When Dustin Yellin was eight years old, he buried a dollar bill, a pen and a fork inside a box, with the specific idea that aliens might find it in the future. It’s unclear what he hoped might happen then or, indeed, what happened to the box, but it did start Yellin on an artistic journey of discovery in which he still merrily makes boxes. It’s just that these days some of them are very, very big. Take a spin through the work and mind of a singular and special artist.
On a trip to Hawaii, Yellin made a collage for his mother by ripping up a dictionary and turning it into what he calls “a sort of Agnes Martin grid.” He poured resin on the canvas … and then a bee got stuck in it. Yellin’s mom? Allergic to bees. “So I poured more resin on the canvas, thinking I could hide it or something,” he says. “Instead the opposite thing happened; it created a magnification on the dictionary text.”
For Yellin, this bee blip was the beginning of a brand-new artistic journey as he began to experiment with resin as a material. “I invented my own taxonomy of invented specimens,” he says. “First botanical, then I made some weird insects and creatures. It was really fun; I was just drawing on the layers of resin.”
Each sculpture is made from ripped-up media: encyclopedias, dictionaries, magazines and so on. “Each one acts as an archive in the shape of human,” says Yellin.
Don’t miss the art of Yellin. A unique artist.
Danes are the happiest people in the world, according to a study of world happiness levels.
Denmark topped the list of 156 countries, ranked by independent experts on a variety of measures. Sweden is still top 10 as all years this study has been done.
Factors such as per capita gross domestic product, healthy years of life expectancy, trust and perceived freedom to make life choices were all considered.
In second place is Switzerland with other Nordic countries ranking strongly: Iceland, Norway and Finland round off the top five. New World Commonwealth countries also do well with Canada, Australia and New Zealand all in the top 10.
Source: WEF
It is Xmas time and in New York it is a time when, in the words of Meyer Berger, the city tries “to match the gems from her endless treasure chest against the winking and sparking brilliants in Heaven’s vault”. Only grinches fail to succumb to the seasonal spirit when the snow is falling in Manhattan, the steam is rising from the pavements and the lights twinkle. For many, though, Christmas means one thing: the chance to shop. New York may be magical, but is it the best place to stock up on gifts? Gulliver decided to compare the Big Apple with other shopping draws around the world.
The Economist used Real Estate data in combination with iwn analysis to come up eith this Xmas shopping index.
The results will surprise some, though perhaps not regular globetrotters. Visitors to America will have noticed that value for money is now hard to find given the strengthening dollar. In fact only a shopping trip in Singapore is more expensive than New York based on our sample. And although the penetration of international retailers in New York is high, it is still below those of other shopping hubs like London and Dubai. This explains why it sits in the bottom five of the 20 cities we ranked.
Dubai comes top by virtue of having both a surfeit of shops and relatively cheap prices. But bargain hunters may prefer a Christmas trip to Johannesburg or Bangkok where there is less to buy but the bargains are plentiful. Still, none of these particularly bring Christmas to mind. So Gulliver recommends a trip to London, rated fourth, which manages to combine a festive feel with a mammonic love of shopping—all, thanks to the weak pound, at a reasonable price.
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