Art Here and Now » Public Art

The Electrical Colossus Ascends Icelandic Peaks

Trout Monfalco — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:02:21 +0000

From the moment we began pumping electricity out to homes and businesses, we chose a completely utilitarian path. The designs for cables and towers were great invention and engineering. But what they looked like was solely based on use, not the people who had to live with them. How would a mass of cables look against the sky? How would electrical poles line the streets? How would electrical pylons break across the landscape?

A design competition was held by Landsnet, the national power company of Iceland, in cooperation with the Association of Icelandic Architects. Choi and Shine Architects proposed a new design for Icelandic electrical pylons so beautiful, yet so natural, you wonder why we didn’t build them this way to start with. And they cost no more than what we’ve built before.

These electrical pylons are in human form, the human arms and hands holding the electrical lines they carry. The human figures can be posed in different ways depending on the landscape they live on. Figures on the sides of mountains can appear to be climbing. Scaling down, they may appear to carefully side step, keeping balance. When two figures pass each other, they can look back to each other, even sharing glances. These human forms and poses are created using duplicated components and scaffolds similar to those used in traditional pylons.

“Like the statues of Easter Island, it is envisioned that these one hundred and fifty foot tall, modern caryatids will take on a quiet authority, belonging to their landscape yet serving the people, silently transporting electricity across all terrain, day and night, sunshine or snow.”

Telegraph UK – Chain of human pylons planned for Iceland
bustler – Choi+Shine wins BSA Unbuilt Architecture Award for Land of Giants
Wired – Iceland Considers Humanoid Pylon Design to Carry Electricity

Medici Bank Minister Pleads “No More Art, Please” in Newly Discovered Letters

Trout Monfalco — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:30:53 +0000

In these recently uncovered fake letters, imagined to have come from the archives of the fake University of Italy School of the Arts at Florence (UISAF), the Minister of Medici Bank, Francesco Sassetti, pleads with the head of the Medici Family and defacto ruler of the Florentine Republic, Lorenzo de’ Medici, to stop spending the bank’s and family’s holdings on the arts.
Available exclusively on Art Here and Now.

From: Francesco Sassetti, Minister – Medici Bank
To: Lorenzo de’ Medici, The Magnificent

Dear Lorenzo,
Though your family has a long history of supporting artists, because of the recent financial and political difficulties, I must request that you consider abandoning this legacy of extravagance.
As I have been balancing this year’s expenditures, I can’t help but notice the exorbitant amounts it requires to not only pay for artworks, but to also house and feed these artists. Michelangelo Buonarroti has been living in your household for five years, in excess of $90,000 per year [currency adjusted to equivelant U.S. Dollars -ed.]. Surely he could rent his own apartment, and you could simply purchase any artwork from him you liked once completed? Must we be responsible for an artist’s entire livelihood and every material need?

We must protect the assets of The Bank and the Medici trust, for the bank’s members and the family, both current and future. These creative works and artist supports are a drain on these financial resources, deprive these members from larger profits, and serve no purpose except the pursuit of notoriety.

I plead with you. We must stop this reckless spending. The livelihoods of bank stakeholders and future Medicis depend on it.

Sincerely,
Francesco Sassetti, Minister – Medici Bank

Dear Francesco,
Your bold pleading is certainly brave. Perhaps you have a death wish.
Ah, ha, just a joke!
You have a long history with me, and my father before me. Only from someone so dedicated to our cause would these words be tolerated. Yet I am sure you are not the first to think them.

Even if I accepted your argument that art was wasteful, you act as though we aren’t losing money in more ridiculous, costly ways. May I ask, how many horses do you own? How many rooms are in your house? How many banquets have you held this year? How many guests have you fed? I’m sure you like to be questioned about your expenses as much as anyone. I mention this purely for example, not from any plan to deprive you of your lifestyle.

In contrast to The Bank’s and Family’s complete holdings, housing a few artists and funding their work is a handful of pebbles freed from a mountain. We could indeed just buy completed works, but if so, then where would the artist live and work to make them? Michelangelo’s last work took a year to complete. The Dome took almost a lifetime. By what means should they live to make this work we would later buy? If they took to the trades to sustain themselves, then when would they have time to make this work?

I find your logic faulty.
-Lorenzo

From: Francesco Sassetti, Minister – Medici Bank
To: Lorenzo de’ Medici, The Magnificent

Dear Lorenzo,
It is my wish to eliminate all waste, regardless of size, so that we may all realize our maximum profits and potential. You must agree that over time, these types of expenditures throughout your history add up to far more than pebbles from a mountain.
You righteously question my horses, even though we have never once questioned The Giraffe? How much did the buildings, heating, feeding and men cost for that one? And to what end?

It is not my concern, and should not be yours, where, when and how these artists produce the work. Men must choose their paths. If they cannot succeed to secure a living from one trade, they must pursue another. If the quality of their work cannot attract enough buyers to support more in the future, then perhaps their work is not of a quality worth making.

Please invest this money in important endeavors, instead of supporting those who cannot support themselves.

Sincerely,
Francesco Sassetti, Minister – Medici Bank

Francesco,

Enough. Go no further.

I am the highest power of this family, the Republic of Florence and places beyond.
In this area, we will continue in our family’s tradition.
I owe you no explanation or justification. As our Minister, you will do as I command you.

For future clarity, to end this discussion, and out of some respect of your long service, I will conclude with these thoughts.

You have gall to demand we not support those who in their trade cannot support themselves,
when for all of your life we have done the same for you.
Do you think counting our money is more important work than creating The Basilica?

When we are all dead and buried, very few people will remember you and I.

They will remember Michelangelo and Leonardo. They will remember Sandro and Brunelleschi.
They will remember Florence as the place those artists lived. And they will remember us, if at all, as the people who helped them.

From vague, unsure memory they may believe we were kings. In some ways we are kings, because we are wealthy and powerful.
And like kings, we have some duty to our country and its people. Through learning, engineering and art, this duty is fulfilled, bettering the people, and making Florence a destination for others who seek an enlightened life.

Without this impulse, our money and power amount to nothing.
The Bank is not important and will not be remembered. The money’s only real worth is the lasting affect it has on our country and our world.

Midas follows all the others:
Turns to gold the things he touches.
Where’s the joy in owning treasure,
If it doesn’t give you pleasure?
And where’s the sweet taste for a man
Who only feels his thirst forever?
Who’d be happy, let him be so:
Nothing’s sure about tomorrow.

The Medicis will one day be gone, but the art will remain forever.

- Lorenzo de’ Medici

Graffiti Artists at the Bethlehem Wall

Trout Monfalco — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 23:54:23 +0000

In Bethlehem, artists from all over the world, including local artists, have been making art on the barrier wall separating Israel and Palestine.

Video from the BBC:

Reverse Graffiti

Trout Monfalco — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 23:26:58 +0000

When you paint images not with spray cans or pigment, but instead by cleaning dirt and pollution from public places in artistic patterns – painting the image by removing dirt – this is reverse graffiti. This defaces no surface, and in fact starts to clean what a city should have cleaned to begin with. In order to remove the image, you don’t sandblast or get out the toxic cleaners. Instead you just finish cleaning the surface. The whole surface returns to its original bright clean color. Just like someone writing “Wash Me!” into the grime on a dirty car windshield might shame someone into actually washing their car just to get rid of the message – so reverse graffiti artists cause cities to clean where they should have already.

In São Paulo Brazil, artist Alexandre Orion:

In Paris, corporate reverse graffiti (for the Electronic Arts game Burnout, but through a beautifully designed guerrilla campaign at Kah Ra Shin):

Travel to Brazil or France (Travelocity).

Brazilian and Russian Street Art

Trout Monfalco — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 19:24:35 +0000

Beautiful street art in Moscow and Brazil (not sure where). From Funny Picture Crazy.

Brasilian street art
and
Moscow street art

Reverse Graffiti