“Tokyo has always been super supportive to me,” said KAWS (né Brian Donnelly) recently as he stood before the slick and zany canvas he contributed to Takashi Murakami‘s “New Day” auction to benefit earthquake relief efforts in Japan. “When Takashi asked me to take part in the exhibition and auction, it was a no-brainer. An instant yes.” KAWS responded with “KAWSbob Enters the Strange Forest” (2011), expected to bring between $30,000 and $40,000 when it goes on the block this morning at Christie’s in New York. The painting, which measures five feet in diameter, borrows the cherubic and absorbent visage of SpongeBob SquarePants, here given the KAWS treatment with X-ed-out eyes, as well as Murakami’s own grinning-flower motif. “One of the first times I visited Takashi at his studio in Japan, he gave me a six-foot flower pillow,” explained KAWS. “He said, ‘I want you to have this, but are you OK to take it back?’ And I was like, ‘Of course.’” There was just the small matter of figuring out how to transport a giant plush flower back to Brooklyn (KAWS eventually figured out shipping arrangements). “I’ve always been touched by Takashi’s support and generosity,” he added, “And I thought this sort of image was appropriate for the occasion.”
Brooklyn-based painter curates an exhibition in Santa Monica
Curator of the upcoming exhibition “Dark Water,” Brooklyn-based painter Martin Wittfooth drops his brush in favor of hand-selecting contemporaries who inspire him, compiling 29 representational painters’ whose visions reflect the exhibition’s namesake. Wittfooth admits, “As an artist in the curator’s seat, I’ve been very biased in who I invited due to my own tastes, but I think this approach has made it a rather focused project.”
The exhibition’s haunting works shock and entrance with challenging variations on the mythic visual theme. Standout pieces include Christian Rex Van Minnen‘s grotesquely surreal creature, the mythology of Caitlin Hackett, a pregnant Venus by Steven Assael, and a continuation of Jason Yarmosky‘s Elder Kinder portraits.
Wittfooth recognizes dark water as an allusion to the inner self, but chooses paintings that tie in relevant global issues such as environmental imbalance and dependence on industry. Presenting new takes on antiquity is nothing new for Wittfooth—his solo show “The Passions,” currently running at NYC’s Lyons Wier Gallery, is a contemporary exploration of martyrdom, depicting enormous animals as the subjects of antiquated devotional paintings.
Wittfooth explains, “The image of dark water shows up in a lot of my own work and I felt that it would be an interesting symbol for other artists to work with—the title, Dark Water, is the theme itself.” With this, Wittfooth presents a collaborative resurrection of the symbol’s timeless intrigue.
“Dark Water” runs from 12 November through 3 December 2011 at the Copro Gallery in Santa Monica, CA.
Takashi Murakami in front of his painting, “New day DOB’s Acrobatic Spectacular: Society” (2011), expected to bring between $350,000 and $450,000 at tomorrow’s sale. Below, he is joined by Yoshitomo Nara and KAWS. (Photos: Stephanie Murg)
On March 11, 2011, Takashi Murakami was in his Tokyo studio, busy with preparations for the biannual GESAI art fair that was scheduled to open in a couple of days. Then everything changed. “It was a total shock,” he said the other day at Gagosian Gallery in New York, recounting his experience of the magnitude 9.0 earthquake that triggered a tsunami and nuclear accidents. “In the days immediately following the earthquake, there was panic and hysteria, but eventually we started to think how we could do something, with artists.” That something was “New Day,” which began as a blog-based version of GESAI (the fair was cancelled in the wake of the disaster) and evolved into a range of activities, including the sale of merchandise and special installations at art fairs, with all proceeds donated to organizations helping with recovery efforts. Now the initiative is primed for its biggest event yet, an auction of 21 works donated by artists including Murakami and members of his Kaikai Kiki stable (Mr., Aya Takano) as well as the likes of Damien Hirst, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, and Yoshitomo Nara. The sale takes place tomorrow morning at Christie’s in New York and is expected to bring in between $3.5 million and $5 million to fund relief efforts in Japan by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, Global Giving, and International Medical Corps.
“The earthquake happened around three in the afternoon,” said Murakami, standing before a self-portrait in which even his goatee is contorted in grief. “At five o’clock, [Christie’s owner] Francois Pinault sent me an e-mail asking ‘Are you OK? Is there anything I can do to help?’ And that e-mail was really the starting point of this project.” As he walked a scrum of journalists around Gagosian’s fifth-floor space on Madison Avenue, Murakami gestured to the eye-popping line-up of works donated by artist-friends he had recruited to participate. “The artists gave us supernice pieces,” he said, gesturing to a quartet of photos from Sherman’s 1976 “Bus Riders” series and a maquette of a pink balloon poodle, then still being silkscreened onto stainless steel at Koons’ studio (the finished product is expected to bring $600,000 to $800,000 tomorrow). “Initially I was thinking of more gloomy images,” said Mr., speaking through a translator about his “Okay!!” (2011), in which an anime-style schoolgirl pumps her fist and flings off a hot pink mary jane. “But I decided it was better to paint pictures that are more encouraging, as a way to convey ‘let’s get going.’” continued…
Commune Design and Valerie Confections join forces once again
Valerie Confections has launched its second chocolate collaboration with Commune Design, taking a psychedelic departure from last year’s Byzantine tile-inspired box of sweets. Inside the new Woodstock-themed wrappers, chocolatier Valerie Gordon has packed more than a dozen ingredients inside her giant handmade Super-Choc-O-Food, transforming a sugary treat into a substantial portion of almonds, cashews, peanuts, macadamias, golden raisins, dried pears, apricots, sunflower seeds, soy salt, and caramel.
“As a starting point in the new design, we wanted to do an oversized chocolate bar that was packed with ingredients,” says Gordon. “The idea of the chocolate as a ‘Space Bar’ coalesced, inspiring the subsequent design work by Commune, which might be described as late ’60s retro-futurism. What the chocolate bar of the future might have been imagined to be.” She describes the packaging as a “design explosion,” with an image of Adam and Eve on the back that reads, “Chocolate is a divine celestial drink, the sweat of the stars, the vital seed, divine nectar, the drink of the gods, panacea and universal medicine.” Amen.
Super-Choc-O-Food comes in a set of three 225-gram bars, available at the Valerie Confections e-shop for $60.
AIGA is harnessing the power of its members for good—social good—through a new initiative that aims to connect and amplify the pro bono efforts of the association’s more than 22,000 designers, hundreds of design educators, 66 chapters, and 200 student groups across the country. Design for Good will help designers to become engaged in projects where they can demonstrate the power of design to communities, business leaders, and the public. Connection is the key. The initiative will serve as a kind of clearinghouse for advice, inspiration, training, and opportunities to tackle socially minded projects. (Check out the growing list of inspirational case studies.)
“The idea is that when a designer feels they want to make a difference, they know where to go first, where their talents will be respected and where we can match them with problems that need to be solved,” says AIGA executive director Richard Grefé. “If designers are involved in projects that affect the community, and are seen as a convener of groups that can solve difficult community problems, then they are going to be standing shoulder to shoulder with attorneys, with accountants, with community leaders who observe the way designer addresses a problem and the effectiveness of bringing creativity anytime you’re dealing with a problem that has many dimensions.” continued…
“I’m always looking for an unconventional way to do holiday,” Simon Doonan told us the other day. The famed window dresser and style authority, who holds the plum title of creative ambassador-at-large for Barneys New York, prides himself on “crafty ingenuity”—think Rudolph made from old Coke cans—and his latest project came with a high-tech twist. PayPal hired Doonan to whip up festive window displays for its pop-up “Shopping Showcase,” a ground-level space in New York where the online payments giant will show off its latest offerings to retailers beginning tonight. So how did he conquer the challenge of selling, well, selling? “After they called me, I was walking past an art supply store, and I saw these,” he said, holding up a posable wooden manikin. “I thought they would be a great way to represent the 100 million people that use PayPal. They’re zillions of these in different sizes in the windows. They’re chic, they’re connected, they’re flexible.”
After Doonan submitted his initial sketches (one is pictured above), the displays were fabricated on site. “That’s a tremendous advantage, because it allows you to keep running outside and seeing what everything’s actually going to look like,” explained Doonan, dressed in a snappy Thom Browne jacket in a shade that he described as “PayPal blue.” The company’s signature color is a key theme of the windows, which feature an industrious bunch of wooden people going about their seasonal preparations amidst a flurry of wintry tissue and tulle. “It’s a fantasy holiday vignette,” he said, standing in front of the largest window. “Buy your gifts, throw them all in a sleigh, and then haul them off through the snow.” For those eager to bring a bit of Doonan’s kooky approach to their own December decor, he recommends a trip to Home Depot for some chicken wire, which he used to make the PayPal wreath. “Chicken wire is such a versatile, incredible material,” he said. “Make yourself a chicken wire Christmas tree and then just start shoving things into it.” continued…
The master perfumer creates an olfactory experience as a unique educational tool for understanding the flavors of Scotch whisky
Whisky is a complex spirit with a range of flavors; often, people have an experience with one variety and dismiss the whole spirit. The Macallan recognizes that introducing whisky to some people requires a bit of eduction, and happened upon an idea that is really quite clever. Knowing that smell is such an important element in taste, they thought it would be an interesting experiment to teach people about the flavors of whisky. The Macallan’s partnership with celebrated British perfumer Roja Dove created an olfactory experience to do just that, and the result is a Scottish take on the Japanese Kōdō ceremony, which celebrates the art and customs of incense.
Roja is a master perfumer who creates his own line of perfumes as well as creating bespoke fragrances for people and places (like shops and hotels). He also has a well known shop, Roja Dove Haute Perfumerie at Harrods in London, which sells a range of “Roja approved” scents. Ironically, Roja had an unpleasant teenage encounter with Scotch that prevented him from ever trying it again. In his first meeting with The Macallan, he had to confess to his whisky-making partners, “I absolutely hate whisky. I don’t like it, I can’t drink it. I don’t like it whatsoever.” Since the project was about creating an experience to introduce the unexperienced to whisky, they were actually encouraged by Dove’s opposition to the spirit, relying on him to create an experience to make the characteristics of whisky more approachable.
The Macallan and Roja Dove Sensory Experience takes people through the spectrum of scent, educating the nose in common whisky notes. It’s meant to help people approach the whisky palate without the immediate—and often overpowering—alcoholic sensation so that later on, tasting the whiskey may bring out characteristics that may otherwise have been missed. “Everybody so far has said that they are shocked that they are able to smell things in the whisky that they have never, ever noticed before,” explains Dove. I was lucky enough to spend an hour going through the Experience with Dove and David Cox, director of The Macallan’s Fine and Rare whiskies and indeed learned to distinguish the various components that give whisky its flavor.
Dove selected 12 pure essences that he felt were representative of different whiskey traits. The first six introduce scent pairs that help distinguish between things like stillness versus volatility, fruitiness versus spiciness, and maturity versus immaturity. Dove’s experience goes back and forth between scents in an opposite way from traditional whisky-tasting, bringing out base notes after the high notes and the sweet before the dry. The kit provides a certain education that a tasting alone cannot. The second set of six scents creates two aromatic blends that imitate whiskies from The Macallan range, which are later used in combination with the whisky during tasting. By the end, the nose has been properly trained and participants leave equipped with the vocabulary to go forward and taste whiskey on their own. It’s perhaps not a surprise that through his own methods Dove has come to appreciate and enjoy whisky.
The “aroma station” comes in an exquisitely detailed oak box constructed by Scottish cabinet-maker Duke Christie with bottles arranged like a perfumer’s desk—a set-up that Dove playfully likens to a church organ. The box contains scent strips for testing and glasses to combine the scents into a “bouquet,” which mirrors the whiskey-tasting experience. Armed with this educational tool, The Macallan’s brand ambassadors are set to spread the essence of their spirit through scent, hoping to convert non-believers to the fascinating world of scotch whisky and provide connoisseurs with an additional tool for appreciation. While the Ambassadors’ are currently making the rounds with the press, they promise that small, intimate consumer events will follow. Until then, check out the video to hear Dove himself explain the unique process.
Style editors and a luggage giant unite in this utilitarian collaboration
When our friends at Selectism got the chance to design a new bag with Tumi, they created a bag suited for their constantly-on-the-move lifestyle. “We travel a lot for our jobs and most of the time it’s short trips,” explain Selectism editors David Fischer and Jeff Carvalho. “Events here, exhibitions there, meetings somewhere else. Packing for those short two day trips is always the trickiest part, because you do not want to check in anything, yet want to be flexible on arrival.” Noting that most bags are designed with a single function in mind, they came up with a design that was sensitive to varied needs.
The all-in-one bag design looks a lot like Tumi’s Alpha Sport Duffel and serves a similar function when flying. It gives the traveler a compact bag for short business trips that has room for a change of clothes and a section with an organizer for a laptop and accessories. Where the Selectism collaboration differs is in the detachable front and side pockets which can be converted into separate bags. While the main clothing compartment stays in the hotel, you can take a slim business brief and a tote along with you to carry the day’s necessities. The two spacious totes allow you to carry back more items than you brought, an added bonus for shoppers and convention-goers alike.
Functionality is everything when you’re on the road. Unobtrusive and compact, the bag does exactly what a good bag should: It puts the needs of the user first. Fischer added “Rather than getting inspired by other bags, we looked closely at what the bag needs to be able to do, what it needs to carry, how it should function. We analyzed our personal travel needs, which we believe are the same for many others out there, with only very few bags matching those needs.”
When asked about how he approached working with Tumi, Carvalho replied, “We tried to stay true to the brand, while offering something new to the Tumi client. Something a little younger, more refreshing, while being classic and timeless. We really wanted to make sure that a long time Tumi client can get excited, just as much as somebody who might be new to the brand.” Selectism’s sharp details include red leather accents, a chestnut-and-black striped interior, subtle Selectism logo badges and gunmetal zipper tags. The navy body and brown leather handle with bronze straps are subtle sartorial twists on the Tumi tradition.
Starting today the Tumi + Selectism travel bag is available exclusively at Park and Bond for $495.
Vidal Erkohen finds inspiration in Ottoman tile patterns in his newest limited edition eyewear collection
For Turkish companies RVS and the Iznik Foundation, heritage is everything. Vidal Erkohen of RVS eyewear made his name by collecting vintage glasses, starting with his father’s. “I remember one trip that [my father] came back from Italy wearing a folding pair of Persols, and I fell in love with the character the frames gave him,” Erkohen told us in a video we made with him earlier this year. Inspired by the quality he found in the vintage frames he began collecting and selling, Vidal decided to launch his own line of acetate glasses, which are hand-made in Istanbul.
Now he’s teamed up with an unlikely but brilliant bedfellow, the Iznik Foundation, which is dedicated to reviving Ottoman quartz tile-making, a millennia-old artform that was lost for hundreds of years.
Erkohen’s handmade glasses are known for their vivid colors and signature styling; the Iznik Collection brings a taste of Islamic tile to the world of couture accessories. With each item hand-inspected by Erkohen himself—the collaboration is limited to only 20 pieces of each of the seven sun and optical styles.
You know when a comic book publishing company decides to gather up all their best-selling characters and put them all together for a series, a la the Superfriends or The Avengers? That sort of thing happened for real this week, so long as you replace “superheros” with “super successful architects.” Yesterday, Frank Gehry‘s company, the aptly named Gehry Technologies, which consults architecture firms in technology issues and has its own 3D modeling application, formed a “strategic alliance dedicated to transforming the building industry through technology.” This group is described as being formed “to drive technology innovations that support the central role of design in the creation of culture” and includes pretty much everyone whose names or firms regularly appear on shortlists for high-profile project. Zaha Hadid is there, as is Skidmore, Owings & Merrill‘s Chairman Emeritus David Childs, David Rockwell, Moshe Safdie, and Ben van Berkel, co-founder of UNStudio, among other highly-notable luminaries. They were all together yesterday for this inaugural meeting, at the Freedom Tower in New York no less, which must have been something to see. Sadly, we must report that no supervillians (not even the anti-modernist Prince Charles) showed up and thus, no super battles took place. However, they’ve stated that they plan to all get together to meet once per year, so here’s hoping for 2012.
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.
“Tokyo has always been super supportive to me,” said KAWS (né Brian Donnelly) recently as he stood before the slick and zany canvas he contributed to Takashi Murakami‘s “New Day” auction to benefit earthquake relief efforts in Japan. “When Takashi asked me to take part in the exhibition and auction, it was a no-brainer. An instant yes.” KAWS responded with “KAWSbob Enters the Strange Forest” (2011), expected to bring between $30,000 and $40,000 when it goes on the block this morning at Christie’s in New York. The painting, which measures five feet in diameter, borrows the cherubic and absorbent visage of SpongeBob SquarePants, here given the KAWS treatment with X-ed-out eyes, as well as Murakami’s own grinning-flower motif. “One of the first times I visited Takashi at his studio in Japan, he gave me a six-foot flower pillow,” explained KAWS. “He said, ‘I want you to have this, but are you OK to take it back?’ And I was like, ‘Of course.’” There was just the small matter of figuring out how to transport a giant plush flower back to Brooklyn (KAWS eventually figured out shipping arrangements). “I’ve always been touched by Takashi’s support and generosity,” he added, “And I thought this sort of image was appropriate for the occasion.”
On March 11, 2011, Takashi Murakami was in his Tokyo studio, busy with preparations for the biannual GESAI art fair that was scheduled to open in a couple of days. Then everything changed. “It was a total shock,” he said the other day at Gagosian Gallery in New York, recounting his experience of the magnitude 9.0 earthquake that triggered a tsunami and nuclear accidents. “In the days immediately following the earthquake, there was panic and hysteria, but eventually we started to think how we could do something, with artists.” That something was “
“I’m always looking for an unconventional way to do holiday,” 
