The Curiosity Chronicles

And On Sundays We Rest.

Curious Inspiration. All of a sudden, the whole world seems to have discovered the genius of artist Domenico Gnoli. New York’s Luxembourg & Dayan Gallery recently mounted the first U.S. show devoted to Gnoli since his death four decades ago. In 1969, after a successful solo show at the trail-blazing Sidney Janis gallery in New York, the beautiful, bohemian dandy with an abundance of talent—he was also a leading illustrator and stage designer early in his career—was poised to become a major art star. But his career was cut tragically short, when he died a few months later of cancer, at only 36.

Gallerist Amalia Dayan says of him: “He was stylish in a dandyish, bohemian way. He was very, very handsome—and apparently, a huge womanizer. He didn’t have a huge amount of money, but he drove eccentric sports cars and had a little sailboat. When he died at 36, he’d already been married twice—the first time to an Italian model for a few years, and then to Yannick. They ran in a tight circle of gorgeous friends. It was a glamorous group.”

Gnoli’s stylish canvases take secondary details—the collar of a man’s shirt, the wave in a woman’s hair—and blow them up into the primary subject with remarkable attention to pattern, texture and detail. Enjoy.

Curious about…The Bean.

Cloud Gate, a public sculpture by Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor, is the centerpiece of the AT&T Plaza in Millennium Park in downtown Chicago. Constructed between 2004 and 2006, the sculpture is lovingly nicknamed “The Bean” because of its bean-like shape. Kapoor’s design was inspired by liquid mercury and the sculpture’s surface reflects and distorts the city’s skyline. Visitors are able to walk around and under Cloud Gate’s 12-foot high arch.

Made up of 168 stainless steel plates welded together, its highly polished exterior has no visible seams.  After Kapoor’s design was chosen, numerous technological concerns regarding the design’s construction and assembly arose, in addition to concerns regarding the sculpture’s upkeep and maintenance. Various experts were consulted, some of whom believed the design could not be implemented. Although Kapoor does not draw with computers, computer modeling was essential to the process of analyzing the complex form, which created numerous issues. Being outside, concerns arose that it might retain and conduct heat in a way that would make it too hot to touch during the summer and so cold that one’s tongue might stick to it during the winter. The extreme temperature variation between seasons in Chicago was also feared to weaken the structure. Graffiti, bird droppings and fingerprints were also potential problems, as they would affect the aesthetics of the surface. The most pressing issue was the need to create a single seamless exterior for the external shell, a feat architect Norman Foster was once quoted as saying to be nearly impossible.

The project began with recreating the design in miniature. A high-density polyurethane foam model was selected by Kapoor, which was then used to design the final structure, including the interior structural components. Inside Cloud Gate’s polished exterior shell are several steel structures that keep the sculpture standing. The first structural pieces, two type 304 stainless steel rings, were put into place in February 2004. As construction continued, crisscrossing pipe trusses were assembled between the two rings.

Interestingly, the finished sculpture has no inner bracing.The supporting structural components were designed and constructed to ensure that no specific point was overloaded, and to avoid producing unwanted indentations on the exterior shell. The frame was also designed to expand and contract with the sculpture as temperatures fluctuate. As a result, the two large rings supporting the sculpture move independently of each other, allowing the shell to move independently of the rings. The shell of Cloud Gate was fully erected for the grand opening of Millennium Park on July 15, 2004, although it was unpolished and thus unfinished, because its assembly had fallen behind schedule. In order to grind, sand and polish the seams, six levels of scaffolding were erected around the sides of the sculpture, while climbing ropes andharnesses were used to polish harder-to-reach areas. When the upper and side portions of the shell were completed, the tent was once again removed in August 2005. On October 3, it was closed off as workers polished the final section. Every weld on the Cloud Gate underwent a five-stage process, required to produce the sculpture’s mirror-like finish.

What Of It? Like many icons of Chicago both past and present, Cloud Gate brings together art and science, the engineered and the ethereal. Not only is The Bean an amazing experience, it is an amazing feat of complex technical artistry. Watching kids playing with their reflections, I was taken buy the amount of work that had to go into creating that moment, but how little of it mattered as they ran about smearing their hands and having fun. Kapoor should be proud of creating civic art that engages everyone at their own level.

I Am Curious, as with all things Chicago, about the intersection of mechanical and human, the beauty of engineering, the simple joys of playing with Art.

Curious about…Beautiful Secret Worlds.

Nuclear Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility Cherenkov Radiation
Hanford Site, U.S. Department of Energy
Southeastern Washington State

Submerged in a pool of water at Hanford Site are 1,936 stainless-steel nuclear-waste capsules containing cesium and strontium. Combined, they contain over 120 million curies of radioactivity. It is estimated to be the most curies under one roof in the United States. The blue glow is created by the Cherenkov Effect which describes the electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle, giving off energy, moves faster than light through a transparent medium. The temperatures of the capsules are as high as 330 degrees Fahrenheit. The pool of water serves as a shield against radiation; a human standing one foot from an unshielded capsule would receive a lethal dose of radiation in less than 10 seconds. Hanford is among the most contaminated sites in the United States.

I was lucky enough to meet photographer Taryn Simon a couple of years ago at TED where she spoke eloquently about her work. She had an exhibition running at the time called “An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar,” that documented secret sites in the USA, places where the average person never got to go: government-regulated quarantine sites, nuclear-waste storage facilities, prison death rows and CIA offices.

White Tiger (Kenny)    
Selective Inbreeding, Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge and Foundation   
Eureka Springs, Arkansas

In the United States, all living white tigers are the result of selective inbreeding to artificially create the genetic conditions that lead to white fur, ice-blue eyes and a pink nose. Kenny was born to a breeder in Bentonville, Arkansas on February 3, 1999. As a result of inbreeding, Kenny is mentally retarded and has significant physical limitations. Due to his deep-set nose, he has difficulty breathing and closing his jaw, his teeth are severely malformed and he limps from abnormal bone structure in his forearms. The three other tigers in Kenny’s litter are not considered to be quality white tigers as they are yellow-coated, cross-eyed, and knock-kneed. 

Because her approach tends to be very direct and unsentimental, some images like the albino tiger look like they could be museum displays, which only makes these mysterious spaces even more curious and seductive. Through her work, the strangeness of American culture shines. 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Contraband Room    
John F. Kennedy International Airport    
Queens, New York
African cane rats infested with maggots, African yams (dioscorea), Andean potatoes, Bangladeshi cucurbit plants, bush meat, cherimoya fruit, curry leaves (murraya), dried orange peels, fresh eggs, giant African snail, impala skull cap, jackfruit seeds, June plum, kola nuts, mango, okra, passion fruit, pig nose, pig mouths, pork, raw poultry (chicken), South American pig head, South American tree tomatoes, South Asian lime infected with citrus canker, sugar cane (poaceae), uncooked meats, unidentified sub tropical plant in soil.

All items in the photograph were seized from the baggage of passengers arriving in the U.S. at JFK Terminal 4 from abroad over a 48-hour period. All seized items are identified, dissected, and then either ground up or incinerated. JFK processes more international passengers than any other airport in the United States. 

Cryopreservation Unit
Cryonics Institute
Clinton Township, Michigan
This cryopreservation unit holds the bodies of Rhea and Elaine Ettinger, the mother and first wife of cryonics pioneer, Robert Ettinger. Robert, author of The Prospect of Immortality and Man into Superman is still alive.

The Cryonics Institute offers cryostasis (freezing) services for individuals and pets upon death. Cryostasis is practiced with the hope that lives will ultimately be extended through future developments in science, technology, and medicine. When, and if, these developments occur, Institute members hope to awake to an extended life in good health, free from disease or the aging process. Cryostasis must begin immediately upon legal death. A person or pet is infused with ice-preventive substances and quickly cooled to a temperature where physical decay virtually stops. The Cryonics Institute charges $28,000 for cryostasis if it is planned well in advance of legal death and $35,000 on shorter notice. 

What Of It? As a designer who believes firmly of designing within the constraints of reality, the beauty and poetry of this reality really moved me. Not only is this stuff incredible in its subject matter, it is visually stunning as well. Who knew a nuclear cooling rod could be so beautiful or that contraband food could look like a Renaissance painting?

Transatlantic Sub-Marine Cables Reaching Land    
VSNL International   
Avon, New Jersey
These VSNL sub-marine telecommunications cables extend 8,037.4 miles across the Atlantic Ocean. Capable of transmitting over 60 million simultaneous voice conversations, these underwater fiber-optic cables stretch from Saunton Sands in the United Kingdom to the coast of New Jersey. The cables run below ground and emerge directly into the VSNL International headquarters, where signals are amplified and split into distinctive wavelengths enabling transatlantic phone calls and internet transmissions. 

I am Curious about the beauty of secret worlds, the secret underbelly of things, as Taryn describes it, the Hidden and Unfamiliar.

Curious about…Irezumi.

Yakuza tattoos are known as the art style of the Irezumi.  This translates as ‘insertion of ink’.  Today there are perhaps one hundred practitioners of Irezumi and as many as one hundred thousand individuals who wear a Yakuza tattoo.  It is still considered a mark of the criminal element but lately this is more interest in Irezume as a genuine art form.

The traditional Yakuza tattoo covers almost the entire body and to be able to withstand the pain of the process is considered an impressive feat.  It is part of what give the Yakuza their machismo and sense of pride.  Beautifully graphic and colorful, a Yakuza tattoo is in itself a unique and attractive art form that has existed for hundreds of years. These tattoos are still often “hand-poked”, where the ink is inserted beneath the skin using non-electrical, hand-made and hand held tools with needles of sharpened bamboo or steel. The procedure is expensive and painful and can take years to complete.

A traditional Irezumi artist trains for many years under a master. He (for they are nearly exclusively male) will sometimes live in the master’s house. He may spend years cleaning the studio, observing, practicing on his own flesh, making the needles and other tools required, mixing inks, and painstakingly copying designs from the master’s book before he is allowed to tattoo clients. He must master all the intricate skills—unique styles of shading, the techniques used for tattooing by hand—required to create the tattoos his clients will request. He will usually be given a tattoo name by his master, most often incorporating the word “hori” (to engrave) and a syllable derived from the master’s own name or some other significant word. In some cases, the apprentice will take the master’s name, and will become The Second or Third (and so on).

When yakuza members play Oicho-Kabu cards with each other, they often remove their shirts or open them up and drape them around their waists. This allows them to display their full-body tattoos to each other. This is one of the few times that yakuza members display their tattoos to others, as they normally keep them concealed in public with long-sleeved and high-necked shirts. When new members join, they are often required to remove their pants as well and reveal any lower body tattoos.

 What Of It? I have a small Polynesian tattoo on my forearm and a few years ago was almost refused entry to a fancy spa in Seoul because of it, the lady behind the counter pointing and furiously shaking her head. To say I am the opposite of Yakuza is a mild understatement, but the notion of initiation, ceremony and permanent commitment to a cause fascinate me. Irezumi is not tattooing for the faint-of-heart.

I am Curious about cultural traditions and ritualistic ceremony, about the idea of “designing” oneself to be part of a cause of group, about permanence of identity.

Curious about…Spirograph.

Riffing off yesterday’s post about toys from childhood eras, here is another for the artistic geeks out there: the Spirograph. 

Spirograph is a geometric drawing toy that produces mathematical curves of the variety technically known as hypotrochoids and epitrochoids. It was invented by the British engineer Denys Fisher, who exhibited it in 1965 at the Nuremberg International Toy Fair. It was subsequently produced by his company, then acquired by Kenner, Inc., which introduced it to the United States market in 1966. The trademark is now owned by Hasbro, Inc.

I had one when I was a kid, and was, to say the least, obsessed with it. I recently spent a small fortune buying an unused original on Ebay,

A Spirograph consists of a set of plastic gears and other shapes such as rings, triangles, or straight bars. There are several sizes of gears and shapes, and all edges have teeth to engage any other piece. For instance, smaller gears fit inside the larger rings, but also can engage the outside of the rings in such a fashion that they rotate around the inside or along the outside edge of the rings.

To use it, a sheet of paper is placed on a heavy cardboard backing, and one of the plastic pieces - known as a stator - is pinned to the paper and cardboard. Another plastic piece - called the rotor - is placed so that its teeth engage with those of the pinned piece. For example, a ring may be pinned to the paper and a small gear placed inside the ring: the actual number of arrangements possible by combining different gears is very large. The point of a pen is placed in one of the holes of the rotor. As the rotor is moved, the pen traces out a curve.

The pen is used both to draw and to provide locomotive force; some practice is required before the Spirograph can be operated without disengaging the stator and rotor. More intricate and unusual-shaped patterns may be made through the use of both hands, one to draw and one to guide the pieces. It is possible to move several pieces in relation to each other (say, the triangle around the ring, with a circle “climbing” from the ring onto the triangle), but this requires concentration or even additional assistance from other artists.

What Of It? As someone who grew up relentlessly right-brained, this left-brain toy made mathematics palatable for me. I loved being able to draw scientific-looking things and at the same time express my creativity. Of course as I have grown older I have realized that science and mathematics are in themselves creative arts, but at the time, they evaded me.

I am Curious about the overlaps between art and science, expressing complex things in fun, intuitive ways, of the poetry of disciplines such as mathematics and geometry.