a leaning cabinet and a leaning drawing.

Biedermeier was an influential style of furniture design from Germany during the years 1815-1848, based on utilitarian principles.


He (Mark Grotjahn) wanted to talk about how perspective skews perception and how paint adheres to surface.
















"The Biedermeier style was a simplified interpretation of the influential French Empire Style of Napoleon I, which introduced the romance of ancient Roman Empire styles, adapting these to modern early 19th century households. Biedermeier furniture used locally available materials such as cherry, ash and oak woods rather than the expensive timbers such as fully-imported mahogany. Whilst this timber was available near trading ports such as Antwerp, Hamburg and Stockholm, it was taxed heavily whenever it passed through another principality. This made mahogany very expensive to use and much local cherry and pearwood was stained to imitate the more expensive timbers. Stylistically, the furniture was simple and elegant. Its construction utilised the ideal of truth through material, something that later influenced the Bauhaus and Art Deco periods."




Catherine Wagley on Mark Grotjahn. via here....

"I would recognize Grotjahn’s work anywhere because of its quirks. Obsession with perspective and symmetry may not be original but it has never quite looked the way Grotjahn makes it look–combining slightly cagey precision with paradoxically liberal painterliness. I like to think of Grotjahn as a big fan who found a signature not because he had something cataclysmic to say but because, like many artists before him, he wanted to talk about how perspective skews perception and how paint adheres to surface. To have a conversation, you need a voice. But you don’t always need an aggressive, groundbreaking clarion call."

please read the entire article here via Daily Serving...







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the weekend warriors.... pt 4

christoper wool
(Don't spray it)
vs
the salvagers (silver lake)

"Cause it's getting kind of quiet in my city's head

Takes a teen age riot to get me out of bed right now"














Christopher Wool,"RIOT" ( this image was found on Susan's blog, Design by Proxy. )
Don't spray it, Spirit desire (face me), Spirit desire (don't displace me), Spirit desire, We will fall, Miss me, Don't dismiss me. teenage riot sir. you're gonna wanna listen.





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



Silverlake Architectural Salvage
might have moved to Pasadena, but they left this rotting plywood sign that continues to slowly disintegrate. I'm glad they did. For awhile, I thought it said the Silverlake Architectural Savage.....



"Since 2000, we have been offering some of the most unique and hard-to-find architectural salvage in the Los Angeles area. Antique and vintage items such as interior & exterior doors, plumbing (toilets, sinks, medicine cabinets, etc.), door & window hardware, interior & exterior lighting, metal & wooden casement windows, furniture, stained & leaded glass windows, outdoor & garden items and a vast array of ironwork and gates. Our inventory includes pieces taken from homes and buildings built during the Victorian, Arts & Crafts, Art Deco, Spanish Revival and Mid-Century Modern eras."









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You have read this article christopher wool / silverlake salvage / sonic youth / teenage riot with the title April 2011. You can bookmark this page URL https://gigibytes.blogspot.com/2011/04/the-weekend-warriors.html. Thanks!
Scout Regalia, echo park and beyond...
"celebrating the inherent design of everyday living."













These DIY planters are from local design visionaries, SCOUT REGALIA , also known as Benjamin and Makoto. With summer around the corner, and gardens being planted, these are perfect for the urban city dweller. After crossing paths with Ben and Makoto for the past year, we finally made plans to grab a beer at a new downtown beer garden, and followed it with some izakaya from Honda Ya. It's necessary to have conversations with architects and designers about their practice and motivations.


What motivates us to work?

Why do we do the work we do as designers?
Where do we want our work to take us?


All good questions, I think, to consider.... Scout Regalia has made a decision to have their work fabricated in Los Angeles, keeping it local and supporting local workers. Their practice inspires the way I think about design, and I look forward to seeing how they carve out their practice....

Want to see more of what they do? Go here......






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




SCOUT REGALIA
is a Los Angeles based, multitasking design practice obsessed with the design and fabrication of space, furniture, home products, graphic identities, material processes, and sustainable living. Established in 2006 with Benjamin Luddy and Makoto Mizutani, the design studio is dedicated to supporting local fabricators, and aspires to embody innovation, discipline, and inquisitiveness in all the work that is produced.



-------


"The SR Patio Garden Kit (DIY) is now available in a web exclusive color: Charcoal. This color brings to mind wrought iron structures with timeless industrial influences. Charcoal brackets will also complement the grey tones of aging wood in your SR Patio Garden.

This kit includes everything you need, less wood, to construct a patio friendly garden of various sizes and lengths. The SR Patio Garden Kit (DIY) comes with baked enamel heavy gauge steel brackets and a drainage textile made of 40% post industrial recycled content to help drain soil. Brackets are locally manufactured in Los Angeles and designed to minimize waste and maximize material. Our SR Patio Garden Kit is also available in our classic SR Green. "










keep up with them on their blog here....




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when rooms become songs.

ashley hick's interiors
vs
sadness is a blessing

















These scars of mine make wounded rhymes tonight
I dream of times when you were mine
so I
Can keep it like a haunting Heart beating close to mine
Sadness is a blessing Sadness is a pearl






below, image taken from here.

top image taken from here...




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good afternoon forms.
aka
the forms of the afternoon.















good afternoon forms.
aka
the forms of the afternoon.


a study
of a lamp from the 60's.
a kono table from the 80's,
and some neon from the 2007.






Massimo Vignelli Kono Table, Casigliani, 1984
neon wall text by Jonathan Monk, until then if not before.










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wasteland

very few artists are able to transform the world like Vik Muniz.....
how can we transform lives and the world through our practice?












Please watch this film tonight.... One of the most important films I've seen on the power of art and the power of thought. We can transform each other and this world, we just need vision, follow through, and heart....




"Filmed over nearly three years, WASTE LAND follows renowned artist Vik Muniz as he journeys from his home base in Brooklyn to his native Brazil and the world's largest garbage dump, Jardim Gramacho, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. There he photographs an eclectic band of “catadores”—self-designated pickers of recyclable materials. Muniz’s initial objective was to “paint” the catadores with garbage. However, his collaboration with these inspiring characters as they recreate photographic images of themselves out of garbage reveals both the dignity and despair of the catadores as they begin to re-imagine their lives.

Vik Muniz was born into a working-class family in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 1961. As a young man he was shot in the leg whilst trying to break up a fight. He received compensation for his injuries and used this money to fund a trip to New York City, where he has lived and worked since the late 1980s. He began his career as a sculptor but gradually became more interested in photographic reproductions of his work, eventually turning his attention exclusively to photography. He incorporates a multiplicity of unlikely materials into this photographic process.
Often working in series, Vik has used dirt, diamonds, sugar, string, chocolate syrup and garbage to create bold, witty and often deceiving images drawn from the pages of photojournalism and art history. His work has been met with both commercial success and critical acclaim, and has been exhibited worldwide. His solo show at MAM in Rio de Janeiro was second only to Picasso in attendance records; it was here that Vik first exhibited his “Pictures of Garbage Series” in Brazil.






go here for more info...










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the momentum of a fading color.
or
let's forget we melted together.




















the momentum of a fading color.
or
let's forget we melted together.






1. Queen, Making of a night at the opera.. more here...
2. Alexandra Angle Interiors... The X Bench
3. Aaron Parazette, Cloud Break, New Color Key Paintings May 6- June 11





McClain Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by Houston-based artist Aaron Parazette. In his continuing series of Color Key paintings, shaped canvases provide a playground for the artist's exploration of color relationships, irrational geometry, and perspective on a flat surface. In casting aside a rectangular support for modern shaped canvases, Parazette investigates the ability of a painting to create space and allude to three dimensions.

The Color Key paintings are at once playful and analytical: engaging the viewer's perceptual process through the implied perspective of geometrical shapes and lines. The diagonal line reappears throughout the paintings as an antagonist, causing points of tension where spaces seem to unfold and then fall apart. Hints of Parazette's surfing background also make an appearance as horizontal lines evoke the horizon of a virtual landscape.














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"let's live like we want to live."
aka
"if we could escape the crowds somehow"

david hockney

&
kenneth noland
















Architectural Digest ran this article on artist's homes in 2009.
(Go here for more homes...) pink foyers oh my!


1. David Hockney’s hillside home on the West Coast is a constantly evolving stage set for the artist’s highly individual ideas. “Everyone who comes here likes it. People don’t dare such colors,” comments the artist. Above: In the entrance hall, a painted wood cutout by Mo McDermott and Lisa Lombardi represents a character in Hockney’s production of The Rake’s Progress. The 1979 Hockney lithograph is Celia—Weary.

2. In an old Dutch barn where livestock was raised a century ago, a different sort of creation now thrives—the art of Kenneth Noland. The barn, which he converted into a studio, shelters the “stuff” of his art, as well as its “illusions.” Above: Arresting images by the artist and a landscape painting by Mondrian are arrayed on master bedroom walls. A Moroccan rug mirrors the diamond motif of a patchwork quilt.













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gregor schneider
vs
the modern dweller. (the family is in transition)

"This mystic tension is where the object and space come together, and where perhaps two different worlds might find common ground."













Gregor Schneider
vs
the modern dweller (the family is in transition)


images:
1. Gregor Schneider, black cube in Venice
2. Unknown tumbler image, a black fireplace, separating the kitchen and the living area. A modern intrepretation of the family dwelling unit.





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


"Gregor Schneider
has always been interested in the relationship between constructed and individual space. He reporposes the ‘Cube Venice 2005’ project presented for the 51st Venice Biennale, here with a new display positioning; the work was refused by the Biennale as it was believed to be potentially dangerous in terms of the political reactions that it might have aroused.

Cube Venice consists of a large, black, geometric sculpture, without an accessible entrance, resting on a base of 12x13 metres and standing some 14 metres, and it was designed to be anchored to the ground in St. Mark’s Square. The awe inspired by such an enigmatic and impenetrable volume is rooted in the artist’s reflections on the space of the Ka'ba, key site of Mecca for the Islamic faith. Yet the project is far from being a mere architectural reproduction. The great volume is in fact designed to be a sculpture made up of different materials serving a different purpose; and yet given its positioning in the light of the global events and unrest of recent years, the work is full of the tension resulting from its being an object linked to the traditions of modern Western art, one that searches for a primordial form going beyond the natural image, and the reflection of a place of worship for millions of Muslims.

This mystic tension is where the object and space come together, and where perhaps two different worlds might find common ground."




please go here to read more... all text on Gregor Schneider sourced from here...













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it's right around the corner.
LACE 2011!







I'm a huge supporter of LACE. It's one of my favorite organizations to donate time and energy. If I am correct, it's LA's oldest nonprofit arts organization.... Wow, that's a feat...

Last year, I was one of the guest curators for the annual auction, the year before I was in the wrapping room frantically wrapping works as they came off the Auction Block. It was really exciting to see these work up close.... And this year, I'll be attending, drinking, and bidding on some amazing art for a great cause. I hope to see you there....

I think the catalog will be going live soon, so online previewing and bidding will begin.... Works by Steve Roden, Liz Craft, and Shannon Ebner and more.... I'm gonna go broke!






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





The auction will also feature a limited edition artist portfolio featuring new work by Sarah Conaway, Lecia Dole Recio, Sandeep Mukherjee, Gina Osterloh, Eamon Ore-Giron, Heather Rasmussen, Steve Roden, Sean Sullivan, Melissa Thorne, and Liat Yossifor. Only one copy will be made available to the public.

CURATORS
Doris Berger, York Chang, Ryan Conder, Meg Cranston, Sarah Cromarty, Shana Nys Dambrot, David P. Earle, Amir Fallah, Luke Fischbeck, Howard Fox, Michael Ned Holte, Nina Katchadourian, Alex Klein, Molly Larkey, Lisa Mark, Karen Moss, Kristina Newhouse, Renaud Proch, Elysa Voshell, Liat Yossifor and LACE.

ARTISTS
Kim Abeles, Lisa Anne Auerbach, Justin Baldwin, Steven Bankhead, Jen Bervin, Alison Blickle, Jennifer Boysen, Kelly Breslin, Madison Brookshire, Delia Brown, Paul Butler, Juan Capistran, Guillermo Carnevale, Jamie Chan, Mariano Chavez, Fritz Chesnut, Young Chung, Alice Clements, Genevieve Coutroubis, Liz Craft, Dorit Cypis, Cali Thornhill Dewitt, Molly Dilworth, Sarah Dougherty, Chris Duncan, Shannon Ebner, Amir Fallah, James Benjamin Franklin, Gustavo Godoy, Joe Goode, Michelle Grabner, Tm Gratkowski, Iva Gueorguieva, Shane Guffogg, Lia Halloran, Channing Hansen, Doug Harvey, Kathleen Henderson, George Herms, Katie Herzog, Peter Holzhauer, Peregrine Honig, Channa Horwitz, Pearl C Hsiung, Ben Jackel, Corrina Peipon and Jill Spector, Alexander Kantarovsky, Flora Kao, Amy Kaps, Michael Kelly, Alex Klein, Becky Kolsrud, Shio Kusaka, Stella Lai, Molly Larkey, Margie Livingston, Sharon Lockhart, Karen Lofgren, Brian Lund, Jerome Marshak, Christopher Michlig, Allison Miller, Katie Murken, Karina Nimmerfall, Jeff Ono, Ruby Osorio, Arthur Ou, Jim Ovelmen, Mike Pierzynski, Max Presneill, Sarah Rara, Josh Rickards, Steve Roden, Miguel Rothschild, Shizu Saldamando, Chris Scarborough, Susan Silton, Alex Slade, Curtis Stage, Thad Strode, Kenneth Tam, Mateo Tannatt, Camilla Taylor, Cody Trepte, Chris Trueman, Marjan Vayghan, Erika Vogt, Ellen von Unwerth, Christine Wang, Chris Wilder, Lisa Williamson, Brian Wills, Andre Yi, Brenna Youngsblood, and more.





go to LACE here.....











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the tarp
vs
the wall

did i say too too too much dear?
look back and say that i didn't
look back and say that i didn't
come complete. (here)











the tarp
vs
the wall




1. Untitled (Tarp and Yarn Series) 2010 Inkjet Print, Nicole Belle. Enter her world here... It's fantastic!@

2. Wall, a monumental work by Tony Smith from 1964. A sleek mass in painted steel, Wall achieves harmony in concept and form. Smith frees Wall from its architectural function as divider or barrier and creates a stand-alone object that celebrates our relationship to pure form: a sublime viewing experience on a human scale. This special exhibition, the first presentation of a major work by Smith in Chicago in over forty years, will be on view at Wright Auctions

Courtesy of Matthew Marks Gallery. © 2011 Tony Smith Estate/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York













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this time it's gonna feel like forever.
(last night a disco jockey saved my life)

"I think people listen to a record and think I’d love to have go at re-making that, but they’re not necessarily considering the people who are going to have to listen to the thing. They’re going: “OK, let’s make it ten minutes long.” That’s really boring." (Harvey, here)


































this time it's gonna feel like forever.
(last night a disco jockey saved my life)


1. India Mahdavi
2. Paoli Masi Print

















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The balloon wants to fly,
but the White Cube holds it firmly in place.

The balloon wants to fly,
but the White Cube holds it firmly in place.














"the Belgian artist Kris Martin has installed a hot air balloon in the gallery, entirely dissolving the architecture. As if ready for launching, the balloon and basket are lying on the floor. In the main space ventilators blow up the balloon until the subtly flittering fabric touches the walls. A surreal effect takes place as the visitors walk into the room through the balloon's opening, as if entering a whale's stomach.

In this way, Kris Martin takes on a Romantic theme: the dream of flying in an archaic vehicle. Powered solely with flames and hot air, the balloon floats over the earth without making almost any sound. The installation in the gallery space turns this metaphor for freedom into a downright claustrophobic fantasy. The balloon wants to fly, but the White Cube holds it firmly in place."

text taken from here


go see the show at Marc Foxx opening this weekend!
















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William Christenberry

"this exhibit consists of a central, isolated sculpture, Memory Form (Church), 2011 surrounded by the artist’s signature grids of small format prints depicting architecture in the rural south"














William Christenberry
April 23st - May 21st, at Marc Selwyn



"Following his move to New York City in 1961, Christenberry held a series of odd jobs until a conversation with Walker Evans at Time-Life inspired him to begin photographing his regional home. Evans and James Agee’s 1941 book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, featuring images Evans had taken in Christenberry’s own Hale County, had greatly influenced the younger artist. The dialogue with Evans also laid the foundation for a lifelong friendship between the two men. Whether using photography, painting, drawing or sculpture, Christenberry’s interest in the themes and traditions of the American South translate into simple yet monumental iconography.

The exhibition at Marc Selwyn Fine Art consists of a central, isolated sculpture, Memory Form (Church), 2011 surrounded by the artist’s signature grids of small format prints depicting architecture in the rural south. Christenberry’s practice goes well beyond architectural documentation, however.

Its serial imagery speaks to the passage of time, the persistence of memory, and the emotional component of place. The artist’s decaying structures become almost anthropomorphic as they poignantly explore the relationship between man and his environment.





Marc Selwyn Fine Art

6222 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 101,
Los Angeles, California 90048










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We act for ourselves without any will to prophesize.

...
"Good taste really bothers us a lot.
What we care about is implanting doubt."












We are not at war against any aesthetic movement. We act for ourselves without any will to prophesize. Our hope is to give people the feeling of freedom in the choice of forms.

Good taste really bothers us a lot. What we care about is implanting doubt. We don't have any rules. What interests us is a personal and artisanal putting together of things.


- Mattia Bonetti








Mattia Bonetti
"Alu"chair, 2009
lacquered aluminum, upholstery with applique






(repost from YHBHS archives, August 2, 2010...)







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a conversation with Zachary Leener

...
"Since I have a lot of different interests, high and low, I try to exploit that. A sculpture that reads as potentially crude can coexist with one that's more sweet, or fragile. There are a pair of lovers’ graves (albeit dolled up in a sloppy international style).

And two blobs having a kind of unlimited conversation
.." - Zachary Leener










work in progress!
onwards!





There are many days after looking at art all afternoon you think, why? And other lucky days you think, WHY NOT? The day I happened upon Zachary Leener's tiny ceramic works at IKO IKO, I thought why not!! Zachary, Shin, and Kristin were installing these works in one of Shin's, aka WAKA WAKA, furniture pieces. Within Zachary's works are subtle shifts of color-play, ceramic forms that tickle each other with their stripes and confetti, & monuments perching high upon pedestals only hoping to reach two inches into the air. Confusion and delight set in quickly. I quietly snapped my fingers as I left, and for a moment, I felt home. - David John




"It was familiar to me, The smoke too thick to breathe, The tile floors glistened I slowly stirred my drink, And when you started to sing, You spoke with broken speech, That I could not understand, And then you grabbed me tightly." - DNTEL




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




Where was your mind when you were creating these works for this show? The first instinct I had towards your work is play and an element of fun.

Play is a really effective entry into the work. So is the ridiculous. I like to keep things casual — it disarms a viewer and belies some more complex ambitions.

The pieces do have a relationship to toys, tools, artifacts. And they’re shiny, so picking one up is a natural inclination. This may sound basic, but it helps when the work is alluring. You can’t really hand somebody an aggressively decorated, sexually charged object unless you’ve sort of won them over first.


Some of the works appear fragile, balanced, tiny monuments perhaps......

From an empirical standpoint, a forest is a high-density ecosystem covering some limited planar surface. If you Google “beautiful forest,” you’ll get a bunch of picturesque photos of trees. But if you scroll down far enough, you’ll see some crazy shit, gnomes and whatnot. I’m certainly involved in the production of something akin to that. My hope is for the work to encompass a similarly wide range of experience.

My mom refers to one sculpture as the “interlocking purses,” and a photo of that same piece got blogged by a Tumblr called “boner time.” Someone apparently thought testicles. Working in a narrow range of scale and with a cohesive set of surface treatments will naturally unify some pretty disparate elements. Since I have a lot of different interests, high and low, I try to exploit that. A sculpture that reads as potentially crude can coexist with one that's more sweet, or fragile. There are a pair of lovers’ graves (albeit dolled up in a sloppy international style). And two blobs having a kind of unlimited conversation. There are classic sculptural concerns of pedestal and object. And there are definitely tiny monuments, as well as miniatures of those tiny monuments. Regardless, I purposely keep the pieces teetering on the edge of the recognizable, the placeable, so that they’re no longer totally in the sphere of specialized experience. Ideally, you’ll recognize it but you’ve never seen it before in your life. So sometimes it’s difficult to talk about without totally deflating the magic.


What were some of the objects you first made in your childhood, if you can remember?

When I was young, I hated getting dirty so I would just draw nonstop.
























above WAKA WAKA's furniture that Zachary's works are installed inside.







How did your work come to IKO IKO, and how did the furniture pairing with WAKA WAKA come up?

I resisted the Internet for a long, long time. When I finally relented and registered a website, the only things I put on it were my telephone number and really terrible photographs of about half a dozen sculptures. Nobody has ever called except for Kristin. She rang me out of the blue and offered to show the pieces. We’d never even met before, but I was obsessed with IKO IKO. It was the weirdest, most fortunate thing. When we decided to do the show, Shin offered to make some sort of armature to house everything. They’re difficult pieces to show because they don’t comfortably fit any conventional notions of display endemic to contemporary art. Right away I decided that the sculptures and their accommodations would have to be inseparable but somehow maintain their independence. I found this shaker table in a book. It was all cherry wood and brass latches with separate compartments for storage. I showed it to Shin along with some photos of Oldenburg’s Mouse Museum. That was that. The man is long on vision. They’re equally perfect with the pieces and without them.


Do you work with other materials, if so which? and do you throw pots as well?

In the past I kept a relatively promiscuous relationship to material — allowing myself to do anything, whatever, whenever. It helped me to stay open. The consequence frequently being work that was unfocused and, for a time, that seemed like an asset. Gradually, though, I’ve reversed course. A sustained engagement will necessarily yield a complexity of result. I’ve been working with clay and at this scale for about a year now, almost exclusively. Unfortunately, that kind of restraint is not something that’s in my nature, but I’ve come to understand the need. Once I established the limits, the world really opened up. Lately, though, when I’m absolutely stuck, I work on perversely polite abstract oil-pastel drawings. They’re coming along. I have thrown some pots, but honestly, I haven’t figured out how to own it.



What sort of kiln do you use, and where is your studio? Is it ideal for making work?

My studio is out in Riverside, about an hour east of Los Angeles. It’s a haul, but well worth it. I try to get out there for a few days at a time. I’m on the second floor of a former Ramada Inn, in a gutted motel room that looks out over the Box Springs Mountains. It’s really deserty, and when the moon comes up, it’s like listening to Neil Young albums. Back in the 70s and 80s, there was a speedway nearby — the Riverside International Raceway — and it was a notoriously dangerous track. I’m guessing it would get pretty rowdy back at the motel, and you can still feel that energy sometimes. Technically, I’m a total cretin. I have almost no formal training in ceramics. Matt Merkel-Hess, a real clay expert, told me the work was good because a ceramist would never give himself the permission to make it. I use an electric kiln that’s about as complicated as a toaster, and a bunch of pre-formulated commercial glazes manufactured for kids and old ladies who craft. If I don’t bring my laptop and I don’t answer my phone, then the studio is ideal for making work. Somewhere I got the idea that serious artists don’t listen to music in the studio. It’s an easy place to focus. What’s not ideal is transporting loads of tiny, delicate pieces across Southern California in a pickup. It’s excruciating, and things used to break all the time. Now I line the cab with foam and it’s not such a problem.




















When I saw the works at IKO IKO, I immediately thought of Sottsass and 80 designers.

80s designers are incredible for their incomprehensibly hedonistic (and at the same time incomprehensibly serene) appropriation of Bauhaus essentialism. Sottsass was a visionary — all those Italians were totally bananas. I’ve always dug Peter Shire, being a California boy myself. Hopefully someday I won’t wear it so much on my sleeve.


What influences you to make work?

Honestly, If I don't work nonstop, I'm not very pleasant to be around.



















Zachary Leener's works
at IKO IKO
...Please, visit.....

1298 w. sunset blvd.
Los Angeles,Ca 90026 323.719.1079
HOURS : TUES-SAT 1-7 SUN 1-5

thank you Zachary Leener, Kristin, and Shin.....









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YHBHS interview
with Bec Brittain, designer, NY

"Right now is such a curious time for lighting technology, there are so many concerns: energy efficiency, quality of light, longevity of design, and many times they are in conflict."









SHY lamp, now at
MATTER in New York....





How did you become interested in LED
? "The quality of light", and why your attraction to working in this source?

The interest was actually first with fluorescent light; I became really taken by the idea that we were surrounded by these beautiful white lines, yet they had been relegated to the most banal and industrial applications. I wanted to break them out of that role. After much research, and an initial fluorescent prototype, their technical limitations made themselves quite clear; the LEDs are so nice to work with by comparison – the wiring isn't so complicated.

Right now is such a curious time for lighting technology, there are so many concerns: energy efficiency, quality of light, longevity of design, and many times they are in conflict. My first priority is to try to design things that can be passed on to grandchildren, which requires trying to design for future change. My current solution is to always make sure you can change the light bulb; I hope that this allows not only for burnt-out bulbs to be replaced, but also outdated light bulbs to be updated. A lot of LED lights don't allow for it, and I think in 20 years we're going to have a bunch of light fixtures in the trash. As for light quality, I think it's going to be really interesting how things move forward. LED technology is improving daily in terms of its quality of light. But I also think there's a real possibility of our eyes and our tastes adapting to new kinds of light.

I wonder to myself if we're all going to begin to like different colors because of how they appear under new light....
















Why do you call it the shy light? My grandmother is a complete inspiration – she has always had a great eye, and continues to do so past 90. She helped brainstorm about the piece, so I thought it only right to give it her initials, SHY, for Sarah Hitchcock Yerkes.


How did the idea for the LED lamps come about? Can you talk about your process, how you are able to conceptualize, all the way to production?


The SHY light was a nice confluence of the long tubular bulbs lending themselves to make these faceted forms which had been stirring around in my head for a while. For any design there are any number of tools I use, and I just try to find the quickest one for the task at hand. I made a ton of sketch models, using tubes and wire and plasticine, to test the overall shape. The first prototype was made with as many ready-made parts as possible, machining just one custom piece. I have continued to improve it in iterations, refining and making new hardware bit by bit. I suppose I'm a bit impatient and need to see the thing in front of me as soon as I can; I certainly prefer improving iterations of something to trying to get it perfect in the computer before doing anything. You can learn so much in the in-between steps.


Can you talk about your work's connection to Lindsey Adelman's work? How has she influenced your work? What has it been like working with her?

It's so hard to say how mine and Lindsey's work are connected; I'm so close to both things, I'm not sure I have the best perspective on the final products and their relationship. What is much clearer to me is the process. When I began working with Lindsey I was trying to decide where to put my focus; I have always been connected to the making of things, but I just hadn't found the right fit in terms of how to try and make a living at it.














detail shots of SHY....








The two most important things I learned from Lindsey are:

1. You can be a product designer and not make mass-produced items. Instead you make relatively few pieces, mostly by hand, and they will be appreciated by the client.

2. Relax about something being perfect the first time out.

She continues to change and improve her pieces as certain issues pop up. There's a nice balance between making it the best you can at the time and understanding that you can always make it better. My description of how I made the SHY light in iterations is definitely influenced by this attitude.



You were the Lead Designer at architecture firm WORK AC, and then shifted focus to design luxury door hardware for manufacturer H. Theophile. Currently, you are Design Director at Lindsey Adelman Studio while also building your own practice in product design.

Why have you shifted from architecture to product design?
Do you see this happening with more and more architects? Do you still have a desire to design buildings?

I began studying product design at Parson's in undergrad, and it was ultimately completely unsatisfying. At the time there was such a focus on mass production and saving resources in the production of the piece (flat-packing to save warehouse space, etc.), but there was no focus placed on the idea that something that will last 150 years will be more environmentally and economically sound than the 20 throw-away tables that you could have instead. I felt very outside what I understood to be the product design world. I left that program, and received a philosophy degree before getting the architecture degree; I used both of those degrees to try to solve this issue I had of wanting to make things but not feeling right about putting more stuff into the world. I tried a bit of architecture, a little furniture design, and some hardware. I think it was partly growing up and having more experience, as well as seeing some other product design practices that I admired, which threw me back into what I had wanted to do when I was 18. I also discovered I really like metal.



3 things we might never guess about you?

Don't we all need a bit of mystery?


You speak of a "as well as a more gradual appreciation of a larger idea. What larger ideas is your work moving towards?

The larger idea is specific to each piece. In the case of SHY, my interest in crystalline structures is really at the heart of it. The growth of crystals in entirely compelling to me – growth in a non-living thing is absolutely amazing! Moreover, it's fascinating the way each mineral has its specific growth structure which is consistent, yet depending on environmental variables each specimen is unique. SHY is constructed similarly, in that the hardware sets certain structural rules, yet it can be put together in a number of different ways.



Also, in June Bec Brittain will have a piece at TenOverSix on Melrose in addition to Matter in New York. Los Angeles will get a chance to check her work out in person! Cant' wait......








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Bec Brittain
was born in Washington, DC in 1980, Bec Brittain studied industrial design at Parsons, earned a BA in philosophy from New York University, followed by an architecture degree from The Architectural Association in London.

Brittain's work experience has been similarly varied as her education. She was Lead Designer at architecture firm WORK AC then shifted focus to design luxury door hardware for manufacturer H. Theophile. Currently, she is Design Director at Lindsey Adelman Studio while also building her own practice in product design.











thank you Bec Brittain!.......

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“What are you my colleague architects and engineers doing?
How do you use your super power given to you by the universe?


Why do you remain routine draftsmen, cocktail sippers, coffee gulpers and making routine love?

Wake up, there’s a new world to be created within our world.














Multi-use chair MOMA.... 1942







There are days when endless digging through the internet is triumphant. Little did I know when I stumbled upon this oak and linoleum form based furniture constructed in 1940's from the
MOMA Archives that it would lead to a fast moving train into space. Buckle up.

Frederick J. Kiesler,
1890-1965, I would have liked to have met you, but since I won't be able to, in this lifetime at least, I'm left with images and stories about the ENDLESS HOUSE.

What's the Endless House?
A good question!
Go here... It's an intro to Kiesler, the endless house, and more than I bargained for. A chance to jump off the grid for a bit. Not the power grid travelers, but the GRID. As I began to google further about Kiesler, I found that Peter Loughrey had mentioned him in his YHBHS interview about the Kiesler Nesting Tables. onwards....
















Frederick Kiesler and a cat....





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Functionalism is determination and therefore stillborn.
Functionalism is the standardization of routine activity.
Functionalism relives the architect of responsibility to his concept.




Frederick J. Kiesler
was an architect, sculptor, painter, designer, and art historian. He was tireless in his pursuit of a radical new concept of interior spaces: his dream was a polydimensional living space, an organic continuum in which color, form, and light, combined with magical and mythical themes, would create a new cosmos. His so-called Endless House, imagined and designed in the 1950s, though never realized, stayed with him all his life, and has fascinated and influenced other architects for decades. "Endless Space" reconstructs Kiesler's ideals of living and his concept of modernity with extensive illustrations from Kiesler's archives and texts about his theories and career.






taken from here.... oh how i want this book. to read in endless space.

“Continuity, the new principal of Architecture.” Endless Space.












ladies and gentleman, we are now floating in space.

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You have read this article corbusier reaction / endless house / endless space / frederick kiesler / functionalism architecture / moma archives / space is the place with the title April 2011. You can bookmark this page URL https://gigibytes.blogspot.com/2011/04/what-are-you-my-colleague-architects.html. Thanks!
enjoy the weekend in space, astronauts.....

Come over to my house

I'll pour some tea for us















"Come over to my house
I'll pour some tea for us

Faster than an astronaut
who's coming home to what
he left long ago
I've made this brand new bed for
you, I trust the things we do"






lyrics by Beach House
two images, sourced from unknown sources.

(images pulled for a project I am working on that
includes a conversation pit, and a fireplace.



enjoy the weekend in space, astronauts.....










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"when art comes home."
pt 3














above: Robert Rauschenberg
below:Tom Baril, Richard Serra, Robert Arneson


































above: Twombly, Schwontkowski, Sam, DeKooning, Woodman, Rothko, Basquiat
middle: Sugimoto
below: Dan Flavin







"when art comes home."
pt 3



all images sourced from Dranoff Fine Art's site....

Dranoff Fine Art was established by Glenn Dranoff in 1986, after 5 years working for other art galleries and print publishers. We have been based in Soho since that time, having moved to our current 2000 square foot gallery space in 1997.
Our specialty is Post War and Contemporary Art, with a particular interest in works on paper. We get the most pleasure from working closely with new or established collectors, anyone who is enthusiastic and interested in art to enrich their environment and lives. We love to educate, expose clients to new artists and ideas, and generally share the art experience with people of a like mind.


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