Invisible Art

Rating:
Summary: about seeing the world anew
Review: An excellent book, this is a set of observations really, spun together by three artists with similar styles, mainly, those of collecting, assembling, and assorting the everyday into powerful, almost shamanistic totems. Unconscious markers of humankind, ones that speak volumes about us.

Take for example, a picture of a man and woman together in a boat. When we see one of these, in a chocolate ad, or in a thrift-store painting, we pass right by it. It speaks to us in a silent and unassuming way, but it is easily ignored as trite, or cliche. But here, we see twenty or so of these painings assembled together, and by their repetition, we start to feel the power of the image. We are all in a little boat in this life, and perhaps it might be nioce to share that little boat with someone.

Such a naive observation, yet one of such humanity!

This alone would make the work worth while, but in addition, you get a section of juxtaposed images, were the ordinary is pasted onto the ordinary to tell a fantastic and incredible story. A striking example is the image of a turn of the century diver, leaping from a waterfall with his heart in his hands. All these images have this same power, as ifthey were illustrations from a story told to us in our sleep, and we've always known it, but we can't recall how it begins, or how it ends. We know the work, and have always knows it.

This is the kind of power you can expect from this book. A must for anyone with a desire to look at the world with amazement and wonder, instead of with cynicism and bile.

Rating:
Summary: Invisible Art
Review: Like nothing else I have ever seen bound together! It is more like looking through your (very inventive) friend's scrapbook. The concept of the book is that art is EVERYWHERE, even in simple and overlooked things we see (or don't see according to the authors) everyday. I'm not sure if I think all the examples are "art", but he book sure is - beautiful design and binding. An excellent idea and great for any individual thinker.