Ulrich Lamfuß

ULRICH LAMSFUSS, ''The Raw and the Cooked,'' Lombard-Freid, 531 West 26th Street, (212) 967-8040 (through April 5). This Berlin painter copies photographs from fashion, news, travel and other sorts of magazines. A gallery release and two portraits of Andy Warhol, one a copy of the other, suggest that he has ulterior conceptual motives, but his faithfully nondescript renderings of fighting elephants, a movie zombie and a herd of wild horses leave one uncertain about exactly what he is up to (Johnson).

Found Here: http://www.lombard-freid.com/artists/lamsfuss/lamsfuss_press/lamsfuss_NYT_3_21_03.htm

& here: http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2009/01/ulrich-lamfus-at-max-hetzler/

Metal Spheres Found in 2 Million Year Old Rock

"The Grooved Spheres" Over the last few decades, miners in South Africa have been digging up mysterious metal spheres. Origin unknown, these spheres measure approximately an inch or so in diameter, and some are etched with three parallel grooves running around the equator. Two types of spheres have been found: one is composed of a solid bluish metal with flecks of white; the other is hollowed out and filled with a spongy white substance. The kicker is that the rock in which they where found is Precambrian - and dated to 2.8 billion years old! Who made them and for what purpose is unknown.

Found Here: http://www.theworldsbestever.com/news/

This metal sphere is just one of several hundred in one stratum in South Africa that is estimated to date back millions of years. The carefully shaped grooves that they contain cannot be the results of any natural phenomenon. This discovery shows that metal has been used since the very earliest times, and that for millions of years, humans have possessed the technology to make fine grooves in metal.

Found Here: http://www.thestoneage.org/stone_age_introduction_a.php

Sumerian Crystal Cylinder Seals

(French Sceaux-cylindres, German Zylindersiegel) are small (2-6 cm) cylinder-shaped stones carved with a decorative design in intaglio (engraved). The cylinder was rolled over wet clay to mark or identify clay tablets, envelopes, ceramics and bricks. It so covers an area as large as desired, an advantage over earlier stamp seals. Its use and spread coincides with the use of clay tablets, starting at the end of the 4th millennium up to the end of the first millennium.

After this time stamp seals are used again. Cylinder seals are important to historians. The seals were needed as signature, confirmation of receipt, or to mark clay tablets and building blocks.

The invention fits with the needs caused by the general development of city-states. Inscriptions are mostly carved in reverse, so as to leave a positive image on the clay with figures standing out. Some are directly carved and leave a negative imprint.

Stamp and cylinder seals for identifying ownership of property, and tokens for recording commodities, were other possible sources.

More than two thousand years later, in 2,308 BCE, the Sumerians developed their equivalent of the 11:57pm July 3rd 14,000 BCE sky chart and Narmer Plate combined. It comes in the form of a royal cylinder-seal depicting "The Sun is Risen". The purpose of the seal is to celebrate the Dawn of the Age of Aries. Perhaps not surprisingly it comes complete with Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. In linking the seal with the Ancient Egyptian 11:57 pm July 3rd 14000BCE sky chart the following need to be accounted for: the Celestial Sphinx and the Rising Sun, together with the Constellations of Orion, Gemini, Phoenix, and Grus. There are two other constellations on the sky chart, those of Taurus and Piscis Austrinus.