Ultra-Practical Purses and Homewares by Nikolas Bentel Have Exactly One Ridiculous Job
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Who needs the whole pizza when a single slice can look this nice? Nikolas Bentel (previously) thinks it’s time to level up the way you take home your pie—or hot dog, soda, or pasta, for that matter. A series of fashion accessories and homewares reimagine recognizable items like electrical cables or picnic blanket carriers into objects so hyper-practical that they nearly break the rules of functionality altogether.
Nicole McLaughlin’s clever apparel or art collective MSCHF’s cartoonish accessories, Bentel’s pieces are designed to accomplish exactly one job. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/10/nikolas-bentel-accessories/
S’well Pairs Art With Sustainability for a Limited-Edition Timothy Goodman Collection

Award-winning artist and designer Timothy Goodman has joined forces with S’well, the industry pioneer of stylish and sustainable living solutions, to release an exclusive collection of S’well Original Bottles and Tumblers featuring his iconic handwritten quotes. Known for his unique lettering designs and thought-provoking messages, Goodman’s art and texts have populated walls, packaging, clothes, products, and magazine covers for brands such as Apple, Nike, Google, Samsung, MoMA, Netflix, YSL, Time, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/10/swell-timothy-goodman/
Thin Strips of Colorful Vinyl Spill Over Derrick Velasquez’s Wooden Sculptures

Gracefully stacked atop humble wooden shapes, thin strips of vinyl create kaleidoscopic planes in the sculptures of Derrick Velasquez. The Denver-based artist draws on the principles of color theory to create wall-based works with innumerable layers evocative of sediment or brushstrokes. All finished with staggered edges that curl upwards, the pieces are part of Velasquez’s Untitled series, which utilizes the same curved shape and varies in palette and size. “Slowly building these sculptures becomes akin to layers upon layers of the experiences and connections we make inviting a perceptual encounter and a tactile experience,” he says. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/10/derrick-velasquez-untitled-series/
In ‘Atacama,’ Renewable Energy and Mining Converge in a Stunning Bird’s-Eye View of Human Impact

An arid region with uncanny similarities to Mars, the Atacama Desert is sparsely inhabited by animal life but rich in mineral deposits. Located west of the Andes Mountains in northern Chile, the area is home to massive mines harvesting a third of the world’s copper and lithium supplies. These extractions date back to at least the 19th century, having scarred and damaged the landscape in the process.
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/10/jamey-stillings-atacama/
The BBC’s Award-Winning ‘Planet Earth’ Returns for a Thrilling Yet Alarming Third Series

The BBC’s award-winning series Planet Earth returned this month with eight episodic documentaries that showcase the most awe-inspiring, miraculous, and seemingly impossible-to-capture sights of the natural world. As usual, the stunning footage is paired with the iconic voice of now 97-year-old Sir David Attenborough and captures a wide range of animal life, from a rhinoceros lumbering through city streets to flamingoes attempting to nest among the flooded lands of the Yucatán Penninsula. More
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Over 100 Spectacular Artworks Line an Australian Beach for the Annual ‘Sculpture by the Sea’

From a beefy seated gorilla to a sleek shell with human legs, a spectacular collection of public artworks currently populates the walk from Bondi to Tanarama beaches on Australia’s southwest coast. Celebrating its 25th year in this location, the annual Sculpture by the Sea festival showcases more than 100 pieces in various mediums, styles, and sizes, all bordering the Pacific Ocean. Through early November, visitors to the two-kilometer stretch will encounter Gleb Dusavitskiy’s enormous pair of wings that soar into the sky, geometric shapes of translucent color by Emryn Ingram-Shute, and The Glue Society’s gloopy, melting ice cream truck, which debuted in the event’s 2006 edition. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/10/sculpture-by-the-sea/
Wind Animates Vibrant Fabrics in Thomas Jackson’s Ephemeral Environmental Installations

Ethereal sheets of tulle appear to hover in spectral motion over meadows and in copses of trees in Thomas Jackson’s latest photographs. “If there’s a theme I’m focused on this year, it’s the relationship between the materials I use to make my installations and the landscapes they inhabit,” he tells Colossal. Each ephemeral installation (previously) responds to the surrounding environment, changing shape as it interacts with the wind. Often documented during the golden hour, the layers of thin fabric shift to become more or less opaque, overlapping and into various color combinations in the light. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/10/thomas-jackson-fabric-installations/
Five Copper Petals Dramatically Enclose a Bamboo Yoga Studio in a Lush Bali Village

A yoga and meditation studio in Bali welcomes visitors to relax and stretch under an airy bamboo canopy. A recent project of the local architecture firm IBUKU, “Lumi Shala” is a copper-coated structure with scalloped roofing that layers like five overlapping petals. The metallic covering is met with interlaced bamboo infrastructure inside, as those same botanical-like forms sweep upward in massive arches and “reflect warm golden light onto the bellies of the blonde bamboo ceilings inside, inspiring feelings of lightness and freedom,” the designers said. More
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Let’s Get Digital: Toshiya Masuda Recreates Retro Technology as Pixelated Ceramic Sculptures

Retro digital aesthetics meets analog techniques in the ceramic sculptures of Toshiya Masuda. The Japanese artist (previously) fuses the low-resolution, pixelated imagery associated with early virtual worlds with quotidian objects from a similar time in pop culture history. Blurry cubes of painted clay form a bright red boombox and cassette tape, a pair of high-top Converse, and a Polaroid camera with a crinkled photo emerging from its slot. By melding the two disparate forms, Masuda creates what he calls an “image gap,” an uncanny feeling in which the unreal is made tactile. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/10/toshiya-masuda-pixelated-ceramics/
Precisely Aligned Paint and Fabric Camouflage Cecilia Paredes Amid Lush Botanical Backdrops

In a pair of companion exhibitions, Peruvian artist Cecilia Paredes (previously) expands on her lavish collection of “photo performances” to explore the fluid relationship between our bodies and environments. On view now at two Ruiz-Healy Art locations, the solo shows encompass new works that continue Paredes’ unique methods of camouflage and disguise. The artist swathes herself in densely patterned fabrics and paints any visible skin with the same motif, which she perfectly aligns with the backdrop to create disorienting and endlessly intriguing images that blur the contours of her body. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/10/cecilia-paredes-camouflaged-portraits/
Five Artists to Meet at The Other Art Fair’s Upcoming Brooklyn Edition

Prepare to immerse yourself in the world of The Other Art Fair, making a return to Brooklyn from November 9 to 12. This time, the fair brings together an ensemble of over 120 independent artists in a brand-new setting at ZeroSpace.
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/10/other-art-fair-brooklyn-2023/
The Colonnade of a Barcelona University Building Embodies a 13-Meter-Tall Heart by Jaume Plensa

Every year on September 29, World Heart Day raises awareness of cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death around the globe. Events range from performances and walks that route courses in the shape of a heart to major art installations, like Jaume Plensa’s enormous inflatable artwork at the University of Barcelona.
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/10/jaume-plensa-secret-heart/
A New Book Celebrates the Groundbreaking Women Who Changed Land Art

As conceptual art emerged in the 1960s as a dominant movement, more artists turned their attentions toward atypical materials and spaces. Using wood, steel, plants, peat moss, and other organic matter became commonplace in the genre known as land art, which included works made directly on the earth or with natural materials brought into the gallery.
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/10/groundswell-the-women-of-land-art/
Joana Vasconcelos’ ‘Plug-in’ Retrospective Buzzes with Three Decades of Energy and Power

From a towering solitaire diamond ring made of wheels to a sprawling, embellished textile tree, Joana Vasconcelos (previously) is known for creating monumental sculptures and public artworks that reframe familiar objects and materials into striking installations. Plug-in, a new retrospective at MAAT—the Museum of Art, Architecture, and Technology—in Lisbon, explores nearly three decades of the Portuguese artist’s comprehensive oeuvre.light
Plug-in brings together new pieces in dialogue with earlier works. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/10/joana-vasconcelos-plug-in/
An Arresting Optic Nerve Tops the 2023 Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition

One in five people with diabetes also suffers from retinopathy, a disease causing vision loss and blindness. Problems occur when high blood sugar causes cells to swell and leak, damaging the retina. Because symptoms aren’t always perceptible at early stages, though, many people aren’t diagnosed until the condition has already progressed.
Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/10/nikon-small-world-photomicrography/
In Paris, Zanele Muholi’s Bronze Sculptures Summon the Stories of Black Queer South Africans

South African artist Zanele Muholi (previously) has spent the better part of their career challenging portraiture traditions. Often working with quotidian objects and black-and-white photography, Muholi’s works center themself and Black queer people who have long been omitted from the canon. In recent years, they’ve begun to create bronze sculptures with similar motives, some of which are on view now at The Jardin des Tuileries.
Paris + par Art Basel, Muholi’s The Politics of Black Silhouettes encompasses a series of figurative works positioned alongside statues by art historical greats like Auguste Rodin and Alberto Giacometti. More
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Sumito Sakakibara Plumbs Memory and Time in His Animated Film ‘Iizuna Fair,’ On View for a Limited Time

One night, a man’s car goes off the road. His life flashes before him, as the synopsis of “Iizuna Fair” says, “In the midst of the frenzy night, a man finds himself lost in the crevasse of time.” Dreamlike scenes unfold in filmmaker Sumito Sakakibara’s poignant short film as it pans across the anonymous protagonist’s buried memories, inhibitions, and unkept promises, as he realizes, “he was the phantom.”
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A Sprawling Nest of Vintage Wooden Chairs Perches on Liaigre’s Facade in Paris

Constructed with an intuitive weaving process evocative of birds, Tadashi Kawamata’s “Nest in Liaigre” is a sprawling, site-specific installation that questions how we interact with our built environments. The towering work perches on the side of the Liaigre architecture firm and winds inside the Paris studio, creating a spiral maze of wooden chairs and furniture that flows between the facade and interior. Using humble, vintage materials, Kawamata invites viewers to relax and socialize within the cozy space, while exploring the links between art and architecture. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/10/nest-in-liaigre-paris/
Everyday Activities Revolve Around Interiors in Cinta Vidal’s Dizzying Oil Paintings

Known for her perspective-bending murals (previously), Cinta Vidal explores the nuances of interiors and the myriad ways we interact within architecture in Cohabit, a new body of work presented with Thinkspace Projects in New York. “I’m intrigued by the relationship that people establish between themselves and their immediate surroundings, and now I’m zooming in to find out what’s going on in there,” Vidal says. “In contrast to my most recent works, where I played with darkness, I now strongly illuminate the scenes, which take on more vitality.”
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To the Rainbow Realm! Technology and Magic Merge in ‘Feltopia,’ the First Felted Stop-Motion Video Game

“Set in a dreamy, fluffy world, the wizard Skyrider is facing the ramifications of a giant technological glitch that forced civilization up into the clouds,” says a synopsis of artist Andrea Love’s new video game, Feltopia. Your mission? Fly on a trusty steed named Cumulus “through a world of wizards, robots, and magical creatures—clearing the way towards the rainbow realm, where a mysterious mega-bot is threatening to consume the whole spectrum.”
previously) embarks on an ambitious collaborative project to transform her felted stories into an interactive game. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/10/andrea-love-feltopia/