Discovered Chris Jordan’s photography portfolio today. I’m impressed, it’s been a while since photography got me quite so provoked. His portraits of American Mass Consumption are staggering.
Just taking a look at that image above makes me really wonder in amazement at what Air Traffic Controllers must go thru on a daily basis. Some scary scary stuff in his photographs. Take a look you won’t be disappointed.
There’s a great post over at ProcessJunkie , with a very good selection of figure drawing instruction books .
Great thing about it is that he links to free pdfs/ebooks of all the titles discussed.
Definitely worth a look , and download the ones you think you may read. I downloaded them all just to have as a reference, I have a few of them from my college days, but it’s lovely to have them available as pdfs as well.
I was not aware of this until it showed up on Digg this morning. In 1971, Fallen Astronaut was placed on the Moon by the crew of Apollo 15, along with a plaque bearing the names of eight American astronauts and six Soviet cosmonauts who died during spaceflights or training exercises.
But that’s not the whole story, this was a particularly interesting spaceflight, with more than one scandal, this being considered one as NASA had not approved of it, there’s another scandal regarding “First Day Covers” from the same flight. Transcript of NASA News Release, (September 15, 1972), describing the origin of Fallen Astronaut and the subsequent controversy.
And finally there is a profit motive. “In May 1972, Scott learned that Van Hoeydonck planned to make more replicas and sell them. Feeling that this would be a violation of the spirit of their agreement, Scott tried to persuade Van Hoeydonck to refrain, but was unsuccessful; 950 signed replicas went on sale for $750 apiece at the Waddell Gallery of New York.
According to an interview with the artist in Belgian newspaper De Morgen, this isn’t quite true. The statue was supposed to be a representation of mankind. Afterwards it became apparent the astronauts had turned the statue into a monument for fallen astronauts and cosmonauts. NASA had not told the gallery owner or the artist that the statue was going to be a grave monument. Van Hoeydonck’s gallery owner had planned a multiple of 1000 copies of the statue (he had spent a considerable amount of money getting the project realized), but after the public outcry only 20 copies were made, most of which went to museums.” Via Wikipedia.
But there is Art on the Moon!
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| Chien Andalou | Bachelor Life in a Foreign Country |
There’s 200 of them to view at A Gray Space , worth taking a look.
Dialup warning though they are all on the same page.
via Digg .
Here’s an fun take on one of my favorite paintings. I’d love to see the original painting in person. Everyone mentions it’s scale and well it’s controversial to boot! Someday I shall get to the Louvre.
An illustrative painting, it was based on real events, illustration as painting or vice-versa. Lots more information at the Paintings Wikipedia Article.
Click the images below for larger versions.
As Patrick mentions in the comments, seems The Pogue’s lampooned the image as well for their LP Cover – Rum, Sodomy & the Lash, in 1985. I could not find a larger or cleaner version, but here’s the image from their website.
