Nonsense

generalaesthetic:

fuckyeahtoronto:

An unlikely art project turns a North York bungalow into a board-game icon
[…] Welcome to Leona Drive, two blocks east of Yonge Street at Sheppard Avenue. In 1948 the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. built a neighbourhood of brick bungalows here for returning WWII soldiers and their families. Hyatt Homes, a developer, will demolish six homes here in November. In the meantime, this is The Leona Drive Project, “one extended art space.”

Deena Pantalone, a principle at Hyatt Homes, said in a statement, “We plan to build eight detached homes on the site, backing onto the ravine. With the houses sitting vacant and unused, we loved the idea of putting the land to good use and helping to support the local arts community at the same time.”

Two artists, Janine Marchessault of York University and Michael Prokopow of the Ontario College of Art and Design, are curating the show, which runs Oct. 23-31.

The artist Christine Davis is colouring every surface in the bathroom at No. 9 Leona Drive using 75 tubes of red lipstick donated by MAC. She arrived to the job yesterday wearing corduroys in a fuscia that matched the lipstick, drinking a Vitamin Water of the same alarming hue.

“During the Second World War cosmetics companies marketed lipstick colours like Victory Red, Banner Red and Furlough Red,” she says. “Women wore these to go work in the factories. Then in the 1950s women still wore lipstick and became perfect housewives.”

David Hann, another artist, has parked an Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser station wagon, complete with a fake-wood paneling paint job, in a driveway, and plans to project 1970s TV sitcoms through its windows from the inside.

No. 19 (pictured above) is my favourite. An Te Liu, who runs the graduate landscape and architecture program at the University of Toronto, stripped off its back veranda and railings and painted it entirely — roof, walls, window panes, sills, in emerald green, transforming it into a giant Monopoly house, whose dimensions it perfectly copies. “Leona Drive with One House, rent $250.”

It is tempting to see all this as a satire and a sendup of the suburbs, but Prof. Marchessault insists this is an homage to a lovely part of town.

“We want to think about the 1940s and 1950s suburbs, which had an ideology. There’s this imagination of a better life that these houses will offer you. There isn’t that utopianism in the new suburbs.”

Houses were smaller back then; outdoor space was more prized than it is today. It’s hard to watch these jewels disappear, especially after I learned of Ruth Gillespie, who lived here at No. 9 for 40 years, before dying suddenly on the dance floor in 2003. The periwinkle and hydrangea she tended in her back garden are healthier than ever. […]

omg omg omg.

holy shit holy shit holy shit

churly:

(via rewbog:truthandbeautybombs:mandr:theslyestfox:mariakonstantinov)

British artist Stephen Wiltshire is currently attempting to draw the Manhattan skyline from memory. Since Monday October 26th, Wiltshire began filling in an 18 foot canvas at the Pratt institute, Brooklyn.

Wiltshire diagnosed with autism at the age of three displays an unusually powerful photographic memory that he has applied to rendering city scapes. He can look at the subject of his drawing once and reproduce it accurately with photographic detail, down to the exact number of columns or windows on a building. He memorizes their shapes, locations and the architecture.

This is phenomenal.

pretty-bird:

fuckyeahthebeatles:

(via lovingthesethings)

Ha I was totally singing this song at work today. That was when I knew I had lost it. Up since 5am. Worked both jobs in one day, and I cracked around 8 30pm and started singing this.

loveubye:

(via pehthestar)

i think you’ve forgotten we were friends once…

I’ll never forget that we ARE friends.

fluffed:

fuckyeahtoronto:

meatsack:(via teenagejesus)

What the fuck?