Gothic Revival
"door hinges" and "the digital age."

"Truth to materials is a tenet of modern architecture (as opposed to postmodern architecture), which holds that any material should be used where it is most appropriate and its nature should not be hidden. Concrete, therefore, should not be painted and the means of its construction should be celebrated – by, for instance, not sanding away marks left by timber shuttering."










Gothic Revival
"door hinges"


“There should be no features about a building which are not necessary for convenience, construction, or propriety…The smallest detail should…serve a purpose, and construction itself should vary with the material employed.”



"A belief that the form of a work of art should be inseparably related to the material in which it is made. The phrase was much used in aesthetic discussions in the 1930s and is particularly associated with Henry Moore, who in Unit One (1934) wrote that ‘Each material has its own individual qualities…Stone, for example, is hard and concentrated and should not be falsified to look like soft flesh…It should keep its hard tense stoniness.’ Although in theory the idea could be applied to any material, in effect it was used by Moore as an argument for direct carving, as practised by himself and contemporaries such as Barbara Hepworth. Moore later admitted that the idea of truth to materials had become a fetish and in 1951 he conceded that it should not be made into a criterion of value, ‘otherwise a snowman made by a child would have to be praised at the expense of a Rodin or a Bernini’. "



image, altered, but appearing somewhat the same: A good large Gothic Revival leaf cast and pierced brass double-sided door hinge, circa 1840 Attributed to A W N Pugin for John Hardman & Co. (via Bonhams' Auctions)
-----------------------

You have read this article door hinges / gothic revival / pugin / truth to material with the title May 2011. You can bookmark this page URL http://gigibytes.blogspot.com/2011/05/gothic-revival-door-hinges-and-digital.html. Thanks!

new book:

Dealer’s Choice:
At Home with Purveyors of Antique and Vintage Furnishings

Dealer’s Choice: At Home with Purveyors of Antique and Vintage Furnishings features the exquisite private spaces inhabited by the world’s leading dealers of modernist furniture and objects, antiquities and antique European decorative works. The vigilantly arranged homes are in L.A., New York, San Francisco, London, Paris, Berlin, Istanbul, the Belgian countryside, and elsewhere.

Dealers of antiques and vintage furnishings are major design trendsetters. In their own homes, they let their imaginations run wild and often display the cream of the crop. Dealer’s Choice: At Home with Purveyors of Antique and Vintage Furnishings gathers the best of these homes into a gorgeous illustrated volume.

With text by Craig Kellogg and a foreword by Michael Bruno, founder and president of leading online antiques destination 1st Dibs, this lavish volume showcases 32 homes of dealers specializing in midcentury modernist furniture and objects, antique European decorative works, and antiquities.

With extensive knowledge of design history, an instinct for sniffing out undiscovered treasures, and their innate sense of taste, color, scale, and proportion, the dealers featured in this volume decorate their homes with exquisite rare furniture, carefully curated collections of art and objects, and a bit of humor—compelling examples to anyone striving to create a singular environment.

Geographically, the homes in Dealer’s Choice: At Home with Purveyors of Antique and Vintage Furnishings are wide-spread: Los Angeles, New York (from the city to Hudson Valley to the Hamptons), Chicago, San Francisco, London, Paris and the South of France, Berlin, Istanbul, and the Belgian countryside. The types of abodes include a moated castle, a country manor set in a vineyard, a former paper warehouse, and a nineteenth-century limestone mansion on Chicago’s south side.

purchase the book here...

-------------------------

You have read this article dealer's choice with the title May 2011. You can bookmark this page URL http://gigibytes.blogspot.com/2011/05/new-book-dealers-choice-at-home-with.html. Thanks!

Put you in this box I’ve made for 2

I could take all the craziness out of you
That’s what I loved you for
Take away all the oranges, greens and blues
That’s what I loved you for
Take a look at me
You think it really could be that easy?









You think it really could be that easy for you?
I know about guys, I know where they live
And you’re just the same
The ones that matter fight against themselves
But it’s so hard to change
Hey, I could love you
Take all that love away from you
Hey, I could love you
Put you in this box I’ve made for 2.











(sconces via One King's Lane sale of Lars Bolander,... )
lyrics to Buried Bones by The Tindersticks... With guest vocals by Ann Magnuson. listen here...

You have read this article lars bolander / put you in a box for 2 / sconces with the title May 2011. You can bookmark this page URL http://gigibytes.blogspot.com/2011/05/put-you-in-this-box-ive-made-for-2.html. Thanks!

new work:
Nicole Wermers










Herald St is pleased to announce its third exhibition at the gallery by German-born London-based artist Nicole Wermers.

"Wermers' practice utilizes a minimalist language to highlight the familiar; domestic furnishings, high street aesthetic and industrial finishes are all commonplace within the artist's visual lexicon. Her sculptures often occupy a no mans land somewhere between autonomy and the functional and it is this reference to the functional that allows Wermers' work to have both a dialogue with the formal past and a familiar present....

Wermers turns her hand to photography with a series of framed photographs taken by the artist at the Musée Rodin in Paris. The museum is one of several municipal museums in Paris that display the work of one artist in their former home and studio within the context of their private collections of art and antiques and accompanied by original furnishings and decoration. Wermers' photographs depict the mostly white marble sculptures of Rodin and the plaster models for several larger bronze commissions as well as some of Camille Claudel's work, which inhabit the museum like ghosts reflected in the in the numerous half blind mirrors as well as the glass and perspex casings that house the more fragile works within the building's Rocaille architecture. Purposefully showing off reflections in the large mirrors and windows of the museum, Wermers' photographs are framed behind glass in artist designed clip frames.

The original diminutive clips make way for brushed steel stylized replacements that act both functionally as clips but perhaps more importantly as formal markers and composers in their own right..."





2 Herald Street, London,
22nd May - 26th June



-----------------------------

You have read this article architecture of the frame / clips / nicole wermers with the title May 2011. You can bookmark this page URL http://gigibytes.blogspot.com/2011/05/new-work-nicole-wermers-herald-st-is.html. Thanks!

an attempt at AMERICAN MODERNISM, pt 543

amanda ross ho
vs
paul frankl

"it's not that simple this dictionary never has a word for the way i'm feeling"
- Red House Painters

The Approach is delighted to present TIME WAITS FOR NO ONE, Los Angeles based artist AmandaRoss-Ho’s first solo show in London.

6th May – 19th June 2011

"Ross-Ho’s practice is rooted in navigating understanding, utilizing a wide variety of forms as vehicles through which to embed a rigorous investigation of visual language. Her work regularly unites seemingly oppositional languages and spaces: autobiographical artifacts are mined for formal qualities; traces andresidues from studio and gallery practice are meticulously re-created as deliberate gestures; boundaries between private work and public display are collapsed.

She revisits images and forms in multiple iterations, creating scale shifts, moving among media, or using positive and negative structures.

----------------



American MODERNISM:

like modernism in general is a trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation, and is thus in its essence both progressive and optimistic. The general term covers many political, cultural and artistic movements rooted in the changes in Western society at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. American modernism is an artistic and cultural movement in the United States starting at the turn of the 20th century with its core period between World War I and World War II and continuing into the 21st century.

(taken from here)



images:

1. Amanda Ross Ho. "Paintings to disguise a set of architectural elements", 2011 Acrylic on six gessoed canvases, 374x407x25.5 cm

2. Paul Frankl. Perhaps the most epic cabinet ever made?





------------------------------





----------------------------

You have read this article amanda ross ho / american modernism / california in los angeles / modernism sculpture / the approach with the title May 2011. You can bookmark this page URL http://gigibytes.blogspot.com/2011/05/an-attempt-at-american-modernism-pt-543.html. Thanks!

nendo: "Visible Structures"
at high museum of art....

Giving people a small " ! " moment.
There are so many small " ! " moments hidden in our everyday. - Nendo








Modern by Design
June 4–August 14, 2010

High Design: Selections from the High Museum of Art In conjunction with Modern by Design, the High will present an installation of late-twentieth- and etwenty-first-century design drawn from the High's growing permanent collection.

2 new major commissioned installations by Dutch designer Joris Laarman and the Japanese design collective nendo will be featured: Laarman’s Digital Matter and nendo’s Visible Structures.

In total, 11 artists featured will represent the diversity and international character of the field today, with 23 recently acquired including prototypes, limited editions, and industrial production by the foremost Western and non-Western designers from two generations. Featured designers include Ettore Sottsass (Italian, 1917-2007) Johanna Grawunder (American, born 1961); Shiro Kuramata (Japanese, 1934-1991); nendo (Japanesestablished 2002); Patrick Jouin (French, born 1967); Hella Jongerius (Dutch, born 1963); FRONT Design (Swedish, established 2003); Marc Newson (Australian, born 1963)...


go here for more info....

more on nendo here...

(image Courtesy of nendo and Masayuki Hayashi)

You have read this article atlanta museum / design in the south / high museum of art / nendo with the title May 2011. You can bookmark this page URL http://gigibytes.blogspot.com/2011/05/nendo-visible-structures-at-high-museum.html. Thanks!

Paul Frankl vs Paul Evans

when furniture become a city
aka
the city never sleeps (here)

"In the early 1920s, Paul Frankl opened a New York City shop that became an epicenter of American Modernism. Over the next decades, his work encompassed everything from individual pieces of furniture and decorative accessories to entire interiors, and his style continuously evolved, from early “Skyscraper” furniture to relaxed and casual designs favored by the Hollywood elite in the 1930s to manufactured pieces for the mass market in the 1950s." (buy the book here)










Paul T. Frankl (1886–1958), an Art Deco furniture designer and maker, architect, painter and writer from Vienna, Austria, was the son of a wealthy real estate speculator. After Frankl completed his architectural studies at the Berlin Polytechnic, he traveled, spending time in Berlin and Copenhagen before arriving in the United States in April 1914. He settled in New York City and brought with him an outsider’s fresh perspective and an enthusiasm for forging a uniquely American design aesthetic.

Frankl began as an architect and later switched to designing and painting fine art and furniture. In the years between the two world wars he, more than any other designer, helped shape the distinctive look of American modernism. In the 1920s, he introduced his celebrated SKYSCRAPER STYLE (before turning to metal furnishings in the 1930s). Frankl opened Frankl Galleries on 48th Street, calling his company Skyscraper Furniture, which became an epicenter of American modernism, including modern textiles and wallpapers imported from Europe.. (wikipedia)




-------



Paul Evans (1931 – 1987) Pennsylvanian Paul Evans studied sculpture and silversmithing at several institutions, including the Cranbrook Academy of Art. In 1951, while working as an artist in residence as a silversmith at the working history museum Sturbridge Village near Springfield, Massachusetts, Evans frequented artisan Phillip Lloyd Powell’s shop in New Hope, PA and asked Powell if he could put a few of his own pieces on display. In 1956 Evans moved permanently to New Hope and his acquaintance with Powell turned into a business and creative partnership. In the late 1950s Evans began making copper chests with decorative doors, followed by sculpted steel-front cabinets that revealed Evans' unique way with welding. Evans and Powell had big break when they had a two-man show in 1961 at America House, an exhibition held at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York, now named the Museum of Arts & Design. In 1964 Evans became the designer for furniture manufacturer Directional. With Directional, Paul Evans introduced his highly collectible editions such as the Argente series, Sculpted Bronze series, and the very popular CITYSCAPE SERIES.

Most Evans pieces were signed, and all of the custom items have a signature and a date. Paul Evans took a unique approach to furniture making, a combination of handcraft wedded to technology that anticipated the limited edition art furniture of today, such as the work of Ron Arad. More particularly, the artist’s relationship with Directional set a unique standard for creative manufacture by insisting every piece is made by hand, finished by hand, supervised by the artist at each step of production, one piece at a time.
(via here)




-------------------






You can hear the sound , Of the underground trains
You know it feels like distant thunder, You know there's so many people Living in this house
And don't even know their names, I guess it's just a feeling - in the city

(Eurythmics)






------------------------------------

You have read this article paul evans / paul frankl / the city never sleeps with the title May 2011. You can bookmark this page URL http://gigibytes.blogspot.com/2011/05/paul-frankl-vs-paul-evans.html. Thanks!

a BOX is a BOX until a BOX tires of being a BOX (no theme)

James Huniford vs Sol Lewitt
the designer vs the artist.

"Rooms should flow from one area to another and not have themes.
vs
"Unless you’re involved with thinking about what you’re doing, you end up doing the same thing over and over, and that becomes tedious and, in the end, defeating"










A Sol Lewitt inspired table....
& Donald Judd sculpture above the banquette....

"Minimalism wasn’t a real idea—it ended before it started. Artists of many diverse types began using simple forms to their own ends. Almost every artist of the ‘60s and ‘70s took off from Minimalism in different directions. There was no other place to start if you weren’t involved with Duchampian-type thinking or Pop art. Those lines of escape were what eventually became classic Conceptual art. In the end all these things melded together during the ‘80s and ‘90s, mainly due to Bruce Nauman, who combined the two ways of thinking...."


"Unless you’re involved with thinking about what you’re doing, you end up doing the same thing over and over, and that becomes tedious and, in the end, defeating. When artists make art, they shouldn’t question whether it is permissible to do one thing or another. In my case, I reached a point in the evolution of my work at which the ideology and ideas became inhibiting. I felt that I had become a prisoner of my own pronouncements or ideas. I found I was compelled by the innate logic of the work to follow a different way. Whether it was a step forward or a step back or a step sideways didn’t matter. At that point I had moved to Italy. Quattrocento art really impressed me. I began to think about how art isn’t an avant-garde game. It has to be something more universal, more important."

Sol Lewitt (here)





------------------------



James Huniford Interiors

"When designing a Manhattan townhouse, a beach house getaway, or a Northern California residence, Huniford blends new and old, uniting found objects with refined materials in distinctive combinations and vignettes.

Whether it's the gentle curve of a whale bone or the circular repetition of oversized gears, one-of-a-kind objects inspire all of Huniford's designs. His signature use of calming wall colors highlights the importance of objects, art, and furniture, as a canvas does for a painter.

"Interiors should be tailored to how people live," says Ford. "Rooms should flow from one area to another and not have themes. Most importantly, they should reflect the spirit and soul of the people who inhabit them. "










----------------------------

You have read this article designer vs artist / huniford interiors / sol lewitt with the title May 2011. You can bookmark this page URL http://gigibytes.blogspot.com/2011/05/a-box-is-box-until-box-tires-of-being.html. Thanks!

YHBHS interview with Nicolai Czumaj-Bront

....
"Design is a straw, a spoon, jewelry, hospital equipment, a piece of furniture, a car, a home, etc. But more importantly design is none of that, those are results of design. Design is a process, a way thinking and seeing, responding to the world around us."

Nicolai Czumaj-Bront in his studio.


"Combining a precise machining process with reclaimed wood. As the weathered and worn wood is shaped, the beauty and character from the variation in color, material arrangement, and signs of wear are exposed to produce a highly precise yet imperfect design."

What motivates your work? Where did you come up with the idea and the FORMS for the "pitch" stool and table?

Well I think there are many reasons why I design. For one, I simply love doing it. But perhaps one of the earliest reasons why I chose to design was the idea that what I created was going to be used. When I was in the Industrial Design program, I almost transferred (yet again) to sculpture. But art, for the most part, is hands off for the viewer; where as with design you create functional objects that can affect people emotionally and physically; they get used and have a life that goes beyond the finished product. And you must design with that in mind. This is a beautiful challenge.

The forms of the Pitch series are based around the idea of growing out of the ground, and as they approach the user, they grow outwards as a way of acknowledging the user and the function. In the case of the stools, the large radii extenuates the grain and imperfections in the wood as well as softens the form visually, but more importantly to the touch. It is great to watch people use these pieces, almost immediately they touch and caress the surfaces.



You state "design is everything." Can you tell me more about this statement, what is design to you?

Ha, I guess it seems like a broad statement, but design has so much breadth, it is tangible; a straw, a spoon, jewelry, hospital equipment, a piece of furniture, a car, a home, etc. But more importantly design is none of that, those are results of design. Design is a process, a way thinking and seeing, responding to the world arounds us. Design encompasses ideas and practices in art, craft, business, marketing, sales, engineering, psychology, ergonomics...ideally its a process which is completely inclusive of all others. I guess I don’t really consider design separate from anything...you either choose to do it well or you don’t.



Iconic Works. Do you have a favorite iconic piece of furniture that was designed, or a past designer, that you look at time after time and think, brilliant.

Right now one of my favorite designers is Patricia Urquiola. I absolutely love the diverse forms and textures that she creates and the variety of materials she uses, as well as her ability to combine craft with design. The Fjord armchair for Moroso is one of my favorites, and the work she did on the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Barcelona was amazing.



















You have a degree in Psychology/ Philosophy. Why did you shift from psychology to industrial design, and does this affect the way you think about your work?

I studied psychology & philosophy for 2 years...so I never finished my degree. I also did a semester of macroeconomics...and I soon realized this was not for me. I have always been in or around art and design growing up. My mother is a painter, sculpture, and graphic designer, my father is an engineer, and both of my grandfathers’ did carpentry and furniture.

The shift from psychology/philosophy to design came out of a desire to create things with my hands and give a physical representation or expression to my ideas. It is truly exhilarating to take an idea from a thought to a physical form...something that one can touch and interact with. Design has been an extension or an evolution of those earlier studies. It really was a seamless transition from psychology/philosophy to design. I think a large part of that is because they became part of my design process. Whether it is used in a more applied sense, as in a task chair or a space, or in somewhat of a more abstract sense, as in the Pitch series, where I am looking at the idea of perfection versus imperfection.


What's the design culture like in Michigan?

I’m originally from Chicago, where the city is the hub of the design culture. But, Michigan is unique in the sense that there isn’t one major city center where all of the design culture exists. There is an east coast and a west coast and they’re quite different and each have a long heritage in design.

On the east coast, you have primarily the auto industry, College of the Creative Studies (CCS) and Cranbrook. And on the west coast, you have the three of the largest contract furniture manufacturers in the US; Haworth, Herman Miller and Steelcase. Not to mention Izzy, Nucraft, and Baker (residential) to name a few other furniture companies. I’ve been living in Grand Rapids on the west side of the state for about five years.

To me, a majority of the design culture resides around the industry and not necessarily as much in the greater community. Although, that has been changing. In the past several years, there’s been a large increase in small design businesses and independent studios, along with galleries and international art exhibitions in the area (i.e. the GRAM, Art Prize, SiteLab, Design West Michigan, D/E/C.) This may also be due to the fact that Grand Rapids is college city with about 10 colleges and universities in the area; where a small and close-knit community of artists and designers has developed that continually look to share their work and educate the general public on art and design.


thank you Nicolai....






Go to his portfolio here...

"Questioning the perception of beauty and control, pitch is a collection of pieces that celebrates the balance of precision and imperfection. Combining a precise machining process with reclaimed wood. As the weathered and worn wood is shaped, the beauty and character from the variation in color, material arrangement, and signs of wear are exposed to produce a highly precise yet imperfect design."




all of these beautiful images are taken by Nicolai Czumaj-Bront and Laura Naughton

---------------------------

You have read this article 60's furniture / michigan designers / Nicolai Czumaj-Bront / pitch furniture / pitch stool with the title May 2011. You can bookmark this page URL http://gigibytes.blogspot.com/2011/05/yhbhs-interview-with-nicolai-czumaj.html. Thanks!

Laura Owens, 2011
vs
Gio Ponti, 1930

modern painting and the lamp?

"My work gets created in this space of freedom, and that’s why a lot of it has to do with experimentation, invention, and sort of a juxtaposition of things you wouldn’t normally juxtapose. I keep using the word “FREEDOM”—I know there’s probably a better word, but maybe I feel like painting doesn’t have enough of that as a category so I’ll use it anyway." - Laura Owens












Laura Owens
vs
Gio Ponti

the modern painting and the lamp?

Laura Owens: When you were asking your question I immediately got the image of what happens when you see people as superior to you. Something happens. If you have heroes, and they’re way way above you, it usually means you have to have some people that are inferior to you. I feel like I am constantly looking at everyone I meet and trying to see them in an equal way, with equal standing to me. So that means I have to go into the experience of viewing a van Gogh painting with the mindset, Oh this guy was standing in front of an empty canvas and just painted it one day, you know? There was a real human being who made this painting, not a heroic untouchable, inhuman god. This person went to the bathroom and had all the normal human problems with, you know…

I feel like what’s most important for painting—which has been hierarchically on the top for a really long time in terms of what is considered fine art, by comparison with something like a comic book or what’s considered low art—is that painting should open up laterally to include other cultures and things that don’t immediately resonate as a painting but are obviously of equal contribution to the genre.

When I look at textiles from Peru or from India and use those elements in a painting, it doesn’t in any way erase the functional quality of those works. It’s not an either-or proposition—that when you take something to the museum you turn it into “fine art” and erase all the contextualization of it. Rather, all sorts of things can co-mingle and be as influential to young artists as, say, a Mondrian. Does that make sense?


I feel like there’s a space of personal freedom for me where my art-making happens. When I go to that space, I’m completely in this world of possibility. There’s no inner emotional state that I could compare it to; it’s a space that has its own properties, and they don’t have to do with happy or sad or any of that. I would never say to myself, “Okay, let me go into this space of freedom in order to show you about the pain I have.” Do you know what I mean? I’m not in the space of freedom if I’m in pain. I’m in sort of a contracted, negative, or dark space.

My work gets created in this space of freedom, and that’s why a lot of it has to do with experimentation, invention, and sort of a juxtaposition of things you wouldn’t normally juxtapose. I keep using the word “freedom”—I know there’s probably a better word, but maybe I feel like painting doesn’t have enough of that as a category so I’ll use it anyway......







please read the whole interview here.... via the believer....
image of Gio Ponti lamp via Wright Auctions..... here.
Laura Owens image via Galeria Gisela Capitain









----------------------------

You have read this article 1930's lamps / galerie gisela capitain / gio ponti / laura owens / what is freedom with the title May 2011. You can bookmark this page URL http://gigibytes.blogspot.com/2011/05/laura-owens-2011-vs-gio-ponti-1930.html. Thanks!

I love California; EVERYTHING is so ARTIFICIAL.
-David Hockney

California Design:
The Legacy of the West Coast Craft and Style

"The furniture, jewelry, recreational objects, ceramics, fabric arts, and other designs that emerged from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s California would come to identify its outdoorsy, eccentric, sometimes entirely funky persona."













"The furniture, jewelry, recreational objects, ceramics, fabric arts, and other designs that emerged from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s California would come to identify its outdoorsy, eccentric, sometimes entirely funky persona. And the best of these were exhibited, sometimes idolized, through a series of popular shows at the Pasadena Art Museum.

California Design is a detailed retrospective of these exhibitions and the West Coast style they epitomized, replete with hundreds of innovative photographs showcasing the works in all their original glory. Signature works from Charles & Ray Eames, Tropi-Cal, Don Chadwick (co-creator of the Aeron chair), and many other designers and studios illustrate twenty years of style that was as diverse as it was pioneering. "

Jo Lauria is an independent curator of decorative arts and the author of several books. She lives in Los Angeles. Suzanne Baizerman is Curator of Crafts and Decorative Arts at the Oakland Museum of California. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.


------------------



the weekend warriors pt 6....
via AAPC



California Design:
The Legacy of the West Coast Craft and Style









--------------------------

You have read this article an amibtious project collapsing / book list / craft books / craft california / furniture california with the title May 2011. You can bookmark this page URL http://gigibytes.blogspot.com/2011/05/i-love-california-everything-is-so.html. Thanks!

Christopher Farr :
new cloth, breakwater

"Breakwater (structure),
a structure for protecting a beach or harbour"










Ah, Christopher Farr can do no wrong. His work continues to melt my mind with colors, and strikes of form that dance on the surface! .... I'm crazy bummed I missed his art show last week here in Los Angeles downtown.... But Christina, was kind enough to send me some images of some of his new designs that are in the works....

Above is a new design they have been working on for C L O T H, the fabric collection designed by Christopher Farr in association with business partners Matthew Bourne and Michal Silver. This design is still a prototype, and not in production...

This particular print is called BREAKWATER.

"Breakwaters are structures constructed on coasts as part of coastal defence or to protect an anchorage from the effects of weather and longshore drift."

------------------

Looking at these new designs by Christopher Farr, I was reminded of Richard Long's new works, at the newly designed Sperone Westwater (Norman Foster) in New York...


"Works using raw materials
and my human scale in the reality of landscapes."











"In the nature of things: Art about mobility, lightness and freedom. Simple creative acts of walking and marking about place, locality, time, distance, and measurement.

Works using raw materials and my human scale in the reality of landscapes."

"Systems, patterns, and repetition are inherent in his process and flow and ebb is a natural rhythm which he incorporates in this exhibition." from Long's press release...








-----------------------------------

C L O T H , the fabric collection designed by Christopher Farr in association with business partners Matthew Bourne and Michal Silver was founded in 2000. For Christopher designing fabrics was not only a long held ambition but a natural step to make for the rug company he founded in 1988.

The collection currently comprises over 40 designs of prints and weaves, utilizing the highest qualities of cloth from combed Egyptian cottons and Belgian linens to acrylic dyed solution fabrics suitable for outdoor use.

The printed collection is produced in the UK, a large part of which is hand printed by the same family-owned company that produced the original collections for Michael Zsell. With an ever expanding stable of designers and artists such as Kate Blee, Ilse Crawford and Ptolemy Mann, a new era of design sprang forth from the vision and acumen of Christopher Farr.

more Christopher Farr here...
more Richard Long here...

It's officially the weekend.
I'm off to the beach to stack stones and boulders.....

----------------

You have read this article christopher farr / cloth / richard long / sperone westwater with the title May 2011. You can bookmark this page URL http://gigibytes.blogspot.com/2011/05/christopher-farr-new-cloth-breakwater.html. Thanks!

Nicole Wermers
Herald St. :London, 22nd May - 26th June










This is an older collage of Nicole Wermers' from 2006, "Untitled (golden rings, black sticks on grey)." Her new work is opening next week at Herald Street Gallery in London. I had this image on my fridge for six months. The image became familiar, and slowly worn with sunlight.

How lucky am I? Our paths eventually crossed, and I became reconnected with this collage. If only I was in London this weekend, I could see her new work.... Until then, I await you in the City of Quartz.


go to Nicole Wermers' site here...




------------------------




"The smooth metallic surfaces in cube form, for example, evoke Constructivism or Minimalism, the geometrical rigor of objects from this period and their ambivalent way of addressing the viewer, a status somewhere between solitary object, utopian conceptual framework, and space-defining presence.

But these works have no direct affirmative character. Instead, they employ simple appropriation and alienation effects to transform existing things into something that is new in an abstract way, something that allows its origins to run alongside it as a subtext, but which takes an ironic stance towards properties that mark it out as part of a broadly ideological or utopian attempt to synthesize art and life."

taken from here..










-----------------------

You have read this article herald st gallery / modernism sculpture / nicole wermers with the title May 2011. You can bookmark this page URL http://gigibytes.blogspot.com/2011/05/nicole-wermers-herald-st.html. Thanks!

Mattia Bonnetti

To me, working as a designer has always been a constant struggle. It was a struggle for me as a young designer out of school and it is as difficult today with all the success I have achieved in the field. It is a daily struggle, working around the clock whether in creating, thinking or just being critical about my own work, always trying to improve, to do better.

Mattia Bonnetti (here)












If I tell you that to me, you are a kind of Jacque Ruhlman of our time. Am I completely off?

In some ways it is a great complement, but in others its not. The use of traditional approach in making objects, the high quality of the decorative arts, Ruhlman had that obsession with quality, with refined finishes, with the most expensive and unique materials. Today, we cannot even dream to achieve that level of quality that he had mastered in the 20s.

Although there are craftsmen out there who have the skills, the culture of making objects this way has been lost. I work in the studio, with many techniques of hand craftsmanship, but I am trying to tailor those skills to the world of today. In this respect, I believe, you may compare me to Ruhlman.

Yet, I am not looking into going sixty years backwards.






Take time to read the whole interview via Arude Magazine....
Interview by Daniella Ohad Smith ,
Mattia Bonnetti, Bridging the Cleavage between Art and Design

(a dream to sit and have a long conversation about life, art, and everything else.....)









image via Paul Kasmin Gallery, NY



---------------------

You have read this article mattia bonetti / paul kasmin gallery with the title May 2011. You can bookmark this page URL http://gigibytes.blogspot.com/2011/05/mattia-bonnetti.html. Thanks!

in the past/ future we can/will live peacefully in space.
(the floor lamps)

Gae Aulenti 1964
vs
Rich, Brilliant, and Willing 2008

“I think we’ll always be in space,”
- Neil Armstrong


1. Gae Aulenti, floor light 1964, poltronova italy, galerie BSL
2. Rich Brilliant Willing, 2008, excel floor lamp. I admit it, this is probably my favorite floor lamp of all time. I've been thinking about it since 2008 when it was released. Perhaps I should just go ahead and pull the trigger....







there are days when my mind drifts,
and today is one of those days.

drift along young astronauts.......

perhaps the light will lead us all home
after the fear of the night has vanished?

enjoy these floors lamps today.....






----------------------------------------

You have read this article floor lamps / gae aulenti / rich brilliant willing with the title May 2011. You can bookmark this page URL http://gigibytes.blogspot.com/2011/05/in-past-future-we-canwill-live.html. Thanks!

todosomething
Los Angeles studio : furniture + cabinetry + (chickens)

We believe the kitchen is the heart and soul of a home, and design with this in mind at all times.

We are committed to sourcing local, domestic materials, and fabricating as close to home as possible.

images from Dakota Witzenberg's kitchen....

Last weekend at the COLLECTED Magazine launch here in Los Angeles, I bumped into todosomething, aka, Dakota Witzenberg and Chad Petersen. I'd met them briefly about a year ago when they were part of one of SPECIFIC's mindmelting group shows. That night I kinda became fixated on their LP cabinet, imagining some crazy glitched out jazz- psychedelic bebop record spinning round and round in their cabinet.

Oh the parties I could have with that cabinet!

The above images are from Dakota's kitchen here in Los Angeles that is featured in the latest issue of Collected. The matte finish, the good ole geometry, and the black tiles really whispers, "perfect kitchen." Dakota mentioned he had chickens, I think named Julia, Rebecca, and Monica perhaps? (sorry if I got their names wrong!).

I smell buttermilk biscuits, right?

Their studio is right down the street from YHBHS here in downtown, and I'm hoping, though I haven't even asked, to walk down to their studio and chat further... In the meantime, take a look at their homes in Collected, and todosomething just relaunched their whole website with some amazing new work on it.... go check it out....








--------------------------









We believe in designing custom tailored kitchen work spaces for those with a passion for creating and sharing.

We believe the kitchen is the heart and soul of a home, and design with this in mind at all times.

We are dedicated to craft & craftsmanship.

We are committed to sourcing local, domestic materials, and fabricating as close to home as possible.





-------------------------

You have read this article the perfect kitchen / todosomething with the title May 2011. You can bookmark this page URL http://gigibytes.blogspot.com/2011/05/todosomething-los-angeles-studio.html. Thanks!

I N P U T : O U T P U T

OPENING: Friday, May 20, 2011
For 45 days, the two will experiment developing prototypes
in a fishbowl-type workshop open to onlookers who can place custom orders.











I N P U T : O U T P U T

Inspired by a love of industrial design and analog equipment, the shop will premiere handmade audio components designed by musician / furniture designer Philip Sumner and Kevin Carney, founder of the Generic Man and Mohawk General Store.


"The idea is to have a workshop where Philip and I will test, audition, and create retro-styled speakers and tube amps," says Carney. "While wearing white lab coats, of course."


Hitting it off in the vintage audio section of Carney's store, the two immediately imagined creating their own line of products. "Philip has a wood shop and we both have collections of classic audio equipment, so we decided to give it a go," Carney says. "I kept looking for a space to do a sound installation for the public to experience, and here we are...doing it!"

For 45 days, the two will experiment developing prototypes in a fishbowl-type workshop open to onlookers who can place custom orders. "We already have some designs completed, like a full range paper cone 3" driver in a wood enclosure," says Carney. "But the main reason for using this space is to come up with more ideas." To creating a living landscape for the sound, the space houses furniture from Amsterdam Modern, lamps from Niche Modern, and will host music events programmed by Sumner and Carney. "There will be in-store performances featuring bands and DJs the way they were meant to be heard, through analog equipment," says Carney.

The entire project will also be photographed by Ramon Felix, and published into a book that will be designed by Ill Studio in Paris.

Input : Output's grand opening will be this Friday, May 20, from 7-11pm. Musical selections from special guests David Holmes, Eddie Ruscha, Eug, and Nitedog.



Space 15 Twenty
1520 N. Cahuenga Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90028




see u there!
I'll have my ears to the speaker,
and my heart in the disco skies.










----------------------------------

You have read this article kevin carney / mohawk general store with the title May 2011. You can bookmark this page URL http://gigibytes.blogspot.com/2011/05/i-n-p-u-t-o-u-t-p-u-t-opening-friday.html. Thanks!

a slow conversation with Rolu

"my belief that if you send a signal out into the world everyday
something will come back to Y O U."

-Matt Olson, ROLU

Primarily/Primary (After Carol Bove, Scott Burton and Sol Le Witt)
- ROLU with Ashley Helvey

ROLU will show new works as part of Noho Next 2011
at the ICFF (Intl Contemporary Furniture Fair) May 14-17.


-----------

Matt Olson and I crossed paths a few years ago now. I guess you could say ROLU was one of my gateway drugs into the blog world. It was late one night, when I discovered the ROLU portal: a divine place where art + design all come together so easily & perfectly. It was sites like ROLU, that pushed me harder: to dig, to research, and most of all, to reach out to the people at the other end of the computer.

It was probably over a year ago that Matt Olson and I began this conversation. This interview is beyond overdue! But honestly, it could not have happened at a better time since ROLU's calender is full of collaborations and events happening this weekend.

I'm psyched to finally post this slow conversation with Matt Olson, of ROLU. If you are in New York this week, please go check out their work at NOHO NEXT. It's gonna rock.

- David John, YHBHS

A SLOW CONVERSATION: ROLU and YHBHS


You were one of the first people that linked my blog onto your site. Your site was one of the early portals I had into these very specific design blogs. Can you talk about the why you started ROLU design blog, & the role that keeping on online blog has had in your design practice?


Matt: That's super cool to know! I was immediately taken by YHBHS's diversity and the connections you were drawing between theoretically different, but in my mind inherently related works. That was three years ago maybe? Still always awed by it.

I started a blog based on a simple premise: my belief that if you send a signal out into the world everyday something will come back to you. I wake up in the morning, I have a cup of coffee and I figure out something to post. It's almost ritual now. At its most basic level it's had a huge educational effect on me personally. The amount of learning has been immeasurable. In the abstract, it's woven its way into my/our work in mysterious and intangible ways too. There are times where it feels like some stream of conscious visual poem that's happening and it occasionally clicks and reveals its meaning. In one literal way, our furniture is in part a response to this visual river we are paying attention to and participating in... we're trying to reach into it and respond with something physical.




So you mentioned collaborations, is there new work coming out soon?

Yes, we just finished some new pieces. One is a night stand that was commissioned by PIN-UP Magazine, literally our favorite architecture magazine, it will be on view at Phillips de Pury in New York during the ICFF (Intnl Contemporary Furniture Fair) in New York. Some amazing other folks involved too... Jim Drain, Aranda/Lasch, Rafael de Cárdenas, ARCHITECTURE AT LARGE, Rich Brilliant Willing, Situ Studio... wow.

We are so honored to be in such great company! It will be available in an edition of four through the gallery. We also have new work at Noho Next an exhibit organized By Monica and Jill who do the great Sight Unseen. It's two chairs and a table called Primarily/Primary (after Carol Bove, Scott Burton and Sol Le Witt) it features two wool felt pieces by textile artist Ashley Helvey. She's amazing. These pieces continue to explore some of the same ideas we've been interested in regarding very fluid and quick reactions to work were influenced by. And this idea of high art concepts expressed through simple raw materials.




The furniture / blog is only a small part of your daily activities. You also maintain a landscape architecture studio, that was featured in DWELL Magazine. Do you ever sleep?


I truly do work a lot. You've heard that saying “Love what you do, never work a day in your life”? A lot of the time it feels that way to me. Sometimes not. The studio takes on and initiates lots of projects. We started eight years ago as a residential landscape design and construction company but from the start had plans to wander. We still do a ton of landscape related work and love it. Both in Minneapolis and increasingly with clients nationally.

We have worked on everything from designing a “social media driven post-internet” ice cream store at an amusement park with an architecture studio we frequently collaborate with to a performance based participatory art project coming up at the Soap Factory a gallery here in Minneapolis that was commissioned by Northern Lights MN. Really broad range.

We really believe in collaboration as a core value of the studio. We have active projects in the works with Ashley Helvey a textile artist we love, Peter Nencini whose work is mind blowing, Laurel Broughton of WELCOME Los Angeles, Eric Timothy Carlson a member of the Hardland/Heartland collective just to name a few.

2010 flyer for the ROLU + Mondo Cane show...

Your show last year at MONDO CANE in New York. I'm sad I wasn't in New York, but will you talk about that show, and the works that were shown? Did you fabricate the works while in New York? Plywood?

The show at MONDO CANE was an amazing thing for us. We'd been discussing and designing furniture pieces for a couple years but never had the time or impetus to develop it. We started making a couple prototypes and they lived in our studio. Our friend Mylinh Trieu Nguyen saw a photo of one on our blog and she liked it. It led to us designing the furniture and basic environment for the exhibition of her project General Public Library at Art In General in New York. This was really fun for us and we finally had a reason to get serious about exploring our ideas.

While we were developing the work for that exhibit, we made a group of theoretically related pieces in fits and starts over a few weeks, rapidly building and changing as we went. Our initial idea was an attempt to follow in the footsteps of Enzo Mari and his Autoprogettazione project. We were talking with a few of our favorite graphic designers about doing a print on demand book that kept growing and evolving as new ideas were created, by both us and the people in our internet community we were hoping might participate.

We were trying to think of it as an “open source” furniture project. This is important in part because it's where we collided with and fell in love with the simple hardware store materials. I also think it's interesting that our initial experiments are really related to ideas and images I was finding through blogging. Our connection to Patrick Parrish from MONDO CANE who does Mondo Blogo is also related to blogs... and bizarro-world kismet. I wrote an email to Patrick saying how much I like his blog and oddly, at almost the same precise moment, he had added ROLU blog to his links and was writing to me. In literally the next email, he asked me to do a show of our furniture.

We built all the pieces in NYC in about ten days before the show. And while we were there, we also built pieces for IFS Ltd-- a project for the NY Art Book Fair at PS1 MoMA. Needless to say, my partner in ROLU, Mike Brady, and one of our employees, Joe Mollen, worked almost around the clock to pull it off. Our opening at MONDO CANE was such a great night.

I wish you'd have been there too! So many great people from our circle of blogs came, Andy Beach (Reference Library), Mary Manning (Unchanging Window), Lee Cerre (2 or 3 Things), Matt and Mary (Matt & Mary :-), Doug Johnston (Hawktrainer) Felix from PIN-UP Magazine, David Horvitz... and many more. I know you'd appreciate lots of blog/internet people.



Donald Judd and Scott Burton. Two artist that I know that resonate on a deep level with you. What is it in their works that motivates you to carry on their traditions?

It feels fluid and like it's always changing so it's hard to say with any long term clarity. I've been into Judd for twenty years or something. I always liked his work but was initially obsessed with Heiner Freidrich who, along with his wife Phillipa De Menil, founded Dia. I am interested in all the Dia artists and projects on some level. Scott Burton was just a blip on my radar via a work in the Walker Art Center's Sculpture Garden. Then you posted an image of Chair 1 and Chair 2... the brownstone pieces. There was flurry of Google searches and then, without any context relating to scale or materials in any real sense, we built our Box Chair Square as an exploratory exercise. We felt like the outcome was so viscerally different from his, we wanted to push it into the world. We did a few more pieces based on images of his work. At the same time I was learning about and deeply connecting with Scott Burton's beliefs about breaking down the walls between sculpture and furniture and ultimately, art and design.

This also connected with the themes of Autoprogettazione, bringing art into the everyday, Allen Kaprow's essay Art Which Can't Be Art which really effected me and on and on. Of course, Judd in some ways was the opposite. Extremely careful and precise about the separation of his furniture work and his art. I love his work and on some level am attracted to his seemingly severe sense of certainty and clarity. I'm awed by people who are exacting and disciplined for its implied connection to clarity, and that's why I think I love his work. But in the big picture, I don't really trust certainty and rarely seem to have much clarity... just glimpses.

And speaking of Judd you have to read that Rupert Deese piece in the publication Contra Mundum I-VII The Oslo Editions. Amazing. And on Judd and Burton, my friend Sam Gould turned me on to the catalog from Design ≠ Art. A really nice book.


Three words that describe ROLU.

Enthusiastic, open, and sincere.



MINNEAPOLIS, other than the Walker, which rocks, I am unaware of the design community in Minneapolis. Fill me in on your city, and when I come where are you taking me ? (smile)

I am taking you to the Walker, of course. I can't overstate how amazing it is to have that a bike ride away. It consistently blows my mind as an institution and the curators who've come through there. Phillipe Vergne who is now at Dia: Beacon, Peter Eleey who's now at PS1, Yasmil Raymond who's also at Dia, Andrea Hickey who's at Art In General now... Andrew Blauvelt the Design Director is huge. Incidentally, it was his house in Dwell that you mentioned earlier, we did the landscape design and construction for it.

After the Walker we'll go to Midway Contemporary Art -- a gallery that has, in my mind, a perfect track record of showing amazing important artists right before they start turning up everywhere... Omer Fast, Gedi Sibony, etc. When I was at Art Basel Miami Beach in December practically everyone I met said “oh, Minneapolis, the Walker and Midway!” Franklin Art Works is another consistently strong gallery here. They're showing work right now by Lisha Bai, an artist I included in a small piece I curated. Then we could maybe do a visit to Chris Larson's studio. He's an artist based here that I'm increasingly obsessed with.

ROLU with ERIC TIMOTHY CARLSON

-----------------------------





ROLU, rosenlof/lucas, ro/lu is a design studio located in Minneapolis, Minnesota that's focus is on modern residential landscape design and installation. It's practice also extends to exterior design and collaborative architectural projects as well as urban planning work and public art. The studio was founded in 2003 by Matt Olson and Mike Brady and currently has four members and a summer intern from the environmental design program at the university of Minnesota.

rolu blog is about all the things that inspire us architecture / art / music / thoughts we encourage you to participate and we hope you enjoy it......




---------------


in New York this weekend, check out:

NOHO NEXT..... The Noho Design District presents its second annual emerging talent showcase: Noho Next, featuring the work of nine up-and-coming designers and studios. Fort Standard, Brendan Ravenhill, RO/LU, Iacoli & McAllister, Lukas Peet, and four RISD students are presenting new and recent furniture, lighting, and objects.

The American Design Building at Great Jones Lumber, 45 Great Jones Street
Friday May 13 – Monday May 16, 12PM to 7PM

------------------------------

You have read this article blog meet blog / Matt Olson of Rolu / noho next / ROLU interivew / Rolu new york / YHBHS and ROLU with the title May 2011. You can bookmark this page URL http://gigibytes.blogspot.com/2011/05/a-slow-conversation-with-rolu.html. Thanks!

O B J E C T S

Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet
vs
Arik Levy

"For all of Dubuffet's desire to bring art to the people, to endow it with true creativity, to transcend and diversify the hierarchical structure of the art establishment, Dubuffet's enterprise is scarred by contradictions of value. Dubuffet's rejection of culture is hardly a unique position; it solidifies his role as an avant-garde artist instead of positing him on the cultural margins next to the makers of ART BRUT ." (here)












Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet
vs
Arik Levy


1. Dubuffet's sculpture
2. Arik Levy's lamp

"One might say that Dubuffet is just another modernist doing what modernists typically did before the 1970's. Modernism reveals a tendency among artists to be influenced by and/or idealize groups and individuals external to the dominant society.

It must be emphasized that when Dubuffet spoke of art brut, or primitivism, or madness, he did so as a member of the art world which was societally external to the people he discussed. We do not hear the voices of the people who made the work, we do not see the work; in short, we are not provided with any other interpretation except that of Dubuffet. Dubuffet's discourse about art brut puts him in a dominant position to it--as the describer, he assumes the power of its definition. He might extol the virtues of art brut, it might have been the seat of originality or authenticity for him, but at the same time, it is something that he is discussing, explaining, defining. That art brut needs to be described, that Dubuffet was compelled to speak about it, reflects its inferiority--it needs a voice, his voice, and has none of its own. Art brut's exteriority to the cultural art establishment is overcome through Dubuffet's narrative which positions and explains it..."

taken from here..





--------------



"What’s most interesting about Arik Levy’s work is how conscious he is of trying to give objects a ceremonial or ritualistic quality. He hangs around in shops listening to people, trying to understand why they do or don’t buy something. In a world where everyone moans about storage space, Levy aims to appeal to that emotional impulse that he describes as “I gotta have it”. He could be quoting Ettore Sottsass, who famously advocated the poetic life of objects, with this description of his vase and candleholder: “When a vase is without a flower, what do you do with it? This doesn’t look like a vase when you don’t have a flower in it, it doesn’t look like a candlestick when you don’t have a candle in it. And this is important because it makes people want to live with the object and not to have a candlestick.”

(here)









-----------------------

You have read this article arik levy / dubuffet with the title May 2011. You can bookmark this page URL http://gigibytes.blogspot.com/2011/05/o-b-j-e-c-t-s.html. Thanks!