Dark Matter (2014), by the artistic collaborative Troika, manages to be a circle, a hexagon, and a square all at once.
The same group had created Squaring the Circle a year earlier.
Art
Still Life
American furniture artist Wendell Castle’s 1978 Chair With Sports Coat is really neither — it’s an eye-deceiving sculpture carved from maple.
The Inquisitive Artist
“Van Gogh Observes” by Joe Fafard. Found outside Mayberry Fine Art in downtown Toronto. from r/Damnthatsinteresting
This sculpture, by Canadian artist Joe Fafard, has been scrutinizing passersby on Dundas Street in Toronto.
The principle is somewhat the same as Binary Arts’ mistrustful dragon.
In a Word
hortulan
adj. of or belonging to a garden
micacious
adj. sparkling, shining
bumfuzzle
v. to astound or bewilder
asomatous
adj. having no material body
Artist Gary Drostle designed this trompe l’oeil mosaic for a public garden in Croydon in 1996.
He calls it “the ideal low maintenance fishpond.”
A New Outlook
Sculptor Anna Coleman Ladd found an unusual application for her artistry during World War I, creating prostheses for the dramatic injuries produced by machine guns and heavy artillery. After reading about artist Francis Derwent Wood’s “Tin Noses Shop” in London, she moved to London and opened a “Studio for Portrait-Masks.”
Her copper and silver masks, 1/32″ thick and weighing 4-9 ounces, were founded on facial casts and painted to match the precise skin tone of each patient. Held in place by eyeglasses, many included realistic mustaches, eyebrows, and eyelashes. By the end of 1919 Ladd had created 185 of them, charging $18 for each and donating her own services. The Red Cross called them “miracles,” and in 1932 France made her a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.
Irregular
New Zealand woodworker Henk Verhoeff makes whimsically broken furniture.
“It’s hard to say how long each piece takes me,” he says. “It’s unset times during the week, and it could easily be 80 to 100 hours.”
“I started creating them for the pure love of it, without the intention of selling them. But when I run out of space, there will be an eBay auction or two. Everything is for sale … except for my wife.”
His daughter posts photos on Facebook.
A Familiar Face
The Waiter, by Italian painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo, circa 1574.
Is it a still life or a portrait?
Wave
The world’s largest anamorphic illusion is this startling display in Seoul’s Gangnam District. Measuring 80 meters by 20, it runs for 18 hours a day, the creation of design firm d’strict.
Below is another project by the same creators: the “infinity wall” in the lobby of Nexen Tire’s Central Research Institute, also in Seoul.
Gravity
To promote a wood-shelled cell phone, Japanese mobile service provider NTT Docomo spent four days building a giant xylophone on a forest hillside on Kyushu and dispatched a wooden ball on a lonely (and somehow harrowing) mission to play “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.”
An Elevated View
This bird’s-eye view of Amsterdam, painted in 1652 by Dutch artist Jan Micker, depicts even the shadows of clouds.
It presents the city as it appeared in 1538 … because it was inspired by an even earlier painting, by Cornelis Anthonisz (below).
