David Ellis with his sculpture

The latest David Ellis / Roberto Lange trash sculpture has been placed in Times Square (thanks to Anonymous Gallery and Times Square Arts), and will be there through March 8th. Here are a few photos. Videos should be coming soon. That’s when the sculpture will really make sense, since it’s actually a sort of robotic music machine disguised as a pile of rubbish.

The only downside to this piece is that it has to be surrounded by that fence and a sign that reminds people that they are looking at a piece of art. I wish there was some way they could just leave the piece unmarked and film people’s reactions. Then again, these piles of trash retail for up to $50,000 so that might not be the most financially sound idea…

This could be the best piece of street or public art ever to grace the streets of New York City. I guess we’ll see…

March 2-8 2010, during the Armory Arts Week and in addition to a booth at SCOPE Art Show, Anonymous Gallery collaborates with the Times Square Alliance to present a public installation from artists David Ellis and Roberto Lange. The kinetic sound sculpture, conceptualized by Ellis and composed by Lange, will be carefully positioned in the Duffy Square area of Times Square near 46th and Broadway.

The sculptures are made from scavenged refuse found on the street: buckets, bottles, trash cans, paper shreds, cardboard boxes that are syncopated using programming and player piano actuators to create percussive, rhythmic beats and tones. The installation, as only a collection of debris, plays on the public’s perception of trash. The placement, and more importantly the activation in the public arena, creates dialog with unassuming crowds that amass.

Although the public installation is meant for undiscerning spectators, similar works by David Ellis and Roberto Lange can be found in permanent collections including The Margulies Collection and most recently, through Anonymous Gallery, The Saatchi Collection.

If you’re not already familiar with Ellis and Lange’s trash sculptures, here are some videos of their work in Miami (the piece that Saatchi bought I believe).

According to The World’s Best Ever, The Barnstormers, David Ellis’ art collective, has a show at Joshua Liner opening March 18th. Should be really great.

Here are just some of the artists in the show:
Alex Lebedev, Alice Mazorra, Bluster One, Che Jen, Chris Mendoza, Chuck Webster, David Ellis, Dennis McNett, Doze Green, GION, Guillermo Carrion, James Lynch, Joey Garfield, Jose Parla, Kenji Hirata, Kiku Yamaguchi, KR, MADSAKI, Manny Pangilinan (WELLO), Martin Mazorra, Maya Hayuk, Mikal Hameed, Mike Houston, Mike Ming, Miyuki Pai Hirai, Naomi Kazama, Pema Brush, Romon Kimin Yang (Rostarr), Shie Moreno, Swoon, West One, Yuri Shimojo and more.

I’m not big on blogging about products here. Mostly because a lot of graffiti/street art related products are kind of silly (see: the graffiti mug). But Uncommon makes what seem like very cool cases for your iPhone. I’ve never seen one of these in person, but I might buy one. The artist line up is pretty solid.

Uncommon lets you design your own case using your own artwork or artwork from their catalog. The concept is interesting enough, and the lineup of artists is just perfect: Ron English, San, Mode2, David Ellis, Tinho, Anthony Lister, Herbert Baglione, Date Farmers, Usugrow, Dennis McNett and Monica Canilao just to name a few (and these are just the artists they are starting with, who knows how many more will be added in the future). One of the great things about these cases is that the artists haven’t contributed just one image each, some have contributed a dozen. And while those in a hurry can buy a “premade” case (like those pictured above), creative risk takers can customize their case by placing the graphic themselves: you can blow up the imagine so that the all you see is Ronald Mcdonald’s giant head painted by Ron English or shift the design so that a Date Farmers drawing appears at the top, center or bottom of the case.

Here are two cases I designed from the same image by David Ellis:

The cases aren’t cheap ($39.95), but that seems like a small price to pay when you spend hundreds of dollars on a phone and most other cases make it look so ugly.

Here are two more premade cases:

By Greg Gossel

Special edition for Juxtapoz

In short, these are pretty cool.

Buy them at getuncommon.com

Looks like I’m not the only one who liked the sound sculpture by David Ellis at Anonymous Gallery‘s SCOPE Miami booth. After collectors saw his piece at SCOPE (a video of which was previously posted on Vandalog), 3 sound sculptures were commissioned. And one of those pieces was commissioned by Charles Saatchi! Congrats to David for his success and to Mr. Saatchi on such a great purchase.

Here are some videos from my time in Miami. I’m just about to go to Basel (finally), but I thought I’d share some of what I’ve seen so far at The Anonymous Gallery‘s booth at SCOPE.

First, here is a tour of The Anonymous Gallery’s booth:

And here’s a bit more about that sound sculpture by David Ellis:

An overdue post. Fame Festival opened almost 2 weeks ago now and I haven’t properly covered it. There were a few of us who traveled to see the festival (some from as far away as LA), and if you couldn’t make it for the opening, I have to recommend it for a weekend getaway or something. Everybody had a great time. There was good food, good company and good art.

The gallery component of the festival was nice, but the highlight of Fame isn’t the temporary gallery exhibition but all of the street work. Artists have painted all over the small town of Grottaglie, Italy. Here are some of my pictures:

Blu

Dem

David Ellis

Vhils

While it is great to wander around the town and see so much street art almost wherever you look, the highlight of Fame Festival is the monastery. There is an abandoned monastery where I am told the local teenagers usually go to bunk off school, and it has been transformed by artwork. It also happens to be where the Blu/David Ellis film Combo was filmed.

To enter this monastery, you have to go down a road out of town, walk past what I think was a small vineyard, find the wall that surrounds the monastery and follow it until you see some red drips of paint. Then you climb over the wall by standing on a shaky pile of rocks. The other side of the wall looks like a park that has been left to grow for a few decades. There are a few paths where you can see that plenty of people have walked, and you have to find the correct one to follow. Eventually, you realize that you’re on the roof on the monastery and you have to find your way inside. Once you’re finally inside though, it is immediately worth the trouble of finding your way there. I spent maybe 1.5 hours there and still didn’t see all of the artwork. Here are a few of the pieces I did find though:

Conor Harrington

Sam3

Limow

The remains of Combo by David Ellis and Blu

Judith Supine

Word To Mother

More photos from Fame in my flickr set

This is sort of like Muto 2.0, but now David Ellis is involved as well. Watch and be amazed by Blu and Ellis’ artwork. It was made inside an abandoned monastery just outside of Grottaglie, Italy during preparations for FAME Festival.

COMBO a collaborative animation by Blu and David Ellis (2 times loop) from blu on Vimeo.