10/26/2008

banksy


on canal street

and one block up north...

Sorry, the TAJ team is a bit late with all that, but as you - Dear reader - might have heard by now, the British Street Artist Banksy is invading NYC. First you can find his over sized drawings all over Downtown (and I guess there are more elsewhere) and then there is his Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill featuring amazing Pet like installations in the West Village which is totally worth checking out.
If you can't make it there before October 31st you can check out a BBC video about the store here: Klick
And I will try to provide you -Dear Reader - with more Banksy Walls over the coming week.

10/21/2008

Vacation in the countryside...


...with Tom Steuer...
(trick-question - dear reader - what the hell is that little bird looking at? or into? Answers or comments to solve that are highly appreciated by the TAJ team)

...and Hackepeter Con wearing Sunflowerglasses.

So, the other day Thomas (you - dear reader - should know him by now) and me went up to New England to enjoy some high-quality all-American Vaca-time and of course, first thing to do in the Hamptons: pulling over to get some cash at the Drive Through ATM. After that we drove straight into the supermarket to get some Groceries, then into the shop where they sell this fancy porcelain and then finally into a swimming pool. Unfortunately we didn't rent a Pick Up Truck nor a SUV so all the stuff we bought got really wet.
But luckely the sun was shining all the time so the four organic apples for 9$ got dry pretty quick.

The Maunthawk Lighthouse on the tip of Long Island. The legend says that from the top one can see the sunken Cauliflower II, the Watertaxi, that brought the first Pilgrims from the Ikea in Plymouth over to the Hamptons, where they got rich, out of a sudden.

As usual I was pretending to read on a beach. I figured that is just something good to do, having some excitement for the beautiful brain.
What you - dear reader - can't see on this picture is the freezin cold Atlantic Ocean that got ran into by Thomas and me earlier that morning. And - great thing about off season traveling - we just had to share the beach with some Seagulls and some Pick-Up-Trucks. (turned out to be a drive-through beach, and we being all european walked all the 2min long way from the parking lot down through the dunes, soooooo stupid, gosh!)

A stunningly picturesque Nature Resort close to Orient, on the North West tip of Long Island, that luckely had a road going through so we didn't need to leave the car to enjoy some serious nature.

On the Ferry to New London the sky showed some serious volumetric light and shine skills.

And did I mention that we came at the right time for the indian summer? If not, here is the evidence that we did. Amazing colours all over, and we learned that the trees are actually trying to immitate colours of Jeeps, SUVs and Pick-Ups. Cause they like them so much.

Thomas, being quite excited on board of the Northstar 3. We went on a Polarbear watch tour but once we got up to Alaska all we saw was Russia, Sarah Palins House and some ice cubes. So we decided to head back to Provincetown, Cape Cod, where out of a sudden 5 Humpback whales jumped out of the water...

...and surrounded the ship, telling us in whalish all kinds of stories 'bout where they come from and what they are up to and bla bla bla. It was super-boring. So, here's a good advice for you - dear reader - whales might look impressive, but they're to avoid when it comes to smalltalk at dinnerparties.

Splish, Splash, we are so big, and so heavy, bla bla bla, and so old....yawwwwn!

Provincetown, on the north tip of Cape Cod, really pretty. The dude living in the tower was a bit weird, tried to steal Thomas' Ice Cream but apart from that and the approximately 500 lesbians couples on the streets it was a pleasure to see the small town.

Did I mention the Indian summer thing yet? Well, colourful, like a sony bravia commercial...or a Priscilla Presley Fragrance...

And here a Picture of Thomas driving through a drive through country.

Best thing about the life in Motels: you get Plastic Cups wrapped up in plastic (each and everyone) so you can be sure that absolutely no plastic gets into your cup before you unwrap it.

More pictures and stories from trip are coming soon...as well as a good reason not to go to Confetticut after 9pm and the inconvenient truth about something you - dear reader - wouldn't believe. (actually this is just a cliffhanger to get you excited about the next post here on the TAJ...)

10/12/2008

Dia:Beacon


We went to the Riggio Galleries of the Dia Art Foundation yesterday. The building is a former Nabisco Plant in the small town of Beacon right at the Hudson river and offers wide spaces for the modern Artworks that are all - and here's the cracker - lit completely by daylight.

Inside you find Artworks by Beuys, Wharhol, Serra, Flawin, Richter (to name just a few) and they all unfold their potential and mood really good in the these wide open spaces.

Especially the works of Richard Serra made a big impression on me (again), lit by the autumny afternoon sun. Unfortunatley I got lost in one of them and had to call for help. They brought a welder to get me outta there. Sorry Richard, we put the piece we had to cut out right back at it's place...


Another great part of the whole trip was the 2 hour ride along the Hudson up to Beacon through the starting Indian Summer in Upstate New York. Soooo beautiful!
Thomas and me will head out next week for some high quality va-ca-time and then we'll provide you - dear reader with more stunning pictures of the autumn in America.

10/05/2008

Colours

Now that the winter is near (really near, temperatures here dropped within a week) we are about to make something colourful, that you - dear reader - will be able to watch on this very blog soon.



And it is really cool to paint things instead of just using the paint bucket tool and filling everything with a solid colour in Photoshop...


This is the picture I wasn't able to take last year, so now it is about time to show it: The guggenheim museum. And seeing it live makes a huge difference, it's just beautiful.

Heren liked seeing it too, as well as the awkwardly dark drawings of Alfred Kubin at the Neue Galerie.
The really are dark and cruel and usually about death so you have to be in kind of a good mood to enjoy them... (this one here is just an example of the over sized creatures appearing here and there in the drawings)

I fancied more the paintings of Egon Schiele because of his graphic approach seems so modern right now that you wouldn't believe he did all that a hundred years ago.

10/03/2008

Coke Bond Zero









Finally it's out - the job we were working on for so long.
Bond Coke Zero for Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam (and obviously for Coca Cola and Sony Pictures).
You - dear reader - might see it soon somewhere on a movie-theater or telli screen close to you and please try to focus specially on - well - every little detail.

KLICK

I was mainly involved in fixing problems (the fixer is the the new conradical), compositing, roto, animation and special effects.