NYC Trip Inspiration and more

Tom Friedman, a brilliant artist. Interesting to learn that he is more interested in the execution of his idea than he is in the idea itself. Here are three images, but it seems like everything he makes is awesome.

Self Portrait carved out of aspirin

Giant Total box made from 9 identical total boxes

Untitled signature, written in a spiral until the ink of the pen ran out

Oskar Fischinger is a video artist that I saw at the Whitney. I need to look into his work more, but his presentation was very powerful. 

Space Light Art

Sigmar Polke was an interesting painter/photographer. I saw this picture in the MoMA, and was obviously attracted to the appropriation of Spider-man that I recently used in my own work. I like that he called himself a "Capitalist realism" painter, as a play on social realism. 

Spiderman

Joseph Kosuth is a famous conceptual artist who is able to get his idea across very effectively. He often uses dictionary definitons, which I also use often (although less in my work and more in my thinking process).

This one was at the MoMA:

Titled (Art as Idea as Idea) The Word Definition

and here is a classic one, which consists of a chair, a photograph of the same chair, and a definition of the word "chair."

One and Three Chairs

Finally, a piece from filmmaker Steve McQueen that I really enjoyed at MoMA was a short film called "Deadpan" in which McQueen recreated the famous Buster Keaton stunt where a house wall falls down over him, but he is unscathed because he just happens to be standing where a window opening is. The scene is shown from different angles. I couldn't find the whole video online, but here is a link with about a 30 second clip: http://gentlemanwillsloan.tumblr.com/post/18958876250

Some art/news articles:
Jeff Ragsdale: The man who gave the world his number
Stockholm’s underground subway art
South Korean artists bring a new dimension to China
How to Cut a Pineapple