Hasta La Ideas

The correct answer, of course, is cash. Lots and lots of cash. It comes in handy whether you’re coveting Gilbert & George postcards ($27,275 a pop at Lehmann Maupin‘s Armory Show booth), a swath of Chilean artist Iván Navarro‘s neon “Armory Fence,” or, over at the Art Dealers Association of America’s Art Show, the candy-colored flotsam of Jessica Stockholder. And while the whirl of New York art fairs offers plenty in the way of visual stimulation and free champagne, don’t be fooled: it’s a jungle out there. That’s where 20×200 comes in. The booming “art for everyone” enterprise of UnBeige editor emeritus Jen Bekman has created an Art Fair Survival Kit (pictured), a fetching cotton tote stocked with everything the savvy fairgoer needs—save the aforementioned stockpile of large, unmarked bills—to make it through all 11 fairs and still have time to catch a few gallery happenings and museum shows (and save room for a multisensory culinary intervention!). Among the goodies we found in our kit: a handy West Elm tape measure, event guides, a pep-restoring illy cappuccino beverage, Altoids (never underestimate the importance of fresh breath while negotiating!), and a folded-paper “fortune teller” to aid the indecisive. Our favorite survival aid? The Map of the 2011 New York Art Fairs, drawn for 20×200 by San Francisco-based artist Wendy MacNaughton. And if you’re looking for something a little more precise, consult the Google Maps version here.

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The final session of The Economist’s Big Rethink conference has David Butler, Vice President of Design for Coca-Cola, setting out the value of design to share value.

Lego is the image he uses to illustrate the way in which design operates as an integral system — connecting across the organisation, from product to packaging to advertising.

It’s a fairly basic introduction to the role of design, and should have been the first speech.

Themes covered throughout the day include:
– the potential of technology to address poverty and other major world challenges
– the importance of the profit-motive
– the individual in a networked world.
– the need for a high-touch, high-trust business model in an increasingly globalised ‘remote’ world
– the potential of the small and the local to grow.

More on this tomorrow!

Graham Hitchen
Directional Thinking
directionalthinking.net

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As industrial designers we’re supposed to be well-versed in all manner of materials, able to select just the right wood/metal/plastic/other for the job depending on cost, functionality, aesthetic value, the client’s nonsensical demands, et cetera. If you’ve ever felt like slapping a client — and don’t you lie to me, you know you have — chances are it’s during that materials discussion phase where he asks if you can use a cheaper material to save a couple bucks “But, you know, make it stronger.”

It must be neat to specialize in just one material, as a silversmith does, and design without the materials question. “Mindful of Silver” is an upcoming exhibition to be held at London’s The Goldsmiths’ Company that looks at the design process of the modern-day silversmith:

Creativity remains at the vortex of the exhibition but whirling round it are the complex, demanding and sometimes pragmatic elements of the design process. Hours of contemplation and practical experimentation are involved before an original, beautifully conceived vessel demonstrating the highest skill of the craft and individual intellect eventually emerges. Throughout the journey, which can be both playful and torturous, each silversmith has to make numerous decisions and incremental adjustments — it is an insight into these decisions which makes the exhibition so fascinating.

[Silversmith] Hector Miller said: “As a designer I am often asked where ideas come from. This exhibition presents some of the creative processes that prompt new work and illustrates the varied ways in which I, and my colleagues, arrive at our own unique solutions to the challenge of a commission. The exhibition is not just about finished silver vessels, it is about drawings and models, images and objects, because although it is often the logic of thoughts and words that start a design process, it is by embracing the material world with the intuitive use of eyes and hands that a new piece comes into existence”.

And comes into existence with just one choice of material.

Well, maybe the grass is always greener; I can picture a silversmith’s client going “Yes, great, that’s perfect, let’s do that. Except, you know, make it look like gold.” That’s when you reach across your chest to scratch your left shoulder with your right hand, and it takes every ounce of willpower not to quickly fling your arm out and deliver a much-needed backhand.

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New York’s Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) turns ten this year, and it’s celebrating with a blow-out bash and a major exhibition. Illustrator and comic artist Peter Kuper has designed the poster (pictured) for this year’s MoCCA Festival, a two-day comics confab set for April 9-10 at the Lexington Avenue Armory. Among the guests expected are Jules Feiffer, Chip Kidd, Bill Plympton, Adrian Tomine, Julia Wertz, and Al Jaffee, to whom Kuper will present the 2011 Klein Award. Named for MoCCA’s founder, Lawrence Klein, the award acknowledges significant contributions to the field of comics and cartooning.

Meanwhile, today marks the opening of “Will Eisner’s New York: From The Spirit to the Modern Graphic Novel,” an exhibition showcasing work of the Bronx-born comics and graphic novel master that was inspired by, and which spotlighted, his hometown. Curators Denis Kitchen and Danny Fingeroth have rounded up everything from artwork created for Eisner’s noir crimefighter comic, The Sprit, and classic graphic novels to original paintings and art by creators (such as Feiffer and Art Spiegelman) who were influenced by him. Stop by MoCCA on Sunday, which would have been Eisner’s 94th birthday, to catch a 7 p.m. screening of the 2007 documetary Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist.

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Smooth or crunchy? This eternal question, known to excite strong opinions in choosy moms, is rarely debated in art musems and galleries, but change is afoot—and just in time for New York’s Armory Arts Week. The peanut butter perfectionists at Peanut Butter & Co. are teaming with the National Peanut Board (March is its poster legume’s designated month) to launch the Nutropolitan Museum of Art, a pop-up art gallery devoted to the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Lee Zalben, founder and president of Peanut Butter & Co., worked with food photographer Theresa Raffetto and food stylist Patty White to create 365 exciting new takes on the PB&J. A selection of the photos will be exhibited at the Nutropolitan, a three-day affair that opens to the public next Friday, March 4, at Openhouse Gallery in Manhattan. All proceeds from sales of the prints will be donated to the Food Bank For New York City. The city’s hub for integrated food poverty assistance should also clear plenty of shelf space for gourmet peanut butter, because everyone who pops into the gallery will receive a a free jar of Peanut Butter & Co. peanut butter (one per family) and a second jar will be donated to the Food Bank in their honor. PB&J nuts not in New York should check out the event’s soon-to-debut Tumblr here. And did we mention that a jar of PB & Co. Dark Chocolate Dreams—think peanut butter cup in a jar—can be yours for a few clicks and $6?
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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.