Hasta La Ideas

One of the biggest stories in the art world this week, as it was announced late yesterday that artist Dash Snow died from a drug overdose on Monday evening. Even if you aren’t in the thick of the art scene, you likely know some of Snow’s work, from his street art to his collages to his polaroids, or simply from his hard living in the face of being the child of New York high society (his great-grandmother was Dominique de Menil and his aunt is Uma Thurman), all of which you may have seen chronicled in the huge piece written about him and his crew by Ariel Levy in New York two years ago in their “Warhol’s Children” feature. In short, he was quickly rising toward being the next big thing, if not there already. Unfortunately, his last trip to rehab didn’t seem to have stuck and in the end, the drugs wound up winning. Here’s the official report from the NY Times:

Dash Snow, a promising young New York artist, died Monday night at Lafayette House, a hotel in Lower Manhattan. He was 27 and lived in Manhattan. His death was confirmed by his grandmother, the art collector and philanthropist Christophe de Menil, who said that Mr. Snow had died of a drug overdose.

Last week, we were telling you all about the hard times starchitect Frank Gehry has been going through. But even while he was fighting through this latest battle, another kerfuffle had apparently been on the rise, all surrounding Gehry’s recent appearance at the Aspen Ideas Festival, wherein Gehry became a bit upset about an audience member’s question and waived the person off. While this initially seemed like a one-time, quiet incident, things changed a bit with the fact that The Atlantic‘s James Fallows was in the crowd for the event, who wound up reporting on what happened. Following that, the whole thing snowballed, with Fallows finding out that the offended audience member was Fred Kent, the esteemed president of the Project for Public Spaces project who had even spoken at that very same conference several years prior. From there, the topic kept going, with Fallows giving Kent some time to share his opinions, Gehry responding by email, etc. The whole thing is far too lengthy to get into here, but our pals at Curbed LA have a complete rundown from start to finish (or at least where we’re at right now). Highly recommended reading.

In probing interviews, she reminds the world just how much design matters. She wrote the book on how to think like a great graphic designer. And now, it’s official: UnBeige favorite Debbie Millman is the president of AIGA. She replaces outgoing president Sean Adams, who will remain involved in an ex officio role. Millman’s three-year term begins today, as do those of four other newly elected AIGA board members: Julie Beeler (Second Story Interactive Studios), AIGA treasurer Zia Khan (Lucid Partners), James Koval (VSA Partners), and Angela Shen-Hsieh (Visual i|o). Additionally, three board members will begin positions to finish the incomplete terms of former directors: Shelley Evenson (Carnegie Mellon University), Louise Sandhaus (California Institute of the Arts), and Lynda Weinman (lynda.com). They’ll all be working toward AIGA’s new mandate—”to advance designing as a professional craft, strategic tool, and vital cultural force”—as the organization approaches its centennial in 2014. Check out the below video from last month’s AIGA Leadership Retreat in Portland, where Adams passed the baton to Millman. Note that the baton was metaphorical, but were it literal, it would be one well-designed baton.

Flair was a commercial bomb. Backed by the wealthy husband of its founding editor, the magazine lost millions before folding after a year. That was almost 60 years ago, yet Flair—all twelve issues of it—remains influential and highly coveted for the unique blend of art, literature, fashion, and design that it wrapped in an innovative and expensively produced package. It was the Visionaire of 1950. To thank for that is Fleur Cowles (née Florence Freidman), who died on Friday at—as best anyone can tell—age 101.

Cowles’ post-Flair life included, by her own description, stints as “an American president’s personal representative, decorated by six governments; as a writer of thirteen books and contributor to six others; as a painter, with fifty-one one-man exhibitions throughout the world; patron of the arts and sciences, irrepressible traveller and, more importantly, friend-gatherer.” But it was for her magazine, which featured works by the likes of W.H. Auden and Salvador Dali, that she will be remembered. That, too, is by design. “I want Flair magazine to be considered my obit. And that’s what I want to be remembered by forever,” she told the Associated Press in 1996. “Nevermind any other thing I may have done. It’s Flair that really reflects me.”

continued…

Furniture designer and craftsman Sam Maloof died late last month at the age of 93. A self-taught and self-described “woodworker,” Maloof handcrafted sculptural furniture that was a humane foil to minimalist architecture of the post-World War II era. Henry Dreyfuss was an early fan. In 1951, the industrial designer commissioned Maloof to furnish his home and office in Pasadena, notes Maloof’s New York Times obituary.

“I was working out of a one-car garage,” Mr. Maloof told The New York Times in 2001. “I didn’t have power tools—nothing. He called and said, ‘You don’t know who I am, but I know who you are.’ I just about collapsed.” Mr. Maloof designed and made 25 pieces for Dreyfuss, for a grand total of $1,800.

In ensuing years, Maloof turned down lucrative offers to mass produce his furniture. He preferred to work freehand with a bandsaw and was a stickler for both craftsmanship and joinery. He made furniture that was free of nails and metal hardware. According to the Los Angeles Times, Maloof once tested the strength of the joints for a set of chairs by dropping a prototype from the roof of his garage onto his driveway. The joints survived. “There’s a lot of work being done today that doesn’t have any soul in it,” Maloof said. “The technique may be the utmost perfection, yet it is lifeless. It doesn’t have a soul. I hope my furniture has a soul to it.”