The Impossible Lamp is a work of craft and film by Jeeves Basu. It begins with a large wax candle sitting atop a clear plastic lampshade. Basu and his team had the difficult task of melting the wax so that it would drip over the mold, but cooling it before it could drip off. This time-lapse video shows how they did it.

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The Nazis at Buchenwald concentration camp did it. And so did serial killer Ed Gein. Now, Andrew Krasnow is making sculptures and lampshades out of human skin, all in the name of art:

His works include human skin lampshades – a direct response to the belief that similar items made from the skin of Holocaust victims were found at Buchenwald concentration camp.

Using skins from white men who donated their bodies to medical science, he has created freak versions of mundane items including flags, boots and maps of America – in effect using skin like leather. His work, he says, is a commentary on human cruelty and America’s ethics and morality. [...]

Gallery owner Robert Devcic said Krasnow uses only white skin because much of the suffering in the Americas has been caused by white people. "He uses skin to make the point that suffering is universal," he said. "It is tanned using the same process that you’d use for an animal skin."

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