Check out Bent Objects, a blog with a unique view of our everyday world. What fiction is supposed to do, only with 14 gauge wire and stuff around the house. Rumor has it there's a book of these creations coming out soon, but you'll have to sign up for the secret club email to find out.

Be sure to click back through the older posts. "A Father's P.O.V." and "Style Points" are hilarious.

 

Su Blackwell has done a series of book-cut sculptures, slicing the pages of old books and bending, folding, and gluing them to create miniature scenes on the surfaces of the books themselves.  Su says:

As I become more involved in the making, I feel like I am creating small stage sets, inhabited by characters caught up in their own magical, whimsical and sometimes haunting journeys.

They are all very beautiful, and the flights of birds are particularly impressive, but the bibliophile in me says, "But you've ruined the books." Oh well.

[via Veer] 

Chris Ware has done five covers for the New Yorker's Thanksgiving issue.  If you look closely, there are connections between all the covers, although each one tells an individual story.  There's also an audio interview with Ware.

Enjoy your day off.

[Via DF] 

Do you remember a few months ago when I was obsessed with the sale of that expensive Klimt painting (it was sold to Ronald Lauder for the highest price ever paid for a single piece of art)?  If you're just joining us, see here, here, and here.  Well, it seems that more Klimts were on sale at Christie's, along with a Gauguin and a Kirchner, in an auction that brought in $491 million:

...well over $200 million more than that for any previous auction, topping its high estimate of $427.8 million. (The previous record was $269 million at Christie’s in May 1990.) Of the 84 lots up for sale last night, only 6 failed to sell. 

I'm pretty sure at this point that my interest is rooted in a sense of disgust and self-righteous indignation.  Actually, it's kind of a relief to find something so excessive and soulless that even I can feel morally superior.

Oh, and Lauder?  He didn't get any Klimts.  Poor guy. 

Drew Olbrich has proposed a rather drastic public relations image upgrade for our little backwoods solar system.   I, for one, am all for this. 

Ugh.  Sorry about the pun.  I really should be reigned in one of these days.

The McGuire Gallery of Frederick, Maryland is the first stop for a travelling exhibit of Theodore "Dr. Suess" Geisel's artwork.  Apparently there's more to him than children's books and overt racism.  He also painted (semi-)serious works and made carvings of his imaginary creatures, incorporating horns and bills from dead animals procured by his father, a zoo superintendent.  Sound Like anyone we know?

"The Art of Dr. Suess: A Retrospective and International Touring Exhibit" will open on Saturday in Maryland.  It's hard to find details about where and when it will be traveling next (Lafayette, Indiana, perchance?)  but I'll keep an eye on it.  You can find more information and look at some of the exhibit here.

Personal favorites:  Young Man Shaving (above) and The Myopic Woman, which is really just strange and good. 

Joe Kral, an art director and graphic designer out of L.A., has posted his collection of Penguin book covers on Flickr.  An interesting look at the design sense of generations past.  Via here, here and here.

Houghton Mifflin has published the inaugural edition of Best American Comics, which includes material from "graphic novels, pamphlet comics, newspapers, magazines, mini-comics, and the Web."  It's a gorgeous, hard cover, 9 1/2" x 7 1/2" affair, with color and black-and-white art by Robert Crumb, Chris Ware, Kim Dietch, and about 30 others, edited by Harvey Pekar of American Splendor fame.   It's really worth a look.

[Via Veer]

There is probably no real way to prepare yourself for this.  In recent years, computer animation has been able to render in three dimesions beloved characters we are only used to seeing in two dimensions.  That Bugs Bunny coin bank never looked quite right, and it didn't move.  One certainly never had to guess at its skeletal structure.

Hyungkoo Lee has done just that, casting in resin the conjectural skeletons of creatures which God never intended to be made flesh, let alone bone.  Oh my.

From the same artist who brought you Britney Spears giving birth on a bearskin rug, Daniel Edwards, comes this topless bust of Hillary Clinton, on display now at the Museum of Sex in New York City.  Oh, and that's not all.  Daniel has also made this bizarre, inappropriately edited movie featuring the bust, where he talks about how he came to be an artist and what the aforementioned bust means to him. 

The new issue of Artkrush (the monthly email art magazine) is out.  The theme is "Contemporary Nudes."  Let's not pretend that you need any other reason to check it out.  For more information on this awesome family of monthlies (Boldtype and Earplug are the others) check out this previous post.

Now go look at pictures of naked people.  We'll wait here.

Thank God I don't have to stop talking about Gustav Klimt.  If you'll remember, I was a little obsessed with this story.  Now it seems that four more Klimts are going up for sale at Christie's, although it's still to be determined whether they will be auctioned or sold outright. 

I wonder if a certain perfume magnate who recently paid $135 million for Klimt's "Adele Bloch-Bauer I" will show any interest.

[via Cool Hunting, who, as the name implies, hunt the wily Cool}

Nate Hill is writing his own bible by rewriting the old one a passage at a time.  He's up to Genesis: 31, which is pretty dang far.  What makes Nate's project even more interesting is his choice of illustrations: animal parts sewn to other animal parts, or flowers, or himself.  Like the caption to his photo says: Nathan Hill, madman. Here's a sample of his writing.  The original (Biblical) text is in italics and Nate's version is in not-italics, which could be an interesting statement in and of itself, depending on what  one considers the function/legitimacy of italicized text to be.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.  And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.  And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.  And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

In the beginning, Nate created Himself.  It was nice for awhile, but it became too quiet.  So, He created the heavens and the earth.  No one knows quite why or where or when or how.  The earth was an empty waste and darkness was over the deep waters.  Nate was all alone.  There was nothing but an odd smell in the air.  The Spirit of Nate was moving above the waters.  Nate said, "There should be more.  Let there be something called an idea," and there was an idea.  Nate saw that the idea was good.  He thought of every idea that ever was and ever will be.  There was evening and there was morning, the first day.   

Blasphemy?  Probably.   Check it out. 

The New York Times has put up an article with a wonderful interactive version of Edward Hopper's "Office at Night."  You can roll your mouse over parts of the image for more information on its composition, early sketches, and biographical notes.  My favorite: "For Hopper, wind often stood in for touch." 

 I can't link to it directly, but you can find it down on the left side.

From Patrick Nevins, our new Managing Editor: Sycamore Review is seeking submissions of ink drawings.  We’re interested in publishing series of six to eight thematically-linked drawings, similar to the "spot" illustrations you see in The New Yorker or The Believer.  Artists interested in seeing their work in the pages of a stand-out literary journal should email high-quality scans to pnevins (at) purdue.edu or send high quality copies to:

Drawings
Sycamore Review
Purdue University
Department of English
500 Oval Drive
West Lafayette, IN 47907

We can only pay in contributor copies, but this is a great way to get your art in print, and a great vita line if you're in school.

[Image taken from Cat and Girl, which if you aren't already reading, I don't know what's wrong with you. --Mark]