Cool Hunting
Dutch artist Afke Golsteijn isn't the first to work with dead animals as her medium, but none quite achieve the same sweetly creepy aesthetic that comes from her joining of taxidermy and finely wrought details. Equal parts Edgar Allan Poe, Grimm's Fairytales (she calls them "Contemporary Fairytales"), and a more feminine David Altmejd, Golsteijn's work at times reads like a literalized metaphor, such as in "Lost Love," a collection of preserved blue butterflies encased in a mirrored glass stomach (pictured here) or in the humorous "Sleeping Hare" that wears a racing jersey. Other pieces are more enigmatic, tucking delicate beadwork into a bunny's ears (pictured) or resting a glass human heart on a dead swan's chest. Working with materials like fur, animals, glass, silver, and thread, her Victorian touches lend forlorn beauty to slightly morbid subjects.
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Jeanie M. is an artist and taxidermist from San Francisco. After several years photographing roadkill a friend (?) passed along a dead mouse that their snake passed on. She took this as a sign and started making whimsical scenes with small animals (mostly mice). She also teaches taxidermy at Paxton Gate, an eclectic and inspired store in San Francisco....
"Actus Reus" is the debut solo exhibition of Tamara Kostianovsky, an Israeli artist raised in Argentina and currently living in Brooklyn. The show consists of life-sized animal carcasses painstakingly reconstructed using second-hand clothing, which are all former pieces from the artist's actual wardrobe. The patchwork constructions adopt a remarkably grotesque quality, hanging from meat hooks in an antiseptic gallery space. The exhibition's Latin title...
Os Gemeos, our favorite identical Brazilian twin artists Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo, have many reasons to be excited about their new show, “The flowers in this garden were planted by my Grandparents.” First of all it's the duo's first solo museum show. Also, their good friend and mentor Barry McGee has previously showed at the Museum Het Domein. The twins pulled off a feat,...
Those not acquainted with New Zealand-based artist and animal rights activist Angela Singer will soon, after a few glances, see what they've been missing. While a strident activist against all forms of animal cruelty—including vivisection—much of her recent artwork is made from discarded hunting trophies and other taxidermy that strives to illuminate human exploitive tendencies of the rest of the animal kingdom. It's a chilling...
Jill Greenberg was tagged The Manipulator in the early '90s when she became known for transforming photos into surreal portraits by tweaking colors, cutting and pasting and otherwise distorting images. The work she created at the beginning of her career took advantage of Photoshop before it was a household name and became iconic of the collaged, multi-colored look of the time, forming the groundwork...
Known for her celebrity portraits and more recently for her brilliant portraits of crying children, Jill is an accomplished photographer who became enchanted by our biological cousins and their pure emotional expression. We chatted with Jill today about her upcoming exhibit and new book, Monkey Portraits. Make that monkeys, orangutans, baboons, chimpanzees and macaques. We're offering a signed copy of this amazing book to...
