Thirty years ago, American film audiences pressed low in their seats as a massive white wedge of machine parts passed overhead. With the release of George Lucas’s Star Wars, the smooth, silvery flying saucers that had dominated postwar sci-fi became embarrassing reminders of an obsolete vision of the future.

Lucas envisioned a World of Tomorrow dominated by black, white, and gray; hard-edged, massive, and inorganic forms, covered with a salty acne of apparatus. The film’s visual program was a departure from the saucers and occasional capsules writ large that sci-fi audiences had grown accustomed to, but its colorless symmetrical ships should have been recognizable to at least a small portion of its audience — those familiar with contemporary art.

In a 1967 essay on minimalism, Clement Greenberg, America’s most influential critic, could have been describing Star Wars: “Everything is rigorously rectilinear or spherical. Development within a given piece is usually repetition of the same modular shape, which may or may not be varied in size.” Greenberg rejected minimalism as pedestrian. “Minimal works are readable as art,” he wrote, “as almost anything is today, including a door, a table, or a blank sheet of paper.” Perhaps because of its fantastic nature, the Death Star has never been recognized as an essential work of minimalism — but it is one. Its destruction has never been acknowledged as a turning point for modernism — but it was one.

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Robert Rainey is currently a mfa candidate in photography at the university of new mexico, albuquerque. Prior to his studies at unm he was awarded a graduate teaching fellowship at virginia commonwealth university. Rainey has recently left the corporate world of marketing, having served as senior vp of marketing at redenvelope and vp of creative advertising at miramax films. He art-directed dozens of miramax’s promotional campaigns from ‘pulp fiction’ to ‘good will hunting’. Rainey began his career by earning a bfa from risd in graphic design, and at this stage of his career is very pleased to be returning to the arena of academia in order to pursue his own ideas through more personal projects.

I really enjoyed Walmartification

While the rest of us surf, Janicza Bravo fishes! She’s gathered her findings on FFFFound, as well as her own site. Her personal work can be found here.

I like how the world looks through Brad Troemel’s lens. His artistic tour de force might be The Holy Economic Trinity.

For more young photographers – check Fjord.

My friend sent me a link to the website of Yeondoo Jung, a Korean artist who recreates literal interpretations of children’s drawings. I’m glad someone is paying attention to these young, active imaginations!

So, eyes rolling in the back of my head over Peter Saville (again) – which led me to lust over his photographer Nick Knight. Now, thanks to this blog post, you can too!

She shoots with everything from Polaroids to laptops to disposable cameras. Her photos are a hot dose of narcissism. Here’s native Swede and Paris resident Lina Scheynius.

Public Collectors consists of informal agreements where collectors allow the contents of their collection to be published and permit those who are curious to directly experience the objects in person. Participants must be willing to type up an inventory of their collection, provide a means of contact and share their collection with the public. Collectors can be based in any geographic location. The purpose of this project is for large collections of materials to become accessible so that knowledge, ideas and expertise can be freely shared and exchanged.

In addition to hosting collection inventories and other information, www.publiccollectors.org includes digital collections that are suitable for web presentation, do not have a physical material analog, or are difficult or impossible to experience otherwise. These photos from one of the digital collections on the site show a sampling of face painting options at about five different vendor booths in Mexico City. My personal favorite…Pirata!

Stupendous collage work from Virginia Echeverria, via Wrong Distance

Alex Prager has birds attack his models. He chops off their feet. Or maybe it’s just retouching. Regardless, the work is beautiful. See for yourself and thanks to Notcot for the link.

German born, NYC resident Sebastian Lemm has some inspiring work, especially this stellar typographical installation.

Timothy Saccenti does stellar photography and videos for all our favorite music artists.