Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin @ Foam Photography Museum, Amsterdam
Delfine - Ad Campaign for Balenciaga in collaboration with M/M Paris 2001 © Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin & Anastasia, 1994 © Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin
Pretty Much Everything, Foam, Amsterdam, 2010, image courtesy of Foam
Pretty Much Everything, Foam, Amsterdam, 2010, image courtesy of Foam
“Foam shows 300 photographs spanning 25 years of the duo’s career. Art, fashion and portrait works all exist next to each other. By disregarding any chronological order the combinations of images are based on personal, formal, social, political and intuitive associations that show the way the artists have lived with the images for 25 years.
Inez van Lamsweerde en Vinoodh Matadin launched their international career with the publication of ten pages in the British magazine The Face in 1994. It was here that for the first time in a fashion series the models and the backgrounds were photographed separately and subsequently combined into a single image by use of a computer. The series typified van Lamsweerde and Matadin’s hyper-realistic style and was made to celebrate and subvert fashion within the context of a magazine.” Quoted from Foam’s Press Release. Full text here.
Me Kissing Vinoodh (Passionately), 1999 © Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin
Untitled (Head 1), 2008 © Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin & Antony Fantastic Man, 2006 © Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin
Björk - Poisson Nageur, 2000 © Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin
Delfine in my apartment
A special edition newspaper was created for the exhibition. Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin ‘Pretty Much Everything’ 1985-2010: 25 photographs + 25 posters with M/M (Paris). Image from Foam website. Newspaper for purchase via Foam website!!!
Fantastic Man Issue no.6 Autumn and Winter 2007-2008
- Fantastic Man Issue no.6 Autumn and Winter 2007-2008
- Fantastic Man Issue no.6 Autumn and Winter 2007-2008
VM: Inez directs the model or the subject and I always shoot from a different angle, capturing the same moment from another perspective. Mine see to be more unfinished pictures. Theyre more voyeuistic; they show a completely different sensibility. The people in Inez’s pictures are always looking into the camera. They’re aware of the picture being taken at that moment. Inez is like the lead singer. We always say that it’s like a band, we play together and she’s the voice of our band…But when we’re actually shooting we go with the flow, follow our intuition and feed on the exchange between model and photographer..”
On the beginnings of their work and development:
“OZ: Your idea was to develop work that had both an artistic side and a commercial side?
VM: Yes, we always said to ourselves that our pictures should be in magazines and also in galleries. We were young and we had very strong opinions, and in a way we were also quite cynical. Which I think is good. We thought we knew everything. I think at first people really had a hard time understanding what we were doing. They thought we were making a parody of fashion. But we loved fashion yet we also wanted to be critical.
OZ: I think your work has a parody side to it, but also a dark side. Something that you don’t understand immediately. It’s funny how you started experimenting with digital possibilities and then later you went into more classical photography.
VM: It was a logical first step for us to do everything on computer and then manipulate everything. But at some point you see that people are following you, doing the same thing and making it worse- over-retouching and making it really bad. So you get the impulse, “Let’s destroy what we’re doing.” We started making rough collages on the computer. Putting a horse face where it doesn’t belong, on top of the image. Or leaving part of the image as a rough cut out. Not making everything perfect and over-retouched because we didnt think that was really interesting. After that we moved to classical photography because it’s so iconic and direct.
OZ: And beautiful.” page. 92
by Solid Objectives–Idenburg Liu (SO–IL)
winner of the eleventh annual MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program
Thursday, June 24, marked the completion and private preview of Pole Dance, SO-IL’s summer pavilion for MoMA PS1. A field of 30ft poles mounted on movable wind sail joints covers the entire outdoor courtyard with a canopy of white netting. The poles and netting are bungeed into place, allowing visitors to shake and sway the elastic structure creating ripples of motion across the network. A series of colorful interventions complete the system: fluorescent yoga balls, hammocks, pull rings and a wading pool offer obstruction, rest and play to all museum participants.
Entry view
Shadows
Push Pull & Play
Rest & Relaxation
Wading Pool
pool floaty inspired bench
in use
the crowd
During the New York summer, take every opportunity to drink outdoors. Designer Geoff Han with Florian Idenburg, SO-IL partner
Jing Liu, SO-IL partner with Yoonjai Choi, 2x4
Ilias Papageorgiou, SO-IL project lead
In addition to working on a visual identity and promotional materials for PD, we (2×4) collaborated with SO-IL and Arup Acoustics to develop an interactive soundspace in the axillary courtyard. Eight poles in the courtyard are embedded with accelerometers, similar to ones found in your iPhone. As users shake the poles, sound is generated from speakers mounted on the courtyard walls that correspond to the vibrations of the poles. iPhone users can also log on to poledance.ps1.org and collaboratively control the sounds coming from the speakers, or watch a series of visualizations in real time.
Auxillary courtyard
iPhone Webapp located at poledance.so-il.org
There were a lot of great people that donated their time and energy to making this happen. Checkout the Pole Dance website for full details. MoMA PS1’s Summer Warm Up series kicks off next Saturday, July 3 and Pole Dance is open to the public in the courtyard of MoMA PS1. Get your ass outside for some music and interactive architecture. This summer is gonna be awesome.
Orange Alert
Greater New York
PS1
Last Saturday in a balmy, Mountainville, New York, Storm King Art Center celebrated its 50th anniversary with an exhibition that explored its rich sculptural history. Part of the historic Hudson River Valley, Storm King features over 100 sculptures on an lush 500 acre estate, making it a “singular haven” for experiencing some of the most renowned twentieth century sculptors in a pristine and unspoiled environment.
The anniversary exhibition is located within the French-Normandy style mansion, and leads visitors through Storm King’s history, archival documents, exhibition timelines, landscape architecture, and the many processes and conservation concerns for some it’s major pieces (illustrated by artists such as Claes Oldenburg, Alexander Calder, Alexander Liberman, and Loise Bourgeois). The rooms of the mansion are beautiful and offers views of the sprawling estate, and sculptures in the distance.
The View from Here
Exhibition detail
Exhibition detail
Room
3D CNC Model and projected history Storm King
Projection Mapping
Model Detail
Calder timeline and model of The Arch
Calder Model
Model of Five Swords by Calder
louise bourgeois - conservation room
David Smith Room
David Smith Detail
The grounds featured over 100 works from the permanent collection, and the landscape was absolutely stunning. I could have easily spent far more than the 4 hours I allotted to my visit. The 2010 season closes in November, and I highly recommend a visit. Sculpture heaven.
*
Louise Nevelson, City on a High Mountain, 1983
Alyson Shotz, Viewing Scope, 2006
Kenneth Snelson, Free Ride Home, 1974
Mark di Suvero, Mon Père, Mon Père, 1975-75
(rear) Stephen Talasnik, Stream: A Folded Drawing, 2009-10
Sol Lewitt, Five Modular Units, 1971
Mark di Suvero, Jambalaya, 2002-06
Mark di Suvero, Old Grey Beam, 2007/2010
Andy Goldsworthy, Storm King Wall, 1997-98
Andy Goldsworthy, Storm King Wall, 1997-98
Richard Serra, Schunnemunk Fork, 1990-91
Maria Elena González, You & Me, 2010
Magdalena Abakanowicz, Sarcophagi in Glass Houses, 1989
Alexander Liberman, Iliad, 1974-76
South Fields with longview to Mark di Suvero's Beethoven's Quartet, 2003 and Pyramidian, 1987/1998
Robert Grosvenor, Untitled, 1970
David von Schlegell, Untitled, 1972
Tal Streeter, Endless Column, 1968
Meadows
Alexander Calder, The Arch, 1975
Alexander Calder, Five Swords, 1976
From May 7th- 28th American Design Club and Heller Gallery presented a show of works in glass by emerging designers. The show was the fifth in running by the AmDC since their establishment in 2008, and coincided with design week in New York. Here are some images from the private view (where noted credited images are via Heller Gallery’s website)
Heller Gallery
The Breakable show is overflowing with comparative interest to the contemporary glass work of the applied arts field. Heller Gallery typically focuses their curation on contemporary glass artists and the AmDC promotes emerging designers through shows normally based on conceptual themes but never before material. I’m lucky to spy on the glass students at the RCA- all making work that is deeply rooted in the interest of material quality and process. Many of them aim to highlight imperfections in the work so as to reveal the process of glass-making which is incredibly time consuming in labour and pursuit of technical skill. The theme of glass puts many designers in an interesting arena because they do not necessarily have the same context and relationship with material as an artist or craftsman whose focus revolves primarily on application and process. Thus their ideas are held in a crossover that one might call applied concept; Some have a stronghold, convincing us that the material is an absolute to the design, while some were less so. Harry Allen’s Steuben submission, ‘Sticks and Stones Bar Set’ is very clearly a concept applied to the theme of glass, contextualizing his cast bones and stones strongly by title and forms that are metaphorically contradictory with glass. The casting process has been very consistent in Allen’s work with his Reality series based around the idea that we should only use existing form. For Steuben he has used this interest in realistic forms to further this conceptual plane with the asset of Steuben’s flawless production of crystal clear casting and glass craft.
Adversely Lara Knutson’s interests stem from material qualities. Her work (below), titled Soft Glass, is made of woven reflective glass fiber which creates rainbows on the contours of the piece, magnifying light 100 times due to 50,000 mircroscopic mirror backed glass beads in every square inch of the fabric. This fiber was woven into a what may be a traditional vessel form which is wonderfully slumped and scalloped because of the inherent material qualities.
Breakable Opening
LARA KNUTSON: SOFT GLASS2010reflective glass fabric, steel wire9"x18" round and flexible 9' h. x 18" diameter/ flexible
Detail
L: HARRY ALLEN with STEUBEN: STICKS AND STONES BAR SET 2010 R: ZAC WEINBERG KOZZIES (ANIMAL STEMS) 2010 glass11 3/4 X 4 X 4 in. (29.85 X 10.16 X 10.16 cm) Photos from Heller Gallery 2010
Title
By design there were also many applications of glass elements in the realms of furniture and jewelry. Matthew Bradshaw and Sergio Silva take advantage of the material structurally, contrasting and combining it with bamboo- arguably two materials that are not perceived as strong but used together to create stunning furniture that is both airy and strong. Annie Lenon uses the ever-nostalgic glass cloche as an aid in her jewelry in order to preserve and hold private relics on your hand for display. The glass form in this instance is more of a referential tool, reminding us of the encyclopedic antiquities of the Wunderkammer.
ANNIE LENON: CLOCHE RING2010glass/silver1-1/2" and 2-1/2" long : Photo from Heller Gallery 2010
ERICA ROSENFELD: TIME CAPSULES 2010glass6 1/4 X 6 X 6 in. (15.88 X 15.24 X 15.24 cm)
MELISSA GAMWELL: ALICE LENS 2010 glass/silver/brushed gold silver lustre6 X 7 X 3 1/2 in. (15.24 X 17.78 X 8.89 cm)1 1/2"d. x 36" chain
MELISSA GAMWELL: ALICE LENS 2010glass/silver/brushed gold silver lustre6 X 7 X 3 1/2 in. (15.24 X 17.78 X 8.89 cm)1 1/2"d. x 36" chain
DYLAN PALMERSEALED AIR2008glass/mixed media10 X 12 X 19 in. (25.4 X 30.48 X 48.26 cm)
MATT BRADSHAW + SERGIO SILVA: L: SMALL BOWL 2010 glass 5 X 7 X 2 in. (12.7 X 17.78 X 5.08 cm) 389-0049 R:GLASS SHELVES 2010 glass/wood 92 X 40 X 12 in. (233.68 X 101.6 X 30.48 cm) Photos from Heller Gallery 2010
MATT BRADSHAW + SERGIO SILVALARGE BOWL2010glass14 X 11 X 7 1/2 in. (35.56 X 27.94 X 19.05 cm)
Designers L-R: Jude Heslin-di Leo, Jonathan Lee, Samuel Cochran, Bernardo Guillermo, Matthew Bradshaw
AO MONTEROSSO: WINE GOBLETS (set of four with funnel) 2010 blown glass/bendy straws7" high x 3" diameter
LINDSEY ADELMAN: WITH NANCY CALLAN CLUSTER CHANDELIER 2010 glass/lighting fixture 33 X 16 X 16 in. (83.82 X 40.64 X 40.64 cm) Photos from Heller Gallery 2010
L: JEFF DUNDAS / SUPERNATURAL & Co. CEIIINOSSSSTTUU 2010 glass 15 X 15 X 15 in. (38.1 X 38.1 X 38.1 cm) R: SARA MUSSELMAN WISHGLASSES 2010 glass 10 X 7 X 3 in. (25.4 X 17.78 X 7.62 cm) Photos from Heller Gallery 2010
This week in London the RCA Show One has opened with the graduate work from the Schools of Applied Arts so the upcoming post will cover some of their glass work for contrast. The Breakable show presented 29 designers who are not all shown here but I strongly encourage a look at the Heller Gallery website to see the full exhibition.
Presented by Ecstatic Peace Library at Partners & Spade
Last Sunday evening, Ecstatic Peace Library held a pop up event at Partners & Spade on 40 Great Jones Street. The brainchild of Andy Spade and Anthony Sperduti, Partners & Spade is half curiosity shop/half design consultancy, providing a perfect venue for Thurston Moore and Eva Prinz’s Ecstatic Peace Library publishing imprint. This was the final event in a series of promotional nights for EPL, promoting Kim Gordon’s latest book, Kim Gordon, The Noise Paintings. I narrowly missed Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore performing as Mirror/Dash the night before at another event space Thirty Days NY. Fortunately I captured Thurston & Daniel performing which you can watch at the very end of this post.
Ecstatic Peace Library Newspaper
Multicolored Harp
Reading (Over the shoulder)
Partners & Spade
If you don't know, just ax somebody
Absinthe Punch by Eva
I am adding some stills from the performance, in case you can’t sit through the whole thing (it’s 20 mins). But it’s seriously awesome so why wouldn’t you? Many thanks to Partners & Spade and Ecstatic Peace Library for their generosity in providing a wonderful end to the weekend.
Video
in
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Independent &
The Armory Show
March 4 — March 7
2010
Artists, academics, administrators, auctioneers, benefactors, bloggers, collectors, consumers, critics, curators, editors, educators, gallerists, historians, museum professionals, writers, and the public all play a role in interpreting the value and meaning of art (monetarily, metaphysically and professionally). Not unlike other industries, the art world has its own types of events which collectively shape the product, production and dissemination of art. Of all events (openings, exhibitions, symposia, biennials etc) the art fair seems the most overtly commercial, where galleries stand side by side competing for the art world’s attention and hopefully, investment. I visited two very different art fairs last week and learned a lot about the specific type of value I look to derive from art itself, but raised many more questions about art as commodity and the forums used to generate commerce.
The entrance to the Independent – "Please god make tomorrow better" Claire Fontaine
The Independent was packaged as a hybrid art fair organized by gallerists Elizabeth Dee and Darren Flook in what use to be the Dia:Chelsea building on west 22nd. The approach and organization of the temporary exhibition was similar to a massive group show of galleries instead of a group show about artists. The show split the four floors between 40 galleries and was free and open to the public during the NY art fair weekend. I found it refreshing that the galleries and organizers where able to allow for a fair amount of presentation and coherence within the open and relatively un-programmed floor spaces. Each floor used some simple layout and temporary walls (and sometimes exhibit objects) to differentiate itself from the last. In the stairwell, a Dan Flavin light installation connected each floor together while making everyone look blue.
Dan Flavin Installation
Stairwell
The crowd at the opening was young and fashionable. If they weren’t young they must have been young at heart because I don’t remember seeing any misfits of the profile. The great thing about any young and burgeoning scene is the intense nature of it’s participants. Everyone I saw at the opening whom I knew and chatted with, eventually left me to GO CHECKOUT THE WORK.
Giant inflatable (and deflating) rat reciting the ABC's from Glengary GlenRoss
Gabby watching Ryan Trecartin at the Elizabeth Dee reinstallation of "P.opular S.ky (section ish)", 2009
Detail, Ryan Trecartin "P.opular S.ky (section ish)", 2009
"360 illusion II" by Jeppe Hein – two rotating mirrored planes turn the room top side down and back again
DMC12 aka the DeLorean - for Duncan Campbell's documentary film "Make It New John"
My least favorite room was a collaborative effort from the high-end design retail store Moss and independent art curators, Thea Westreich and Ethan Wagner. The room was the only “exclusive” room in the show and was presented as an exhibit within an exhibit. It was titled “this that & then some” and paired design objects with art objects and presented them as a grouping. My initial distaste of the mini-exhibit did not stem from a dislike of the objects or their pairings, which were harmless and seemed about as related as anything else in the fair – it came from a deeper discomfort with the portrayal of design as equal to or symbiotic with art object. It was as if design was bullying into the art world through a hollow and arranged marriage with little meaning or respect for either partner. It really seemed to disservice both the art/design objects and the work that had to go into them, because the work individually was beautiful and good.
Stanze di Raffaello II, Rome by Thomas Struth and Illuminated Crucifix by Michal Fronek & Jan Nemecek
"Untitled" (cube) by Sol LeWitt and "The Other: square side table" by Ilse Crawford
My favorite work by far was a video by Jordan Wolfson that portrayed coke bottles filled with milk marching across the screen through an abandoned urban landscapes. There while a female voice reciting her inner thoughts aloud and occasionally taking vocal stage direction from a quieter male voice. The coke bottles changed in number but continually walk through the landscape making a gravely crunching noise as they go. Sometimes the orientation of the screen begins to rotate lazily as you tumble through the dark recesses of this woman’s mind. It was trippy, but gripping and real.
Still from "Con Leche" by Jordan Wolfson
I left the Independent and headed uptown in a rickshaw driven by JC, who was wearing a hot pink polka-dot suit and a tinsel cape. If you ever see him around you should go for a ride. He took me to the Armory Show on west 55th for a deal because he is super nice and said he said he was getting a little bored. On the way there we talked about art and a zombie video he was shooting in Bushwick. This only happens in New York.
Going for a ride on the nicest day — ever.
JC
If you google “art fair” the Armory Show comes up third in the results list, not exactly scientific but enlightening none the less. The Armory Show is a massive event, located on the piers 92 and 94, drawing thousands of visitors at $30 a ticket. It is America’s “leading” art fair and pulls both international artists (or their galleries) and international visitors in waves and hordes. You can find unknown or lesser known artists in a little white cubicle right next to the biggest headline grabbing art stars. And maybe that is the problem. There is no way to navigate this fair in any meaningful way beyond the mode of shopping. You are in an art mall, the difference between this and a museum is that you can buy this work and you can take pictures and there are no security guards to stop you.
Welcome to the art mart.
Olafur Eliasson's photos of vehicles and crossings
Taking the opportunity to reflect. hahaha
british bad boys g&g
"Cinemap – eleven films on request" Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster
Not to say it was all bad. One of the highlights for me was the Josephine Meckseper installation at Elizabeth Dee’s space at the Armory Show. It was an extremely surface oriented installation comprising of mirrored, shiny, pop, facist, and sexist (or sexy) items, and I immediately felt and appreciated the irony of the situation and it’s juxtaposition at the show.
Josephine Meckseper
Josephine Meckseper
During fair weekend the Armory is the main event and all the other events seem to be the side shows. The Armory is simply a massive “establishment”. It is a necessary and important event that brings some of the world’s best artists and galleries to the greater NY public – but I don’t think that is good enough. I bring a lot expectation to the table when considering the two shows, one is established, rich and ticketed, the other young, open, and free. The Armory Show has a slew of corporate sponsors, there was an Acura SUV next to the stairs, the only car at the Independent was a Delorean and I don’t think you could buy it (unverified). I imagine I am the wrong demographic for the Armory Show: I am not rich, I do not collect art, and the value I derive from art tends to be for creative, inspirational and sometimes professional reasons. The two shows couldn’t have felt more opposite and I wonder if it is time to replace the outmoded, unspecific art mall and create something in between the two fairs? Can a niche, curated art fair remain small and focused, but function well monetarily for the gallerists and subsequently the artists they represent? This raises some questions for me about how to be profitable in the art world, I imagine it is no small task or even one that can have accurate formulas or models for projection. I guess the simplest way to look at it is that first, the art is created. Everything else that follows is some form of commerce of that art’s secondary markets. So what can we try next?
"the handle comes up the hammer comes down" by doug aitken
More and Less +
Documents of Transient Art
A studio visit from graphic designers and proprietors of Specter Press — based in Seoul, Korea.
Sulki & Min Choi stopped by to show us some of their work and talk about their recent activities. It was really great to meet graphic designers who are operating with such a strong conceptual approach to their work. They also shared a range of books and posters from their imprint Spector Press. Both are Yale MFA Grads and were researchers at JVE prior to establishing a permanent practice in Korea. They are really great people and great designers so check them out and order some books.
Min & Sulki
Many nice things to look at
Sasa 44: Annual Report 2006
Cover Sasa 44: Annual Report 2006
Perspecta 35, Excercise in Modern Construction part 3, Our Spot: New York
1/4: Oriëntatie
SKMoMA Highlights — a ghost publication that mirrors the form of a true MoMA Highlights catalog. Featuring the works of Korean contemporary artists, for the fictitious South Korea Museum of Modern Art.
SKMoMA Highlights — spreads mirroring each other
Catalog for Hyungkoo Lee’s solo exhibition at the Korean Pavilion, La Biennale di Venezia, 2007.
stills from slideshow
stills from slideshow
stills from slideshow
stills from slideshow
still from slideshow
sharing
looking
thanks to sulki & min
Peter Fischli & David Weiss are basically my favorites from the realm of celebrity artists, and Matthew Marks currently has given them the attention of all three of his Chelsea galleries. This show is almost over! It ends on the 16th and I strongly recommend a visit.
The show is in three parts, the first (in the order that I visited them) is Clay and Rubber at 523 W24th. This show included 26 objects that span the past three decades of the duo’s rubber casting and hand-built clay works. I have seen some of these pieces at their Tate Modern retrospective, but the lot is an amazing spectrum of elemental beauty in objects. The clay pieces are primarily models of machined, recto-linear objects. Marks of the artists hands are proximally apparent, subtly highlighting the surface and distinguishing their over-sized forms from a real smooth-cast brick, sono-tube or chain-link. The rubber objects contrast as casts of natural or highly detailed forms, and the material is often hidden by the original detail of the pieces. Both of the materials engage the viewer and the object, negating the importance of purpose and true material, allowing the pure form of everyday objects to be considered. The gallery was also perfect, in that it didn’t overwhelm the objects with massive space, but was large enough to investigate the pieces with/out the context of the others.
Matthew Marks Gallery@ 523 West 24th
Wood Table, 2005, Black Rubber, 157 x 96 x 45cm
Raven, 1986, Black Rubber, 28 x 41 x 14cm
Chain, 2009, Reinforced clay, 14 x 107 x 14cm
Little Wall, 1987, Black Rubber, 77 x 34 x 41cm
Root, 2005, Black Rubber, 60 80 x 60cm
Stairs, 1987, Black Rubber, 36 x 87 x 53cm
Drawer, 1987, Black Rubber, 14 x 51 x 43cm
Down the street at 522 West 22nd is Sun, Moon and Stars, an exhibition of a book that F&W started as a project for an annual report. The book is pretty daunting to flip through, but here I spent quite a bit of time re-examining the flats which I thought were more successful than the original format in conveying the visual and topical similarities. Below is quoted from the MM press release:
“Sun, Moon and Stars is an encyclopedic accumulation of 800 magazine advertisements culled form hundreds of international periodicals. Begun as a project commissioned by a Swiss corporation for its annual report, the finished project is displayed in thirty-eight wood and glass tables, totaling 330 feet in length. A dizzying reaction to late capitalism in various chromatic groupings, the ads are shown in a specific order that exploits the formal, thematic and color similarities between advertisements.”
Matthew Marks Gallery@ 522 West 22nd
Case Detail
Case Detail
Case Detail
Case Detail
Gallery Detail
Resting next door at 526 West 22nd, are the deflated avatars of Fischli & Weiss, titled Sleeping Puppets. Rat and Bear were first shown in the film The Least Resistance, 1981, and The Right Way, 1983 ( translated dialogue quoted below) Click on the links to watch the films.
“BEAR: Do you see the moon? Look at it carefully.
RAT: I need more stones. We have hardly begun.
BEAR: I’ve been watching it. It’s like me.
It comes and goes.
Always on the move…looks at everything.
It does what it pleases.
RAT: So you want to leave.
BEAR: What am I suppose to do? Are you staying here?
RAT: Now all it needs is a roof
BEAR: Good. I’ll come with you.
RAT: I’ll leave the stones here..
BEAR: …but I’m taking the dream with me
Into the unknown.”
Bye Bye! Matthew Marks Gallery @ 526 West 22nd
Peter Fischli & David Weiss
October 30, 2009- January 16, 2010
I’m in New York briefly before returning to London, and it happens to be the one week where most galleries are closed due to the Christmas/New Years holiday! New Years eve led me to the MoMA, along with the rest of New York. Struggled through the Bauhaus & Tim Burton shows, and by habit checked out the design and architecture galleries which showcase a rotating selection of MoMA’s permanent collection. This never fails to impress. My favorite aspect of this gallery is the central showcase, which is a jewel box of product designs from the past century. Braun always has a substantial line-up of products here, more than not by Mr. Rams. The “Less and More” show at the Design Museum in London creates such a cohesive time line of his work, and here is was nice to see single specimens alongside products from contemporaries. For the millionth time I realize how wonderfully timeless all of these products are, the work being present for precisely that reason. Most of the participants have lived by the staples of modernist principles, building a roster of manifestos which have yielded decades of iconic design. To kick-off the New York posts here is some eye candy from the showcase at the MoMA along with some manifestos (take it or leave it!) to inspire the New Year.
MoMA
Dieter Rams’ 10 Principles of Good Design, Good design is innovative.
Good design makes a product useful.
Good design is aesthetic.
Good design makes a product understandable.
Good design is unobtrusive.
Good design is honest.
Good design is long-lasting.
Good design is thorough down to the last detail.
Good design is environmentally friendly.
Good design is as little design as possible.
Portable Transistor Radio & Phonograph (Model TP1) 1959,Design by Dieter Rams, manufactured by Braun AG, Frankfurt, Germany, Plastic Casing, Aluminium Frame, and leather strap
Rolf Harder, Alcan Foil Pamphlets for Aluminium Company of Canada, lithograph, c.1960-62
Case Detail
David Gammon, Turntable, Polished aluminium, brass, plywood and acrylic, manufactured by Transcriptors Ltd., New York, 1964
Enzo Mari, Timor Perpetual Calendar, plastic,manufactured by Danese S.r.i, Italy, c.1966/ Massimo Vignelli, Max-2 Stacking Cup,plastic, manufactured by Heller Designs Inc. c.1970/ Pio Manzu, Chronotime Clocks, ABS polymer casing and metal parts,manufactured by Italora, Milan, c.1968
Adolph Loos, excerpt, “Ornaments and Crime”, 1908
The change in ornament implies a premature devaluation of labor. The worker’s time, the utilized material is capital that has been wasted. I have made the statement: The form of an object should be bearable for as long as the object lasts physically. I would like to try to explain this: a suit will be changed more frequently than a valuable fur coat. A lady’s evening dress, intended for one night only, will be changed more rapidly than a writing desk. Woe betide the writing desk that has to be changed as frequently as an evening dress, just because the style has become unbearable. Then the money that was spent on the writing desk will have been wasted.
Massimo Vignelli, excerpt ,”The Vignelli Canon”, 2008
Whatever we do, if not understood, fails to communicate and is wasted effort. We design things which we think are semantically correct and syntactically consistent but if, at the point of fruition, no one understands the result, or the meaning of all that effort, the entire work is useless. Sometimes it may need some explanation but it is better when not necessary. Any artifact should stand by itself in all its clarity. Otherwise,something really important has been missed. The final look of anything is the by-product of the clarity (or lack of it) during its design phase. It is important to understand the starting point and all assumptions of any project to fully comprehend the final result and measure its efficiency. Clarity of intent will translate in to clarity of result and that is of paramount importance in Design. Confused, complicated designs reveal an equally confused and complicated mind. We love complexities but hate complications! Having said this, I must add that we like Design to be forceful. We do not like limpy design. We like Design to be intellectually elegant – that means elegance of the mind, not one of manners, elegance that is the opposite of vulgarity. We like Design to be beyond fashionable modes and temporary fads. We like Design to be as timeless as possible. We despise the culture of obsolescence. We feel the moral imperative of designing things that will last for a long time. It is with this set of values that we approach Design everyday, regardless of what it may be: two or three dimensional, large or small, rich or poor. Design is One!
Ladislav Sutnar, Build the Town Blocks, painted wood, c.1940
Ladislav Sutnar, Build the Town Promotional Cards, paper, c.1940
Ladislav Sutnar, Build the Town Promotional Cards, paper, c.1940
Walter Gropius, “Bauhaus Manifesto”, 1919
The final goal of any plastic activity is the building! To decorate it was once the most noble task of the plastic arts; they belonged intimately to the component parts of the great art of architecture. Today, they delight in an autonomy that may, again, lead to a collaboration among all creative artists.
Architects, painters, and sculptors must relearn to known and understand the complex form of the construction as a whole and in its element: Then their works will be filled again with the architectonic spirit that they lost in the art of the drawing room.
The old art schools could not achieve this unity, and, anyway, how could they have done it–art being unteachable. They must turn again to workshops. The universe of model draftsmen and of those who work in the applied arts, a universe where one limits oneself to drawing and painting, must finally rediscover the universe of building. When the young man who feels the call for plastic creativity first learns a trade, as in the old days, then the unproductive artist will no longer be doomed to unfinished works, for he will have a trade, a capacity to excel in something.
Architects, sculptors, painters, all of us, we must return to manual work! For there is no “professional art.” There is no basic difference between the artist and the artisan. The artist is just an elevated version of the artisan. Thank heaven, during rare moments of light that are beyond his control, art flourishes unconsciously from the work of his hands, but the knowledge of the basics of his work is indispensable to any artist. It is the source of all creative production.
Let us therefore form a new union of artisans, free of the arrogance that led to a separation of classes and built a wall of arrogance between artisans and artists! Let’s have the will to do it, let’s conceive and achieve together the construction of a future that will unite everything: architecture, sculpture, and painting in a single formation, and that one day will rise toward heaven, the shining symbol of a new faith.
Diagram of the Bauhaus Curriculum
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, “Working theses”, 1923.
We reject all aesthetic speculation, all doctrine,and all formalism. Architecture is the will of the age conceived in spatial terms. Living. Changing. New. Not yesterday, not tomorrow, only today can be given form. Only this architecture creates. Create form out of the nature of the task with the means of our time. This is our work. O F F I C E. B U I L D I N G. The office building is a house of work of organization of clarity of economy. Bright, wide workrooms, easy to oversee, undivided except as the organism of the undertaking is divided. The maximum effect with the minimum expenditure of means. The materials are concrete iron glass. Reinforced concrete buildings are by nature skeletal buildings. No noodles nor armoured turrets. A construction of girders that carry the weight, and walls that carry no weight. That is to say, buildings consisting of skin and bones.