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Paper Engineering // Matt Shlian

All images from mattshlian.com

Matt Shlian has a way with folded paper. His fascination with geometric, 3-D forms and interactive art is leading him to collaborations with scientists and retailers alike. Attractive wall hangings, small sculptures and art books by Shlian are available through the Ghostly store and through Eight Emperors, a subscription series run by Matt and his partner, Thea Augustina Eck.

Out of this excellent body of work, we are most excited by the kinetic sculptures and flip books. Movement best showcases the complexity of these folded and layered forms, and betrays Shlian’s talent as an engineer.

Even just watching this guy fold paper is mesmerizing. Shlian will be teaching a course on paper sculpture at Haystack this summer.

shelf, wall / engineering flip book paper pop-up sculpture / Matt Shlian — posted on March 21st, 2013

multiple congratulations buttons from will brown // tauba auerbach

photo via wearewillbrown.com

photo via wearewillbrown.com

photo via wearewillbrown.com

We’ve been admirers of Tauba Auerbach’s work ever since we saw her sitting with her epic pop-up book-sculpture [2,3] at the New York Art Book fair a few years back. Now that a set of her postcards asks $750, and her prints are easily $3K and up, up, up, her older stuff is getting tricky to find. So we were thrilled to be tipped off by the blog of Auerbach-champions Park Life that she designed a pin to fundraise for the Will Brown exhibition space in San Francisco’s Mission.

“Contgratulations” the edition, and the event, celebrates Will Brown’s successful first year of delightful, critical irreverence. 2012 was a year that brought them immediate attention and praise with their first show Illegitimate Business, which itself speaks to the politics of collecting. The year ended with some “Best of 2012″ props from Frieze and elsewhere, which you can find more about on the event’s page. Spend a moment browsing the rest of their projects for gems like this:

At 6PM, 10 artists will set out on foot from their respective homes and walk to Will Brown. Departing from disparate corners of the Bay Area, participants will arrive in a staggered procession throughout the course of the evening. The physical space will be empty of art.

The humble buttons sold for $40 online. The fifty that were made available sold out, sight-unseen, shortly after being posted online. The rest of the 150 pins were sold at the fundraiser event, at which the artist was present.

photo via wearewillbrown.com

All of these pictures and more are from the Will Brown site. Also, check out a previous foray of Tauba Auerbach’s into wearables: jewelry for Ohne Titel.

We leave you with a pic of Auerbach herself. How about that other pin?

wall / multiple pin / tauba auerbach — posted on January 8th, 2013

so long! space garden 2012 calendar // APAK

This time a new year means throwing out an awesome calendar! We just took this one off the wall, but we had to share it with you before it goes for good. It’s the Space Garden 2012 Calendar from APAK (Aaron and Ayumi Piland), check out their whimsical wares, and if you still need a 2013 calendar, they can do that via Etsy…

wall / calendar drawing illustration / APAK — posted on January 3rd, 2013

CENTURY // casey reas

image from http://dam-berlin.de/

Reas’ “software mural” Chronograph. photo from reas.com.

If we opened a hall of fame here at Ruins or Books, Casey Reas would be inducted in the inaugural class. In fact, we’re such ridiculous fans, that on a recent two-hour stop in Miami, we busted on down to the Frank Gehry-designed Symphony hall, for which Reas designed generative projections… even though in the afternoon, when we visited, we had no chance of witnessing said projections.

The DAM Gallery in Berlin is hosting CENTURY (2012 -), Casey Reas’ third solo show. The work is more colorful and playful than his previous DAM show Compendium, much of was which is showcased in his excellent, self-published Process Compendium 2004-2010 (see below).

The show CENTURY explores my obsessions with the art of the prior one hundred years. I’ve been highly influenced by concrete, non-objective, and constructivist works and the custom software written for this exhibition builds directly on the qualities of that prior work.

Some of this work, like his contribution to the astounding Written Images project, arises from his collaboration with Nick Montfort (who we wrote about previously) on MIT Press’ 10 Print title.

image from http://dam-berlin.de/

wall / galleries generative art processing / Casey Reas — posted on November 21st, 2012

Patterned Standards // Pierre Le Hors

Pierre Le Hors, the artist that brought the lovely, and currently unobtainable, Firework Studies with Hassala Books, has produced a series of prints as a benefit for Printed Matter. From the Printed Matter description:

The series of images, titled “Patterned Standards,” explore a variety of physical and in-camera manipulations, as Le Hors overlays polka-dotted fabric and photographs with multiple exposures.

The prints, in editions of 25, are available for the time being.