Inflatable Street Art

Joshua in his interview with New York Magazine

Because they are creative, artists are always coming up with new ways to create art. One example is Joshua Harris' inflatable garbage bag sculptures. He pieces garbage bags together and then places them over street air vents. When a subway train rushes by below, the gust of air inflates the plastic sculptures.

Artist Joshua Allen Harris has been creating inflatable garbage bag sculptures only since earlier this year. He had no idea his art would get so much attention. After someone posted images of one of his inflatable sculptures on the Wooster Collective, images of is inflatable bear began appearing all over the internet. Soon the media became interested and he was featured on New York Magazine. [See video below]

Animated Trash

Joshua calls it Inflatable Street Art. Says Joshua of his craft, "It looks like trash on the street and then it becomes animated... It was something I wasn't even into or doing anymore. The response I got to it was amazing. It got me interested again..."

His "Air Bears" are what put his name on the map. One night someone filmed his sculpture inflating and posted the video on YouTube. You can see his Air Bears below.

Another favorite is his Loch Ness Monster. As his other street art, at first it appears as a few trash bags littering the sidewalk. It then comes to life and attracts bystanders. Below you can see a video of his sculpture coming to life.

His website has his e-mail address and one of his sculptures. Unfortunately, we may not see any new garbage bag sculptures from him. He recently sent me an e-mail that said simply, "I am no longer interested in promoting this work. I appreciate your inquiry." We wait with baited breath to see what new things he comes up with.

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Art Attack with Lee Sandstead

Lee Sandstead talks about his new art show on the Travel Channel

Update, November 21- The show now has an official homepage. It looks like it will be a great series.

Art historian Lee Sandstead reports that he is hosting a new show on the Travel Channel called Art Attack with Lee Sandstead. The show will cover popular art museums and their collections. The pilot did well earlier this year and they will be hosting the first season beginning November 30. The upcoming schedule is as follows:

Sunday 11/30
9am – Smithsonian American Art Museum, DC
9:30am – National Gallery of Art, DC

Sunday 12/7
9am – The Frick Collection, NY
9:30am – Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY

Sunday 12/14
9am – Walters Art Museum, Baltimore
9:30am – Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Sunday 12/21
9am – Norton Simon Museum of Art, Pasadena, CA
9:30am – Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA

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Beijing Art Museum Has Exhibit

This photograph by Jin Jiangbo is currently on display at the Shanghai Gallery of Art

The Shanghai Gallery of Art is pleased to announce a new exhibition by Jin Jiangbo (Shanghai/Beijing) and Zeng Li (Beijing). Using photography as the primary medium to reveal the intense environmental changes resulting from modernization, Zeng Li and Jin Jiangbo capture a unique spatial history that is specific to our times. Whereas Zeng documents the daily changes of Beijing 's Tiananmen Square as a festive public space, Jin conducts a social investigation on the sudden departure of a factory based in Dongguan, in Southern China.

Says Zeng Li, "My impetus is to capture what I see objectively with photography. Now in retrospect, I find many scenes I took have already disappeared. We are now living in an era of alarming changes. I begin to realize the significance of photography. The accumulation of photographs may provoke people to reflect on their living environments, and thus become an integral part of historical memory. My wish is to photograph one year after another, and to use the work to found a museum for images of present history."

Exhibit Dates
Nov 7, 2008 to Dec 8, 2008
Artists: Jin Jiangbo (Shanghai/Beijing); Zeng Li ( Beijing )

Biography of Jing Jiangbo
1972 Born in Zhejiang Province, China
1995 Graduated from Academy of Fine Arts of Shanghai University, Shanghai, China
2002 Achieved master's degree in Digital Art from Academy of Fine Arts, Shanghai University , Shanghai, China
2002-2007 Digital Art Center Studio Director, Academy of Fine Arts, Shanghai University
2007 Doctoral candidate of Informative Art of Tsinghua University
Currently lives and works in Beijing and Shanghai

Solo Exhibitions
2008 "Booming" Jin Jiangbo Solo Exhibition, Wall Art Museum, Beijing, China
2007 "Memory Share" Qui Zhijie and Jin Jiangbo new media art exhibition, Shengzheng Museum and Book Town, China

Biography of Zeng Li
1961 Born in Liuzhou, Guangxi Province, China
1988 Graduated from Central Academy of Drama, Beijing, China
Currently works and lives in Beijing, China

Solo Exhibitions
2008 Tale of Two Cities - Zeng Li Photography Exhibition, Epson Imaging Gallery, Shanghai, China
2006 Took exhibition of Zeng Li's works - The era of Yugong, Hushen Gallery, Shanghai , China
1995 Zeng Li Solo Exhibition, Legacy, Beijing , China
1994 Chair and Landscape, Ming Dynasty Thirteen Mausoleum, Beijing, China

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The exhibition is designed and produced by the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts in partnership with The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, PA.

Viewers are treated to a chronological and thematic reading, from the film music Warhol discovered in his youth to the disco scene at Studio 54, the legendary nightclub that opened in 1977, where he was one of its most famous regulars.

The exhibition brings together some 640 works and objects, paintings, silk-screens, photographs, works on paper, installations, films, videos, album covers, as well as objects and document’s from the artist’s personal archives.

The exhibit juxtaposes Warhol’s major emblematic works (Elvis, Marilyn, Liza Minnelli, Grace Jones, Mick Jagger, Debbie Harry, the Self-portraits and the Campbell’s Soup Cans) with other, lesser-known works (album covers, illustrations, photos and Polaroids). Also shown are the artist’s films, including Sleep and Empire, as well as the Screen Tests of the musicians of the famous Velvet Underground, Andy Warhol’s TV and video clips produced for groups like the Cars and Curiosity Killed the Cat. The works come from The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and from leading public and private collections in Europe and North America. Montréal collector Paul Maréchal’s collection of some fifty album covers by Warhol is being presented for the first time.

The exhibition design evokes some of the highlights in this relationship between art and music through the reconstitutions that, while not exact re-creations, or “period rooms,” provide a closer look at the Silver Factory, with a mise en scène by photographer Billy Name, the multimedia show Exploding Plastic Inevitable to music by the Velvet Underground, Silver Clouds created for Merce Cunningham’s choreography Rain Forest to music by David Tudor, and the musical ambience of Studio 54, a veritable extension of Warhol’s studio from the 1970s to the end of his life.

CURATORS

The exhibition is curated by Stéphane Aquin, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts; Emma Lavigne, curator at the Musée national d’art moderne/CCI, Centre Pompidou, Paris; and Matt Wrbican, archivist at The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. Greg Pierce, assistant curator, The Andy Warhol Museum, put together the exhibition’s film and video programming.

There are a small group of artists who have launched Art Cries Out - without funding - hoping to fill a need in today's "Art World" by devoting space to protest art. The fee of $15 helps defray the costs of maintaining and developing our website. They need more artists submitting in order to survive and want people to spread the word.

NOW ACCEPTING ENTRIES: ART FOR PEACE
Entry deadline extended to Nov. 21, 2008

Art Supply Specials

Dick Blick is offering 53% off Chartpak markers, 42% off easel lamps, and 50% off Winsor & Newton Artists' Oil Colors this month. Dick Blick also has a list of Gifts Under $50 for the Christmas season.

Now you can receive a 10% Off discount code when you sign up for email updates at CrayolaStore.com. Some of their specials this month on this page include magnetic frames at $2.99, Color sprayers at $12.99 and colored pencils [18 ct.] at $4.99.

MisterArt is having a sale on various items this month. Save up to 49% on drawing tables, 61% on long handled flat brushes, and 60% off print racks.