The group says its mission is “to halt and reverse the destruction of our environment”. Currently, much of its work focuses on the conservation of three biomes that contain most of the world’s biodiversity: forests, freshwater ecosystems, and oceans and coasts. Among other issues, it is also concerned with endangered species, pollution and climate change. The organization runs more than 20 field projects worldwide in any given year.

His early career was as a model maker and puppeteer for children’s television and films, notably the film “Labyrinth” staring Bowie. Mueck moved on to establish his own company in London, making photo-realistic props and animatronics for the advertising industry. This eventually led him to conclude, “photography pretty much destroys the physical presence of the original object”, and so he turned to fine art, in particular, sculpture.

In the early 1990s, still in his advertising days, Mueck was commissioned to make something highly realistic, and was wondering what material would do the trick.

Latex was the usual, but he wanted something harder, more precise. Luckily, he saw a little architectural decor on the wall of a boutique and inquired as to the nice, pink stuff’s nature. Fiberglass resin was the answer, and Mueck has made it his bronze and marble ever since.

It’s the attention to detail, technical brilliance and the (odd) scale of his figures that takes your breath away. His work, while proportionally correct, is either over or under-sized. For example, an enormous 4.5m crouching Boy, a 3 ft tall naked man, a 20 ft long newborn, a replica of his own head (seen above) 6 times its actual size. Consequently his hyper-realistic sculptures, while extraordinarily lifelike, challenge us by their odd scale. The “psychological confrontation for the viewer is to recognize and assimilate two contradictory realities”. However, the real magical appeal of Mueck’s sculptures lie in the meticulous process, which begins with…

1. crafting of a series of small clay models - this enables him decide on figure positioning
2. Mueck then creates a series of drawings in different sizes - this enables him to make decisions about scale
3. Next, Mueck sculpts the figure in clay - this includes fine details of expression and skin texture
4. a mould of the sculpture is made using silicone (or in the case of larger works, fibreglass).
5. Mueck completes the process by meticulously painting (by hand) finer details (like veins and skin tones) on the surface, before finally sculpting the eyes, bringing his creations to life.

The artist is able to achieve a very high degree of realism in his figures, which, in turn, invites close inspection. For this reason, I’ve purposefully included some close-ups, alongside selected works by Mueck, see below..

Here is an interesting video describing Mueck’s creative process (caution, some parts of video may be NSFW):

Isamu Noguchi (1904 - 1988) was a prominent Japanese-American artist and architect, whose career spanned from the 1920s until his death six decades later.  Known widely for his sculptures and public works, Noguchi also designed stage sets and also various lamps and furniture pieces.

Noguchi took this water tap illusion one step further and developed nine “floating” fountains for the World Expo in Osaka, Japan.  The effect is stunning and surreal, and appears as if the boxes are seemingly held in the air by the force of the water.  It also reminds me vaguely of the floating boxes in Super Mario Brothers.

One of Noguchi’s most recognizable pieces of art is the Red Cube in New York City, whose red color and diagonal lines stand out in huge contrast to the dark colored, horizontal- and vertical-lined skyscrapers that surround it.

The designer of the bus stop is Dennis Oppenheim, a pioneering artist in conceptualism, land art, body art, video, and sculpture since the 1960s. In 1997, he created the sculpture shown below called “Device to Root out Evil,” which is now located in Harbour Green Park, the longest continuous waterfront park in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia.

• A guy walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm and says, “A beer please, and one for the road.”
• An amnesiac walks into a bar and asks the bartender, “Do I come here often?”
• A guy with dyslexia walks into a bra.
• A young Texan walks into a bar and orders a drink. “Got any ID?” asks the bartender. The Texan replies, “About what?”
• A pair of battery jumper cables walk into a bar. The bartender says, “You can come in here, but you better not start anything!”
• A Latin scholar walks into a bar and says, “I’ll have a martinus.” The bartender asks him. “Don’t you mean martini?” The man tells the bartender, “Listen, if I wanted two or more drinks I would have asked for them.”
• A horse walks into a bar. The bartender asks, “So, why the long face?” A variant on this joke during the 2004 presidential campaign substituted John Kerry for the horse, but the punch line remains the same.
• A penguin walks into a bar and asks the bartender, “Has my father been in here?” The bartender says, “I don’t know. What does he look like?”
• A brain goes into a bar and says to the bartender, “I’ll have a beer, please.” The bartender says, “Sorry, I can’t serve you. You’re out of your head.”
• A little pig goes into a bar and orders ten drinks. He finishes them and the bartender says, “Don’t you want to know where the toilet is?” The pig says, “No, thanks, I go wee-wee-wee all the way home.”
• René Descartes is in a bar at closing time. The bartender asks him if he’d like another drink. Descartes says, “I think not,” and he disappears.
• A bear walks into a bar and says, “I’d like a beer and . . . . a packet of peanuts. The barman says, why the big pause?”
• A kangaroo walks into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender says, “That’ll be $10. You know, we don’t get many kangaroos coming in here.” The kangaroo says, “At $10 a beer, it’s not hard to understand.”
• A termite walks into a bar and asks, “Is the bar tender here?”
• A cheeseburger walks into a bar, and the bartender says, “Sorry, we don’t serve food in here.”
• A dog with his foot wrapped in a bloody bandage hobbles into a Western saloon. He sidles up to the bar and announces: “I’m lookin’ fer the man that shot my paw.”
• A baby seal walks into a bar. “What can I get you?” asks the bartender. “Anything but a Canadian Club,” replies the seal.
• A grasshopper hops into a bar. The bartender says, “You’re quite a celebrity around here. We’ve even got a drink named after you.” The grasshopper says, “You’ve got a drink named Steve?”
• A goldfish flops into a bar and looks at the bartender. The bartender asks, “What can I get you?” The goldfish says, “Water.”
• A guy walks into a bar and sits down next to a lady and a dog. The man asks, “Does your dog bite?” The lady answers, “Never!” The man reaches out to pet the dog, and the dog bites his hand. The man says, “I thought you said your dog doesn’t bite!” The woman replies, “He doesn’t. That’s not my dog.”
• A guy walks into a bar. A horse behind the bar serving drinks. The guy is just staring at the horse, when the horse says, “What are you staring at? Haven’t you ever seen a horse serving drinks before?” The guy says, “Honestly, no. I never thought the parrot would sell the place.”
• A skeleton walks into a bar. The bartender asks, “What’ll you have?” The skeleton says, “Give me a beer, and a mop.”
• A polar bear, a giraffe and a penguin walk into a bar. The bartender says, “What is this, some kind of joke?”
• A guy walks into a bar in Cork, in Ireland, and asks the barman: “What’s the quickest way to get to Dublin?” “Are you walking or driving?” asks the barman. “Driving,” says a man. “That’s the quickest way,” says the barman.
• A fellow walks into a pub near Buckingham Palace in London, sits down, and says, “Give me a beer. I’ve had a rough day at work.” And the bartender says, “Oh? What do you do?” The guy says, “I take care of the corgis–you know, the dogs the royal family owns.” The bartender asks, “Tough job, huh? The guy says, “Yeah. All that inbreeding has led to low intelligence and bad temperaments. And the dogs aren’t too smart, either.”
• A man goes into a bar and says, “Give me a drink before the trouble starts.” And the bartender pours him a drink. He drinks it and says, “Give me another drink before the trouble starts.” He downs that one and says quotation mark, give me another drink before the trouble starts.” Finally, the bartender asks, “Just when is this trouble going to start?” The man says, “The trouble starts just as soon as I tell you that I don’t have any money.”
• A tourist goes into a bar where a dog is sitting in a chair playing poker. He asks, “Is that dog there really playing poker?” And the bartender says, “Yeah, but he’s not too smart. Whenever he has a good hand, he starts wagging his tail.”
• This cowboy walks into a bar and orders a beer. His hat is made of brown wrapping paper. And so are his shirt, vest, chaps, pants, and boots. His spurs are also made of paper. Pretty soon, the sheriff arrives and arrests him for rustling.
• A guy goes into a bar, orders four shots of the most expensive 30-year-old single malt Scotch whisky and downs them one after the other. The bartender says, “You seem to be in a great hurry.” The guy says, “You would be too if you had what I have.” The bartender asks, “What have you got? “Fifty cents,” is the reply.
• A Northerner walks into a bar in the Deep South around Christmas time. A small nativity scene is behind the bar, and the guy says, “That’s a nice nativity scene. But how come the three wise men are all wearing firemen’s hats?” And the bartender says, “Well, it says right there in the Bible–the three wise men came from afar.”
• A man walked into a bar, sat down, and ordered a beer. As he sipped the beer, he heard a voice say, “Nice tie.” Looking around, he saw that the bar was empty except for him and the bartender. A few sips later, another voice said, “Beautiful shirt.” At this, the man calls the bartender over. “Say, I must be losing my mind,” he tells him. “I keep hearing these voices say nice things, and there is not a soul in here but us.” “It’s the peanuts,” explains the bartender, indicating a dish on the bar. “The peanuts?” “That’s right, the peanuts–they’re complementary.”
• A man walks into a bar with a giraffe. He says, “A beer for me and one for my giraffe.” And they stand around drinking for hours until the giraffe passes out on the floor. The man pays the tab and gets up to leave. The bartender says, “Hey! You’re not going to leave that lyin’ on the floor, are you?” The man says, “That’s not a lion, it’s a giraffe.”
• A guy walks into a bar with a German shepherd dog. The bartender says, “Hey buddy, can’t you read that sign? It says no dogs allowed! Get that mutt out of here!” The man replies, “No, I can’t read the sign–I’m blind, and this is my Seeing Eye dog.” The bartender is embarrassed and gives the man a beer on the house. Later that day, the man tells his friend about it: “I told him I was blind, and I got a free beer!” The friend then takes his dog into the bar and sits down. The bartender says, “The sign says no dogs allowed! You’ll have to leave!” The friend says, “Sorry, I can’t see the sign because I’m blind, and this is my Seeing Eye dog.” The bartender replies, “Since when do they give out Chihuahuas as Seeing Eye dogs?” The man says, “They gave me a Chihuahua?”
• A blind man walks into a bar, grabs his dog by its hind legs and swings him around in a circle. The bartender says, “Hey, buddy, what are you doing?” And the blind man says, “Don’t mind me. I’m just looking around.”
• A man walks into a bar looking sad, and the bartender asks him, “What’s the matter?” The man says, “My wife and I had a fight, and she told me she wasn’t going to speak to me for a month. The month is up today.”
• This guy walks into a bar and orders a drink. He looks in his pocket and orders another drink, looks in his pocket and orders still another drink. His curiosity aroused, the bartender asks, “What are you doing? What’s in your pocket?” And the guy says, “It’s a picture of my wife. When she starts looking good to me, I know it’s time to go home.”

source: The Wolf Web