DBA 98 PEN
by Aimee Walleston / May 30th, 2010
Whilst drinking an iced coffee from a plastic cup I’ll toss devil-may-care into the trash today, I became absolutely sickened by watching the live feed of the BP oil spill gushing into the sea. Am I a hypocrite? Of course I am. I’m human. As a species, we have a frightening blind spot toward the ways in which we each personally contribute to the eventual failing of this planet to sustain itself. We can “think green” as a cool trend, or even as a silly, meaningless trend, but until we can actually accept some individual accountability for our own undisclosed crimes of ecological carelessness, this world will continue to overheat, rot and eventually peter out. Ergo, using environmentally sound things like the new 98 pen from DBA, which is constructed of 98% biodegradable, compostable potato-based plastic (as opposed to traditional pens, which are made with non-biodegradable petroleum-based plastics) is something one should think about practically (i.e. go buy a bunch), versus idealistically (i.e. think they’re cool but remain devoted to your felt-tip). The pen, which is also made with a non-toxic ink, is being celebrated right now with a silent auction, featuring ink-on-paper prose and illustrations by talents including Cynthia Rowley, Susan Kirschbaum (who has produced for the auction a very un-PC take on chick lit, titled “Chic Shit”), and my favorite: artist Adam Dugas’ charming illustrations of the last 27 films he watched. Proceeds from the auction go to benefit Riverkeeper, an organization that is working to clean up NYC’s waterways. And while auctions eventually end, the idea of continually using a earth-friendly disposable pen probably benefits, equally, the planet and one’s conflicted state of mind.
Find the DBA 98 auction here: http://www.dba-co.com/riverkeeper
Artwork by GK Reid
DARCEL DISAPPOINTS
by Caroline Clements / May 26th, 2010
Everyday feels like the 5th floor of a 6 floor walk up. Sigh. Maybe it’s because I am a sourpuss or maybe it’s because I live on the 6th floor of a building with no elevator. For me, being in New York is all at once amazing, frightening, bizarre, crazy, annoying, fantastic and just plain old bothersome. So it was with a feeling of empathy and plenty of common ground that I scrolled through the entire history of the Darcel blog. Darcel is an egg shaped cyclops character who lives in New York, casting a cynical eye on himself and his surrounds. He explores the everyday trivialities, documenting things he sees on the streets and the anxiety and confusion he feelings about it. The man behind Darcel is New York based illustrator Craig Redman, of Rinzen art collaboration.
Redman’s posts are personal diary entries of what he does in New York on a daily basis, and through his computer-generated illustrations, he puts his alter ego of Darcel through the paces of simple but unfortunate, only-in-New-York situations. It is so familiar that it makes you wonder is Redman Darcel, or is Darcel me? Sometimes someone walking directly in front of you at turtle speed makes you want to kick them in the shins, sometimes you are not so impressed by going to Guggenheim, sometimes it is confusing that junkies can shop at places you can’t, and sometimes the last thing you want to do at the end of the day is queue up at Wholefoods for an overpriced box of leaves. Like everyone, Darcel experiences all sorts of unpleasantries that come with living in this city, and there is something quite reassuring about knowing that you are not the only one who is frequently attacked by pigeons and often having a certifiably miserable day.
Several stylemakers have cottoned on to the charm of Darcel’s sad smile, and Colette in Paris has been collaborating with the artist (for several years in fact). But for the first time they have dedicated an entire exhibition to him. And a miserable day to you too is an exhibition of paintings, prints, sculpture, animation and blogging, which is on now until the 29th of May. Better get to France tout suite.
http://www.darceldisappoints.com/
http://www.craigredman.com/
http://www.rinzen.com/
INEZ VAN LAMSWEERDE & VINOODH MATADIN
by Jonathan Shia / May 25th, 2010
It is perhaps the ultimate testament to a photographer’s vision when the images they produce become as famous as their subjects, à la Bert Stern’s infamous photographs of Marilyn Monroe. To that end, it’s hard to think of either Björk or Antony Hegarty without instantly recalling one of Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin’s stark, emotive black-and-white portraits. And it’s even harder to believe that it’s been twenty-five years since the Dutch duo first began producing their iconic photographs. From their first collaboration in 1986, the team have created a wealth of memorable editorials, campaigns, and celebrity portraits that have pushed fashion photography in myriad new directions. Their fashion stories, beginning with a technologically innovative shoot for (now sadly defunct) The Face in 1994, have gone on to help define the look of many contemporary magazines. Their advertisements, for brands as varied as Yves Saint Laurent, Balmain, and Louis Vuitton, have played off the duality between object and desire that is one of the pair’s idées fixes.
Just in time to celebrate their quarter-century mark, the Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam–in the pair’s former hometown before a 1995 relocation to New York–is presenting Pretty Much Everything–Photographs 1985-2010, a comprehensive survey featuring 275 of the duo’s striking, conceptual works. The show, designed by M/M Paris (Inez and Vinoodh’s longtime collaborators, most memorably for their 2001 collage-driven Balenciaga campaign), eschews the chronological set-up of most mid-career surveys, opting instead for an organization that revolves around personal and romantic felicities and coincidences, drawing connections between images that span the pair’s career. To accompany the exhibition, the pair will be releasing their first monograph next spring, a two-volume set containing a momentous 666 photographs. How’s that for a quarter-life crisis?
Pretty Much Everything–Photographs 1985-2010 is on view at the
Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam from June 25 through September 15.
CONFETTI SYSTEM
by Caroline Clements / May 14th, 2010
Confetti System have a dream job: they make party decorations for a living. Known mostly for their large diamond-shaped piñatas, which have been seen in window displays in Opening Ceremony and Urban Outfitters, at runway shows for United Bamboo, and on stage with bands including the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Beach House, the duo (Julie Ho and Nick Andersen) can typically be found in their West Village studio, cutting tissue paper into strips for the fringing on large garlands which hang from the roof. “It all starts with just flat sheets of tissue paper and we usually have an idea of how we want it to look but it kind of evolves while we’re building. It’s like we look at it over a few days in the studio,” Julie comments.
RICK OWENS
by Aimee Walleston / May 8th, 2010
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about The Doors’ Jim Morrison and the artist Stewart Home, and lo and behold, up pops a new exhibition by the gentleman who could have been their love child (should two men be allowed to reproduce). Rick Owens made his name in the late ‘90s as a fashion designer who took the dark shadows of dystopic, Morrison-esque California (the designer’s native state) and alchemized them into tissue paper-thin leather jackets and denim with an engagingly undernourished silhouette. Always meeting his ‘70s West Coast aura with neo-Gothic elements culled straight from Père Lachaise, the designer has lately been applying his signature Eurofornia aesthetic to furniture, creating sculptural, material-driven pieces that will be on view at a new show opening tomorrow at Salon 94. Meant to emulate the designer’s Parisian boudoir, the exhibition features a daybed constructed in part from a huge block Alabaster–which practically begs for a psychic rendering of Vincent Price en repose. While the title of the show, Pavane for a Dead Princess, is culled from French fin de siècle composer Maurice Ravel, it reminded me of English artist Stewart Home’s 2002 book 69 Things to Do with a Dead Princess. Home is a conceptual provocateur whose body of work included SMILE, a magazine that anyone, anywhere could publish at any time. In his heyday, Home created a highly idiosyncratic practice that blended humor and darkness with a heavy dusting of ‘80s and ‘90s postmodern pastiche–aligning him, in non-conformist spirit at least, with Owens, who found an early muse in performance artist Kembra Pfahler and who has always been fashion’s most reliable rebel. And he does sofas? Yes please.
Pavane for a Dead Princess opens on May 8 at Salon 94, 12 East 94th Street NYC
PAPER RADIO
by Caroline Clements / May 3rd, 2010
A new audio journal based out of Melbourne, Paper Radio is it is neither made of paper nor a radio. But it acts just like both. Streaming prerecorded literature online, Paper Radio is materialising something they felt was missing from our headphones: a contemporary podcast reflecting a unique antipodean culture, with high production values, custom sound design and illustration for each episode.
Told she had a “good face for radio” while working in scientific journal publishing, Jessie Borrelle, one part of executive producer duo, said she would have died of boredom if she hadn’t stumbled across This American Life while at work. “Nothing can deaden the soul like data entry, and there is nothing that makes data entry bearable like good radio.” So began her entry into the world of radio and she began devouring American-based podcasts/radio shows like The Moth, Wiretap (from CBCC Canada) and the New Yorker Fiction podcast as well as Radiolab and NPR in general. “There is a fairly rabid fan base here in Australia. I know a lot of people, including myself, who would like to get trapped in an elevator with Ira Glass.”
SCOTT CAMPBELL
by Magnus Berger / April 28th, 2010
After making a name for himself as a tattoo artist, with clients including the late Heath Ledger, Courtney Love and Marc Jacobs, about five years ago Scott Campbell began exploring drawing, painting and sculpture. While still keeping flesh his main canvas, Campbell’s artistic practice has found another home: the gallery. Thursday night Campbell will have his first solo presentation in New York City, titled “If You Don’t Belong, Don’t Be Long.” His aesthetic is rooted in his background as a tattoo artist, as well as in the culture surrounding American tattooing, and features pieces with ornamented scripts and classic motifs like skulls and hearts carved out of stacks of US Dollar bills. Although this theme has been visited before, the approach of layered notes creating three dimensional shapes, like a topographic map, feels new. As with any artist that lacks formal training or comes already established in another field he is judged in a different light in the art world (NY times featured him in their Style section rather than in Arts). But then where do you draw the line here, when most art that is trying hard to be provocative and unconventional is, in many cases, more about the message and the concept rather then the piece itself? I doubt that this bothers Campbell and his fans. His work should be looked at as single pieces and judged thereafter, regardless of what category it falls into.
If You Don’t Belong, Don’t Be Long is running April 29 – May 30, 2010 at OHWOW, 109 Crosby street in New York.
THE LOCAL FIRM
by Alastair McKimm / April 28th, 2010
WHEN DID YOU FIRST BECOME INTERESTED IN FASHION?
I was 16.
WHAT IS YOUR DESIGN BACKGROUND?
I studied at Beckmans College in Stockholm, then assisted at Whyred, going on to Acne and Tiger of Sweden where I designed menswear.
WHERE DO YOU SEEK INSPIRATION?
Art, architecture and street fashion.
WHAT ARE YOUR OPINIONS ON ORIGINALITY IN FASHION DESIGN?
Originality comes with a free mind.
DO YOU RELATE YOUR LIFE EXPERIENCES TO YOUR DESIGN WORK?
I think design work makes an impact on life experience, designing for me is a way of life. It is my day to day life and my long term goals.
WHO HAS BEEN THE BIGGEST SUPPORT IN YOUR DESIGN CAREER?
My boyfriend.
HOW DO YOU SEE THE FUTURE FOR INDEPENTENT DESIGNERS?
Access to the global market is growing which offers opportunity for small businesses. This creates new challenges such as creative marketing.
HOW DO YOU MEASURE SUCCESS?
In happiness and in creative goals.
WHAT WAS THE LAST ART SHOW YOU WENT TO?
Åsa Cederquists “Vo-ca-bu-la-ry” at Wetterling Gallery in Stockholm.
WHAT WAS THE LAST TRACK YOU LISTENED TO?
Paul Kalkbrenner “Sky and Sand”
WHAT WAS THE LAST GIG YOU WENT TO?
Lykke Li.
WHAT WAS THE LAST FILM YOU WATCHED?
Men Who Hate Women.
Photographer: Amy Troost
Stylist: Alastair McKimm
Hair: Bok-Hee / Streeters
Make Up: Sil Bruinsma / Streeters
Model: Meg McCabe / Marilyn
Stylist Assistants: Zara Zachrisson & Michael Vendola
