Wouldn’t it be nice to stop by a phone booth full of fish on your way to work? Even though you wouldn’t be able to call in late, you could still make a wish and take a few pictures. Thanks to a new art project there are phone booths filled with goldfish, but you can’t get in…

Hundreds of goldfishes in a phone booth tank

A Japan-based, five-member artist collective known as Kingyobu (translation: “goldfish club”) has been installing phone booths full of goldfish on the streets of Osaka, Japan for a second consecutive year. The project is part of the Canvas Art Festival in Osaka, which symbolizes happiness and prosperity. The members of the club are students at the Kyoto University of Art and Design and they have installed goldfish aquariums in several phone booths that are not being used. Visitors compare the artistic monuments to a “sandwich” where the fishes are stuck between two sheets of glass.

Kingyobu installing a phone booth/aquarium in Japan

In the other side of the world, Brazil is playing with phone booths in a different way. Vivo, a phone carrier has taken the initiative to sponsor a project known as Parade, where 100 artists are assigned to transform 100 booths. Each one of them is unique as it represents the artist’s unique character and inspiration. Unlike the goldfish booths, the Parade booths have usable phones, although the attraction is temporal.

Disco ball phone booth in Brazil

One of 100 artist phone booths in Brazil

Whether you’re walking to work or need to call home, it’s always exciting to find art in unexpected places and with these new public art projects inspiration is just a phone call away.

-Yekaterina Sahakyan

The theater world has it’s War Horse and now the art world has one too!

War Horse, pictured below is just one example of artist Dave Kinsey‘s vibrant, mixed-media, urban art. This week you can discover his work at Joshua Liner Gallery. Kinsey mixes colors so aggressively that you may wonder how to interact with all of the colorful combinations overlapping and conflicting with each other. The use of bright, dark and deep colors are bold and confrontational. 

War Horse by Dave Kinsey

The title of the show, Everything at Once is fitting because you can literally see layers of action and color all at once in your face. Kinsey is as bold with the subject matter and action in his paintings as he is with his use of color.  Each painting may contain more than one image more than one meaning.

If you’ve noticed a number of recommendations by us for shows at the Joshua Liner Gallery, it’s not our fault, it’s because of Joshua’s impressive ongoing programming.

Kinsey is a LA-based artist, and this is his second solo exhibition with the Joshua Liner gallery. Everything at Once is a great opportunity to interact with a unique collection of Kinsey’s paper paintings. Don’t miss it!

- Jen Wallace

Dave Kinsey
Everything at Once
Joshua Liner Gallery
Dec. 13 – Jan. 12
Opening Reception: THIS THURS. 12/13, 6-9 PM
548 West 28th Street, 3rd Fl
New York, NY

New York City is cold this time of year. Warm Thanksgiving dinners have faded into the past and Christmas time has already begun with the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.

Sleigh bells might be softly jingling and jangling in the background but this week for art and beach lovers alike, the magnanimous ringing of the hugest convocation of art exhibitions in America calls to us from Miami Beach.

It’s that time of year again – Art Basel Miami Beach 2012! Photo from Miami Real Estate

The famed Art Basel Miami Beach will host its 11th edition. 260 leading galleries from America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America will exhibit the most established global artists to burgeoning and veteran art lovers.

Take a look into a previous Art Basel Miami showing, photo from Miami Art Zine.

previous Art Basel, photo from Imagine Lifestyles.

On display at Art Basel you will find artwork from more than 2,000 talented artists and having them all situated in one place calls for a celebration…or  celebration(s)!

In addition to Art Basel Miami Beach, the biggest and baddest art fair of them all, you will also find over a dozen auxiliary fairs to include Art Miami, Pulse, Scope and Aqua. On top of all of the art fairs there are tons of art parties and special exhibitions.

Not sure what to see and when? Don’t worry, we’ve constructed the time charts below with all of the fair hours to help you plan your trip!

Wednesday Dec. 5 Fair Hours

Thursday Dec. 6 Fair Hours

Friday Dec. 7 Fair Hours

Saturday Dec. 8 Fair Hours

Sunday Dec. 9 Fair Hours

Want to be plugged into Art Basel but can’t make it to Miami? Jennifer Wallace, editor of The Bare Square and host of Art Seen, will be one of those spirited individuals journeying to the heart of art will be reporting back. Be sure to check out our twitter and facebook page to satisfy your hunger for Art Basel Miami news!

A previous Art Basel Miami showing, photo from Art Basel Miami’s facebook page.

For more of a taste of each of the art fairs, check out the links below to help better whet your art appetite:

Aqua 12
Art Asia
Art Basel Miami Beach
Art Miami
Design Miami
Fountain Miami
Ink Miami Art Fair
Miami Solo
Nada Art Fair
Pool Art Fair
Pulse Miami
Red Dot Miami
Scope Miami
SEVEN
Verge Art Miami Beach

-Paulina Tam

On my way headed home today I ran into an old friend I haven’t seen in years. When catching up, what consumed our conversation? Politics.

With the presidential election still fresh in our minds, this week we recommend Elect Trick at Michael Mut Gallery. A group of nine young artists based in New York will present their work as an expression of the political changes in the United States after this year’s presidential election.

Elect Trick serves to showcase the concerns of young artists and the future of The United States in the form of provocative artwork.

Elect Trick, group show

Artists Hui Oy,  Shellyne Rodriguez,  Lucia Hinojosa, Joe de Sena, Diego Gerard, Hallie Kruger,  Jamie Cellaigh, Cody Umans, Megan Westgate will take a unique approach by picturing the United States potential through the eyes of both an artist and a US citizen. How do they view president Obama? Will life change for Americans in the next 4 years? Their answers to these questions and more, this Saturday at Michael Mut.

- Jen Wallace

Group Show
Elect Trick
Michael Mut Gallery
November 19th – December 8th
Opening Reception: Saturday 11/24, 6-8PM
97 Avenue C
New York, NY

Warning: Please be advised, due to the explicit material and imagery, this article may not be suitable for all viewers.

Skip the candy corn, toffee apples, and pumpkin pie for this year’s Halloween. Why be traditional when you can have a piece of a foot or an arm with “some fava beans and a nice chianti?” Fine, if that is not your fancy, you could always have some intestines or a decomposing decapitated torso.

Yummy body part art creations created by Thai artist Kittiwat Unarrom, photo from Tumblr.

I assure you, these body parts taste just like bread…because they’re made entirely of bread. Talented and twisted Thai artist Kittiwat Unarrom is no Hannibal Lecter, Leatherface, or Buffalo Bill.

Unarrom doesn’t even have a criminal background.

He does, however, have a fine art degree and a license for his own bakery named appropriately the “Body Bakery.” As his bakery denotes, the “Body Bakery” specializes on meticulously carved body parts sculpted from his primary medium, bread. As a finishing grotesque touch, he hangs each of his goods with a stainless steel meat hook or plastic wraps them in a supermarket poultry fashion.

Are heads your thing? More delightful treats by artist Kittiwat Unarrom, photo from Shape and Colour.

Hands galore! Take your pick! photo from Huffington Post.

Unarrom was first inspired by books about the anatomy of the human body and visits to forensic museums. He also cheekily says, “When people see the bread, they don’t want to eat it. But when they taste it, it’s just normal bread. The lesson is ‘don’t judge just by outer appearances.’”

Although Unarrom’s masterpieces look realistically gut-churning, they are not in any way, human. American artist Andrew Krasnow, on the other hand, creates his art pieces with authentic human skin, ew.

A flag made out of real skin, courteously done by artist Andrew Krasnow, photo from Wired.

If it is any consolation, all Krasnow’s materials are gathered from donated participants for scientific research. From stretching skin across boots and maps of the United States of America, Krasnow says that his works “are a commentary on human cruelty and America’s ethics and morality.”

For example, his infamous skin-clad map of America expresses his concern for America’s contribution to the first Gulf War. The work discusses how militaristic and economic actions were morality and ethicality questionable.

Put your best foot forward with these dashing skin-clad boots! You will be the highlight of any Halloween party! Photo from Urban Times.

Are you inspired or queasy from Unarrom and Krasnow’s gruesome creations? Are they serial killers waiting for a new medium or are they creating bloody brilliant artwork?

When you run off to party or trick-or-treat, make sure to have a safe and Happy Halloween. Remember, what Hannibal Lecter says,“As your mother tells you, and my mother certainly told me, it is important, she always used to say, always to try new things.”

Happy Halloween from The Bare Square! Photo from Paper Fortunetellers.

- Paulina Tam