At age 19 Yves Klein stood in the backyard of his parents’ home in Nice and pointed a camera up at the open sky. This photograph of endless blue was his first monochrome work, setting the stage for hundreds more created during the artist’s short yet profound career. Quoting from the Walker Art Center biog he was “an innovator who embraced painting, sculpture, performance, photography, music, theater, film, architecture, and theoretical writing, Klein was a precursor of many movements of the postwar avant-garde, including minimal art, conceptual art, land art, and performance art.

He self-identified as “the painter of space,” seeking to achieve immaterial spirituality through pure color—primarily an ultramarine blue of his own invention, International Klein Blue. Through these and other experiments Klein aimed to reach “beyond the problematic in art” and rethink the world in spiritual and aesthetic terms, creating a pivotal transition between modern art’s concern with material objects and contemporary notions about the conceptual nature of art.” Blue we salute you.

“Into the Void, Full Powers” is co-organized by the Walker Art Center and the Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden , and is on view from 23 October 2010 to 13 February 2011.

Ben Wilson is a London-based artist who creates tiny works of art by painting onto chewing gum stuck to the pavement. These ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ mini canvases could go easily unnoticed, perhaps a comment about appreciating the little things. Sometimes we just need to take to the time to look. You can find a catalog of his works on this Flickr pool.

The Japanese Popstars Feat. Green Velvet – Let Go from David Wilson Creative on Vimeo.

David Wilson is a director and animator based in London, UK Wanderlust have featured before. This animated video for The Japanese Popstars took just 20 days to create.

To accomplish such a feat in such a short time scale David set himself the task of completing his story board in 3 day working to produce a rough sketch every 30 seconds until he had the bare bones in a kind of fluid stream of consciousness. He then employed the skills of legendary animator Malcolm Draper (Pink Floyd’s The Wall) and Keaton Henson to interpret the finished piece. He has posted a ‘making of’ on his website which you can see here. Loving his work.

Troy Dugas painstakingly layers and transforms product labels into colourful paper tapestries. From his website “My work is made from product labels I purchase in unused bundles. I cut and arrange this material onto flat surfaces (paper, canvas, or wood) to produce artworks that appear woven. I use repetition and pattern to distract from the original purpose of the label to sell a product. The artwork itself is the only product left to sell.”

Via Illusion 360

Time to catch up on some recent twitter posts. Artist Gabriel Dawe creates these mesmerizing 3d installations using coloured Gutermann thread. They seem to resonate and hover in space.

From his biography “Gabriel Dawe was born in Mexico City where he grew up surrounded by the intensity and color of Mexican culture. After working as a graphic designer, he moved to Montreal, Canada in 2000 following a desire to explore foreign land. In search for creative freedom he started experimenting and creating artwork, which eventually led him to explore textiles and embroidery—activities traditionally associated with women and which were forbidden for a boy growing up in Mexico. Because of this, his work is subversive of notions of masculinity and machismo that are so ingrained in his culture.” See more images here.

Creative Boom is an online magazine and network community that aims to celebrate, inspire and support the creative industries throughout the UK and the rest of the world. Its a fantastic resource for independents, freelancers and small businesses alike. They have just launched there creative directory full of inspiring links to UK based agencies, hubs and collectives and we are in it! Take a look here.

TELEPHONEME | MK12 from MK12 on Vimeo.

Kansas City-based studio MK12 have release a new in-house project, the film short TELEPHONEME.

“TELEPHONEME came about after we’d begun writing a short about how the alphabet was actually a “trojan horse” with coded messages and symbols, designed by a shadow group intent on keeping the rest of us down. While writing the piece we came across a Bell Labs-funded educational film called “The Alphabet Conspiracy,” which had pretty much the same content we were writing into our version. So we instead appropriated the voiceover and re-mixed it into a slightly darker version of itself. The voice is that of Frank Baxter, aka Dr. Research, a well-known figure in the educational film world. And, he tweets! We developed a typeface called “Chadwick” which we envisioned as a “root font” of sorts – a theoretically perfect and balanced font that concerned itself more with technical execution than visual aesthetics. This was the font that we used throughout the piece, and we set up a pretty rigid set of guidelines for it’s use. It’s not something that’s likely to be picked up on, but it made a good foundation for the rest of the piece. While voiceover is borrowed from the original film, the sound design was done in-house, borrowing from analog sources and mixing them into a very sight-for-see composition.”

This studio has a long reputation for creating well executed motion work and they continue to inspire with this latest offering.

via Bridging the Gap

Multi Touch Light Table: GERGWERK from GERG WERK on Vimeo.

This is an impressive piece of interactive design work from Gerg Werk. Sure ipad enthusiast will be waiting for a pocket party edition. Get more info and design stills here.

via City Clouds

Little Big Berlin from pilpop on Vimeo.

Beautiful film from pilpop made using the tilt shift camera technique which creates a kind of miniature perspective to the images. This is a unique way to experience the striking architecture of this inspiring city.

Taking flat pack to a whole new level Harry Thaler produced for his Royal Collage of Art final show the “Pressed chair is a light, stackable metal chair stamped out of a 2.5 mm aluminium sheet. The value of the design excels in the intent of creating a piece out of one single material without any joints or connectors.” Furthermore the manufacturing produces no waste material and is 100% recyclable. For more check out Harry Thaler online.