Fine Art 'Quicksand'

[pucipal]

The last one is an art installation of the Brazilian artist burying herself in a roomful of mud.

[Fred588]

It's in the category of "modern" art rather than "fine" art but if you do a search on "588 Project you will get a number of links to a movie shot here (at Studio 588) quite a few years ago that was called "The 588 Project." The title has nothng to do with the film's contents except it involved a lot of mud and was filmed here but it did receive some attention from several museums of modern art about ten years ago.

[Duncan Edwards]

I play with this idea all the time. Dreamed of having an opportunity for it over the years but it's just not in the cards. When I've got a minute I'll search on things like "swamp nude art" or "naked girl mud art" and similar just to see what I can find. There's some stuff, as you have shown, that real artists have put some effort into creating. Getting the light right on the lovely swamp nude you posted is the real art in all this. The others are trying to make a statement of some kind and that's art but aesthetically it's nothing we haven't done a lot of here. That also leads you to the question of what is art? Is it a lucky shot or something that required a lot of time and effort to set up? I'll do a search on "Playboy outdoors" or "Playboy pool" and say what you will about Playboy photography, like it or not, every single shot has "expensive" all over it. These are not snapshots but are they more "art" than some Russian guy in the woods with a single reflector and a pretty girl? It's all in the eye of the beholder.

_DSC_2926_SWAMP_ANGELS_SM.jpg

96d90aa83d3fe121094c716b04bd052f.jpeg

susanne_benton-42.jpg

[Fred588]

Duncan makes an excellent point about the critical importance of lighting. If anyone here wants to experiment with lighting for something like this, allow me to suggest that the indoor pit at my Studio was designed to give the photographer pretty much complete control of lighting. For example, the building itself has no windows at all. Also, the material used to make the "mud" is both highly reflective and translucent. That means it has a lot of potential for backlighting and it is even possible to place waterproof lights under the surface. Withs ome color overlays to underwater flashlights one could do some incredible work.

[pucipal]

I play with this idea all the time. Dreamed of having an opportunity for it over the years but it's just not in the cards. When I've got a minute I'll search on things like "swamp nude art" or "naked girl mud art" and similar just to see what I can find. There's some stuff, as you have shown, that real artists have put some effort into creating. Getting the light right on the lovely swamp nude you posted is the real art in all this. The others are trying to make a statement of some kind and that's art but aesthetically it's nothing we haven't done a lot of here. That also leads you to the question of what is art? Is it a lucky shot or something that required a lot of time and effort to set up? I'll do a search on "Playboy outdoors" or "Playboy pool" and say what you will about Playboy photography, like it or not, every single shot has "expensive" all over it. These are not snapshots but are they more "art" than some Russian guy in the woods with a single reflector and a pretty girl? It's all in the eye of the beholder.

_DSC_2926_SWAMP_ANGELS_SM.jpg

96d90aa83d3fe121094c716b04bd052f.jpeg

susanne_benton-42.jpg

Well said.