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German photographer Thomas Struth is among the artists generally credited with establishing photography as a major medium in fine art. The former Gerhard Richter student made the shift from paintbrush to camera in 1976, beginning a long career documenting street scenes, landscapes and plantlife. For his Prix Pictet-nominated series, Paradise, Struth traveled to Australia, Japan, China,......read more
For creative collaborators Thomas Brown and Anna Burns, umbrellas are more than mere protection from the rain and classic symbols of "Britishness." They are also exploding canvases for one of the coolest video projects we've seen in a while. In "Pop Pop Bang," an installation set in idyllic English locations, the artists riff on masculine B-movie imagery, using umbrellas......read more
130 years after Thomas Edison brought incandescent lighting to the masses, the end is nigh for the old, energy-guzzling technology. On January 1, 2012, seven months from this week, federal efficiency regulations will effectively outlaw incandescent bulbs. Writing in the New York Times Magazine, Andrew Rice traces the rise and demise of the traditional incandescent, and looks into......read more
The government of China continues to make bold moves to move the country off of oil, announcing $15 billion in seed money for its electric car industry. Meanwhile, the US is mired in an intractable, expensive conflict in Afghanistan. If it's all about picking your battles, then the future is bleak for US industrial growth. In the newly-redesigned Opinion Pages of Sunday's New York......read more
A look at the diverse array foreign countries with the most companies listed on the Nasdaq -- Israel, China/Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, South Korea and Singapore -- reveals one common link: none of them have much in the form of natural resources. For these countries, economic success depends on the intelligence and creativity of the people that live there. In a recent New York Times......read more
As it nears completion, the UK Pavilion at Shanghai Expo 2010—dubbed "Seed Cathedral"— is shaping up to be a mindblowing piece of architecture. Designed by British star architect Thomas Heatherwick, the pavilion is covered in 60,000 transparent rods. During the day the fiber optic rods gather natural light and illuminate the interior of the pavilion. At night the rods transport the......read more
In three short years, the Prix Pictet has become the global prize for excellence in environmental photography, assembling some of the most powerful images of sustainability (or lack thereof) from around the world. The theme for this year's competition is Growth, which organizers call "one of the great conundrums facing humanity in the early decades of the 21st century." True enough. The winner......read more
Austrian painter/illustrator Wolfgang Hutter, one of the founding members of the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism formed after WWII, creates magical dreamscapes that pay equal homage to both the Old Masters and the Surrealists. With images of fantastical fairy tales scenes and imaginary Utopias, you can see why the artist is also a successful childrens' book illustrator. From the notes to the......read more
Well, it's all but official. According to every major news outlet, the attempt to pass federal climate and energy legislation has failed. Democrats announced Friday they were abandoning the bill, effectively snuffing out any possibility of it passing. But why? After so much hope early in Obama's term, how did the effort to address global warming and reduce our oil addiction die before......read more
Like his countryman Andreas Gursky, German photographer Thomas Struth uses large format photos to document the social and environmental history of our time. In his new collection, on view until June 19 at Marian Goodman Gallery in New York, Struth lifts the veil on hidden industrial and scientific spaces, confronting the viewer with clean, clinical images of places and things that are typically......read more
