Monday, June 7, 2010

Improving Urban Aesthetics



     ABOVE: Aakash Nihalani    BELOW: Swoon

If you have ever been to Brooklyn, NY then you {hopefully} noticed all of the cool graffiti made by local artists on street corners everywhere. I especially love SWOON's work. She creates paper cut-outs of figures and then pastes them to dilapidated walls instantly making them more beautiful. The figures gently decay, as the paper is subjected to the elements and the process of the figure slowly fading away from the wall is part of the beauty of this temporary graffiti. It is incredible to actually see it in person, and after "swooning" over it in magazine and books for so many years I felt starstruck when I saw some in person.  Its the kind of artwork that makes me wanna kick myself in the pants for not thinking of myself:) I love art like that.

The YouTube video above was found by my husband. I had never heard of Aakash Nihalani, but watching the video I fell in love with his style. How do you take a utilitarian object such as a "Stop" sign and make it more delicate and beautiful?????? Oh, just simply cut out a few pieces of cardboard with some white tape and voila! You should definitely watch this short film showing his process. its only a couple minutes, and the video itself is an artpiece!

7 comments:

Jessica said...

that video is awesome!!!! i love that kind of stuff. i'm so excited to see the banksy movie.

Courtney said...

that video is fantastic. love it.

Life as I know it said...

that was awesome!!!!

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Scotty and Chels said...

Love that video! Remember when we went and saw that art house in Salt Lake? I love how you expose me to cool artsy stuff. Thanks!

Emily said...

Cool video and concept. I'm all for beautifying the ordinary:) I wonder how long that was kept up? Also, I SOOOO want to go to New York- kinda' can't believe I'm 32 and have never been. Sometimes I just feel like I'm stuck in the ol' Midwest...

Teddi said...

oh thank u 4 sharing love this!