Modische Atlas der Anatomie is a 2002 series of surreal photographic digital manipulations by Netherlands-based artist and photographer Koen Hauser. Each image gives the appearance that the subject’s skin has been pulled off and is exposing plastic anatomical parts.

via Juxtapoz

images via Juxtapox

Skwoil

I’m Not Hungry is a 2012 painting series featuring cute anthropomorphic animals by Kristin Tercek (aka Cuddly Rigor Mortis). Swoon Gallery is currently hosting an online exhibition of I’m Not Hungry.

Moostash

Effelant

via Archie McPhee’s Endless Geyser of Awesome and Super Punch

Pen & Ink is a Tumblr blog by Rumpus managing editor Isaac Fitzgerald and artist Wendy MacNaughton that tells the stories behind tattoos with the use of beautiful illustrations and hand lettering. User submitted tattoos and stories are currently being accepted for use on the blog.

via Rachel Fershleiser

Artist Bruno Walpoth creates stunningly life-like figure sculptures out of wood.

via Hi-Fructose

“Love Seat” by British artist James Hopkins is a clever installation of four chairs that together form the word “love.” We recently wrote about Hopkins’ wonderful skull bookshelves.

“Toy Car” is a beautiful wind-up car sculpture made of stainless steel and bronze. Netherlands-based artist Wouter Scheublin created the car as a limited edition that appears to be sold out. He is now selling nylon 3D printed versions—amazingly, the cars are printed as-is, with no assembly required.

via MAKE

To mark the occasion, San Francisco muralista Mona Caron has created a stunning poster, revising her “Bike Angel” character from the poster she created in 2002. Check it out:

Says Mona:

10 years ago I drew a poster for the 10th anniversary of the bicycle movement Critical Mass. Hard to believe it’s been a decade! This mere fact called for a remake. So here’s the sequel: an aged bike sprite with a new generation, plus a little reminder of good old CM etiquette tucked in, and an homage to a random assortment of rad bicycle people from SF and around the world.

If you’ve wandered around San Francisco long enough, you’ve likely spied Mona’s stunning, detailed murals. We wrote about her work back in 2010.

The poster is available to purchase from the sfcriticalmass.org site, and you can also download free jpgs of the image from the associated Flickr page.

Zach Johnson made this humorous flyer in response to a job posting flyer he spotted on the UCSD campus.

via reddit

“Thrown to the Wind” by Chinese artist Wang Zhiyuan is a 36 foot tall tornado-like sculpture made of plastic garbage.

via Job’s Wife & My Modern Metropolis

“Art Dealer” by Banksy

via Banksy Street Art

Known Gallery in Los Angeles is hosting Indispensable: Art by the Ounce, a LEGO marijuana art exhibition by art collective LAgo. All The opening reception is Saturday May 26, 2012 from 8 pm to 11 pm and the exhibition runs through June 9, 2012.

(cough.)In the wake of increasing raids on Medical Marijuana dispensaries by local, state and federal drug enforcement agencies, the LAgo brand’s brand-new, flagship storefront is set to open on May 26, 2012 at Known Gallery located at 441 North Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles. The LAgo brand, as a perpetual “harvest” of healing power, has been especially commodified to meet the addictions of anyone who has ever wanted to experience the transaction of purchasing medical marijuana – or fine art – at a legal business organization. Synthetic starter-plants, seedlings, clones and a totally huge selection of intoxicating, fake plastic buds- all built with LEGO bricks to resemble some of the finest strains of medicinal marijuana ever grown- will be on display and available for limited purchase. (cough.)

via High Times and Geekosystem

photos by Paul Landau for Known Gallery

“Division” by Dutch artist Johan Rijpma is a beautiful experimental film in which a sheet of paper is torn into pieces, the pieces are reassembled and a photograph is taken, and then the photograph is torn into pieces, reassembled, photographed, and so on.

Thanks to Johan Rijpma for the tip!

Invisible is an upcoming exhibition of invisible art works—from blank canvases to bare pedestals. The exhibition includes work by Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, and Yves Klein. Invisible opens June 12 at the Hayward Gallery in the Southbank Centre in London.

Invisible Art will bring together works from the past half century that explore ideas related to the invisible and the hidden, including work by some of the most important artists of our time as well as younger artists who have expanded on their legacy.

via The Telegraph & Boing Boing

image: 1000 Hours of Staring by Tom Friedman via MoMA

In 2010, London-based photographer Martin Usborne shot poignant images of dogs in cars as a personal project. Those images are now being made into a book titled Dogs In Cars, A Photography Art Book. He recently began a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter to cover the book’s publishing costs.

The images in this series explore that feeling, both in relation to myself and to animals in general. The camera is the perfect tool for capturing a sense of silence and longing: the shutter freezes the subject for ever and two layers of glass are placed between the viewer and the viewed: the glass of the lens, the glass of the picture frame and, in this instance, the glass of the car window further isolates the animal. The dog is truly trapped.

photos by Martin Usborne

NoHo Design District commissioned Chicago-based design studio ODL (Object Design League) to create Balloon Factory, a meat balloon window installation for Japan Premium Beef in New York City. These balloons were handmade by Steven Haulenbeek, Caroline Linder, Michael Savona, and Lisa Smith. The installation was curated by Sight Unseen and was on display May 18 to 21, 2012. Randomly chosen meat balloons can be purchased online for a limited time. See the entire image gallery of the installation at ODL’s Flickr page.

A selection of uninflated steak balloons were displayed on butcher trays, framed by an installation of hanging sausage balloon links. This iteration extends the original Balloon Factory project and carries a strong reference to the intricate fake food prevalent in restaurant windows in Japan.

via designboom

photos by ODL

Bush is a new topiary art installation by Banksy in Canonbury, London. As you can see in the photo, he enhances a found bush on a wall to suggest a bush of a different kind.

via The World’s Best Ever

At Burning Man 2012, The Temple of Juno will be constructed to serve as the “spiritual refuge where thousands gather to reflect and to mourn their loss.” Longtime Temple builder, artist David Best, will once again create the “emotional centerpiece” of Burning Man. A fundraising campaign has started on Kickstarter to bring The Temple of Juno to Black Rock City this year.

This year’s temple is also known as ‘The Temple of Juno’. Why the name? The theme for this year’s Burning Man event is ‘Fertility 2.0′. Juno was a Roman goddess who had many roles and epithets; among those that she held were as a fertility deity and overseer of childbirth, a protectress of women and the community, and a preserver of marriages.

In the portrait series “Foam Sculptures,” Dutch photographer Suzanne Jongmans adorns her subjects in packing foam costumes and creates wonderful portraits of them in a style reminiscent of 17th century Dutch Golden Age portraiture. We recently wrote about another painting-themed portrait series: Airplane Lavatory Self-Portraits in the Flemish Style.

via PetaPixel & Beautiful/Decay

South Korean artist Lee Jung uses glowing letters to create haunting text art installations.

via Booooooom & Colossal

Our good friend Andy Baio of Waxy.org, along with Andy McMillan, have just announced XOXO, an arts and technology conference and festival that celebrates disruptive creativity that he is organizing at the Yu Contemporary in Portland, OR this September 13-16. Tickets are available for the conference through the XOXO Kickstarter project.

We want to take all the independent artists using the Internet to make a living doing what they love — the makers, craftspeople, musicians, filmmakers, comic book artists, game designers, hardware hackers — and bring them together with the technologists building the platforms that make it possible. If you have an audience and a good idea, nothing’s standing in your way.

XOXO is in three parts:

Conference (Saturday / Sunday). Talks from artists and creative technologists around the country that are breaking new ground.

Market (Saturday / Sunday). A large marketplace with a tightly-curated list of the best of Portland’s arts and tech scenes, sharing and selling their work, with food supplied by the best of our thriving food cart scene.

Fringe (Thursday / Sunday). A series of unique events around the city, including live music, film screenings, indie videogames, and craft beer and coffee tastings.

Artist Thomas Allen created these cut-out artworks that are inspired by children’s books. The works are on display at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

via Super Punch

In the altered photo series “Deconstructing the Houses,” large suburban homes appear fragmented and jumbled, almost as if they are falling down. The images are by designer Michael Jantzen. We previously wrote about Jantzen’s wonderful Modular M-House.

via designboom

Brooklyn-based artist Takeshi Miyakawa was arrested on Saturday while he was installing illuminated “I Love NY” shopping bags around New York City. Miyakawa intended the art installation to be his tribute to the city, instead the bags were reported to police as suspicious packages, resulting in the dispatch of the NYPD bomb squad. Miyakawa has been charged with planting “a false bomb or hazardous substance” among other crimes. He is now in jail pending a court-ordered psychological evaluation. Designboom has started a petition demanding the artist’s release.

via designboom

Nick De Spain created these hyper-realistic illustrations of Ren Hoek and Stimpy from The Ren and Stimpy Show.

via Ian Brooks

Portraits by Florida-based artist Scott Scheidly are “a series of ‘fabulous’ depictions of tyrants, dictators and popes.” Each portrait is framed in hot pink, including one of Kim Jong-il donning heart-shaped glasses and another of Hitler sporting a pink and purple uniform (and more). Spoke Art Gallery in San Francisco recently debuted the series at ArtPadSF fine art fair and states “Scheidly’s work casts some of history’s most notorious characters in a new light rife with suggestion and commentary on masculinity, power, and satire.”

via The Daily What

images via Spoke Art Gallery