Experiments in digital extrapolation by photographer Bas Uterwijk (albeit subjective in the fine detail and employing a degree of artistic interpretation) – using Artbreeder AI software to extract real world features from painted depictions, portraits and sculptures.
Above: Elizabeth the First, Michelangelo’s ‘David’, Napoleon Bonaparte, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Jesus Christ, George Washington and Vincent Van Gogh
Tenuously related: The Descendants
A ‘visual excavation’ of Western history by British photographer Drew Gardner wherein descendants of historically significant people pose, recreating famous portraits of their ancestor.
But there’s more going here than mock-ups. The photograph of Shannon LaNier (top pic) is especially significant.
He’s the sixth-great grandson of Jefferson and Sally Hemmings, who the third U.S. president enslaved and forced to bear his children, a story that’s long been left out of historical narratives.
(From top: Shannon LaNier, Jefferson’s sixth-great grandson; Hugo de Salis, fourth-great grandson of Napoleon. Napoleon in his study, by Jacques-Louis David, 1812; Helen Pankhurst, great granddaughter of women’s rights activist Emeline Pankhurst; Tom Wonter, Wordsworth’s fourth-great grandson. William Wordsworth, portrait by William Shuter, 1798; Gerald Charles Dickens, Dickens’ great, great grandson. Charles Dickens, portrait by Herbert Watkins, 1858; Isambard Thomas, Brunel’s third-great grandson. Isambard Kingdom Brunel, portrait by Robert Howlett, 1857; Irina Guicciardini Strozzi, the 15th great granddaughter of Lisa del Giocondo. The Mona Lisa by Leonardo DaVinci.)
#BestMuseumBum: The ripely curvaceous fruit of a recent invitation from curators at The Yorkshire Museum to their colleagues at other antiquarian institutes around the world.
The brutalist kintsugi of artist Glen Taylor – broken porcelain ‘repaired’ with tarnished silverware, barbed wire, chains and paper mâché, contrasting the delicacy of the original piece with unwieldy mends in a celebration of imperfection.
Which is more worthy of celebration than perfection.
Discuss.
Behold: Majestic Towers – all 80cm of it – a 450 piece laser cut acrylic HO-scale model of an art deco apartment building- showcased here by model railway builder Luke Towan, who further enhanced its miniature magnificence with deft paint-strokes, 3D-printed details and interior lights.
In fairness.
Yes, that’s exactly what it is.
The first post-lockdown concert to be staged at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre Del Liceu.
The performance – conceived by Spanish artist Eugenio Ampudio – of Giacomo Puccini’s “I Crisantemi” by the UceLi Quartet was enjoyed by an audience of 2,292 houseplants, each one occupying a red velvet seat
The fretted, smudgy, powerful deconstructed/reconstructed monochrome portraits of Korean artist GyoBeom An – all impressively rendered in thick pencil.
More of his work here.
Good Movies As Old Books: an ongoing project by designer and illustrator Matt Stevens, reimagining his favourite films as vintage paperbacks and cloth-bound texts.
