Fucking awesome.

Interview magazine sat down with one of my favourite artists, Takashi Murakami. If you don’t know who he is, start readin’.

“The Japanese Andy Warhol” is the shortcut many critics use to describe the complex and wide-ranging work of artist Takashi Murakami. And while it is probably one of the most hackneyed, if not reductive, monikers in the book, the Warholian model does provide a useful point of departure for understandingMurakami’s oeuvre.

Blurring the traditional lines between art, commerce, pop, and subcultural concerns, the range of Murakami’s creative pursuits are seemingly boundless. In addition to producing some of the most iconic paintings and sculptures of the past two decades, his “business-art” activities span from designing a full gamut of consumer merchandise (either for his own Kaikai Kiki label or for fashion houses such as Louis Vuitton and Comme des Garçons) to running a gallery that promotes young Japanese artists to hosting a weekly radio talk show in Tokyo—to name just a few of the many preoccupations that keep him working on a legendarily nonstop clock.

Yet as this conversation reveals, Murakami cannot be reduced to being a mere disciple of the American Pop master. Indigenous Japanese culture—whether in its reverent, sacred forms, or in more spectacular pop guises—is at the heart of every aspect of Murakami’s work. But while his nationalism might not always be immediately legible to Western audiences, his multitentacled enterprise can be understood as a campaign to reverse the tide of Japan’s postwar cultural inferiority complex and overturn American Pop hegemony by capturing both the Western market share and the popular imagination with more purely
Japanese forms and content.

Understood in these terms, the 48-year-old Murakami will stake a major victory by colonizing one of Europe’s most revered palaces next month with the opening of a retrospective of his work at the Château de Versailles in France, which will feature a panoramic selection of paintings and sculptures installed throughout the Hall of Mirrors, the apartments of the king and queen, as well as in the Château’s legendary gardens. I spoke to him recently in New York.

(more…)

This is really cool. Some dude attached pens to tree branches and let the wind make the brush strokes.
As stated on the blog I stole this from, ohwrd, “CAN’T GET ANYMORE ARTISTIC THAN THAT BRO.”

Oak Tree by Michael Craig-Martin. 1973

Accompanying text;

(you should read this, its interesting)

Q. To begin with, could you describe this work?
A. Yes, of course. What I’ve done is change a glass of water into a full-grown oak tree without altering the accidents of the glass of water.
Q. The accidents?
A. Yes. The colour, feel, weight, size …
Q. Do you mean that the glass of water is a symbol of an oak tree?
A. No. It’s not a symbol. I’ve changed the physical substance of the glass of water into that of an oak tree.
Q. It looks like a glass of water.
A. Of course it does. I didn’t change its appearance. But it’s not a glass of water, it’s an oak tree.
Q. Can you prove what you’ve claimed to have done?
A. Well, yes and no. I claim to have maintained the physical form of the glass of water and, as you can see, I have. However, as one normally looks for evidence of physical change in terms of altered form, no such proof exists.
Q. Haven’t you simply called this glass of water an oak tree?
A. Absolutely not. It is not a glass of water anymore. I have changed its actual substance. It would no longer be accurate to call it a glass of water. One could call it anything one wished but that would not alter the fact that it is an oak tree.
Q. Isn’t this just a case of the emperor’s new clothes?
A. No. With the emperor’s new clothes people claimed to see something that wasn’t there because they felt they should. I would be very surprised if anyone told me they saw an oak tree.
Q. Was it difficult to effect the change?
A. No effort at all. But it took me years of work before I realised I could do it.
Q. When precisely did the glass of water become an oak tree?
A. When I put the water in the glass.
Q. Does this happen every time you fill a glass with water?
A. No, of course not. Only when I intend to change it into an oak tree.
Q. Then intention causes the change?
A. I would say it precipitates the change.
Q. You don’t know how you do it?
A. It contradicts what I feel I know about cause and effect.
Q. It seems to me that you are claiming to have worked a miracle. Isn’t that the case?
A. I’m flattered that you think so.
Q. But aren’t you the only person who can do something like this?
A. How could I know?
Q. Could you teach others to do it?
A. No, it’s not something one can teach.
Q. Do you consider that changing the glass of water into an oak tree constitutes an art work?
A. Yes.
Q. What precisely is the art work? The glass of water?
A. There is no glass of water anymore.
Q. The process of change?
A. There is no process involved in the change.
Q. The oak tree?
A. Yes. The oak tree.
Q. But the oak tree only exists in the mind.
A. No. The actual oak tree is physically present but in the form of the glass of water. As the glass of water was a particular glass of water, the oak tree is also a particular oak tree. To conceive the category ‘oak tree’ or to picture a particular oak tree is not to understand and experience what appears to be a glass of water as an oak tree. Just as it is imperceivable it also inconceivable.
Q. Did the particular oak tree exist somewhere else before it took the form of a glass of water?
A. No. This particular oak tree did not exist previously. I should also point out that it does not and will not ever have any other form than that of a glass of water.
Q. How long will it continue to be an oak tree?
A. Until I change it.

One of my favourite artists, David Choe, is preparing for an upcoming show in Beverley Hills. After a long series of highs and lows in his life, he seems to be finally developing a large following and turning his life around. In his latest show, he shows off his style in a large group of mediums, ranging from spray paint to his own urine on canvas. David seems to be a lot more raw and uncensored than most artists I know, as we are shown in his recent interview with Hypebeast.

Why can you attribute your success to?
Sucking dick, and I’m talking literally deep throating my way to the top and having a basic pedestrian understanding of composition.

How would you describe your change and progression as an artist?
Like being HIV positive for a decade and then finally getting AIDS. I’m totally gonna butcher this Picasso quote, but he sad something like “It took me four years to paint like Da Vinci, but a lifetime to learn to paint like a retarded kid”… Picasso already did all the research for me, I can already paint like Da Vinci, and I don’t want to spend the entire rest of my life trying to paint like a retarded kid, so instead I just cut to the chase and hire retarded kids to paint my shit for me. They work hard and are cheap, all I have to do is open the paint can lids for them and give them butter and sugar Wonder Bread sandwiches with the crusts cut off… Give them some tang and a Hershey bar and they’ll go all night.

Do you find it difficult to balance your personal life with being an artist?
That’s a bullshit question because there is no balance, all or nothing. I have no personal life, it’s all on view for the world to see. It’s fucked up every chance I’ve ever had at having a normal stable life, we all have to choose our destiny. We all choose our fate. It takes incredible sacrifice, for those who want to keep balancing on the fence and don’t want to pick a side, keep balancing forever and see how that feels.

Read the full interview through the link above.

This is pretty fly hahaha

I personally think this is one of the cooler iPod Docks I’ve seen in a minute. I can’t really explain much, so I’ll let CultOfMac.Com do it for me…

Consider it a moment of inspiration, and see if you can design your own acoustic amplifier.

After all, that’s all this is. There’s no electronics, just old-fashioned acoustic tricks. Like yelling through your cupped hands, it takes sound from the device’s external speaker and bounces around the metal horn, concentrating it and amplifying it. You can do the same thing if you have any cone-shaped objects lying around, or can manufacture one.

Of course yours might not look quite so stylish, but then it probably won’t cost you $425 either.

I’ve become obsessed with Tilt-Shift photography and this video just did it for me. Check this out. It looks like miniature models I know, but its all a form of photography. This is by far one of the most amazing forms of Video DSLR x tilt-shifting I have ever seen. Its also just a cute movie. Definitely worth taking some time out of your day for…

edit: I cant get over how cool this shit is! It looks like a miniature bro! Shits so small!