Masked Man

Best gift ever

The man in the second image feels to me like some character in a novel - perfect slim-cut suit, head cocked to the side.

Floating in a Sea of Teal

The strangeness of that arm jutting out over the surface of the water.

Gymnastics

The starkness of the black and white, the focus that they have in their faces, these odd uniforms. What are they doing? (Found on a trip to Prague)

Walt, Art, Bob, Bill, and Jim (three weeks after heart attack)

Titled on the back, "Walt, Art, Bob, Bill, and Jim (three weeks after heart attack)."

Fashion as Art, Woman as Insect

Went back and looked at some of the previous Alexander McQueen shows, after seeing his recent art-inspired collection, and came across the 2010 Spring/Summer collection. It's stunning - not because I would want to wear it, although I might, but because he actually transcends the idea of fashion as clothing, and deals head-on with fashion as a sort of second-skin. He manages to make these models a sort of hybrid between humans and butterflies, playing with the softness of the fabric or the rigidness of structure in a way that constructs new "natural" silhouettes. 

Full collection here.

A web, a tunnel

Came across the work of Chiharu Shiota recently, and was blown away by the power of what she's doing. By positioning everyday objects within a dense web of black threads, she somehow captures the enormity of emotional significance, even pain, that these objects can take on in our lives, and the way that sometimes even the smallest forward motions can become incredibly difficult - creating a tension between the desire to reach the object, and the physical/phsychological difficulty of getting there.

Also interesting, from a recent Guardian article on her:

"When Shiota was nine years old her neighbour's house burned down; the following day the artist saw a charred piano amongst the ruins. This instrument that lost its sound has haunted the artist and inspired various works in which she sets alight to a grand piano, then displays the remains within an installation of black thread."