I’ve heard of art as a vice, but making a vise art?

© 2009 Mimi Azrael All rights reserved

So, challenged by a friend who set up this apparatus on my fireplace mantel today to repair humidity damage to the wood wall, I shot this image through squinted eyes pretending the apparatus was a sculpture. Shot on a 5dMarkII in available light (no flash), the “sculpture” could be a modern, industrial candelabra or the work of a visionary with found objects? (Well, on second thought, maybe not.) FWIW, the apparatus consists of two vise grips and two metal uprights crossed by a horizontal 30″ Closetmaid shelf track.  The engineering feat is the spring action control of buckling that puts pressure on the wall to flatten it.  Too much information?  The design is quite ingenious.  (Not my idea, so I take no credit).  But as we looked at the apparatus, it occurred to us how oddly interesting it looked.  Like a sculpture installation.  Prodded to take the bait of my friend’s challenge, I picked up my camera.

Beside the oddness of the construction, there’s something about the reflected light and gridded lines formed by the apparatus that caught my interest  – i.e., the grid of windows reflected in the glass of the picture frame,  the grid of the “+” shadow in the center of the image, the perpendicular planes of the mantel, the picture frame and the two metal uprights and the various mouldings, etc.).

My friend tells me that the apparatus will have done its job in a day or so.  But, I may leave it up indefinitely…

CAMOUFLAGE ART: Can you find the Invisible Man?

Once again, Stephen Heller — who writes the Visuals column for the New York Times Book Review and The Daily Heller blog for Print Magazine, — gives us shock-and-awe images. This time, he acquaints us with Liu Bolin, a 36-year-old performance artist from Beijing, whose art form is what Heller calls “camo art.” Check this out:

Can you find Liu Bolin??

Liu, known as the “Invisible Man,” steps into his images… literally. He has been known to spend upwards of 10 hours painting his body to nearly perfectly blend into his surroundings, turning an eventual photograph of him into a living, breathing trompe l’oeil image.  In the photograph below, he is barely visible blending into an enormous American flag.

Performance artist Liu hiding in plain sight.

The YU Gallery in Paris has a month-long, one-man exhibition of Liu’s photographs which will close on October 31st.  Nine large images from the YU Gallery exhibition can be viewed here on the website of the Herald Sun, a Melbourne, Australia newspaper.

When asked why he does this, Liu explains that blending into his surroundings communicates social invisibility. “I experienced the dark side of society, without social relations, and had a feeling that no one cared about me, I felt myself unnecessary in this world, ” Liu told the London Telegraph. Liu considers his work a form of protest against the Chinese government, which he said, closed his art studio in 2005.   This photo, one of his most political, is amazing (see right):

Click here to view a YouTube video of Liu being painted.

WATCH: Mel Brooks’s 1963 funny short, “The Critic”

Check out Mel Brooks’s 1963 film short, The Critic, now on YouTube.

Brooks created and narrated this animated short, which earned him an Academy Award in 1964.  It’s a fun, clever satire on “modern art.”

Also, great graphics and soundtrack.  A quick watch.   Thanks to Steven Heller, whose blog, The Daily Heller, at Print magazine, uncovered this gem.