Perfect for Valentine's Day!

BUY Of The Heart by Voodo Fe HERE

[via Voodo Fe]

New condo developments in Toronto are a (lot of) dimes-a-dozen, believe me, but I had to acknowledge this one in particular. First, for the stylish print ads and website that do an homage to The Beatles' iconic Abbey Road album cover and second, for the riff on Marvin Gaye's classic and prescient pro-environmental soul anthem, "Mercy Mercy Me  (The Ecology)" remade and renamed "Mercer Mercer Me" in tribute to the property they're shilling. I'm just not sure if I'm impressed by their impeccable good taste or embarrassed by the sheer chutzpah, gimmickry and cheesiness of it though? Check it out on the official Mercer Condo website and tell me what you think though.

Officially known as the The Absolute World Condominiums, developers Fernbrook would probably be better off just going with the 'Marilyn Monroe Building' nickname they were given by a local Toronto journalist during the design contest where they were first revealed.

Check out an interview with Ma Yansong (马岩松), the Chinese architect who designed this building:  

CLICK HERE for more info.

This apartment building located on Queen Street West in downtown Toronto is some really fly sh-t. Watch the video below for the inspiration behind its super-cool design which was done by architects, Tarek Sobhi and Tyler Hershberg of BSÄR Group/Prince Bay:

CLICK HERE for the official building website.

Not knowing what Nuit Blanche is? Click HERE for details.

[via 1LoveT.O.]

Osman is a good friend of mine and I am really happy that this project, a sculpture entitled Albedo has finally seen the light of day and the world at large is about to realize how great an artist he really is. Super-proud of you, Os - this is just the beginning! Click HERE for more details on Albedo.

Osman Akan previously on The In Crowd: Osman Akan's “The Third Bridge”

Osman Akan online - website |  twitter

"ROJO® is an open independent creative consortium founded in 2001, dedicated to the promotion and support of the contemporary arts. ROJO® (with creative headquarters in Barcelona, São Paulo, and MIlan) travels to Los Angeles to generate a creative event and art exhibition featuring exclusive collaborated art installations and original artwork by 8 international artists.

NOVA Artscapes is curated by David Quiles Guillo and features an international array of talent including Gustavo Gagliardo aka DEFI, Koen Delaere, MOMO, Anna Taratiel aka OVNI, Rebecca Ward, Sosaku Miyazaki, Tofer Chin, and Yago Hortal and will run from September 18 - October 9, 2010"

Scion - Space |  Av

Interesting read. Check it out HERE: Part 1 |  Part 2

Corporate bête noir BP gets pwnd by the 'Art terrorist'!

[via Brandchannel.com]

Very cool!

[Sedgwick & Cedar via Grandgood]

Special skateboard to commemorate the Warhol exhibit at Brooklyn Museuem that's about to wrap up (which means, GO CEHCK IT OUT NOW!!!):

"Andy Warhol: The Last Decade is the first U.S. museum survey to examine the late work of American artist Andy Warhol (1928–1987). Encompassing nearly fifty works, the exhibition reveals the artist’s vitality, energy, and renewed spirit of experimentation. During this time Warhol produced more works, in a considerable number of series and on a vastly larger scale, than at any other point in his forty-year career. It was a decade of great artistic development for him, during which a dramatic transformation of his style took place alongside the introduction of new techniques."

Click HERE to read more about the exhibit.

BUY the Andy Warhol x Dill x Brooklyn Museum Special Limited Edition Skateboard here:  Brooklyn Museum |  Allike

[via Allike]

The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University presents a groundbreaking exhibition that explores the culture of vinyl records through 50 years of contemporary art.

The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl features work by 41 artists from around the world, from the 1960s to the present, who use vinyl records as subject or medium. The exhibition includes sound work, sculpture, installation, drawing, painting, photography, video and performance.

The Record includes rising stars in the contemporary art world (William Cordova, Robin Rhode, Dario Robleto), outsider artists (Mingering Mike), well-established artists (Jasper Johns, Ed Ruscha, Carrie Mae Weems) and artists whose work will be shown in a U.S. museum for the first time (Kevin Ei-ichi deForest, Jeroen Diepenmaat, Taiyo Kimura, Lyota Yagi).

"Since the heyday of vinyl, and through its decline and recent resurgence, a surprising number of artists have worked with vinyl records. The Record presents some of the best, rarest and most unexpected examples. The artists in the exhibition use the vinyl record as metaphor, archive, artifact, icon, portrait, or transcendent medium." -- Trevor Schoonmaker, curator of contemporary art at the Nasher Museum

The exhibition includes a broad range of works, such as a hybrid violin and record player, Viophonograph, a seminal work by Laurie Anderson; David Byrne's original life-sized Polaroid photomontage used for the cover of the 1978 Talking Heads album More Songs About Buildings and Food; a monumental column of vinyl records by Cordova; and an important early work by Robleto, who transformed Billie Holiday records in an alchemic process to create hand-painted buttons. Works by Christian Marclay, who has made art with records for 30 years, include his early and rarely seen Recycled Records as well as his most recent record video, Looking for Love.

The Nasher Museum commissioned two works for The Record. Berlin-based artist Satch Hoyt created a 16-foot canoe made of red 45-rpm records with an original soundscape during a 2009 artist residency at Duke. New York artist Xaviera Simmons created photographs of the North Carolina landscape and solicited musical responses from musicians such as Mac McCaughan of Superchunk, Tunde Adebimpe of TV on the Radio and Jim James of My Morning Jacket. The original songs will be pressed onto a 12-inch record and played with her installation.

Artists

Artists in the exhibition include Laurie Anderson (1947 USA), Felipe Barbosa (1978 Brazil), David Byrne (1952 Scotland), Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller (1957 & 1960 Canada)*, William Cordova (1971 Peru), Moyra Davey (1958 Canada), Kevin Ei-ichi deForest (1962 Canada), Jeroen Diepenmaat (1978 Netherlands), Sean Duffy (1966 USA), Yukio Fujimoto (1950 Japan), Jack Goldstein (1945 Canada), Rodney Graham (1949 Canada)*, Harrison Haynes (1973 USA)*, Gregor Hildebrandt (1974 Germany), Satch Hoyt (1957 UK), Jasper Johns (1930 USA), Taiyo Kimura (1970 Japan), Tim Lee (1975 Korea), Ralph Lemon (1952 USA), Christian Marclay (1955 USA), David McConnell (1975 USA), Mingering Mike (1950 USA), Dave Muller (1964 USA), Ujino Muneteru (1964 Japan), Vik Muniz and Carlos da Silva Assunção Filho aka Cafi (1961 & 1950 Brazil)*, Patrick Douthit aka 9th Wonder (1975 USA)*, DJ Rekha (1971 UK)*, Robin Rhode (1976 South Africa), Dario Robleto (1972 USA), Ed Ruscha (1937 USA), Malick Sidibé (1935 Mali), Xaviera Simmons (1974 USA), Mark Soo (1977 Singapore), Meredyth Sparks (1972 USA), Su-Mei Tse (1973 Luxembourg), Fatimah Tuggar (1967 Nigeria), Alice Wagner (1974 Peru), Carrie Mae Weems (1953 USA), and Lyota Yagi (1980 Japan).

The exhibit opened officially last week and runs through February 6. Click HERE for more details.

"This is a video showing the build of the Welikesmall iPod wall. It was made from 20 iPods over the course of about three weeks in our spare time. Tasks included building and designing the wooden box, programming an iPhone application that runs off the Game Kit framework, hacking a USB hardware fan together, developing a Python / Django web server application, and designing a quick UI. To keep the wall constantly powered we used a Cambrionix B2 USB powered hub.

Our current iPhone Application allows for 4 different modes, a screen saver mode, a full image split mode (the controlling iPod looks for an image and then the server executes a script to split that image among all 20 iPods), a single image grid mode (the controlling iPod tells the server to give a random image to each iPhone), and a hybrid mode which displays all three. In addition, the server is always checking to ensure that each iPod is synched.

Future releases will allow all sorts of external user interaction. Stay tuned."

[via Semtex]

Spotted this one via a Facebook ad of all places (although this is actually not the first time I've done that)!

"An exceptional modern residence, newly-completed in East York, designed by Atelier Rzlbd and Urbanline. This brand-new home provides a rare opportunity to live in a unique property with exceptional modern lines and a flexible, fluid floorplan. Shaft House is designed around a central light well, with living and sleeping areas designed around it. This way, the home maximizes natural light, while democratically dividing the public realm from the private. Easily configured as a 2 or 3 bedroom, with the added benefit of a large rear yard and superb rooftop terrace."

Yours for only $699,000 (Cdn.)! Click HERE for more details.

[Photographs courtesy of Tom Arban]

Canadian Pop artist Charles Pachter, made famous by his imagery of Canadian moose, decided to live, work, and sell his art in one location, on the site of his Toronto studio, a narrow 6 x 30 metre infill, in a Victorian residential neighbourhood, of Toronto’s Chinatown.

Moose Factory, the original studio, a lane shed at the rear of the site, was left in tact. For Pachter Hall, the contemporary addition, Teeple Architects designed a set of three transparent, horizontal, stacked and stepped extruded tubes, shifted for maximum light penetration; programmed as the ground floor studio, second storey gallery and Pachter’s loft, on top.

[Torontoist via ai arch innovations]