feel like part diorama, painting and film. His involved process includes constructing a pond-like set that took over a month...

Doris Salcedo: Shibboleth
The Tate Modern always does an incredible job of reinventing their Great Turbine Hall with large, encompassing installations and with Doris Salcedo's "Shibboleth" they may have outdone themselves. Stretching imagination and the definition of sculpture and installation itself, Salcedo created a subterranean crack in the floor that stretches 584 feet across the entire length of the Hall. The upshot is a jagged abyss that...

Ron Mueck: In Bed
The London-based hyper-realist sculptor Ron Mueck's recent intriguing work, "In Bed", is hard to resist. Commentary on scale in architecture is common in a spatial sense, with much of our education revolving around it. Yet as humans, the scale between ourselves seems to be ever increasing. In our own office there is a 50 cm difference in height between the tallest and shortest, a...

Dan Flavin Retrospective
Usually reviled by esthetes, fluorescent light tubes become art in Dan Flavin's elegant constructions, the subject of a traveling retrospective currently at the Hayward Gallery in London through 2 April. His sublime use of color (restricted to only a few shades) and minimalist arrangements were often dedicated to people or events, such as untitled (in memory of my father D. Nicholas Flavin) (pictured), which...

Skewville's Secret Lab Revealed
If you've ever noticed a pair of wood sneakers dangling from power lines, you've likely witnessed the work of New Jersey-born identical twins Ad and Droo, aka Skewville. The fake sneaker installations (they call the project and their website When Dogs Fly) dates back to '99, but for over a decade the New York artists have been leaving sneaker footprints on walls, installing their...