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Rachel Whiteread is known for her architecturally-relevant art practice, in particular her casts of the inside of buildings. One such sculpture, a cast of a Victorian townhouse, helped secure her the Turner Prize, making her the first woman to ever win the illustrious award. The London-based... View full entry
David Umemoto's modular cubic sculptures are studies of volume—at the juncture of sculpture and architecture . The miniature concrete structures are monumental and re-arrangable, conveying numerous images. "They refer to the archaic and the ephemeral, despite the solidity and the modernity of... View full entry
Building “sandcastles” is a bit of a test. Nature will always be against you and time is always running out. Having to think fast and to bring it all together in the end is what I like about it...Once I begin building and forms take shape I can start to see where things are going and either follow that road or attempt to contradict it with something unexpected. — Calvin Seibert, sculptor
Professional sculptor Calvin Seibert builds “sandcastle” structures that look like they could be straight from the sketchbooks of architecture's modernist icons. Whenever he starts sculpting his next sand structure, he usually only has “a vague notion of trying to do something different each... View full entry
In OMA and artist Taryn Simon's "An Occupation of Loss," professional mourners create unique performances of grief into an enormous sculpture of eight 45 foot concrete inverted wells that act as "a discordant instrument." It's not just for professional criers: during the day, visitors are... View full entry
“My good friend Richard Serra is building out of military-grade steel. That stuff will all get melted down. Why do I think that? Incans, Olmecs, Aztecs—their finest works of art were all pillaged, razed, broken apart, and their gold was melted down. When they come out here to fuck my ‘City’ sculpture up, they’ll realize it takes more energy to wreck it than it’s worth.” — New Yorker
Heizer, a pioneer of the earthworks movement, began “City” in 1972. A mile and a half long and inspired by ancient ritual cities, it is made from rocks, sand, and concrete mined and mixed on site. “ ‘City’ is one of the most important works of art to have been made in the past... View full entry
“In The Unlikely Event” by artist Janet Abrams digs into the nature of the fantastical International Airport typology — “a significant species of monumental urbanism, perhaps the archetypal City State of our time”...Created in 2013...ITUE is an ambitious large-scale ceramic installation that showcases the Top 30 of the world's busiest international airports as terra cotta ceramic bas-reliefs, which Abrams molded individually by hand. — Bustler
Arranged like ancient fossils at a natural history museum, In The Unlikely Event (ITUE) is part two of Abrams' ongoing "A Natural History of Technology" case study series. In ITUE, each airport stands as a physical architectural expression of its home country's ambitions to compete in the... View full entry
It is a simple sculpture: 64 concrete pyramids that stand in a perfect circle around two-and-a-half acres of rippling, black volcanic rock.
Known as “Espacio Escultórico” (“Sculptural Space”), the sculpture was inaugurated in 1979 here on the campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. It is considered one of the most important pieces of land art in Mexico, a tranquil oasis in a chaotic city.
— the New York Times
"But the recent construction of a white eight-story building nearby has prompted a furious protest that pits the university’s needs against Mexico’s cultural heritage."For more news from the Distrito Federal, check out these links:How one architect is working to fix Mexico... View full entry
Höller wanted to show that you don’t necessarily get to know a sculpture better by literally travelling through it; that once inside it begins to look like something else entirely... The Slide, a permanent fixture at London’s Olympic Park, will give people a full 40 seconds to experience this and decide for themselves as they make their way down the 178m chute at an estimated 15mph. — wallpaper.com
The basilica of Siponto [...] in Italy’s Puglia region, has long been easy to miss—just another church among the thousands around the country. But these days, the 12th century structure attracts a crowd, sometimes even queues. [...]
Adjoining the newly renovated basilica, standing on the ruins, towers a full blown cathedral—with its imposing arches, columns, and volumes—completely built in iron-wire mesh. It gives the appearance of a hologram, or a 3D charcoal drawing of a time that was.
— qz.com
Find more images of Edoardo Tresoldi's wire mesh sculpture of the Basilica di Siponto on Quartz. Related stories in the Archinect news: "Kinetic" steel museum in New Zealand pays tribute to illustrious sculptural artist Len LyeArtist Carsten Höller to wrap world's longest tunnel slide around the... View full entry
The Len Lye Centre in New Plymouth, Taranaki in New Zealand stands as an emblem of the sculptural works and philosophy of acclaimed artist Len Lye, who was a prominent figure in the kinetic sculpture and experimental film movements throughout the 20th century. Celebrating its grand opening late... View full entry
This week, the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London announced that “the world’s longest and tallest tunnel slide” will wrap around Anish Kapoor’s “ArcelorMittal Orbit.” When the sculpture went up in 2009 after winning a design challenge, it proceeded to receive mostly scathing reviews — and a spot on the shortlist of the 2012 Carbuncle Cup [...]. Today, Kapoor revealed that the slide is actually a work of art, designed by none other than Carsten Höller at Kapoor’s own invitation. — hyperallergic.com
In other artsy-slide-related news on Archinect:Artist Carsten Höller to install massive slides on London's Hayward GalleryCarsten Höller Is Installing a Slide at New Museum View full entry
Architect Frank Gehry has often talked about the influence artists have had on his building designs. [...] An early work from the 1960s by sculptor Larry Bell in the Frank Lloyd show offers a partial template for a Gehry design built three decades ago in Toluca Lake.
Gehry's World Savings and Loan branch at Riverside Drive and Mariota Avenue is a sky-lighted, one-story hall framed by tall facades out front and in the back, as if a full second story had been planned but never built.
— latimesblogs.latimes.com
Richard Serra’s new sculpture, 'East-West/West-East,' is a set of four standing steel plates rolled in Germany, shipped via Antwerp, and offloaded, trucked, and craned into place in the middle of the western Qatari desert...the steel is the same that he’s used in his other pieces, and it will oxidize in the same way, albeit more quickly in the hot, salty conditions of the Brouq Nature Reserve. The plates will [ultimately] turn a dark amber—approximately the same color...as the Seagram Building. — The New Yorker
Related:Richard Serra is the first artist to receive the President's Medal from the Architectural League of New York“Serra Gate” salutes to Taksim Square protests in Istanbul, will tour city next year View full entry
Dressed in reflective yellow construction gear while working under the cover of darkness early Monday, a small group of artists installed a tribute to NSA-leaker Edward Snowden in a Brooklyn park.
But it was gone by midday.
The Snowden bust stood atop a column at the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument in Fort Greene Park, a site built to honor more than 11,000 American prisoners of war who died aboard British ships during the American Revolutionary War.
— mashable.com
Located in Garden Valley, Nevada, Michael Heizer’s City is one of the most significant works of art in the United States. Begun by Heizer in 1972, the project is now in its final stage of completion. It will, in the future, be accessible by the public. [...]
To see the land developed into a site for military, energy, or waste purposes, would ruin it forever. After 43 years of work, can it really be destroyed like this?
— unframed.lacma.org
Notable American museums publicly expressed their support on Twitter via #protectCITY. The LACMA petition to protect Michael Heizer's City and the Basin and Range can be reached here.Previously on Archinect: Michael Heizer's massive desert sculpture, "City", will make you cry View full entry