Sunday, November 8, 2009

The Walter Gropius Manifesto


The ultimate aim of all creative activity is a building! The decoration of buildings was once the noblest function of fine arts, and fine arts were indispensable to great architecture. Today they exist in complacent isolation, and can only be rescued by the conscious co-operation and collaboration of all craftsmen. Architects, painters, and sculptors must once again come to know and comprehend the composite character of a building, both as an entity and in terms of its various parts. Then their work will be filled with that true architectonic spirit which, as "salon art", it has lost ... Architects, painters, sculptors, we must all return to crafts! For there is no such thing as "professional art". There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman. ... Let us therefore create a new guild of craftsmen without the class-distinctions that raise an arrogant barrier between craftsmen and artists! Let us desire, conceive, and create the new building of the future together. It will combine architecture, sculpture, and painting in a single form.
Despite being forced out of Bauhaus towards the end, and it's fall into more of an institution under his two replacement's, his work in the US at Harvard and with Breuer were outstanding. And the manifesto remains.
Salon Art, also remains. As trivial as ever. Oh look, a t-shirt graphic.

Aerial, Stationary, Natural & Fluorescent.






Natural History Museum, view from front door, optical illusion of movement.

I love watching people kiss


LIFE

fffound


Friday, November 6, 2009

Rob Harper


Image by my friend Rob Harper
http://www.robertharper.co.uk/fashion.html

Morrissey last night @ Ally Pally

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Derriere, Paris





Great restaurant, even better smoking room inside a wardrobe.

Pompadou Centre, Paris


Betty Tompkins. Fuck Painting.

Duchamp.


Eileen Gray.


Pierre Chareau.


Carl Buchheister.

Ne Dans La Rue, Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris



Chasing Napoleon, Palais De Tokyo, Paris


Abstract America @ Saatchi Gallery, London

Kirstin Stoltmann, Spray Bush, 2007.

Peter Coffin, Untitled, 2007.

Ryan Johnson, Watchmen, 2007.

Guerra De La Paz, Nine, 2007.

Paul Lee, Untitled (Can Sculpture), 2007

Tate Britain



Sunday, November 1, 2009

Wood Green & Bethnal Green



Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Give the Girl a Prize


Kate looks super healthy in this NY mag shoot. First time in a while she's not been photoshopped into oblivion.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Ed Ruscha @The Hayward Gallery


Zoo Art Fair 2009





Big Thanks to Ligaya and Abraham @V&A for passes.

Frieze Art Fair 2009






Friday, October 16, 2009

New Hat


Having dinner in Aldgate at an amazingly cheap Indian grill place I don't remember the name of, and round the corner comes a police car. In its wake is this lone soul, sat in the middle of the road. I don't consider it stealing. Especially since it wasn't me that stole it.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Highway


Highway, Los Angeles, California, USA, 2003
Photograph: Edward Burtynsky /Courtesy HASTD HUNT KRAEUTLER, New York / Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto

Monday, October 12, 2009

Random Night

It was a random night, that began at The Soho Arts Club, moved swiftly on courtesy of a group of inebriated bankers, to the Green Fingernail on Romilly Street, led to a walk into some of the worst drinking establishments in Soho, a second in Garlic & Shots and then finally the legendary Gerry's Club. It'd been a long time and this place never changes. Phil Dirtbox was still there...Jesus he's tall.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Bottles


Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Lucas Price


Not so keen on the rest of his work in this exhibit, but i like this.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Birdshit Butterfly


Sutton Road, London, N10.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Under/Current Mag


Met these guys at publish and be damned. Really good issue.
http://www.undercurrentmagazine.com/

Publish & Be Damned, Oxford House, Sunday.


Three floors of sweaty self-published madness.

Remnants of a day.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Richard Lamb


“Richard Lamb: The Everyday Life Collector,” an collaboration between Apartamento magazine and the British designer Max Lamb.
This is rad. Max's dad collected loads of the same object from car boot sales, charity shops, jumble sales and the like over the course of his life (well, he's still alive). Object association at its finest. Especially feeling the hedgehog piggy banks. Open until Sunday @1-5 Exhibition Rd right by South Ken tube (behind all the road works).

Leo & Louise Circa..94?


Main: Leo Marx. Left: Louise Young, my best friend in the whole world, with her tongue down someone's throat. Right: Possible Henry Marsh.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Sands Studios & Rotherhithe Picture Library


It's not often you get to see inside the Sands Studios Costume Dept and Dressmaking/Millinery Studio. I got a sneak peak on Sunday. The Rotherhithe Picture Library (Below) is a vast collection of visual references for sets, costumes and many more subjects. It is made up of 1000's of large books classified by themes, countries and historical periods, in which researchers can find pictorial reference. It's open to the public and is wonderfully disorganised. Photocopies are 10p, and black and white only. Which is all you really need since all the references are so old. Brilliant, bizarre little corner of South Bank.

Part of the Architecture Open House, London, Sunday. Had a brilliant day with my dad, and a bunch of retired St Martins teachers from Architecture and Ceramics. One of whom had the best laugh I have ever heard, and would flap his arms as he chuckled, head flailing. I love genuinely eccentric old English men. Especially Scholarly ones who didn't go to Public School and have a good old London accent.

The Studios also have a Cinema Club every Tuesday. There's 25 seats, all old mismatched arm chairs. "In homage to the programming of Art House Cinemas of a bygone era". Out of print, rare films from around the World you won't see elsewhere. It's run on donations.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Kite Hill Tourists


Kite Hill, London.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009


I can relate.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Ryan McGinley @Alison Jacques


Saw this tonight. Packed to the rafters.


A new direction for McGinley, but a good one.
http://www.alisonjacquesgallery.com/

Mariscal at the Design Museum




Good show. I had a pin of the 92 Barcelona Olympics mascot, Cobi, when I was 12, so it was nice to see him again.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Francis Alÿs @NPG


Much preferred to Gay Icons/BP Awards. Rad two rooms.
Saint Fabiola, a Roman divorcée turned do-gooder whose mug - or at least a single depiction of it - has inspired countless Sunday painters around the world. Artist Francis Alÿs has made a pastime of searching for portraits of her, all copies of a long-lost 1885 original by the French painter Jean-Jacques Henner.

Not that I'm about to go anywhere near Cardiff. But if I was..


"In Anna Fox's photographs, life often looks like something you might buy in Argos. Her Basingstoke and Work Stations series from the mid-1980s capture Thatcher's Britain as one of crisp, red-brick new builds, low-slung shopping centres and garish, prefab office spaces. Fox's passion is colour; along with Martin Parr, she is one of the early pioneers of fine art colour photography in the UK. The retrospective, Cockroach Diary and Other Stories, opening this week at Ffotogallery in Cardiff, spans the last 28 years of her career. Included are images of village fetes, family shindigs and a collaboration with singer Alison Goldfrapp, alongside autobiographical insights into Fox's relationship with her parents."

Finally they're painting over this Banksy Crap


Council officials have painted over a Banksy graffito sketch from which a reworked version was derived as the cover artwork for the 2003 single Crazy Beat by Blur.
Thank you Hackney Council. Truely. What makes Banksy any different? Everyone else's shit gets painted over. Join the club.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Portfolio


Grad work.
Good CR article on Digital Portfolio's: HERE

Battersea Power Station by Michael Collins





@ The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).
Really, really good close ups of all the switchboards inside Battersea. Not so keen on the distance shots, seen them before. Worth checking out. Couldn't actually find any of the images, and the gallery is too open to light and the frames too reflective to get a good shot (actually, that's a fault in the curation of the exhibit, it's hard to see the images), however, I found some random control room pic. Really like Collins' older work in the Rover/Jaguar factories too. Since all those pics belong to the Birmingham Library, they're impossible to find online though.

Friday, September 4, 2009

Tents


Inspired by an act of Parisian film director Jean Luc Godard’s benevolence, artist Cedric Christie has pulled together some of London’s most established creative luminaries for his charitable project Blank Canvas.

Director Godard, as part of the volunteer group Children of Don Quixote, recently donated a large amount of tents to Paris’s homeless community, which were set up all along the city’s Canal Saint Martin. The gift’s resulting shantytown caused such a wave through Europe’s press that the issue of homelessness was raised to a number one priority on France’s political agenda, during the run up to the presidential election.

Albert Maysles


Candid and direct, Albert Maysles wishes to document the very
complexities that come to be the key moments of life. Against
the dramatic background of the trains of the world, he will film
five or six separate and varied short stories that will illuminate
truth-baring moments.

Strangers, fellow passengers on a train, who are you? What did
you leave behind? When you get off, what lies before you?

"I want to make a film about trains, really about the unity of
humankind. Films can have the power of getting viewers to see
themselves as they experience directly the feelings, hopes and
problems of others. And through this process of identification,
hopefully, they may then feel less absurd, less alone as they
anticipate new possibilities of fellowship
."

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Twinsanity 1970

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Man O War Trials


Lucy Fox-Bohan

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Honolulu


A lizard climbed up the windscreen.
There was lots of palm trees and sand and shit too.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Muriel Spark: The Public Image


Most famous for being the inspiration for PiL, I read this in media studies years ago and it taught me a good lesson about trying to be something you're not.

John Bolton



John Bolton, an old family friend. Almost forgot about his work. Something jogged my memory. His gorgeous Italian wife Liliana was his muse for much of it. Her family had the best house in Ancona we would stay in. His studio was the first place I ever made out.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Civilian Clothing 1941 & Utility Furniture



On the 2nd of September 1941 the wartime rationing scheme in Britain incorporated the "Limitation of Supplies (Cloth and Apparel) Order 1941". All items of clothing under this order were to be marked with the "Civilian Clothing 1941" logo. Designed by Reginald Shipp, it soon became known as "The Cheeses". (I like the 'CC41' pacman logo, it seems ahead of its time).



The "Domestic Furniture (Control of Manufacture and Supply (No 2)) Order 1942" instituted furniture into the Utility Scheme on the 1st of November 1942. Non-Utility furniture could not be sold after the 28th of February 1943.

The first Utility Furniture catalogue was published on the 1st of January 1943. Initially only avaliable to newlyweds and persons who had been bombed out of their homes, the range included items for living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms and nursery furniture. The aim of the designs was to produce strong, serviceable furniture with the minimum of scarce raw materials.

The scheme continued on at the end of the war, finally being winding down on the 29th of November 1948, although many manufacturers continued making items to Utility patterns for a number of years afterwards until the official ending of the scheme in 1952.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Found a box of Books I forgot about


A Fine Disregard, Kirk Varnedoe. Don't think I can re-read this but it's rad.

Re-reading this. So good. It's really interesting to see quite how 'into it' he gets in Smash Hits. Hand in Glove by Andrew Harrison is prob the best interview in here.

Best Kite Ever


Courtesy of Nathan

Husam El Odeh / Acne



Naff yet..I dunno.

German Police Car: Porsche 911



The Porsche 911 Carrera S has been extensively modified by TechArt for its role as a police car, and it is capable of over 186 mph and sprinting to 60 mph in just 4.5 seconds.
In addition to the green German police markings and the light bar on the roof, the 911 police car is also a fine example of professional automobile tuning. TechArt has increased power output of the 3.8-liter flat six engine by 15 hp, and the car is fitted with a wind tunnel tested aerodynamic bodykit which improves directional stability. All this is carried by 20" wheels supported by custom calibrated adjustable suspension.

Monday, August 10, 2009

I remember how long this took


About 170 tries and a lot of layout paper. This was my guy before I found apple girl. Who I've been trying to draw since 2006. Not succeeded yet.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Flanders Fashion Institute launches design comp: Uniform for Local Police in Antwerp

"For the design of these image clothing, the local police of Antwerp collaborates with the Flanders Fashion Institute. There has been chosen for the launch of a competition among designers, which have a link with the city Antwerp. Participating designers are among others Tim Van Steenbergen, Lenny Leleu and Marisa Leipert."

Saturday, August 8, 2009

I.Miyake on the Atomic Bomb/Obama

Gloire


1930’s French Cruiser ‘GLOIRE‘, with a Dazzle camouflage.

Ateliers RUBY®


After the first edition of the "signature programme" by Ateliers RUBY® with the Parisian artist HONET (HNT) and the second with Wakako Kishimoto and Mark Eley, for the third edition, Jérôme Coste wanted to venture into the world of Margiela.

Its aim is to broaden the field of study, by providing the viewpoints of personalities from the artistic and cultural world. Writers, philosophers, journalists, visual artists, photographers, film makers and even a lawyer – altogether, some 22 international signatures, both men and women - shed light on many different facets of the multiple man of the 21st century and includes a central part bringing together a new, reformulated synthesis of the two prior phases of the study
Co-edited by the publishing house « Editions du Regard ».

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Vilgot Sjøman


Brilliant Swedish writer and film director. Shot in the style of French New Wave. He is best known as the director of the films 491 (1964), I Am Curious (Yellow) (in Swedish, "Jag är nyfiken - gul") (1967), and I Am Curious (Blue) ("Jag är nyfiken - blå") (1968), which stretched the boundaries of acceptability of what could then be shown on film. Stills from Here

Flight Patterns: Charlie McCarthy


Michigan-based filmmaker Charlie McCarthy shot 156 photographs of insects flying around a street light, each at a four second exposure. He then put them together at 12 frames per second to make a film. See it here.

Klara Kallstrom


Gingerbread Monument is a new book by Swedish Photographer Klara Kallstrom.
Self published in October 2008 and recently made available in Japan, Gingerbread Monument is like a shoebox filled with notes, fragments and everyday life objects taken out of their context and put together again in a 120 page book.

Monday, August 3, 2009


I love Emmanuelle Beart. I mean, what actress has an arse like this, real boobs and smokes nowadays?

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Or worst case - a tolerable + comfortable existence doing something unfulfilling.


The cover is lame, a lot of the stuff in it is fairly useless unless you're a bit of a delboy; however, there's some really good shit in here. It's about not having to do the expected 9-5, the trudge I've been doing for the last 6 years. It's about taking risks.
I truly believe that no one needs to buy a house unless they plan to live where they are for 20 years. Which I don't think I'm capable of.

The Face


Going through tons of shit and found back issues of The Face I worked on. So weird to look back. It started to get shit around 2000, but there were some glory years still (96-99), albeit not a touch on the early days.
The rumor mill is turning that ‘The Face’ is coming back from the grave, revived by Bauer Media with former FHM editor Anthony Noguera. Instead of a print release, Bauer may decide to do an online-only mag, which is hoped to launch on the 30th anniversary of the original print (in 1980…so that’s 2010).
PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS. IT'S SO LAME.

Filmography 05


Only 1000 copies printed and about 95% are in Japan, but I'd like to flick through it one day.

Wednesday Website


http://www.WednesdayWebsite.com/
Such a good concept.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Feathers & Air Junya Jacket


I've been so incredibly over Comme for the last couple of years. H&M was just the straw that broke the camel's back. But Junya's womenswear collection Feathers & Air has some interesting pieces, albeit in the usual vein of like-for-like puffa silhouettes, some good stuff.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Anti Christ. Lars Von Trier.


Trailer here.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Emma de Caune


Rien dans les poches
France | 2008 | col | dir. Marion Vernoux, with Alain Chabat, Emma de Caunes, Anaïs, Lio

Sil van der Woerd


Watch here.
New Video directed by Sil van der Woerd. Shot in a disused coal mine in Beringen, Belgium

G. K. Chesterton


Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance.
What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but an absence of self-criticism.
He is a sane man who can have tragedy in his heart and comedy in his head.
The person who is really in revolt is the optimist, who generally lives and dies in a desperate and suicidal effort to persuade other people how good they are.
My attitude toward progress has passed from antagonism to boredom. I have long ceased to argue with people who prefer Thursday to Wednesday because it is Thursday.
I think the oddest thing about the advanced people is that, while they are always talking about things as problems, they have hardly any notion of what a real problem is.

Jordi Colomer





My friend Ollie's dad just wrote a book on him: Fuegogratis

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Eileen Gray Chair


Eileen Gray’s (1878-1976) Snake Arm Chair fetched a whopping €21,905,000 ($28,238,277) at Christie’s auction of Yves Saint Laurent et Pierre Bergé ’s collection of artefacts on February 25, 2009.

It was reported to be bought by the same antique dealer who sold the chair to Yves in the 70s. Thus far it is a world record amount offered for a chair.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Some Girls Random Picture

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Livestrong x Nike Stages @ Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin



Lucy Fox-Bohan


Lucy Fox-Bohan Photography

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

ZouZou




Found an amazing French book on ZouZou in Powells bookstore today...unfortunately my finances & 'no more shit that weighs a lot' policy prevented me from getting it..but it was Amazing.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Carri Mundane


Wearing our Nike Colab Bomber Jacket at Glastonbury

Art Production Fund Ed Ruscha Towel


"the study of friction and wear on mating surfaces"

I missed this on Friday


I'd never seen it on the big screen.
Agnes Varda Cleo from 5-7
Trying to catch the rest of her retrospective at the NW Film Center.

Escher @ PAM


I don't like the final image but his sketches of it, the way he planned it out, are amazing. It's so fascinating to see someone's process.


This was fantastic in person. Metamorphosis. It was so interesting to read how long it took for scientists and mathmeticians to see the value in his work, how it related to them.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Snoopy


The aim of the game is this: draw a cartoon character from memory. I remember the Stewards at Ally Pally Ice Rink used to call me Snoopy. I have no idea why.
Courtesy of ML

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

The Erotic House Peter Saville


http://showstudio.com/project/softfurnishings/

Neville Brody

Pitch for Wallpaper August issue cover:

I would've actually bought Wallpaper for once.

Recent Reading


Sunday, July 5, 2009

An ability to work autonomously


Part of the job description I'm interviewing for on Tuesday. One of the major reasons I'm interested.
au·ton·o·mous
Pronunciation:
\ȯ-ˈtä-nə-məs\
Function:
adjective
Etymology:
Greek autonomos independent, from aut- + nomos law — more at nimble
Date:
1800
1: of, relating to, or marked by autonomy
2 a: having the right or power of self-government b: undertaken or carried on without outside control : self-contained
3 a: existing or capable of existing independently b: responding, reacting, or developing independently of the whole

Bob Nickas Book


Finally read half of this. Then I had to put it back so someone could actually buy it.. Ah, Powell's, I'll miss you. Great stuff.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Stripes


Congress signed this document on August 2, 1776, and not on July 4.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Nesting table / chairs

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

F minus


Not A magazine anymore. Really bad issue. It's semi-inevitable if you put someone who represents using Larry Clarke as a springboard for NY Scenester Nylon mag American Apparel Opening Ceremony as a pose to perhaps something truly useful to the world on the front of a publication that has always had a less shallow approach to apparel, you will fail, and bring the publication down to the level of hipster adoration. Which is where A should never go. In my humble opinion. It's a bit late now. The last 2 issues have been pretty naff. I withdraw my readership.

Monday, June 29, 2009

Un-noted Deaths of 2009




And Gabriel Bailey.

Teeth.


I still love them. I decided this a few years ago when I had my root canal. I'd never spent long in a dentist's office. It opened up a whole new world of ex-rays and plaster casts. I once knew a girl in school who had a phobia of brushing her teeth because they were embedded in her skull.

Vincent Van Duysen for Tribù



Belgian architect and designer Vincent Van Duysen. His firm has produced some really great products, and their approach to architecture, albeit stringently Belgian at times (which is no bad thing in my book), is beautiful.

(Except maybe those fluoro lights)

Army Officer Oxfords


Steel Toe Traditional Leather Service Dress Oxford
Top Quality Full Grain Leather
Steel Safety Toe: Meets ASTM F2413 Standard for Protective Footwear
Cambrelle® Moisture Wicking Lining
Removable DRYZ® Moisture / Odor Controll Shock Absorbing Cushioned Insole
Fiberglass Shank
Oil Resistant Alpine Outsole And Heel
Made in the USA

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Real humans reason as cats swim: They can do it, but they avoid it whenever possible.


Reasoning requires effort and discipline; it certainly isn't automatic. Therefore, instead of using their advanced brain to cultivate their gift of abstract thought, typical humans use their primitive brain to think, believe, behave, and vocalize. Because this makes them slaves to their primal drives, humans prefer shouting to debating, fisticuffs to philosophy, and physical fitness to mental fitness.

As a species, humanity expresses its undeveloped mentality through its political behavior, which does not differ significantly from the social behavior of other animals. That is, human political behavior is driven by the same instincts that guide the behavior of sheep, wildebeests, and other herding animals. For example, the majority of humans stampede to join the herds, or "bandwagons," of charismatic leaders. There, they delight in winning decisive victories, though it isn't always clear exactly what they win. Nevertheless, having won, the majority regards minorities as losers, unfit to participate in the activities of the herd. That's democracy as we know it.
Included with the instincts to follow leaders is the warning that straggling invites predators. Yet, a minority of humans do straggle, preferring to override their instincts with their own thinking. In the history of humankind, a few such non-herd individuals have produced the ideas and inventions that account for what is romantically, but unrealistically, termed the "ascent of man." Naturally, members of the herd shun these stragglers as pariahs.

When humans gather in large herds, they think with one mind, and this mind assures them that their numbers secure them from predators. The irony is, many leaders are themselves predators, leisurely feasting on the minds, bodies, and property of their followers. Many other leaders are simply compelled to lead, regardless of their mental fitness to do so. Thus, as pods of whales beach themselves by following their surrogate thinkers, humans obliviously, but fashionably, flock to their deaths.
Humans are herded by strong personalities because instinct merely requires following leaders; it does not compel evaluating their abilities and motives. Cliques organize human behavior by relieving their members of reasoning for themselves: The group's dominant members determine the beliefs, values, and behaviors of all the members. This is agreeably efficient, for each clique requires only one mind.
Autistic certainty is supported solely by self-reference: "I would not believe something that is not true. I believe [this]. Therefore, [this] must be true." Though self-reference is absurd, its nonsense is lost on persons locked into pre-operational thinking. If they don't outgrow this method of thinking, adults perceive themselves to be the models for ideal humanity. In this way, their self-reference produces the standards for "good" (like themselves) and "evil" (different from themselves). They say, "If only everyone were like me, the world would be perfect." Even if they don't say this aloud, they think it privately, and act accordingly--that is, self-righteously.
Enformy

Stuart Crosset

Brett Lloyd

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Screw Posts


I love them

If Night Is A Weed And Day Grows Less


Featuring Thomas Bangsted, Erik Frydenborg, Stand Up Comedy, David Hartt
July 2 - August 1, 2009
Howard House, Seattle

The show "posits a shift in balance: of the natural order, of the built environment, of the body politic, of perception. The result is a creeping entropy that can either be embraced or redirected."
(Not the Mitchell Akiyama song)

Friend Type

The term 'clique' may be used pejoratively


Something Childish But Very Natural


Take as an example the contrast between British and American customs: In Britain, people queue for everything and apply strictly the norm of :first come first served". In the US, the price is much more used as a selection mechanism, thus wealth matters more.

In the context of the Titanic, this would mean: among Brits, a larger proportion of women and children than men should have survived; among Americans, the survivors should be more frequent in first class than third class.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Cannes


FFL Paris won the press Grand Prix for its Wrangler campaign

Joel's New Blog

http://velojol.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Recent Project

Margot Louise Hemingway


Margot Louise Hemingway was born in Portland, Oregon, and was the granddaughter of writer Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway was named for the wine, Château Margaux, which her parents, Puck and Jack Hemingway (eldest son of Ernest), were drinking the night she was conceived.
Reminder courtesy of Cozette

Conceptual Substance


Curated by Tina Roeder

Monday, June 22, 2009

Kolo armchair


KOLO is an armchair moulded out of a single wooden sheet. Its armrests form a planar surface, from which the seat and chair back are pressed out to create a hollow in which the user can sit. Kolo floats on air, supported by a minimalist tubular steel frame.

The Finnish word KOLO refers to a small hollow, nook, hole or niche; metaphorically, it also refers to a living space.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

New Freudenthal Verhagen




June 6 - Aug 23. 2009 on exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in Arnhem, Netherlands (Museum van Moderne Kunst Arnhem)
the exhibition is part of the Arnhem Mode Biennale.
Works:
Klavers en van Engelen
Jil Sander
Michael van der ham
Collections: A/W 2009-10

D&AD


Das Comitee from Germany won in Photography for its Faces of Evil book in which the faces of despots were created using portraits of ordinary people.

Girl Fishing

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Shoot: A/W 05 Collection





Shot by: Chad Kula
Model: MacKenzie Courtney
2009

Paul Arden Remembered

Yes, he wrote those books. Yes, we're all sick of them, however, ex Art Director of Creative Review Paul Arden was remembered as part of the CR Portfolios events in London.

Creative Review article on five key things and people that influenced his work: HERE.
Another great lecture I missed because I live in Portland, not London.

Monday, June 8, 2009

FASCISTS IN EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: SAD DAY FOR BRITAIN


The far-right British National Party(BNP) on Monday won two seats in the European Parliament for the first time in its history, to the astonishment of the country's mainstream political parties. The BNP is regarded as a "racist" and "fascist" party which propagates against immigration and ethnic minorities in Britain.
After winning the seats, Griffin hailed it as a "great victory," adding that his party stood up for "indigenous people" who were victims of racial discrimination. Idiot.
Labor is expected to garner about 15 percent of the vote in the European elections, the lowest for it since the First World War, while the Conservative could get twice as many.
Great. Bloody Tories again. Lib Dem's need to step it up.

Space study

Space Settlements: A Design Study

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Old Work





Thursday, June 4, 2009

White Chess Set


Was reading an article in Artforum and it reminded me of this Yoko Ono piece, Play It By Trust (1966). Although not a big fan of her work, I appreciate her part in Fluxus.
The idea with this piece was that the players lose track of their pieces as the game progresses; ideally this leads to a shared understanding of their mutual concerns and a new relationship based on empathy rather than opposition.
I've always liked this piece. Maybe I'm just fed up of opposition right now.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

David Barringer: There's nothing Funny about Design


I enjoy tracing the meanings of symbols, icons, and ideas as they have changed over time. Design takes from the world, transforms what it takes, and sends a new, transformed thing back out into the world. That process can be beautifully complex and endlessly fascinating. Chickens, skulls, the letter X: these have been used for thousands of years. What does it mean for a designer to use that symbol today? How might people interpret that symbol today? Shouldn’t designers know a little history of the symbol they’re using? I like writing about that kind of stuff. An object, icon or idea (like evolution, criticism, creativity, desire, success) gives me a way in to design culture, but I write in personal, literary, and digressive ways in order to keep the subject alive for myself as well as for the reader. This is how I end up writing about my grandfather’s business cards, the skin patterns of snakes, the branding of drugs, and the future of surgical self-modification.

Hybrid writing forms are perfect for design, because design itself is a hybrid of art, business and culture. Design is an eye of many storms. So it’s because of design’s great connectedness to art, business and culture that I have in mind a reader who might be a designer but could be any creative person, an artist, photographer, or writer, or someone who, like me, can’t help having fun thinking about what the world means. I’m working on a play, a screenplay, a novel, and more essays, and they all have designers as characters or design as a subject. Designers are always pushing forms, so I try to push the forms of writing about design. It seems fitting.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Utility Furniture Scheme


NYC
Francis Cape
MURRAY GUY
453 West 17th Street
April 25–June 6
From 1942 to 1952, the war-battered British government ran something called the Utility Furniture Scheme. It issued plans intended to encourage “quality” furniture-making that would also conserve natural resources––with success on both counts to be guaranteed by the plans’ modernist designs. In his compelling, complex show at this gallery, Francis Cape, who once earned his living as a carpenter, re-creates some of those designs. Working in unfinished poplar, Cape provides pared-down versions of Utility beds, chairs, and wardrobes that look like they could be prototypes for the original pieces. Cape’s furniture comes juxtaposed with four square photographs from our own time that document examples of demotic design destroyed, or gone wrong, in post-Katrina New Orleans and impoverished sites in upstate New York, where the artist lives.

Reshape & Reconfigure Space


Stockholm
Rummaging
BONNIERS KONSTHALL
Torsgatan 19
April 29–June 14
The third installment of this art center’s yearly salon de jeunesse, “Rummaging” focuses on artworks that reshape and reconfigure space. With the stated ambition of linking the work of an emerging generation of Swedish artists to certain practices in the country’s art world of the 1980s, this exhibition offers installations, sculptures, and interactive pieces that propose disparate spatial experiences and relations. The idea of basing an exhibition of contemporary practices on a locally defined historiography certainly has great potential and could be used to examine new perspectives on the present and trace new genealogies through the past.

David Lynch: Interview Project


In a feat of self-explanatory titling, David Lynch has just launched Interview Project. It is, as the filmmaker states in his video intro, "a road trip where people have been found and interviewed." Taking in 20,000 miles across the US, a new film will be up online every three days...

Oil lamp for Bernardaud


Designer: Rappa Anne-Cécile
Material: Porcelain, Steel & Gold

Susan MacWilliam: Remote Viewing


Through the use of video, photography and sculptural installation, Susan MacWilliam has created pieces of work on wide scoping aspects of the paranormal including accounts of materializing mediums and clairvoyants, optograms, trance, x-ray vision and dermo-optical perception, exploring specific myths and histories, challenging ideas about presentation and the credibility of an image.

Susan MacWilliam: Remote Viewing features the artist’s most recent work and her research into mediums, hysteria and psychology. Organised into three main sections the book looks extensively at her recent work including the three pieces being put forward for the Venice Biennale 2009; F-L-A-M-M-A-R-I-O-N, Eileen and Dermo Optics.

With supporting essays from a collection of prestigious writers and experts in the field, including poet Ciaran Carson, Venice Biennale curator Karen Downey, art writer Slavka Sverakova, Brian Dillon and Martha Langford, and excerpts from correspondences with parapsychologists, Remote Viewing is an extensive, in-depth look into MacWilliam’s artistic practice and the inspiration behind these major projects.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Painting Planes

Two of my favourite things: Airplanes & Time Lapse Video

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Jarvis Cocker's Residency at Galerie Chappe



Cocker took over the Galerie Chappe, a small space on a quiet street in touristy Montmartre, for a weeklong residency that "split the difference between conceptual-art experiment and neighborhood cultural salon".

Explicitly at the heart of Cocker’s gallery residency was a question that could be considered in both existential and economic terms: “What is music?” “There’s this idea that music doesn’t really exist as a business anymore,” Cocker said. “The whole pop-music phenomenon is based on the fact that teenagers liked it and bought it. And if they’re not doing that anymore, or if they’re not paying for it, it turns into something else. Does that mean then you could put it in a gallery? Does it mean bands are going to need patrons who can finance their work?”.

Courtesy of Artforum.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Ben X


Dir: Nic Balthazar.
Belgium, 2007.
Greg Timmermans is absolutely brilliant as Ben. The best portrayal of autism I've ever seen by an actor.


There's a reason it won awards at the Montréal World Film Festival, Palm Springs International Film Festival, Sedona International Film Festival and was nominated as European film of the year.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Vacuus Numb by Ann Demeulemeester


Director: Gray Scott
Designer: Ann Demeulemeester
Assistant Producer: Andra Parente

Anders Krisár / Sonja


I love Krisár's work. I recall seeing it at the photographers gallery a year or so ago, these 10 foot high photographs of really beautiful collections of clothing not on the form. Impeccable repro of the human figure. It was his first solo show, Bomb Suit.

Sonja (2008) is the perfect inversion to Bomb Suit, featuring the female rather than the male- the act of accumulation rather than destruction. Sonja is a life-size doll of sorts; constructed only of clothing, built up of layers through time. She is the vivid rearrangement of a single wardrobe that belonged to a woman who saved all of her clothes, from infancy to old age. Sonja is stuffed and stiff; an architectural triumph – the antithesis to the ruins of Bomb Suit. I'm sad not to see this in person, because it doesn't look as impressive on paper, but in real life I wonder if it has a different feel.


Union Gallery, London.

Black Market Type


Black Market Type, PNCA, Portland.
The Black Market Type & Print Shop starts with a collection of 30 type-fonts extracted from the artwork of well-known of artists. Scanned and converted into working computer fonts, these letter forms are available for use by visitors to the exhibition via a free print shop.
Utilizing the Black Market Type, a group of 15 artists have been invited to make a text-only poster, to be posted in the public areas surrounding the gallery. These include a small line of text at the bottom that quietly points back to the gallery. In the gallery these posters serve to incite the imagination of the visitor, offering possible formats and outcomes for their own ideas to take shape in the print shop.
Artist types included in the project: John Baldessari, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mel Bochner, R. Crumb, John Cage, Henry Darger, Julie Doucet, Jimmie Durham, Marcel Dzama, Tracey Emin, General Idea, Thomas Hirschhorn, Chris Johanson, Jasper Johns, Ray Johnson, Mike Kelley, Margaret Kilgallen, Kathe Kollwitz, Annette Messanger, Duane Michals, Chris Ofili, Laura Owens, Gary Panter, Raymond Pettibon, Adrian Piper, William Pope.L, Richard Prince, Ad Reinhardt, Dieter Roth, David Shrigley.

LibertyXA.P.C. released


Not the tightest concept, although Hamilton was English & based in St Tropez, so there you have the English/French thing I guess. He doesn't remind me of SF, he reminds me of French girls in sundresses & floppy hats. Nothing new from the images they released in March.

I forgot about David Hamilton. Some really good erotic photography, and I remember watching his films in media studies, til they got banned from the curriculum. To be fair, he is a bit Roman Polanski, if you know what I mean.

Books v. Cigarettes


The new budget has been announced and my local newsagent now charges £3 for a pack of 10 cigarettes.
This seems like an appropriate time to introduce a collection of essays and articles by George Orwell published as part of Penguin's Great Ideas series under the title Books v. cigarettes. In an article written for the Tribune in 1946, Orwell estimates the financial cost of reading and concludes that it "...does not amount to the combined cost of smoking and drinking".
That may all be good and well for 1946, but is it still true of twenty-first century Britain?
"Working on the same calculations used by Orwell in his piece, I estimate that I have spent approximately £7,000 on books over the last 15 years. (I have used an average price of £9.99 - though some of my books cost considerably more than this, a great deal more would have been far less). This works out at about £480 per year and if I include subscriptions to magazines and the amount I have spent on shelving and storage this figure rises to within the region of £550. Comparatively, if I were to smoke a pack of 10 cigarettes a day every day for a year, the cost would be roughly double at £1,095 - and that does not include drink, the thought of which sends my head spinning.
What do these figures actually tell us? Well for one thing, if you are a reader and a smoker, giving up cigarettes would allow you to by a hell of a lot of books, while the converse isn't necessarily true." ICA

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Ann-Sofie Back: Head Designer Cheap Monday


Just posted on her blog. Could be interesting. A lot more low-level than her usual stuff, although she's done Topshop so this may be a step up.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Bruce Conner: In Memorium


Bombhead, 1989/2002 by Bruce Conner

A pioneer in the art of sculptural assemblage and found footage collage filmmaking, Bruce Conner was one of the most influential artists of our times. For over 40 years he pushed the boundaries of American avant-garde film, exhibiting his work in museums, festivals, and galleries. This past July Bruce Conner passed away at 74 years of age.

"Taking what was at hand he reached into the human subconscious into the heartland into the dreamland into the dark and made a meticulous visionary irreverent metaphysical art. Erotic, mysterious, astute. He is the first filmmaker I would think about and would show when wanting to demonstrate how editing can make, should make, meaning, poetic, consequential meaning." -Mark McElhatten


May 5 - Program I

Cosmic Ray [1961, 16mm, b&w/so, 4min.]
A Movie [1958, 16mm, b&w/so, 12min.]
Breakaway [1966, 16mm, b&w/so, 5min.]
Marilyn Times Five [1968-1973, 16mm, b&w/so, 13.5min.]
Report [1963-1967, 16mm, b&w/so, 13min.]
The White Rose [19667,16mm, b&w/so, 7min.]
His Eye Is On The Sparrow [2006, DVD, b&w and color/so. 4min.]
Saw this tonight. Awesome. Next & last showing is tomorrow night.


still from A Movie, 1958 by Bruce Conner

Une Part Du Ciel


A Piece of Sky is about women who try to resist their environment and take advantage of it. Bénédicte Liénard describes two mirror universes: the prison and the factory. In both cases confinement, submission to an iniquitous hierarchy and the exploitation of work prevail. Belgium, 2002. Trying to find this.

Old Camden Crawl pics



Just found these. One Night Only event.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Films this week


Welcome to the Dollhouse

The Doors

Slums of Beverly Hills

Beauvoir & Sartre: The Riddle of Influence


Reading this at the moment. I loved Beauvoir's metaphysical novels but I loved The Second Sex (1949), her intro:
"For a long time I have hesitated to write a book on women. The subject is irritating, especially to women; and it is not new,"
she wasn't a self righteous feminist, but held a true humanist philosophy. Dorothy Parker:
"I cannot be just to books which treat women as women ... My idea is that all of us, men as well as women, should be regarded as human beings"
De Beauvoir again:
"In truth, to go for a walk with one’s eyes open is enough to demonstrate that humanity is divided into two classes of individuals whose clothes, faces, bodies, smiles, gaits, interests, and occupations are manifestly different".
I love the work of both Parker & de Beauvoir. I am getting off the point. But they're both good points.

(I love this image of the two of them, they were seen as such serious French scholars, it's great this moment was captured)
It is a really succinct study into how Beauvoir & Sartre shared ideas in a literary & philosophical sense, but what is interesting & harks back to my last point about the Second Sex is that SImone professed that "Sartre was the philosopher & I was the follower", personally and professionally. This new book explores that relationship. I'm not far in, not far enough to muse on it here yet.
So here's one of my favourite de Beauvoir quotes from her biography by Deirdre Bair, it's her ending sentence:
''Well I just don't give a damn. It's my life, and I lived it the way I wanted. I'm sorry to disappoint all the feminists, but you can say that it's too bad so many of them live only in theory instead of in real life. It's very messy in the real world."
She was awesome.

Friday, May 1, 2009

Stephen Slappe at NAAU


Shelter in Place is the culmination of five years of research, including a trip to the West Virginia State Archives to gather video footage. Freely combining fiction and nonfiction, this three-channel video
installation focuses on two teenagers in West Virginia in the mid-1980s. The characters exist in a media
environment that imposes and magnifies their worst fears. Yet even in such a hopeless world, they
discover a miraculous way to share subcultural infl uences. While referencing a specifi c time and place,
“Shelter in Place” presents a thematically timeless allegory of connectivity and cultural exchange.

1 May - 14 June, 2009
Reception: Friday the 1st of May, 6-9PM
New American Art Union 922 SE Ankeny. Portland, OR.

London Pitbull & Staff Girls





Sharmadean muses that the dog "acts as a source of both protection and companionship, providing a new found freedom to explore the city". Courtesy of WAH mag.

Ollie


This is my friend Ollie biting a skeleton hand.

Le fils de l'épicier


Watched this last night. Liked it. Was trying to figure out who the actress was.
Clotilde Hesme. Ironic since she is so talked about. Getting out of touch with the European film industry.

Hesme in Regular Lovers, one of my favourite recent French films.

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Kiltie

The concept of these was to offer extra protection on work boots to stop dirt from getting under the tongue and lacing stand.

Scottish iteration

American iteration

Martin D'orgeval


Deyrolle.

On 1 February 2008 at 5.00 a.m., a fire ripped through Deyrolle, the famous old entomology and taxidermy store in the heart of Paris.

Its historic collections of thousands of butterflies and rare insects, stuffed animals and minerals, built up since it opened in 1831, burnt.

Martin d’Orgeval’s photographs show the animals and insects that survived the disaster in situ, against a background of charred woodwork in the shop that had been their habitat since their natural death.

Book published by Steidl.

A.P.C. x K-Way Blouson


I like that they colaborated with a company with a history. K-Way made the cheapo pack-a-mac's my parents used to dress me up in when I was a kid. This is the latest release from their colab.

D&AD 2009

Weiden's Travel Oregon is in there. As well as a huge influx in Music vid nominations. & Graphic design entries are well up on last year, making up for the poor show.

Matt Dent's nominated. I tried to collect all of these (except the pound, that one's a bit shit) when I was back but I just kept getting 20p's.

Roni Horn aka Roni Horn, Tate Modern


Saw this when I was back home in London this last weekend.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Little known River reference


A lesser known reference to River Phoenix was Final Fantasty VIII's main protagonist Squall Leonhart.

Monday, April 27, 2009

The Macguffin Library




Just viewed this at the Design Museum. It struck me as one of the more interesting projects I've seen there in a long time. Perhaps it was the literary aspect and the use of technology. It just struck a cord.
The following is an article from We Make Money Not Art that questions & explains the project more concisely than I could.





A few weeks ago we read a short interview with Vito Acconci where he was asked a similar question regarding the design/art argument and he was saying that a big part of the problem came from the fact that 'art' is the only discipline that is defined by a qualitative appreciation. We share that point of view and we think that the word art would have to be left for any kind of work that excels in whatever area of human activity. Who is to say that the work of Ferran Adria is less art than that of Jeff Koons? Or that a Frank Lloyd Wright building is less or art than an Andreas Gurski photograph? Or that Leonardo's flying machines is less art than his Monalisa?... What are the grounds for comparison and how or why would you do it? This is the eternal argument, from our point of view is easier as we see no boundaries. Maybe this interpretation of design might be confusing or unacceptable for some people who do have a very clear idea of the boundaries of between the two.




The 'McGuffin Library Collection' by Noam Toran and Onkar Kular obviously lives in the edges of what is traditionally accepted as design, and I guess it raise questions in both directions. As they explain, McGuffin is a term invented by Alfred Hitchcock to define an object within a film, which somehow acts as a devise to carry the narrative of the story. In terms of the story, the design of this object becomes, so its conception is a design exercise on its own. For Onkar and Noam this works perfectly well to explore further their ideas around the use of design as a medium that is central to their work. In this case they wrote 14 synopsis for imaginary films for which they designed an object. These objects are primarily talking about the role of objects as mediators in our understanding of the world (in this case of the story). In a second layer, they are talking about the world of technology, production and design. The objects are produced in rapid form directly from 3D computer models. The objects are not unique necessarily unique as they are printed very much like you would do with a computer document. Is that a banal use of technology, design and engineering just because thy are not pursuing 'the grater good' or the commercial enterprise? Would that make it art? For us what makes them good design and good art is exactly the same thing, they are able to broaden and challenge our preconceived ideas of what things are, while being moving and engaging.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Reprint of Denis Diderot


I'm a massive fan of the Faber Finds project. This is next on my list.

Author of that inexhaustibly strange masterpiece Rameau’s Nephew, Denis Diderot (1713-84) was also a dramatist, a speculative philosopher, the founder of modern art criticism and a tireless correspondent; he has also been called the most talkative man of his generation.

His genius was profoundly subversive, and he spent much of his working life under the threat of exile. The son of a cutler, Diderot had an empathy with trades, tools and machinery that flowered magnificently in some of his contributions to the great Encyclopédie, which he edited with d’Alembert and published over a period of some twenty years.

Diderot’s range of contacts was prodigious: a close friend of Rousseau, Grimm and d’Alembert, a familiar figure in the literary salons of Paris, he also met and corresponded with Hume, Garrick and Laurence Sterne. It was the support of Catherine the Great (as her agent, Diderot in effect laid the foundations of the Hermitage collection) that led to the most extraordinary episode in an astonishing life: at the age of sixty Diderot travelled to St Petersburg where he drew up outline plans for the conversion of Russia into an ideal republic.

P. N. Furbank's sympathetic and probing analysis of Diderot’s work and influence was first published in 1992 and won a Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism.

http://www.faber.co.uk/faberfinds/

Mi-Ni


The Face October 2001
Mini Anden photographed by Pierre Bailly

Ken Briggs, Pump House Gallery London


Early graphic design work for the National Theatre.

Doug Fir




Went to see Sebastien Tellier last night.
Been going here a lot recently. I have a newfound love for it.
The guy who works reception at night is a bit of a cock though.

New Paris interiors



Then Channel 5 came along and ruined it all


Channel 1

Channel 2

Channel 3

Channel 4

Monday, April 13, 2009

Prada Transformer



www.pradatransformer.co.kr