In the Hollywood (Feb ‘10) issue of Architectural Digest resides the coolest article by Martin Scorsese about Saul Bass’s movie posters. It is not available online, but it is too great so if you don’t buy it, at least go and pick it up and read it at a newsstand or something. Very worth it.
Damien Hirst has gone and made himself a kind of boring cashmere blanket.
Using techniques similar to those used 150 years ago, fabric and colour are built up in layers and given clarity and depth by the use of soft, pure Scottish water and cloth woven from the finest of of fibres. Part of the finishing process involves air-drying and paper-pressing the blankets to ensure a lustrous surface. via…
At least it sounds fancy.
Dan Tomimatsu has designed a vase that can hold one flower, upsidedown. It’s called “Veil”.
Called Veil, the product mimics the way dried flowers are traditionally produced by hanging them from the ceiling. A stainless steel pin with a hexagonal section is pushed through the flower’s stem then balanced across the top of the tapered glass tube. The inside surface of the glass varies in thickness, intended to create the impression that the flower is under water. via…
» Whitworth Art Gallery Announces Exhibition of Artist's Wallpapers
The Whitworth Art Gallery will present the first ever major UK exhibition of artists’ wallpapers. Including work by Damien Hirst, Thomas Demand, Anya Gallaccio, David Shrigley, Michael Craig-Martin, Angus Fairhurst, Rosemarie Trockel, Martin Boyce, Robert Gober, Francesco Simeti, Niki de St. Phalle and Abigail Lane, this is a seminal show of rare works, allowing theviewer to re-evaluate the role of wallpaper in contemporary art.
The Walls Are Talking, curated by Christine Woods and Gill Saunders, features more than 30 international artists and traces the development of their interest in wallpaper, demonstrating how they have played on wallpaper’s domestic and decorative associations to throw into sharp relief their shocking or subversive messages, appropriation of historic motifs, and political or cultural observations.
Sometimes associated with kitsch, wallpaper has, in the last two decades, become a meaningful medium for contemporary artists. Its connotations of home and personal identity have proved a useful vehicle through which artists can explore themes of warfare, racism, conflicts in contemporary culture, gender, sexuality and design. The Walls Are Talking looks at how these artists have used new or existing patterns to powerful effect, as well as including examples produced for the late 20th century popular market, setting artists’ ideas in a historical and cultural context.
Even thoough “The Walls Are Talking” is one of the cheesier names I have ever heard for an exhibition, I really like the idea behind it. I would like some artisan wallpaper please.
Joris Laarman Bone Chair 2008
“Combining reason with emotion, that’s the most difficult thing to do—in design and in everything,” Laarman says. One extraordinary example of Laarman’s ability to merge the two is the Bone Chair, a design that he developed on a computer and then cast in aluminum. For the form, Laarman relied on software that car manufacturers use to develop the most efficient shapes for auto parts. (The software was originally inspired by the biology of human bones, whose regenerative capacity allows them to add and subtract matter as needed.) The result is a delicately sculptural object that contains no superfluous or decorative matter yet is gorgeous enough to make people marvel. via…
My friend and favorite Jesse Hoy of The Deadly Syndrome and JerseyCashHoles is now designing shoes for keds. It is kind of random and he hasn’t actually fully explained to me how this has happened yet (busy or something, weird) but I do know that they look awesome. I like the get plaids above and the nv (nolens volens) ones the best.
Anywho, they are really fun and if you need new shoes why not check these out? Or check them out anyways because they are super awesome.
On view until 11 September at the Global Health Odyssey Museum—the official museum of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention we were delighted to discover!—Wenztel’s sculptures of morbidly obese Eames lounge chairs let you finally see what would happen if the modern design icons indulged in a few too many Twinkies. The artist’s aim of “responding to the … over-consumption of goods and materials of recent years” is sure to keep many visitors on a strict diet. At least until the end of bikini season. via…
I love these little fatties!
Also, it is good to know that the Center for Disease Control has it’s own museum. Maybe not good to know, but more along the lines of “learn something new everyday” type knowledge.
