Olafur Eliasson

Olafur Eliasson is a Danish-Icelandic artist. I first saw his work at the San Fracisco MOMA his exhibition Take your time which then made it's way to Chicago, while I was visiting home, so I was able to see it again. His work is based on natural phenomena: rainbow, waterfalls, light - which all seem like very simplistic ideas except Eliasson has an instinct for the spectacular. His work become experiences- ephemeral and transient. Creating these installations or "experiences" allows the work to be that much more accessible- everyone see it's beauty.

Tetsuo Kondo

At this year's Venice Architecture Biennale Tetsou Kondo collaborated with Transsolar's climate engineers to create Cloudscape, an exhibition that filled Venice's Coderie with clouds. "The clouds are created inside the huge 319 meter long space by pumping in three different layers of air - cool and dry at the bottom, warm and humid air in the middle to create the cloud itself and hot and dry at the top to keep the cloud correctly positioned. To enable the viewers to literally touch the clouds, a 4.3 meter high helical ramp has been installed in the centre. The atmospheres above and below the cloud have different qualities of light, temperature, and humidity, separating the spaces by a filter effect. The cloud can be touched, and it can be felt as different microclimatic conditions coincide."

All I have to say is everyone else at the Biennale must feel like a%$holes because who can top real clouds!? It's like having super powers. If I could make clouds, I'd put one in my apartment. But in all seriousness, I love the poetic nature of the work-- to bring outside inside on the most literal level to the point where it could be nothing but purely surreal is pretty amazing. It really goes beyond words.

The Venice Architecture Biennale runs until 21 November, 2010.

Q

Q from Daniele Manoli on Vimeo.

An alphabet series by Daniele Manoli. I like everything until the last title part.

Dancing Pigeons - Ritalin

Dancing Pigeons - Ritalin from Blink on Vimeo.

Scott Hunt

Scott Hunt's work is hauntingly beautiful and enigmatic. His imagery seems strangely collaged together to create a narrative with gaping holes of mystery. love it.

Odd Nerdrum

A couple weeks ago someone wandered into my studio saw my work and asked me if I knew the artist Odd Nerdrum. I couldn't place the name so I when I went back to my apartment I looked him up and realized I had seen some of his stuff before but just in passing. I then realized the movie The Cell, which I used to love for it's amazing visuals had scenes based off his paintings. His work is haunting and has this strangeness that stays with you.

Pina Bausch

Pina Bausch is a complete genius when it comes to the psychology in movement. I was first introduced to her choreography in Pedro Amadovar's Talk to Her. Her performances capture me deeply with her ease of transforming ideas and felling into dance. She saddly past away last year June 30, 2009. But, I love it all...the repeated motions- conflict - tension -and sensuality... so inspiring!

Power (SNL Performance) - Kanye West

I know he's done some stupid sh#t in the past but I seriously can't get over his recent performances. I just can't hate him because he's too good to hate. LOVE this.

Here is the music video to this song by artist Marco Brambilla.

Danse Serpentine - Loie Fuller

Kuroshio Sea - 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world

I love watching this full screen it allows me to just marvel and relax.

Alone with my giant soap bubbles...

Radiolab and NPR Present Words

I love how each everything connects so beautifully.

Baboons attack a car with roof luggage

completely mesmerizing.

Marja Pirla

These are beautiful photographs from Marja Pirila. She specialized on camera obscura and pinhole techniques the last 20 years. I love the use of projections.

Betsy Walton

Betsy Walton is an illustrative painter and Portland artist that I have seen all over the "blog world." Her color palate definitely attracts me.

Paul Gauguin

While I was traveling I saw an exhibition of Paul Gauguin's work and fell back in love with him. A fact I was not aware of until further researching him is that though he was born in Paris, France his mother was half Peruvian. He also lived 4 years in Peru when his father passed away and then he and his family returned to France.

Dana Schutz

In Bomb Magazine, conceptual artist Mel Chin wrote that"dissection and dismemberment abound in Dana Schutz's work, all offset by sunny colors and a pert sense of humor. Among other things, she has created a race of people who eat themselves; a guy called Frank who is the last man on Earth; a gravity-phobic person who has tied herself to the ground; and a variety of characters that are spliced, for different reasons, on operating tables. Schutz loves to give her characters life and then cut them up. Yet hers is a blithe cruelty, the curiosity of a child playing at being a creator. Even when she hates, she does it with whimsy."

Nicole Eisenman

Read more about Nicole Eisenman here.

ANDREW MAZOROL and TYNAN KERR

Andrew Mazorol and Tynan Kerr's painting really captured me. I love the rough looseness with the amazing color palate. The crowded images actually make me want to spend more time with them to discover new things. After looking at these I'm ready to experiment a little in my studio with paint.

Huang Qingjun and Ma Hongjie

Huang Qingjun and Ma Hongjie decided to collaborate on this photo series ‘Family Stuff’ in 2005. "Huang and Ma work as independent partners, Huang covering the North, Ma the South of the country. Convincing families to expose themselves to their cameras is the major challenge that both face on their respective expeditions. Building trust and laying the groundwork for the shoot can take months, again and again Huang and Ma have to explain why they want the families to empty their houses and let the artists decoratively arrange their belongings outside. Once they have agreed to participate, most families are happy to display their possessions, even more so since they receive financial compensation. In some cases, not all belongings are permitted to be shown, in others not all furniture fits through the doorways; but generally, the artists confirm, their portraits depict average Chinese reality as it is today: simple, unpretentious and compared to 20 years ago, strikingly void of political paraphernalia."