Hasta La Ideas

Text by Carly Ayres, photos by Callil Capuozzo.

As the 2012 academic year draws to a close at the Rhode Island School of Design, seniors from every department have been organizing and putting on shows that exhibit the best and the brightest of the class of 2012. This past Thursday marked the opening of the RISD Industrial Design department’s Senior Show. The exhibition was publicized with hundreds of wooden cubes placed in mailboxes and around campus to advertise the show, which took place in the Woods-Gerry Gallery in Providence, Rhode Island.

The show displayed a wide range of work from wall-mounted bike holders to catheter underwear. Students in the RISD ID department have the opportunity to take Advanced Studios in a diverse array of subjects, from sustainability through the up-cycling of discarded resources in Costa Rica to material explorations in slip-casting ceramics. These radically different studios lead students down very different paths, and account for the range of work that was on display.

Speakers made from discarded plant byproducts by Alex Epstein

Mechanical exploration in copper wire by Alex Savard

Brett Newman

Brett Newman

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Imagine having so many cool chairs just lying around your office that you’re unwittingly (and literally) sitting on a major design exhibition. That was the situation Dr. Diane DeMill Jacobsen, who heads up the Jacobsen Collection of American Art, found herself in. Through the persistence of a former curator at the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Jacksonville, Florida, Jacobsen was talked into lending the pieces out for a traveling show.

The Art of Seating: Two Hundred Years of American Design…presents a survey of exceptional American chair design from the early 19th century to the present day. The chair is experienced not only as a functional item, but as sculptural in view—the chair as art.

Each of the approximately 40 chairs in the exhibition are chosen for their beauty and historical context with important social, economic, political and cultural influences. Selections from The Jacobsen Collection of American Art are joined by contemporary designs offering a stylistic journey in furniture with show-stoppers by John Henry Belter, George Hunzinger, Herter Brothers, Stickley Brothers, Frank Lloyd Wright, Charles & Ray Eames, Isamu Noguchi, and Frank Gehry among others.

It’s nice to see an American design show that stretches back to the early 19th Century, when we were not a wealthy nation and had to make do with what was on hand. It’s also nice to see that the show is traveling outside of the major U.S. cities, to spread some goodness where design is not necessarily a hot topic; after kicking off at MoCA in Jacksonville, the show has landed at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, where Jacobsen will deliver an attendant lecture entitled Global Influence on American Design on the 16th of this month.

In the video below, Jacobsen talks about the genesis of the show and one chair in particular, the House of Representatives Chamber Arm Chair. (Sign of the times: The Congressmen of 1857 rejected a particular design element of the chair because they considered it excessively expensive.)

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Yoram Wolberger debuts his first public installation in a San Francsico high-rise

Decorating the foyer of San Francisco’s new ultra-luxe high rise Millennium Tower, Yoram Wolberger‘s “CA Mission” depicts California’s iconic Spanish missions in an 18′ x 14′ model. The nod to the state’s former architects plays off of notions of mass production and cookie-cutter repetition with a body made from translucent fiberglass, laid out with artifacts and imperfections to resemble a ready-to-assemble child’s toy.

CA Mission continues his interest in toys and domestic objects, although the scale of this piece is notably more ambitious. His past work has included trophy figures and “Cowboys and Indians”, a series of life-size figurines representing Wild West characters. Wolberger shows an interest in addressing the uncomfortable racial and ethnic past of California, especially as it relates to childhood education. The reproduction is accurate even in its imperfections, which collectively break the mythical romance that colors the state’s history.

The Millennium Tower’s location on Mission Street obviously informs Wolberger’s choice for the installation, which marks his first public commission. The city’s largest residential development will build the rest of their collection with work from other artists with ties to Bay Area art schools and institutions.

The Millenium Tower

301 Mission Street

San Francisco, CA 94105

Re-designed baseball bats at AmDC’s upcoming home invasion-themed show

Just past 3 A.M. you hear an unwelcomed guest in your home. What do you grab to protect yourself? This was the question posed to 10 leading designers taking part in the American Design Club’s upcoming show Threat: Objects for Defense and Protection. Using a raw wood XBat baseball bat as a template, each designer reached deep into their imagination—or nightmares—to envision how they would respond to a home invasion.

The 10 resulting pieces represent a range of reactions. Jonah Takagi and Fort Standard go on the offensive with meat tenderizer-inspired bats, while Paul Loebach‘s ultra simplistic saw blade embedded bat seem equally aggressive. On the other hand, David Weeks‘ wooden rifle takes aim at a more design-driven defense.

Matthew Bradshaw‘s molded bat features a sculpted handle formed to the nervous grasp of imaginary men, the stacked hands resembling the schoolyard competition of hand over hand. Harry Allen teamed with Swarovski crystal on a bat emblazoned with the phrase “namaste”, while Joe Doucet split his bat down the center with a blazing orange streak offering a warning of what’s to come.

Now, AmDC has launched a fundraiser for the as-yet-untitled designs called “Name That Bat“. Donate $10 to submit a name online between now and the end of March. AmDC, along with the designers, will select final titles, and the winners will receive the bat they named.

Threat: Objects for Defense and Protection runs only from 9-10 March 2012 at Brooklyn’s Present Company. Be sure to visit the website to check limited viewing schedule.

Photography by Kendall Mills

A series of lamps, tables and storage made by New York designer Stephen Burks in collaboration with basket weavers in a village outside of Dakar is on show at the Design Exchange in Toronto.

The baskets are made from sweetgrass and colourful recycled plastics.

“The process is more like coil basket stitching than weaving because it involves building the form from a central spiral outward while ‘stitching’ the one sweetgrass bundle to the next,” says Burks.

He’s known for his projects linking artisans in the developing world with global brands like Artecnica and Moroso – see more stories about his work here.

The exhibition continues until 1 April.

Here are some more details from Stephen Burks:

I worked in Senegal for a week in and out of the village then for about three months in the studio with my team developing the pieces.

We looked at the baskets in many ways from “baskets re-invented” where we used existing baskets as a module to make a final product (like the Starburst lamp) to “baskets abstracted” where we used the baskets as a form for making a similar voluminous object with a completely other material (like the Untitled HDPE lamp).

My Man Made project is really about integrating centuries old artisanal processes into contemporary design products to extend these craft traditions into the future, while also building a bridge from these developing world hand factories to international distribution.

It’s about asking the question, “If these people can make your bread basket or clothes hamper, why couldn’t they also make your next chandelier or pendant lamp?”

Unfortunately, the pieces aren’t yet commercially available. Every piece in the exhibition is unique and one-of-a-kind, so our next step is to find partners to help commercialise the project.

Stephen Burks: Man Made Toronto

Stephen Burks: Man Made Toronto features the work of New York industrial designer Stephen Burks and his studio, Readymade Projects. Burks can be considered a design activist, whose work challenges the way that we think of traditionally crafted objects and contemporary design.

Burks collaborates with artisans in the developing world to transform raw and recycled materials into clever, functional products. Linking these products with the distribution and marketing of global design brands such as Artecnica, Cappellini and Moroso, Burks brings social, cultural and economic benefit to people in remote locations. In doing so, he also introduces new forms and aesthetics to contemporary design in the industrialized world.

For Man Made Toronto, Burks invites the Toronto public to consider basket lamps, shelving, tables and other interior products that he developed with Senegalese basket weavers in a village outside of Dakar. As authentic hybrids of two cultures, these products seem simultaneously fresh and
familiar.

Man Made Toronto is presented by Wedge Curatorial Projects and the Design Exchange, in collaboration with Chevalier Edition. The exhibition takes as its starting point the Museum in Harlem’s exhibition Stephen Burks: Man Made (March 31 – June 26, 2011).

January 23 – April 1 2012

The Design Exchange
234 Bay Street Toronto, ON