— Feb 28
Tom Gauld — Goliath
Goliath of Gath is, apparently, not that into fighting. Told from the perspective of a reluctant biblical behemoth, Tom Gauld's graphic novel 'Goliath' is available now, beautifully presented in hardback by Drawn & Quarterly.
Via BoingBoing.
© Image courtesy of Tom Gauld
— Feb 28
Russell Hill / Michael Craig-Martin
My Art History lecturer always said that Art didn't necessarily happen in chronological order.
With that in mind, here's a piece from 1970 by Michael Craig-Martin entitled 'On The Shelf' and a couple of pieces from 2011 by Russell Hill entitled 'Horizon' and 'Land Forms'.
Via Today & Tomorrow
© Images courtesy of Michael Craig-Martin / Russell Hill
— Feb 27
Pentagram — Windows 8
Paula Scher's team at Pentagram NYC have just published the identity for the launch of Microsoft's latest incarnation of the Windows OS. Removing any possible interpretation of the logo as a flag rather than a window, and realising that all previous versions of the logo have been employed as a shop window (sorry) for its graphic capabilities (hardly necessary these days), Scher and her team have taken the identity right back to the quick.
The simple, geometric shapes and single-point perspective exude the confidence you'd expect from Pentagram — a deliberately neutral execution, justified in the write-up by Scher, who says "The perspective analogy is apt because the whole point of Microsoft products is that they are tools for someone to achieve their goals from their own perspective. The window here is a neutral tool for a user to achieve whatever they can, based on their own initiative."
© Image courtesy of Pentagram
— Feb 13
Slim Aarons
Slim Aarons (1916-2006) was a combat photographer during WWII, after which he quite understandably decided that the only beach worth landing on would be "decorated with beautiful, seminude girls tanning in a tranquil sun."
Most of his post-war career was dedicated to photographing the decadence and opulence of the unabashedly well-off.
I guess during this trifling global economic crisis it's worth remembering that it is , and always has been, alright for some.
© Image courtesy of Slim Aarons
— Feb 13
World Press Photo
There's a modern proverb that goes something like 'all those apps and smartphones and stuff make average photographers look good, and great photographers look average'. Whether it will stand the test of time remains to be seen, but it makes an interesting point. The sheer number of slash photographers out there (as in designer/photographer, actor/photographer) threaten to turn the future into a vintage-ified cacophony of mediocre moments (insert mind-blowing statistice about the number of images on Facebook here)
Then the World Press Photo comes along and reminds us of the world of difference between being a slash photographer, and being capable of making this image. In the first instant all I saw was what the description implied, a woman holds a wounded relative in her arms. But almost immediately, my brain superimposed this image onto Michaelangelo's La Pieta, and the image suddenly becomes infused with so many more levels of meaning and relevence.
Caps doffed to a moment of genius by Samuel Aranda.
© Image courtesy of Samuel Aranda
— Feb 02
The Tipping Point / Blink / Outliers
This boxed collection of Gladwell's three excellent, epiphinal works is a paradigm of everything that will keep the humble hardback alive in the face of the swipe-pinch-tap of the 21st century.
Words aside, the collection is weighty, tactile, voluminous and robust in such an extrovertly physical manner that it (perhaps deliberately) defies the ominous future of physical publishing.
You can see the author, illustrator Brian Rea and designer Paul Sahre getting (rightly) excited about it on DesignMatters.
© Images courtesy of Brian Rea
— Feb 01
Arkitypo
Arkitypo is a collaboration between Johnson Banks and one of their clients, Ravensbourne, with the objective of stretching the legs of their in-house 3d prototyping skills.
Fast-forward six months of research, prototyping, rendering and fancy-printing, and the resultant series of beautiful typographic sculptures looks like being a wonderful conclusion to any type-fetishists week.
On show in Arup's London exhibition space from Friday.
© Images courtesy of Johnson Banks / Ravensbourne
— Jan 25
Tino Sehgal
This year, the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern will be inhabited by Indo-German artist TIno Sehgal. Sehgal makes 'living sculptures', using paid actors to create 'moments' and sometimes involve spectators in 'situations' (in his piece 'Kiss', the kissers periodiucally pause and turn their gaze on those watching the kissing).
There are several things to love (or hate) about Sehgal's work. Firstly, he uses no materials — when the actors stop acting, the piece vanishes. This, in light of the inherent commercial life of High Art, begs the question of how you might sell what isn't there?. Secondly, it does something odd to the viewer, who habitually goes to a gallery very specifically 'to watch', and not to 'be watched'. It must be unsettling to know that at any time the Art can start asking you questions (of course, you could say that this is Art's main fuction anyway, Seghal just takes it literally).
Basically, Sehgal is a puppeteer and, if you're in the room, you might find yourself sprouting strings.
© Image courtesy of Guggenheim NYC / Tino Sehgal
— Jan 20
Weegee
Weegee (Arthur Felligg, 1899-1968) was a favourite photographer of mine for quite a while — particularly the decade he spent 'chasing ambulances', as he called it, around New York City between 1936 and 1945. Always moving and always listening, he was often first on the scene of street crime, making frank and typically lurid images of murder as it happened. Weegee's intense, on-the-spot street photography gave birth to a new genre of photo-journalism, which became known as tabloid.
There's a selection of a hundred or so of Weegee's finest and frankest shots on show at the ICP in New York, so if you're in the area, well worth a look.
Via The Guardian.
© Images courtesy of Weegee / ICP / Richard Sadler
— Jan 11
Meet the Grandparents
Exhibition in Dresden Germany, featuring 27 individuals recreated using newfangled-forensic-anothropological-computer-aided-gubbins. From Paranthropus Boisei who lived 2 million years ago, to possibly our closest relative species, Homo Neanderthalensis, who were tearing around Europe 60,000 years ago while we were evolving in Africa.
The only source I could find is the Mail Online — just don't read the comment thread, you'll be ok. Via @Angrylush.
© Images courtesy of Mail Online
— Jan 09
Mark Powell
These portraits, drawn using a common or garden Bic biro on the back of vintage envelopes, are just really, really good.
Via Flavourwire.
© Images courtesy of Mark Powell
— Jan 04
Hirst / Hockney
Mr. Hirst and Mr. Hockney go all Blur/Oasis this year with concurrent shows at Tate Modern and The Royal Academy. Mr. Hockney has already had a little pop at Mr. Hirst's use of assistants, noting on his poster that "All the works here were made by the artist himself, personally."
Interesting point, if you come down on the 'craft' side of the fence. If you don't, then the self-removal of the artist from the 'making' process becomes an inherent piece of the work, and asks two very important questions, "what is/is not art" and "who is/isn't the artist."
I like me a bit of Hockney, don't get me wrong, but I'm with the pickled sheep on this one.
© Images courtesy of The Reuters/Carl Court/AFP/Getty
— Dec 21
Ex-Art
So, a Barbara Hepworth sculpture has been stolen from Dulwich Park, where it had stood for over 40 years, by suspected metal thieves. This reminded me of the 2 tonne Henry Moore that was stolen and melted down for scrap a few years ago.
The thing that I find interesting about this is that, in exactly the same way that Marcel Duchamp elevated that urinal to the status of Art back in 1917 (the whole 'Art is what the Artist chooses to be Art' argument), a non-Artist has chosen to remove a piece of Art from Art History and make it 'not Art anymore'.
There's a certain democracy and brutal logic to that which, while I'd never condone it, I can't help but admire.
© Images courtesy of The Guardian / unknown
— Dec 20
Spotify Box
This project, by Jordi Parra and Nick Barkas, fits very nicely into the "things that do one thing well" place in my heart. Obviously, my iPhone does pretty much anything and everything in a smaller (enormously fragile) package, but I do like a piece of kit with a singular and modest ambition.
Via With Associates on 52 Network.
© Images courtesy of Jordi Parra / Nick Barkas
— Dec 19
Kim Jong Il
North Korean Leader and World's number one golfer Kim Jong Il, is dead. He leaves behind a lake of Cognac, 30,000 DVD's, and 25 million confused citizens.
He will be remembered for his quick factual memory, easy wit, and unparalleled record of human rights violation. The kids loved him, though.
© Images courtesy of DPRK Studies
— Dec 15
Grayson Perry — The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman
Grayson Perry, Turner Prize winner, potter, biker & transvestite, is curating a show at the British Museum entitled "The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman", which runs until February next year.
The show features 25 new works by Perry alongside work selected by him from the British Museum's vast archive of artefacts, all unattributed. This is the draw for Perry, who feels the anonymity of the craftsmen on show is "especially resonant in an age of the celebrity artist."
Perry is all about identity and its inherent contradictions. For a start, a celebrity artist slash pillock in a doll's outfit extolling the virtues of anonymity and craft presents problems. But, he does make (not throw) a good pot.
© Images courtesy of Grayson Perry / British Museum / AnneMCX
— Item OBS 0001
2012 Calendar
Our first limited-run calendar is now available to buy.
Screenprinted in great big blocks of Warm Red onto the tactile loveliness of Colorplan stock, a strictly limited and numbered edition of 150 will be in the post in time for Christmas, if you get your skates on.
472 x 630mm
GFSmith Colorplan Cool Grey 175gsm
Single colour hand-pulled screen print (PMS Warm Red)
(Prices include P+P)
© Image courtesy of Observatory
— Dec 09
Design Assembly — 3
Design Assembly has had a rather good three years, and is now retiring it's current format on a high with a momentous gesture.
The book, 3, is a comprehensive monograph of pretty much everything that has passed beneath the Design Assembly masthead, collated and compiled in a beautifully executed conjoined triumvirate of books.
100% (yes 100%) of the profits made from sales of 3 will be split equally between three cancer-fighting charities; Cancer Research in the UK, Livestrong in the US, and WCRF International everywhere else.
I urge you to head over there now and buy one — maybe two.
© Image courtesy of Design Assembly
— Dec 08
The Remake Project
This is an ongoing project over at Booooooom who, with a teensy bit of help from Adobe, have students all over the world re-staging some of the greatest paintings ever made.
It had every right to be awful, but some of the results have been just splendid; Particularly these two, which seem to have utilised the Bill & Ted method, grabbing the original subject and sitting them in front of the camera.
© Images courtesy of Booooooom
— Dec 07
Roadside Reststop Akkarvikodden
There will be 18 new National Tourist routes open in Norway by 2016, all chosen for their spectacular and characteristic landscape, including this one in Lofoten.
The facilities for the tourists that drive along these roads such as rest stops, viewing platforms and links to local points of interest, are carried out by architects and landscape architects with the brief of offering an experience of both nature and design.
(I've used the occasional roadside convenience myself, and precisely none of them looked like this, by Manthey Kula.)
Via Architizer.
© Images courtesy of Manthey Kula
— Dec 06
Bureau Mirko Borsche
Bureau Mirko Borsche is a Munich based graphic design studio founded by Mirko Borsche in 2007. They do put out some very nice stuff.
Thank you also, Bureau Mirko Borsche, for introducing me to the word Nussknacker.
© Images courtesy of Bureau Mirko Borsche
— Dec 05
The 2011 Turner Prize —
George Shaw
George Shaw was born in Coventry in 1966. He studied at Sheffield before later doing an MA at the Royal College of Art in London. He now lives and works in Ilfracombe, North Devon.
Shaw's work, based almost universally around the streets of Tile Hill, Coventry, is stuffed full of a kind of nostalgia, working class graft, and a simultaneous challenge to the value of either in the face of the unfaltering march of time.
It asks the big questions, but with an accompanying terrible feeling that the answers are a foregone conclusion, as in the case of The Hawthorne Tree, which Shaw painted both before and after it's demolition. The famous local pub, not only knocked down in a day, but the ground left to waste.Not replaced by something better, not a casualty of progress, just gone.
Bleak stuff. I hope he wins.
© Image courtesy of George Shaw
— Dec 05
The 2011 Turner Prize —
Martin Boyce
Martin Boyce was born in Hamilton, Scotland, in 1967. He studied in Glasgow, where he now lives and works.
Since 2005, Boyce's work has drawn largely from an encounter with Four Concrete Trees, a group of sculptural pieces by the Martel Brothers made in 1925. Five years on, and Boyce's work is an increasingly abstractive and virally pervasive aggregator, a lens through which everything must be seen. Like a strongly held belief or an indisputable fact, this is the world as infinite and varied as it ever was, just with one of the basic settings tweaked.
Typophiles, note the letterforms Boyce finds in his repeat patterns. Splendid stuff.
© Images courtesy of Martin Boyce
— Dec 05
The 2011 Turner Prize —
Karla Black
Karla Black was born in Alexandria, Scotland, in 1972. She studied at the Glasgow School of Art and continues to live and work in Glasgow.
Black's work is a vessel for multiple aesthetic and methodological traditions, while at the same time subverting the lot by choosing many everyday household items as raw materials, from polythene to lipstick to bath bombs. Her contribution to the 2011 Turner Prize probably smells fantastic.
Her work is really honest — there's an impromptu kind of playfulness to pretty much everything she does, and a sense of immediacy that comes from seeing all her on-site decisions documented so clearly in the piece. It has a similar sense of impermanence as the work of fellow Turner Prize nominee Hilary Lloyd but, while there is a finality to the deliberate obsolescence in Lloyds installation-slash-sculptures, Black's sculpture-slash-messes feel like their physicality is important in that they constitute tangible evidence of a fleeting, instinctive moment of 'that-goes-there'. Mess, but in a good way.
© Image courtesy of Karla Black
— Dec 01
The 2011 Turner Prize —
Hilary Lloyd
Hilary Lloyd, one of the four nominees for the 2011 Turner Prize, was born in Halifax, Yorkshire in 1964. She studied at Newcastle Polytechnic and now lives and works in London.
Lloyd's work could best be described as video-installation-slash-sculpture, since the screening and projection equipment form an active part of the piece, rather than simply being a medium. This is an important distinction as it provides an entry-point into the work, which feels like a failed search for permanence. The equipment has an obvious, in-built technological obsolescence — I wonder would she buy a new telly if the original one were to go kaput? Did she take advantage of the extended warrantee?
The switching from figurative to abstract, and from still-life to perpetual-motion in the projections speaks of the temporal nature of not only the physical world, but also our perception of it — the world of ideas, if you like. It all feels a little bit too human, so I'm left wondering if the actual subject of the work is the stuff she isn't showing.
© Images courtesy of Hilary Lloyd
— Nov 30
Alpa
If you're not one for leaving cameras in the back of cabs or on pub tables, you might consider the Alpa 12.
The first release from the resurgent Swiss brand takes a film or digital back, a range of lenses, and (oddly) a mount for your iPhone, with a supporting app allowing you to use your beloved 4S as the viewfinder/preview screen.
Via Monocle.
© Images courtesy of Alpa
— Nov 30
Project 33
Don't even bother reading this, just go look at Project 33. They don't make music like this anymore (persuasive trombone indeed)...
Via Grain Edit.
© Images courtesy of Project 33
— Nov 28
Bas Jan Ader
On the subject of falling — gravity, and falling in particular, formed a major part of Bas Jan Ader's subject matter. There's a wonderful contrariness running through his work — apparently he made all his drawings on the same sheet of paper at university, erasing each one immediately upon completion. His video pieces continue the theme, being a continuous denial of his own instinct for self preservation. Most of them involve his falling from, off and into various predicaments, a willful overcoming of instinct he perfected in his final (incomplete) tryptich 'In Search of The Miraculous.
Despite going missing (presumed dead) in 1975 during this 'very long sailing trip' across the Atlantic in a 12.5ft sailing boat, he has a splendid website, designed by Superfamous & friends.
© Images courtesy of Bas Jan Ader
— Nov 28
Falling
Design Observer's Accidental Mysteries is, as always, a splendid place to start if you want to end up in odd little corners of the internet. At first, I was a little annoyed that they'd omitted the most obvious image from today's series 'Falling', but then maybe I'd have been a little more annoyed if they had included it.
Either way, the former most-famous-faller, Robert Capa's 'Falling Soldier' is present, despite being discredited in the 70's. (Mind you, it does illustrate quite an important point about the assumed historicity of photography, and always reminds me of the splendid film Wag The Dog.)
This image is taken from the series 'La Chute' by Denis Darzacq
© Image courtesy of Denis Darzaq
— Nov 25
Fantastic Norway
Fantastic Norway was founded in 2004 by Håkon Matre Aasarød and Erlend Blakstad Haffner. The primary ambition was to create an open, inclusive and socially aware architectural practice and to re-establish the role of the architect as an active participant in – and a builder of society.
They have a TV show and a bright red caravan, in spite of which they create some very nicely shaped buildings. It's Jamie Oliver does architecture, but in a good way.
Via Dezeen.
© Images courtesy of Håkon / Haffner
— Nov 24
Lawrence Weiner
"What's set upon the table sits upon the table, that one I'll go with. That stone on the table could be used to break your bones, or it could be used to build a house. It's still the same stone, on the same table — and that's where I stop as an artist."
Ah, The splendid, soothing, oak-smoked, fascinating sound of Mr Lawrence Weiner. Taken from a short film by Himan Curtis. Portrait by Oskar Landi.
© Images courtesy of Lawrence Weiner / Oskar Landi
— Nov 23
Felix Pfäffli
Felix ticks a fair few boxes — He has his own practice, is artistically and politically committed, drinks strong coffe, and lectures at the Lucerne School of Graphic Design, teaching in the fields of typography, narrative design, and poster design. Obviously, these two posters are here because they're big and shiny — the rest of his portfolio is well worth a look.
Via But Does It Float.
© Images courtesy of Felix Pfäffli
— Nov 22
Bally-Love #2
Bally are collaborating with Swiss artist Olaf Breuning in continuation of their partnership with Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach, which began at 41 Art Basel 2010. Breuning has created an aesthetic that will inform the collection, and will work alongside Bally Creative Directors Michael Herz and Graeme Fidler to create an iconic range of shoes, ready-to-wear pieces and accessories.
Olaf Breuning was born in Switzerland in 1970 but has been based in New York for over 10 years.
Known for his fearless, humorous and strangely provocative art, he likes to ask existential questions that come from daily life. Imagine a small forest of 11 pedestals each supporting the word "focus" – yet making it impossible to do so.
© Images courtesy of Bally / Olaf Breuning
— Nov 22
Rapha Contintental
The Rapha Continental's latest ill-advised excursion, the Triple Crown, Vancouver.
The Triple Crown is loosely defined as the summiting of Vancouver's Seymour, Grouse and Cypress mountains in one effort. There's no rule regarding in what order the climbs must be done, only that they have to be completed in one day.
© Video courtesy of Rapha
— Nov 21
Paula Scher
Pentagram partner and New York native Paula Scher has been putting out some of the most original, inspired, fad-fashion-and-genre-free graphic design you're likely to find, for quite a while now.
She's also been cramming together these infinitely fascinating hand-painted maps of, well, wherever.
Classic cartographic practice reinterpreted, or fancy automatic writing? Not sure. Either way, there is no tiring of them.
© Image courtesy of Paula Scher
— Nov 21
Occupy
Occupy is an independent Arts project, collaborating with and exhibiting a diverse range of works by some of the worlds leading creatives. Curated by Mr. Darren Firth, Occupy sells original works and editions by Paul Insect, Pure Evil, David Bray, Kate Gibb, Eine, Dr ME and many more. There's also a very lovely blog.
© Image courtesy of Occupy / Dr ME
— Nov 21
Von / Rankin
London based artist Von was asked to collaborate on a series of 10 portraits by photographer and publisher Rankin for his newest endeavour, The Hunger. Von was also interviewed for the magazine, which you can have a look at here.
© Images courtesy of Von / Rankin
— Nov 21
12:31
I first came across this project, undertaken by Croix Gagnon and Frank Schott, about 6 months ago on Today&Tomorrow. The thought process behind it is excellent. In 1993 the body a convicted murderer, donated to science after his execution, was cut into 1871 segments and photographed for research purposes.
Gagnon and Schott used this footage to create a series of images by playing the animated sequence while at the same time running around night-time environments with a laptop. Aside from the 'Picasso-painting-with-light' of it all, the deadpan science and tech employed to create what is essentially the ghost of a convicted murderer is just splendid.
© Images courtesy of Croix Gagnon & Frank Schott
— Nov 18
David Gill
David is a photographer & film-maker living in London. His work sits very well commercially, as any member of his enviable client list will tell you, while at the same time retaining authentic fine art credentials. He has an unfailingly democratic approach to subject matter, in that everything he shoots walks a razor-fine line between beautiful & disgusting — so much so that's it's impossible to decide which way his sympathies lie. Good stuff.
© Images courtesy of David Gill
— Nov 18
Anish Kapoor
Anish Kapoor's work is, as all great Art should be, the result of a person butting their head up against the sublime. It is the void, so immense and all-consuming that it cannot be reasoned with, rationalised or escaped.
But with an eloquence and concentration that can only be found in Kapoor's work, this void is not the cold, Godless abyss that Neitzche stared into — it is an embrace.
Oh, and he's got a new website, you should check it out.
© Images courtesy of Anish Kapoor
— Nov 18
Rüdiger Nehmzow
There are two particular series on Nehmzow's website that really got me, Land & Sea and Cloud Collection, and both for the same reason. Theye have a massiveness to them that is deliberately a million time bigger than you are.
It's the kind of work that completely bypasses all of our clever agnosticism and cuts right to the universal fragility we all share and try to ignore. Look at how fucking big that sky is.
©Images courtesy of Rüdiger Nehmzow
