Moments in Art

It has been quite a while since I last updated. Saying that things have been busy would tell a portion of the story, but leave out the good stuff. Lets just say that my attention has been lost in translation. The translation of productivity.

My last entry detailed the creation of a mural in Brynford Park, Chicago. So, as I make an attempt to add content to this blog in the name of education, it seems almost fitting to start by showcasing a mural that has recently caught my attention.

I know. Beautiful, right? It was done by a creative marketing firm called I Love Dust based in London. Check them out at that link provided. If there ever was a question about the practical applications for art in the global economy, this place delivers sparkling answers. Creating illustrations, graphics, product designs, typography and anything under the sun for their clients, I Love Dust is a wonderful example of creative problem solving. Here is another example of their work.

I can only dream of producing something of this quality in my lifetime.

You might be asking, So Captain Solo, what is new in your classroom these days. To which I would respond, "glad you asked." As we speak, my Intro to Photo students are out taking pictures with the cameras they have just learned to use for the first time. I anticipate some breakthroughs for many and learning opportunities for all. I will be posting many of the results of their photographic journeys on my website ChrisSykora.com under the student artwork tab.

Just 2 days ago I showed the students a short 25 minute video in which world famous photographer, JR delivered a speech after accepting the TED Award last year for his humanitarian and activist focused photography. The response was filled with excitement, and I hope the students are anxious to create work similar to his in the near future. Here is the video:

Turns out that JR is now working on a show with another artist favorite of mine, SWOON. I love when artists I speak of to the students show up in the main stream after learning about them. They come running to me with newspaper clippings, or a story of how they saw him or her on the news and the experience builds a crystallizing moment for them.

 SWOON is currently working on a new project in Sao Paulo for De Dentro e De Fora called The Encampment Ersili, where Swoon has created a temporary city amongst the festival that has invited 8 international artists to create site-specific work in the city. De Dento e De Fora, "Inside Out Outside In," takes place at Modern Art Museum of São Paulo.
The De Dentro e De Fora festival brings Swoon, JR, Space Invader, Remed, and others to create installations and other site-specific works. The festival opens on Saturday, September 24, and ends in December.

Here is the press release on Swoon's work.

1 The city crumbles beneath its own weight. It flexes its pavements and bleeds from its sewers. People in places no one ever expected to find them. The buildings multiply, their materials thinner and more brittle as the city grows past the edges architects never anticipated. It quakes with love and reason. And a new city emerges, a delicate quiet song, a temporary freedom, a meeting place where words stitch a new reality and children are born in unexpected ways.

Welcome to Encampment Ersilia2. We invite you to a slice of the present and window into the future. We have come as visitors and have found treasures. We gather them together for you to discover and lead you back to the caverns and clouds from which they emerge. The city eats itself and is reborn as fertile compost.

From September 24 to December 14, the vacancy beneath the MASP will be the site of occupation. The artist Swoon will build a home for the ideas, for the strings of inspiration with which the landless people of Sao Paulo have already started to weave their futures.

The Encampment Ersilia, our temporary city and a part of De Dentro e De Fora, is an invitation to join us outside to explore the interior life of Sao Paulo. The include a series of programs that reflect work being done by those that have inspired us here. Conversations that begin here will connect Ersilia with occupations around the Sao Paulo city center — occupied spaces under the freeways, homes in empty factories, farms under the electric lines, and temporary sites of culture in the streets.

We will also invite you to join us on a series of walks through the city to view it in its current and everlasting moment of metamorphesis — Expedições para Comer Concreto. Each walk will be a mobile open meeting that tackles the metropolis and its questions, drawing a series of paths of conceptual debate and active intervention.

Here are some examples of both SWOON, and JR's work:

That was JR, and now for Swoon:

Given the press release of Swoon's vision for festival's art above, I think you can make the connections between the words written and the images shown here. My hope is that my students can make connections to these artists in their own lives and in the work they create during the semester.

Solo out.