On a misty LA morning, the act of sipping a warm cup coffee out of a Ben Medansky mug at Go Get Em…
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Dans le cadre de son exposition Goldfish Salvation à l’INC Gallery de Londres, l’artiste japonais Riusuke Fukahori, déjà très connu pour ses peintures 3D sur résine, a réalisé une performance live où il a peint un poisson de taille géante. Une création à découvrir en images et en vidéo dans la suite.
Since 1998, the Venice Biennale of Art and Architecture is no longer a traditional exhibition of national artists, but is instead a real international showcase where the single invited countries…
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Berlin’s leading design book shop welcomes world renowned illustrator Olaf Hajek and more
As ardent readers of Gestalten‘s stellar art and design books, we’ve been wanting to visit their storefront, Gestalten Space, ever since it opened last year in Berlin. Tucked away in a cobblestone alley in Mitte, Gestalten Space sells the imprint’s own publications along with a well curated selection of covetable design objects, while the exhibition space in back allows for an expansion to the work of the artists and designers they publish. Demonstrating a wide scope, in April they exhibited photographs from Jorg Bruggemann’s book “Metalheads,” followed by a selection of the best new Japanese communication design from the Tokyo Art Directors Club.
Right now Gestalten is celebrating “Black Antoinette,” their second monograph by illustrator Olaf Hajek, with an exhibition that runs through July. A collection of Hajek’s work from the past three years including editorial contracts, commercial portraits and personal pieces, “Black Antoinette” continues Hajek’s visual language of colorful botanical headdresses and folkloric influences with a distinct handmade, tactile quality akin to woodblock, not seen is most contemporary illustration. The look stems from the fact that Hajek never starts his work on the computer, but with paint on paper, wood or gray board. He does use a scanner, but only to send his work to clients—never as part of his illustration process.
The new book sets itself apart from Hajek’s previous publications with a style that has become more “free and painterly,” as Gestalten puts it, and less committed to absolute perfection. “Hajek masterfully melds influences from West African and Latin American art to create surreal juxtapositions of fairy tale fantasies and disordered realities. His magical realism enriches the perspective of anyone viewing his work,” and, we’d like to add, allows him to masterfully tread the fine line between commercial illustration and fine art.”
“Black Antoinette” runs through 29 July 2012 at Gestalten Space, where you can also buy the book. Copies will be available in the US within the coming months.
Gestalten Space images by Perrin Drumm
The influence of kids on 100 years of design
The historical ebbs and flows of an entire century can certainly encompass a significant amount of societal change, but did anyone bother to ask about the kids? The new book “Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900-2000” by MoMA’s architecture and design curator Juliet Kinchin and the department’s curatorial assistant Aidan O’Connor does just that, compiling an extensive history of objects and ideas linked to the population’s youngest members.
The illustrated book examines the historical context and beginnings of philosophical and influential movements such as Avant-Garde Playtime and the German Youth Movement, and their influence on modern design movements in their respective cultures. Released in conjunction with the MoMA exhibition of the same name, the survey examines the impact of design on children’s development and conversely, their role in shaping the direction of design through the years.
The book and exhibit stem from Swedish design reformer and social theorist Ellen Key’s 1900 book, “Century of the Child” that foresees the 20th century as a time for progression in regards to human rights, as well as an overwhelming societal importance of children.
The book begins at the start of the 20th century with The Kindergarten Movement and the emerging idea of childhood in Vienna with the art of Gustav Klimt, paralleling Sigmund Freud’s influential theories of child development. The authors envision the concept of childhood as a symbol of the inevitable constant change of what is modern. “By its own definition what is up-to-the-minute and aesthetically or conceptually innovative in a certain decade or in one particular context should not, indeed cannot remain so, any more than a child can remain a child,” they write.
Children may shape culture, but they are also products of their own creation, as seen through their role in The German Youth Movement. World War II and its traumatic aftermath was universal for humanity, even the children who assisted in its evolution. The book explores the changing use of toys and books to enable the processing of trauma and therapy from what was then described as “Effect of War upon the Minds of Children”.
Laden with essays, artwork, objects and images from school architecture, clothing, toys, children’s hospitals, nurseries, furniture, posters, animations and books, the book and exhibit offer the audience an endless supply of examples of the theories and ideas explored. Through this exemplification, the book harps on the fact that our world revolves around a universal desire to build a better tomorrow for children, and thus the modernization of cultures progresses.
The book is available online and at the MoMA Store. Keep an eye out for the museum’s upcoming exhibition, which will run from 29 July through 5 November 2012.
An interactive digital woodland at London’s Tate Modern
Having won the hearts of music fans and artists alike with the wonderful co-creative spirit of “The Johnny Cash Project” and their digitally groundbreaking video for Arcade Fire, “The Wilderness Downtown,” Chris Milk and Aaron Koblin (head of the Data Arts Team at the Google Creative Lab) have joined forces again for a new project called
“This Exquisite Forest.”
Drawing on the overwhelming response they received in the frame-by-frame drawings that created their Johnny Cash video, Milk and Koblin are now broadening the scope of their creative partnership by offering a digital game of consequences to the global online community. This project takes the form of a new web platform where people can evolve each other’s drawings frame-by-frame into new animations.
The title of the project is inspired by the Surrealists’ game of consequences, called “The Exquisite Corpse.” Suitably, this week’s project launch was hosted by Tate Modern in London, in a gallery filled with 20th-century masterpieces. A large interactive screen in an annex of the gallery allowed visitors to navigate “This Exquisite Forest” with a handheld laser device, which, when pointed at the wall, triggered new animations to spring forth from the branches and leaves of the trees.
The initial seeds of the project have been sown by eight artists chosen from the Tate’s own collection. Dryden Goodwin, Olafur Eliasson, Bill Woodrow, Mark Titchner, Julian Opie, Raqib Shaw and Miroslaw Balka have all contributed work, creating an archive of drawings that the public can then appropriate and change according to their own taste. People from around the world can add their drawings online, while London locals can do so in person at the Tate Modern, where a bank of interactive screens are available for visitors to make their creative contributions to the project.
We spoke to Aaron Koblin about having his work in such a prestigious museum and how the project has grown and changed with the involvement of his collaborator, Chris Milk.
I’m thrilled, this space is amazing. It’s a bit intimidating actually, but it’s a beautiful and wonderful space to be in. We’ve put so much time and effort into putting this project together, so it’s a bit surreal to be standing here and see it finalized and ready for people to do whatever it is that they do with it. It’s an exciting moment. Tomorrow we’ll open up the website and see what people do.
Chris and I worked on a project called “The Johnny Cash Project” a couple of years ago, and in that project we saw people really wanting to express themselves more and take it further. So we thought we should build something that empowers them to explore their creative potential together. And that’s what this project is.
When Jane Burton (Tate Media Creative Director) reached out to us shortly afterwards and asked what we could do together with the Tate, then we knew this was a great opportunity to let people express and explore in a totally different way. To see what happens when you use the internet to allow them to connect in a way that I don’t think people have in the past. Random strangers exploring ideas in a really visual way.
I guess it is. I have unofficially been involved in some of Chris’s physical installations in the past. I’ve been helping behind the scenes, but this is our first physical collaboration.
This project is more complex in a lot of ways. It’s very open ended so people can really do all kinds of things with it. And it also has this physical component as well as the interactivity. It’s a bit like YouTube combined with Google Docs combined with a social network—it has a lot of aspects to it. So it’s been a different way of thinking and a much bigger experiment.
I think we’ve only gotten better at communicating. There’s very little held back. Which sometimes is brutally honest, but also very valuable and it makes the iteration process very quick. We can openly discuss things and come to conclusions pretty quickly.
Since we’re both in California it’s not too bad. Sometimes Chris drops into San Francisco for the day, or vice versa. We’re in the same time zone so video conferencing is really easy. It’s definitely a less traditional process where we’re not in the same room that often.
It’s been an interesting fusion. I think working at Google has been great. They are amazing people with great resources. I’ve been able to use that opportunity to create some pretty exciting art projects. We’ve just been having a lot of fun really. There’s so much cool technology and so many interesting uses for it. So we really experiment with the potential of the web and see if we can’t push these technologies to their limits in weird ways to see what happens. So it’s a pretty dream job, for a nerd who’s into art.
Contemporary art takes over the Harbor City
by Alex Vitlin
Since 1973 the Biennale of Sydney has presented an exciting three-month program of contemporary visual arts throughout the city. This year’s 18th Biennale of Sydney is built around the theme, “All Our Relations,” a deliberately rich phrase—does it refer to family? Diplomacy? Proximity of concept?
The Biennale runs through three main venues—the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Art Gallery of NSW, and Cockatoo Island, as well as at satellite sites in the inner city. More than 100 works are on show, curated by co-artistic directors Gerald McMaster and Catherine de Zegher.
More than 50 works have been installed on Cockatoo Island, a former naval yard, and the artists exhibiting on the island have consciously made use of the leftover buildings and equipment. Fujiko Nakaya‘s “Living Chasm” fills the space between a former turbine hall and cliff face with fog, creating a 150-foot-high misted abyss.
Tiffany Singh‘s work is almost inaudible behind a wall, but stepping through a low opening reveals 1,000 wind chimes playing to the changing character of the wind at the island’s westernmost tip.
NYC-based artist Alan Michelson finds a tangible correspondence between the mire of Newtown Creek, located between Brooklyn and Queens, and the forlorn industrial majesty of Cockatoo Island in “Mespat.” Housed in an abandoned crane house,the work comprises a video projected onto stained-white turkey feathers.
Other works are installed in early settlement convict buildings, painted onto the launching slips of the island, and Iris Häussler works within an old residence that still holds the bizarre beeswax sculpting of a wayward city ranger who worked on the island.
Off the island, Postcommodity has installed their work “Do You Remember When” in the Art Gallery of NSW. Previously installed at ASU’s Ceramic Art Research Center, the work cuts out a slab of the Art Gallery of NSW‘s 1874 marble floor to reveal the earth below. Especially in Sydney, where British settlement first occurred in Australia, it is a poignant consideration of the touch points between indigenous Australian and later cultures.
In the former working wharves of Pier 2/3, Tiffany Singh presents more wind chimes, in this case to be taken home, painted and returned to the island. Further into the space Honore d’O‘s paper forms fill the old wooden space with an organic continuity.
The 18th Biennale of Sydney runs until 16 September 2012. Free ferries to Cockatoo Island run 10am-6pm every day.
Please see the slideshow for photo credit information.
Fifty artists design 50 coffins for the Portland leg of a traveling art show
by Hunter Hess
Seattle-based design firm Electric Coffin will be taking their annual show Boxes of Death on the road this year for the third time. What began with 20 artists exhibiting in the cramped basement of a hotel has quickly grown into a touring collection featuring more than 50 top artists, as well as lesser-known local designers and some very talented friends.
Creator Patrick “Duffy” De Armas, who runs Electric Coffin with his partner Justin Elder, describes the inspiration for the show as coming from two seemingly unlikely sources. “When I first moved to Seattle I went to a clock show,” he says. “Everyone’s clock was different, but they were all clocks. I was just so infatuated with the idea of the obvious comparison of different art styles on the same canvas. The second inspiration was studying Kane Quaye—who is most famous for his Mercedes Benz coffins.”
The show features 50 miniature coffins from artists all over the country including pieces by wood block artist Dennis McNett and ceramics designer Charles Krafft. While each individual piece follows a common theme, the personality and taste of each artist is vibrantly apparent. De Armas explains, “The idea of using the coffin as a personalized vessel to showcase who a person was as opposed just a box made me think, ‘Why not give other artists a chance to see what a coffin means to them?'”
The growth of Boxes of Death in just two years has De Armas and Elder looking forward to the future, and with a touring show and a book to be released later this year, they have plenty to be excited about. The Portland stop opens tonight, 6 April 2012, at Nemo Design and closes the following night. If you can’t make it catch the final showing at LA’s The Holding Company on 12 April 2012.
Photography by Hunter Hess
The SFMOMA is running an exhibit of Martin Puryear’s sculptures. With tremendous thanks to Chris and Kate, who got me a museum membership, I’ve visited the exhibit twice already. I really liked every single piece without exception, but I think my favorite was Old Mole (1985) shown above.
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