Hasta La Ideas

Ai Weiwei’s “Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn” (1995-2009)

“I did that piece [“Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn”] truly as a joke. I had three cameras that I brought back to China. And the camera could take, like, five frames every second. And, like most things, I did it quick, no plan. People think everything’s planned, but it was spontaneous. We dropped one and we didn’t get it because the photographer was paying too much attention to this valuable vase. So we had to do another one. We had two of them. Then I forgot about those photos for a while. At that time, there were no galleries, no art. I never thought I would become an artist again, you know? I started collecting old Chinese cultural relics, like jade, bronze, beautiful things. I was a top expert on Chinese antiques. Few people had my skill. That’s what I did in the ’90s. On my résumé, I don’t have a show for more than 10 years. I don’t really have any work. I did my first art show after returning to China only in 2003, in Switzerland. But now those photos have become, like, iconic in a sense. But it’s kind of kitsch, huh?”

-Artist Ai Weiwei in an interview with Christoper Bollen in the August issue of Interview

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

• Clinton Smith, former editorial director of Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles, is moving to New York to become editor-in-chief at Veranda. He succeeds Dara Caponigro, who resigned from the Hearst mag in May.

• Curator and writer Zoë Ryan has been tapped to curate the second Istanbul Design Biennial, which will run from October 18 to December 14 of next year. Ryan is curator of architecture and design at the Art Institute of Chicago.

• Good news, design lovers: after testing the waters with a May issue, Departures has decided to increase the frequency of its Departures Home + Design spin-off to two times a year in 2014, with May/June and October issues that will arrive with the flagship magazine.

• Ralph Lauren is funding a restoration project at the Ecole Superieure des Beaux Arts in Paris. He also plans to stage a post-Paris Fashion Week runway show at the school in October.

• Oscar de la Renta weighed in on the Anthony Weiner scandal, part deux: “I think in life people do deserve a second chance,” said the designer during a recent appearance on CBS This Morning (de la Renta designed the wedding dress of Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin). “A third and a fourth? I doubt it.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

We first encountered Byron Kalet several years ago as the design- and music-savvy mind behind the Journal of Popular Noise, an experimental audio magazine (published from 2007 to 2010) that took the form of a twice-yearly trio of seven-inch vinyl records tucked inside letterpress-printed, hand-folded packaging. Now the Brooklyn-based designer, art director, and musician—who once described Seattle band Foscil, featured in JPN, as “the Dick Avedon to my Alexey Brodovitch“—is looking to launch a print magazine, Popular Noise.

The new quarterly will be about “everything but the music—life and style, places, people, and moments. All the things that go into a life worth making music about, and an exploration of how one gets from here (life) to there (music),” says Kalet, who has lined up contributing photographers including Chito Yoshida, Spencer Higgins, and Hannah Whitaker to help create “the new blueprint for how music should look.”

The debut “New York/Art”-themed issue will include some never-before-seen Avedon outtakes, a visit to Richard Phillips‘s Chelsea studio (“to find out what’s on the play list while he’s working and why”), and a lesson on the world of Black Metal academia (we have no idea what that is but are game to learn). Kalet is seeking backers for Popular Noise on Kickstarter, and t-shirts and tote bags are up for grabs along with copies of issue #1, which is slated for publication in September. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

by Tara Lange Chickpea Magazine is a high quality, visually rich food magazine. Though similar in some ways to other magazines featuring food, Chickpea is set far apart by its dedication to a 100% vegan lifestyle. In 2011, after Cara…

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Lucky prides itself for bringing the shop-ability factor to fashion; every single item in the magazine and on its website is available to purchase from the moment it’s featured. And in addition to a focus on “what to buy” and “where to buy it,” Luckymag.com is all about “how to wear it,” but with the type of laid-back, sister-to-sister advice you’d get from your best girlfriend.

Executive digital editor Verena von Pfetten says she regards the Lucky girl “as smart or smarter” than the mag’s in-house team. “She knows what she likes; she knows her style. We’re certainly not talking down to her. We’re just taking the resources that we have, which is a huge market team and a team of editors and the fact that this is what we do all day every day, and trying to make our readers’ life easier.”

With that in mind, freelancers are more than welcome to pitch creative ideas. For writers guidelines and editors’ contact info, read How To Pitch: LuckyMag.com.

– Sherry Yuan

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.