Hasta La Ideas

Lacking the interim, orangey-brown holiday of Thanksgiving, the British make a mad, mid-autumnal dash for the red, green, and sparkly celebrations of December. This year, Marks & Spencer is getting seriously whimsical with a Christmas-themed kickoff of what will be an ongoing collaboration with Dutch designer Marcel Wanders. The freshly launched Marcel Wanders for M&S collection is a playful line of approximately 150 gift items that range from harlequin-patterned “jester” socks and chicken-and-egg cufflinks to bold wrapping paper and a teddy bear nightlight with an illuminating nose. Those who missed out on Wanders’ collaboration with MAC can stock up on cosmetics, while bakers will delight in the “cake and confectionary” range. Design fans who steered clear of Target’s garish Missoni range will find much to like here, including sleek smartphone and tablet cases, smashingly understated storage jars, cheeky candelbras, and even a bowler hat. Online shoppers are already snapping up the fuzzy felt boots, charm jewelry, and exuberantly patterned pillows. Wanders himself is particularly excited about the progressive plaid he designed for the range. “It’s a pattern especially for Christmas, a tartan with three directions,” he says of the zippy print. “It’s a way to make sure that you understand that every millimeter, for us, counts.”

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For the last few months, since his release from a three month detainment by Chinese authorities, we’ve kept believing that Ai Weiwei is finally going to keep to the demands imposed by his former captors by removing himself entirely from social media and from talking to the “regular” media. How foolish we’ve been. At last we left Weiwei back at the end of September, and following a few months of occasional bursts of chatter, sometimes even saying directly negative things about his native China, we quoted him as saying “my situation isn’t very good” and that he is absolutely not allowed to use the internet. Yet less than half a month later, here we are again. The NY Times reports that the artist recently collaborated with W magazine, serving as the artist on a location shoot from afar, using a webcam. Though he’s kept quiet about the work, the images he help put together feature models somewhat recreating the photos of the Tompkins Square riots in the 1980s Weiwei himself had taken while he was living in New York, one of which is set to be used for the cover for the November issue. Seeing as the feature will concentrate on detainment and was shot on Rikers Island, the connection and statement to the artist’s own life seem fairly obvious. If that wasn’t enough to further wrangle Chinese authorities’ tempers, this week Weiwei was also crowned #1 in Art Review‘s annual “The Power 100” ranking. Writing that his work itself was not only remarkably successful between 2010 and 2011, like with his Sunflower Seeds piece at the Tate Modern, but that his imprisonment for his outspoken opinions makes him nearly a work of art himself. They write that his “power and influence derive from the fact that his work and his words have become catalysts for international political debates that affect every nation on the planet.” In response to this top ranking, the Chinese government has come out against his selection, telling the Wall Street Journal that “China has a lot of famous artists who are strong enough to qualify for selection by this magazine” and that the government feels that he was picked for political reasons, which “violates the magazine’s objective,” which is something Art Review has immediately owned up to, given that they had said as much in their initial write-up about why they chose him.

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Tiny Dancers Kelli Anderson’s die-cut posters for Girl Walk // All Day, an album-length dance music video. (Photos courtesy Kelli Anderson)

Conveying the pleasures of idiosyncratic dancing in a static logo or poster is no warped waltz in the park, but Kelli Anderson was up to the task. The Brooklyn-based artist and designer created this jazzy logo (at right) and die-cut poster (above) for Girl Walk // All Day, Jacob Krupnick‘s Kickstarter-fueled dance music video set to All Day, the new album by mash-up musician Gregg “Girl Talk” Gillis. The exuberant trailer for the video (below), featuring freelance dancer Anne Marsen, became a web sensation earlier this year and helped Krupnick to raise nearly $25,000 to fund the project (more than five times his original Kickstarter goal). The 71-minute epic will be screened in public spaces, and at festivals, concerts, parties, and beyond, beginning in mid-October.

“The trailer’s surreal energy floored me,” Anderson tells us. “There is something that is so simultaneously disruptive and joyous about Anne’s movements—and the way she creatively uses stairs, benches, lampposts, the ebb and flow of the crowd, as her dance partners.” Asked by Krupnick to whip up some graphics for Girl Walk // All Day, Anderson seized upon Marsen’s “oversized, bizarre jacket” as a mascot. She was after something similarly offbeat for the video poster. “There was no doubt in my mind that the most compelling visual from the trailer were these odd bodily contortions that Anne made through dance—silhouettes we are not accustomed to seeing in public space,” says Anderson, who got to thinking about the work of Robert Longo. “I wanted to use body shapes, but black silhouettes just looked silly. So I decided to make cut-out shapes instead.”

Using footage of Marsen, she traced screengrabs of “Anne shapes,” created vector silhouettes, and mutilated pristine, Helvetica-lettered posters with her Craft Robo cutting machine. The punchouts are scattered across the surface of each poster and only visible at close range. “Even though the poster will be against a wall, I like the idea that the dancer-shapes are windows,” Anderson adds. “It reminds me of that feeling I got when I first watched the trailer—through dance, I was seeing the city anew.”

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This weekend, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston unveils its Linde Wing for Contemporary Art with a 24-hour party (“artful attire encouraged”) during which the institution will screen Christian Marclay‘s “The Clock.” The MFA acquired the work, which is made from more than 1,000 film clips, earlier this year in a joint deal with the National Gallery of Canada. Can’t make it to Boston? Get your Marclay fix at the newsstand with the October “Sound + Vision” issue of Wallpaper*, for which the Golden Lion-winning artist served as a guest editor. Marclay reimagined his epic “Manga Scroll” for the magazine, for which he created one of two October covers. The other comes from the pulsing, digital brain of Kraftwerk, who also served as guest editor. Reclusive frontman (not an oxymoron) Ralf Hutter provided the cover: a take on the band’s iconic imagery that is designed to be viewed through the 3D glasses included with the magazine. Inside, Kraftwerk devotees such as Andreas Gurksy, Thomas Demand, and Neville Brody reveal how the electronic music pioneers influenced them and their work.

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If it feels like coming back to the daily grind after a long, relaxing holiday weekend has destroyed all forms of hope and joy, then we have just the remedy for you: the vaguely possible news that fashion design legend Karl Lagerfeld has collaborated with the rapper Snoop Dogg. Unfortunately, to what that degree of collaboration was, if any at all, is still unknown. Late last week, Women’s Wear Daily reported that the designer was in Saint-Tropez, directing a music video for nightclub owner-turned-musician Jean-Roch. Very quickly, WWD mentioned that “The track also features Snoop Dogg.” Whether or not Messrs. Lagerfeld and Dogg were in the same room together, or even in the same city, was not revealed. However, that didn’t stop the internet from exploding over the weekend with headlines like “Karl Lagerfeld and Snoop Dogg Are Working on a Music Video” and “The Collaboration We’ve Been Waiting For: Karl Lagerfeld and Snoop Dogg,” writing as though it were a sure thing. As far as we’re concerned, given that WWD was the only outlet to have the story and simply reported, again, that “The track also features Snoop Dogg,” we’re going to hold off believing that they’ve gotten together to make magic. If it does wind up being true, we’ll expect the finished product, judging from Lagerfeld’s previous film work, to either be bizarre and plotless or meandering with just a hint of plot. If it doesn’t wind up being true, that will mean that we can continue to pull for for our preferred design-based collaboration for the rapper: Droog and Dogg, together at last.

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