Art Inspiration from Around the World
Where do you find art inspiration? For us, inspiration lives in three distinct intersectional spaces – where art meets architecture; where art meets technology; and where art meets culture. Since we are so often asked to talk about art inspiration from around the world, we thought it best to share our list of the greatest pieces we’ve had the pleasure of being inspired by. From intensely detailed fabric installations, to digital designs that are complex enough to make your head spin, here is our list of art inspiration from around the world.
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Where Art meets Architecture
Gabriel Dawe
Mexican born artist, Gabriel Dawe uses threads of clothing to create delicate structures mimicking rainbow rays of light that revolutionize the use of lighting and open spaces within art galleries all over the world. His creations adhere to a unique creative process that Dawe explained in an interview with My Modern Met as “a sort of unspoken dialogue between me and the building” that is unique to each space. When arriving for an installation, Dawe will pause, reflect, and listen to the architecture around him so that he can best explore “what the building is asking of [him].”
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By using clothing on an architectural scale, Dawe seeks to show how both clothing and architecture have the capacity to offer shelter and says of his work that it “becomes like a sheltering of the soul.”
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TA Landscape Architecture
The Golden Bridge became a viral sensation when it first opened to the public in Vietnam. This 492-foot-long bridge has been described as a golden thread walkway resting in the hands of the Gods. And while these hands look like ancient stone and moss, they are actually made of steel mesh and fiberglass. The stunning display of design, architecture and art can be found in the small town of Da Nang which sits almost perfectly between the Country’s two major cities of Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi.
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Where Art Meets Technology
D’Strict Holdings
The past year and a half has been tumultuous and transformative (to say the least). And it’s clear to see that the social upheavals, as well as the evolution of how we interact with public spaces, has drastically changed the face of the art world. What has been particularly interesting to watch is the proliferation of digital art pieces, and how applying a digital-lens to creative endeavors has fulfilled a need that most other artwork during quarantine could not.
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In East Asia, D’strict Holdings captured our attention with “The Wave” which sat on the largest outdoor advertising screen with the highest definition in South Korea. Here, even the ocean was in Quarantine and each time the tide swelled, it toyed with the idea of overflowing onto the floor below. Of course, it never does, and the genius required to create this effect took almost 3 months to design and a further 2 months to build.
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A’Strict
A’Strict is a collaborative media artist unit formed by the digital design company, D’Strict Holdings. Starry Beach was a private exhibition piece created by A’Strict which, again, explored water. This work was the inaugural exhibition (2020) of the emerging media artist unit and offered a soothing yet powerful immersive experience. The sounds of the waves were described as beckoning onlookers into Kukje Gallery long before they could see the piece up close. That makes sense to us – we can feel that pull even from all the way over here in Los Angeles.
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Refik Anadol
Refik Anadol is an internationally acclaimed Turkish-born media artist and director residing in Los Angeles. He creates immersive, data-driven pieces that explore the spaces between machine intelligence, digital art, and architecture. For Machine Hallucination he used a machine learning algorithm to seek out, and collect, over 100 million photographic memories of New York City that were found through public social media networks. This piece was designed for Artechhouse’s New York location.
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His most recent, temporary work, Wind of Los Angeles, was exhibited at LUMINEX: Dialogues of Light in downtown Los Angeles on April 10, 2021. While this was a one-night-only event, you can still treat yourself to his work over on the livestream – plus, you’ll get to hear Refik discuss his work in more detail.
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Where Art meets Culture
Discstan
According to Discostan, you won’t find their work on a map (at least not in any atlas this century), and if you don’t know where to look, you might miss it. Their goal is to bring once-in-a-lifetime experiences to select spaces around the world to help build and heal our global community.
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They use dance floors, listening rooms, museum installations, and tea houses which they fill with sounds drawn from the past, present and near future of cultures across the world. Inside these spaces, people dance, play, and connect to diverse musical expressions.
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According to Discostan, each time they host an event-meets-immersive-exhibition, they ”weave a sonic tapestry” that threads together anything from golden-era Bollywood numbers and Lebanese cinema scores, to psychedelic funk from Turkey, Iran, Burma and Thailand (and the list goes on).
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Their underlying theme threaded throughout all of this includes migration, celebration, warfare, nostalgia, homeland, and borders often within realms of Islamic influence.
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So there you have it! Our list of art inspiration from around the world. Remember: art can be presented in a myriad of ways and our list of art inspiration from around the world could go on forever.
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