industrial art

(Pic #1) Metal frames for Oxnard "hoop houses" create sweet piles of voluptuous curves.

Discovering the fine lines and sensual shapes of agriculture

In my corporate workshops, I always encourage executives to take an alternate route to work — literally and metaphorically. The benefits from veering “off course” are staggering — and they are anything but “off.”

It’s quite an imposing task to fight our nature — always seeking out the familiar — but once you break the habit, you’ll find you can’t stop exploring. Taking that fresh path can fill your head with inspiring thoughts and images — which can later lead to quite a stream of useful ideas.

One of my favorite Southern California jaunts supplies me with an abundance of these little visual treats. On the way from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara, there’s a sweet series of agriculturally rich, freeway adjacent farmland, from Camarillo to Oxnard. Decades of tilling, harvesting, fertilizing and irrigating have left what I suspect are storied remnants of a struggling farming industry. I wallow in the bold, weathered, rust-covered shapes and structures that line these back roads.

Strawberries, raspberries, and celery grow here. Locals take pride in their produce. But I just stop and stare at what the growing and picking seasons leave behind. Harvesters, tillers, dilapidated sheds… and in-your-face graffiti art that mocks or mirrors the landscape it treads. Next time you take the alternate route — don’t overlook the possibility that a roadside farm can be fertile ground for more than your recommended daily allowance of fresh fruit.

Photos by Josh Kaplan

(Pic #1) A voluptuous curve at Kunstpark Ost

Pure Abstraction: A German factory complex produces many quirky, unexpected works of art — and it’s been closed for years.

The twists, turns, and torn edges of a German industrial park have me asking – “Why am I obsessed with pipes and vents?” Why am I drawn to decaying wood, broken glass, and rusted metal? The only answer that makes sense to me is — “because it’s art.” We can probably argue that one all day — but to me, if it has texture, if it has sensual lines, if its colors make you feel something, OR if it messes with your head — it meets the criteria.

(Pic #2) Industrial Graffiti

The structures I encountered in Munich’s Kunstpark Ost, (also known as Kultfabrik) did all of those things. I tried to capture their essence with my Canon Digital SLR.

The complex is now home to dozens of trendy nightclubs, with asthma intentional graffiti on the exterior walls (Pic #2). But the structures function basically the same as when they served as a dumpling manufacturing plant. The exposed brick, bulky flex ducts, and shiny air vents, all add to the artistic experience. I even love the shredded concert posters layered and peeled like a Rauschenberg assemblage (Pic #13).

Artist Beatrice Wood once said, “The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges.” Well, I’d just like to add a few pipes from my own collection, 6000 miles away.