Frei Otto: after Gaudi

During yesterdays spatial/pictorial seminar we took a look at the rest of the blogs from Andrew, Roxanne, Mila and Mike. It was fun. During that time, we looked at Roxannes work. I was trying to think of the name of Frei Otto. He is the German architect who designed the 1972 Olympic Stadium in Munich. He has been influencial in the development of tent structures in architecture.
Many of the structures are devised upside-down as hanging catenary structures.

Here is a model displaying Ottos approach to building. Another architect who has used the hanging catenary arch approach extensively is Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi. I have some great photos from Spain of Gaudi's models and studies. I will include them into my next blog.

At the last seminar, while looking at Angelas sketches, I thaught about this artist Derek Hess. Hess had done a lot of rock posters that I thought were pretty cool back in the 90's. I hadn't seen his work for years but when I saw Angelas sketches, I recalled Hess's posters. You can see some of his posters here:http://www.gigposters.com/designers.php?designer=393

I lke the way he draws out his figures. He has somewhat of a loose gestural style that I really like and reminds me of Angelas work. Derek hess did some great posters for some of my favorite bands. It was nice to revisit his work though a lot of his recent work does not do anything for me.

Urban Lights are the collection of vintage LA street lamps collected and restored by Chris Burden. They had for a long time lined his studio in Topanga Canyon. They were acquired by the LACMA and are now situated on Wilshire Blvd. in front of the Museum.

These Chris Burden bridge pieces are pretty amazing. I saw this bridge reconstructed at the new Broad Contemporary Art wing at the LA County Museum a couple of weeks ago. It is really cool. This is a model of the Hells Gate bridge which is somewher in the world. Aparrently burden started to collect vintage erector type building toys on a mass scale to a point that the rarity of them mede themvery expensive, too expensive for him to collect, so he has now made his own stamp out devices and creates his own.

Kim Cridlers work.

I have allways been interested in the way things are put together. Ilove to see the exposed structures. Kim Cridlers work really seems very attractive and elegant to me. heruse of structure and line to create volume is so tight. she also adds narrative in a very subtle way. I find thes vessels and structures beautiful and dark.

I randomly came across the work of Kris Kuksi http://kuksi.com/ while I was researching the work of Wim Delvoy. I thought that his work was cool. I started to imagine a mini battle royale between Rod Aers work and Kuksi. I think that Rods Persian ant farm army will kick ass.

Here is an article that was written about my thesis show by Erin Goodwin Guerero. I think that she hits on and articulates some of the ideas that were motivating me, but some of the interpretation of the mantle piece I feel was really off. I have been told by a few people that there is a lot of violence going on in the work. I do not see it....http://artshiftsanjose.com/wordpress/?p=455#more-455

Here is the Mantle piece

These are some photos from my thesis show, the Grey Area .

Everything is fabricated out of found and reclaimed acrylic/plexiglas. I thaught of these pieces as secular alters of sorts. places and spaces we designate to commemorate, memorialize and adorn our living spaces. for the most part I believe that that most of us have some type of spirituality (not to be confused with some type of religious affiliation) that drives us everyday. I found that for me, these spiritual spaces had embodied every day locations in my life, and it was about placement of items that seemed close to me....those items that reminded me of others or other moments of time in my life that had informed me.