Claustral - Morris Louis (1961) 

Some of the exploration of line that is visible in art from the 60s is really interesting.  This beautiful, richly coloured cupcake for the retinas brings to mind a melted-crayon version of Max Ernst's surrealist piece from the 1920s.

Forest - Max Ernst (1928)

Javanese Shadow Puppet

Wayang Kulit, or Javanese shadow puppetry, probably originated sometime in the first century CE.  Puppets like the one above are brought out by professional storytellers on special occasions to give entertaining or didactic performances (or both).  Often, scenes from the Indian epics The Mahabharata or The Ramayana are depicted.

Each puppet is hand carved from buffalo hide, with details like hair and build indicating class standing.  The intricate carving is picked out in sharp relief when the puppet is backlit against a screen.  The delicate features are as complex and intricate as the stories the puppets tell, blurring the boundaries between sculpture and performance art.

It kind of reminds me of the scene from the latest Harry Potter movie with the Tale of Three Brothers:

So fantastic.  Harry Potter the movie finally manages to deliver in style.

I love the design of these stamps, which depict Bauhaus (bow hows) art and the Bauhaus design school.  The Bauhaus movement, which started in post WWI Germany, strove for order in a society recovering from chaos.  Their architectural model, based on function and efficiency, is the reason why skyscrapers have the geometry that we see today.

A boa constrictor swallowing a wild beast - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

At first glance this drawing from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Le Petit Prince seems quick and child-like.  And it's cute, for sure, but a second look reveals that this artist wasn't breaking in his first box of crayons.  Check out the balance in the snake's body, the wild-eyed panic in the eyes of the fuzzy purple thing, and the way that the negative space in the snake's mouth reflects the composition as a whole.  One thing's for sure; my 12-year-old cousin's never churned out anything like this.

When Life Shuts a Door...

Theo van Doesburg. Stained-Glass Composition: Female Head, 1917

Rose Window, Santa Maria del Pi, Barcelona

Check out the rich colour in van Doesburg's stained glass window.  Bet you didn't know it was a portrait of a woman until you read the title - I for sure didn't, anyway.  Compare to the fantastic rose window from the Barcelona cathedral Santa Maria del Pi.  They are both so beautiful, with such fantastic colours and great geometry, yet so different.  Van Doesburg is considered one of the founder of De Stijl, a style that valued harmony and order, and featured hyper simplified compositions.

Bianca Chang- Recent Works

Using hundreds of pieces of paper, Chang creates intricate sculptures, the tedium of which is awe-inspiring.  The pure aesthetic of the finished product stands alone, but in order to appreciate the full value of the work, one must watch the stop motion of its production.  In the video, the process becomes a performance, giving scope to the creation of each piece.  If only my Art History prof would accept a ten page paper cutout in place of a ten page essay.  If it displayed even a modicum of the exactitude and consideration of Chang's art, it would be much more enjoyable for everyone involved, and have a lot more staying power.  

To any environmentalists out there: Get pumped.  Chang just saved hundreds of sheets of paper from padding the recycling bin.

glɪtʃ- The Art of the Accident

breaking bad[ly] glitch art series- Nina Wenhart

JPEG Glitch inspired painting - Andy Deckler

Since Aphex Twin inundated the 90's with their creepy synthetic strains, the internet era has revolutionized the art world.  The digitization of communication media has had a profound effect on visual language, which has been forced to evolve along with the ideas it represents.

An interesting side effect of this change is the creation of glitch art.  According to Wikipedia, the term glitch comes from the German word glitschig, which means "slippery", and refers to "the unexpected result of a malfunction".  This anomaly has risen from the propensity of technology to screw up.  We've all experienced that teeth grinding hair pulling sensation when several hours of fruitless button pushing fail to rectify a skipping disk or a flawed program.  Fortunately, human creativity can triumph over the machine by turning the frustration of the cracked image into art.

As proven by the above images, the "unexpected" can be beautiful.  The two artists whose work is pictured have aestheticized flawed, pixelated images to turn a TV clip or a broken image into a compelling stand alone work.

As with all art, or all human output, for that matter, you have to sift through a lot of crap to get to the good stuff.  Upon searching 'glitch art' in Google, I immediately decided that I hated it.  Images in garish colours with jarring or poorly thought out composition bombarded my retinas.  However, further inspection modified my opinion as I discovered that not ALL of the art displayed sub par visuals or lack of consideration - just most. 

One possible reason why glitch art seems so hit or miss is its accessibility.  Anyone with a computer and an imagination can crack an image.  YouTube tutorials or Yahoo! Answers will walk you through the logistics, or you can simply download a program to corrupt your image for you.  It is obscenely easy to make a piece and upload it.

Although this makes for of a lot of ugly art, the freedom of it and the proliferation of creation it allows is delicious.  The internet has made possible an unprecedented amount of information sharing and communication, be it visual or textual.  If that freedom is used to create, I'll take it.