Jun 1st / 3,135 notes *KENGO KUMA Oribe Tea House Pavilion, Japan 2005
A temporary, mobile tea room. Corrugated plastic boards 5mm thick are arrayed at 65mm intervals and fixed together using banding bands. Once the bands are unfastened, the tea room returns to an assembly of cheap elements, making it easy to move. The entire form resembles an irregularly-shaped cocoon, and is an homage to Furuta Oribe’s deformed tea ceremony bowl.
Jun 1st / 225 notes *Wanda Koop. Untitled, from Hybrid Human, 2009-2010, acrylic on canvas, 292 × 406 × 6 cm.
Collection of the artist. © Wanda Koop.
Photo: Bruce Spielman.
Jun 1st / 84 notes *Asger Jorn, The Timid Proud One, 1957
From the Tate Collection:
Jorn had been a prominent member of CoBrA, a group of northern European artists whose improvisatory approach to painting was intended as a way of liberating their work from repressive bourgeois conventions. Although this painting was made several years after the group disbanded, its child-like style reflects the same principles. The figure embodies some mysterious inner struggle, perhaps reflected in the title. Jorn was a great believer in these kind of opposed dualities. ‘Tension in a work of art is negative-positive: repulsive-attractive, ugly-beautiful. If one of these poles is removed, only boredom is left’, he said.
May 29th / 68 notes *Blue Vipers, Endangered Frogs, and Threatened Birds Protected by New Guatemalan Reserve
media release by ABC, Robert Johns
Conservationists are celebrating the establishment of the new 6,000-acre Sierra Caral Amphibian Reserve in Guatemala, which will protect some of the country’s most endangered wildlife. The reserve is home to a dozen globally threatened frogs and salamanders, five found nowhere else in the world, three species of threatened birds, and the recently discovered Merendon Palm-pitviper (Bothriechis thalassinus), an arboreal, blue-toned viper.
Tucked away in the eastern corner of Guatemala near the Caribbean Sea, and running along the Honduran border, the Sierra Caral is an isolated mountain range that is home to numerous rare and endangered animals and plants. Exploration of these mountains has yielded several new discoveries of beetles, salamanders, frogs, and snakes over the past two decades.
The site will offer protections for many birds including threatened species such as: the
Highland Guan, Great Curassow and Keel-billed Motmot. Furthermore, the site is known as a haven for an abundance of migratory birds including the Canada Warbler, Kentucky Warbler, Wood Thrush, Painted Bunting, Worm-eating Warbler, and Louisiana Waterthrush…
(read more: American Bird Conservancy)
(photos: TL - Great Curassow by Greg Homel; TR - Merendon Palm-pitviper by Robin Moore; Mid - Aerial view by Robin Moore; BL - Giant Palm-footed Salamander by Robin Moore; BR - Carlos Vasquez Almazan next to old growth tree by Don Church)
