Chen Hang Feng: Logomania

by Ami Kealoha

Mixing and manipulating corporate logos and traditional Chinese symbols, Shanghai-based artist Chen Hang Feng makes intricate paper cutouts that riff on both the era of mega-businesses and his own ancient heritage. This video visits Feng in his studio and accompanies him on a paper-finding walk while he talks about his work, his teacher and materials.

Reminder: Popdeck x Cool Hunting Skateboard Design Contest

by Tim Yu

We're about halfway through the Popdeck x Cool Hunting Skateboard Design Contest and we've already seem some fit designs. I've got a few decks in mind that I'd like to roll around on, but I'll keep that to myself for now. A $200 cash prize along with a free deck is up for grabs so head on over to Popdeck to submit your design before the contest ends next week on 31 January 2008.

The design theme is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). This is open to interpretation, just keep in mind that designs will be assessed based on this concept, and originality always helps. Even if you don't want to submit your own design you can at least vote on your favorites. Of the top five rated, we'll choose our one winner to be made into a real deal limited-edition deck. Some entries are pictured above and after the jump.

Mikhael Subotzky

by Lost At E Minor

Since graduating from art school a year ago, Mikhael Subotzky has taken his native South Africa and the international art world by storm. The 25 year-old has exhibited across his native country, in the Netherlands and Italy and has even been invited to join Magnum Photo Agency—one of the youngest photographers to be inducted into the venerable photo institution's ranks.

So what's all the hype about? Subotzky is the real deal, part of the next generation of South African artists who are picking up where their apartheid predecessors left off, tackling the issues of a modern country in transition. From prison conditions to strongholds of racism, Subotzky treats South Africa as the work in progress that it is and somehow helps others find beauty in its imperfections.

Edward Burtynsky: Quarries

by Leonora Oppenheim

The celebrated Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky recently published a new book called "Quarries," which is also currently featured at London gallery Flowers Central. After his 2005 book on China, which looked at many aspects of their industrialized society and the 2006 award-winning documentary "Manufactured Landscapes," Burtynsky narrowed his focus to a very specific type of man-made landscape. The subject explores the scars left by industry, at once symbols of development, construction and destruction. While often thought to be open sores left on the earth, Burtynsky's large-scale photographs portray them majestically as inverted temples, conjuring images of the monumental architecture that was created from them.

Known as much for his passionate environmentalism as for his photography, Burtynsky describes his thought process leading to the project, "I remember looking at buildings made of stone and thinking, 'there has to be an interesting landscape somewhere out there, because these stones had to have been taken out of the quarry one block at a time.' I had never seen a dimensional quarry, but I envisioned an inverted cubed architecture on the side of a hill. I went in search of it and when I had it on my ground glass, I knew that I had arrived."

Though in color, the photographs give a monochrome impression due to the creamy chalky tones of the stone and really have the quality of architectural prints. Images in the book were selected from his archives built up over the last 17 years and include sites in Canada, Italy, China, Spain, Portugal, India and the United States. See another image after the jump and pick up a copy from Amazon or Powell's.

Quarries
Through 2 February 2008
Flowers Central
21 Cork Street London W1S 3LZ map
tel. +44 (0)20 7920 7777

Wearable Collections Clothing Recycling

by Jacob Resneck

Recognizing that discarded clothing makes up six percent of household waste—386 million tons of the stuff—in New York City alone, Wearable Collections latched on to a novel solution. Rather than dump trash-bags full of used clothing (much of it still decent but obsolete to the owner) in a New Jersey landfill, why not export it to South America where it could be put to some use?

The effort is ratcheting up throughout Manhattan with residents able to apply to have a textile recycling bin delivered to their apartment building. Using the site, residents can find out where the closest bin is or request to have one delivered.

“I think they perform a great service in putting these items to good use,” reads one testimonial written on the website by the city's recycling education director.

It's not the only creative solution to the recycling unwanted clothing, but for Manhattan residents, it is truly the most convenient.

Geneviève Gaukler: Pierre and Food Chain

by Tim Yu

Meet Pierre, one of Medicom's newest designer toys and creation of the prolific French illustrator Geneviève Gaukler. Pierre brings one of Gaukler's more well known 2-D characters into plushy, 3-D form—we couldn't be happier that it's not another vinyl toy.

Like Cousin Itt from the Addams Family, Pierre is shag from head to toe and short in stature at only 55 cm. But I love how deceptively expressive he is. It's an effect that Gaukler manages to pull off in all her work, a world populated with lumpy made-up creatures who often have little more than a set of eyes to demarcate a face.

If you're in the Netherlands anytime in the near future, we suggest hitting her upcoming show, "Food Chain," at Eindhoven's multidisciplinary MU gallery to see her work first-hand. If you can't make it, check out some images after the jump and on her website at G2works.

Pick up the fuzzy guy for £55 at Sold Out or the Someday store.

Food Chain 27 January-28 February 2008
MU
Emmasingel 20
5611 AZ Eindhoven
Netherlands map
tel. + 31 (0)40- 2961663