florentijn hofman: rubber duck + signpost 5 + musk rat.

I first noticed Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman for “Beukelsblue”, where, just like his compatriot Henf Hofstra who painted an entire city street, he doused an entire city block of buildings in Rotterdam bright cotton-candy carcinogenic blue.

What is up with the Dutch painting everything they can get their hands on blue? It’s like their favourite thing; They can’t get enough of it. Anyway, I love them dearly because their art is just so gloriously freakishly random and Hofman is no different. He just seems to have the power to take seemingly ludicrous and all-together quite possibly pointless idea bubbles and convert them into reality. For this I admire him to no end. Case in point: 2007’s “Rubber Duck”.

He floated a gigantic rubber duck down the Loire River in France. By gigantic, I mean this fucker is 26 metres tall. That’s 85 feet. Plus the artist’s description on his site basically fills me with glee: “People have gathered and watch in amazement as a giant yellow Rubber Duck approaches. The spectators are greeted by the duck, which slowly nods its head. The Rubber Duck knows no frontiers, it doesn’t discriminate people and doesn’t have a political connotation.” So true – if you’re weary of the whole Obama vs. Hillary debate, just look to the duck!

In 2006, Hofman also gave the world “Signpost 5”. A celebration for the the 5th anniversary of the Schiermonnikoog Chamber Music Festival (I wish I was making that up, but I’m not – you read it right, Schiermonnikoog bitches…), he envisioned a series of three huge grand pianos washed up onto the shore. Lucky beachcombers could then explore, climb about, picnic on, or even sleep inside the beached pianos.

I think we can all agree that his pièce de résistance, however, is 2004’s “Musk Rat”. Simply, he built a 12 metre tall thatched musk rat reclining against a life-sized cottage. Why? Why the hell not! The musk rat is lampin’, y’all. Only in the Netherlands…

anne de vries: “eye candy” + “knowledge” + “game”.

Dutch artist Anne de Vries‘ work is right up my alley. It’s weird, colourful, makes no sense, and, in the case of her sculpture “Eye Candy” (2008) has think, glistening laqcuer-like paint oozing out of soda cans and chocolate bars. I don’t know what it means, and I don’t care…

His photos have that completely non-sensical, yet still based in this every-day feeling. Like in “Knowledge” (2008), where the man with the wires for a head is having breakfast. I’m not sure if I’m more interested in that he has wires for a head, or that he’s somehow made his way over that hurdle and now just wants some breakfast of milk and books.

My other fave on his site is “Game” (2008). There’s something about people doing mundane things that are subtly not so mundane that I really love.

troika: cloud

I want one of these in my living room. Looking to bring a little new-wave pizazz to their understandably high traffic Heathrow Terminal 5, British Airways commissioned UK art and design studio Troika to create “Cloud”.

Suspended in the air between 4 escalators and 2 concourses, the 5-metre long digital sculpture is covered with 4638 individually controlled flip dots. Silver on one side and black on the other, a computer controls the sculpture creating an almost organic, living skin. The versatility and subtlety of the movement is amazing. It’s almost hypnotic and it’s totally got to be seen to be believed:

yaya chou: gummi bear bear.

How awesome is this? It’s a big gummi bear…made out of little gummi bears! I love stuff made out of the stuff that it already is.

Bi-coastal artist and animator YaYa Chou lives in both Los Angeles and Taiwan.  The gummi bear sculpture “Simon” debuted in 2006. I’m particularly impressed that, instead of making a living gummi bear out of gummi bears, she made a bear skin rug out of gummi bears. Yaya is really dedicated to this whole candy thing, as evidenced by her gummi bear chandelier:

daniel firman: suspensions + neon.

An edited version of this article appeared on Josh Spear.

I’m a sucker for neon. It’s bright, colourful, glowing, and often directs you towards something hedonistic like “Beer” or “Open All Night”. When you think about neon sculpture (and who doesn’t) think of French artist Daniel Firman.

His work is a diverse bunch of opposites. When it comes to neon, it looks like there’s always an attempt at perfection that doesn’t somehow make it. The multi-coloured lines tend to radiate out from a central point in an attempt to create a perfect shape, but they all deteriorate at a point. Near perfect circles have one line that goes a stray. Not a technological failure, but more like an organic neon form with a genetic defect.

His life-sized body cast plaster sculptures stand in impossible formations – balanced on each other’s feet or crawling upward into an inner tube. Clothed and proportioned, but with faces always hidden, their apparent realness is shocking at first.  He plays with the visual trick of making each mannequin look real but defy the laws of gravity at the same time.

He achieves the same effect with Suspensions – fully dressed bodies held in the air or flopped over metal bars. It’s clear that these aren’t static situations – a moment of action has been captured. Not the jump-off or the landing but some instant in between. Better still is when all the balances are incorporated together into one installation…

One of his current exhibitions, at La Galeri des Galeries, is a celebration in honour of the 20th anniversary of famed French couturier Christian LaCroix. Appropriately, rather than form the body sculptures from plaster he not only dressed them, but formed their very bodies, from Lacroix’s clothing.