An exhausted boxer recovers from physical exertion in Hans Op de Beeck’s newest life-size sculpture, “Hélène.”
Enigmatic Figures Are Frozen in Time in Hans Op de Beeck’s Lifelike, Monochromatic Sculptures
Enigmatic Figures Are Frozen in Time in Hans Op de Beeck’s Lifelike, Monochromatic Sculptures
“Hélène” (2023), MDF, polyester, and coating, 90 x 142 x 110.5 centimeters. All images © Studio Hans Op de Beeck, shared with permission
Seated on the floor with an arm resting on her knee, an exhausted boxer recovers from physical exertion in Hans Op de Beeck’s newest life-size sculpture, “Hélène.” Coated in the artist’s signature shade of gray, the work captures the interplay of light and shadow to reveal subtle folds of fabric, padding, and the figures’s physical features. “Op de Beeck has always paid special attention to the moment when we let go of our social roles and daily worries and surrender to a moment when we are nobody and nowhere for a while,” a statement says, “when we slip into the unknown of the subconscious.”
A range of dualities are at the core of Op de Beeck’s practice, such as wakefulness and sleep, motion and stillness, or life and death. “Danse Macabre,” for example, juxtaposes the playful, nostalgic motif of a baroque carousel with skull ornamentation and a spectral skeleton in a long dress, symbolically examining the cycle of life and relationships between the present and the past, vitality and mortality, and joy and horror.
Op de Beeck’s monumental sculptures (previously) often focus on a central, heroic figure, like “The Boatman” or “The Horseman,” below, which depict lithe, enigmatic figures who appear about to embark on adventures. Undergirding these depictions is a sense that, while the characters appear to be on the move, they are simultaneously frozen in time.
Detail of “We were the last to stay.” Photo by Blaise Adilon, © Biennale de Lyon 2022
At the Biennale de Lyon in 2022, Op de Beeck’s immersive installation “We were the last to stay” invited viewers into an alternate reality containing the remnants of a mysterious, perhaps apocalyptic, event. Devoid of people, the scene is of a small community where residents may have sustained a simple way of life. Every surface is coated in gray, with chairs overturned and homes vacated. Visitors, inherently colorfully dressed and lively, activated the installation by highlighting stark contrasts between presence and absence.
Op de Beeck also references the tradition of vanitas, a genre of still-life painting popularized during the Dutch Golden Age that relied on symbolism to show the fleeting nature of life, the certainty of death, and the futility of pleasure, wealth, or glory. Nestled somewhere between reality, dreams, and imagined adventures, the artist leaves interpretations open: Has something happened to petrify the world? Will it always stay this way? As if turned to stone, “The Horseman” will eternally peer over his shoulder, just as “Hélène” will continue to rest.
See more of Op de Beeck’s work on his website and Instagram.
Detail of “Hélène”
“Gesture (laurel wreath)” (2022), polyester, polyamide, and coating, 55 x 54.5 x 20 centimeters
“Danse Macabre” (2021), installation of steel, aluminum, wood, polyester, polyamide, polyurethane, PVC coated nylon, plaster, and coating, 11 x 11 x 6.5 meters
“Gesture (bird)” (2022), polyester, polyamide, and coating, 37 x 45 x 20 centimeters
“Gesture (dandelion clock)” (2022), polyester, polyamide, silk, metal wire, and coating, 14 x 53 x 21 centimeters
“We were the last to stay” (2022), mixed media immersive installation, 790 × 240 × 136 centimeters. Photo by Blaise Adilon, © Biennale de Lyon 2022
Visitors to “We were the last to stay”
Detail of “We were the last to stay.” Photo by Blaise Adilon, © Biennale de Lyon 2022
“The Horseman” (2020), polyester, steel, polyamide, brass, coating, and bronze, 215 x 92 x 243 centimeters
Details of “The Horseman”
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After Months of Searching, a Sculpture Stolen From a North Dakota Art Museum Has Turned Up—Next to a Casino Dumpster
A garden sculpture that was stolen from a North Dakota museum on Halloween has just been found, by a dumpster behind a nearby casino.
Photography Subreddits Go Dark as Redditors Protest Against the Company
The popular r/photography subreddit has gone dark, preventing millions of photographers from accessing vital information.
As well as r/photography, popular camera-related subreddits including r/photoshop, r/lightroom, r/cameras, r/poloaroid, and r/videos are all down as well.
Instead of being greeted with the latest posts, Redditors visiting r/photography right now will receive a message that says the subreddit is a private community.
“We are currently closed to protest the Reddit API pricing change in solidarity with the developers of 3rd party apps. Join our Discord instead,” it reads.
“Reddit’s policy changes will harm subreddit communities by making them more difficult to view, browse, and moderate. Third-party tools and dedicated users have always been critical to making welcoming, safe communities. These policy changes are a failure to recognize the value and contribution of third parties.”
Why Are Camera Subreddits Going Dark?
It is not just camera-related subreddits that have closed, thousands of popular Reddit communities have gone dark in protest against Reddit’s plan to charge for access to its data.
According to Reuters, from July onwards third-party app developers using Reddit’s vast troves of information will have to pay a fee with the knock-on effect being felt by large companies like OpenAI and small developers too.
This policy change has brought about widespread protests, with thousands of forums going dark for 48 hours. However, others are planning to protest indefinitely.
Reddit is heavily dependent on community moderators who police subreddits for free.
Why is Reddit Charging for its Data Now?
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman gave an interview to the New York Times in April and said the “Reddit corpus of data is really valuable” and he doesn’t want to “need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”
This is partly due to the rise in generative artificial intelligence (AI) and new tools like ChatGPT using Reddit’s data to train its large language model (LLM). Reddit’s API makes it easier for companies to directly find and collate the data.
It comes after Elon Musk’s Twitter in January restricted all third-party clients and apps and updated its rules for developers accessing its APIs.
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.
Young wildlife photographer captures rare Albino deer on camera in Kabini | Bengaluru News
BENGALURU: Young wildlife photographer Dhruv Patil captured a rare albino deer in the Kabini forest area a few days ago.
This click, which was the result of months of effort, had drawn the attention of wildlife lovers across the state.
“Usually, deer possess shiny brown skin. Deer with white or pale white skin are found once in a while. However, such deer do not form any special species,” explained 22-year-old Patil.
According to him, their skin attains a white or pale white colour due to congenital defective genes, and the lack of melanin pigment remains the reason behind this. Further, the colour of the eyes of albino deer will also be different, with a pinkish hue unlike that of other deer. They are also said to have poor eyesight, making them easy prey for predatory animals. Because of this, the average lifespan of an albino deer is less than that of other deer.
Patil, son of Karnataka Large and Medium Industries Minister MB Patil, is pursuing a degree in hotel management and tourism at New York University, US.
He started wildlife photography in 2013 and has had field experience in the jungles of Africa and the Americas. Patil founded the Society for Protection of Animals and Plants in 2011. Now, the organisation has an active volunteer base of about 10,000.
Earlier, Patil had captured a black panther with his camera at Kabini Wildlife Sanctuary near Mysuru. He had spent over 9,000 minutes, 150 hours, or almost seven days on a single road in a national forest in Karnataka to wait for a glimpse of the elusive black panther and capture it with his camera. He has also adopted many animals at Mysore Zoo and is also taking care of many birds at his home.
Hem X Creative Platform Drops the Limited-Edition PROPS Stool Collection
Hem X, a platform for creative collaborations, works with curators, artists, and designers to hand-make signed, limited editions of 100 pieces or less. The latest collection – PROPS – is curated by Modern Design Review and challenged six emerging creatives with the task of using a stool as a blank canvas. A brief laid out the criteria that needed to be met, including size, usability, and their own brand of personal expression.
Petrus Palmer, Founder and CEO of Hem and Hem X said, “Since its launch, Hem X has established itself as an emporium for the aesthete, empowering the next generation of designers with Hem’s own industry expertise and allowing for people to invest in contemporary collectibles. PROPS represents our foray into producing more comprehensive collections of these future heirlooms.”
The final PROPS stool designs are unique, individually incorporating the key characteristics of each designer’s practice into their piece. What’s revealed are processes, materials, and expressions translated into a single, everyday object. Because PROPS is a series of limited collectibles, the result is six editions, each with five signed and numbered stools available exclusively through Hem X.
“The launch of PROPS comes four years after we produced the first limited edition design for Hem,” said Laura Houseley, Founder and Editorial Director of Modern Design Review and MDR Gallery. “The ambition now is just as it was then: to bring the most exciting, most avant-garde, and most covetable of studio-produced collectible design into the heart of Hem’s world.”
Regen Stool by Wendy Andreu
Andreu’s unique ‘Regen’ technique winds cotton rope around a bespoke frame before sealing it with silicones. Tactile and soft, but surprisingly structural, the Regen Stool turns textile into three-dimensional shape.
Mirror Block Stool by Seongil Choi
Choi works with industrial processes, uncompromising forms, and a tough material palette. The Mirror Block Stool distills it into the most basic shapes and volume in the form of a pixelated design. The chunky object may appear sliced from solid metal, but is actually made using sheet steel that’s cut, welded, and then mirror polished.
Bo Stool by Destroyers/Builders
Capturing her love of tulip wood, Linde Frey of Destroyers/Builders pays homage to architect and designer Lina Bo Bardi. Bo Stool’s form is inspired by decorative flamed tulip wood that’s been cut into blocks and assembled like primitive structures.
Mass Stool by Odd Matter
The Mass Stool embodies Odd Matter’s (Els Woldhek and Georgi Manassiev) practice rooted in the environment that we inhabit. The stool is made of a cork and plaster mix original to the studio’s work, and molded for the first time to create objects that are textural, contained, and colorful.
Slurp Stool by Henrik Ødegaard
Ødegaard’s playful approach to creating forms is demonstrated in his Slurp Stool. The wood base creates a perforation-as-pattern effect, then paint is applied in thick, glossy layers for final forms that feel soft and cartoon-like.
Surfaced Stool by Sho Ota
Somewhat resembling a pixelated image, the Surface Stool is constructed from pieces of off-cut ash to create a profile and object with plenty of depth and surface interest. Each stool has been painstakingly pieced together, making each unique.
To learn more about Hem X and PROPS, visit hem.com.
Artists brighten downtown Woodstock with banner art
WOODSTOCK — A new program is providing outdoor art for pedestrians and motorists to enjoy year around in downtown Woodstock.
Katie Mercer, director of marketing and events for the Town of Woodstock, said during Thursday’s artist reception that although Woodstock is surrounded by so much natural beauty, a little color was in order.
“We put a call out to artists in early 2020 — some of you may have answered it — and then the world paused,” Mercer said. “We picked it back up early this year.”
Twenty-six designs made by 15 artists were selected to be printed on 2-by-4-foot banners, which will hang on nine lightposts in Woodstock’s downtown parking lot. The art will be displayed for up to four years, depending on public interest and the condition and longevity of the materials.
Two groups of 13 designs each were divided into warm and cool hues. The warm hues will hang at the top of the parking lot, and the cool group will hang at the bottom.
Linda Haile of Edinburg submitted a watercolor that she calls “Red House.” The piece depicts a community center in Maryland that she saw while visiting her sister. The red building is surrounded by summertime flowers.
“It’s so fun you know, to walk down anywhere you go and see art,” Haile said. “I love that they’re doing it here.”
The custom-designed banner program is similar to ArtScape, an outdoor gallery experience in downtown Winchester and Middletown, brought to the community by the Shenandoah Arts Council and Old Town Winchester. Artists of all ages are invited to participate in the juried art competition and selected artwork is reproduced on banners that hang on lightposts.
Haile is familiar with the process as she also has a banner in this year’s ArtScape in Winchester.
Sarah Kohrs, of Mount Jackson, finds public art to be influential because “some people are not particularly excited about going inside an art gallery. They might think it is intimidating or expensive. Or simply something that you don’t want to do. This is a way to bring the gallery out into the public in a way that they can experience the art and beauty of the art without having to feel the intimidation and pressure.”
On a beautiful fall day, Kohrs snapped a photo on a walk through the woods as inspiration for her artwork titled “Red Leaves.” Brilliant hues of red and orange pop as the sunlight shines through the leaves.
As the president of Valley Education Center for the Creative Arts (VECCA), Kohrs said she likes to share opportunities with fellow artists, and when she saw the call she decided she too should submit a piece, so if chosen, she could show it to someone walking down the street.
Strasburg High School art teacher Jennifer Walker submitted two works of art for the project and was pleasantly surprised when they were both chosen. Using acrylics, Walker painted the Shenandoah River and a Ferris wheel.
Jacob Hockman, of Harrisonburg, used his background as a tattoo artist and Japanese influences to create his one-of-a-kind banner using ink and liquid acrylic.
“I like the idea of having art hanging anywhere it can hang,” said Hockman. “I grew up in this town, and there wasn’t much of it hanging up. So, I’d like to see more of it wherever it can be.”
Beverly Harrison of Woodstock wants people to smile and feel joy when they look at her banner, called “Busy Day in Town.” Harrison described it as “whatever you want it to be.”
Billy Smelser’s “Shiloh’s Thought Motif” was inspired by his granddaughter and highlights her energy and enthusiasm. Smelser said he started with a heart at the center and worked out from there. The Strasburg artist has three banners in the program.
“I think it is great that people like to be exposed to art,” Smelser said. “To appreciate the world, and also for artists to be able to share their work… so I think it is important that they have that opportunity.”
As the only paid staff person in her department, Mercer said programs like the banners are made possible by the town’s many volunteers and committees.
“The Places & Spaces is one of our committees whose goal it is to enhance and make our public spaces beautiful,” she said.
The program was paid for by the annual budget.
To create the banners, each item was scanned at high resolution and was emailed to the banner company, Mercer said. From there each image was created into the banners seen today.
“We try to find art that can bridge the gap and be pleasant for most of the general public,” she said.
To view the art banners, visit the Woodstock Downtown Parking Lot, behind the businesses in the 100 block of S. Main St.
Clement Renzi sculpture donated to City of Fresno
A rare piece of local art is being donated to the City of Fresno. On Tuesday morning, Councilmember Nelson Esparza and City Attorney Andrew Janz hosted a joint press conference in front of the Fresno
Appropriation of Native American medicine goes way back
A new paper looks back to the 19th-century Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company to elucidate the harms of cultural appropriation and link them to more modern “New Age” practices.
Sarah Dees pulls several yellow-tinged booklets out of plastic bags. Flipping through one titled “Life Among the Indians,” she points out sections on ceremonies and customs. Toward the back are ads for so-called “Indian remedies,” products like “Kickapoo Indian Sagwa” and “Kickapoo Indian Worm Killer.”
Dees, an assistant professor of American religions at Iowa State University, explains the booklets were part of a larger marketing campaign by the Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company. It was founded in 1881 by two Euro-American men, one of whom claimed a Kickapoo healer had saved his life with “Sagwa” and divulged its secret ingredients.
“While the Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company no longer exists, there are many examples today of companies that appropriate Indigenous cultures to turn a profit,” says Dees. “By examining these historical instances of cultural appropriation, we can better understand more recent forms that have spread over the course of the 19th and 21st centuries and grapple with tough questions about appropriation vs. appreciation.”
In her paper in the journal American Religion, Dees emphasizes it’s common for people to draw from other cultures. But misrepresenting cultures or “hijacking narratives” for economic gain can cause harm, especially when unequal power dynamics are at play. Dees shows how the Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company pushed stereotypes and claimed authority on Indigenous cultures to sell products to non-Native consumers.
She also highlights several ironies. As “Indian remedies” became mainstream, the United States government rolled out policies to restrict Indigenous healing and spiritual practices, which Dees explains are often intertwined.
In the late 1800s, Dees says there was growing interest in “medicines purported to draw on Native American medicinal knowledge.” Part of this was a backlash to the Industrial Revolution and Western medicine’s harsh, sometimes deadly treatments, like bloodletting and mercury compounds.
The Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company advertised its remedies as harmless (because they were all natural) but also powerful in their ability to help people “achieve total well-being.” The company frequently did this by exploiting the image of the “noble savage,” a trope of an Indigenous person uncorrupted by civilization, morally pure and living in harmony with nature.
Dees says one of the reasons this stereotype is problematic is because it suggests Indigenous people must stay in the past to be authentic.
The number of Indian medicine companies declined with the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. But interest in Native American healing practices by non-Native people resurfaced again during the latter half of the 20th century. Dees explains an eclectic set of practices emerged with the New Age movement, which drew from earlier spiritualist ideas (e.g., seances, hypnotism, etc.) eastern religions, old European pagan traditions, and Indigenous ceremonies.
“One of the big critiques of New Age practices is that they’re very individualistic. It’s this idea that you can buy a blessing or pay $1,000 for a sweat lodge for your own personal betterment when Indigenous religious practices are communal and specific to a nation or a subgroup within that nation,” says Dees.
This extraction of spiritual practices makes it harder for Indigenous communities to control narratives about the history and purpose of their traditions. Some also worry that sharing certain ceremonies and sacred sites with outsiders reduces their potency.
In her paper, Dees points to the 1993 Lakota Summit in which 500 members passed the “Declaration of War against Exploiters of Lakota Spirituality.” It denounced the long process of “having [their] most precious Lakota ceremonies and spiritual practices desecrated, mocked, and abused by non-Indian ‘wannabes,’ hucksters, cultists, commercial profiteers, and self-styled ‘New Age shamans’ and their followers.”
Whether it’s Victoria’s Secret models wearing headdresses or sage smudge sticks sold on Amazon, companies continue to profit from Indigenous cultures and healing practices. But Dees says there’s also been more interest in finding the line between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation.
“If someone’s curious or unsure, I really encourage going to the source and finding multiple perspectives. You can learn a lot from Indigenous artists, writers, and musicians because they’re going to share stories from their lives and communities that they feel comfortable sharing,” says Dees. “But also, I think it’s good to remember that sometimes there are multiple perspectives. People’s outlooks within one nation may differ greatly.”
She also recommends that people who are interested in Native designs support Indigenous artists rather than buy “Native-inspired” knockoffs.
Currently, Dees is writing a book about a research agency within the Smithsonian Institution that studied Indigenous traditions in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.
She’s also developing a new class, “Religion, Health, and Medicine,” for the fall semester. Geared toward pre-med and pre-health students, the class will focus on connections between religious and healing practices around the world.
“One of my goals is to show how knowledge about history and culture is valuable for the sciences, including health sciences. Providers can better serve their patients when they understand how their religious and cultural backgrounds factor into their approaches to medicine and health,” says Dees.
Many hospitals in the US, including those without religious affiliations, have chaplains and small chapels or prayer rooms. But Dees points out some have also begun to make space for shamans and other religious and spiritual leaders to meet the needs of their patients.
“Many health care practitioners today are emphasizing the need to tend to the whole person, rather than just fixing their broken arm or healing their sickness,” says Dees. “There is a growing recognition of connections between someone’s greater social context, their body, and the mind, and—for practitioners of many religions—their spirit or soul.”
Source: Iowa State University
Photographer Captures ISS Crossing the Sun During Astronaut Spacewalk
An astrophotographer captured the International Space Station (ISS) crossing the Sun as two astronauts were conducting a spacewalk to install solar panels.
Thierry Legault drove six hours from his home in France to a vantage spot in the Netherlands so he could capture the ISS crossing the Sun an hour after astronauts Steve Bowen and Woody “Woody” Hoburg had begun their spacewalk to install a new solar array outside the station.
The solar transit lasted just 0.75 of a second as the ISS hurtled across the face of our nearest star at a speed of 16,777 miles per hour (2,700 kilometers per hour).
Each frame that Legault captured was shot at 1/32000 of a second with an OM-1 attached to a CFF 200mm refractor with a Baader Herschel wedge and an Emmanuel Rietsch’s GPS trigger.
“Using real-time images of the Sun, I estimated the position of the main sunspot groups towards vertical and horizontal directions (which depends on time and location),” Legault tells PetaPixel.
“I compared it to the trajectory planned by www.transit-finder.com, and I tried to place myself on the corresponding transit line (which was not the center of the transit visibility path).”
“I never make ISS transits from stackings or assemblies,” he adds on Twitter.
Sunspots
Eagle-eyed viewers will have spotted the sunspots present on the Sun’s surface in Legault’s photos which he says are larger than the Earth.
“The ISS passed in front of three sunspots groups in a split second,” he writes on Facebook. “The big sunspot could swallow the Earth, but it is 300,000 times farther than the ISS.”
He adds that despite the ISS and the Sun looking like they are near one another, the Sun is a staggering 94 million miles away (150 million kilometers) from Earth while the ISS is a mere 342 miles (550 kilometers) from home.
Spacewalking Astronauts
NASA astronauts Bowen and Hoburg completed all of their objectives while installing an International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Array (IROSA) that will augment power generation for the 1A power channel on the station’s starboard truss structure.
The new arrays are 60 feet long by 20 feet wide and each new IROSA will produce more than 20 kilowatts of electricity.
More of Legault’s work can be found on his Twitter, Facebook, and website.
Image credits: All photos by Thierry Legault.
