The art world tends to be exclusive by design, but a gallery founder and a curator in NYC decided to team up and do the most inclusive thing they could think of by offering to display any work sent their way in the ultimate “open call” for artists.

The exhibition, dubbed Et Tu, Art Brute? specified only one criteria: artworks had to be 12 by 20 inches or smaller in order, to avoid complicated shipping problems and ensure enough space would be available to put up all the pieces.

Curator Jamie Sterns and gallery founder Andrew Edlin weren’t sure what to expect, but the packages started to roll in — some dropped off locally, others mailed from around the world — photographs, films, drawings, paintings, sculptures and more.

Over 700 works by famous artists and first-timers arrived, all of which would end up being rotated through and displayed side by side with equal priority at  AEG Underground in The Bowery. Every work was priced at $200, the gallery operators and artists splitting proceeds 50/50.

The whole project questioned conventional ideas of insider and outsider art, and what it means to curate when an exhibit is in essence anti-curation by design. In a way, it wound up being like a work of installation meta-art, a critique and commentary on the art world itself. (via Arsty)

Composed of dozens of school buses surrounded with concrete, there may not be room for two of every Earthly animal in this “Ark Two” but there is space for around 500 humans (kids and adults) to cohabitate through a moderate apocalypse.

Located in Horning’s Mills (in case you need to get there in an emergency) on the edge of Toronto, Canada, this remarkable shelter features 10,000 feet of subterranean space. The resulting mega-structure is the largest known private fallout shelter on the North American continent.

Bruce and Jean Beach, a local couple, live on adjacent land and built their underground bunker to last, encasing a series of interconnected buses in solid concrete. As it turns out: a derelict bus is cheap, costing just a few hundred dollars, but its reinforced steel frame makes it a strong candidate to be used for a mold. The buses are carefully aligned to create sequential spaces serving different key functions.

And it wasn’t just built for the pair of them: it is equipped with a well and plumbing, kitchen and laundry areas, even spaces dedicated for doctors and daycare centers (complete with emergency and surgery rooms). The couple constructed the place decades ago, not so much as a space for immediate survival but an outpost from which the world could be built in a post-nuclear age.

The complex doesn’t have a permit, which has landed its builders in court on more than one occasion, but officials seem largely content to let them be at this point. Meanwhile, Cold War or not, the dedicated couple (now well into their 80s) continue to build up supplies and prepare the space for uncertain futures. It may yet pay off.

This gorgeous collection of photographic montages highlights regional similarities and differences between types and styles of door and window designs all across Europe, starting with Porto, Portugal:

The Alps:

Santa Susana, Spain:

Sesimbra, Portugal:

London, England:

Burano, Italy:

Andre Goncalves, a photographer from Lisbon, set about creating this catalog of colors and textures with his ‘Windows of the World’ series (mostly by city and region), then expanded to develop ‘Doors of the World’ as well (sorted by country):

Romania:

England:

Portugal:

Individually, a single door might not say much about a city or country, but taken together: patterns emerge, from tile work around doors to color preferences and decorative touches.

Barcelona, Spain:

Montemor-o-Novo, Portgual:

Evora, Portugal:

Venice, Italy:

Bucharest, Romania:

Lisbon, Portugal:

An ambitious proposal for a country in turmoil, this 3,780-foot building would be not only the tallest in the world but also taller than all structures currently in planning or under construction.

Composed of four connected towers, The Bride by AMBS Architects aims to exceed the Kingdom Tower slated for construction in Saudi Arabia as well as the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

The mixed-use commercial, housing and office project includes a sweep veil providing shade for outdoor public spaces, parks, gardens and smaller buildings below. A net-zero structure, it is designed to produce more renewable energy than it consumes.

Its designers boast that the 1.5 million square foot structure will break new ground in engineering and vertical transportation. They also emphasize that its horizontality makes an intentional statement about inclusivity – the building is meant to serve more than just those who occupy its heights.

“Super-tall towers are perceived as an object in the distance,” said AMBS. “An alien planted in the city, disconnected from the urban scale at ground level. The Bride, on the other hand, will be conceived as a city itself both vertically but also horizontally from the ground.”

“It will be enjoyed by thousands of people in endless ways, within it, on it or under it, from walking in the vast shaded parks and promenades at ground level, to having lunch or shopping in a sky-square hundreds of metres above sea level.”

An imaginative Instagram user’s unique way of capturing the world’s most famous landmarks for posterity involves a scissors, paper and a camera.

“I take photos with paper & sometimes without”, states Instagram user @paperboyo, but it’s safe to say those “with paper” have garnered him most of his nearly 70,000 followers. London-based Rich McCor (to use his given name) came up with his intriguing take on travel photography while brainstorming on how to make his photos more original and memorable.

Changing his POV was McCor’s number one priority. “I decided I would become a tourist in my own city,” he explained. “I wanted to see the London that I ignored, to explore the landmarks and the quirky history.” His first efforts depicted Big Ben transformed into a wristwatch (or vice-versa) and some graphic teasing of a lion outside St. Paul’s Cathedral. Nice kitty!

Positioning the various paper cut-outs takes much precision and no doubt McCor attracts a certain amount of attention during the process. No doubt there’s a certain degree of trail-and-error as well: what works well in one’s imagination doesn’t always pan out in reality. When everything goes right, well, that’s just the cherry on the sundae!

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Cut It Art Paper Cut Outs Cut Landmarks Down To Size