Powers of Ten

by Ami Kealoha

Not just a nostalgic reminder of grade school days, Charles and Ray Eames' 1977 film Powers of Ten is at this point—having inspired Will Wright's new video game "Spore" and a memorable TV spot for lotion, among other things—a seminal film. I was happy to discover it, randomly enough, on Band of Outsiders and couldn't help lamenting how rare such a simply clever concept is these days. You can watch it on YouTube or the Powers of Ten site where you can also buy related merch, like a DVD or better yet the flipbook.

Hudson Furniture Petrified Wood: Thorn Tree Project Benefit

by Ami Kealoha

Hudson Furniture's petrified wood pieces add natural beauty to interior design minus the kitsch of other log furniture. With "the visual characteristics of wood but the feel of stone," Hudson's pieces are stunning multi-use pieces.

Hudson Furniture is one of the few sources for legally harvested petrified wood and now buying a piece is a socially-conscious act as well. Through the month of March 2007, they'll donate 5% of every purchase to the Thorn Tree Project, an educational non-profit benefitting the nomadic Sereolipi people of Kenya. Go here to see what's available. Each piece costs $1200 and you can order by calling +1 212 645 7800 or emailing sales [at] hudsonfurnitureinc [dot] com.

Pixelated Pulse Art Fair

by Tim Yu

A prominent motif at the Pulse art fair in NYC last week, pixelation was evident in a number of works in various mediums. From afar, these works can be read as a whole, but close up, the image starts to break down and the individual elements of the composition become more dominant. Here are a selection of some of our favorites. Click on any of the images for a more detailed view.

The buzz around the Catherine Clark Gallery booth had a lot to do with "The Morning After Portraits" by Andy Diaz Hope. Made of gel-caps, the series shows images of people in front of their medicine cabinets or in their local pharmacies with hangovers, headaches and other illnesses self-inflicted or otherwise. (Pictured above right.) A more literal comment on our pill-popping culture than Damien Hirst's similar work, Hope comments, "We are no longer a sum of our natural history, but a sum of our natural history plus our self selected recreational and medical regimes."

At first glance, the installation by Devorah Sperber presented by the Marcia Wood Gallery, looks like randomly arranged different colored spools of thread. However, a clear acrylic sphere placed in front of the work shrinks and condenses the thread spool "pixels" into an easily-read image of a masterpiece—in this case Vermeer's "Girl With a Pearl Earring"—and the convex shape flips the imagery 180 degrees. A mimicry of how the brain and eye process visual data, Sperber's work plays with ideas about the past, craft, visual theories and art itself. Check out more of her work at the Brooklyn Museum until 6 May 2007.

Referencing cubists like Picasso and other early 20th-century painters, Isidro Blasco, recently exhibited at DCKT Contemporary, turns the 2-dimensional media of photography into a 3-dimensional experience by piecing together multiple photos. Using board-mounted photographs, he combines multiple angles and architecture to explore perception in relation to physical experience. Blasco's sculptures draw the observer into the piece, so that the experience of it feels new rather than a straight portrayal of the scene. The photographic sculpture pictured (right), "Side Building," measures 107 x 120 x 72 inches . See more of his work here.

More of a dot-matrix than pixels, William Betts of the Richard Levy Gallery in Albuquerque, NM, re-creates surveillance camera images by carefully dripping acrylic paint onto canvas. Using digital information, he creates work that is abstract, organic and realistic. Again, a macro view (above right) becomes an abstraction but a step back (above left) reveals a realistic surveillance camera shot. Also on Cool Hunting, Betts' work from last years Scope art fair uses digital information (and in this case techniques) to create graphics. See more from this series of work here.

Carlos Estrada-Vega, presented by Margaret Thatcher Projects, exhibited sculptural works made of small canvas-covered blocks. Estrada-Vega considers each square as its own distinct painting, hence show titles like, "4000 Paintings/14 Compositions." Given the modularity of the pixel-like pieces (they're attached with magnets), the mini-paintings have the potential to be rearranged infinitely into new compositions. The colors, inspired by the artist’s Mexican heritage, look somewhat monochromatic from afar. Only up close do the ultra-saturated colors reveal themselves, an aspect further accentuated by the topographic nature of the blocks. Maceo (far left) is composed of wax, oleopasto, oil, limestone and pigment on canvas and measures 18 x 18 inches. More effective in person, these photos do not do the works much justice.

Reader Finds

by Josh Rubin

Starting today, you'll notice a new little tab in the nav bar above. Reader Finds enables readers to post their own favorite discoveries on CH. To make it happen, we've teamed up with our friends over at ThisNext, so if you don't have an account already you'll need to go here to create one. Every "recommendation" you make on ThisNext tagged with "Cool Hunting" will automatically show up on the Reader Finds page. It's as easy as that. We look forward to seeing what you dig up!

Arthur Hash Jewelry

by Leonora Oppenheim

With witty simplicity Arthur Hash’s painted metal brooches of silhouetted forms are just the right minimal accessories for any stylish lapel. The pretty forms of the white grenade and pastel pink chainsaw have contradictory cute-meets-sinister appeal.

But it's his series of people striking poses make the best collectors items. A sophisticated form of old-school playground pins, you can swap them with your friends—girls and boys alike. Arthur's display of the silhouettes together in this installation (pictured below) has a brilliant graphic effect. As Abigail Percy of Whip Up said, “As a group they become even more witty, stylish and graphic. Often, in jewellery photography, the scale of the piece is entirely lost to the viewer…I love how this work really throws that into focus, and plays with the notion of strength in numbers.”

And it looks as if it's not just the design community who's taking note. Earlier this year Arthur, who is based in Richmond, VA, was named as an American Craft Council Searchlight Artist.

via Moco Loco

Jane McKay

by Lost At E Minor

Australian artist Jane McKay creates swirling artworks that convey a sense of unrest and visual chaos as the colours clash in magnificently elaborate patterns. Her paintings are "abstractions of the landscape in which the land is portrayed as place and life essence…responses to the vast open spaces of the natural environment which reveal existential themes. The distant horizon line conveys the great expanse of the landscape. The expressive marks of McKay's paintings are decorated with tiny, indispensable details of the natural world."