Continuing the week of special focused Magpie Monday posts, I offer up today Tiny Bubbles*!
Museum of Oddities by Doktor A
◊ I love Doktor A‘s sculptural work in general, but I especially love the piece above, titled Museum of Oddities, as it combines two of my favorite things: cabinets of curiosities and miniatures. The picture below is of Vladimir Cobweb, the Curator of the Museum of Oddities, who is described by Doktor A thus:
Collector of strange and wonderful things, Vladimir is unfortunately not the most organised of souls. His Museum of Oddities is a place of wonderment and reflection for the citizens of Retropolis. The small detail that some of the item’s annotations are a little wide of the mark factually doesn’t seem to have bothered anyone.
Below is a shot of the interior of the Museum, but if you click here you can see more detailed pictures along with Doktor A’s annotations of the contents. Such a delightful piece!
Museum of Oddities, interior, by Doktor A
Via.
◊ Here’s another delightful miniature cabinet of curiosities: David Beck‘s MVSEVM, which includes a courtyard, a hall of inventions, portrait galleries, and a natural hsitory museum (the latter seen below). The entire piece is five feet by five feet. Here’s an excerpt from a New York Times article by Kathryn Shattuck, “Behind Miniature Doors, an Exotic World,” that describes the project:
With its fluted columns, central courtyard, copper roof and Greek Revival facade, David Beck’s ”MVSEVM,” a fantastical new sculpture commissioned for the reopening of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, looks a bit like a miniature version of the city’s Old Patent Office Building, the art museum’s new home. But swing open its doors on their tiny hinges and a vast world of wonders appears, with Mr. Beck as curator, explorer, zoologist, paleontologist and portraitist.
”I like the notion of public and private spaces, and of the intimacy that evolves when a viewer is forced to look at an object one on one,” Mr. Beck said recently in a telephone interview from San Francisco. ”When the doors are closed, you have one experience. But when you start opening it, you discover that there’s a whole other world happening on the inside.”
You can see more images of the project—as well as some of Beck’s other miniatures, which include an opera house, a dodo museum, a movie palace, and a beautiful rendition of hell—by visiting his website. Slide shows for these projects can be found under “Large Work” in the menu bar at the top of the page. You can also watch some videos of the artwork.
MVSEVM: Natural History Museum by David Beck
Via.
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◊ I like the idea of gardens, but I’m afraid I’m too neglectful to mind one of my own. I’ve killed a philodendron, folks, so you know it’s bad. But these tiny gardens might be a possibility, like this garden by Simone Drucker.
Simone Drucker’s tiny succulent garden in an Altoids tin
Via.
Click through to see more images of tiny gardens in London’s potholes like the one below. I assume these gardens are meant to be temporary, considering traffic, but a lovely idea nonetheless.
Pothole garden in London
◊ According to this io9 article, Evol, a German street artist, designed his Building series
by transforming everyday objects—like concrete blocks, power boxes, walls, and any other publicly accessible surface he can co-opt—into highly intricate miniaturized versions of apartment buildings.
Evol, who uses stencils to create the effect, is able to make such realistic looking surfaces by avoiding repetitious patterns, and by paying attention to the minutest of details—like stenciling in satellite dishes, graffiti, open windows, and wet and worn surfaces. And when photographed just right, they could easily be mistaken for the real thing.
Check out the link for more examples of Evol’s work, like the one below.
Miniature apartment building by Evol
◊ I’m swooning big time over artist Joe Fig‘s miniature dioramas of famous artists’ studios, such as those belonging to Ross Bleckner, Constantin Brancusi, Chuck Close, Tara Donovan, Inka Essenhigh, Jasper Johns, Alex Katz, Roy Lichtenstein, Malcolm Morley, Jackson Pollock, James Rosenquist, and even one of himself! Via.
Jackson Pollock (2008) by Joe Fig
Jasper Johns 1963 (2008) by Joe Fig
◊ People in acrylic dollhouses shouldn’t throw stones. Via.
Acrylic dollshouse by Keith Bougourd
◊ Nomi‘s literal book bed literally makes me crazy with delight and want! Via. (You can see a couple more pictures at either link—go check them out!)
Book bed by Nomi
◊ Skinkachu! I’ve mentioned before how much I love his work, and I’m always excited when I hear a new book’s coming out or when he posts a new installation on his blog. I love this kind of street art. First, here’s a video where Slinkachu talks about his process on the occasion of “his first pop up art show for the Little People Project” in Manhattan. Via.
Look at This Little Thing! has a great collection of Slinkachu’s photos, and you can check out recent installations Hide & Seek; Hop, Skip and Jump; and Play Fighting (also below) on his website. He takes two to three shots of each piece at different distances, which gives different contexts to the scene. Click through—you’ll be glad you did!
Play Fighting 1 (2013) by Slinkachu
*Does anybody get this reference? My mom was (probably still is) a big fan of his from when we lived in Hawai’i, and so I’ve had a lifelong fondness for him.
