Hasta La Ideas

by Zeva Bellel

Photos by Fabrice Fortin

The art-meets-fashion concept brand, Slow and Steady Wins the Race made “Presents,” a series of limited-edition nesting boxes for their holiday pop-up shop in Paris. Inhabiting the Brachfeld gallery for the month of the December, the event marks the first time the NYC brand has brought its deconstructionist design ethos overseas.

Rolling art and anticipation into one, the collection comprises an ephemeral range of eight artist-designed box sets that celebrate the experience and excitement of giving and receiving. What lies inside the boxes is an afterthought—the presentation is the present itself.

In keeping with the brand’s measured and meticulous maturation process, the idea for “Presents” has been brewing in the pot for a while, inspired originally by founder Mary Ping’s Vassar sculpture professor Harry Roseman who created a gift experience involving dollar store trinkets wrapped in boxes within boxes for his wife. Seizing on the idea of offering what Ping describes as a “lasting memory as a gift,” she paired off her creative buddies tasking them with coming up with a present-less present.

Tauba Auerbach and Hannes Hetta created a three-piece set of mirrored boxes with patterned bases, turning the tiny spaces into kaleidoscopic infinity rooms (€3,333).

Terence Koh and Garrick Gott (tongues firmly in cheeks) created a set of six white paper nesting boxes that spell x-a-n-a-x in hand cut paper letters, with a final pill in the end (€1,088).

Continue reading and see more images after the jump.

Here are some images from the exhibition. Since Camilla was very busy painting for her current show in Gothenburg, I decided to display images from the book, artifacts, and artwork owned by local Camilla fans. It is exuberant and was fun to put together. I’ll post more images to flickr.

Thank you to everyone who attending the launch! (Camilla, here are some snapshots of Calgarians.) It was a lovely First Thursday event.

Thank you to all the online customers as well! I wish I could thank you all in person for your support of this project.

(Photos: UnBeige))

Sunny and downright steamy Miami is awash in black ensembles and chunky eyewear as Art Basel Miami Beach, Design Miami, and the growing list of parallel fairs—we counted 14—are in full swing. Hotels are hopping, from the budget-priced Days Inn (we liked its low-fi marquee, pictured above) to the slick Setai and the freshly renovated Fontainebleau, where the rooms are decorated with John Baldessari prints and the legacy of Morris Lapidus endures. Over at the convention center, where a mind-boggling 265 galleries are exhibiting their wares, Wednesday’s seizure of $6 million worth of paintings from Gmurzynska gallery made the front page of yesterday’s special edition of The Art Newspaper, but all was calm when we stopped by the booth, which is dominated by a giant Yves Klein canvas. Among the celebrities spotted prowling the aisles so far: Steve Wynn (who snapped up a 2007 James Rosenquist canvas from Acquavella), John McEnroe, Calvin Klein, and Sylvester Stallone, who has taken up painting himself. We also spied fashion designer Peter Som and oodles of art folks, including Ai Weiwei, Richard Prince, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Eli Broad, and Glenn Lowry. The mood is upbeat, a marked improvement over last year but nothing near the frenetic vibe of 2007. With so much to see and do in Miami in just a few days, we’re taking the advice of artist Santiago Sierra, whose monumental sculpture is among the 13 works displayed in the public spaces of Miami Beach as part of the fair’s Art Projects division. His truck-bound 2009 work (pictured below) offers a concise answer to the eternal question: Can I manage to see it all?

Santiago Sierra, “NO,” 2009

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

by Ariston Anderson

This year’s Art Basel Miami Beach features myriad homages to the deceased King of Pop, including works by David LaChappelle, Jeff Sonhouse and Jonathan Monk. By far, the most powerful piece on display is a semi-commissioned work by renowned Brooklyn artist Kehinde Wiley at Deitch’s booth. The massive Rubens-inspired oil, called “Equestrian Portrait of King Philip II,” swaps out the Spanish monarch’s face for Michael Jackson’s. The story behind the 2009 painting is as legendary as any tale in Jackson’s book.

As it goes, after seeing Wiley’s work at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Jackson contacted the artist for a commission. Jackson, who frequently had himself painted as a king made a natural match for Wiley’s magical-realism depictions. After Jackson and Wiley spoke for nearly a half-an-hour over the phone in 2008 about the artistic vision behind the piece, they agreed that Wiley would photograph Jackson in an Old Masters pose. Thoroughly impressed with Jackson’s knowledge of the painting process, Wiley sent Jackson a set of reference images but then stopped hearing from him and was unable to contact him after Jackson changed his hotel several times.

Following the star’s death, Wiley decided to complete the piece, a large royal sprawl as majestic as the King’s work himself. Choosing to paint Jackson at the peak of his career, the images shows a figure comfortable in his own body, confident behind a wall of armor atop a bowing horse. With bold blues and reds, and surrounded by heavenly cherubs, it’s a portrait that would have made the King of Pop proud. Miami visitors, this is a must-see before it falls to the home of a private collector.

Click through to see an image of Rubens’ original.

by Richard Prime

Stockholm-based design company
Form Us With Love releases its latest design this month, produced for Swedish lighting manufacturer, Atelje Lyktan.

Called Ogle, the pendant lamp mixes the functionality of a spotlight with the elegance of a pendant.

The matte black lacquer has a pleasing tactility and with its LED fitting, the lamp continues FUWL’s eye for clean lines and attention to detail.

The designers have become particularly adept at developing products and concepts which combine elements of industrial design with modern interior products and are rapidly forming a solid international platform of customers.

Check out more images after the jump.