Monthly Archives: April 2019

R.I.P. “ARCHITECTURE OF DENSITY” PHOTOGRAPHER MICHAEL WOLF

Rest In Peace, Michael Wolf. It was reported Monday that the Hong Kong-based German photographer had died at 65 years of age. His passing is a shock.

Wolf was already an accomplished photojournalist living in China in the early 2000s when he started to turn his camera lens toward the city he had made home for nearly a decade in an effort to document the city’s spectacular urbanization.

He captured the lives of its residents who lived in severely cramped quarters in a densely populated metropolis dominated by soaring residential skyscrapers.

In doing so he presented a distinct visual and aesthetic perspective on contemporary life in Hong Kong in the context of China’s hyper-rapid economic growth and overwhelming urban density. This culminated with his renowned and iconic images of tall and colorful high-rises packed together in a series titled the “Architecture of Density.”

Michael Wolf will be missed.


COLOR LOVER: THE SUPER-RAD MURALS OF ALBERONERO

We’ve never heard of Alberonero. Have you? No? We didn’t think so. But now we have, and you have, too. And we’re all the better for it.

The artist’s building-scale abstract murals play with color palettes and geometric forms. These create the effect of colorful pixelation on the urban landscape.

Born in Lodi, Italy, Alberonero studied interior design at Milan Polytechnic. But his first foray into painting was through graffiti art as a teenager. Check out more of the Alberonero’s work on the artist’s website.

DIGITALISM: LACMA LAUNCHES A NEW WEBSITE AND IT’S ABOUT F***ING TIME

Seriously, it took a while, but here it is, the new website of the esteemed Los Angeles County Museum of Art, a.k.a., LACMA, the crown jewel of the L.A. art world.

It’s a much-improved site. The obvious biggest change is its design. Yhe user-interface ( UI ) design and its “look and feel” have been updated and dramatically in terms of color and style. Where once the site was white, clean and spare, much like many art museum and gallery websites, and much like the white walls of a gallery, the new site is dark, with a black background.

The new look and feel is at once bolder, though restrained and sober without feeling austere or aloof. The spareness and minimalism are still here, if not more so in terms of functionality, but the site feels friendlier, easier, less uptight, and clearly designed for our contemporary multi-device, multi-screen world where we access web content via iPhone, laptop and tablet.