“We’re very excited to team with Dell in giving Threadless designers a new canvas to showcase their art: the laptop cover,” said Jake Nickell, founder and chief strategy officer of Threadless, in a statement announcing the partnership. “As we move into our second decade, this is an amazing opportunity for Threadless artists to expose their designs to a broader audience while giving Dell customers the ability to personalize their Dell laptops in a cool way.” In other Threadless news, the company has just kicked off the Threadless Everywhere Tour, a three-month, cross-country celebration of its tenth anniversary. Once that wraps up, it will be time to fete the release of Threadless: Ten Years of T-shirts from the World’s Most Inspiring Online Design Community, which will be published by Abrams in October. Get a sneak peek of the book here.
Animated currency, she-beasts, Aitken’s latest immersive video and pink crystals top our list of Art Basel favorites
One day, nearly 300 galleries and thousands of artworks later, check out below what caught our eye at Art Basel’s 41st event in Basel last month. Stay tuned for more in Part Two.
“Hero No. 1” (2009), one of Zhang Huan‘s series of enormous, cowskin-covered sculptures from the Pace Gallery, has an imposing scale only rivaled by the curious expression of the she-creature’s face. Though hulking in size, the warmth of the material, along with multiple levels of the piece, seems to invite viewers to climb the massive mythical beast.
“Hero” may also be the only work at the fair to have its own iPhone app , which features behind-the-scenes images and video of this four-ton animal being installed, as well as a survey of the Chinese artist’s other work.
Swiss artistic team Gerda Steiner and Jörg Lenzlinger created another haunting, ecologically-charged installation with “The Conference” (2010), presented by Basel’s Stampa Gallery. An overhead spotlight focuses on a conference room table, otherwise surrounded by darkness, illuminating organically textured, bright pink crystals that grow across the table and sprawl over laptops, telephones and coffee mugs. Juxtaposing biological, life-like forms with the hard right angles of anonymous technology, the scene looks like one yanked from a Technicolor sci-fi flick—maybe one about man’s desire to control the environment, and nature fighting back.
Paris’s Yvon Lambert gallery presented several compelling pieces, including Carlos Amorales’s “Small Colors for Holding Large Spaces (Cromofobias)” (2010). The collection of small, playfully vibrant images creates movement and spirit simply and beautifully. [Each of the four images above is a separate piece]
Several galleries (303 Gallery New York, Victoria Miro Gallery London, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich and Regen Projects Los Angeles) showed Doug Aitken‘s newest immersive film installation, “Frontier” (2009). The film follows a silent Ed Ruscha from scene to scene, with intermittent glimpses of other characters involved in various activities, including a man reading a book and a cowboy cracking a whip.
The film screens in a white room with rectangular cut-outs covered by white sheets on the walls, bridging the interior and exterior to create two separate viewing experiences. [Video by Art-iT]
A long time CH favorite, Dublin’s Kerlin Gallery featured several recent works from the extremely gifted painter Paul Winstanley, including “Veil 24” (2010) (above left), which depicts breathtaking layers, light and shadows too intricate to be captured in a photograph. One of Mark Francis‘ newest works, “Portico” (2010) (above right) is a study of the talented artist’s evolution, combining multiple techniques, musical inspiration and love of the line.
Brussels’s Galerie Rodolphe Janssen presented a group of Wim Delvoye‘s intricate sculptures. “Pneu” (2005) brings a second life to used car tires with intricately hand-carved vines and patterns. Delvoye sets up a compelling contrast between his manmade natural forms and the natural rubber of the tire, also transformed.
At London’s Lisson Gallery, the beautifully serene image of Shirazeh Houshiary‘s “Flood” (2010) drew us in from afar. But up close (far right) the detail is incredible. Upon examination, the large pencil and aquacryl work is rich with texture and depth. (Pictured above, middle.)
Another work with multiple layers, Bharti Kher‘s large three-panel installation, “Make No Mistake” (2008) from Paris’s Galerie Perrotin (above), has a richly textured surface from any distance. (See a close up shot below left, and a detail at right.)
By stacking very small circles of paper, meant to represent bindis, Kher creates incredible groups and patterns on all scales.
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Featured by Tokyo’s SCAI The Bathhouse, Kohei Nawa made his PixCell collection by covering used or complicated-shaped toys, busts, and other artifacts in glass beads. The manipulation of light and shapes in the collection distorts the familiar images, putting a different spin on how we interact with everyday objects. (The image at left is courtesy of the gallery.)
SCAI also featured Jeon Joonho‘s digital animation “WELCOME” (2009). The work depicts a 50 won note (North Korea’s currency) brought to life, with trees blowing in the breeze and a helicopter ferrying Hollywood sign-like letters to an airy mountainside.
While in the process of building a phrase that starts out “Welcoem…” (sic), the helicopter crashes, which starts a fire that soon consumes the forest in the middle of the note. Like most of his work, the narrative isn’t too subtle in its handling of politics.
Additional reporting by Margaret Kaminski and Aaron Kohn
Traditional ham made from the Hungarian “sheep pig” comes to the United States
Ariane Daguin, daughter of famed French foie gras specialist André Daguin, continues the family’s culinary legacy (they introduced the U.S. foie gras 25 years ago) as the first to import Mangalica ham stateside. Her company, D’Artagnan sells the cured meat from the long-haired Hungarian pig to the New York region for about $80 a pound.
A fatty ham, wooly Mangalica pigs were bred to withstand harsh winters. Their long hair allows them to adapt to cold-weather climates, but has also led to their confusing nickname, “sheep pig.” With a global trend toward low-fat hams, Mangalica’s numbers were dwindling—until recently.
The upshot of pigs raised in open pastures, fed a particular diet of wheat, barley, corn, soybeans, sunflower and grass, and cured in Spain for two to four years by fourth generation masters, D’Artagnan’s Mangalica ham is comparable to the highly-coveted Iberico ham (which is raised on chestnuts). An ultra tender and low-cholesterol protein, Mangalica ham sells online for $500 for seven pounds, or visit NYC restaurants such as Bar Boulud, Colicchio and Sons and Gotham Bar & Grill to sample it.
Australian studio Durbach Block Architects have completed a wedge-shaped building in Sydney, Australia, that appears to have been pinched in at the top. (more…)
pWhether or not you played with LEGOS growing up, (and what designer didn’t) large scale LEGO constructions always capture the imagination of both children and adults. Early last week, LEGO opened its first a href=”http://stores.lego.com/en-US/default.aspx”NYC flagship retail store/a in the heart of Rockefeller Center, greeting customers and tourist passersby with the opportunity to help construct a 15-foot-tall model of a Big Apple near its entrance. The large scale model is just one of many NYC-themed constructions and vignettes designed and assembled by LEGO Master Builders exhibited throughout the store. This weekend we got a chance to take a closer look./p
pimg alt=”PickABrick.jpg” src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/PickABrick.jpg” width=”261″ height=”350″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” /br / Upon entering, the first thing you notice is not the swooping LEGO constructed dragon that winds itself throughout the store, or even the larger than life LEGO brick lighting fixtures above, but a multi-colored wall of brightly lit containers each holding a specific style of LEGO piece for your consumption. The buffet style “Pick a Brick” station offers customers the chance to fill either a large or small plastic cup ($14.99 and $7.99, respectively) with as many LEGOS as they can fit and still close the lid. The bricks–many stock elements in just about every color and size–also include a variety of harder to find esoteric pieces (think tree branches, handles, ladders, and the like) making “Pick a Brick” an inspirational planning ground for any builder./pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/videos/lego_store_nyc_-_first_look_16906.asp”(more…)/a pa href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/HEa_4Bw-d0TznMTuvZ5EvQuLojY/0/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/HEa_4Bw-d0TznMTuvZ5EvQuLojY/0/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/abr/ a href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/HEa_4Bw-d0TznMTuvZ5EvQuLojY/1/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/HEa_4Bw-d0TznMTuvZ5EvQuLojY/1/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/a/p
Germany’s capital gets its own branch of the rapidly expanding members-only club and boutique hotel
by Shawn Thomson
Centrally located on Torstraße in Berlin’s hotspot Mitte district, Soho House‘a recently-opened branch of their private members club and hotel joins the handful of other boutique hotels in the area, introducing new cosmopolitan heights to the formerly Bohemian town. Like their other outposts, the House teems with their standard amenities, as well as highlights that include a rooftop pool, a 30-seat cinema that hosts nightly screenings and events, and (taking a cue from the Ace) vintage record players occupying most rooms—complete with vinyl LPs.
The 40 rooms, on four floors of the eight-story building, range from spacious 118 square-meter layouts with free-standing baths, dining tables and seating areas to smaller attic rooms that have a dormitory feel with wooden beds and steel cabinets. All the interiors benefit from the 1928 architecture provided by the listed late-Bauhaus building (a former department store turned Communist Party archive, see the striking symmetrical façade above), outfitted by Susie Atkinson. Her design reinvents the space, mixing English charm with industrial chic.
The library, stocked with art and design books for purchasing or loan, features original shelving imported from the revered London Library. Three event spaces on the second floor (with a central balcony overlooking Torstraße) play off its communist roots—once the home of the Politisches Buro, it’s aptly dubbed Politbüro and has its original wood paneling.
For pure unwinding, the heated pool, stunningly tiled with green Pyrolave volcanic stone and surrounded by timber decking, striped sun loungers and umbrellas, makes a picturesque place to lounge. Also available to guests and members, the Cowshed Relax spa offers facials, massages, and body treatments, along with sauna and steam room, while the Cowshed Active gym has yoga and pilates classes.
Later this year will see not only the introduction of a Cecconi’s restaurant to the ground floor of the Berlin House (the brand’s largest to date) in Autumn, but the next city to get their own club. Look out for Miami’s Soho Beach House, projected to open late 2010. For more images of the Soho House Berlin see the gallery below.
To book (rates start at €75 for members and €100 for non-members), visit Mr. and Mrs. Smith
Levi’s is putting its workwear roots to work with a new series of community-based pop-up spaces that act as functional workshops, event spaces, and retail storefronts. The first in a planned series of Levi’s Workshops opened this week in San Francisco’s Mission district, just down the street from one of the company’s original factories, and it’s all about printmaking: from classic letterpress and screenprinting to photocopying and good old-fashioned typesetting. Over the next eight weeks, the print shop will host classes (including Saturday’s denim papermaking session that will offer pointers on transforming your jeans into art supplies), book parties, and special events with local luminaries including Beautiful Losers director Aaron Rose, Alice “Farm-to-Table” Waters, and Craigslist founder Craig Newmark. Levi’s has invited these three “local pioneers” (again with the hardscrabble heritage) to execute printmaking-based collaborations. We hear that Waters is cooking up an educational poster for her Edible Schoolyard project, while Rose will lead a public screenprinting workshop with Sister Corita Kent, the California artist/activist who is the subject of his new documentary short, Become a Microscope. Levi’s will switch coasts (and crafts) later this fall with a New York City workshop focused on photography. In the meantime, here’s some luscious, percussive printmaking footage straight out of San Francisco:
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Threadless, they of the crowd-sourced t-shirt designs, has joined forces with Dell to make some of its most popular graphics available on the lids of laptops and netbooks. Dell customers now have the option to customize their machines with one of 11 Threadless designs, including a painterly yellow daisy by Bryan Ische, an urban jungle scene by André da Silva Cruz, and “Grandma’s Hot Air Balloon” (pictured) by featured student artist Brent Schoepf. The selection of designs will be refreshed regularly, and those inclined to matchy-matchiness can order coordinating t-shirts and prints from Threadless.
