Posted by
core jr | 7 Aug 2012 |
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Piscina Municipal de Montjuïc, Barcelona. ©2012 The Olympic City Project
Our friend Gary Hustwit has been as busy as ever since the release of last year's Urbanized, traveling the world with photographer Jon Pack in what might be construed as an ultracontemporary archaelogical quest: "After the events are over, the medals have been handed out and the torch is extinguished, what's next? What happens to a city after the Olympics are gone?"
Some former Olympic sites are retrofitted and used in ways that belie their grand beginnings; turned into prisons, housing, malls, gyms, churches. Others sit unused for decades and become tragic time capsules, examples of misguided planning and broken promises of the benefits that the Games would bring.
The Olympic City is an ongoing collaboration between the two artists, who have "sought out and photographed the successes and failures, the forgotten remnants and ghosts of the Olympic spectacle" since 2008. So far, Hustwit and Pack have traveled to Athens, Barcelona, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Montreal, Lake Placid, Rome, and Sarajevo, "with plans to document Beijing, Moscow, Berlin, London, and other Olympic cities."
The duo will be traveling to the last round of "post-Olympic"—a term that has a curious resonance with "post-apocalyptic"—cities over the next few months, as the project is set to "culminate with the publication of a limited-edition book of photographs in Spring 2013." As per usual, they successfully Kickstarted the home stretch of the journey earlier this summer.
Inasmuch as the 30th Olympiad has brought the spirit of athletic competition to the international consciousness once again, Hustwit and Pack are pleased to present an exhibition of their efforts thus far:
On the occasion of the 2012 London Olympics, Storefront for Art and Architecture presents The Post-Olympic City, an exhibition of works-in-progress from "The Olympic City Project" by photographer Jon Pack and filmmaker Gary Hustwit. The exhibition pairs a selection of photos Pack and Hustwit have taken so far documenting sites of former host cities for the Olympic Games with archival images, research materials, video and Olympic ephemera, exploring the life of the post-event city. As part of the exhibition, Storefront will live broadcast the 2012 Olympic Games in the gallery.
The artists will be present at the opening tonight, from 7–9PM.
Gary Hustwit & Jon Pack
The Post-Olympic City
Storefront for Art and Architecture
97 Kenmare Street (at Cleveland Place)
New York, NY 10012
August 8–18, 2012
Opening Reception: Tuesday, August 7, 2012, 7–9PM
'After-match' Conversation: Tuesday, August 14, 2012, 7–9PM
Posted by
Perrin Drumm | 30 Jul 2012 |
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In its latest exhibition, "Josef Albers in America: Painting on Paper," The Morgan Library & Museum contests that Albers (1888-1976) is best known for a brightly colored series of late career paintings called "Homage to the Square," tossing in his vastly better known years at the Bauhaus as an afterthought, calling it a place where he was "a onetime instructor," to say nothing of the program he later ran at Black Mountain College in North Carolina for sixteen years. Add to this the fact that the "Homage to the Square" series was never exhibited during Albers' lifetime, only rarely after his death and never once before in New York and you get the idea that 'best known' may be a bit of a stretch. I realize that 26 years spent painting more than 2,000 squares is no small effort (The Morgan has about eighty of them), but it seems like a major oversight for this exhibition to discuss "the artist's investigation of form and color" as if for the first time without making the connection to the place where that investigation first began, thirty years earlier in Weimar, Germany, where Albers was a student at the Bauhaus before Walter Gropius asked him to join the faculty in 1923.
That said, I agree with The Morgan's Director, William M. Griswold, that the museum does an excellent job of exhibiting finished work side by side with evidence of the "artistic process and the often surprising, experimental drafts that lead to a finished work of art." Like the Morgan's previous exhibition of neon artist Dan Flavin's drawings, Albers' sketches "provide important insight into his working methods and, in contrast to the austerity and strict geometry of the finished paintings, these vibrant sketches are remarkable for their freedom and sensuality." They also show just how many hours of sketching and drafting go into what might strike many as simple, straightforward paintings.
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Posted by
Sam Dunne | 30 Jul 2012 |
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Photography by Sam Dunne for Core77
The Barbican celebrates 50 years of Bond films with a huge exhibition featuring costumes, props, gadgets, and design drawings from the Dr No debut in 1962 to Skyfall (the 23rd film) due for release later this year.
Designerly expectations were set at salivation levels with the awesome press release video doing the rounds earlier this month. Stopping by the show this week we're glad to report moments of child-like glee in contemplation of the impressive array of original concept artwork, guns and gadgets and other gems from the films such as a classic Aston Martin DB5 and Halle Berry's dagger wielding orange bikini. We've got serious design envy for the guys that get to let their creativity loose in the world of 007.
Bond fan's will be able to revel in 007 design geekery at the Barbican until September 5th, after which the show is set to tour internationally for the next three years.
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Posted by
Brit Leissler | 25 Jul 2012 |
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Photography by Brit Leissler for Core77
Every second year the aviation industry and aircraft enthusiasts from around the world converge at the Farnborough Aerodrome in Hampshire (just outside London) for the Farnborough International Airshow (FIA), the world's most iconic global aviation event. This year attracted over 107,000 trade visitors with 1500+ exhibitors showcasing their technology. Over 70 military delegations from 46 countries attended with a further 13 delegations from the civil sector. It was a diverse gathering of all kinds of aircraft under a true British sky—thick grey clouds that ensured the event never turned dry.
Despite the shrinking economy, business was flourishing with orders and commitments confirmed at $72 billion, covering a total of 758 aircraft. The figures represent a 53% increase on the 2010 show. Over 140 aircraft were on display including the impressive Boeing 787 Dreamliner which flew on the first three days of the show and the Airbus A380 in attendance for the full seven days.
We shot them all (with a camera of course) and are delighted to present a visual summary in this gallery to you. Highlights also include a full scale model of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, a flying display of the tilt rotor Bell Boeing V22 Osprey, a look inside the Boeing Globemaster III, and a private aircraft converted to be flown by wheelchair users.
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Posted by
core jr | 10 Jul 2012 |
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Photography by Brit Leissler for Core77
This year's Royal College of Art annual summer show included work by the greatest number of graduating students in the college's 175-year history. Nearly 500 art and design postgraduate students from more than 40 countries exhibited the results of their creative undertakings during the past two years in what is considered to be one of London's most prestigious creative hubs.
Show RCA 2012 took place simultaneously in six buildings across the college's two campuses in Battersea and Kensington. We scoped out the best work on both sites, from the Design Products, Design Interactions, Innovation Design Engineering, and Vehicle Design departments.
Projects ran the full gamut from the subversive to socially responsible to scientific and engineering research driven. Some of our favorites included the proposal for a one way ticket to space, an eight-wheel skateboard designed for riding down stairs, the nutritious grasshopper pate, a superstitious trading algorithm that trades live on the stock market based on numerology and the moon, and a thread-wrapping machine for binding parts together to create objects. Check it all out in our latest gallery.
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Posted by
Perrin Drumm | 5 Jul 2012 |
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Like so many others, I have been lusting after George Nelson's cheerful Ball Clock ever since I was old enough to have an appreciation for such things. Nelson designed the piece for Herman Miller, where he worked as Design Director for over twenty years while he ran his own design studio, George Nelson Associates. His work for both companies comprises many examples of of the 20th century's most iconic Modern furniture, much of which is now on view in the Cranbrook Art Museum's exhibition "George Nelson: Architect, Writer, Designer, Teacher."
Organized by the Vitra Design Museum and sponsored by Herman Miller, the exhibition marks the first comprehensive retrospective of Nelson's work. It's been making its way around Europe, and this stop in Michigan is the last chance to see it stateside before it goes back to Germany after the exhibition closes this Fall. More than 120 objects and over 50 historical documents including drawings, photographs, architectural models and films are on view at the Cranbrook Art Museum, a three hour drive from Herman Miller's Zeeland outpost where Nelson spent what we might call his formative years. Certainly, they were the formative years of Modernism, an aesthetic that reached as far as Europe and as close as Cranbrook University, where his influence was very much felt.
But it wasn't just his furniture and design objects that made an impact. Nelson co-authored Tomorrow's House with Henry Wright, in which they introduced the idea of a 'family room' and a 'storage wall,' a recessed bookcase that capitalized on the previously unused space between walls. And despite the controversy surrounding the credit for the Marshmallow Sofa and the Action Office, Nelson remains a pioneer not only in individual object design but in rethinking the manner in which we ought to live, showing how good design can make for a happy, harmonious live or work environment.
"George Nelson: Architect, Writer, Designer, Teacher" runs through October 14, 2012.
Posted by
core jr | 4 Jul 2012 |
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The Summer Olympics aren't the only reason to visit London this month: The Barbican is celebrating the 50th Anniversary of James Bond with Designing 007, "a unique exhibition showcasing the inside story of the design and style of the world's most influential and iconic movie brand."
In collaboration with EON Productions and with unprecedented access to their archives, Designing 007 will be a multi-sensory experience, immersing audiences in the creation and development of Bond style over its auspicious 50 year history. It will explore the craft behind the screen icons, the secret service and villains, tailoring and costumes, set and production design, automobiles, gadgets and special effects, graphic design and motion graphics, exotic locations, stunts and props.
Highlights include gadgets and weapons made for Bond and his notorious adversaries by special effects experts John Stears and Chris Corbould, along with artwork for sets and storyboards by production designers Sir Ken Adam, Peter Lamont and Syd Cain, and costume designs by Bumble Dawson, Donfeld, Julie Harris, Lindy Hemming, Ronald Patterson, Emma Porteous, and Jany Temime.
Those of us who can't make it across the pond will have to settle for this tantalizing promo video:
But wait, there's more: only half the exhibition is dedicated to design; the other half will focus on fashion, from Savile Row to saving the world:
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Posted by
Perrin Drumm | 25 Jun 2012 |
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On my recent trip to Berlin for DMY I had the chance to visit the Bauhaus Archiv, a small but well-curated museum that houses a permanent exhibition that takes you on a winding, chronological path through the history of Bauhaus as well as a space off to the side reserved for rotating exhibitions. The Archiv has an impressive line up these exhibitions, which change frequently and encompass all aspects of Bauhaus' wide-reaching applications, including architecture, yes, but also photography, furniture and, currently, textiles.
Female Bauhaus: Benita Koch-Otte is a profile of one the school's foremost textile artisans. Like the other female students at the Bauhaus, Koch-Otte was trained in the weaving workshop. She made a name for herself with designs for the interior of Haus am Horn, a house built for the 1923 Weimar Bauhaus presentation. The exhibition presents a comprehensive survey of her work, featuring drawings, weaving samples and of course, completed textiles, including many unique and lesser known examples. You can see the influence of instructors Paul Klee and Kandinsky in many of her patterns and color palettes, like this one, below.
When you talk about Bauhaus, people inevitably have their favorites. Some think of Lazlo Moholy-Nagy's photographs. Others love the ceramics or metal-based housewares. Many lust over Walter Gropius' tubular steel chairs and many more are only familiar with the architecture, which came late to the school's discipline but was popularized by Gropius. All of the school's many incarnations, which most often correspond to the changes in leadership and location, are examined here, but women's influence in the Bauhaus and their beautiful, painterly textile work is oddly glossed over.
There is only one large weaving, framed hanging against the wall in the permanent exhibiton, accompanied by a few photographs of female greats like Gunta Stolzl and Anni Albers. But this section of the exhibition is dwarfed by Gropius' "Bar und Cafe," a large, looping, tubular steel stunner that occupies much the room. Not that I don't love Gropius' vision of an ideal domestic life where every home's culinary centerpiece is a bar, around which all meals are eaten and all group gatherings take place. I'm just saying let's also give Stolzl and Albers their due. At least Koch-Otte will be taking center stage for a while. See her work in Female Bauhaus: Benita Koch-Otte, which runs through August 27, 2012.
Textile by Anni Albers
Textile by Gunta Stolzl
Posted by
core jr | 22 Jun 2012 |
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Photography by Brit Leissler for Core77
Now in it's 10th year, DMY Berlin has grown into an extremely diverse 10 day design festival, and the organizers still place an emphasis on providing a platform for younger designers.
For the first time DMY played host to the official "Designpreis der Bundesrepublik Deutschland" design award which took place in the former Tempelhof airport. The awards are broken into four categories; Product Design, Communication, Ecology, and Youngsters, and for football-loving design fans, the venue provided live screenings of the Euro Football Cup.
There was a strong emphasis on visitor interactivity such as "Shapes in Play" which translates a persons voice into a flower vase form, and the "We are Rundlauf" project allowing people to design and produce their very own CNC'd ping-pong racket (and of course play with it).
Satellite show highlights included "China New Design - Revisit and Reflect", focusing on the rapid transformation of Chinese aesthetics, lifestyle, culture and society. The "Taste Festival" in Direktorenhaus was about "everything" food related, and "Connecting Concepts" by the Netherlands Institute for Design and Fashion. Check it all out in our gallery!
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Posted by
Ray | 20 Jun 2012 |
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All images courtesy of Magda Danysz Gallery
I first came across the work of Portuguese graffiti wunderkind VHILS in October 2008, at a pop-up exhibition by London's Lazarides Gallery in the Lower East Side. It was the veritable heyday of street art: Shepard Fairey had become a household name, thanks to a particularly high-profile portrait, and Banksy's first solo show had just opened in New York. Meanwhile, about a mile away, nestled in the corner of the basement of what is now an upscale pizza joint, VHILS had left his mark. The artist, born Alexander Farto just two decades prior, had transformed the crumbling sheetrock and masonite into the semblance of a face in his signature style, incorporating exposed brick as a shade in his palette per his additive/subtractive technique.
The work had left a strong impression on me at the time but I must admit that I hadn't been following his work (or the street art scene in general) for a couple years now, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that he's been exhibiting regularly—and honing his craft in the process—for the past four years. This Saturday, June 23, sees the opening of Entropy, his second solo show at Magda Danysz's Paris gallery space (he's also had shows at their Shanghai site).
VHILS's artwork is a revolution in the stencil technique in its use of unusual tools. Through the destruction of walls, he explores the layers of urban space and its history. Old papers, worn out posters, wood panels, brick walls are attacked with chisels, jackhammer, acid, or explosives, in order to sculpt his stencil on the wall. VHILS's portraits underline an important contrast between new and ancient; he makes visible the inside face of these buildings. VHILS tries to give a new face to the city which is, for him, a ground of popular inspirations.
VHILS has created several new public works, dubbed "action walls," throughout the city, as well as several styrofoam busts that mark an interesting new direction for the artist.
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Posted by
core jr | 18 Jun 2012 |
Comments (0) While design exhibitions tend to be few and far between in the Chelsea gallery scene, they're always a nice change of pace from the usual suspects. Friedman Benda is often the exception: their roster actually skews towards design, including bankable names (usual suspects, perhaps) like Ron Arad, Campana Brothers, Wendell Castle, Nendo and Ettore Sottsass, to name a few.
Images courtesy of Friedman Benda
The latter is the subject of the gallery's summer show Ettore Sottsass: A Survey, 1992 – 2007, a "rare look at the final stretch of his celebrated career," which opens today. The exhibition illustrates this "period of heightened craftsmanship for Sottsass" with ceramic and glass objects alongside wooden, metal and acrylic cabinets, as well as two-dimensional sketches that supplement the realized pieces.
"Cabinet No. 71" (2006)
Drawing of a side table, 1994
Installation view of "Omaggio 4" (2007)
"Geology 11" (2000)
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After 25 years of exhibitions, The San Francisco Art Deco Show has merged with The Arts & Crafts Show to create the SF Modernism 20th Century Design Show. Essentially, the show displays furniture, products, and apparel that span the Mission to Modern eras. A great place to do a little first hand design history field trip.
This year the show is presenting a special exhibition of the work of Raymond Loewy. Loewy's career spanned 7 decades and was far ranging, from corporate identity to streamlined trains. Objects on display will include original design sketches, textiles, china, and other objects designed by Loewy.
If you are in SF this weekend, check it out.
WHEN and WHERE?
June 9th & 10th 2012
10am-6pm (Sat)
11am-5pm (Sun)
Concourse Exhibition Center
8th & Brannan St.
San Francisco, CA
ADMISSION $10
Posted by
core jr | 4 Jun 2012 |
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Photography by Perrin Drumm & Glen Jackson Taylor for Core77
New York Design Week was back in full force this year with an abundance of satellite shows which added some welcome substance to the design week's festivities. The most notable of these was Wanted Design who returned for their second year with an amazing line-up of work including François Chambard's crowd pleasing interactive Craft System.
The NoHo Design District grew in scale with some really inspiring work seen at new Standard, East Village hotel with group shows Hotel California, Scale, the Sonos Listening Library, and a live demonstration from Wicklow woodworker James Carroll in the hotel bar window.
The American Design Club's Raw + Unfiltered show focused on material and process, Model Citizen presented a diverse range of work from young designers and this amazing interactive installation by Brooklyn-based design collective The Principals who lead a team of 20 students from the Art Institute of New York City to build it.
Checkout the gallery for more highlights from this year, and if you missed our exhibition OPEN, there's a gallery here featuring all the work.
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Posted by
core jr | 21 May 2012 |
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From Broadway to Rockaway, Pelham to Freshkills, 8.2 million people call New York City home. On the occasion of New York Design Week 2012, Core77 takes a moment to survey the landscape of all five boroughs with an open call to designers to represent their hometown. Since its very beginnings, the city has been a trading grounds—a venue at the crossroads of ideas, commerce, materials and innovation. The 35 designers representing nearly as many neighborhoods in the ALL CITY ALL STARS continue to explore that space, negotiating technologies, materials, histories and futures in the crucible of a dynamic city. Interpretations may vary, but the voice of New York City is as bold, inquisitive and imaginative as ever.
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Posted by
core jr | 20 May 2012 |
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Photography for Core77 by Nicole Lenzen
For its New York debut, the Frieze Art Fair was held on Randall's Island Park, in an expansive 225,000 sf. tented structure custom-designed by Brooklyn architecture firm Solid Objectives — Idenburg Liu (SO — IL). Many Manhattanites were skeptical at first of the location choice, but access to the fair was made easy by regular ferry trips, shuttles from the subway, or quick cab rides from Manhattan. Attendees seemed to enjoy the adventure associated with going to a dedicated self-sufficient location, where they were greeted with outdoor sculptures and installations upon arriving on the island.
The fair hosted 180 international contemporary galleries, representing over 1,000 of today's most important artists. Critics argued that the fair did not bring enough newness and lacked risk-taking on the part of the galleries, but that did not seem to hinder the business of art, with many galleries reporting significant sales on the first day. Overall, the event was well produced, and the high quality of the galleries represented were positive factors that would most likely encourage the fair's subsequent return to New York. In addition, the tasty food vendors nourishing Frieze visitors certainly trumped most trade fair food options.
Repeating themes throughout the fair involved conveying and challenging notions of time and space, as with Darren Almond's piece Perfect Time. The use of color provided splashes of energy, such as Paul McCarthy's blue silicone sculpture portraying the dwarf Sleepy from the classic, Snow White. Many artists created works from found objects, like used clothing tacked compositionally to wood in Tom Burr's These Patterns of Public Display. Other mediums ranged from traditional to unconventional, such as acrylic paint, paper, canvas, wood, textiles, plastic, mirrors, glass, metal, resin, and not to be neglected, Damien Hirst's formaldehyde-preserved dead animals. Physical floor or wall installations and sculptures seemed to dominate the show over paintings, drawings, and video. Design and art overlapped on occasion, with some works serving to both aesthetic and function, such as Andrea Zittel's Aggregated Stacks and Richard Artschwager's impressive red oak and cowhide chairs.
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Posted by
LinYee Yuan | 17 May 2012 |
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The British are coming! Tom Dixon continues his global takeover with the launch of London Underground, an independent satellite event staged during NY Design Week/ICFF. Held in the basement of the Bleeker Street Theater, the show will debut the Luminosity lighting collection in the United States as well as host a special off-line Fab.com x Tom Dixon pop-up store. In addition, visitors can grab a cup of Stumptown Coffee or check out Surface Magazine's retro-'60s inspired broadcasting station.
Core77 had an opportunity to chat with the trailblazing designer about being a Brit in New York during Design Week, the future of manufacturing and his opinions on light, love and rock 'n' roll.
London Underground
Bleeker Street Theater Basement
45 Bleeker Street and Lafayette
Through May 22nd
* * *
Core77: We're counting down tonight's kickoff of 2012's New York Design Week. A lot of European designers skip over New York after the madness of Milan. As a designer who has had a consistent presence at ICFF and New York Design Week, why is it important for you to be here every year?
Tom Dixon: Well, we've always thought it was an interesting market and we like hanging out in New York anyway. We decided several years ago to invest in the United States properly. We've been taking baby steps to get the infrastructure in place—having a little office there, a partnership with the warehouse and taking it seriously. A lot of people just think that because I speak English they can just go to New York and sell things and people will understand. For anybody who's ever been in, I dunno, rock and roll—you've got to tour. You've got to be there. You've got to invest and spend time.
You've got to be consistent in your presence, otherwise, America just doesn't happen. So, we made a decision and we're pleased we did because people seem to like what we're doing. It feels just like a beginning of something a bit bigger. We also think that the United States has been quite conservative for a long time. We thought it was time to breathe a bit of fresh air.
We're definitely seeing more and more of your work here in the United States. In fact, this week you launched a pop-up store with Fab.com both online and in a physical pop-up at the London Underground exhibition.
America is so good at defining new business models. I think it's the same thing with the furniture industry worldwide—it has been very acting very conventionally. It's only really Ikea that does things in a really different manner. It is really interesting to see how fast and how quickly Fab.com is gaining traction and how it really challenges the way you distribute things. Things just went online this week so we don't know what the results are yet, but it's kind of fascinating to see that there are a million people over there that are interested in design in a slightly different way.
That brings us to your current collection, Luminosity. One of the things that I really enjoyed was the way that you're really playing with transparency and the process of actually creating these pieces. What were some of the design considerations you were thinking about when crafting this new collection?
We tend to think more about the sculpture of the object rather than what it's really doing. It was time to think a bit more about the effects and the functionalities—the effects that these lights were giving and whether we could think a bit more about how you build a character and the lighting in space rather than just thinking about the surface and the shape of the object itself.
It's still a really fantastic field in lighting at the moment because it's something which really is evolving and changing rapidly—through government legislation, technical development and more efficient ways of lighting things. People feel slightly nervous about using these new lighting technologies. I mean, everybody is much more comfortable with the incandescent bulb—you know what 100 watts does and you know that you're going to like the light quality.
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Posted by
core jr | 16 May 2012 |
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Photography by Glen Jackson Taylor for Core77
There's so many events and exhibitions all over Milan during the Salone Internazionale del Mobile that you could almost be forgiven for skipping out on the long trek to the Rho fair grounds. Luckily for the organizers we're in the minority, and the exhibition halls were packed. So packed it was a little uncomfortable at times feeling more like navigating a crowd at the end of a gig than a trade show.
There wasn't much press-worthy new product launched this year, most companies were content reissuing updates to their classics which could be a reflection on the European recession. In fact, so many of the established design-driven companies focused on their legacies with the use of product timelines incorporated into their exhibition booths that we could have made it a category.
Some highlights included this minimal wall mounted desk/storage unit for small apartments by Core-faves Yael Mer & Shay Alkalay and we're loving the shadows cast by Sunrise, an outdoor table setting by Ludovica + Roberto Palomba for Driade. As usual, the SaloneSatellite was full of inspiration, especially this stunning bench by student Danah Al Kubaisy as part of a materials and fabrication class at the American University of Sharjah. At the Melbourne Movement stand, Tate Anson's Tryst Stool was getting a lot of attention with his water-jet cut pattern technique for bending timber, and Thomas Schnur's Rubber Table was just straight-up awesome!
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Related Blog Coverage
» AUS puts Sharjah on the map at SalonSatellite
Posted by
Ray | 15 May 2012 |
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"Hypervan (rear down view)" (2008); all images courtesy of BravinLee programs
Film lovers—sci-fi fans in particular—are surely familiar with the work of "Futurist Designer" Syd Mead (we're not sure if he's got issues with the term 'concept designer,' but we'll grant him the exception), and even the masses ought to recognize his groundbreaking work for the likes of Blade Runner, Aliens and TRON, among other canonical examples of the genre. If Mead's reputation as a visionary visual artist is all but surpassed by those blockbusters, the current exhibition of gouaches—spanning the four decades of his career and counting—at BravinLee gallery in Chelsea offers a fascinating look at his work in a fine art context.
"Future Rolls-Royce" (1967)
Per the press release for Future (Perfect):
Mead's vision of the future is sleek, erotic, and glamorous. It is populated by impeccably dressed, trim and tanned 1%ers and smartly uniformed worker bees. Mead is fond of portraying the arrival of guests or travelers in the act of greeting their hosts, which allows him to focus on the vehicle in the context of a short narrative sequence. The fantastic conjectural machines seem more plausible when placed in a richly detailed context and in a familiar situation. With few exceptions, Mead's future is utopian, free from famine, litter, security lines, corpulent tourists in cargo shorts, white socks and traffic snarls. Almost invariably the result of a client's commission, Mead once described his work as the lubricant for capitalism...
"Running of the Six DRGXX" (1983)
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Posted by
core jr | 14 May 2012 |
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From Broadway to Rockaway, Pelham to Freshkills, 8.2 million people call New York City home. On the occasion of New York Design Week 2012, Core77 takes a moment to survey the landscape of all five boroughs with an open call to designers to represent their hometown.
Since its very beginnings, the city has been a trading grounds—a venue at the crossroads of ideas, commerce, materials and innovation. The 35 designers representing nearly as many neighborhoods in the ALL CITY ALL STARS continue to explore that space, negotiating technologies, materials, histories and futures in the crucible of a dynamic city. Interpretations may vary, but the voice of New York City is as bold, inquisitive and imaginative as ever.
Core77 OPEN: All City All Stars
350 Bowery at Great Jones Street
Friday, May 18-Tuesday, May 22
11AM - 6PM Daily
**Special Guest Nail Artist Ami V on Saturday and Sunday! Book your appointment at management [at] elsalonsito.com**
Opening Reception
Saturday, May 19, 7-10PM
rsvp [at] core77.com
Spread the word via Facebook!
Admission is based on capacity so please arrive early!
Bronx
» Michael Ferris Jr.
» Michelle Frick
» Sean Paul Gallegos
» Talitha James
» Ryan Thistle
Brooklyn
» Chris Adamick
» Chen Chen and Kai Williams
» Evan Clabots (Nonlinear Studio)
» Sebastián Errázuriz
» Kiel Mead
» Elizabeth New
» Ruta Reifen
» Uhuru Design
» Seldon Yuan
» Karl Zahn
Manhattan
» Harry Allen
» Brad Ascalon & Frederick McSwain for Neal Feay Studio
» Ben Light
» Rich Brilliant Willing
» Jeremyville
Queens
» Piet Houtenbos
» Daniel Michalik
» Alta Price & Jonah Koppel for Artware Editions
» Richard Saja
» Patrick Townsend
Staten Island
» Rama Chorpash
» Victoria Munro
» Tattfoo Tan
» Scott Van Campen & Mark Zappasodi
Posted by
core jr | 13 May 2012 |
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Photography by Glen Jackson Taylor for Core77
The best thing about Milan Design Week is using the satellite exhibitions as a premise for exploring the city and seeing spaces you might typically miss. In this gallery we clustered highlights from group shows seen at Spazio Rossana Orlandi, La Triennale di Milano, and Tom Dixon's MOST exhibition at the National Museum of Science and Technology.
Tom Dixon's contribution (both as curator and exhibitor) at design weeks in London, Milan, and New York increases every year, but more importantly his exhibitions serve to champion the role of the industrial designer. This year's lighting exhibition simply titled Luminosity revealed the process behind minimizing material waste, demonstrated the digital fabrication technology—literally, and pointed to the shifting marketplace where large-scale manufacturers are interfacing directly with their end customer.
Other big names doing some interesting work included Ross Lovegrove with his new architectural glass laminate venture LiquidKristal in partnership with Czech company Lasvit, and Naoto Fukasawa's range of paper products for the Japanese company Onao. As always, everything on display at Rossana Orlandi was extremely well curated and it was great to see new work from the super-talented Nika Zupanc.
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Related Blog Coverage
» La Chance, Jekyll and Hyde at MOST
» Transnatural Art & Design Collection at MOST
» Tom Dixon's Luminosity at MOST
» Fabrica x Benetton Bring the Italian Chair District to MOST
» Ross Lovegrove's Liquidkristal for Lasvit at Triennale
» Fabrica x Grand-Hornu asks, "Objet Prefere?"
» TDM5 - Graphica Italia
» Roberto Giacomucci, "Il Piccolo Designer," at the Triennale
» Konstfack, Design for a Liquid Society
» Dennis Parren, Colorful Mysteries of Light
Posted by
core jr | 11 May 2012 |
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Photography by Glen Jackson Taylor for Core77
The historical neighborhood of Brera is full of high-end furniture showrooms, boutique shops and galleries, with tiny picturesque streets and hidden courtyards embodying everything you would imagine a design destination in Italy to be. We headed straight to Via Palermo, home to some of the most sophisticated and well-curated group exhibitions seen in Milan this year.
Our favorite show in this year was presented in a small Milanese apartment by Japanese manufacturer Karimoku New Standard. For drama, the Austrian Design show, staged in a jai alai stadium, was filled with trees that were grown and then trucked on site specifically for the exhibition. Right across the street, the restrained exhibition design for Japan Creative's Craft and Design collaborations created a stark contrast—we especially loved Jasper Morrison's cast iron collaboration with 160-year-old Oigen Foundary. Other Brera district highlights include a crazy basket-making machine that we saw last year at Art Basel Miami, a minimal pendant lamp by French designer Florent Degourc, and Inner Design, a new design network that presented the winners of their Eco-Creative contest in historic bike shop, Rossignoli's.
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Posted by
core jr | 9 May 2012 |
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Photography by Glen Jackson Taylor for Core77
If you were looking to uncover the freshest work from the next generation of designers in Milan this year, the Ventura Lambrate design district was your one-stop shop! With almost 90 exhibitions, the industrial neighborhood of Lambrate located to the northeast was overrun with design enthusiasts exploring the numerous warehouse spaces, galleries and studios which seemed to go on endlessly.
Checkout out our gallery of highlights and don't miss the Sapore dei Mobili furniture waffle iron also featured here, Bertjan Pot's stunning Downstairs Chandelier, Studio WM's Porcelain lamps, Itai Bar-On's concrete stool, and our show favorite, This Little Piggy by RISD student Taylor McKenzie-Veal.
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» University of Bolzano presents "Vertigini" at Ventura Lambrate
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Posted by
Perrin Drumm | 9 May 2012 |
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WIth so many clever language experiments on exhibition in MoMA's "Ecstatic Alphabets/Heaps of Language," it makes sense that the exhibition catalogue would be equally cheeky and avant garde. So instead of taking the traditional check list approach, introduced by the appropriate essays and commentary, of course, MoMA commissioned David Reinfurt and Stuart Bailey of the design group Dexter Sinister (whose work is also in the show) to come up with something a little more enlightened.
Reinfurt and Bailey decided to make the catalogue the third issue of their journal Bulletins of the Serving Library, which continues the legacy of Dot Dot Dot, their "previous house journal which ran for ten years and twenty issues." The catalogue/issue acts not as a compendium but a companion piece with thirteen essays, articles and visual works. It begins with "MMMMMMMMMMMM...," by Andrew Blum, which appeared in The New York Times in 2003 under the title "The Modern's Other Renovation." It's about MoMA's history of logo redesign, beginning with the controversial 1966 decision to lower the upper case "O" and continuing to Yoshio Taniguchi's subtle 2004 redesign. (Did you know that the little "o" was initially so unpopular that it wasn't officially used for twenty years?)
To give you a sense of the rest of the catalog, Blum's article is followed by Bruno Latour's essay "How To Do Words With Things" and Graham Meyer's "Let's Eat Grammar." Chris Evan's untitled contribution spells out ETHICAL MOP, one letter per page, and Jessica Winter's essay "Brought To You By The Letter I" is preceded by an image of the big round googly eyes shared by every character in Sesame Street. Dexter Sinister write the last story themselves, a dense piece about the meeting point between mathematic and typeface design. This is followed by ads, but they're the nicest, most pleasant ads you've ever seen, designed like works of art accompanied by their museum cards. There's a lot more, including a pull-out reproduction of Robert Smithson's "A Heap of Language," and yes, a concise exhibition check list. Usually issues of Bulletins of the Serving Library are $15, and this one's only $5, so you really should just get one of your own.
Posted by
Perrin Drumm | 8 May 2012 |
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Photography by Perrin Drumm for Core77
Art Center students are the friendliest, most stressed out bunch I've ever met. The demanding curriculum requires a level of commitment and professionalism unheard of in most schools, and the students spend trimester after grueling trimester pulling regular all-nighters and working through weekends to get to this moment: Grad Show. Students in all disciplines create beautiful booths to show off their best work to professors, peers and potential employers.
As you walk the hallways and make your way through classrooms filled with student work, their tension is palpable. Even though their school work is over, no one seems truly relieved. After all, they've just dished out obscene amounts of money for an education that's famous for bridging art, design and creativity with professional practices and some business know-how—but they know the biggest hurdle still awaits: finding a job, or at least some freelance work.
But tonight I want to tell them to relax, unwind and help themselves to a free beer or two (or three or four) at one of the bars that lie around every corner of the winding maze of halls and passageways that is the Art Center campus. At this point, however, they're too used to working under constant pressure to just "unwind." Fortunately, their hard work hasn't been for nothing. Click through the gallery of the best projects from the Spring 2012 class.
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Posted by
Perrin Drumm | 8 May 2012 |
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Ecstatic Alphabets/Heaps of Language, which opened at MoMA this Sunday, is a survey of text-based art over the last sixty years. The exhibition is divided into two parts, beginning with the Modernists in te 50s and concluding with twelve contemporary artists, including Tauba Auerbach, Kay Rosen and Paul Elliman. The new crop of artists that use type in sculpture, photography, video and installation are a fine testament to the enduring legacy of typography, but the earlier group of Dadaists and Futurists address letterforms in what strikes me as a purer way—in their raw form. Both groups are playful, but the Modernist work still seems more experimental, even today.
Exhibited chronologically, as they are, it's difficult not to compare the two. I appreciated Tauba Auerbach's tongue-in-cheek "All the Punctuation" (2005)—a piece of paper with every punctuation mark typed one on top of the other until they become a muddled splotch—as well as her piece "How to Spell the Alphabet" (2005), which spells out the letters of the alphabet phonetically and gets you to consider the sounds of single letters in a whole new way (above). But I'm an unabashed sucker for letterforms printed on plain paper, and the Modernists, with their strikingly bold, nonsensical typographic compositions, may do it better than anyone, with exceptional examples by Raoul Hausmann, Christopher Knowles, Liliane Lijn, El Lissitzky, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and Henri Chopin.
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Posted by
core jr | 7 May 2012 |
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Good Morning New York!! With NY Design Week less than two weeks away, we are excited to launch our annual NY Design Week event guide...this year with added MOBILE guide! We've done all the heavy lifting so you dont have to—Core77 brings you the best AND most usable guide to the exhibitions, events and parties that comprise New York Design Week.
For the past 11 years, Core77 has published the most comprehensive events and exhibition guide to NY Design Week. Longtime readers are sure to appreciate how far we've come, from sprawling spreadsheets to last year's elegant sortable list—2012 marks the first time we're taking to the streets. We are proud to launch our Mobile Guide allowing you to search by date and neighborhood for events, exhibitions and more while you're on-the-go.
Bookmark the NY Design Week Guide homepage or Add to Homescreen on your iDevice. And dont forget to stop by and say hello to us at the Core77 OPEN exhibition taking place on Friday, May 18 - 22nd. See details about the exhibition and the opening party in our NY Design Week Guide!!
Posted by
core jr | 4 May 2012 |
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Photography by Glen Jackson Taylor for Core77
Every year Tortona Design Week grows-up a little more, and while you might have to visit Ventura Lambrate to see some of the younger up-and-coming designers that would have formally exhibited here, it's still a design destination to be reckoned with. In fact, in scale and quality, it rivals the typical "design week" most cities around the world can put together.
Nendo-fans were treated to not one but three separate exhibitions with the minimal "Black & Black" furniture collection for K%, their "still & sparkling" glass work for Czech company Lasvit, and a new bathroom furniture collection for Bisazza Bagno. Reacting to the economic climate (finally) Established & Sons introduced several new pieces at a more affordable price point and once again their booth design was breathtaking, albeit a little hard to photograph with all the crazy rope lights— possibly that was the point.
Dutch company New Duivendrecht made their debut in Milan this year with a collection that was met with great enthusiasm, it was also inspiring to learn they are committed to working with local factories in the Netherlands. There was more Dutch goodness to be had at the Tuttobene show, the Chinese were out in force with their exhibition "Slow Seating—Contemporary Chinese Design," Diesel's successful living kitchen concept was surprisingly thoughtful, and the installation Past Present Future for Kusch+Co by Atelier Brueckner (pictured top) was stunning.
For those seeking a taste of Tortona-past, Danish design collective operating under the name Dennis Design Center built a temporary workshop in the Superstudio Più car park where they made and distributed free furniture to visitors with the promise of a new design everyday. It was kinda awesome!
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» Ilide Lighting Launches at Superstudio Più
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As a vehicle to celebrate emerging artists in one space, The Pulse Art Fair opens today at the Metropolitan Pavilion with an array of artists and disciplines including video art, dance, and architectural installation. Last night, I had a walk-thru with Cornell Dewitt, the fair's director, to go over the spatial and architectural-bent arts present in the show. He says that Pulse makes it a point to be "accessible, literally and metaphorically." In a city that hosts dozens of art fairs like the monolith Armory show to the edgy Independent, Pulse tends to run in a glowing medium. It's central location and eclectic mix of galleries makes for great inspiration grounds. The art here can be as opaque as in contemporary art gallery but Pulse strives for diversity. From a young Estonian artist to Fred Wilson, and a Fred Torres collaboration, Pulse's manageable-sized gallery allows for intimate moments with the art and gallerists.
Upon entry, the Lead Pencil Studio installation in the Pavilion's lobby brings the city into an art world space. The plywood set is an architectural take on a Chinatown street, with life-size re-creations of chain-lock doors, post box, fire escape, and storefront. The installation is meant to emphasize all of the formidable pieces attached to a building and it's street life that an architect did not put on that building. We are left with the stark imaginary formations of order and security from urban planning, emergency exits, and an attempt at street art. The plywood objects represent the hustle of city-life, but in their plywood manifestations we are hyper aware of their artful re-imaginings. We remember that we are in an art fair. Dewitt says of the space, "the world is falling away and you transfer yourself, bizarrely into this clarified art world."
"I wish to communicate with you" by Pablo Guardiola, 2011, 28 x 42 inches
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FRIEZE NEW YORK 2013
INTERNATIONAL HOME + HOUSEWARES SHOW 2013
TOKYO DESIGN WEEK 2012
BEIJING DESIGN WEEK 2012
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