Chair Cushions! Designer Julie Wilkinson has come up with a creative way of advertising and inviting people to an exhibition she has been helping to organise in partnership with Joyanne Horscroft entitled LEGS; an event where 25 students have been asked to design a chair of some kind. Julie has created a set of miniature cushions which display the details of the event, which will then to be scattered around the city of Bath on benches, chairs and in bars. Legs: Creative Chair Design exhibition opens on 8pm Wednesday 30th January at Invention Studios Bath.

More details of the event, including photos, will be available at graphicdesignonallfours.co.uk following the exhibition on Wednesday

Conor Harrington Exhibition Dates: Fri 25th of January - Sat 23rd of February Opening on 25th January 2008 at Lazarides Gallery will be new works by Conor Harrington. The show will feature paintings made from oil and aerosol paint alongside a series of new charcoal drawings. Weekend Warriors explores the world of historical re-enactment, where men dress up at the weekends as warriors, generals and emperors to live out their escapist fantasies as heroes and supermen.

See more work by Conor Harrington.

A whole new world of mutated chairs. I missed the Martino Gamper exhibition of his 100 Chairs in 100 Days project which was shown in London last year, but there is now a book available titled 100 Chairs in 100 Days and its 100 Ways. It highlights the bastardised chair forms which have been created by Gamper using the odds and ends of other chairs, and other various objects.

See more work by Martino Gamper.

A modern graphic reworking of Klimt’s work. London based graphic designer, Angus Alexander, has created a beautiful screenprinted re-working of the Gustav Klimt sketch ‘The Blood of Fish’. Alexander’s re-working entitled ‘Flood of Nuda’ is a 2 colour screen print available in a limited edition of 250, and is available via his website.

See more work by Angus Alexander.

Cars, tax & Art. The Art Car Boot Fair have developed a range of car tax disc holders created by leading artists and designers. The Pretty Taxing tax disc holder and certificate is both a collectible and a usable artwork. With the limited edition pieces both the circular tax disc artwork and the certificate are hand numbered with the edition number.

Pretty Taxing will launch new editions of tax disc holders by leading artists and designers on a regular basis so customers can build their own in-car art collection, and promise to occasionally produce other special signed and editioned pieces.

Available from the Art Car Boot Fair Shop.

Santa’s Ghetto goes to Bethlehem. This event will probably get picked up by the press as simply another story about the artist Banksy painting on Israel’s controversial West Bank barrier again, but Santa’s Ghetto has been going for a few year now. I’ll let them explain it:

Santa’s Ghetto is probably the world’s most low-concept art event.

Every year we assemble a loose collection of the great unwashed to hawk their artistic wares on the high street amongst the mindless sham and drudgery of the christmas season. This year we’ve moved out of Oxford Street into a former chicken shop on Manger Square in Bethlehem opposite the Church of the Nativity (where Santa Claus was actually born).

This puts us one mile behind the security wall in a part of the world ravaged by conflict, poverty and dust. Just the place, you’d think, that’s desperate to check out the latest five-colour deckled edge screen prints coming out of East London.

You can watch the whole sorry thing unravel on-line but you’re particularly welcome to come out and visit in person (you’re probably far less likely to get randomly stabbed on the way home than you were last year).

Basically, the cream of the urban/street art genre such as Sam 3, Paul Insect and, of course, Banksy have moved the annual Santa’s Ghetto event to Bethlehem in order to draw attention to the issues going on over there with the Jewish/Arab conflict. And what better way to do it than a painting of a soldier feeding a donkey?

Find out more at Santa’s Ghetto.

If Banksy breaks the bank, read on. To any long term readers of the blog, they’ve probably picked up on the fact that I’m a big fan of street art, especially artists like Invader. But I’d thought I’d highlight one of my favorite lesser known artists among the slew of urban/street/graffiti artists that are starting to make big names from themselves in the art world. He’s possibly already known amongst the New Yorkers reading, or at least they’ve probably passed his work on the street at some point, but New York artist Bast doesn’t currently seem to get the same credit as some of his contemporaries working in a similar field.

With Banksy pieces being bought by the likes of Brad Bitt, and established mega-star artists like Damien Hirst buying up the entire show by Paul Insect before the show even opened, the urban/street art genre is now commanding high prices and establishing ground as a credible artistic movement. So I thought I’d tell you guys about Bast, as you can still pick up fantastic screenprints by the artist from Pictures On Walls for as little as £20. But, be quick about it - Bast, is an early pioneer of the movement, and in my opinion, it’s only a matter of time before he’s given the same respect he deserves, and his work gets out of your price-league.

See more work by Bast.

Roll up, roll up, for 48 hours only, free money and art! Last month, during the Frieze Art Fair, the British artists Jake & Dinos Chapman took money from visitors and “defaced and improved” the money before handing it back to them.

Visitors queued in large numbers for the opportunity to have their hard-earned money scribbled on by brothers Chapman, but if you missed out, don’t worry because Jake and Dinos Chapman would like to offer everyone who visits both the BBC’s Imagine website a free and exclusive piece of art in the form of imaginary banknotes created by the artists. The images will be available until 22.35pm on Thursday 22nd November 2007 - so if you want your free money and art, you better be quick!

Get your free money and art here.

Don’t take your caravan to the country, let the caravan bring the country to you. Caravan by Kevin Van Braak is customised caravan that opens out to provide a grassy area of calm to wherever it’s situated. With our environment becoming increasingly more concrete and green spaces disappearing rapidly, Caravan can bring a touch of country living to anywhere it’s needed.

See more work by Kevin Van Braak.

Designer housing for the modern bird. Rob from UglyBogus informed us about The Modern Bird Exhibition after the recent post on religious bird houses. ‘The Modern Bird’ is “an exhibition of designer birdhouses created by more than 20 of the top artists and design studios worldwide”, which “will show how far contemporary visionaries have taken the traditional wooden birdhouse.”

See more photos at Flickr.