Hasta La Ideas

With his wonderfully imaginative architectural “photomontages,” artist Filip Dujardin addresses questions of what might have been and what’s still to come. Pulling solely from his extensive archive of his own photographs of buildings, urban spaces and landscapes, the Belgian artist dissects and meticulously reassembles images—with the assistance of computer…

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Mark Wallinger, Labyrinth, 2013 © The Artist, Courtesy Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London. Photograph © Thierry Bal, 2013

Artist Mark Wallinger has just unveiled his new commission for the London Underground. Labyrinth consists of a series of wall-mouted mazes that will be installed at all 270 of the network’s stations…

To mark the 150th anniversary of the Underground, Art on the Underground commissioned Wallinger to create an artwork that would link each and every tube stop on the system. The artworks will be placed in stations over the next six months.

Photograph © Thierry Bal, 2013

The work, Labyrinth, is a series of small enamelled panels, each featuring a different black and white maze. Each one is also numbered as in the tradition of editioned artworks.

In fact, the numbers relate to a particular record-breaking tube journey made in 2009 and refer to the order that stations were visited in the ‘Tube Challenge’ where participants aim to pass through every single station on the network in the fastest time.

Mark Wallinger, Labyrinth, 2013 © The Artist, Courtesy Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London. Photograph © Thierry Bal, 2013

Wallinger’s designs are produced in vitreous enamel – echoing the more regular Underground signage – and the maze device links nicely with the task of negotiating the network itself.

As we report in our forthcoming special issue on the design of the Underground (CR March), the maze device has featured on the system before.

Photography by Sam Hart

Alan Fletcher’s maze for the seat recesses at Warren Street station was created with the commuter with a three minute wait for the next train in mind (the design is a pun on ‘warren’).

At Oxford Circus, on the Bakerloo line, mosaic wall motifs by Nicolas Munro suggest the flow of passengers in a maze-like environment.

Photograph: Wikipedia Commons

The next issue of CR will include a host of Underground design-related features, including a piece on the station graphics, mosaics and public art installations that have graced the Underground since its founding.

Fletcher’s maze was one of a larger 16-piece Victoria line mural project, commissioned for the opening of the line which occured in stages between 1969 and 1972. Abram Games, Tom Eckersley and Edward Bawden also created tile designs for the project.

Wallinger’s installation taps into this underworld of warrens and mazes, giving commuters a puzzle to play with wherever they might be on the Underground.

Mark Wallinger, Labyrinth, 2013 © The Artist, Courtesy Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London. Photograph © Thierry Bal, 2013

Mark Wallinger, Labyrinth, 2013 © The Artist, Courtesy Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London. Photograph © Thierry Bal, 2013

Mark Wallinger, Labyrinth, 2013 © The Artist, Courtesy Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London. Photograph © Thierry Bal, 2013

Mark Wallinger, Labyrinth, 2013 © The Artist, Courtesy Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London. Photograph © Thierry Bal, 2013

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.

Artist Linder created some of Punk’s most famous imagery. For a feature In the current, February issue of Creative Review magazine we spoke to A Practice For Everyday Life (APFEL) and to Linder herself about how they collaborated, along with architects Carmody Groarke, to design the major retrospective show of the artist’s work currently showing at the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris…

When we put the aforementioned feature together (opening spread, shown above), the exhibition hadn’t been installed or photographed but we illustrated the piece with numerous images of Linder’s work and also with images of various elements of APFEL’s graphic design work relating to both the design of the show, and of an accompanying publication, created in the style of a fanzine.

We’ve unlocked the feature online for this week only so even non-CR-subscribers can read it here, and here we’ve posted photographs taken last week at the freshly opened Linder Femme / Objet show in Paris.

The exhibition design features the use of fabric divider curtains to create and separate spaces within the exhibition, and a bespoke typeface entitled Linderama created by APFEL based on the typography on the cover of Buzzcocks single Orgasm Addict (art directed by Malcolm Garrett) which featured one of Linder’s most famous images.

As well as working on the exhibition design with Carmody Groarke, APFEL also designed the exhibition’s accompanying publication, for which Linder created a new artwork to adorn the cover (below), known affectionately in APFEL’s studio as ‘sorbet girl’.

The design inspiration for the publication came from fanzines created by Linder herself in the 70s and also from two packages of material which Linder sent to APFEL early on in the project.

“One package was full of images of nice things like roses and cakes,” recalls APFEL’s Emma Thomas, “and then the other one was full of 70s porn mags.” It was these magazine layouts, particularly the typography in them and the way images bleed over the edges of the pages that helped inform the look and feel of the exhibition publication, spreads below:

Read our feature on the exhibition design either in our February print issue or on our February iPad issue or online in the current issue section of the site, here.

Linder Femme/Objet runs until April 21 at teh Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, mam.paris.fr.

Linder fans should also note her forthcoming exhibition, The Ultimate Form, at the Hepworth Wakefield gallery in May. More info at hepworthwakefield.org.

See more of APFEL’s work at apracticeforeverydaylife.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.

A crown of pine trees beside a blue river, a fox snuggled up against an oak tree, a little fawn proudly standing in a lace tutu, a fluffy merino wool elephant watching your back with his long trunk—what may sound like a child’s daydreams are actually descriptions of Danielle…

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New York’s Grand Central Terminal turns 100 this month, kicking off a year of tributes to the beloved “cathedral of transit” that escaped demolition in the 1970s by way of a legal battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court. Sam Roberts offers a historical and cultural perspective in Grand Central: How a Train Station Transformed America, newly published by–of course!–Hachette’s Grand Central imprint. Centennial souvenirs can be found at the post office, where the USPS is now offering its Grand Central Terminal Express Mail stamp, featuring Illinois artist Dan Cosgrove‘s illustrated update (note the man with the roller suitcase) to Hal Morey‘s famous sunlight-streaming-through-the-clerestory-windows photo of the 1930s. The top of the stamp art includes the edges of the terminal’s famous sky ceiling, painted with a mural of constellations and figures of the Zodiac (fun fact: the constellations were accidentally painted backwards on the ceiling, so don’t rely on them for celestial navigation). And mark your calendar for March 25-31, when Nick Cave brings dancing horses to Grand Central. The artist will trot out an equine twist on his Soundsuits in a project co-presented by Creative Time and MTA Arts for Transit.

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