Day one of this year’s conference on idea execution
Today kicks off the 99% Conference, an event focused on how to make great ideas a reality that we cofounded along with Behance three years ago. We’re anticipating a great year full of speakers, events, workshops, Cool Hunting Video premieres, and more.
If you can’t be here, follow the action on Cool Hunting’s twitter feed, the official 99 Percent feed or catch it all at the #99conf.
New York City’s minimalist custom bicycle builder
Finding inspiration in vintage track racing catalogs and archival images, Francesco Bertelli builds gorgeously minimal bicycles in his NYC workshop Biciclette Assemblate. The Italian transplant’s one-of-a-kind creations combine new, dead stock and vintage components found at flea markets, collectors, trusted suppliers, and of course, eBay. This scavenger style of sourcing parts allows Bertelli to stockpile choice components and later pick and choose the perfect parts for each individual build.
Central to the design process are Bertelli’s strict guidelines; he only uses classically lugged steel frames with track geometry, quill stems, chrome forks, and vintage cranksets—all accented with leather and wood when appropriate. Hand assembled, finished, and fine-tuned, the bikes are emblem- and sticker-free, in keeping with the builder’s extremely pared-down style.
Bertelli teamed up with Norwegian track frame manufacturers Viking (also an exciting new upstart) to produce his own frame variation in custom anthracite colorway. These framesets are available through Biciclette Assemblate for the admirers of the craft who wish to build their own, which Bertelli encourages. His site even includes a “how to build a bike” section, an online diary of Bertelli’s own build experiences and advice, plus piece-by-piece component descriptions.
To commission your own unique bicycle build, cop one of Viking’s Bertelli framesets, or to simply drool over previous builds, contact Bertelli through his site.
Additional reporting by Graham Hiemstra
Explorations in form as artists carve out a foam-filled room
Fresh off Perrier-Jouët‘s Bi-Centenaire Project (more on that later), Daniel Arsham has a new installation and performance piece debuting this week in NYC. “Dig”, in collaboration with Arsham’s firm Snarkitecture, comprises of completely filling the gallery space at the Storefront for Art and Architecture with white architectural foam. Arsham and his fellow Snarkitects will occupy the space during the monthlong installation, excavating the foam filled gallery with simple tools to transform the space into a cavernous experiment in form.
The tunneling continues through 4 April 2011, and as performances until 22 April 2011. The exhibition is invitation-only, but passersby can sneak a peak from the street or can follow the progress from start to finish on OHWOW’s site.
Checking in with the creative forces behind a bold multimedia production of Stravinsky’s post-WWI theater piece
Meant to be “played, danced and read,” one of Igor Stravinsky’s most ambitious pieces, “Histoire du Soldat”—penned in the frenzy of post-World War I reconstruction—delves into themes of chaos and absurdity. Tackling the powerful message and Stravinsky’s dissonant, pastiched style, director and choreographer Yara Travieso and illustrator Ryan Hartley recently adapted the difficult work for a multimedia spectacle opening tomorrow at NYC’s Lincoln Center.
To visually bring one of Stravinsky’s most complicated pieces to life more than a half-century after its inception required an intensive process. Hartley started sitting in on rehearsals early on to reverse-engineer around the motion of the bodies onstage. From there he pulled iconography from period source material and beyond. “As you watch,” Hartley explains, “there is a progression of influences in the images from Stalinist Russia to Nazi Propaganda to wartime American propaganda that passes into today’s war posters.”
The resulting cunning videos form a densely-layered set-piece as compelling as the story playing out in the foreground (performed by dancer Esme Boyce and actor Brendan Spieth). This seamless mix of elements stems from Travieso’s careful balance of theatricality and dance. “Multimedia is becoming a visual palette for a lot of audiences that are just used to dance or theatre.” she stated, emphasizing, “It is becoming something they are starting to understanding as the next level.”
Of course as much as trends in media influenced the director, as the Faustian tale (a Russian soldier makes a deal with the devil) unravels, the melodies’ surrealist proportions drive the production. “The music itself is a mash-up of different influences. From Tango to Russian Folk music, the meter is constantly changing,” says Travieso. Where some directors might feel stymied by the challenge, Travieso embraced it as a way to explore the multimedia aspects of the performance. Using disparate elements and technologies to create layers of information, Travieso’s staging of “Soldat” fully integrates attempt at realizing what can be possible when the digital and spacial world’s interact between each other and in front of an audience.
Showing as part of this year’s Beyond The Machine Festival, hosted by the Juilliard School and featuring electronic and interactive music programs, opens tomorrow 24 March 2011, runs through 27 March 2011 at the Meredith Wilson Theater, and is free to the public.
Flying liquid paint splashes captured by Japanese photographer Shinichi Maruyama
Splashes of tempura paint come to an arresting standstill in “Gardens,” the latest project by Japanese artist Shinichi Maruyama on exhibition at Manhattan’s Bruce Silverstein Gallery. With high-speed photography and the spontaneous gestures of action painting, Maruyama produces sculptural images at once frozen and fleeting in midair.
“I have tried to represent this feeling I get from Zen gardens in my artwork,” he explains. “It is its own universe, empowering the visitor to resist temptation, eliminate negative thought and sever the continuous stream of inessential information emanating from the outside world.”
Born in Nagano, Japan, Maruyama made a name for himself in advertising with his innovative use of digital photography and the visual properties of water. Taking a contemplative turn, he published two books documenting Tibetan life in 2001. Maruyama relocated to New York two years later and began to explore the artistic possibilities of photographic strobe technology and liquids. In the well-received series “Kusho,” he examined the elusive nature of calligraphy with hurls of sumi ink and water.
“Gardens” runs through 2 April 2011. All images © Shinichi Maruyama, courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery, NY
Champions of the modern bathroom chronicle their artisinal approach in a beautiful new book
Barbara and Robert Sallick founded NYC’s Waterworks in 1978 and in the decades since helped redefine the modern bath as “an intimate yet luxurious retreat.” With their extensive knowledge on materials and craftsmanship and Barbara at the creative helm, Waterworks remains focused on authentic design—a commitment that shows in both their product and her absorbing online design journal, “The Perfect Bath.”
Another publication, commemorating their success and sharing their creative vision, Waterworks’s newly-launched “Heritage Book” is equal parts promotional item and tool for designers, architects and homeowners. In addition to gorgeously-photographed images of their product and process, the book shares insight into the company’s prospective ideas. Sallick explains. “It’s our heritage that actually sets the pace and philosophy for our future.” She adds, “the best is yet to come in terms of keeping our authenticity and respecting the craft, while pushing the boundaries of design innovation and quality.”
Handcrafting each of their fixtures in Normandy, France (because of the region’s quality sand), Waterworks approach to production is largely artisinal. Each piece passes through seven points of human contact—from tumbling and polishing to checking for water tightness—a step-by-step process that ensures mechanical integrity.
The method also speaks to Barbara’s keen interest in design as collaboration. A huge ceramic tile enthusiast, she tells the story of witnessing the “magical” process it takes to create one piece. “Each of the 35 steps to a successful product requires the whole team to work effortlessly together…The end result holds the key to the DNA of the tile maker.”
The designer’s fascination with such techniques falls in line with her statement that her three core beliefs for design “are in the sacred tenets of balance, proportion and scale.” Whether creating a “multifaceted sensory composition” for the bathroom or just knowing when to add a splash of red, this book thoughtfully details these and more of Waterworks’ strengths in creating the kind of utterly relaxing environments that have become a standard amenities in today’s high-end homes.
To get your hands on the “Heritage Book” simply visit a Waterworks showroom or request the book online.
Exploring the limits of greyscale in a group show
With a mission of reinvigorating Chelsea’s once youthful and vibrant art scene, Mallick Williams (daughter-in-law of actor Robin Williams) launched Mallick Williams & Co. in November of 2010. In the short time since opening, the upstart has already drawn attention for its ability to connect big-name artists to high-profile young collectors and shows no signs of stopping with their first official gallery show, cleverly titled “Hueless,” opening tomorrow.
An exploration of the possibilities of grey scale, “Mallick Williams & Co. carefully curated pieces from both artists who normally work in black and white (in mediums such as graphite, charcoal, paper cut and photography) alongside work from artists who are stepping out of their traditional colorful palette to create something uniquely hueless.” At the core of the group show is a roster of heavyweight street artists, including Shepard Fairey, Eric Haze, Skullphone and Russel Young. These more established artists will show alongside lesser-known talents like Marissa Textor and Sam Ske.
Young’s piece, “Fifteen Minutes With You; Well I Wouldn’t Say No”, consisting of acrylic paint enamel and diamond dust screen-printed onto linen, creates an ethereal manifestation of a memory without falling into the abstract (pictured below left). Another portrait, “Drawn Face V” (above left) by Dirk Dzimirsky aims to “not only portray the physical attributes, but more importantly the subjects inner presence of life. I chose drawing over painting as this allows me to create many layers over layers of lines and dots which react to each other in order to create a vibrant texture with directions and movement.”
On the darker side thematically, Marissa Textor’s piece “An Outlet for Pent up Forces,” (also graphite on paper, like Dzimirsky’s) breathtakingly depicts volcanic rock in photorealistic detail. Nicholas Forker takes on a “shattered sense of community in the face of capitalist driven isolation” with a greyscale drawing representing an artist informed by a globalized marketplace of ideas.
“Hueless” runs through 15 April 2011. Visit the Mallick Williams & Co. website for the full list of artists.
Novelist Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts on Harlem, gentrification and the power of unconscious style
Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts’ debut novel “Harlem is Nowhere” finds the young author discovering herself in a foreign place that seems all too familiar. Pitts moved to Harlem after completing a Fulbright Scholarship in England, and lived in the upper Manhattan neighborhood for seven years. In that time she saw a neighborhood separated from the city within which it exists become bombarded by the outside and witnessed a community under siege. Taking her title from a Ralph Ellison essay, Pitts recounts her interactions with local historical and literary figures both real and imagined, creating a rich portrait of one of the most interesting and important cultural landmarks New York City has to offer. Cool Hunting sat down with the author to discuss her work and the neighborhood that inspired her novel.
The book is imagined as the first part in a trilogy on African Americans in utopia, and the three parts are Harlem, Haiti and the Black Belt of the South. It’s interesting that you should ask whether it’s the foundation of that series, because you could argue that one of the other places that has a longer historical reach, which is the beginning of that idea is Haiti. Haiti was the first black republic, which is why it enters the list as the place it was first imagined where enslaved Africans could throw off their chains and create and imagine the republic. The whole history of Haiti flows from this original act, for which the people of Haiti were punished by the entire world.
It’s hard to say yes or no. All of that history, all of those myths that I talk about were so much a part of my mind from having read all those books that I read about Harlem and the poets, the photographers—studying all of those pictures. Of course all of those stories and history were part of why I ended up there, but once I arrived there I was conscious not to be caught in some daze of nostalgia or uncritical celebration of, “Oh ,the Harlem Renaissance wasn’t it fabulous!” If I wasn’t in this rhapsody of celebration it was because I was conscious of balancing out the myth and the reality.
I think it’s rich in ways I didn’t expect it. In simple everyday ways, just the way that people greet each other and look out for each other and a certain way of being a neighbor. I imagine in some neighborhood that’s the norm, but in Harlem it’s exemplified, that feeling of community in an urban setting. I think there’s a reason they call it the village of Harlem. For me there was an attempt to become a part of the place, not just to live there and sleep there, and in my attempt to become a part of the place I began to care about its future and what is going to happened to it.
It’s interesting, because what’s happening in Harlem is happening in a lot of other neighborhoods in New York. I remember reading—and it made me furious—a high-powered broker in the New York Times said, “they think they’re special up there why should they be different than any other neighborhood that will have retail shops and boxy condominiums?” To her obviously that’s a great thing. Why is it so different? Why is it so special? Not to discount what’s happening in other places, or to say it is not destructive in other places, because Harlem is alike other neighborhoods in New York in that way. Harlem is going through a rash of re-zonings under Mayor Bloomberg, more so than any other time period in its history, which is changing the landscape, and will change the face of the city for generations to come, period. Even if the current economic situation means you can’t see development in some places, the laws have been changed so that when the money comes back into Harlem and in other places, the band will play on.
Style is unconscious in many ways it is informed by everything I’ve ever read. I’ve certainly read a lot of Borges. One that comes to mind is W.G. Sebald, a German writer who died in 2001. He had that sense of is it fiction, is it non-fiction? Is it a diary, is it history? And of all of those things being able to co-exist on the page. When I first read his work when I was just out of college it was a huge relief and a door opening into all of those possibilities, to work across genres and to follow one’s own nose. I always say if it’s a first person narrative, it’s my eyes and my brain shifting through what I see and what I read and what I’ve heard about. What happened and what’s about to happen, and those things come through my eyes. But its not a first-person narrative in the way a memoir is. It’s more impressionistic where my personal experiences show up when they can throw light on a bigger question. In terms of storytelling, that’s the way my style is inspired.
“Harlem is Nowhere” sells online from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Actor-turned-woodworker repurposes New York City structures as classic furniture
by John Ortved
At just over 350 years old, New York’s identity—as both a relatively young city globally and as one of the oldest U.S. cities—makes the quest to possess a slice of its past rival even that for the hot new thing. Enter furniture designer
Jesse Hooker. The former actor builds custom tables, mirrors and seating using reclaimed wood from those structures—the Central Park Stables, for example—that helped define one of the greatest modern metropolises.
Hooker, the son of a potter and a painter, grew up in Wisconsin and has been woodworking since he was 12, restoring wooden boats from the WWII era. When the now 30-year-old moved to New York in 2005 to act, he took odd woodworking jobs, like building gyrotonic exercise equipment, or “Hippie Bowflex torture machines” as he calls them.
After a friend saw a trestle table Hooker had built for himself and payed $1,500 for Hooker to build him his own, Hooker started taking commissions in 2008. Others saw the friend’s table and wanted their own; his dining room tables caught on similarly. Built from the remnants of a Queens bowling alley, Hooker constructs their frames from simple angled iron welded together (with exceptional attention to detail), which he then hand paints.
“It always starts with the materials,” says Hooker, surrounded by ancient wood in his studio. “Someone will ask for a commission and I’ll go to salvage and start working around whatever I pick out.”
Hooker’s craftsmanship is immaculately simple, yet having a piece of his furniture isn’t just an aesthetic experience, it’s a connection to a bygone New York City’s older aspects of manufacturing and design. “I like the history of the materials,” he continues. “Those beams over there, some guys with handsaws and nails used them to erect a building, and then years later it’s all torn down to make room for steel and glass condos. But you can have a piece of that history. You can have some of that workmanship.”
A slick Brooklyn barber shop offering services in a humble way
In recent years the men’s grooming culture has thankfully evolved, but with steep prices and an equally pretentious atmosphere many salons seem to cater more to the classy gent than the downtown dude. Steve Marks aims to change this with his relaxed Brooklyn barber shop Persons of Interest, an outfit offering solid cuts and sophisticated services but with simplicity at the forefront.
Marks first came upon the idea for Persons of Interest when he visited Sal’s, the original barber shop that occupied the space. Remaining unaltered for 27 years, the shop naturally captured the feel and design of a classic 1970s grooming station. Determined to retain that atmosphere, Marks went above and beyond to keep original features such as the classic barber pole, original chairs and the coastal mural on the back wall.
The attention to detail is also reflected in the level of service on offer. Walk in the door and Marks is the first to give you a warm greeting and a beverage (beer included) from the cooler. If the reading material or conversation isn’t peaking your interest you can always browse the classic suitcase filled with old passports and cash, on display in case someone needs to get out of town quick.
The talent with scissors is just as impressive as the space itself; all of the barbers in Marks’ shop are attentive and skilled, with conversation and advice to match. What they offer is very unique for the Carroll Gardens neighborhood—a high quality cut with no frills and a price tag that’s easy on the wallet. The shop got its name because Persons of Interest “sounds vaguely criminal, vaguely sinister” but you won’t find any shady dealings here. The real beauty of the barber shop is that it fills a gap for men who want a really good haircut ($40) without the glitz of a grandiose salon. To check out this slice of 70s, visit the Persons of Interest website where you can see a full list of their services, including beard trims and more.
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.
