Oddity Central |
- Ukrainian Painter Turns Communist Apartment Building Into an Inhabitable Art Gallery
- The Vidocq Society – Solving Tough Murder Cases Over Lunch
- Cartoonist Turns Ordinary Styrofoam Cups into Original Artworks
| Ukrainian Painter Turns Communist Apartment Building Into an Inhabitable Art Gallery Posted: 18 Jun 2012 05:42 AM PDT
Communist-era apartment buildings from the former Soviet Union are some of the ugliest edifices in the world, but Ukrainian painter Valery Haroun managed to turn one of them into a marvelous art gallery. The apartment building in Odessa, Ukraine looks pretty ordinary from afar, but as you draw near the entrance, you realize there’s something special about it. The building’s door has been painted to look like that of a palace, the bland concrete pillars look like old temple columns and there’s a mural of naked Aphrodite looking right at you. Pretty unusual, but we’ve all seen graffiti artworks on apartment buildings, right? But it’s actually the interior of this place that’s truly stunning. Each of its nine floors is covered with colorful artworks, from reproductions of Claude Monet and Victor Vasnetsov, to postcard illustrations and cartoons like Winnie the Pooh and Madagascar.
But why would an artist unleash his talents on the inside of a common apartment building, where the only people who can admire his works are the inhabitants? Well, because he was asked by the people living there. According to Dumskaya.net, the story of this unique art project started four years ago, when instead of the usual dull repainting , the building’s administration opted for something a little more decorative. One of the building’s inhabitants, Natalia, told everyone about a former colleague of hers who graduated from the Odessa School of Art, and they all agreed to have him paint the first few floors just to see if he was any good. When he was done, Valery Haroun was practically begged to finish the rest of the apartment building, as people started showering him with requests for their floors.
Although he worked very fast and paintings simply appeared over night, the building’s interior took Valery over three years to finish, because he would often leave to see his family in his home village. But, when the urban project was completed, it changed both the lives of the people living there and that of the artist. Tenants reported they stopped using the elevators so much and took the stairs more often to look at the colorful masterpieces, and Haroun was bombarded with requests to paint schools, kindergartens and even private homes.
Ever since word of the unique art project spread around Odessa, the building has been dubbed the “House of Artists”, and prices of apartments have gone up considerably.
Ukrainian Painter Turns Communist Apartment Building Into an Inhabitable Art Gallery was originally posted at OddityCentral.com |
| The Vidocq Society – Solving Tough Murder Cases Over Lunch Posted: 18 Jun 2012 03:57 AM PDT
On the third Thursday of every month, some of the world’s greatest crime specialists meet up in Philadelphia to try and solve some of the toughest murder cases in history, over a delicious lunch. This is the Vidocq Society. Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Kojack, those guys from CSI, they are all brilliant minds on their own, but what if they all got together to solve the toughest criminal cases in history? They’d have a much better chance of success, at least in theory. That’s what the Vidocq Society is all about, bringing together the most brilliant minds in criminology and trying to get to the bottom of hundreds of thousands of unsolved cases. Once a month, the members of this 20-year-old exclusive club assemble in an old Victorian dining room, to enjoy fine cuisine and talk about unsolved murders. As their motto (Cuisine & Crime Solving ) suggests, crime is always on the menu at Vidocq Society meetings.
Photo: Paris Match The mysterious crime-solving club was named after Eugene Francois Vidocq, an 18th century crook-turned-crime-fighter, considered to be the father of modern criminology and the world’s first private detective. William Fleisher, Richard Walter and Frank Bender, the three founding members of the Vidocq Society, began gathering experts in criminology in 1990, and now the club numbers 82 retired cops, ex-FBI agents, profilers, coroners and even a psychic, from 17 American states and 11 countries across the globe. On their monthly meeting, they all brainstorm to try and solve cold cases, and many times these last chance detectives manage to bring peace to families of victims whose killers were never caught.
Photo: Wikileaks News Vidocq Society gatherings start off like a normal lunch, only some of the members go easy on the food, knowing that after coffee they’ll be treated to some horrific crime scene photos. One of the club’s founding members admits that at first, their only purpose was to get together over lunch and just enjoy themselves. But after one of them was asked to speak at a conference in Texas organised by parents of murdered children, they decided to change the purpose of their little secret society and try to solve cases for people who are hurting. And that’s exactly what they have been doing. The Vidocq Society reckons it has helped solve around 300 murders, and provided valuable information to official investigators on about 90% of the cases presented before its members.
The Vidocq Society invites criminal detectives from all over the United States to present their cold cases in hopes of gaining new insights that might eventually help solve them. In most cases, they leave impressed by the members knowledge and expert opinions, and with plenty of valuable information. If you want to learn more about the fascinating Vidocq Society, you can visit their official site or read Michael Capuzzo’s book, The Murder Room. He spent three years with the members of this unique group and documented some of the cases the society has worked on during that period. Sources: NPR, The Guardian The Vidocq Society – Solving Tough Murder Cases Over Lunch was originally posted at OddityCentral.com |
| Cartoonist Turns Ordinary Styrofoam Cups into Original Artworks Posted: 18 Jun 2012 02:38 AM PDT
Malaysian-born artist Cheeming Boey uses a simple sharpie pen to turn simple Styrofoam cups into unique works of art that sell for hundreds, even thousands of dollars. Styrofoam cups don’t usually attract a lot of attention, unless they’re mentioned in discussions about environment pollution. They’re cheap and disposable, so no one really cares about them. Neither did Cheeming Boey, until six years ago, when he discovered they could be used as an original canvas for his sharpie doodles. He was in little coffee shop, in Irvine, California, when he got the urge to draw, but found himself without a piece of paper. So he just grabbed a Styrofoam cup from the trash can and unleashed his artistic talent. The result surprised Boey himself, and the artist immediately realized he was up to something.
"I’m often asked, 'Why don’t you draw on something more solid – like a ceramic cup? Yes, Styrofoam is kind of flimsy but it’s strong in other ways," he told the OC Register. "When you drop it, it never cracks." So he stuck to his new-found canvas, and soon, sharpie-drawn Styrofoam cups started piling up on his shelf at work. His friends and colleagues were amazed, but then one of them said "Sure, they’re nice, but who’d pay money for that?" You should NEVER tell a stubborn person that no one’s going to buy their stuff, because they will eventually prove you wrong. Boey vowed to become the Styrofoam Cup King, and now his impressive artworks sell for hundreds of dollars, sometimes even thousands.
Cheeming Boey’s Styrofoam cup doodles have been exhibited in various art galleries, and the artist himself appeared in promotional campaigns for Sharpie permanent markers. "It was a mistake," the artist says about how it all began, "but sometimes they make the best stuff."
via Comics Alliance Photos © Cheeming Boey. For more doodle madness check out his Flickr stream. Cartoonist Turns Ordinary Styrofoam Cups into Original Artworks was originally posted at OddityCentral.com |
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