Shea Hembrey: How I became 100 artists

http://www.ted.com How do you stage an international art show with work from 100 different artists? If you're Shea Hembrey, you invent all of the artists and artwork yourself -- from large-scale outdoor installations to tiny paintings drawn with a single-haired brush. Watch this funny, mind-bending talk to see the explosion of creativity and diversity of skills a single artist is capable of.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• TED
• TEDTalks
• Shea Hembrey
• art
• international art
• installation art
• creativity
• diversity

[deathbeforelaceX]

Oh my god.

This man is a complete genius. I'll be lucky if I ever amount to half of what he is.

[apocaRUFF]

Comments about hot cousins aside, this is one of my all-time favorite TED talks. Adding to Favorites and giving it a thumbs-up. Wish he had a website or something were we could view the rest of the work.

[KOBMLtd]

This piece is funny. However, would the Art piece stand on their own without this commentary? Or are we watching live art?

[TJ68LA]

It's still impressive creativity, lots of clever stuff, but it seems more like a work of fiction about contemporary art, and a publicity stunt put together by a smart ad agency. And like Mr. Brainwash, if he makes a bunch of money selling expensive pieces while claiming to be against that system, he's really a con artist.

[TJ68LA]

It's interesting that he starts out with the impossible "tall tale" about his father shooting flies 50 feet away with a BB gun, am I wrong or isn't that obviously inserted into this talk as an indication that he's telling us tall tales.

Fun, but seems a lot like Mr. Brainwash - take an existing artist/concept and plug in different objects. Creating different artist personas is not new. The mirror one looks like Anish Kapoor in his back yard.

[TuwaLiking]

I love this!!!



[GORMLESSwonder]

I think it's fair to say he's being ironic about a lot of the artists and techniques he's made up, even to the point of mocking the art scene. That's why the audience are laughing. Plus, they're laughing because the range of stuff he's created is surprising and impressive. To be fair, if anyone's produced art seriously before, making a range of random stuff is the starting point, the easy bit... The difficulty is in developing your style and concepts so your pieces aren't just silly one-liners.

[kupotenshi]

This person is amazing.

[WiVaBo]

@deathbeforelaceX You mean... 50 artists? :)

[PeterInglisGuitar]

A modern Leonardi da Vinci. No less! He has a amazingly broad pallet of technique and imagination, and then the energy and imagination to realise and then promote his ideas. A true inspiration to creative artists in all fields.

[dielucky]

Brilliant!(2)