Hasta La Ideas

Almost as impressive as his magnificent buildings, Richard Meier‘s Model Museum in Long Island City, Queens is both an homage to his impressive portfolio, as well as a lesson in the architectural creative process.

Consuming much of the 3,600-square-foot space, the model of the L.A. Getty Center represents a project that took up a similarly significant portion of Meier’s career. The undertaking brought the New Jersey native west during its 13-year construction, where he lived on site, riding his bike down most mornings to check on the structure. When he found a spare moment, he collected wood scraps from the site, creating sculptures by binding together the pieces with string and casting them in stainless steel. Interspersed with the models, alongside colorful collages he also made, the museum gives a real sense of the architect as artist.

Many of the models themselves take years to complete (five for the Getty Center) thanks to the fanatically precise detailing. Each piece of wood is cut and shaped by hand, although model maker Michael Gruber, aka Mr. Tree, designed a now-patented pattern used to laser-cut the delicately intricate trees .

Like many of his buildings, the all-white space makes the perfect backdrop—in this case for displaying the massive models. With such large dimensions, they were all craned in through the ceiling, and many have accompanying blown-up versions detailing smaller sections of the original. Some simply represent the future site without any buildings, one of which hangs from the wall giving the impression of an abstract artwork.

Meier explains that “what we’re doing is open, transparent and expressive of our time.” At 76, with both a humbly positive outlook and expansive body of work, the renowned architect shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

The Richard Meier Model Museum is open to the public on Fridays by appointment only. To book, phone the museum (+1 212 967 6060). See more images in the gallery below, including a look at the only model built by Richard Meier himself.

With new murals in downtown Manhattan and the Bronx, a pop-up store in the works, a project with City Kids, and new limited edition prints, the events surrounding
Shepard Fairey’s upcoming solo show “May Day” almost amount to more of a city-wide residency. But the internationally-acclaimed artist, whose last major exhibit was a touring museum retrospective and whose Obama poster was one of the most iconic images of the historic campaign, big is nothing new. While Fairey’s fame naturally invites criticism, the show (opening 1 May 2010 at Deitch, and closing the NYC institution) is a reminder of exactly what makes the prolific artist such an important generational voice.

Filled with portraits of cultural and political heroes and images addressing various social issues—all depicted in Fairey’s propaganda-poster-meets-street-art style—his work’s strength lies in its direct Warholian style and unapologetic messages. From his original Obey stickers to his ongoing commitment to human rights, environmentalism, and other pressing issues of our time, Fairey’s art practice has always been about the power of words and images to effect change.

As Antonino D’Ambrosio writes in his essay for the book that will accompany the show, the image of Clash guitarist and lead singer Joe Strummer (a CH exclusive and the first produced for this series) represents a figure like Fairey himself, who D’Ambrosio calls, “a creative-activist who is always FOR and never against. He is about PRODUCING not reducing. He wishes to go FORWARD not fall backward.”

May Day runs through 29 May 2010.

Scott Campbell, who’s inked the skin of celebrities, supermodels and Hell’s Angels, opens his first solo NYC show this week at Ohwow Gallery with an all-new series of sculptures, paintings and intricate drawings under the title “If You Don’t Belong, Don’t Be Long.”

Owner of Brooklyn’s vaunted Saved Tattoo studio and the artist behind tattoos gracing the skin of Marc Jacobs, Lily Cole, Courtney Love, as well as the late Heath Ledger and Dash Snow, Campbell’s fascination with the various cultural treatments of tattoos carries through to his fine art practice. From folklore to prison life, he likens the art of tattooing to that of storytelling, with each piece representing a memorialized tale. On paper and other mediums, Campbell’s signature illustrative style translates seamlessly.

The mostly black-and-white collection of works includes ornate latticed designs and cursive phrases “tattooed” with lasers into dollar bills. Stark images of makeshift tattoo pens—inspired by a visit to Mexico’s Santa Marta prison, where Campbell applied his craft to some of the inmates—mark a new visual style for the artist.

His second solo show with Ohwow, “If You Don’t Belong, Don’t Be Long” opens this Thursday, 29 April 2010, and runs through 30 May 2010.

by Roman Espejo

Olivo Barbieri‘s aerial photographs trick the eyes by scaling skyscrapers, historic sites, and famed destinations down to model-size minutiae. For his latest exhibition, “Site Specific_New York City O7,” the Italian photographer turned his camera on the Flatiron District, Central Park’s Sheep Meadow, Coney Island, and other urban locations. The pictures’ tiny, finely rendered features are worthy of blue ribbon-winning dioramas, where real-life automobiles and sunbathers shrink to toy-like objects.

Using a tilt-shift lens with a large-format camera, Barbieri skews the scale and perspective of landscapes with a shallow depth of field. This technique, called selected focus, deliberately blurs some areas of the photograph, producing a macro effect. Barbieri launched his “Site Specific” series of still images and films in 2003, shooting Rome, Shanghai, and Las Vegas. He also photographed some of the world’s largest waterfalls the same way for “The Waterfall Project.”

The series reveals Barbieri’s talents for distorting and recreating familiar landscapes. “Site Specific_New York City 07” runs 15 April-28 May, 2010 at the Yancey Richardson Gallery.

Pioneers in fashion photography, it’s difficult to imagine that Brooklyn-based team Reed & Rader started shooting digital photographs just one year ago. The trailblazers “highly believe that technology and the augmented world is the future”—a concept they implement no matter the medium. Currently part of the group exhibition “Shoot The Messenger” at NYC’s APF Lab, they shot their creepy animated “notvideo” on a common point-and-shoot digital camera.

Pamela Reed and Matthew Rader met while in college and have spent the six years since then as the dynamic Reed & Rader team, now known for their cutting-edge convictions and discerning use of technology. Beginning with their augmented reality project “AR_YULIA,” (pictured below) they continuously create works that challenge current methods for both capturing and viewing reality. The pair look forward to the day when people aren’t restricted by fabrics, but rather, through the assistance of augmented reality it would seem like “you’re wearing amazing clothes, or even tentacles.”

With the future of print productions in constant question, Reed & Rader undoubtedly support online existence. Reed explains to CH that “As the medium of photography changes and images no longer need to be placed on paper—why is the medium still images—why can’t they move now? That is what excites us for the future.”

“Notvideo” is on view through 17 April 2010 at APF Lab.