Pixilated Photographs.

February 26, 2009 11:19 AM

Christian Faur uses crayons to create art.

"Another of Christian's works appearing at Sherrie Gallerie is ‘Just Paper,’ a collage of 12,000 shredded strips of paper, layered like feathers on a bird to create an image of the US Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay. Look harder, and you’ll find that the strips of paper are lines from the US Constitution with certain words set in different fonts for extra emphasis."

posted by gman (40 comments total)

I think these are great, but I can't help but imagine how awesome they would look if they were melted...
posted by skullbee at 11:21 AM on February 26

Official Crayola Site
posted by cjorgensen at 11:31 AM on February 26

Ooh, some BLOW TORCH SABOTAGE!! would turn these into Dali-esque awesomeness.

not that they aren't cool now
posted by rmless at 11:31 AM on February 26 [1 favorite has favorites]

argh. how frustrating to only see these in two-dee. i suspect they would be much more interesting if you could shift your perspective and watch the image dissolve/reappear.
posted by barrett caulk at 11:33 AM on February 26 [1 favorite has favorites]

I'm surprised she can pull this off in such small spaces. I would think, if you imagined each crayon to be a computer pixel, that you would need a lot more pixels to make even a pixelated picture.

I do like these, but not in an "admiring art" sort of way. It seems like she probably used a computer to generate a pixelated image, then reproduced this image using crayons. I didn't read if she had a process on her site, but these seem like reproductions of photos to me, rather than compositions on their own. And even if I am wrong, not sure it matters, since that how I perceive them.

I also know that books and webpages aren't the best for deciding if something is art. Often I've hated certain pieces (or even whole artists) until I actually got to see the real paintings up close.
posted by cjorgensen at 11:38 AM on February 26

This is by far my favorite piece.
posted by psylosyren at 11:42 AM on February 26 [1 favorite has favorites]

Follow up:
"The entire work is made from shredded versions of the United States Constitution"
posted by psylosyren at 11:43 AM on February 26

I wanna know what this "novel technique" that she he "developed" is.
posted by gman at 11:44 AM on February 26

Holy cow, do I want one of those.
posted by oddman at 11:45 AM on February 26

cjorgensen, I get that too. As bizarre as it sounds (even to myself now), I didn't get the entire abstract art movement until I saw a museum exhibit where the viewer went through a timeline progression of how the style came about. Similarly, there's a lot of modern sculpture where upon hearing about it, or even viewing pictures, I've thought "Well...meh". But once seeing it in person, I've understood what the artist was doing.

I think the crayon thing is pretty cool...3d ziptone and all that. I agree that is probably computer generated and then the crayons placed accordingly. That said, I'm not sure *that* makes it any less "art". The art is in the concept and the result, not necessarily in the execution.
posted by dejah420 at 11:47 AM on February 26

I think the "novel technique" is the hand-manufactured crayons?

Or maybe it's the glitchy-looking random color sprinkles: Further, I have developed a mapping system that translates the English alphabet into twenty six discrete colors and I use these crayon “fonts” to add words and language to each of the pieces in the show. Which IMHO is an unfortunate bit of lily-gilding on top of an otherwise beautiful, evocative effect...
posted by ook at 11:51 AM on February 26

Yeah these are awesome. Great find.
posted by Lutoslawski at 11:59 AM on February 26

When I squint my eyes I can see Lincoln. This has been done before.
posted by pianomover at 12:02 PM on February 26

How to use your crayons and keep them new at the same time.
posted by Cranberry at 12:38 PM on February 26 [1 favorite has favorites]

I think he should recreate some of Torsten Solin's titty pix.
posted by Nelson at 12:57 PM on February 26

Yay for hexagonal pixel art!
posted by Monstrous Moonshine at 1:41 PM on February 26

I think this is great. I think the style choices are coherent, I really would love to see some of the True Colors pieces in person, I gather they may appear quite colorless from a distance? And this: "Christian has put the same principal to work translating philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Colour and creating a bright formal jacket, the ‘Mating Jacket,’ that, when read, reveals pick up lines and macho slogans." sounds rad, too.

I like his relationship to color, which makes the black and white paper piece, in contrast with the crayon pieces, so compelling. Some things really are black and white, eh?!
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 2:03 PM on February 26

Pixelation is kitsch, almost as kitsch as body painting, both sadly over-populated provinces of misguided "artistes".

No subject matter, no material and no amount of OCD can combine to create a transcendent work of pixelated "art" because pixelation is a one trick pony whose moment of cultural profundity passed decades ago.

In other words - lame, lame and lame.
posted by hifimofo at 2:25 PM on February 26 [1 favorite has favorites]

In other words - lame, lame and lame.

That's just one word used 3 times.
posted by gman at 2:37 PM on February 26

Christian Faur uses crayons to create art.

Not according to stuckists.
posted by longsleeves at 2:41 PM on February 26

It's the crayons that make this good.
posted by fire&wings at 2:50 PM on February 26

i dunno psylosyren . . . an image of gitmo made from shredded constitutions? maybe just a little heavy-handed?
posted by barrett caulk at 2:51 PM on February 26

This is interesting, but cannot help and feel that this is just a gimmick. It doesn't really create much dialogue, more like aha! Then you move on.
posted by pakoothefakoo at 3:25 PM on February 26

Pixelation is kitsch, almost as kitsch as body painting, both sadly over-populated provinces of misguided "artistes".

No subject matter, no material and no amount of OCD can combine to create a transcendent work of pixelated "art" because pixelation is a one trick pony whose moment of cultural profundity passed decades ago.

In other words - lame, lame and lame.

How do you feel about pointillism? (Not snark - curiosity.)
posted by Nabubrush at 4:16 PM on February 26

School me, who before this guy made art which incorporated literalizations of the idea that "colors encode meaning," and did they do so in a way that demonstrates the layperson's agency in the creation of that meaning?
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:20 PM on February 26

Sunday Afternoon at Le Grande Jette, awesome (1890s). This? Not so much. See also chuck close who didn't use no damn computer to do his works.
posted by zpousman at 4:44 PM on February 26

this is the kind of art that has a good gimmick going, and just needs to develop its sense of drawing.
posted by gorgor_balabala at 5:42 PM on February 26

You guys, those of you who are sneering at this, and those of you who are calling it gimmicky, or unoriginal, or whatever you may feel, while your opinions are valid and your statements may be true, just take a moment and imagine. Think about what these crayon pieces must *smell* like. Remember the first time you ever got a box of 64 crayons, the kind with the sharpener built into the box? And you opened it up and just inhaled the smell? That is what these must smell like. And on that quality alone, I say they have artistic merit.
posted by Mizu at 6:24 PM on February 26 [1 favorite has favorites]

When I used to do this it was called Lite-Brite.
posted by chococat at 6:37 PM on February 26 [1 favorite has favorites]

Remember the first time you ever got a box of 64 crayons, the kind with the sharpener built into the box?

So, you were one of those kids.

think you're so great.

*breaks your burnt umber in half and steals your blue-green*
posted by longsleeves at 7:38 PM on February 26 [1 favorite has favorites]

Wow, you cast your own lite brite pegs in custom colors and used them to write secret words? Were you at a Waldorf School?
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 7:41 PM on February 26

No, at Waldorf they only let us use black and white pegs.
posted by chococat at 8:50 PM on February 26

How do you feel about pointillism? (Not snark - curiosity.)

Pointillists got there first, and they weren't using a geometric grid.

Look at what pixelation is. You take a low resolution image (a resolution that matches your ambitions), a big box of item X in different colours/shades, and re-create the image by matching colour of pixel N with an item X out of your box and aligning it in a grid.

The skill required is so low it would make a body painter snicker.

The best you can do is try and project some value into your efforts through a heavy initial investment in scale, material, and/or time, because you are not bringing anything else to the table - such as insight or novelty.
posted by hifimofo at 11:15 PM on February 26

Good heavens, contemporary art hasn't devolved into mere virtuosity, has it? I'm pretty sure pop art, for example, hasn't been outlawed or unpublished, so I don't think the special physically manifest skills of the artist have the sort of primacy in value hifimofo seems to think.

Pixelation is an important cultural form because of its ubiquity, and the simplicity of that doesn't change it.

And for fuck's sake, he makes the crayons, give him that.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:31 PM on February 26 [2 favorites has favorites]

I like this.

I'm far from disinterested in the matter of technique, which I regard as one specific weapon in an artist's arsenal, but there are many ways to hit the target and they're all as good as each other if they come off.

OK, it's not Poussin, but Poussin isn't always Poussin either.
posted by Wolof at 1:49 AM on February 27

longsleeves, I feel it important in defending my honor to tell you that the first time I got a box of 64 was when I was twenty years old and saw them at the CVS. I realized, with a jolt, that I could afford them. Previously I had only snuck smells from other people's boxes of crayons. My best friend would get a new one every year. That horrible girl.
posted by Mizu at 3:01 AM on February 27 [1 favorite has favorites]

Pixelation is an important cultural form because of its ubiquity

Ubiquity as a measure of importance? I will spend the bulk of my life asleep, the museums are out-weighed by the asphalt on the roads and Proust* has been overcome by commenters posting "First!".

Pixelation is an important idea that artists recognised decades ago. Get over it you johnny-come-lately's and step beyond this simplistic technique and engage with the world around you and give us something that is new and original. And if you can't do that, that's cool, just spare us your repetitious mechanical out-pourings.


*haven't read much of his stuff, just used his name because he wrote a lot of words.
posted by hifimofo at 3:32 AM on February 27

I also love Seurat as much as the next cat (the sketchbooks in particular), but the theory behind pointillism, which was supposed to create more vibrant colour effects and was of particular interest in rug and tapestry weaving, was in fact a dud.
posted by Wolof at 4:36 AM on February 27

Thanks to the responses to my question.

zpousman, when I said "not snark" I was making a request.

Wolof, that's an interesting point. Having grown up in the seventies, I clearly remember the little rugs everyone made by looping the little colored bits of yarn through the fabric grids (can't remember what it's called). Between that and cross-stitching, I get the feeling that the general theory here is a pretty persistent one. I know it's kind of a broad brush, but I tend to think we call pointillism art because it's older.
posted by Nabubrush at 6:42 AM on February 27

I'm gonna wager you are all staring at pixelated information right now.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:18 AM on February 27