Sound Advice 143
Tuesday, 11 September 2012 18:23
Creative Swing Alliance - Yeah! (MCDE 1209)
Anatomy according to Leonardo da Vinci - exhibition of the year at London's Queen's Gallery
Tuesday, 11 September 2012 11:50
"Inside his mind, inside the body" - screams the headline popping out from the news stream announcing most exciting exhibition of the year. Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist - exhibition which is open for public till the beginning of October at The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace indeed is one of those which won't leave you cold. This collection of the almost photographic drawings of our anatomy is one of the largest ever artist studies of the human body in history of Art.
Leonardo da Vinci - the biggest name of the Renaissance times is considered as a pioneer in the understanding of human anatomy. His ground-breaking works and discoveries, published in a treatise on anatomy have transformed European knowledge of the subject.
Since artist death in 1519 this drawings collection was lost among his private papers, disappearing from the public eye for almost 400 years. Today they are available to be seen as a part of the Royal Collection’s greatest treasures.
This “Renaissance Man” was active and interested in a wide array of disciplines - art, architecture, cartography, mathematics, literature, engineering, anatomy, geology, music, sculpture, botany. Although his interest in science was considered cursory Leonardo’s drawings seem to be surprisingly and remarkably accurate anatomical illustrations which contributed a lot to the science this time.
It is widely known that Leonardo’s fascination with the human body took him to the morgues and hospitals of Florence, where he performed dissections of corpses, often of executed criminals.
His greatest feat was understanding the workings of the heart - after discovering a bulb-shaped swelling at the root of the aorta, he came close to uncovering the mechanisms of blood circulation more than a century before formal science discovered it.
In order to explore and know how human heart works, he injected melted wax into the heart of an ox, then a glass model of the cast and pumped it with water with a suspension of grass seeds in order to observe the vortexes at work. After this experiment he concluded that the swelling made the aortic valve close after each heartbeat - this controversial statement unknown to the cardiologists of his time - was discussed officially in early 20th century and didn’t fully confirm until the 1980s.
What is interesting, is a story of one of the most popular anatomical drawing of a 100-year-old man, who had reported being in excellent health hours before his death. Leonardo dissected him to see “the cause of so sweet a death” and found cirrhosis of the liver and a blockage of an artery to the heart, producing this way first - ever description of what is now known as coronary vascular occlusion.
As a great artist and sculptor, engineer, architect in a same time, he had an intuitive understanding of form. When he dissected a body, he could understand in a very fluid way how the different parts of the body fit and work together. His talent gave him ability to record his observations and discoveries in drawings of such lucidity, which had never been done before and in many cases has never been surpassed since.
Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist exhibition presents 90 drawings and will be open until 7th of October.
As a additional attraction to the exhibition Touch Press designed special iPad app called Leonardo da Vinci - Anatomy which present 268 pages of Leonardo’s notebooks in magnificent high resolution, it is available now to buy on the app store.
This exhibition is obligatory for everyone who will be in London around this time - don't miss it !
Pictures courtesy of The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace.
Info:
Exhibition : Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist
The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace
starts: 04 May 2012 - 07 October 2012
Wanna hide in a landscape? Jean-Paul Bourdier will help you - silhouette of a famous French Body Art painter, photographer and film director
Monday, 10 September 2012 10:29
Photographer Jean-Paul Bourdier who lives in Berkeley, California, spent his last 15 years taking pictures in the American West, dedicating his art to make his subjects look like invisible.
This creative man's philosophy - who is
also a Professor of design, drawing and photography in the department of architecture at UC Berkeley - is expressed in his own words: " For me, turning the skin into a canvas for the imagination is both an artistic and a spiritual endeavor...." according to artist painted body is transformed "..into a living sculpture, lit up by it's godly colours and could reach it's potential to tune in or become an extension of the cosmos..."
Jean Paul Bourdier is responsible for creating many original works: Bodyscapes (introduction and dvd by Trinh T. Minh-ha), co-author with Trinh Minh-ha of Vernacular Architecture of West Africa, Habiter un monde, African Spaces and Drawn from African Dwellings. He also designed seven films and co-directed two films directed by Trinh T. Minh-ha.
His amazing paintings and photographs of as he call it "ephemeral sculptures and land art" are worldwide exhibited collecting over fifteen national and international Awards include: Guggenheim, American Council of Learned Societies, NEA, Graham, UC President's Humanities, and Getty.
In his remarkable live canvases, bodies are painted to mimic backdrops of deserts and snow-covered fields among many other different landscape structures.
Artist seem to have very spiritual attitude about human body which he use as his canvas: "Body and earth are one...In working with the bare and painted body, I am also working with the demands and challenges of a body-mind state that I call, "not two-many twos...For example, without clothes the body regains its undivided primary nature, being intricately part of the forces of the universe, it is no longer estranged from the environment nor split into an upper and a lower part."
Furthermore artist explains his attitude toward own work in a very psychological - yet very "close to the nature" physical way: "The visual works I come up with are a continual study of how we physically, rhythmically relate to this universe from the specific, intimate body house".
The result of his creativity - his amazing pictures of painted models and bodies mixed with nature and landscapes, where painted bodies appear invisible against different fields - prove that creativity has no limits and body painting in contrary to many opinions can be a real Art.
Pictures courtesy of Jean-Paul Bourdier.
More here: Huffington Post
Links:
Jean-Paul Bourdier official website
Thomas Heatherwick - the man who designed the Olympic cauldron work retrospective at Victoria & Albert museum in London
Friday, 07 September 2012 13:28
In order to highlight English designer of the Olympic cauldron 2012 which after the Olympic Games gained a lot of international attention, The Porter Gallery in Victoria & Albert museum in London is currently showing an exhibition called: "Heatherwick Studio Designing The Extraordinary" retrospective of Thomas Heatherwick work, who is the hottest and most creative designer in the UK today.
Heatherwick Called by Sir Terence Conran - famous English designer and his mentor "the Leonardo da Vinci of our times" has been the recipient of the Prince Philip Designers Prize and the London Design Medal and became in 2004 the youngest practitioner to be appointed a Royal Designer for Industry.
After graduation in 1994 at the Royal College of Art, Heatherwick 
established his Studio in order to produce original and extraordinary projects which will break the conventions, exploring thresholds between standard design categories. Never limiting his creativity, Heatherwick unique projects are seen in many areas: from architecture, furniture, product design and fashion, to engineering, sculpture, transport and urban planning. Heatherwick studio has earned an international reputation for creating 3-dimensional forms, stunning works like for example: a spinning chair, a rolling bridge, an expandable zip bag, a power station, an 'endless' bench, the London 2012 Olympic cauldron or a brand new bus for London.
Although his earlier project in the sport field - sculpture to commemorate the 2002 Commonwealth games called "B of the Bang" was dismantled as it could present a danger to passers-by, Thomas Heatherwick road to success was constant and hardworking and led to many international achievements.
The latest most known internationally project - design for the Olympic cauldron was the one to bring him worldwide recognition. "When the cauldron, codenamed Betty, was lit by seven young athletes, and its 204 copper "petals" rose to create one huge flame, it caused jaws to drop around the world." writes Alex Needham of The Guardian.
And he is right - this surprisingly unusual designed cauldron which in a metaphoric way expressed the idea that every country in the world contributes to and is a part of the giant Olympic Flame / Olympic Games made the project unforgettable and one to be remembered for a long time. According to designer cauldron was made in Yorkshire in "the most sophisticated shed in Harrogate ... like the Bond gadget workshop".
Exhibition in Victoria and Albert Museum in London is the first ever retrospective on Thomas Heatherwick work. Here, among many others we can see, pieces of the famous Seed Cathedral - UK pavilion project presented on Shanghai Expo in China 2010 which won the gold medal and ended up on the cover of the last album of Junior Boys.
Exhibition "Heatherwick Studio Designing The Extraordinary" will be open till the end of September.
More here: V & A Museum
Seed Cathedral - UK pavilion, Shanghai Expo, China 2010
Interview with Thomas Heatherwick in the Guardian:
Exhibition:
"Heatherwick Studio Designing The Extraordinery"
from: 31 May – 30 September 2012
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Porter Gallery
Room 48
Opening times
10.00 to 17.45 daily
10.00 to 22.00 Fridays
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