Avant-garde

Ai Weiwei is a Chinese artist we often mention on the Sama Gazette. He was arrested at Beijing airport on 3 April, and was held for over two months without any official charges being filed. Chinese authorities released Ai Weiwei on bail on 22 June 2011, and said the artist had allegedly evaded taxes and intentionally destroyed accounting documents. You can read on Wikipedia: Analysts and other activists said Ai had been widely thought to be ...

Sometimes you click on a link and you make a great discover. That is exactly what happened to us when we followed a link on Juxtapoz website; it brought us to an article dedicated to Japanese artist Yasuhiro Sakurai. We never heard of him before and we wonder why we didn’t earlier. His wood sculptures, carved exclusively in Cypress wood, feature women with a variety of hairstyles: long, short, curly… These wall-mounted sculptures are ...

We like papercut a lot and we have already talk about it in our post The colorful world of paper sculptures by Jen Stark. We can hardly imagine how much work is needed to make such beautiful papercuts. It is a fascinating art and now we want to introduce you to another papercut artist: Peter Callesen. He is from Denmark and his work is very different from the colorful one of Jen Stark; Callesen works with white paper and his creations are amazing. Here ...

We care a lot about (Eastern) Congo, and we mentioned many times the sexual violence and conflict minerals… But the country also has another side, much brighter: Art. So today we are glad to introduce you Freddy Tsimba. He is a Congolese sculptor and he uses bullet cartridges and bullet shells to create bodies. The same ones that killed men, women and their children, are of use again but this time, they don’t kill, they bring a message ...

Revok a.k.a Jason Williams is an American graffiti artist, and he is currently serving 180 days in jail. Authorities claim there was an outstanding warrant against Revok for failure to repay victims of previous vandalism incidents. The day before his arrest, he was exhibiting his graffiti at MOCA in Los Angeles in ‘Art in the Streets’… Max Dana wrote several times about Revok on her Blog and even da-eYe supports him and asks: ...

For this new ‘Art in…‘ post and as a follow up to our previous posts on Sudanese artists like El Tayib Daw El Bait and Ahmed Abushariaa, today we want to introduce you Hamid Ayoub. He was born in Sudan in 1967, and he’s presently living in Ottawa. He is a Bachelor of Arts graduate from the College of Fine and Applied Arts, Sudan University of Sciences and Technology, with a specialization in Textile Design. We can read on Ayoub ...

Almost two years ago, on the occasion of the Dunny Series 2009 release, we posted about the first time we saw a vinyl toy, that was when Max Dana showed us one of the many toys she collects from spanish designer Jaime Hayon. Since then, we’re totally hooked! We like a lot what Hayon does and we think it was time to dedicate a post to him and his inspired and creative work, from vinyl toys to sofas and chairs, and ultra design Art Deco style ...

Several times a year, Max Dana organizes workshops with kids. It gives them the opportunity to create and exchange and enjoy an afternoon coloring with Max who draws for them their favorites characters from the World of Sama. A fews days ago, Max spent the day with kids on the occasion of World Kids Coloring Day but this year they were into da-eYe, the facetious and waggish character Max Dana created in 1986… And kids celebrated him! You can send ...

Rafael Vargas-Suarez, known as Vargas-Suarez Universal, is an internationally recognized contemporary and visual artist from Mexico, now living and working in Brooklyn. We have recently seen his work in an art magazine (we didn’t take notes so we couldn’t remember which one it was) and we immediately liked what he does. Whether it is on large-scale wall drawings, on the surface of discarded satellite dishes or on paintings or photography, ...

For this new ‘Art in…’ post, we wanted to share with you a great artist from Canada. Last year we posted about the beautiful lampwork beads by Canadian artist Sherry Bellamy, now we would like to introduce you to Stéphanie Martineau. She was born in Hull, Québec in 1977 and she earned a degree in Art and Design from l’Université du Québec en Outaouais in 2002. Her drawings have a special feeling, a retro style and Art deco look. ...