A haiku from the article: Sunday Dialogue: What Is That Art Worth?
![In landmark art preservation news:
It’s hard to miss the 70-foot-tall blue saxophone as you drive down Richmond Avenue [in Houston].
Its name is Smokesax, and it has been at that location on 6025 Richmond for the past 20 years. But Wednesday, the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art, a local folk art organization [mentioned previously here], announced it is going to acquire the oversize horn, which is made out of car parts, oil field pipes and a surfboard, as well as an entire Volkswagen Beetle that forms the U-joint at its base.
The big brass was built by legendary Texas artist Bob Wade as a special installation for Billy Blues Bar & Grill. It was fully restored three years ago, and the current property owners, Kensinger Properties Ltd., said they wanted the Orange Show to ensure the piece would be preserved for future generations.
The saxophone will be removed from its current location at 10 a.m. on Feb. 28. The process to remove the massive piece will take a full day. Then, Smokesax will begin its 13-mile journey from Richmond Avenue to Munger Street. Artist Bob Wade will be overseeing the entire removal and transportation. Once at the Orange Show, it will be housed in the organization’s warehouse until an exact location has been chosen for permanent display.
(via Orange Show Center for Visionary Art to acquire Smokesax - Houston Business Journal)](http://25.media.tumblr.com/3bfe3dcdd0336dcd1f29c92df2e33740/tumblr_mixsfrQt9I1qzgg3to1_500.jpg)
In landmark art preservation news:
It’s hard to miss the 70-foot-tall blue saxophone as you drive down Richmond Avenue [in Houston].
Its name is Smokesax, and it has been at that location on 6025 Richmond for the past 20 years. But Wednesday, the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art, a local folk art organization [mentioned previously here], announced it is going to acquire the oversize horn, which is made out of car parts, oil field pipes and a surfboard, as well as an entire Volkswagen Beetle that forms the U-joint at its base.
The big brass was built by legendary Texas artist Bob Wade as a special installation for Billy Blues Bar & Grill. It was fully restored three years ago, and the current property owners, Kensinger Properties Ltd., said they wanted the Orange Show to ensure the piece would be preserved for future generations.
The saxophone will be removed from its current location at 10 a.m. on Feb. 28. The process to remove the massive piece will take a full day. Then, Smokesax will begin its 13-mile journey from Richmond Avenue to Munger Street. Artist Bob Wade will be overseeing the entire removal and transportation. Once at the Orange Show, it will be housed in the organization’s warehouse until an exact location has been chosen for permanent display.
(via Orange Show Center for Visionary Art to acquire Smokesax - Houston Business Journal)
Happy Halloween and Day of the Dead!
Pictured: “Dead Media,” an installation that repurposes 497 VHS tapes. Created by friend of Unconsumption Noah Scalin (mentioned previously several times here), of the Skull-A-Day project. (photo via SkullADay here)
See also: Other videotape-related repurposing examples in earlier posts here.
A good use for empty wine bottles. (Taken with Instagram at HCAF Point Theater)
Levitating installation by Cornelia Konrads
Dave Bowman, of Dearborn, Michigan-based Design Turnpike, turns vintage license plates into beautifully crafted pieces of art.
For a project like this 60” x 40” American flag, it can easily take Dave 40+ hours to find, prepare, and assemble the 40-50 steel license plates, which get cut and mounted onto a distressed wood base.
Check out photos of some of Dave’s other work on Design Turnpike’s site here, Facebook page here, and Etsy shop here.
Happy Fourth of July!
Beautiful/unsettling.
What’s the Difference Between a Parking Lot and a Playground?
‘Urban hactivist’ Florian Rivière and his DIY guerrilla tactics have transformed even the most ponderous of urban spaces and artifacts into gags, visual puns, and humorous critique. Rivière’s latest project “Don’t Pay, Play” divines sports complexes out of the checkered parking spaces of car parks, rendering what is generally perceived as one of the city’s greatest, yet unavoidable ills into potential public spaces.
See more at The Atlantic Cities. [Images: Julie Roth]
Cadillac Ranch, Texas (via Google Lat Long: Imagery Update: Week of May 14th)
Liliana Porter “man with axe”
sculptural installation called “man with an axe” in which a man in a suit and hat smashes up what appears to be the wreckage of the past, chopping it into bits…
I’ve long been a fan of artist Jean Shin; she’s turned discarded objects into really cool artwork. (We’ve featured some of her work on the Unconsumption Tumblr.) Here, I’m standing in front of one of her broken umbrella sculptures, in a private collection in Houston. (Taken with Instagram at Houston, Texas)
Andy Warhol, Yellow Brillo Box, 1964; White Brillo Box, 1964; Mott’s Apple Juice Box, 1964; Heinz Tomato Ketchup Box, 1964; Del Monte Peach Halves Box, 1964; Campbell’s Tomato Juice Box, 1964; Kellogg’s Corn Flakes Box, 1964.
Plywood boxes, painted and silk-screened with consumer product logos.
(via Walker Art Center)
An Aerial Video of Amazing ‘Snow Circles’ Art Traced in Fresh Powder
Artist Sonja Hinrichsen enlisted five volunteers create beautiful geometric forms in the snow with their footprints. Cedar Beauregard, a cinematographer specializing in aerial photography, captured this footage of the piece with a remote-control helicopter, as well as these still images on Flickr.
Really beautiful landscape-manipulation work. Reminds me of Jim Denevan’s work in sand (mentioned previously here).
Bird’s eye view photographs of traffic cones by Peter Emerick…more
