Having discussed about mosaic picture in class, I grow some interests in this form of art work. I randomly find the news about an Albanian artists Saimir Strati who creates the world’s largest coffee beans mosaic; and this piece enters the Guinness World Records this Monday.
This 25.1- square-meter mosaic consists of five people from different background. “Strati used 140 kg (309 pounds) of coffee beans, some roasted black, some averagely and some not roasted at all, to portray a Brazilian dancer, a Japanese drummer, a U.S. country music singer, a European accordionist and an African drummer”(Reuters).
I like this mosaic because it express an important message about international harmony. This mosaic is not like other random things that enter Guinness World Records only for their weirdness and huge scale. It has important message that the artist Strati want to spread to the whole world: “One world, one family, over a cup of coffee.” Yes, we can tell this message through his portraits of five artists from around the world. I don’t know why, but I just love this mosaic as soon as I see it. It is not beautiful in an elegant, but it is so sincere and honest. It portrays the diversity of our human society. Each race and each culture has its own unique feature, no one has the right to degrade any of them. We are all brothers and sisters, living on the same home—-the earth.
Coffee Bean Mosaic by Albanian artist Saimir Strati (picture from Reuters )
This reminds me a lot of the work of Chuck Close and Georges Seurat, who we both discussed in class. In the same way that their thousands of dots make up the paintings they’ve created, this artist’s use of coffee beans has the same idea. Jiemin, I like the way you described the painting as sincere and honest and a depiction of human diversity. This actually reminds me of a comment I made to a post just a few minutes ago, http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/smaldone2011/2011/10/27/1301/ entitled “Go Away, Modern Art!” In my comment I said that like the huge variety of people in the world, there is a huge variety of art. Like people, ugly and beautiful alike, there is ugly and beautiful art, which can be expressed through various different mediums. This post goes to show that there certainly are many artistic ways in which to express human diversity, coffee beans being one of them!
I found this subject to be very intriguing and I realized why I was so fascinated by the idea that art could be made by the “strangest” of things and still exude an incredible message. When I read this, I immediately thought of the famous Brazilian artist, Vik Muniz. He’s known for creating art (especially, portraits) that is made up of garbage. Yes, garbage. His art is incredibly beautiful. I once saw a documentary called “Wasteland”, which follows Vik’s project to help the garbage “pickers” of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
In this documentary, you follow Vik, meeting poor people who survive on being garbage pickers in the one of the world’s largest landfills. The job is very unsanitary and the people live in some of the poorest conditions. However, Vik decides to use his medium in garbage and make massive portraits of the garbage pictures (which is supposed to be ironic). He even asked some of his favorite subjects to help him make his art. In the end, being that he’s a famous artist, he put his artwork up for auction and made thousands upon thousands of dollars from them. Guess what? He didn’t a single penny, but donated it all to the garbage-picking union of Rio de Janeiro. It was such an amazing film and exuded such a great message and brought the attention to the people that do a lot for our world, but live in such poverty. Make sure to watch this amazing film and see how it was all done and check out Vik’s “Wasteland” website here: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=vik%20muniz%20wasteland&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CCoQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wastelandmovie.com%2Fvik-muniz.html&ei=OPPuTtWNMqTs0gHOwPHuCQ&usg=AFQjCNHbHJeXU0ZJTY8WgsfH10MJDARwdg&sig2=V1SA59QtpOqr3oL5qyPETg
I just happened to look upon this article by Jiemin. When I was in High School I did work study for the Portfolio class. They used me as a model, a critique and a friend to pour open their sorrows of artistic inability. However, they all managed to get full scholarships to big art schools all over the country. Proving that they were all excellent students and talented artists. One of the girls in the class worked on 4 major pieces of her portfolio with coffee. She would use various types of coffee beans and flavors. She would experiment with various liquids to mix them in. So as to get a wide variety on her pallet. The colors were all of course in the shades of browns. But the end result was stunning.
It was the first time I witnessed first hand that art was not held back by the right type of paint or an expensive canvas. It completely depended upon the artist’s ability to create and express themselves in a form that they help bring to life. It could be a way that the world has never witnessed before the fact that an artist can give birth to new forms of art is an even of excitement on its own.