Big Small Worlds - Alan Wolfson

Why have I always been so interested in artificial, miniature worlds?

Is it about control? Being able to overview every detail of the scene? Creating any perspective you like?

On the other hand, there are so many different types of models. The ones that try to imitate reality in an extremely authentic way, or the works that open another door into a strange, small world, beyond any known everyday reality.

It's the wide space between the familiar authenticity and pure, small sized spatial art, that inspires so many great designers, modelmakers and artists. Watching out for new worlds, by going deep inside.

I'd like to introduce one of them. Brooklyn, NY based Alan Wolfson, who created a range of amazing, precise, urban miniatures, that capture the unique "New York feeling", presenting different situations in subway stations, motel rooms, street corners, etc.

To Atlantic Ave

Paradise Hotel

Moe's Luncheonette

Peepworld

Times Square Hotel Room

Canal Cross Station

Soviet Visions - Sculptures

Additionally to the impressive Soviet Constructions I presented before, there are some very fascinating sculptures to be found in several Yugoslavian (former soviet) states as well (now Croatia, Serbia, Slowenia, Bosnia and Herzegowina, etc.). 

The fact that they're 'unmanned' (or 'dead') objects, makes them even more interesting to me in a weird way. History, life, politics, the artist's motivation and efforts, everything that is connected to these works of stone, concrete and metal is getting visible and vivid to me, despite (or because of) this silent, almost morbid loneliness that surrounds them.

I'm always tempted to create my own score for these powerful images in my mind, but at the end, the silence (which must be there I assume) just fits best to them.

Spomenik literally means monument. They were comissioned by former Yugoslavian president Josip Broz Tito in the 1960s and 70s, to honor sites where WWII battles took place or where concentration camps stood. The designers were different sculptors and architects, conveying powerful visual impact to show the strength of the Socialist republic. After the republic dissolved in the early 1990s, they were completely abandoned, and their symbolic meanings were lost.

(All pictures below are taken by Photographer Jan Kempenaers. Released in his book Spomenik: The end of history, in 2010.)

 

Spomenik No. 1 (Podgaric)

Spomenik No. 6 (Kozara)

Spomenik No. 3 (Kosmaj)

Spomenik No. 11 (Nis)

Spomenik No. 8 (Ilirska Bistrica)

Soviet Visions - Buildings

I didn't know very much about former Soviet architecture for a long time. 

I was just overwhelmed by H. R. Giger's creations, the legendary extraterrestrial spaceship in Alien, George Lucas' new Worlds and vehicles in the Star Wars saga, etc. The more extraordinary, unusual or strange a building, an interior space, a place or an object in a movie is, the more fascinated i was. Not just in movies, also on posters, paintings or sculptures.
I got a glimpse at one of these, mostly russian, buildings from time to time. But there was one book, Frédéric Chaubin's "Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed", that really electrified me, when i was browsing an art and design book shop with my girlfriend in London. It opened my eyes and i was just stunned by all these strange, mighty, incredible visions that became reality in several former UdSSR republics.

So, my first issue in this blog will be these silent, lonely giants.
It's very difficult to describe the atmosphere that surrounds them. When I look at them, a lot of other fictional objects, characters, moods and stories are crossing my mind.
At the end, i could just write about these fragments, pieces of dreams or impressions, when I see these buildings and constructions. 

(All pictures below are taken by Photographer Frédéric Chaubin, released in his book CCCP - Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed, in 2011)

I'd like to share this with you on my blog. Enjoy!

Drzhuba Holiday Center Hall (Ukraine)

Soviet embassy in Havana

Institute of Scientific Research, Kiev

Central Research and Design Institute for Robotics and Technical Cybernetics, St.Petersburg