Art & Chicago (intersection of tags)
867 Art posts • 930 Chicago posts • 229 in common
- Construction-site black boards as artThe painted-black boards at constructions sites are so stark. Flat black atop coarse wood grain. Giant panels of wood meant to separate construction working from pedestrian walking. The walls are painted in a flat black to give a simple backdrop,…
- Warhol wallAndy Warhol. The art world darling. The Art Institute of Chicago is putting on a big Warhol show. Members get a special preview during October 17-19, 2019. Can’t get into the members preview of the Warhol show? Get a cool…
- Capturing sharp details from drawings in an art museumThe collection of 17th century Dutch and Flemish drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago is a nice display of work. Especially impressive is the large sign at the front of the exhibit. The Art Institute blew up a 6-inch…
- Art on walls, or in handsWhat is the utility of hanging a drawing on a wall? How often do people change their wall decorations? Do people today continue to buy images to hang on their walls? Should a drawing instead be viewed with one’s hands?…
- Multiple toes: photographs of statue feet with kaleidoscope lensWhile photographing the feet of a sculpture of two naked men wrestling, at the Art Institute of Chicago, a guard stopped me. She asked what the clip was on my camera. I walked over to her, and showed her how…
- Using a kaleidoscope lens at an art museumBring a cheap kaleidoscope lens with you to an art museum, and you’ll be guaranteed to have an ever-changing wonderful time. You can get one for $26 on Amazon (and you’ll also get a whole array of other fun lenses).…
- Where is the closest art in proximity to you?While I was walking through the Art Institute of Chicago today, I was thinking about how this artwork is the artwork that I have the most immediate physical access to. I work two blocks north from this grand museum. If…
- Degas in 360-degree stitched photoStand right in front of a Degas pastel drawing, and try photographing a 360-degree photograph with multiple-stitching. You get some fun results with how the application auto-stitches the exposures together. Normally, 360-degree panorama apps like this are meant to photograph…
- Making famous art into playable tiles in the museum storeCan Jackson Pollock paintings be displayed any which way? Upside-down, sideways? Sure, why not? Especially when the paintings are reproduced into two-inch magnets. The Art Institute of Chicago takes some of their most famous art, reprints it into tiny two-inch…
- A bookshelf with hundreds of books that you cannot touchA floor-to-ceiling shelf holding hundreds of books. Makes a beautiful backdrop. But you can’t read the books. You can’t even touch them. It’s a work of art. Oooook. I need to investigate this artwork further. During lunch I breezed through…
- Video: Snowflakes gently landing on the Picasso in ChicagoHappy little snowflakes softly land on the cold hard metal of the Picasso sculpture. Such a beautiful scene: the contrast of the white snowflake against the dark, aged corten steel. I find this two-minute, 46-second video very calming. Nothing “happens”…
- Surfing the Chicago PicassoEvery morning I walk by the Chicago Picasso. Not just by it, but I walk right up next to it, so I can run my hand along the base. With all the snow we’ve been getting, it’s been fun seeing…
- Turning around to take the photoEver see something cool along your commute, but you don’t stop to take the photo? I bet it happens to thousands of people every day. It almost happened to me today. Along my commute, I pass by the giant Picasso…
- Christo Attacks!Anytime you see something wrapped in public, it’s like the artist Christo has attacked. In fact, that should be the official hashtag for photos of wrapped things in public: #ChristoAttacks! Take this statue of Thomas Jefferson (photographed by Steve Tanner).…
- The first artwork the Art Institute acquired in 1999The candy pile is the first artwork the Art Institute acquired in 1999. It has the reference number of 1.1999. I googled all the other years from 1879 to 2018. Yup, that’s 139 Google searches. Google totally DID NOT like…
- When you want to go to the art museum, but have to grocery shopping insteadWant to visit the Art Institute of Chicago?—but wait—you are out of yogurt. That’s the dilemma I found myself in this afternoon. I wanted to visit some fine art, but I was out of fine yogurt. Perhaps one can survive…
- Gamorrean Guard looks like the Chicago BeanThe roundness of this Gamorrean Guard illustration reminds me of the Chicago Bean. EVERYTHING reminds me of the Chicago Bean these days. Glenn Savage has done other sketch cards for Star Wars. The Gamorrean Guard is my favorite. This is…
- Merging a John Singer Sargent painting with the Chicago BeanThe John Singer Sargent exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago is closing this weekend. Thankfully my brother informed me of that this morning. Now that I work within walking distance of the Art Institute, I wanted to take full…
- Reflections on the Chicago BeanOne of the world’s most iconic public artworks is right across the street from my new workplace. That famous artwork? The 110-ton reflective bean in Chicago. Installed in 2006, this mirrored sculpture hit the ground just in time for our…
- I did a five-foot wide pencil rubbing on my last day in the Tribune TowerGoodbye, Tower. I just left the Tribune Tower for the last time. On my way out, I made a giant five-foot wide pencil rubbing. Here’s a four-minute video with me narrating its creation along with a time-lapse. Etched into the…
- Kirk Vuillemot, the Art Institute’s framemakerFrame conservation. Picking the right frame to match artwork from centuries ago. The Art Institute of Chicago has an employee with the title of Assistant Conservator for Preparation and Framing. Kirk Vuillemot has been restoring and creating frames for the…
- Flickr’s “search for similar photos”Most of us are familiar with Google’s reverse image search. Pick any photo online, and Google can find a photo that is similar (or identical). It’s a very fun tool to play around with. I’ve used it to: Search for…
- Having fun crafting your meetup profileEvery time you join a group on meetup.com, you get asked a set of questions for your profile. The Glen Ellyn Clay meetup has some fun questions, so I had fun answering them. What are the top 3 things you would…
- Origami made from McDonalds bagTransform your fast food paper bag into an origami creation that will change the way you eat food, and how you view your time. While sitting in the McDonalds next to the Trump Tower, I folded my McDonalds bag into…
- Podcast about architecture personasDo you ever feel like creating personas for your favorite buildings? In this podcast, I explore a couple art project ideas to give fun identities to architecture. I have 18 podcasts recorded in 2009. Every week, I will post one…
- A giant magenta László Moholy-NagyThe giant magenta mural stood out in the corner of my eye while crossing the street. I thought, “isn’t that László Moholy-Nagy?” I had been walking away from the mural, but I re-crossed the street to get a closer look.…
- $53M Oppenheimer Blue diamond found on sidewalk in ChicagoThe jewelry world got rocked as the Oppenheimer Blue became the world’s most expensive diamond ever auctioned. A telephone bidder won the Christie’s auction with a sparking $57.7 million dollar bid. But what about replicas? There are no Oppenheimer Blue…
- Fog and bridgetowersNortheast bridgetower at sunset A fog crawls over the Chicago River. Fog can create amazing scenes. Get close enough to the subject, and it really pops as the background is covered in a blanket of fog. Couple that with a…
- Intensely green river turns air purpleWhile walking along the Chicago Riverwalk with my wife, the river had just been dyed green hours earlier for the annual St. Patrick’s Day festival. The river has a surreal green glow that could be seen in the metal under…
- Take a wider pano than plannedWhen you are shooting a panoramic with your camera, do you ever wonder when you should stop sweeping across? When I was photographing this scene of the Chicago River, Initially, I was drawn to frozen Chicago River, and how part…
- Star Wars meets the Art Institute of ChicagoTwo monumental cultural events are about to happen in the same week: Star Wars is releasing episode VII: The Force Awakens The Art Institute is about to exhibit their largest donation of artwork ever. 44 monumental modern artworks were donated…
