Swiss artist Ursus Wehrli likes things just so. Books, alphabet soup, car parks, even the night sky…
Before: messy
Published today by Chronicle Books is Wehri’s own document of his orderly creativity, The Art of Clean Up: Life Made Neat and Tidy, which features a wide range of his rather obsessive style of photography. It’s an aesthetic that seems to have wide appeal, too – from our favourite order-obsessed Tumblr thingsorganizedneatly.tumblr.com, to Carl Kleiner‘s minimalist images for IKEA.
And there is nothing he won’t organise – be it by colour, by shape or size, or even, in the aforementioned soup, alphabetical order (naturally). Having arranged his pieces he then photographs the results and, in the book, presents the work as a before and after shot in each case.
The Art of Clean Up out now, from Chronicle (£9.99). See chroniclebooks.com for more details. Wehrli’s site is kunstaufraeumen.ch and his recent TED talk is also here.
Warhol’s “I Love Your Kiss Forever Forever,” a trial proof lithograph made in 1964
• Bidding has begun in the inaugural Andy Warhol @ Christie’s online auction. Estimates range from $600 to $70,000 for the 125 Warhol works being sold to benefit The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Among the lots up for grabs in the week-long sale is “Jam (Raspberry),” a Smuckers-smudged canvas from the early 1980s that is expected to fetch between $20,000 and $30,000.
• Paste magazine is going digital with Paste.com, a “members-only digital weekly” that will cater to those looking for longer reads, new music, and video-based amusement. Parks and Recreation‘s Nick Offerman covers the first issue, which also includes a feature on Hans Zimmer and the ubiquitous Pharrell, who have joined forces on an app that promises to “bring the power of Hollywood studio music-scoring to mobile users.”
• In NYC? Don’t miss the fourth annual Architecture on Screen, a series of international productions on architecture selected from the 2012 Montreal International Festival of Films on Art. The cinematic fun begins tomorrow afternoon at the Center for Architecture. continued…
Illustrator, graphic designer and former ad man, Bob Gill, has created six new hand coloured silkscreen prints at Print Club London‘s Dalston print studio…
Gill was in London for D&AD’s 50th birthday celebrations last year and spent time at Print Club creating the six new works, each printed in editions of just 12 and hand numbered and signed by the artist.
“We have been huge fans of Bob and his work and were really excited when he agreed to work with us producing some new prints,” says Print Club’s Kate Newbold-Higginson. “Bob joined us in our studio where he spent a couple of days hand finished his silk screen prints with watercolour, making each one completely original and unique.”
The six prints are priced at £850 each and will be exhibited from March 29 to April 11 at the Print Club Gallery, 10-28 Millers Avenue, London, E8.
CR in print The March issue of CR magazine celebrates 150 years of the London Underground. In it we introduce a new book by Mark Ovenden, which is the first study of all aspects of the tube’s design evolution; we ask Harry Beck authority, Ken Garland, what he makes of a new tube map concept by Mark Noad; we investigate the enduring appeal of Edward Johnston’s eponymous typeface; Michael Evamy reports on the design story of world-famous roundel; we look at the London Transport Museum’s new exhibition of 150 key posters from its archive; we explore the rich history of platform art, and also the Underground’s communications and advertising, past and present. Plus, we talk to London Transport Museum’s head of trading about TfL’s approach to brand licensing and merchandising. In Crit, Rick Poynor reviews Branding Terror, a book about terrorist logos, while Paul Belford looks at how a 1980 ad managed to do away with everything bar a product demo. Finally, Daniel Benneworth-Grey reflects on the merits on working home alone. Buy your copy here.
Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878, or buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.
CR for the iPad Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month.
The history of the London Underground is the history of visual communications. We celebrate 150 years of the tube in CR March, where you can read about the evolution of the world-famous roundel, the Underground’s own instantly recognisable typeface, its long tradition of great posters, platform art, maps, merch and more…
Our cover is by Robert Samuel Hanson – we asked him to imagine the London cityscape 150 years hence. The idea was inspired by Montague B Black’s fantastic Underground poster from 1926, This Is All In The Air, a vision of what London might look like in 2026 (and featured on our contents page).
As for the features, Mark Sinclair’s opening piece introduces a new book from Mark Ovenden, London Underground by Design (Penguin), the first study to comprehensively examine all aspects of the tube’s design evolution, from architecture and signage, to lettering and logos.
Next, writer, blogger and public transport devotee, Ian Jones (author of 150greatthingsabouttheunderground.com), selects ten interesting things for CR readers to look out for on the Underground network on a design-spotting day out.
And Mark Sinclair asks Harry Beck authority Ken Garland what he makes of a new London Underground map concept by the designer, Mark Noad.
Gavin Lucas investigates the enduring appeal of Edward Johnston’s eponymous typeface, commissioned 100 years ago.
Michael Evamy reports on how Parisian street signs, bull’s eyes and perhaps even a total eclipse of the sun all played a part in the design story of the Underground’s word-famous roundel.
And Patrick Burgoyne takes a look at London Transport Museum’s new exhibition of 150 key pieces from its archive and speaks to some of the panel of experts who selected them.
The Underground is also home to many large scale public art and design projects: Mark Sinclair takes a look at the history of platform art and talks to artist Annabel Grey about her commissions for Finsbury Park and Marble Arch stations.
London Transport Museum’s head of trading, Michael Walton, talks to Patrick Burgoyne about TfL’s clever approach to brand licensing and merchandising which earns it millions each year.
And Anna Richardson Taylor explores the Underground’s communications and advertising, past and present.
It’s not all about the London Underground; the issue also has a feature in which Patrick Burgoyne talks to designer Mark Farrow and John Lewis brand creative Paul Porral about their collaboration on the identity of Kin, a new range of fashion basics at the department store.
And in Crit, Rick Poynor reviews a new book, Branding Terror, which brings together the graphic symbols and logos used by terrorist organisations.
Regular columnist Daniel Benneworth-Grey reflects on how working home alone gives him the time to concentrate, reflect and talk to inanimate objects; while Paul Belford looks at how an ad art directed by Helmut Krone in 1980 managed to do away with everything bar the product demo.
Plus, in this month’s Monograph, we showcase a number of photographs by Adam Hinton of political graffiti in Egypt, with an introduction by Paul Belford.
Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. If you would like to buy this issue, or subscribe to CR, you can do so direct from us here.
Would art lovers pay up to download a Damien Hirst? So pondered the art and tech worlds in November 2011, when London-based s[edition]opened its digital doors on the eve of Art Basel Miami Beach–having convinced artists such as Hirst, Tracey Emin, Bill Viola, and Shepard Fairey to create original works for a new breed of online gallery. The answer is, apparently, yes.
Founders Harry Blain and Robert Norton have seen the iDevice-wielding masses embrace the concept of collecting art in a digital format and are making inroads into museum collections, placing pieces with the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and Norway’s Stavanger Art Museum, and creating digital editions in partnership with the Serpentine Gallery and the ICA London. The company is also to thank for the love-themed works by Emin that are now lighting up Times Square on a nightly basis. While in NYC to feel the love, Norton made time to answer our seven questions about how s[edition] works, a new initiative to seek out fresh talents, advice for fellow entrepreneurs, and the artwork he would most like to have on his wall–or screen.
1. How do you describe s[edition] to someone who is unfamiliar with it? s[edition] works with world leading artists who wish to see their work collected in a digital medium. The online platform offers contemporary art enthusiasts the opportunity to buy original art, at affordable prices. The art is sold as digital limited editions to be viewed on TVs, iPads, iPhones, and digital screens. s[edition] members can browse and acquire works to start their own collection, follow artists, and send limited editions as gifts to friends.
2. s[edition] has been in business for just over a year. How would you characterize the reaction from collectors? The feedback from our collectors has been fantastic. The prices are very affordable which means we have opened up an entirely new market for collecting digital art. We have an active audience of 400,000 digital art enthusiasts, collectors, and fans.
3. Can collectors resell works they have purchased on s[edition]? Collectors can resell their editions through an open marketplace after edition runs have sold out. We have found that some collectors will never want to sell their edition while others trade continually.
4. Do you plan to expand the star-studded s[edition] roster to include emerging artists? This year, we have plans to launch the s[edition] Open Platform, a separate section on the website, where emerging and established artists will be able to submit their art for consideration and be selected by world renowned artists and curators to sell their works online. By opening our platform, we provide these artists with a gateway to a global audience of art enthusiasts. It also enables us to search out new talent. Artists who are interested should email us at info@seditionart.com continued…
The Hayward Gallery’s latest exhibition, Light Show, contains a handful of immersive pieces from artists like James Turrell, Anthony McCall and, above, Carlos Cruz-Diez that reward the viewer the longer they stay within the artwork…
Visitors are advised to let their eyes become accustomed to the light in both Turrell’s Wedgework V room and Cruz-Diez’s vibrant walk-in installation, Chromosaturation, a version of a piece he has been making since 1965.
While Turrell’s chamber is a brooding and meditative place, Cruz-Diez’s series of three small rooms are a joy to move around, simply staring wide-eyed at the walls or, rather, at the colours that flood the space (made by sets of fluorescent tube lights with blue, red and green filters).
The space around each set of lights is dominated by that single colour, but things get really interesting in the areas where the colours merge and overlap. And just look what the green room did to my camera (below). I’m no expert on wavelengths, but something was going on – the visual equivalent of wub wub wub.
Anthony McCall’s piece, You and I, Horizontal, is also a beguiling treat (below). It’s referred to a “solid light installation” and, using subtle smoke effects, teases the viewer into thinking the beam of the projection is in fact a three-dimensional shape.
I must have pawed at it at least twice before I looked to see if anyone else was doing the same (they were).
Other highlights on show include Conrad Shawcross’s Slow Arc Inside a Cube IV (shown, below), ostensibly a giant mesh cage with a moving light inside that projects through its walls. This, in turn, distorts the space inside the room to an unnerving degree.
Both Leo Villareal’s piece, Cylinder II (below), made from white LEDS and and mirror-finished stainless steel, and Cerith Wyn Evans’ columnal S=U=P=E=R=S=T=R=U=C=T=U=R=E (‘Trace me back to some loud, shallow, chill, underlying motive’s overspill…’) make great use of the cavernous Hayward Gallery space.
But in as much as there are plenty of installations in which to bathe in colour and light, or stare at the shadowplay, the Hayward makes sure that you leave with your senses ringing, if you save the upstairs gallery until last that is.
Up here, in another large blacked-out room, is Olafur Eliasson’s Model For a Timeless Garden, which he first made in 2011.
There are no pictures of the piece I can find online that do it justice, suffice to say that it is a long, deep-set bench of working fountains of all shapes and sizes, bathed in the most intense strobe lighting I’ve ever witnessed. (The Southbank Centre recently uploaded the video below, which gives you some idea of the effect.)
Once over the pounding effect of the lights (which strangely become less of a headache the longer you stay there), the effect that the lamps have on the moving water is quite extraordinary: the light appears to freeze it as it moves through the air, making the whole arrangement look like set of rapidly pulsing sculptures.
As disorienting as Eliasson’s Timeless Garden is, I could happily have stayed in there much longer.
Light Show is on at the Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London until 28 April. More at the Hayward’s website and at the Light Show page.
CR in Print The February issue of CR magazine features a major interview with graphic designer Ken Garland. Plus, we delve into the Heineken advertising archive, profile digital art and generative design studio Field, talk to APFEL and Linder about their collaboration on a major exhibition in Paris for the punk artist, and debate the merits of stock images versus commissioned photography. Plus, a major new book on women in graphic design, the University of California logo row and what it means for design, Paul Belford on a classic Chivas Regal ad and Jeremy Leslie on the latest trends in app design for magazines and more. Buy your copy here.
Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878, or buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.
CR for the iPad Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month.
Holly Laws is known for incredibly detailed, undersized sculptures and often takes on articles of women’s clothing as her subject. Released yesterday for Valentine’s Day, Laws’ latest pieces are a pair of pink and black bras encased in glass jars and suspended from hooked stands. The enclosed icons are…
Step away from that heart-shaped Whitman’s Sampler, proceed to the nearest newsstand, and treat yourself to a copy of New York magazine. There are gems aplenty in this Spring Fashion Issue–expertly deployed Avant-Garde (“The world’s most abused typeface,” per a colleague of its designer, Herb Lubalin) that fits the mod moment decreed by Marc Jacobs in spring 2013 collections for his own label and Louis Vuitton, William Van Meter‘s profile of the glittery/grungy Olivier Zahm (pull quote: “I’m from another kind of gender called the artist. It needs a special bathroom”), charming trend directives such as “A Single Ruffle Adds Fluffle”–but the creamy filling is “Candy Land,” a visual feast of a portfolio lensed by Will Cotton.
The creator of painterly confections has taken up his camera to capture sartorial prodigy Elle Fanning frolicing amidst frosting, candy, and sprinkles, the latter doubling as bright blue eyeshadow inspired by the Dior runway. To discover those sweet treats, of course, you’ll have to tear your gaze away from the cover, in which we think 14-year-old Fanning’s cake topper chapeau–inspired by a Vivienne Westwood Red Label design–winks sweetly at the April 1958 cover of Harper’s Bazaar, photographed by Louise Dahl-Wolfe and masterminded by then fashion editor Diana Vreeland.
We’ve just clapped our eyes on some finished copies of the forthcoming Atoms For Peace album adorned with artwork by Stanley Donwood. They’re pretty special…
Set for release on February 25, Amok is the debut album from Thom Yorke’s Atoms For Peace band which features Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea on bass, Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich on guitar, keyboard and synth duty, and also Joey Waronker of Beck and R.E.M. on drums with instrumentalist Mauro Refosco on additional percussion.
The album, which is being released on XL Recordings will be available in no less than four different physical formats comprising two normal releases: a CD version packaged in a gatefold card sleeve (£10, front cover above), and a double LP version in a wide spine sleeve which will also include the album on a CD (£20, shown below)
And then there’s two special edition releases. They’re more expensive, but with good reason – they’re very beautiful things to behold thanks to the combination of wonderful artwork by Donwood, and beautifully realised packaging produced by Think Tank Media. First up is the limited edition CD packaged in a 12-panel, concertina folded, debossed and silver foil-blocked on reverse board edition (£12).
Plus there’s a limited edition double LP version (£30, cover shown top of this post) which comes in a triple gatefold, debossed and silver foil blocked on reverse board package which comes with a lyric sheet and blind debossed and foiled inner sleeves plus the album on CD. The following gif shows its contents:
Regular readers of CR blog will recognise the apocalyptic artwork (depicting a flooded and burning LA being bombarded by meteors) as we posted about it twice last year – first in April when Eliza posted here about the artwork’s original iteration as an 18-foot lino-printed panorama exhibited at LA’s Submliminal Projects
…and again when artist INSA’s project saw him paint Donwood’s Lost Angeles artwork on to the XL Records office in LA (four times) to create an eye-popping piece of ‘gif-iti’ in December. Read Mark’s post about it here.
To find out more about Atoms For Peace or to pre-order a copy of the album, visit atomsforpeace.info. See more of Stanley Donwood’s work at slowlydownward.com.
CR in Print The February issue of CR magazine features a major interview with graphic designer Ken Garland. Plus, we delve into the Heineken advertising archive, profile digital art and generative design studio Field, talk to APFEL and Linder about their collaboration on a major exhibition in Paris for the punk artist, and debate the merits of stock images versus commissioned photography. Plus, a major new book on women in graphic design, the University of California logo row and what it means for design, Paul Belford on a classic Chivas Regal ad and Jeremy Leslie on the latest trends in app design for magazines and more. Buy your copy here.
Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878, or buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.
CR for the iPad Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month.
The designers at Brooklyn-based Situ Studio looked to the collective experience of Hurricane Sandy as inspiration for their installation, made from hundreds of boards salvaged from storm-ravaged boardwalks in areas such as the Rockaways and Atlantic City. The heart-shaped enclosure, located opposite the TKTS booth, is illuminated from within. Visitors can prowl the perimeter and peek through the slats or step inside, through a flattened area at the base. “We were interested in creating a room within the city–a public space that was simultaneously interior and exterior,” says Situ Studio partner Bradley Samuels. “‘Heartwalk’ is a reflection on the things that bind us together, ephemeral and permanent.”
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
Would art lovers pay up to download a Damien Hirst? So pondered the art and tech worlds in November 2011, when London-based 
