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The New Contemporary Art Magazine
Through the manipulation of 17 people, La Machine unleashed a dragon on Calais, France, with its latest, towering creation and performance. "Le Dragon de Calais" was unveiled earlier this month by the French group of artists, which was last featured on HiFructose.com here. Previously, they crafted a 60-foot mechanical spider, 50-foot-tall Minotaur, and other creatures ripped from myth for their performances.
Kat Toronto, a.k.a. Miss Meatface, shows her stirring blend of performance art, photography, ceramics, zines, and more in a new exhibition at The Untitled Space in New York. The multidisciplinary artist, who was featured in Hi-Fructose Vol. 47, is offering work that the gallery says spans several years. The gallery says her works “explore cultural ideals of feminine beauty and the objectification of women in a feminist society by toying with the push and pull of dominance and submission, as well as the acts of revealing and concealing.” Her exhibitions runs through July 13.
David Henry Brown Jr. has garnered attention in recent years for “Resemblage” selfies as "David Henry Nobody Jr.," blending collage and sculpture with his face as a canvas. He was featured in Hi-Fructose Vol. 43, and since then, these works have evolved and become more and more elaborate. Recent video versions of this series reflect this in the most visceral sense.
Olivier de Sagazan’s disconcerting events, a blend of painting, sculpture and performance art, brings his humanity-baring work across the globe. There’s both a psychological and animalistic quality to these wild pieces, the artist’s own body acting as his canvas. He was last mentioned on HiFructose.com here.
Survival Research Laboratories, the group that pioneered machine performance art, appeared at this year’s Seattle Art Fair, which ended on Sunday. In several social media posts, SRL's wild machines were shown in action. A feature on the history of the industrial art group appeared in Hi-Fructose Vol. 48.
Artist and performer Sasha Frolova is known for crafting synthetic experience, teeming with color and pop. Inside France's Etretat Gardens, she recently staged an ode to Marie Antoinette (and her love of oysters) with her signature, inflatable fashion pieces, such as towering, faux hairdos, form-fitting suits, and in this case, a “a inflatable "boudoir-trampoline." (Frolova is featured in the upcoming Hi-Fructose: New Contemporary Fashion, which you can read more about here.)
San Francisco-raised artist Kat Toronto blends performance art and photography under the working name of Miss Meatface, using both vintage Polaroid and contemporary methods. The artist says part of her work stems in having been diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2010 and subsequently having to receive a full hysterectomy. Toronto now uses her moniker "as an artistic and spiritual catalyst to delve into a complex set of questions about where she fits into society as a woman."
Bangkok-born artist Rook Floro mixes installation, sculpture, performance art, and other approaches for a singular, visceral experience. A statement says that he “draws from contention in his own life, which he likes to visualize in different series of artwork.” Recently, his “Blastard” experiences express a particularly vibrant and personal version of the artist.
Olivier de Sagazan, a French painter, sculptor, and performance artist, has long used his body as a canvas for his absorbing and disconcerting pieces. Using layers of clay, paint, and his own physicality, the artist offers animalistic and spiritual performances that both deconstruct humanity and go beyond its confines. He's performed these pieces across the world, from Shanghai and London to spots across the U.S.
Performance artist Butch Locsin is also known as a "Skeleton of Color." The Los Angeles-based artist has appeared in several videos, photographs, and multimedia pieces donning a number of skull masks and vibrant attire and accessories. Each of these works are a collaboration with artists from around the world. Recent artist partnerships include Rolando McFarlane, StreetWiseLA, Jonathan Gallegos, and more.
International Women's Day is celebrated on March 8th every year. In different regions, the focus of the celebrations ranges from general celebration of respect, appreciation, and love towards women for their economic, political, and social achievements. To mark the occasion, artist Olek joined forces with humanitarian NGO Maitri in a public art performance in New Delhi, India.
David Henry Nobody Jr. has been called the "bad boy" of Interventionist performance art, a visual artist who has earned a celebrity following for his works in diverse mediums, including installations and works with fabric and fashion. Since starting his career in the 1990s, David has inserted himself into social communities to produce his work, creating a bridge between art and life. The Brooklyn, New York based artist has recently taken his work to the social community of Instagram, a series of bizarre visual-collage selfies titled "Resemblagè".
Sicily, Italy based artist Sasha Vinci creates haunting sculptures and installations that contemplate the nature of man's existence. While his works can be morbid and a bit terrifying, as in his series of fleshy seated subjects waiting for eternity, Vinci also finds beauty and sexuality in the human figure. Known for his captivating and carnal sculptures, Vinci is a true multimedia artist, also exploring drawing, painting, writing, sound design and performance art.
San Francisco based Brice Frillici is a multimedia artist and performer who goes by the name of his unusual project "SEKDEK" (Spirit Extraction Kit, Demon Extraction Kit). It is an ongoing portrait series of himself, friends, and family members covered in colorful, psychedelic paint - and the result is fantastic and a little bit gory. Frillici describes his process as expressionistic painting by any means necessary; he spits, throws and spreads clay, acrylic paint, glitter, and flour onto his subjects, topping off their new personas with costume wigs, wild fabrics, and fake blood.
Photographer Shinichi Maruyama employs cutting-edge technologies to capture elegant and abstract images of liquid and human forms in motion. In a series entitled “Kusho,” which is part performance and part image making, Maruyama throws black ink and water into the air and records the moment the two separate mediums collide. Although these images could only have been captured using brand new strobe light technologies, Maruyama still draws his inspiration from timeless artistic practices and preoccupations. In his artist statement, he writes about memories of writing Chinese characters in sumi ink as a young student: “Once your brush touches paper, you must finish the character, you have one chance. It can never be repeated or duplicated. You must commit your full attention and being to each stroke.” Like the brushes of ink on paper, each depiction of the ink’s flight through the sky represents a fleeting moment that can never be recreated.