Arne Svenson took the pictures with a telephoto lens through his loft window, aiming the camera into the apartments across the way…and therefore, into strangers’ lives. The exhibition, titled “The Neighbors”, is drawing criticism and outright outrage this week as the subjects have realized just how much Svenson saw.

“This is about kids. If he’s waiting there for hours with his camera, who knows what kind of footage he has. I can recognize items from my daughter’s bedroom,” one resident said.

The gallery owner, Julie Saul, is surprised at the anger she’s seen from some of the subjects and says most of the feedback she’s gotten about the pieces is positive. As for Svenson, he never shows the faces of his subjects.

“For my subjects, there is no question of privacy,” he said in the exhibition statement. “They are performing behind a transparent scrim on a stage of their own creation with the curtain raised high. I am not unlike the birder, quietly waiting for hours, watching for the flutter of a hand or a movement of a curtain as an indication that there is life within.”

Of course, many artists are controversial in what they do and for some, that is just the point. Last year, Damien Hirst found himself on the receiving end of some backlash of his own after using live butterflies in an exhibit and inadvertently killing 9,000 of them. But some say that filming others without their knowledge is pushing more boundaries than an artist should.

For now, Svenson’s show is on display at the Julie Saul gallery in Chelsea.

Artist John Currin painted the Golden Girl in a nude pose in 1991, although he stressed that he worked from a clothed photo of the actress. The painting has now gone for $1.9 million at auction, but Facebook apparently doesn’t want the photo posted on their site. According to The Daily Beast, they weren’t allowed to upload it due to the exposed breasts in the painting, although Facebook has said before that art doesn’t apply to that rule.

Neither I, nor any of the journalists who are admins of @thedailybeast’s Facebook page can post. 24 hr ban b/c of a piece of Bea Arthur art.

— Brian Ries (@moneyries) May 15, 2013

Facebook has caught some backlash before due to their strict “no breast” policy after taking down photos of mothers breastfeeding and showing off pregnant body art. Site reps eventually apologized to The Daily Beast, saying, “Our policy prohibits photos of actual nude people, not paintings or sculptures. Unfortunately, this image was erroneously removed under the same clause we use to prevent more graphic images from propagating on the site.”

Christie’s Auction House sold the piece to an anonymous bidder, but the price was expected to go much higher than it did. When Currin’s show opened in the early ’90s it was lambasted by art critics, one of whom said that the pieces were “acrid fantasy portraits of menopausal women — images suspended, in his words, ‘between the object of desire and the object of loathing.’”

Arthur was aware of the painting before her death in 2009 and said that perhaps Currin was simply drawn to strong women.

“Maybe [Currin] was attracted to the feminist movement of the 1970s. Because of ‘Maude,’ I was the Joan of Arc of feminism. He certainly couldn’t have done anything with Marlo Thomas of ‘That Girl.’”

Check out the painting below, courtesy of Christie’s. Could be NSFW depending on your view of nude art.

Saul Bass was an American graphic designer who passed away in April of 1996. May 8th is his birthday (he was born in 1920).

Even if you have never heard of Saul Bass, it’s nearly impossible to not be familiar with at least some of his work. You can watch Google’s doodle animation, and see if anything sticks out to you.

Bass is mostly known for designing film title sequences, film posters, and corporate logos. Some of his most famous work includes the title sequence to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, and the AT&T and Bell logos. He also designed the logos for Continental and United Airlines.

Following is a list of his work.

Film title sequences:

Carmen Jones (1954)
The Big Knife (1955)
The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)
The Racers (1955)
The Seven Year Itch (1955)
The Shrike (1955)
Around the World in Eighty Days (1956)
Storm Center (1956)
Attack (1956)
Edge of the City (1957)
Saint Joan (1957)
The Pride and the Passion (1957)
The Young Stranger (1957)
Bonjour Tristesse (1958)
Cowboy (1958)
Vertigo (1958)
The Big Country (1958)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
North by Northwest (1959)
Psycho (1960)
Spartacus (1960)
The Facts of Life (1960)
Exodus (1960)
Ocean’s 11 (1960)
West Side Story (1961)
Something Wild (1961)
Advise and Consent (1962)
Walk on the Wild Side (1962)
The Victors (1963)
Nine Hours to Rama (1963)
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
The Cardinal (1963)
In Harm’s Way (1965)
Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965)
Grand Prix (1966)
Not with My Wife, You Don’t! (1966)
Seconds (1966)
Such Good Friends (1971)
That’s Entertainment, Part II (1976)
Broadcast News (1987)
Big (1988)
The War of the Roses (1989)
Goodfellas (1990)
Cape Fear (1991)
Doc Hollywood (1991)
Mr. Saturday Night (1992)
The Age of Innocence (1993)
Higher Learning (1995)
Casino (1995)

Movie posters:

Carmen Jones (1954)
The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)
Edge of the City (1956)
Storm Center (1956)
Love in the Afternoon (1957)
Saint Joan (1957)
Bonjour Tristesse (1958)
The Big Country (1958) (style b poster)
Vertigo (1958)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
Exodus (1960)
The Magnificent Seven (1960) (design not used)
One, Two, Three (1961)
Advise & Consent (1962)
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
The Cardinal (1963)
In Harm’s Way (1964)
Bunny Lake is Missing (1965)
The Firemen’s Ball (1967)
The Two of Us (1967)
Why Man Creates (1968)
Very Happy Alexander (1969)
Exodus (1960)
The Magnificent Seven (1960) (design not used)
One, Two, Three (1961)
Advise & Consent (1962)
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
The Cardinal (1963)
In Harm’s Way (1964)
Bunny Lake is Missing (1965)
The Firemen’s Ball (1967)
The Two of Us (1967)
Why Man Creates (1968)
Very Happy Alexander (1969)
Such Good Friends (1971)
Rosebud (1975)
Brothers (1977)
Notes on the Popular Arts (1977)
Bass on Titles (1978)
The Human Factor (1979)
The Shining (1980)
The Solar Film (1980)
Return from the River Kwai (1989)
Schindler’s List (1993)

Logos and designs:

Alcoa (1963)
AT&T Corporation (1969 and 1983)
Avery International (1975)
Boys & Girls Clubs of America (1980)
Celanese (1965)
Continental Airlines (1968)[10]
Dixie (1969)
Frontier Airlines (1978)
Fuller Paints (1962)
Geffen Records (1980)
General Foods (1984)
Girl Scouts of the USA (1978)
Japan Energy Corporation (1993)
J. Paul Getty Trust (1993)
Kibun Foods (1984)
Kose Cosmetics (1991)
Lawry’s Foods (1959)
Minami Sports (1991)
Minolta (1978)
NCR Corporation (1996)
Quaker Oats (1969)
Rockwell International (1968)
Security Pacific Bank (1966)
United Airlines (1974)
United Way (1972)
US Postage (1983)[11]
Warner Communications (1974)
Wienerschnitzel (1978)
Wesson Oil (1964)
YWCA (1988)

One artist has put the two together (along with Portal and Skyrim) to create some killer mashups.

“As the sun sets on this current generation of video games, I’ve been thinking about some of the classic games that people will still (hopefully) point to years from now and hold them up as games that made a difference, and possibly, for some child out there, Portal or Skyrim will be a memory from their early childhood,” says the artist, Joey Spiotto.

Right on. Hopefully, my kids will sleep with a Mr. Bubbles. Maybe even a Dovahkiin doll. Maybe, if I have a daughter, she can don the orange pants and white tank-top of our Portal heroine for Halloween. Those are the kinds of thoughts that occur to me while looking at these wonderful little prints. Bravo.

You can purchase the 3-print set for $50 over on Etsy.

[Joebot via Kotaku]

The doodle celebrates Merian’s birthday, as she was born on April 2nd, 1647 in Frankfurt, Germany. She died on January 13, 1717 in Amsterdam.

Here’s what Google’s Knowledge Graph result looks like for Merian:

Merian published three collections of engravings of plants before turning her studies to insects. According to Wikipedia’s history of her, she kept her own live specimens, and illustrated the metamorphosis stage in various species. As the article points out, this was at a time when insects were largely thought of as “beasts of the devil”.

If you click over to Google’s Image results, you can peruse a plethora of Merian’s beautiful illustrations.

Now we just need to strap a Luigi hat on Reggie Fils-Aime, give him this Poltergust 5000, and send him off with Shigeru Miyamoto to hunt ghosts.

Inspired by the Kid’s Corner feature in Windows Phone 8, Microsoft is tasking children to create original artwork based on Windows Phone. The art in question must answer the following questions:

“What do you wish your Windows Phone could do? How do you imagine yourself, your family, and others using your phone?”

Four winners will be selected and have their artwork professionally recreated by Dave DeVries. DeVries made a name for himself by creating outlandish, and sometimes outright scary, pieces of art based on children’s drawings. Now he’s doing the same here, but with a Windows Phone twist.

To illustrate what kind of art they want, KC Lemson, Program Manger on the Windows Phone team, had her children draw some sketches of Windows Phone inspired “creatures.” DeVries took the original art and made the “lovely” piece of art you see below:

Unlike Google’s Doodle 4 Google contest, Microsoft won’t feature your child’s artwork in a fancy museum. Instead, the child will receive a digital file of the recreated art from DeVries. The art will also be featured on various Microsoft properties around the Web. It’s not fancy museum showing, but hey, your kid will be forever associated with the Microsoft brand. That’s gotta be worth something, right?

Those who wish to enter their children into the Windows Phone Kid’s Art Contest need only send the art to windowsphone@microsoft.com with the subject line “Kid’s Art Entry.” Unfortunately, the contest is only open to 12-year-olds and younger. Those of us with hopes of having our art reimagined as scary monsters will have to do it ourselves.

The product is called 3Doodler, and it’s basically a pen that prints 3-D images using alternately hot and rapidly cooling plastic. You can actually take an idea from paper and draw it in the air, where the plastic stays put in whatever shape you want. Of course, you can also download stencils to draw intricate designs on before putting them together. The pen is being compared to a hot-glue gun as far as ease of use, and one foot of plastic translates to eleven feet of drawing.

The masterminds behind the creation are Max Bogue and Peter Dilworth, who are in charge of research and development for WobbleWorks toys. They say they are astounded at the number of supporters the pen has drawn on Kickstarter and are excited to oversee production when it comes time to fill all those orders.

“To be able to do product development so instantaneously — it’s just fantastic,” Bogue said. “We get to build a community for a product before we get it into people’s hands.”

Images: Kickstarter

Mary Leakey was an archaeologist and anthropologist from Britain, who discovered the first fossilized Proconsul (extinct ape believed to be ancestral to humans) skull. She also discovered the Zinjanthropus (Paranthropus, a genus of extinct hominins) skull.

She was born on this day in 1913, and died at the age of 83 in 1996. She attended University College London, was married to Louis Leakey, and had three children: Richard Leakey, Philip Leakey, and Jonathan Leakey.

Google has run several other doodles this week in different countries, including one for the Canadian penny in Canada, Sri Lanka Independence Day in Sri Lanka, Josef Kajetán Tyl in the Czech Republic, and Manuel Álvarez Bravo in Mexico.

In addition to writing the song, Tyl wrote several novels and short stories and about 20 plays. He was born on this day in 1808, and died in 1856.

Here’s Kde domov můj if you want to check it out:

This is one of at least three doodles Google is running today in different parts of the world. As previously reported, Google has one honoring the last day of the Canadian penny and one for Sri Lanka Independence Day.

More recent Google Doodles here.