Brian Jungen

Click here to go to the Brian Jungen: Strange Comfort exhibit page at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian

From Wikipedia: Brian Jungen is a Canadian artist from British Columbia with Swiss and Dunne-za First Nations ancestry; he is based in Vancouver. Jungen was born in Fort St. John, British Columbiaon April 29, 1970. He graduated from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in 1992.
From The Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of the American Indian:

Brian Jungen (b. 1970, Dunne-za First Nations/Swiss-Canadian) uses mass-produced goods to make sculptures that are simultaneously fake and authentic, playful and political, common and extraordinary.

In Strange Comfort, a major exhibition organized by the National Museum of the American Indian, Jungen reassembles plastic chairs—hacked apart but still undeniably chairs—into a whale skeleton. Suitcases take the form of a possum, acrocodile, a shark. Expensive sneakers become Northwest Coast-style masks. Golf bags become totems. Jungen charges ordinary, useful objects with layers of meaning, exploring and transgressing the boundaries of what they had been and what they’ve become, riffing on Indian imagery, pop culture, consumerism, and obsession in the process.

BLANKET

TOTEMS

SHAPESHIFTER

CARAPACE

THE PRINCE

Sol LeWitt. Minimalism on Acid.

Liu Bolin. Look Closely.

Neozoon

 The blurb from Babelgum:

Female street-art crew Neozoon makes striking works using second-hand fur coats. Their artworks are so popular that they usually disappear within a week of installation. In this video, the pair don masks and install a family of bears at the Jannowitzbrücke junction in the heart of Berlin. The artists also invite us to their studio, where they carefully prepare the fur silhouettes, and show us round a local bear pit, where the symbols of Berlin live a more pitiful existence. An exclusive URBANATION production for Babelgum. For more videos from the Art in the City series, visit: babelgum.com/artinthecity

The Babelgum Wild Grafitti Video (To be embedded soon, hopefully)

Related:

The Flicker Bestia Recreata Video (To be embedded soon, hopefully)

Bears for Berlin:

Bulls for España:

Rats for Paris:

SHEEPS!!!!!

Heide Hatry

Disclaimer: this may not be safe for viewing at work

There is a lot more work at the original web page for Heide Hatry. Please click here to go to her website and explore thoroughly

Heide Hatry artist's statement for the "Skin" project, which relates well to many of her other bodies of work as well as her curatorial efforts:

In my recent work, my primary material is fresh, untreated pigskin. I discovered that I responded intensely to its feel, smell, and the deeply corporal overall sensation it engenders. I find its effect in sculptural work as well as in photographs uniquely "human."

I work with both fresh material and with preserved skin that I had treated with salt or chemicals, or which I had plastinated, a process that involves removing the fluid contents of the skin and infusing it with silicon in a vacuum environment. Some of my work results in skin objects, sometimes two-dimensional, usually sculptural, and some is photographic documentation of objects or arrangements.

My goal is to produce work that jumps from the wall and makes its viewer feel something intense. I want to reveal that we are surrounded by flesh in our ordinary environment, that many products are made out of dead animal skin, but since it is disguised, and the process by which it has come to be what it is, is deeply hidden - you don't really register that your leather jacket or shoes are made of a dead animal.

My work with a material that looks like human skin often disturbs and evokes strong emotions. I don't have a didactic goal per se: I'm really more interested in producing an awareness rather than suggesting how that awareness should be used.

My interest in skin as a material is so intense because in it I see expressed concretely the subjects that are important to me: life, pleasure, sex, pain, injury, aging, death and any number of more abstract matters, like identity, gender, power relations, vulnerability, and the whole sphere of perception itself.

Heide Hatry

Some work from her latest project Heads and Tales:

Some work from her curatorial effort Skin:

Hermine Roth

Paola Ebanista

Some work from her curatorial effort Meat After Meat Joy:

Betty Hirst

Zhang Huan

Cool Monsters from Independent LEGO Artists

from Nonch.com reminds me of Abstract City | I lego NY  (which i will post next!)

Jason Hackenwerth

Jason Michael Hackenwerth--b. 1970, St. Louis, MO--lives and works in NYC.

EDUCATION
2003 MFA Savannah College of Art and Design. Savannah, GA.
1993 BFA Webster University. St. Louis, MO.


Using balloons to make sculptures has magical results, and built in challenges. The works, as closely related to exotic flowers as they are to deep-sea creatures or microorganisms, are instantly recognizable as an exuberant celebration of life. They offer joy, hope and inspiration and require no deep understanding of contemporary art to enjoy.


AT CONNECTICUT PEABODY MUSEUM:

This becomes literal when a person gets inside a “wearable” sculpture called a Megamite to engage audiences or perform choreographed steps. These interactions are meant to personalize the experience between the viewer and the art. Breaking down barriers between contemporary art and modern life.


AT BLOOMINGDALES, NYC:

The challenge of balloons is their temporality. This work is experiential. It’s offered as a bright smile of hope if only ever briefly. Some works last just weeks or months. This fleeting fact increases its rarity and the urgency to see it while it exists

AT COCHAELLA FESTIVAL:

HOT DETAIL:

Kinda sexy - very carnivale - They don't seem to be wearing many clothes under there, play-acting some worm-like sea-creature species - these are called Cnidaria by the way. Second video reminds me of a mating dance. This makes for good sci-fi and manga day dreaming. Also reminds me of Jeff Koons' giant balloon dog.

MAYBE YOU'D LIKE TO PURCHASE ONE OF HIS LIMITED EDITION PRINTS OR JUST DONATE $ TO A HARD WORKING ARTIST. They look like this:

Below are some embedded videos. There are MORE VIDEOS AT MR. HACKENWERTH'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL