“I am interested in exploring a fine art approach to advertising, and an advertising approach to fine art,” says photographer Mike Mellia. His latest show, “The American Dream,” explores the poles of perfection and perversity in society at large. A series of portraits and still lifes, the images bear…
Continue Reading…
World renowned, Parisian-based trend forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort sat down with Core77 to share insight into the show she curated for this year’s Design Indaba, Totemism: Memphis Meets Africa. Showcasing the works of 53 South African designers, the exhibition drew connections between the pop aesthetic of the Memphis movement and contemporary trends in South African design and craft. Founded by Milan-based architect and designer Ettore Sottsass in the ’80s, the work of the Memphis Group was characterized by a democratic philosophy, bold colors, simple geometries and stacked forms produced with industrial materials. As Sottsass proclaimed, Memphis, “is everywhere for everyone.”
Vumela Umsebenzi Totem, Rudolph Jordaan and Micah Chisholm
Post-Apartheid South African designers reappropriated African icons in their use of animal prints, spears, wooden masks and African crafts in interior design. As the movement became saturated, the South African design community turned to art, crafts and textiles instead. As Edelkoort writes in the call for entries:
Now these long-lasting trends can gain inspiration from new ideas working with colour, craft and pattern, liberating themselves in pretty much the same way that Memphis did. Working on my trend forecasts for 2014 and beyond, it suddenly became very clear to me that there is a kinship between the Memphis ideas and South African style, between shantytown colours and Italian kitchen laminates from that period. The use of tactile matter, coloured patterns, wild animal skins, fringes and finishes, lightbulbs and neons are all reason to believe that we can expect an ’80s inspired revival of some magnitude.
The Picnic, Keri Muller (simpleintrigue)
In the video below, Edelkoort speaks about a resurgence of interest in the Memphis movement as evidenced in fashion, interiors, color palettes and pattern while highlighting the innate humanity in creating totems.
Check the jump for more images from the exhibition:
 |  |
My affinity and bias towards Korean designers is often reflected in the articles that I wrote for Yanko Design. So you can imagine my delight when I got the chance to visit the Korean Designers’ stand at the 2013 Munich Creative Business Week. Aside from the informative K-Design Talk (yes, after K-Pop its time to embrace K-Design), there were a couple of designers showcasing their works as a part of the design fest.
Organized with the help of KIDP, the clear intention of the select group was focused on simplistic innovation. My first encounter was the Message Silhouette Light, which are painted light bulbs with integrated messages. A creation of November Design, the studio manufactures and sells eco-friendly design art items. I have my in-dept review in here.
HAT ceiling light by Mars Hwasung Yoo is a playful take on everyday objects. Yoo set up the independent design studio BYMARS, based in Stockholm and now works from there.
Manifesto Design Lab is based in New York and Seoul and their innovative flatware simply floored me. Who would have thought that by adding a simple protrusion to the spoon or knife will make placing the cutlery on the table so much more hygienic.
Tackling the issue of unhygienic tabletops, Hoverware provides a simple solution that prevents the head of cutlery from touching the table.
The Xerock Kim Studio designs furniture and products that explore the relationship between man-made city and nature. Their showstopper Accumulation storage features wood with bark dyed following traditional Korean methods.
Two amazing and highly innovative products that caught my fancy were the Tavolino cushion table and Tavolino Air designed by Joo Design. The former is a comfortable cushioned table prop that allows you to eat or use the laptop right on your lap, the latter is an air-cushioned version that balloons up and deflates as per whim.
Design To Do (Seungyong SONG) has their mind set on creating everyday products in original shapes and simple, natural materials. Their works include vases made of concrete and iron and a light bedside table.
Jaekyoung Kim is one half of design duo KAMKAM and their Dressed-Up Furniture collection has already made a splash across the globe. Their method of incorporating familiar fashion elements like belts and buttons, to items of furniture, gives them a quirky edge. Crafted from leather, plywood, sponge and ash, the furniture lineup is simply amazing!
The overall vibe that the designers and the exhibition exuded was that of hope and accomplishment. It was an honor to be amongst such talented people and be a part of their dreams.
–
Yanko Design
Timeless Designs – Explore wonderful concepts from around the world!
Yanko Design Store – We are about more than just concepts. See what’s hot at the YD Store!
(My Affair With Korea was originally posted on Yanko Design)
Related posts:
| |
Dutch trend forecaster Li Edelkoort curated an exhibition drawing parallels between the Italian Memphis movement of the 1980s and contemporary South African design at Design Indaba Expo in Cape Town earlier this month.
Called Totemism: Memphis meets Africa, the show at the centre of the expo featured work by 53 South African designers across a range of disciplines.
Edelkoort proposes “a kinship between Memphis ideals and South African style, between shanty town colours and Italian kitchen laminates from that period.”
She points to the use of tactile materials, colourful patterns, animal skins, fringes and neon common to both styles, as well as the tendency to layer and stack materials or colours to create totemic objects.
Decoration will take over objects, she says, especially colourful two-dimensional patterns with the illusion of three-dimensional qualities that create a sense of animation.
The exhibition was open from 1 to 3 March as part of Design Indaba, where the Petting Zoo app that we featured a couple of weeks ago was also launched. Another key show elsewhere in the city at the same time was the Heavy Metal exhibition we featured earlier today.
Edelkoort was one of the speakers at our Dezeen Live series of talks in London last September, where she predicted that nomadic lifestyles and increasing reliance on screens for information would make us crave tactility – watch the movie here.
Dezeen was in town as part of our Dezeen and MINI World Tour – watch our movie reports from Cape Town here, including the upcycling culture that’s common in South African design and how being World Design Capital 2014 can help the city overcome problems inherited from the Apartheid regime.
Installation photos are by Riccardo Pugliese.
Here’s some more information from Li Edelkoort:
There seems to be a kinship between Memphis ideas and South African style, between shantytown colours and Italian kitchen laminates from that period. The use of tactile matter, coloured patterns, wild animal skins, fringes and finishes, lightbulbs and neons are all reason to believe that we can expect a Memphis-inspired revival of inspiring magnitude.
A Memphis revival reflects a taste for bolder colours and is already influencing the most avant garde designers who create citations irreverently. The Italian master Ettore Sottsass would have agreed: Memphis, he said, “is everywhere and for everyone”. Yet he also is known for saying that Memphis was “like a hard drug” and therefore one couldn’t take too much of it!
The Memphis designers set themselves free with colourful and patterned laminates, historical form, wild animal materials, printed glass, loud celluloid, neon tubes and metal plates finished with spangles and glitter. The movement coincided with the reign of disco dancing and pop icons like Grace Jones, who dressed and moved like Memphis in loud colour-blocked outfits – already making a major comeback in fashion today!
Since 1994, young South African designers and decorators set out to create an African style using contemporary elements mixed with folkloric and iconic aspects such as spears, zebra, wooden masks and stools. Bars, restaurants and early boutique hotels invented this first funky South African design language.
However that movement was quickly saturated and the design community turned to craft and textiles instead. These trends developed in a great outpour of rustic and organic style, including architecture, design and food, celebrating the well-being of South African life.
Now these long-lasting trends are gaining inspiration from fresh ideas working with colour, craft and pattern, liberating themselves in pretty much the same way that Memphis design movement first did in the 1980s. Yet what makes this neo-Memphis movement so African in feeling? The stacking and layering of colour and materials deliver a totemic quality to designs. As these objects illustrate, it’s time to stack, store, build and construct new African totems, thus creating icons that are at the forefront of design. The world is looking to Africa to be inspired! Like slaves to the rhythm!
Totemism: Memphis meets Africa is an exhibition that will be on show at Design Indaba Expo in Cape Town, March 1-3, 2013. Curated by Lidewij Edelkoort and produced with the support of Woolworths, Interactive Africa & Design Indaba Expo.
The post Totemism: Memphis meets Africa
at Design Indaba Expo appeared first on Dezeen.
An exhibition of projects nominated for Designs of the Year including Zaha Hadid’s table inspired by a glacier and a stool made on a fishing trawler (above) opens tomorrow at London’s Design Museum.
Above: Louis Vuitton Collection by Yayoi Kusama
The showcase features designs put forward for the museum’s Designs of the Year awards, recognised in seven categories: architecture, digital, fashion, furniture, graphics, product and transport.
Above: Well Proven Chairs by James Shaw and Marjan van Aubel
Shortlisted projects include a stool made from plastic collected from the sea, a portable 3D printer and a superstitious robot that trades on the stock market – read the full shortlist here.
Above: Gravity Stool by Jolan Van Der Wiel
Winners in each category and an overall winner will be announced in April, with the exhibition continuing until 7 July.
Above: Autumn Winter 2012 Collection by Craig Green
The exhibition was designed by London studio Faudett-Harrison, who have displayed the projects against neutral tiles, black worktops and occasional yellow surfaces.
Above: A-Collection by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for Hay
Photography is by Luke Hayes.
See all our stories about architecture and design exhibitions »
See all our stories about the London’s Design Museum »
Here’s the press release from the Design Museum:
Shard, Olympic Cauldron and a non-stick ketchup bottle: Design Museum 2013 Designs of the Year.
Designs of the Year 2013 exhibition runs from 20 March to 7 July 2013.
The Design Museum announces the contenders for the sixth annual Designs of the Year. They include the best designs from around the world in the last 12 months across seven categories: Architecture, Digital, Fashion, Furniture, Graphics, Product and Transport. Selected by a panel of distinguished nominators, the awards compile the most original and exciting designs, prototypes and designers in the world today – brought together in a Design Museum exhibition from 20 March – 7 July 2013.
Above: Liquid Glacial Table by Zaha Hadid
Consisting of over 90 nominations, this year’s contest include the celebrated Olympic Cauldron by Heatherwick Studio; Western Europe’s tallest building – The Shard designed by Renzo Piano; the boutique boat-shaped hotel room – A Room for London by David Kohn Architects; The Louis Vuitton collection by Yayoi Kusama; and the award-winning Exhibition Road by Dixon Jones, which integrates vehicle and foot traffic with its rejection of boundaries between pavement and road. Microsoft’s Windows phone 8 has claimed the only mobile phone nomination. The Digital category also includes the latest Gov.uk website.
Above: Future Primitives by Muller Van Severen
Zaha Hadid earns two nominations this year for the Galaxy Soho building in Beijing and the Liquid Glacial Table, which resembles running water. Forty years after his death, architect Louis Kahn has won a nomination for New York’s Four Freedoms Park which was finally completed at the end of 2012. The successful Barbican installation Rain Room by Random International, which produced queues of over three hours has received a nomination, and the venue’s Bauhaus exhibition is recognised for its graphics by APFEL.
Above: Proenza Schouler Autumn Winter 2012 Collection by Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough
Some of the most remarkable prototypes to emerge in the last year include a non-stick ketchup bottle invented by the Varanasi Research Group at MIT, which uses a special edible solution sprayed on the inside of the bottle; a prototype pair of self-adjustable glasses for children with no access to opticians by The Centre for Vision in the Developing World in Oxford; and a wheelchair that folds completely flat with its revolutionary collapsing wheels technology by Vitamins Design.
Above: E-Source by Hal Watts
Key advances in technology are also recognised in the nominations such as the 3D printer and an apparatus coined Magic Arms, which has helped a girl suffering with arthrogryposis to regain mobility.
Above: Zumtobel Annual Report by Brighten the Corners and Anish Kapoor
The exhibition featuring all the nominations will open 20 March 2013 with the winners from each category and one overall winner to be announced in April. Last year the prestigious award was won by design studio BarberOsgerby for the London 2012 Olympic Torch.
The post Designs of the Year 2013 exhibition
at the Design Museum appeared first on Dezeen.
At the TEFAF stand of Tornabuoni Arte, Alighero Boetti’s “Mappa del Mundo” (1980), viewed through tulips. (All photos: UnBeige)
Armory Week has come and gone in New Amsterdam, but the European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) is just beginning in the Dutch town of Maastricht. Gluttons for masterpieces, we decided to take a field trip. With some 265 exhibiting art and antiques dealers, the 26th edition of the fair opened to the public today after a vernissage that, in the words of a colleague, “makes Art Basel look like a slum”–all savvy lighting, high ceilings, and spacious aisles bursting with tulips, thanks to fair designer Tom Postma.
TEFAF has long been a must for collectors of Old Masters and antiques, and in recent years has boosted its offerings in modern and contemporary art, design, and photography. Were the fair crass enough to have a slogan, it would be “where the museums shop.” We arrived in Maastricht and, fortfied with stroopwafels, set out to see works spanning 6,000 years of history. Let’s just say it’s a good thing that the fair runs through March 24. Here are 25 of our early favorites.
The multilayered stand of Axel Vervoodt. We couldn’t muster the courage to ask him whether he receives a monthly royalty check from Restoration Hardware.
Wartski of London offers (for six figures) the shot that almost killed Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. Fired–maybe accidentally, maybe as an assassination attempt–in 1906, the lead pellet was mounted in gold by Carl Fabergé and presented to the tsar as a creepy souvenir.
Among the standouts in the design section of the fair: a 1921 Wiener Werkstatte table lamp by Dagobert Peche (at Bel Etage, Wolfgang Bauer, Vienna) and a preppy combination of works by Gerrit Thomas Rietveld (at Galerie Ulrich Fiedler).
Claude Lalanne‘s “Grand Lapin de Victoire” (2001) stands sentry at the Ben Brown Fine Arts stand and keeps an eye on the 1984 Basquiat across the way, at Tornabuoni Arte.
At the stand of Robert Hall, bottles, bottles everywhere, but not a drop to drink.
continued…
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Having just closed the doors on its fourth edition in NYC this past Sunday, 10 March, Independent once again received much praise for their curatorial approach to the often stale art fair format, emerging from the shadow of the massive Armory Show. Once again back in their original location…
Continue Reading…
As Liz Magic Laser demonstrated through her fact- and figure-studded corporate sendup of a commission, less is rarely more at the Armory Show–a 15-year-old event that this year managed to celebrate its “centennial edition.” Exhibitors determined to get the most bang for their buck (a booth runs around $24,000, according to Laser’s tote bags) erect maze-like configurations to hang, store, and sell as much as possible. David Zwirner has recently taken a more Zen approach to the fair frenzy, devoting the gallery’s booth to a boldly presented solo show.
This year Zwirner gave over its prime rectangle of the fair floor (near the entrance and opposite the champagne bar) to Los Angeles-based video artist Diana Thater, whose haunting “Chernobyl” accompanied the gallery’s post-Sandy reopening last November. The Armory booth unveiled a trio of multi-monitor videowalls playing “Day for Night” (2013), footage of bruisey purple blooms that tremble like viscera through a persistent drizzle and the 16-millimeter haze of multiple camera techniques.
Thater began with bouquets of flowers, placed on a mirror on the ground, and hoisted her camera up on a crane to shoot from above. “They’re all made in sixteen-millimeter film, on a very old camera, and they’re double-exposed film, so they’re not layered in the edit process. They’re layered in the camera,” Thater told us at the fair. “It’s something very simple that’s made in a complicated way.” The bright blue L.A. sky, reflected in the mirror, is made dusky by a day-for-night camera filter. “I brought it down to look like evening so that the flowers would kind of melt into the sky,” she explained.
continued…
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
News: Dutch design collective Droog will turn the notion of piracy in China on its head by unveiling its own copies of Chinese objects in a Guangzhou shopping centre next week.
While Chinese companies and the government strive to shed their copycat reputation, The New Original project suggests that the process of imitation can be more than mere replication when small adaptations are made to the knock-off goods, potentially driving innovation.
Exhibited items will include a traditional Chinese tea pot with a more robust handle and an inverted Chinese restaurant where a fish tank contains the dining area.
Top: Tea Pot by Richard Hutten
Above: Family Vase by Studio Droog
The show will feature 26 objects that were created in Shenzhen, which Droog calls “the epicentre of copycat culture”, as part of a workshop organised by the firm’s experimental arm Droog Lab. Participating designers designers included Studio Droog, Richard Hutten and the late Ed Annink of the Netherlands, plus Stanley Wong and Urbanus of China.
“We have reached a level of saturation in design and in the market, that it’s time to think more intelligently about what to do with the surplus, and use it in the design process. We should take better advantage of our collective intelligence,” says Droog co-founder and director Renny Ramakers. “Imitation can also be inspiration.”
Above: Fish Restaurant by Studio Droog
The New Original will be on show at Hi space, zhen Jia shopping mall, 4th floor, No. 228 Tianhe Road, Guangzhou, China, from 9 March to 9 April.
The show is organised in partnership with Today Art Museum of Beijing and OCT Art and Design Gallery of Shenzhen.
Other news about copying in design includes a building designed by Zaha Hadid for Beijing that’s been copied by a developer in Chongqing. At the Venice Architecture Biennale last year, Dezeen columnist Sam Jacob of FAT argued that copying is fundamental to how architecture develops.
See all our stories about copying in design »
See all our stories about design in China »
See all our stories about Droog »
The post Droog copies
China appeared first on Dezeen.
An exhibition of drawings by architect Daniel Libeskind will go on show at the Ermanno Tedeschi Gallery in Rome next month.
Never Say the Eye Is Rigid: Architectural Drawings of Daniel Libeskind will feature sketches and watercolours by the New York architect for seven of his best-known projects, including the Jewish Museum in Berlin (top) and the Museum of Military History in Dresden (below).
Daniel Libeskind described the importance of drawing to his architectural practice in his 2004 memoir, Breaking Ground: Adventures in Life and Architecture. “[T]he physical act of drawing with one’s hand is an important part of the architectural process,” he wrote. “An architect needs to know how to draw; unless there is a connection of eye, hand, and mind, the drawing of the building will lose the human soul altogether and become an abstract exercise.”
Click above for larger image
Over 50 original drawings are to go on show, from a huge scroll depicting the masterplan for the Ground Zero site in New York (above) to smaller sketches and more traditional line drawings.
Other projects illustrated in the exhibition include the 18.36.54 House in Connecticut, the Fiera Milano mixed-use complex in Milan (above) and the Zlota 44 residential tower in Warsaw (below). Two unbuilt projects will also feature: the City Edge masterplan for Berlin and a proposed extension to London’s V&A museum (bottom).
The exhibition will run from 11 March to 30 April at the Ermanno Tedeschi Gallery in Rome. It will then travel to the gallery’s other locations in Milan, Turin, Tel Aviv and New York.
This week Libeskind was also in the news for speaking out against architects who create “morally questionable” buildings in undemocratic countries. He also recently completed an education centre at the Jewish Museum Berlin.
See more architecture by Daniel Libeskind, including his proposals for the Yongsan International Business District in Seoul, South Korea.
The post Architectural Drawings by Daniel Libeskind
at Ermanno Tedeschi Gallery appeared first on Dezeen.
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.
