Artist of the day: July 2017

Sunday, July 30, 2017

Artist of the day, August 2: Kyle Fokken, American sculptor (Minneapolis)

Kyle Fokken (Minneapolis, MN) is a mixed media sculptor who combines juxtaposed imagery into new hybrid sculptures to surreally explore cultural contexts between generations of people. He use vintage toy and ‘folk art’ aesthetics combined with rough construction as a way to talk about the passing down of cultural values from one generation to the next. At first, his sculpture may look foreign and strange but his craftsmanship and attention to detail capture and hold the interest of the viewer. He use this technique to entice the viewer to look deeper at the work allowing for reflection on greater issues in our society and question what we believe about ourselves.

Fokken gravitated towards using found objects at an early age out of necessity. As a fairly poor kid he would rescue other kids’ discarded plastic model airplanes, cars and ships from the trash to rework them. This realizing of the potential of a found object separate from its original has naturally led him to creating sculptures with what he calls my make do aesthetic. “Making do” is something people all over the world employ using what they have and re-purposing material to fit their needs.

Kyle Fokken has exhibited widely with public sculptures located around the United States including three public art pieces in the St. Paul Union Depot and working on a "gateway" sculpture and bench for 29th Street in South Minneapolis!

Mr Kyle Fokken

Blue and Yellow Triplane
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Junk (Ship Series)
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Tjabbend
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

"Fletje" (Flying Dog Series)
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Geerd
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Tjade
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Steintje (with trellis)
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Brittania
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Sky-Wrighting
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

High and Dry
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Construction High and Dry

All in the Same Boat
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Black Launcher
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

American Tourister
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Cultivator
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Airway to Heaven
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Coffee Tin Battleship
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Fantasy Train
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Fantasy Train III
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Song of the Flying Dutchman
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Stubby Tug
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

The East Friesian Flyer
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Sikke
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Li'l Fokken Tank
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

The Island of the Day Before
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

The Rising Tide
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

The Sweet Hereafter
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Jack in the basket 2
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Pawns
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Song of the Flying Dutchman - Over the Moon
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Song of the Flying Dutchman - Over the Moon2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

The Butterfly Dress
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

The Butterfly Queen
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

The Carpetbagger
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

The Occidental Express, The East Friesian Flyer and the Asypmtotic Line -
Where We've Been, Who We Are and Where We're Going
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Enno
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Mannen Mahnen
2017 © Kyke Fokken - Artist

Artist of the day, August 1: El Lissitzky, Russian designer, typographer and architect

Lazar Markovich Lissitzky (1890 – 1941), known as El Lissitzky, was a Russian artist, designer, photographer, typographer, polemicist and architect. He was an important figure of the Russian avant-garde, helping develop suprematism with his mentor, Kazimir Malevich, and designing numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works for the Soviet Union. His work greatly influenced the Bauhaus and constructivist movements, and he experimented with production techniques and stylistic devices that would go on to dominate 20th-century graphic design.

Lissitzky's entire career was laced with the belief that the artist could be an agent for change, later summarized with his edict, "das zielbewußte Schaffen" (goal-oriented creation). Lissitzky, of Lithuanian Jewish оrigin, began his career illustrating Yiddish children's books in an effort to promote Jewish culture in Russia. When only 15 he started teaching, a duty he would maintain for most of his life. Over the years, he taught in a variety of positions, schools, and artistic media, spreading and exchanging ideas. He took this ethic with him when he worked with Malevich in heading the suprematist art group UNOVIS, when he developed a variant suprematist series of his own, Proun, and further still in 1921, when he took up a job as the Russian cultural ambassador to Weimar Germany, working with and influencing important figures of the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements during his stay. In his remaining years he brought significant innovation and change to typography, exhibition design, photomontage, and book design, producing critically respected works and winning international acclaim for his exhibition design. This continued until his deathbed, where in 1941 he produced one of his last works – a Soviet propaganda poster rallying the people to construct more tanks for the fight against Nazi Germany. In 2014, the heirs of the artist, in collaboration with Van abbemuseum and the leading worldwide scholars, the Lissitzky foundation was established, to preserve the artist's legacy and preparing a catalogue raisonné of the artist oeuvre.