Artworks & exhibitions created in 2009

Sebastião Salgado’s Salt of the Earth – Why you should watch it

Sebastião Salgado is a Brazilian born documentary photographer. He is also a photojournalist who has traveled to about 120 countries to pursue his passion: photography. Salgado was raised in Brazil by middle-class parents and later studied economics. He was then involved in student protests against the military dictatorship, so he had to flee his homeland. [...]

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This was Cai Guo-Qiang’s explosion project Fallen Blossoms

Performances 3 min read

Cai Guo-Qiang is certainly one of the most prolific artists of his generation. Throughout his career, Cai has made a name for himself as the artist that uses gunpowder and explosives in his works. His exhibitions, which tend to consist of two parts, attract visitors from all over the world. The first part typically involves [...]

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Why did the Danish artists Superflex flood McDonald’s?

Performances 2 min read

In this short film, a life-size replica of a McDonald’s burger bar gets flooded with water gradually. There are images of furniture being washed away in the water, food floating around the room, and electric appliances short-circuit to a halt before space can no longer be seen below the water. While the production lacks the [...]

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Kacey Wong’s Paddling Home – A tiny house in Hong Kong

Architecture, Installations, Performances 3 min read

Kacey Wong has a knack for creating art that investigates the space between people and their surrounding environment. Paddling Home, which was performed on the Hong Kong Victoria Harbor, was a star feature in the Hong Kong contemporary art scene. The project features deep architectural elements, which clearly appear in the design. The project also [...]

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Brad Downey – I’m Lovin It, 2009, Leuphana University, Lüneburg, Germany

McDonald’s didn’t pay for Brad Downey’s mural

Murals, Paintings, Street Art 2 min read

Brad Downey has consolidated a reputation for himself in the street art community as an artist who has a flair for navigating gray areas in society. His work in public is an expert combination of culture and sensationalism, which are both presented and partnered with media-friendly and pop culture acceptable imagery. I’m Lovin It mural [...]

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Mark Bradford’s giant sculpture Mithra resembles Noah’s ark

Sculptures 2 min read

Asked to describe himself, Mark Bradford uses the words demolisher and builder in the same breadth and it is easy to see why. Using posters created for promoting merchant goods and services, flyers and general advertising materials, he takes pride in transforming anything he can lay his hands on into large-scale art pieces. His specialty [...]

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Gimhongsok’s Canine Construction – Mocking Jeff Koons’ balloon dogs

Sculptures 3 min read

This Canine Construction by South Korean artist Gimhongsok is one that anyone would fall in love with, coupled with the enigmatic quality it has. This work is the sculpture of a dog and remains one of the artist’s most well-known works in recent times. The creation involved using garbage bags, balloons, and cardboard boxes, all [...]

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Yue Minjun’s sculptures & The infectious power of laughter

Sculptures 3 min read

Yue Minjun was born in Daqing in Heilongjiang, China in 1962. Yue moved from place to place for most of his life because his family had to move from oilfield to oilfield to find work. Before working as an electrician, he graduated from Hebei Normal University in 1989, where he studied oil painting. What inspired [...]

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Why did Jeremy Deller bring an Iraqi suicide car bomb into museums?

Sculptures 2 min read

In the Imperial War Museum in London, surrounded by some of the most powerful military hardware of the last 100 years rests a rusting, crumpled car. This is a clear example of what war does. The car is a piece by Jeremy Deller and was a car that was contorted in a street bombing that [...]

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Ai-Weiwei-Han-Dynasty-Vases-in-Auto-Paint-2014-Photo-Sothebys-feat

Why did Ai Weiwei dip 2,000 year old Chinese vases in paint?

Performances, Sculptures 2 min read

The Han Dynasty Vases with Auto-Paint is a work shown as part of Ai Weiwei’s solo exhibition “Evidence”. It is a series of neolithic vases, painted smooth and shining with brightly colored automotive paint. The aged vessels are given a new context, evoking the mass marketing and luxurious consumerist appeal of the goods typically adorned [...]

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Beni Bischof’s cars – A vision for driving in the future?

Photography 3 min read

Beni Bischof has created a series of art that he calls ‘Handicapped Cars’. Through these series, he has developed an uncanny ability to manipulate cool autos digitally. He’s proven quite adept at this sort of work. Consequently, he has earned rave reviews from all over the world. Through this series and others of a similar [...]

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Kaarina Kaikkonen – These are some of her best installations

Environmental art, Installations 3 min read

Kaarina Kaikkonen is one of Finland’s most important artists. She is best known for her inventive use of second-hand clothing pieces (mostly jackets & shirts) and molded craft paper to transform public places like churches, streets and plazas into memorable jacket installations. The environment is incorporated into these installations in some way, resulting in a [...]

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Wang Yuping – The best of his dark comic style paintings

Paintings 1 min read

Wang Yuping (b.1962, Beijing) is known for his gritty, comic book style portraits of urban life in China. His paintings are playful, feature rough, tough or absurd Beijing characters and seem to spy on life in the inner city as a kind of Wang Shuo of the art’s world. By placing us in intimate spaces [...]

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Ai Weiwei: The Sichuan earthquake & 9000 children’s backpacks

Installations 12 min read

Ai Weiwei is unmistakably one of the most influential and equally controversial Chinese artists in recent history. He became famous worldwide in 2009 thanks to his highly celebrated art project, Remembering, an art piece he created to honor over 80,000 Chinese, most of whom were school children who perished in the May 2008 Sichuan earthquake. [...]

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Alec Soth’s Broken Manual – Somewhere to Disappear

Photography 5 min read

Broken Manual by photographer Alec Soth is a compelling series that was created over a four-year period, from 2006-2010. They reflect Soth’s increasing interest in the mounting anger and frustration that some—specifically male—Americans feel with societal constraints and their subsequent desire to remove themselves from civilization. The resulting work is a group of portraits of [...]

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Yayoi Kusama – Dots for Love and Peace, 2009, City Gallery Wellington, New Zealand feat

Yayoi Kusama covers the City Gallery Wellington with her dots

Installations 2 min read

Dots for Love and Peace (2009) was one of only three temporary public art projects worldwide designed by iconic Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. It was installed on the exterior architecture of the City Gallery Wellington, New Zealand. Dots for Love and Peace is an intense and unexpected public artwork and reflects Kusama’s obsessive interest in [...]

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Karl Haendel – Scribble, 2009, paint on brick, 441 Broadway, New York feat

Karl Haendel’s large murals don’t make any sense

Murals, Paintings, Street Art 2 min read

In 2009, Los Angeles-based artist Karl Haendel made two large scribble murals. One was his first public installation in New York. The other, a similar painting, was executed in Los Angeles. His gigantic scribbles are an anti-heroic gesture with roots in street art, public mark-making and a universal means of communication. Karl Haendel about his [...]

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Who is Katharina Grosse & Why does she matter?

Paintings 15 min read

Born on October 2, 1961, in Freiburg im Breisgau, Katharina Grosse is a German artist. She uses architecture, painting, and sculpture in her artworks, which tend to be large-scale, site-related installations. Grosse attended art academies in Düsseldorf and Münster. After her education, she taught at the Art Academy Berlin-Weissensee for more than a decade between [...]

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