Sculpture and Feet and Shoes

Fashion may seem frivolous when compared to the lofty aspirations of sculpture.
Don't kid yourself.
Fashion has always been about influence, money and power. Always attractive to artists.

Inspired by Magdalene and the Flame by Georges de la Tour  .

Christian Louboutin worked with artist/photographer Peter Lippman for his fall 2011 shoe promotion.  

The photos are witty and beautifully executed. They're inspired by famous paintings with the hope that people will consider his shoes as works of art.

Shoes as fetish items have a long history. These shoes are designed to be outrageous and titillating to see. They have maximum visual impact. I've no problem with placing these shoes on a pedestal. They require  high craft to make them. They're far more attractive than Jeff Koon's vacuum cleaners in plexi boxes.  

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I do have a problem with shoes as "performance art." Form is utterly divorced from function.

My concern is the physical impact these "sculptures" will have on young women who are willing to be shaped to fit this fashion. I meant that literally and physically. Ankle, knee, and spine problems. Nasty falls. The designers claim no responsibility for the necessary physical act of walking.

Bound feet were only three inches long, impossible to walk unassisted.

Is foot binding/fashion barbaric if it's voluntary?

Fashion should look both forwards and backwards when trying to cross the street.

Glamour can take a long time to heal. 

Sculpture and A Lament for Ali Farka

A lovely tribute to the muscian Ali Farka by Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba featuring African sculpture, sea life and paintings.  The juxtaposition of music and images makes you see them all anew.


I especially enjoy the connection the video makes between masks and the tuning end of a stringed instrument. I'd never seen that anthropomorphically. Not much information on the video.

Sculpture and Tadelakt

I checked out the book, "Tadelakt, an old Moroccan plaster technique newly discovered" by Michael Johannes Ochs. His book covers the history, the chemistry, and shows contemporary uses of tadelakt.

The traditional craft is being revived because it is hydrophobic and odorless. It has fungicidal properties. It's labor intensive. It's ethnic, it's expensive. All these give Tadelakt cachet.

I think the main reason for the revival is because it creates incredibly beautiful surfaces. 

Walls and floors have a subtle sheen and wonderful depth of color with soft variations and surface textures. There are several videos on Youtube, this one covers most of the process.

Sculpture and Poltergeist II

I was ransacking my photo files looking for relief portraits I'd created when I found
these photos taken on the set of Poltergeist II. (probably in 1985)

Exterior view of cave and its supporting structure.

I was part of a team of sculptors turned loose on this giant structure of foam and chicken wire structure. The art director's goal was to transform it into a dark underworld cave.

Our tools were chainsaws.

How long do you think it takes a chainsaw to go through two inches of foam?

That could be me on the ladder in the middle of these two photos.

Now imagine several men, all armed with chainsaws, working as fast as possible, in close quarters, working to make the foam look like stone but cutting through foam instantly and getting our blades caught in metal wire.  

No movie could be as scary as working in this cave was for us.

With our work on the cave done, another department brought in these skeletons.

What was disturbing was that some of the bodies were real skeletons. Not plastic props, but real human skeletons. That the physical remains of people who had lived and died were being made to "die" all over again with make up and latex. That there was no reverence for the human bones struck me as utterly grotesque.

It was one of those choice moments where you realize you can choose money or your values.
I realized that if I stayed working for Hollywood, I'd be making monsters and dead bodies and working in a material I had come to loath. Foam.

I left.

I haven't been a big fan of popular movies since then.

Sculpture and Al Farrow

Sculpture and Guns part 2

How's this for a frightening sculpture?

 "The Spine and Tooth of Santo Guerro." by Al Farrow 2007

"The Spine and Tooth of Holy War" draws you in with its impeccable craftsmanship. Only upon really looking at it do you realize that the entire cathedral is made of ammunition shells and many, many guns.

The artist is Al Farrow.

Farrow's series, Reliquaries, takes direct aim at several major religion, illustrating their toxic brew of faith and intolerance. And like the reliquaries of the middle ages, these too contain human bones and teeth.

The theme is a very dark subject matter, but it's part of America's DNA, the right to bear arms. (And sell enough guns and ammo to the entire world to kill us all several times over...) Farrow's work is so meticulous and beautifully executed that there's a child-like marvel at the beauty of the structures. Then you think about all the layers of meaning in the work for days afterward.

See more of his reliquaries, and his other series on Al Farrow's website.

Sculpture and Guns

Sculpture and Guns.
Two parts. One sublime, one ridiculus. Your call.

 Photo from Atalier Ted Noten

Why should boy spies have all the fun?

From the Atalier of designer Ted Noten, comes the Seven Necessities, a fashionista's personal pistol.

It's really a compact outfitted with 18 Kart gold details. Features include: lip gloss in the muzzle, pills, Viagra was suggested but again a personal choice. There's a 50 grams 24-karat gold piece, and a 4-gigabyte thumb drive in the gun's handle.

A bang with bang?

At the suggested price $17,000, how do you get it through airport security?

Sculpture and Thomas Glassford

Thomas Glassford is an artist working in Mexico City. His sculpture, Xipe Totec, is a skin of colored LED tubing that covers the 20 story National University of Mexico building.

The title, Xipe Totec, refers to the Aztec god, the flayed one, who cut off his own skin feed humanity. Like that death and rebirth symbol, the  sculpture is a skin of light that links the past to the present and the future.


Más info en este blog: http://eldesfile.blogspot.com/2011/02/el-faro-de-tlatelolco.html

New York Times article on Xipe Totec here.

Tiles of Infinity is good article on the history of Arabic mathematics involved in creating the patterns in Xipe Totec.