iRuder_06 Michel de Broin

Michel de Broin currently lives and work in Montreal, Canada, where he was born in 1970. His work tries to break free from the contraints of modern utopian aspirations while also reenacting them playfully, utilizing objects that can both glorify and upstage themselves.

Black Whole Conference

2006

74 chairs, fixation system

440 x 440 x 440 cm

Collection du Musée d’art contemporain du Val-de-Marne

Majestic

2011

Street Light, steel, wire, light

12 x 12 x 10 m

Collection of the National Gallery of Canada

Molecule

2009

20 stools, fixation system

190 x 190 x 190 cm

Keep on Smoking

2005

Bicycle, generator, battery, analogue gauge, smoke machine

100 x 85 x 60 cm

Arch

2009

Ultra high performance concrete, Stainless steel

280 x 472 x 127 cm

Collection de la Ville de Montréal

Michel de Broin's work is amazing. Conceptually, he pushes the boundaries. His work, teeming with meaning and exploration, never fails to be a breath of fresh air. His transformation of everyday objects is thought-provoking and eye-catching.

More of his work can be seen on his website (micheldebroin.org).

Haroshi (David Johanson Artist Research #2)

Haroshi is a Japanese artist creating work almost entirely from recycled skateboard decks. He celebrates the colorful plywood used in skateboards to create surreal wood works. Every skateboard deck has been skateboarded on prior to it being featured in the sculpture, so each work has a history behind it. 

I admire Haroshi's use of color, and the huge amount of layers in his work. His work definitely has an influence on many of my pieces created in this class.

Ettore Sottass (David Johanson Artist Research #1)

Ettore Sottsass was an Italian designer known for his colorful and innovative works. In 1981, Sottsass and a group of young designers formed the Memphis Group. The group's iconic work was one of the most characteristic examples of Post-Modernism in design. Sottsass himself likened the Memphis movement to " "a very strong drug." The extreme colors and patterns of Sottsass' work continue his legacy as a major creative force of the 20th century.

""I believe that the future only begins when the past has been completely dismantled, its logic reduced to dust and nostalgia is all that remains.""

His work inspires my use of bright colors and simple geometric forms. I've admired the memphis movement ever since i discovered them early this school year.

Myeongbeom Kim (artist #6)

Myeongbeom Kim has some of the dreamiest and most fantastical sculptures I’ve seen in a while. Graduating from college in Korea, he got her MFA in sculpture at the SAIC (School of the Art Institute Chicago) and since looks to have been featured in countless shows and even won quite a few awards for his installations. If I was asked to describe his work, I would say that it’s subtle yet apparent with the theme of change. His objects seem to be one the transforming into another. While playful in spirit, the materials used like nooses, crutches, and taxidermy really seem to suggest a subtle darkness that makes these works more thought provoking than just simple fantasy. I really enjoy his animals transforming into plants or objects along with his seeming interest in defying gravity. I really want to know how he balanced the garbage bags the way he did. It really sets in a feeling of wonder. That along with the way these objects take up so much space or just a little. They can even be seen as normal until looked at closer. I really like works that don’t spoon feed you the content, but instead works best when really looked at for too long. These works are playful, yet mature. I really appreciate the seamless transformation, they really look like the object was always like that. They are a lot like modern day illusions. It’s great to see work that can really bend your mind in simple yet complicated ways. It’s not easy to do!

Kris Kuski (artist #5)

Kris Kuski makes the most intricate and detailed work I’ve seen since Southwest Asian temples like those in Sri Lanka and India. The various works he does seem to tie to a central theme being intricacy. Single works look like they must’ve taken months to make while sets look like a series made throughout a lifetime. The works that really drew me towards him were his “steeple tanks” which were very intricate gothic churches on treads with a large main canon. They looked like something out of a Steam-punk world. I really relate to how he finds beauty in the grotesque and also a welcoming to the unusual. According to Kuski, his main inspirations for the church-tanks were the blend of classical structure with modern industrialism. His other work seems to reflect the frieze of judgment from mediaeval construction. His use of skeletons, pagan gods, demons, and generals really invoke the power and fear from ancient classical sculpture used in propaganda. The way the forms interact and bloom from itself are really what makes his works fascinating and aesthetically pleasing rather than just complex. I’d love to stive to have the same feel to my works.

Cai Guo-Qiang (artist #4)

Cai Guo-Qiang is such an explosive force on the art world both visually and literally. His work is so influential in so many ways that I literally look for ways to mutate his process towards mine in a way. There is so much dynamic action in all of his works that adjective like stable and calm are never even considered.

 

 While his explosive works are considered some of my favorite, it feels like I should talk about his sculpture work that really focuses on abstract body composition. His work Head On features a “stream” of dogs taking flight and hitting a glass wall hard.

 

 His work Tigers is also similar in terms of composition. Although there is one tiger, the form his body is in when hit is reminiscent of the dogs hitting the glass. It is very animated and looks like it is sailing through the air. He seems to be a master of tension, anticipation, and movement. The form contorts in such dynamic ways it really seems explosive like his fireworks and explosion work in ways.

 

Charles Freger (artist #3)

Charles Freger designs costumes out of natural materials that create mythical monsters turned into real life. His costume design harkens back to Pagan rituals, folklore monsters, Japanese demons, and even the military. His array of work really knows no bounds and is very expansive. His main inspiration in his wilder costume designs all stem from this primitivism yearning he describes. He says that his “Wilderman” series was his most expansive and the results were actually a fantastic series to continue and expand throughout the years. The costumes seem to mix a real sense of ethnography and fashion along in a very ritualistic manner. His self-proclaimed goal of the series to capture a sense of wildness in really small secluded villages among Europe. The look comes from their rituals and how those ancient roots affect their culture now. I feel like maybe that’s why the costumes look like they could’ve really existed in ancient Europe. The use of natural materials like wood, leather, and fur really drive in the fact that they look like primitive costumes. They really remind me of Shamanic dress from certain tribes of Native Americans. The way they breathe off this reverence really makes them feel so otherworldly.

Same Durant (artist #2)

Sam Durant is a multimedia artist who I found out about while surfing tumblr. His work widely varies from natural objects as sculpture, built pieces from wood and plastic, to 2d installations. A majority of his work is highly fueled by politics and the culture of politics in general. But while that is usually the case, I’m more interested in his natural sculptures. In Natural Histories part 1-3, he uses natural and unnatural materials to create portraits of “primitive people” like you would see at a Natural history museum. The actual sculptures there are bits and pieces of the materials used scattered across the room on stands, arranged in a way that plays with the space provided. They seem like a deconstructed science museum and seem very “constructivist”. My favorite piece, which is the one that drew me to him in the first place, is What’s Underneath Must Be Released and Examined to be Understood. It is a constructed mountain range that emanates fog on top of a mirrored pedestal. It reminds me of Chinese landscape paintings or Colorado on cloudy mornings. The fog is most likely a statement on self reflection based from the title. The mirrored surface really brings it in for me since it gives off the illusion of floating.

Tara Donavan (artist #1)

Tara Donavan is an artist from Brooklyn that my drawing teacher, Kara Andree, introduced me to. Tara is most known for her works that make wild and intense landscapes and forms from everyday objects like drinking straws, plastic cups, or even clothes buttons. Her primary focus is in installation and transforming space.
 
 She began her studies at the College of Visual Arts in New York but ultimately earned her BFA at Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington DC in 1991. She then went on to get her MFA at the Virginia Commonwealth University in 1999, but was sadly stuck working as a waiter until 2003 when her first solo show in New York ended up becoming a huge success.
 While the work seems to create new landscapes, Tara said that her work is more mimicking it rather than trying to recreate it in the spaces she occupies. Her work is often not really designed first then constructed, but rather, she let’s the building material dictate what is created when she goes to “build”. Viewing these works, I always seem to forget how each is built with such common materials. The way she uses them to play with light and interact with each other and the space around it is what sets her apart from most other people who would attempt this kind of work. Being able to forget the building material entirely when it’s very obviously in front of you is the result of this work and it amazes me every time I look at it.