One day in the surf board development office

Director 1: Have you noticed how many board riders are fascinated by medieval art?

Director 2: I have, it’s a global phenomenon.

D 1: And Bruegel, what’s it about Bruegel that so particularly interests the surfing set?

D2: I suspect it’s the way that he set out to create a kaleidoscope of genres so focused on communicating his intentions to his implied viewers.

D1: Could be, could be.

D2: Why do you ask?

D1: I thought we could do a Bruegel Board

And they did. (It was Hieronymus Bosch, but what the hell did they know?)

Four art memes...

...to kickstart Saturday (click image to meme on in closer)

Big

Staying with our friend theatre designer John Parker we came across a file box full of tiny furniture. Dozens of small chairs, tables, lamps, beds, benches and couches all made to inhabit the set models John designs. In the spirit of art-is-where-you-find-it we've put a selection of the best (ok, cutest) ones up here on their own tinyfurniture Weebly website. And because we stole the title from Lena Dunham's movie, here's a link to that too, well the trailer anyway.

Art on the hustings

Art is where you find it and we found it just South of Himatangi

What art has in store

A long time ago now we noted a very droll site (you can still find it here) that asked you to try and tell the difference between furniture created by the minimalist American artist Donald Judd and the sort of stuff you can buy in mega box-stores like Ikea . Seven years on, let us point you (thanks blouinartinfo) to a Tumblr that sources items in pre-sixteenth century paintings from IKEA. So, if you want that nifty red throw pillow you saw in Hans Memling’s painting of The Annunciation, go here. And boom here’s the GURLI Cushion cover for only $48 ready to fill and plump up on your window seat. Or if you are in a more reflective mode how about this framed mirror straight from Christ blessing, surrounded by a donor family by a German painter in the late 1500s.

All this decorating pleasure comes via Cecilia Azcarate whose Tumblr will bring your everyday tastes up to the late sixteenth century.  Azcarate is a killer when it comes to art spotting on the internet so you might also like to chase up her very funny (but definitely not safe for work) collection that features art from the background of sex tapes. That more specialist journey you can begin by going here.

Art is where you find it

Blacked out advert sign, Brooklyn

Art is where you find it

Painted barn, outside Dinosaur, Colorado

Art is where you find it

Stepping out of Hopkinson Mossman and looking across the road it sure as hell looked like art. And it was. Commercial art.

Art is where we found it

If you believe in the OTN rubric Art is where you find it, you can definitely find it at the Ruapeka Marae half-a-dozen kilometres or so out of Rotorua on the road to Matamata. It was certainly enough to stop us as we drove past. Stretched along the length of the marae grounds are 12 stunning carved and painted figures. One of them looks like a startling mash-up of the Hulk and Spiderman but there is also a touching painted carving commemorating the sacrifice made (we assume by people from the marae) in the armed services. You can see a photograph of that figure here.

Art is where you find it

Philadelphian  edition

Art is where you find it

In another life we have been taking a set of photographs we have called Once were petrol stations. This is to explain why we have been showing an interest in a new petrol station that is being build just round the corner. So we were there yesterday when, as you do with your modern petrol station, they brought in the sculpture to install.

Underground art

The last place you'd expect an arresting art experience would have to be a disused Air Force ammunition bunker. And the name of the place - Bomb Point - would have to be another clue against it. But there in a small buried chamber beneath a dispersal field, we came under this steady gaze. In an era of exhibition spectacle and career competition it was nice to stumble across something done just for the pleasure of it and for those few who might find it.

Simply Simon

Let’s put two and two together here. Last year Simon Denny was nominated for the prestigeous Preis der Nationalgalerie für Junge Kunst (National Gallery Young Art Prize) the judges included ex Artspace direrctor Tobias Berger and Massimiliano Gioni. Last week on Radio New Zealand Venice Commissioner Jenny Harper mentioned she'd heard that the first New Zealand artist had been selected for the important Arsenale exhibition that accompanies the Biennale. That exhibition will be selected and curated by Venice Biennale’s artistic director who is also Massimiliano Gioni.

Copy Cassie

The trouble with artists mixing it with design and fashion is that it gives your signature style an incentive to sneak off and slum it down in the commodity markets. One day you’re pimping Louis Vuitton, the next you’re background fodder for a trashy video clip. If you’re up for it here’s a music video by Nicki Minaj & Cassie performing The Boys. Apart from the Kusama blitz there are other art references to be spotted – at least a nod to Warhol and that sure looks like a Turrell roof piece, then there’s the Dali chair and (if one pink balloon is enough) the start of Creed’s Work Number 329 Pink balloons, a room with balloons talking up half its volumetric space.

Images: Lookalikes from top to bottom left to right, Yayoi Kusama, Andy Warhol, James Turrell, Salvador Dali and (at a pinch) Martin Creed

Art is where you find it

The art. Where we found it.

Art is where you find it

A spectacular sooty drawing of chimney tracks revealed when an old Paris apartment block in the 20th was demolished.

Art is where you find it

Someone making an art like product round the back of the old Michael Lett Gallery

Art is where you find it

In an apartment block seen through the window of the MMK gallery in Frankfurt a neighbour shows their own art.
Image: Top the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt with a work by Martin Honert

Art is where you find it

Some folk in Ngaruawahia channel Colin McCahon

Art is where you find it

Now that everyone works on screens and they don’t do drawing at art school any more, what happened to all the pencils? Looks like some of them ended up as sculpture rats in the studio of Brazilian born, Connecticut based, Dalton Ghetti. More here on Kidrobot.