Stefan Eins and the Flint Public Art Project

The gargantuan Flint Public Art Project is still happening. Here's the latest:

Stefan Eins arrived in Flint two weeks ago. Inspired by the spirit of innovation in this city’s history, he has created a series of images to be installed on Sunday, August 19th in the windows of Gazall, Lewis & Associates at the Mott Foundation buildingon Saginaw and First Streets. An extension of his Five Found Pieces installation for the August Artwalk with two additional works, the images are Eins’ response to visiting 'Chevy in the Hole' and other public spaces and to meeting Flint residents. On Aug. 23, the installation will be on view in the Flint Public Art Project office at 124 W. First Street, by appointment only. 

Reception at The Torch Bar, Buckham Alley, Sunday, August 19th, 5 – 7 PM, in the immediate vicinity of the Mott Foundation building.

Turning Vacant Houses Inside Out

Instead of burning houses, why not simply turn them inside out? It's the sort of thing the late, great artist Gordon Matta-Clark might have tried. And it happened last year in Cleveland, where artist Martin Papcun, "along with construction partners American Tank Fabricating and Affordable Demolition & Hauling Inc., sliced into the walls of a house slated to be demolished and turned the walls inside out to reveal the interior."

Slow Inevitable Death

Ready for a heavy handed artistic metaphor for the carnage that is the American auto industry? Artist Jonathan Schipper is happy to oblige with this distressingly cool concept:

This sculpture is a machine that advances two full sized automobiles slowly into one another over a period of 6 days, simulating a head on automobile collision. Each car moves about three feet into the other. The movement is so slow as to be invisible.

It is almost impossible to watch a modern action film without at least one automobile wreck. Why do we find interest and excitement it new versions of the same event? Why are we not satisfied? Cars are extensions of our body and our ego. We buy or modify cars that reflect our personalities and egos. When we see an automobile destroyed, in a way we are looking at our own inevitable death. This moment is, because of its inherent speed, almost invisible. We have slowed the event via film and video but only from a camera's perspective. We never get to see the transformation of living breathing car too wreck in its entirety, in detail. This piece offers the viewer the ability to examine in three dimensions the collision of these cars. A moment that might take a fraction of a second in an actual collision will be expanded to take days.

Car wrecks are spectacular moments. This piece by changing one of the key variables removes and changes the nature of the event. What was life threatening is now rendered safe. What was supremely spectacular is now almost static. The wreck has been broken down to its Newtonian components. We are left to contemplate our own mortality our own Newtonian components.

Go here for videos.

If only the cars had engines and a full tank of gas so there was at least the possibility of an explosion, but liability issues probably trump art when it comes to lethal explosions in a museum.

Thanks to Michael G. for finding this item.

Eric Koziol: Underwater Art

After a trip to Big Sur, Flint Expatriate artist Eric Koziol created an online gallery featuring his first underwater photo series. Go here to experience "the strange and luscious visual results."

Post-Industrial Art

Kiwimomo, a 21-year-old art student, offers her interpretation of deindustrialization via her blog, Peachy BoomSHACALACA:

"Deindustrialization of America — this was my interpretation of it. I did this for my Digital Illustration class...I first did it in pen, then water colored it, scanned it and edited it on Photoshop.

"I interpreted the deindustrialization of America by referring to the opposite of it — the Industrial Revolution, in which America was known as the 'land of opportunity.' However, as the U.S. consumer culture grew, increasingly U.S manufacturing and facilities are done outside of the country, which in turn caused a few major decreases in jobs. I used China for [an] example, seeing that most of the objects Americans own are made in China...With deindustrialization, the U.S. is left with manufactured goods produced from outside of the U.S. for consumers to buy, rather than a load of job opportunities."