After projects in Germany, Austria, Italy, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand in 2012 we are ready for an exciting 2013. Exhibitions and public art projects in Thailand, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Australia, Bolivia, the US, Canada, Germany, Spain and more coming up.

Our next big project is dropping in mid-February. Thanks for taking part, enjoy the ride!

Christo’s first permanent large-scale work, The Mastaba, will be the world’s largest sculpture and installed 160km south of the city of Abu Dhabi. The enormous project was conceived in 1977 and will be made from 410.000 multi-colored barrels to form a mosaic of bright colors, echoing Islamic architecture. A mastaba is a type of ancient Egyptian tomb and a familiar shape to the people of the region, and will become larger than any pyramid.

It will take about 30 months of construction work to create thee 150m high, 225m and 300m wide sculpture. The top of The Mastaba will be a horizontal surface 127m wide and 225m deep. Through a long planning period it’s possible to raise the entire structure on rails to its final position in about 3 to 4 days. The estimated cost is 340.000.000US$.

> As usual, the Mastaba is extensively documented here on the artist’s site

Photo #1 by By Wolfgang Volz

Until December 30, 15 giant electronic billboards at Times Square, New York, are transformed into Imagine Peace, a public art project by Yoko Ono. Her message of anti-violence will be translated into 24 world languages set over the tranquil imagery of a blue-sky background. The piece has been transformed into a site-specific multi-channel work, and spreads the message of peace across the monumental screens simultaneously, displayed hourly across American Eagle Times Square, MTV 44 ½ and Viacom North and South signs throughout one of the world’s most famous places, which is also known as the Crossroads of the World.

Imagine Peace uses internet projects and presence, posters, badges, and a multitude of other media to communicate its message of peace to the global community. Located in a highly trafficked location, the installation tries to spread awareness and encourage the community to take responsibility and promote worldwide peace.

Past Imagine Peace projects include Imagine Peace for Pause at The Cosmopolitan Las Vegas and the Imagine Peace Tower in Reykjavik, Iceland (2007) for which the artist has collected over 1 million wishes over the past few years.

Yoko Ono (b. 1933, Tokyo) lives and works in New York. Ono is an influential artist who pushes the boundaries of the art, film, music and theatre media. She received the prestigious Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement at the 2009 Venice Biennale.

Times Square Arts is a public art program which presents leading contemporary art and performances in multiple forms and media to more than 400,000 daily visitors to New York City’s Times Square, making it one of the highest profile public arts programs in the United States. Since its inception, the program has featured works by a diverse group of more than four dozen prominent and emerging artists.

Photos: #1, James Ewing, #2,5, Casey Kelbaug, #3,4, Ka-Man Tse

(via)

Some weeks ago Hendrik Beikirch painted maythebestofyourtodays I in Halle, Germany.

Happy Xmas! We already posted about André Hemer’s catalogue hyper/links earlier, and now uploaded it for you, for free.

Hyper/links was published to document Hemer’s self-titled exhibition featuring QR codes in 2011 at The Physics Room in Christchurch, New Zealand. It has texts by Stephen Cleland and Creon Upton and comes in an edition of 300.

If you want to buy the printed catalogue, you can order it here on Public Delivery, it’s just €11.50 (~$15) including shipping worldwide.

Installation view

Installation view

That Discussion, 220x360cm, mixed media on canvas, board and dibond
(click above to enlarge)

Shape: Burn A/C, 180x240cm, mixed media on canvas
(click above to enlarge)

Twitter, 110x165cm, print on dibond

Line A/B, 40x60cm, print on Hahnemühle paper

Line A/H, 40x60cm, print on Hahnemühle paper

Installation view

Shape B/B, 2012

Shape A/N, 2012

After the video teaser and a preview here are some exclusive installation views of Filippo Minelli’s solo show in Germany, enjoy! The exhibition runs until January 20.

Yellow Tree by Yayoi Kusama (rendering)

Yellow Tree by Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama at Louis Vuitton (New York)

In celebration of Yayoi Kusama’s past retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art earlier this year, two off-site projects took place. In one of them Kusama’s rhythmic dotted “Yellow Tree motif transformed a construction site in the Meatpacking District in Manhattan into a giant canvas. A detail of the original painting Yellow Trees (1994) has been printed onto special mesh netting and wrapped around the building. The large-scale (150 feet wide by 120 feet high) reproduction applies patterns to the surface of the canvas, often using strong linear gestures to give a sense of space along with jarring visual contrast.

Yayoi Kusama was born in Matsumoto, Japan in 1929. She lives and works in Tokyo.

> more about the exhibition at Whitney

(Photos: Courtesy DDG Partners)