Mary Sibande, a South African artist, is one of the sharpest visual critics I’ve seen in a long time. In her latest series, “Long Live the Dead Queen,” she takes a look at a popular, persistent portrayal of black women in South African society — as the ever faithful maid — and then subverts those images in gloriously stunning ways.


The images are featured on billboards and sides of buildings as large murals throughout Johannesburg. Sibande originally sculpted the figures, then took photos of the sculptures, and then had the photos splayed in gigantic scale across walls, photos of women in Victorian-style gowns with layers of delicate, jarringly bright tulle and satin.


An excellent story came out last year about the transportation problems of black women who live in Soweto and other townships and who commute to the rich suburbs of Johannesburg to clean the houses and take care of the children of white families. One in six women in South Africa work as a maid or nanny, nearly all of them black. Despite the country’s considerable progress after the fall of apartheid, too many things have stayed the same. See more of her photos here.Mayr Sibande

"Cloudscapes" exhibit; up in the air with art.

(re-blogged from picdit.wordpress.com)

Tetsuo Kondo and climate engineering firm Transsolar worked together to fill a closed space with clouds! “Three layers of air are pumped into the room: cool dry air at the bottom that keeps the cloud floating, hot humid air in the middle to fashion a dense fog and hot dry air at the top.” In the end, you get an amazing exhibition titled Cloudscapes, located at the Corderie in Venice!