Mar 27, 2013 | photography
A naked man stands before an empty gray background, shown only from the waist up, but parts of him are missing – whole sections of his arms and stomach and head are edited out. But instead of seeing bones and blood inside, there’s just a gaping clean-cut hole, and you can even see the same skin within him, as if we’re all just empty skin vessels filled with soul.
In the image below, the faceless man seems aware of his missing parts, looking down and reaching through the hole in his stomach with hands crisscrossed and fingers elegantly outstretched, feeling for something that isn’t there. His spine’s notches rise up at his shoulders, creeping to his neck.
A warm light shines luminescent against his skin, almost white in some places, blinding but not quite. In the image below, the man doesn’t seem to realize his head’s upper half is missing, which could have something to do with the fact that his eyes are gone too. Cut right at where his mouth opens, his lower lip remains above a cavity of empty head – a basin of smooth dented skin with arms stretching behind it, as if his head were still there to lean on.
Defragmentados means “defragmented” in Spanish, which according to Google:
This man’s emptiness, without any sort of interior flesh, somehow makes him seem less human, and more like a virtual recreation that’s intended to do away with all the messiness we real humans have inside us.
Yago Partal is a 29-year-old Spanish artist doing editorial work for the special effects company DDT Efectos Especiales, which actually sounds like the greatest job ever. DDT won an Oscar for their work in Pan’s Labyrinth, and Partal uses his photography and photo manipulation skills to perfect their special effect designs.
Partal’s website is filled with conceptual photography like this – his Zoo Portraits series features exotic animals in suits and ties and is almost too adorable.
For more conceptual photography from Yago Partal, check out his website.
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Mar 26, 2013 | painting
Two figures eerily creep through a scene, with a strong sense of light shooting up at them. Dark shadows are cast behind everything that catches the light, and within one of the corners sits a sculpted portrait bust, whose giant face looms like the Ghost of Performances Past. His nose is broken and his mouth is twisted, and the space behind his head is the only part painted black – an ominous warning against the dangers of acting, cautioning how much of your own self that might be forfeited in the desire to become someone else on stage.
And even though the subject matter may lean towards the creepy, the colors are anything but – bright oranges and whites against a pale green background, colors painted so thick that they become autonomous, living on their own within the 63 x 79 inches of canvas, bleeding and oozing but with enough restraint for detail. There’s a strong sense of the artist’s hand across a floor that’s painted in lines mimicking the light’s direction. But the walls and clothes seem to glow from the color within them, somehow shiny and organic at the same time.
“Performance” by Johannes Heisig, 2012
Also on view in Heisig’s booth on the Modern Art pier was a triptych of sorts – three watery interpretations of himself, each numbered as a different “Selbstbetrachtung” or “Self Reflection.” Each utilizes a distinct color palette and emphasizes a different part of the artist’s face – the first focuses on his nose, the second on his head/ear, and the third on his mouth and chin, as if he painted three different still frames from one good head shaking. They could be three totally different people, and shown altogether they play with the ideas of how drastically the way we view ourselves changes from day to day and hour to hour.
The artist stares right at you in the middle portrait – his head swimming in bright colors that highlight the fleshiness of his skin that’s even painted a burning red/orange in some places. His eyes look out disapprovingly, his mouth puckered in a grimace as if he’s judging your outfits or your bad habits from within the frame. If you look closely, you can see each individual stroke of the artist’s brush – they seem random and chaotic, but somehow take a few steps back and they come together to become an impassioned kind of melting impressionism.
Heisig’s “Selbstbetrachtung” or “Self Reflections”
Johannes Heisig, 60, has been described as a social realist painter working in subjective expressionism. From Germany, he’s painted a number of German politicians and also works in graphic design and illustration. His artwork has been shown throughout Europe since the early 80s, and at the Armory Show he was represented by Die Galerie in Frankfurt.
“Selbstbetrachtung I (Self Reflection I), 2010.
See more from Johannes Heisig on his website.
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Mar 25, 2013 | installation, sculpture
A silver hand stretches from the sky, cut off just below the elbow and grabbing hold of an older black Fiat 500, stopping the car in its tracks. But there’s no driver in the car, so perhaps before it wasn’t moving. After all, the hand’s grip is loose and casual, long thick silver fingers folded over windows – fingers the size of legs, like they belong to a five-footed monster with no face.
It’s not a monster, but a child’s hand, holding the car like a toy, playing with it along our teeny tiny streets. The name comes from what most children say while they play with toy cars: “vroom vroom,” evocative of the way we all sort of speak our lives into existence, validating with words that end up being just as small as we are.
Because how much control do we really have anyway? If our brakes fail and smash us into a building, how much difference would it make knowing that a giant metal baby was in charge of all the chaos? Would you trust the baby more than a bearded prophet with surviving stories?
Lorenzo Quinn uses his sculpture as a visual facility for communication, all with the goal of helping viewers develop values like understanding, tolerance, and harmony. A Roman-born artist who studied at the American Academy of Fine Arts in New York with the intention of becoming a surrealist painter, Quinn discovered his passion for sculpture at 21 and moved to Spain after the birth of his first child. Now at 47 Quinn’s sculptural works have become enormously successful, shown all over Europe since the late 80s.
“I make art for myself and for people who want to join me on a walk through my dreams,” Quinn said, “The way we live our own lives, is paramount. That is why most of my work has to do with values and emotions. ”
“Vroom Vroom” was initially presented at the Institute of Modern Art in Valencia, Spain in the summer of 2010, and appeared that same year at the Abu Dhabi Art Fair. In January 2011 the sculpture was settled in Park Lane, London as part of the Westminister City Council’s sculpture festival.
The nearly 15 feet high sculpture creates an open dialogue about our place in the world, the child’s hand indicating the littleness of it all and the title opening all sorts of other discussions about reality, awareness, and language – what does it mean to you?
See more of Lorenzo Quinn’s work on his website.
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