Hasta La Ideas

Cindy Sherman’s Untitled #119 (1983)

The cultural triple threat that is the National Academy (the New York-based museum, art school, and honorary association of artists and architects founded in 1825) today announced its newest members, who will gain the fancy title of “Academician” and join a group that ranges from Albert Bierstadt and Frederic Church to Robert Rauschenberg and Rafael Viñoly. This year marks the first time that artists working in video, photography, and installation were elgible for nomination—Academicians voted last year to revise the traditional categories of membership that included “Painting, Sculpture, Printmaking, and Architecture” to “Visual Arts and Architecture”—a change reflected in this mixed-media-loving group of newly elected visual artists: Siah Armajani, Richard Artschwager, David Diao, Robert Gober, Robert Irwin, Shirley Jaffe, Joan Jonas, Bruce Nauman, Peter Saul, Joel Shapiro, Cindy Sherman, Richard Tuttle, Bill Viola, and Ursula von Rydingsvard. From the world of architecture, the Academy will welcome Stan Allen, Wendy Evans Joseph, M. Paul Friedberg, Jeanne Gang, Michael Graves, Steven Holl, Gregg Pasquarelli, Annabelle Selldorf, and Bernard Tschumi. “This new group includes great artists and architects who should long ago have been Academicians, plus a whole new generation,” said architect Tod Williams, a member since 2010, in a statement issued today by the organization. The 23 new members will be inducted this fall in a ceremony led by Robert Hobbs of Virginia Commonwealth University.

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The annual AIGA Awards are a little like the Oscars, but with better kerning, bolder eyeglasses, and much less Botox. At this year’s gala celebration, co-chaired by Pentagram’s DJ Stout and Su Mathews of Lippincott, guests were encouraged to wear hats shaped like buildings (make your own with this handy template). We dispatched graphic designer Prescott Perez-Fox to lash a cardboard Eiffel Tower to his head and scope out the scene.

From left, AIGA medalists Ralph Caplan, Robert Vogele, and Elaine Lustig Cohen with AIGA executive director Richard Grefé; reveling designers strike a pose in the urbane photo booth. (Photos: Angela Jimenez for AIGA; Denise Ginley and Steven Robinson)

Much like the return of migrating birds and an elevated pollen count, spring brings with it the design industry’s very own prom, the annual AIGA Awards. Last week’s event, entitled Bright Lights Big City and held in Manhattan at the Altman Building, didn’t make use of the pastel ubiquity of April, but instead opted for a deco-inspired architectural theme, where the entire event was set in black-and-white, referencing the Beaux Arts Ball of 1931 in which architects dressed in costumes of buildings they had designed. This year’s guests were invited to design and create hats in the shape of their favorite buildings, bringing some unexpected wit and levity set against the relative severity of black cocktail attire.

However, the focus of the evening isn’t fashion, it is to honor the newest recipients of the prestigious AIGA medal. This year’s honorees were not simply accomplished design professionals in their own right, but together represent four of the essential archetypes of design. Ralph Caplan represents The Observer, following his career as a design author and having gained the unique ability to find perspective and turn that into something informative and enticing. Elaine Lustig Cohen comes to us as The Artist, creating groundbreaking work in typography and illustration, and raising the status of the designer and of design as a whole. Armin Hoffmann is The Mentor, demonstrated by the generations of design students he taught directly, and the enduring popularity of the Swiss style so closely linked to him. Finally, Robert Vogele embodies The Entrepreneur, demonstrating that classic American story of a regular Joe who created a scrappy upstart that became a thriving business and influential design practice. To the younger designers in the audience, it was inspirational—our challenge is how to embrace these qualities in our careers and become the next archetypes of design.
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Tonight in New York at a black-tie gala to be emceed by Steve Heller, the Art Directors Club celebrates the latest inductees to its Hall of Fame, a prestigious group of “innovators who have made significant contributions to art direction and visual communications” that includes Walt Disney, Charles and Ray Eames, and Andy Warhol. The 2011 laureates are: art director and editorial designer Ruth Ansel; painter, illustrator, and chairman of the MFA Illustration as Visual Essay program at the School of Visual Arts Marshall Arisman (who will receive the ADC’s Educator Award); creative wizard John C. Jay, a partner and executive creative director at Wieden+Kennedy; and filmmaker and commercial director Joe Pytka. And that’s not all! The one, the only Paola Antonelli, senior curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art, will receive the ADC Manship Medallion “in special recognition of curatorial excellence.” And the Hall of Fame fun continues after tonight’s bash (which will benefit ADC education programs): on Tuesday, November 15, Heller will reprise his M.C. duties as the moderator of a conversation with Ansel and Arisman at the ADC Gallery, where an exhibition featuring the work of the 2011 ADC Hall of Fame laureates is on view through December 2.

Pictured clockwise from top: Ansel, Pytka, Arisman, Antonelli, and Jay

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You know when a comic book publishing company decides to gather up all their best-selling characters and put them all together for a series, a la the Superfriends or The Avengers? That sort of thing happened for real this week, so long as you replace “superheros” with “super successful architects.” Yesterday, Frank Gehry‘s company, the aptly named Gehry Technologies, which consults architecture firms in technology issues and has its own 3D modeling application, formed a “strategic alliance dedicated to transforming the building industry through technology.” This group is described as being formed “to drive technology innovations that support the central role of design in the creation of culture” and includes pretty much everyone whose names or firms regularly appear on shortlists for high-profile project. Zaha Hadid is there, as is Skidmore, Owings & Merrill‘s Chairman Emeritus David Childs, David Rockwell, Moshe Safdie, and Ben van Berkel, co-founder of UNStudio, among other highly-notable luminaries. They were all together yesterday for this inaugural meeting, at the Freedom Tower in New York no less, which must have been something to see. Sadly, we must report that no supervillians (not even the anti-modernist Prince Charles) showed up and thus, no super battles took place. However, they’ve stated that they plan to all get together to meet once per year, so here’s hoping for 2012.

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