Hasta La Ideas

Remember last year when Lady Gaga was named the rebooted Polaroid brand’s Creative Director? Or earlier this year when, at the Consumer Electronic Show, the three products she’d reportedly helped develop for the company received their high-profile debut? Well, hot off the heels of the release of Gaga’ new album, the first fruit of that collaboration were finally made available this weekend for public consumption. Zdnet reports that the GL10, a mobile printer from its Gaga-connected Grey Label line, has been made available for purchase at Bloomingdale’s flagship store in Manhattan and for pre-order on Polaroid’s site, shipping sometime in early to mid-June. While aesthetically appealing, and technically interesting, in that the small device will print wirelessly from cell phones, cameras, or anything with Bluetooth connectivity, to this writer, it isn’t the most thrilling release. While we’re sure they’ll sell, both to the gadget-inclined and the Gaga-enthused, we’d much rather have seen a quicker release of the GL20, a pair of glasses with a camera built in that allowed users to immediately display photos onto the lenses themselves. It’s an utterly ridiculous product, and likely won’t sell as well as something that’s occasionally useful in the real world, but surely would have captured a bit more attention and excitement than a mild-mannered printer. But we’ll reserve any more judgment than that until we’ve seen the GL10 in the flesh.

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Meet the Beetle: A 1959 Volkswagen Type 1 Sedan from the architecture and design collection of the Museum of Modern Art, which today announced a partnership with the German car maker.

Not to be outdone by BMW’s globe-trotting collaboration with the Guggenheim, Volkswagen has zoomed into an unprecedented partnership with New York’s Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1. The two-year initiative, announced today, includes the motor vehicle manufacturing giant’s support of an international contemporary art exhibition at PS1 in 2013, the expansion of MoMA’s online course offerings beginning next March (here’s hoping that Russell Flinchum‘s fascinating course on the history of car design will be among the virtual learning options), an on-site “Lab Project” also slated to debut next spring, and sponsorship of a series of installations in MoMA’s Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden. Meanwhile, Volkswagen is sponsoring “Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception,” on view through September 12 at PS1, as well as the donation of two works by Alÿs to MoMA’s collection.

“This partnership expresses our corporate commitment to take responsibility for the environment and for society,” said Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn in a statement issued today by the museum. The 2013 exhibition, which will fill the entire gallery space of PS1, will highlight “artists who are reacting to the pressing questions of the 21st century with its interrelated ecological, economical, spiritual, ethnographic, political, and social challenges,” according to MoMA. Research for the show will set Klaus Biesenbach off on a global expedition—in a vintage VW bus stripped of all luxuries, we like to imagine—to scout artists working in multiple mediums throughout the world. (This has all the makings of a highly entertaining Where in the World Is Klaus Biesenbach? web series!) Meanwhile, can an Opel partnership with the Museum of Arts and Design be far off?

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With the Whitney Museum of American Art slated to break ground on its new Renzo Piano-designed building in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District on May 24, the fate of its uptown flagship is newly sealed. The Brutalist icon, designed by Marcel Breuer and completed in 1966, will be used by the Metropolitan Museum of Art for exhibitions and educational programming, the museums announced yesterday. An agreement approved by the boards of trustees of the Met and of the Whitney provides for an eight-year “collaboration” beginning in 2015, when the Whitney opens its downtown facility.

The Met plans to focus its programming in the Breuer building on modern and contemporary art. “This will be an initiative that involves curators across the museum, stressing historical connections between objects and looking at our holdings with a fresh eye and new perspective,” said Thomas P. Campbell, director of the Met, in a statement issued yesterday by the museum. “This project does not mean that we are taking modern and contemporary art out of the Met’s main building, but it does open up the possibility of having space to exhibit these collections in the event that we decide to rebuild the Lila Acheson Wallace Wing where they are currently shown.” The announcement also notes that the Whitney and the Met will seek to collaborate on collections sharing, publications, and other educational activities. Meanwhile, like any savvy Manhattan property owner, the Whitney will keep some space in its former home for storage, as well as for site-specific works of art that will remain there on a permanent basis.

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Remember last fall when the master of stirring up controversy, Kanye West, stirred up some controversy with a Twitter posting of the “banned” cover of his latest album, featuring illustrations by artist George Condo? Ultimately, the marketplace won out and a more demure cover was used in the widespread release of the album, instead of the different images Condo had painted for what was originally intended to be five separate covers. That brief controversy over, it only made sense, now months later, to release those collaborative paintings as…silk scarves. Starting this morning and likely ending this morning, M/M Paris will sell a very limited edition collection of 5 scarves, featuring Condo’s paintings from the album, offering only 50 of each design for sale at the going price of 250€. Here’s a selection of the florid language used in quite possibly our favorite press release of all time (pdf):

Playing with the many possibilities of combining the paintings and the frames, M/M (Paris) and Kanye West wanted to find a luxurious expression of their creative efforts — and decided to use the most striking combinations and transform them into voluptuous silk scarves.

…The combination of this luxurious visual language over the traditional Twill de Soie is the ultimate celebration of the magically ornamented sounds of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

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If you’re a designer with a great idea for something online, now’s the time to strike while the iron is hot. Enrique Allen, founder of the incubator and investment fund 500 Startups, has announced the launch of The Designer Fund. Saying that designers don’t have as easy of a route to launch new web-based companies as programmers with technical know-how do, the fund’s goal is to “invest in startups that are founded by designers,” citing outlets like Flickr, Vimeo and Tumblr as all companies that were originally established up by designers.

If architecture is your more your speed, this Sunday marks the start of National Architecture Week, running from April 10th to the 16th. The American Institute of Architects is, per usual, the face behind the week of celebrating the business of building and have a number of things planned, from a Twitter sweepstakes to events held by local AIA chapters. They have a full listing of the latter here, but check with your local outlet as well, as we’re sure there’s more planned across the country.

Last, if you’re a designer wanting to get in on that Designer Fund cash or an aspiring architect inspired by next week’s events, but don’t own your own computer, why not just finally succumb to those criminal urges and break into an Apple Store and take one? Following a recent string of robberies at the company’s retail outlets across the country, NBC Chicago writes that the design of the stores, typically all-glass storefronts, could be too “enticing” for thieves to pass up. An official in the story, commenting on the theft of $30,000 worth of equipment at a suburban Chicago store, says he has talked to Apple about hiring guards or making the store generally more difficult to break into, but the company reportedly doesn’t seem very interested.

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