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This typographic map reduces London to the sum of its named places. The icons, symbols and hard lines representing churches, streets, rivers and parks have been expunged from the map, leaving only letters. London’s burnt off the earth yet it still exists as a psychogeographic entity recognisable by familiar place and word if not by objective figure or form. The map was an award winner at London Design Week 2007 and now a limited edition lithographic print of 100 is for sale. The poster is a wall-filling 60 by 40”, a scale that seems appropriate for the sprawling immensity of the city itself.
These cool table lamps from the BlankBlank design studio resemble upturned iPods, emitting notes of light rather than those of music. Entitled ‘Low Frequency’, the lights come in a range of designs and colours. As the BlankBlank team says:
“The light consists of 6 white planes whose reverse sides are printed with vivid colors that reflect colored light onto the preceding planes, as well as through the translucent enclosure. Front and back planes are available in light or dark wood laminates”
Sarah Oates is a young artist living in North-East England who works with furniture to create objects of symbolic and practical signifance. Her latest pieces are a collection of glass and steel tables fitted with throwaway objects such as wine bottle corks, foam and striped vinyl tape. The most captiving amongst the collection is perhaps her Polo Mint table - rows of the white mints have been fitted under a pane of toughened glass for a cool and sleek effect.
In commemoration of Felice Varini’s artwork in, or on, the docks of Cardiff, I’m linking to his seminal publication “Points of View”. The monograph illustrates Varini’s idiosyncratic work, playing with perception by using surfaces to paint geometric and 3-dimensional shapes. The paint appears as discordant, even violent, lines boldly painted at random across streets and buildings, yet when perceived from one particular vantage point, the works become powerfully coherent, transcending their immediate surroundings. The works though, are not posed as puzzles intended to be solved, but works that provide vivid meaning from each and every angle, validity and significance even in chaos and subjectivity.
Objects With Light’s latest release is a novel lamp at the junction of sight and sound. The Tweeter lamp uses reclaimed parts from stereo speakers arranged in a spherical or semi-spherical shape surrounding a bulb. Once the light is plugged in to an electrical source the lamp lights up and the speakers begin to play whatever music they are hooked up to.
The One Shot.mgx Stool by designer Patrick Jouin is now available at Unica Home. This rare piece is a portable, fold-away seat that was originally presented as a concept at the Del Mobile exhibition in Milan last year. The seat unfolds at the push of a button so that the legs entwirl outwards. This sturdy and stylish stool is perfect for jaunts out to the country to paint with a suicidal Dutch friend that you are sharing a house with in Arles. And don’t worry when he cuts his ear off, that’s totally normal.
Rene & Edgar have created this outdoor storage unit for dutch design market Frozen Fountain. Called “Herbal House”, it’s intended as an open cabinet in which to store whatever herbs you may wish to grow, from domestic staples such as Rosemary or Thyme, to more illicit varities of shrub. The wrought metal calligraphy adorning the sides of the cabinet consist of 12 English herb names often used in European cuisine.
These three carnets are covered with a charming French design reminiscent of the wholesome 1950s. The three designs feature floral patterns, a feather quill and an early modern motif featuring school kids arranged as if they were players on a fuseball table.
I’ve been away a bit. I was in an accident and woke up in 1973, not knowing if I had travelled back in time, was mad, or was imaginaing all of it while in a coma. But i’m back now, and i’ve taken this fantastic little journal home with me, a relic from life on mars. The Formata Star Notebook is subtitled with the words “Lined Notebook Germany”. Presumably because Germany is synonymous with neatness, order, rules, regulations, rows, lines. The kind of country that will drill a bit of discipline into unruly kids from Guadalajara. For us in the anglosphere, however, the journal appeals more for its kitsch, retro verve - the kind of louche, incongruous style the hipsters ache for. Boldly designed, it’s a Bowie song about the Berlin Wall, or a disco tune for Chairman Mao, or a Kraftwerk piece about the Zapatistas down in Chiapas.
Visionaire’s latest limited edition issue features a decorative set of 50 russian dolls designed by such luminaries as Kurt Vonnegut, Rita Ackerman, R. Crumb and Chino Aoshima. The collection is released at an initial price of $175 but as the stocks dwindle the sale price rises, so these toys represent a fantastic investment as well as an irreverent snapshot of our times.
The Black Honey Bowl by Arik Levy is based on the hexagonal pattern of the honeycomb. The combed effect provides the shell with structural integrity as well as an intricate and delicate motif dripping with the sweetness of honey.
While Ryan Frank’s Hackney Shelf takes its inspiration from the East End, it is an adulteration of urban contexts. The brutalist shapes, squares cut out arbitrarily, recall the brash and vulgar Malaga of the Cubists, the overbearing weight and height Le Corbusier’s Unite d’Habitation in Marseille, while the cheap plywood & chipboard surfaces recall rain-glazed favelas in Brazil. That is where Frank’s input into the system ends. The rest of the credit for these shelves must be granted to the anonymous street artists and vandals who spontaneously decorated the blank wood panels - deliberately left out at night in illicit locations around Hackney and Bethnal Green.
Francois Azambourg’s Brindilles Lights taper downward in twig-like twirl, mimicing the broken straws and curling stems of a brushwood plant. The luminous strands are made from a combination of LEDs and fibre optic cables, arranged randomly they light up like exposed filaments, burning brightest at the tips, or tumbleweeds catching the sun of the desert and the tincture of white sand.
This limited-edition monograph of sorts was released to accompany Cerith Wyn Evans’ ICA installation a few months back. It takes the form of a clear plastic flip album inserted with photographs Evans’ took on a recent trip to Japan. The photos often employ displacement or elision, scenes seem to be cut in half, sun glare distorts the colours and pictures are taken at unorthodox angles and viewpoints. The incongruoux mix of chaotic urbanity and serene nature also provides jolts of discomfort as one flicks through the photos. The individuality of the images then, seems enhanced - rather than an objective record logically filed, the photographs are uniquely peculiar visions that express a singular subjectivity. In looking through this piece we use Evans’ eyes to look, and rather than fixing upon the objective world we are alienated by it. Instead, we are forced to focus not on what we see but the ways in which we see. The albums are signed and numbered by Evans on the backsheet.
Tord Boontje’s line of lights for Unica Home are currently selling fast at the store and this is one of the stand-outs. These wonderful chandeliers speak of once lush foliage now crisp with the cold autumnal air, turned golden brown in the sun or to flakes of silver in the snow. The light emanting from within briefly touches the elaborate brocade and dusts the patterns with wintery light. The tones of earth, rust, barley and wheat are expressed by the choice of materials, grounding the frail designs with permanence and instilling a sense of perennial fall. A Hanging Gardens of Babylon curated with the colours of New England.
The release of this rare, collectible laptop bag has been timed to coincide with the Japanese tour for Beck’s latest album The Information. The bag is a limited edition luggage concept designed by Beck and French artist Genevieve Gauckler (who has also designed the album sleeve for Beck’s album). The bags come with a 150 page sketchel book featuring images from around 180 global artists.
These parachute hanging lamps from designer Chahiro Tanaka are currently selling at Australian boutique Via Alley. The lights are suspended in groups like dynamic sculptures of movement, falling bombs arrested at the decisive moment just as they approach the ground, or parturient biopods pungent with life. Thankfully this intimidating, haunting power is counter-balanced by the soft, cushion-like feel of the lights as well as the joyous and ambient glow that the lamps subtly and beautifully emit. These lights are as belligerent and as soft as a pillow-fight.
This monograph records Gallery Yujiro’s inaugural exhibition of last year. The exhibition, entitled “The Universe in a Handkerchief”, featured contemporary photography, mixed media pieces as well as digital sound sculpture. The intent of the show was to explore the humour and meaning inherent in whimsical moments of existence, in the patterns created by subconcious & idiosyncratic behavourial traits. The title of the show comes from an apocryphal collection of Lewis Carrol’s juvenilia and other, marginal, fragmented work. Comes with a reflective essay by show curator Anthony Spira.
Over a decade after the concept design for Marcel Wanders knotted seat was presented in Milan, the idea still seems as contemporary and cutting edge as ever. Now those in the US can purchase one of these unique furnishings - cathedras of barbed-wire lattice bristling with beautiful tension. The chairs are made from aramid and carbon fibers and possess a strong, taut frame whilst also looking as precarious and as dainty as the ornamental icing on a wedding-cake.
This multi-layered glass self-portrait of Japanese artist Keiichi Tanaami is a limited-edition reproduction of an original 1960s piece. Upon each pane of glass is impressed a single colour and single pattern so that when the panes are aligned a coherent image can be seen. The three dimensional play of light and colour as one’s eye moves across the work evokes Tanaami’s psychedelic background as well as the youthful verve of his days as Art Editor of Japanese Playboy.
Tord Boontje’s tempered glass table design for MoreSo presents a sleek black dining surface shot through with his fine etchings. Like the veins on a dead leaf the iconic patterns resemble a skeletal map, transcending mere ornamentation. The table is sustained by a steel base powder-coated in high gloss black.
The Corallo armchair is fabricated from hand-curved steel wire that has been finished with epoxy paints. This disjointed construction from some angles appears unsound, unfinished, unrefined - like a jumbled up mass of string thrown into a waste paper bin. Yet from other angles the inherent characteristics of the armchair are readily perceived, perhaps even more lucidly than normal due to their structural estrangement. Each chair is woven in a unique, irregular fashion, making each a veritable one-off.
The Kyouei Balloon Lamp is a self-powered, self-contained lantern that can be strung along in lines for a Japanese hanging lamp effect or grouped together for a clustered cloud look. The ambient lamps are made from a simple balloon affixed to a long lasting LED. The light is powered by lithium coin batteries so there is no need to connect the lamp to a grounded power supply.
The best, most atmospheric lights are those with a definable source and somewhat limited luminosity - the moon, stars, candles and even those little trailing LED lights that run along the aisles of movie theatres. notNeutral’s garden lanterns possess such a light, rather than flooding a room with blunt, overbearing colour, they are offertories of a delicate, beaded light. Said to be a mix of Aztec and Morrocan patterns, to me the designs are reminscent of a fine chantilly lace but with the motifs of Aboriginal Art - the fish skeleton, the emu foot, the woomera. The lanterns are made from metal with a black, oxidised finish and come fitted with a candle that shines through the staccato light-holes.
The Art-o-Mat Books are 200 unique flip books showcasing art from members of to the AIC (Artists in Cellophane) organisation. Each book is unique and includes 18 different and original artworks from artists such as Christian Pietrapiana, Guy Boutin and Nell Whitlock.
The Arts Council have produced a range of limited edition travel wallets designed by some hot contemporary artists. The wallets are standard British Rail size so perfect for credit cards or your London Oyster Card. Tracy Emin has done one, featuring her infamous pet cat Docket, as has uber-lesbian Jeanette Winterson, author of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit. The wallets are available at Oxfam stores in Notting Hill and Westbourne Grove (my ‘hood!) for a limited period of time, and will also be released to the public for free at a couple of PR stunts ’round the nation. If you can’t get to any of these places, then they’re also on Oxfam’s Ebay shop, but be quick - some of the best designs have already gone!
This innovative lamp is based on the aesthetic of the chemistry flask and glows with a simple, white light through the acid-etched glass. The Airswitch lamps are turned on and off by placing your hand above the light - the closer your hand to the lid, the dimmer the lamp gets, and vice-versa.
The elusive & empyrean cloud shelving system designed by the Bouroullec Brothers is currently being sold at Unica Home. The shelves consist of repeated circular modules that combine to form a shape not unlike the humble cumulus cloud. Stack the shelves on top of one another to create a vertical bookshelf or room divider. The stratospheric shelves are constructed from high-density polystyrene and come in 4 colours - white, light green, dark green or red.
These chic, modern designs make functional clothes baskets an integral part of a well designed room. Made of a soft rubber with a brash sheen, the baskets concentrate on deep, autumnal browns lifted by blasts of sharp yet bright coolness from the pictorial representations.
These lights glisten like winter flowers suspended on ethereal branch-like wires. The light element uses translucent envelopes fitted with electroluminescent film upon which one can write messages that will glow in the dark with a soft, ambient light. Using a dry erase marker, the messages can be wiped clean or kept on as long as one desires. The lights stand on either white marble blocks (recovered from the making of the Arco lamp) or a bundle of pure wool felt moulded into unique shapes.
These photo albums are wrapped in a soft fabric for a look halfway between a wallet and a moleskin journal. Suitably, these albums are small enough to carry around with you in your pocket or bag. They all come from Stacyhandmade, a designer/artisan who also makes wonderful, felt covered coptic journals in the style of the ancient Ethiopians or Egyptians, filled with smooth, sturdy handmade paper. The photo albums come in a range of covers, all possessing a stylish verve with fresh, pronounced colours.
The Wurst Gallery, that’s who. Last month they announced a load of one-off art products based on the theme of man’s best friend. Luckily there’s still quite a few of these unique artworks left.
The German Shepherd
This piece is entitled “A Policeman’s Best Friend”, it includes a B&W can with a bold logo and motto emblazoned onto it. Inside, a lump of Chris Ofili-esque ‘poop’, that seems to be made from papier-maiche. This one is designed by Emil Kozak, costs $100 and is available here.
This paper-like, tulip-leaved locket of love belies its rather strange origin. Though it looks soft and silky, the necklace is actually made from Hytrel, an industrial byproduct usually discarded in the process of manufacturing something else entirely. Studio 1a.m., left-field design group from Chicago, have embraced these emitted shavings and used their completely random and unique shapes to make a stunningly simple and sculptural necklace.
SuckUK’s Solar lamps are back. The sun jars sell out immediately wherever they go on sale but i’ve tracked down a supplier who still has a few left. They are made from an old fashioned killiner jar - traditionally used to store jams - a solar panel, rechargeable battery and an LED light. Simply leave the jar out in the sun during the day, and watch it come on as it gets dark. Perfect for those late summer nights when you don’t want the sun to set.
This is one of the most vibrant of Domestic’s Vinyl Wall Prints, a mix of fireworks exploding and silver sparks leaping upward like mackerel. It reminds me of a recent advertisement for Sony Bravia, where a bunch of Glaswegian tower-blocks have been rigged up with paint bombs. This wall graphic springs out like a geyser from its source, perhaps as the visual manifestation of an imagination busy at work at the desk. In this sense it reminds me of RW Buss’ ‘Dicken’s Dream’, the unfinished painting of a dozy Charles Dickens surrounded by the wonderful characters he is dreaming of. Perhaps this wall decoration will inspire you similarly.
British publisher Penguin have released a line of classic books with blank covers so that you can design your own front-page. You can send in your cover and Penguin will display the best submissions on their website and on flickr.
Craig Atkinson’s limited edition run of sketch books is just about sold out at Cafe Royal bookstore near Liverpool, but there are still a few of these one-of-a-kind books available. Each book is a unique record of sketches focusing on the household, featuring TVs, Polaroid cameras, garages, games consoles amongst other things. The paraphenalia of domesticity is lovingly rendered, yet tinged with a comical irony that subtly distorts and estranges familiar objects. The detailing on the electrical appliances for instance, dates the items as slightly retro in our streamlined age, and due to the fine relief of graphite these details stand out vividly. That which once made an item cutting edge now historices not only the item but our relationship with it.
Donna Brady’s gritty photographs of urban Brooklyn have found their way into the home as images printed onto lampshade. The hanging lamps use Brady’s pictures of street graffiti on dark, gloomy walls. Twice removed from their natural environment, the exuberance inherent in the colours of the graffiti is exaggerated and heightened, modifying the lamp light with their brash tone. Brady’s photographics are perhaps second-hand art, simply recording the raw & immediate expressions of street art, yet for this reason the pictures seem perfect for the medium of a lampshade - lit from beyond by second-hand light.
These two wall lamps do not shy away from attention but provide reference points for a room, domesticated installation lights that attract as much light as they provide.
The first is entitled ‘Edge’ - it’s an elided cube with panels lit in various bold colours. This is designed by Alessandro Mendini for Artemide.
Some of the best times in your life will be sitting on these - park benches. The ones in the Luxembourg Gardens are the best, watching kids play football, little toy dogs being walked by their little toy owners, joggers, families having picnics, lovers kissing and so on. In the summer the best bench is by the Fruit Garden, a good place to eat gelato or sorbet. In the winter there’s a bench by the Rue Fleurus entrance that is very pleasant, and good for munching on the chocolates you just bought from JP Hevin round the corner.
Now DMK have their hands on a rare, historic piece from Danish mid-century designers Wörts. You can sit down and contemplate the world in your own residence as if you were in the middle of a large city-park.
Sam Buxton’s latest take on the Mikrocube template is a garden to go with the much larger Mikrohouse. It follows the same principal as the house in that it is formed from a single sheet of steel which can be folded flat, or unfolded to create a box structure with intricate, foliate patterns of well-tended foliage . This is Paradise in the original Persian sense of an enclosed garden.
Viktor Shklovsky said the purpose of art was to “make the stone stony” while Carlos Williams urged that poetry “reconcile the people with the stones”. Myung-Ok Han, a Korean artist working in Paris, uses the energy of the rock in her art, her stones arranged as deliberately as a stone circle or Gaelic burial site.
Now a major retrospective of her work is available as a monograph entitled ‘Myung-Ok Han or The Objectification of a Poetics’, with an analytic accompanying text by André Depraz.
This book by seminal Japanese photographer Narahara is presently on sale at Galerie 213 in Paris. The publication records an historic time in Japan, as the country found itself inbetween a discredited Imperialism and the corporate tiger that would follow. As a relatively early work, Narahara’s obsession with European avant-garde photography is obvious, while a nascent interest in marginal communities is also visible, with both the disenfranchised and the cutting edge of Tokyo society recorded.
The Piece and Peace greetings card is one of the latest productions coming from Japanese graphic design duo D-BROS. The card recycles a variety of discarded mixed media to create a rough yet charming assemblage. Torn magazine pages, a tea doiley, lined paper and a Polaroid are amongst some of the scraps used to achieve the unified whole.
Tejo Remy’s concept chandelier is selling on Dutch by Design at the moment. The iconic hanging lights can be bought individually to create sole focal point or as a cluster forming a striking milk-float effect.
The final, and best (not to mention most expensive) bag featured today belongs to the Queen of Britart. WhiteCube Gallery in Hoxton Sq has its hands a very limited number of these exceptional, individual designs.
Onwards and upwards then, this day bag from London style Guru Lulu Guinness retails at £175. Perfect for travelling, the day bag comes emblazoned with a print of assorted travel documents - a boarding pass (going from London to the World), a UK passport as well as a postcard from Lulu herself.
Staying in L.A. but moving into slightly more expensive climes, this one-off special edition of ‘The New Shopping Bag’ designed by Dutch artist Amie Dicke for designer Susan Bijl is currently available at Peres Projects. Bijl has had huge commercial success with her concept of re-usable shopping bags and has displayed in New York and Tokyo. This one-off collaboration celebrates Bijl’s artful & stylish approach to neccesity by positioning the bags as works of art in themselves whose colours, contours and materials constitute a pure aesthetic form.
Fashion Illustrator Ruben Toledo has created a couple of cute totes for LA’s MOCA gallery, taking inspiration from the worlds of art and architecture. This bag uses Shigeru Ban’s Curtain Wall House in Tokyo as a design motif, and looks rather splendid.
I’m going for a handbag marathon today, and I am starting off with Anya Hindmarch’s iconic “I’m not a plastic bag” model. You may have seen the likes of Keira Knightley and Alicia Silverstone clutching one of these limited edition, environmentally friendly alternatives to the supermarket plastic bag, but now it’s your turn to own one. After the initial batch was sold out Hindmarch got to work on making more and these will be made available imminently.
***UPDATE***
After going on sale today (25th April) in the UK at Sainsburys, the bags sold out completely before 10am. The next chance to get your hands on these rare bags is the US release in June. You can pre-order your bag for $15 by calling one of the 4 US Anya Hindmarch Boutiques. The bags will be issued in a special blue colour, while a further release is scheduled for Japan, where the bags will be lime green.
Nuit Blanche are a new concept company mixing chocolatier and art gallery, launching limited edition runs of Chocolates designed by various artists. It’s Keith Haring’s turn at the minute and he has designed four little chocolates in a custom-made box. Hope they taste as good as they look.
