new book: ‘I DON’T KNOW': Interviews on Architecture and Craft"As it turned out, no one really knew what was going to happen." "Starting from ‘I Don’t Know’ documents a 2011 week-long workshop at Sitterwerk, St. Gallen, in which Studio Mumbai’s Bijoy Jain joined expert craftspeople from Switzerland to share the knowledge, techniques, and insights from their own practices with students, artists, and architects. The interviews in this book explore the creative potential of hands-on learning, local knowledge, and open experimentation. Celebrating the role of chance and collaboration in the process of making, Starting from ‘I Don’t Know’ makes an argument for bringing together the oft-separated areas of architecture and craft early in the design process."more here...----- new book : ‘I DON’T KNOW': Interviews on Architecture and Craft "As it turned out, no one really knew what was going to happen.... Read more » 8:03 AM
"Mr Postman, do you have a letter for me? Mr Postman, do you have a letter for me? A letter for me From my own true love Lost at sea Lost at sea" - the decemberists1. "Cheim & Read is pleased to announce Landline, an exhibition of six new paintings by the Irish-American painter Sean Scully. Begun in 2013, Scully’s Landline series resonates with newfound urgency and freedom. Thick horizontal bands of subtly-layered color provide his compositions with rhythmic pulse, while the interactions between striations of paint bristle with energy. Though reminiscent of the physical landscapes which inspired them, Scully’s canvases are activated by an emotional and intuitive terrain. The retrospective, Follow the Heart: The Art of Sean Scully 1964–2014, curated by Philp Dodd will be on view at the Himalayas Art Museum in Shanghai until January 25. This exhibition will travel to the CAFA Museum in Beijing from March 13–April 23. Scully is the first western abstract artist to have a museum tour in China. Scully also has major upcoming exhibitions at Pinacoteca do Estado in São Paulo from April 11–J uly 11 and at the Palazzo Falier in Venice from May 9–November 22."2. Source unknown --------------- "Mr Postman, do you have a letter for me? Mr Postman, do you have a letter for me? A letter for me From my own true love Lost at sea... Read more » 5:20 PM
Thomas Houseago 'Moun Room' is comprised of three chambers contained within one another. The spaces Houseago has conceived with 'Moun Room' – extending both within and outside the structure's physical walls – invite meditation upon movement and codes of behavior in response to architecture. The artist has described this work as 'a visual maze with a spiritual dimension" Hauser & Wirth is pleased to present 'Thomas Houseago. Moun Room', an immersive environment that represents a departure for the artist. Houseago is most widely identified with monumental sculptures of the human body, figures admired for their brute physicality and potent tactility. Drawing upon and deftly subverting classical sources, the artist creates forms that hover between power and vulnerability, old and new worlds. ----------- Thomas Houseago 'Moun Room' is comprised of three chambers contained within one another. The spaces Houseago has conceived with ... Read more » 9:13 AM
"Down the long driveway, you'll see it. " new photography book by Mary Gaudin I've followed Mary Gaudin's photographic work for a few years now and I continue to be always captivated by her eye and the stories that go along with her works. I was lucky and honored to have her do a guest post on You Have Been Here Sometime a year or so ago. Her post was about a modernist apartment she stayed in for the weekend. (Read her post here.. "It must have been a startling sight. This was postwar public housing. It was idealistic modernism...") A few years earlier, I interviewed Mary Gaudin about her "Lifebooks" (Read the interview here..). Her recent book, "Down the long driveway, you'll see it." is a continuation on these familiar themes of architecture, and how spaces affect our psyche. Homes and the stories that become them, and how they are reflected in the materials, the furnishings, and the age that happens as life goes on. Visit her website for more information here.. - David JohnDown the long driveway, you'll see it. "This is a book of pictures of modernist, mid-century New Zealand homes. The houses aren't new, they’re old and lived in. They can be a little dusty, slightly worn around the edges and all have what antique dealers like to call “patina”. But they’re perfect in the minds of the people who live in them because of what they represent, which when designed, was a better way of living. The idea for the project wasn’t so much to document the houses in purely architectural terms, but to give an idea of the way these houses were and are lived in, as well as showing details of the designs and the materials used in their construction. The use of native timbers throughout these houses has given a unique feel to the interiors. In the Martin house, for example, John Scott used rimu for cupboard doors and matai, a wood which darkens with age, for the handles. I also wanted to look at the way these houses fitted into their surroundings. All of the Wellington homes are connected to native bush, attracting tuis, fantails and bellbirds amongst other native birds. The owners of the Einhorn house, which backs onto the Karori bird sanctuary, sometimes see rare hihi feeding in their garden. The front of the Manning house is surrounded by an enormous pohutukawa tree which, from inside the house filters views out towards Auckland Harbour Bridge. The title of the book comes from a phrase in an email from Bruce Martin giving directions to his home at Bridge Pa. Filled with a lifetime of pottery both from Bruce and Estelle’s work, together with gifts from potter friends, the Martin’s home highlights the particular mix of craftsmanship and design which is reminiscent of all the homes shown in this book." Mary Gaudin is a New Zealand photographer living in Montpellier, France. Photographs by Mary Gaudin Text by Matthew Arnoldgo to Mary Gaudin's site here.------------- "Down the long driveway, you'll see it. " new photography book by Mary Gaudin I've followed Mary Gaudin 's photogr... Read more » 7:48 PM
Alma Allen"Many of Allen’s new sculptures, made of marble, travertine, and Claro walnut, weigh several tons. Despite their solidity, the works appear to undulate and vibrate, as if they are about to be sucked in or pushed out by some external force to the point of dissipation." Alma AllenJanuary 10 – February 28, 2015Opening reception: Saturday, January 10, 6–8pm"Blum & Poe is pleased to present an exhibition of new sculpture by Alma Allen. This is Allen’s first exhibition with Blum & Poe and his first solo gallery presentation in Los Angeles.Working primarily in stone, wood, and bronze, Allen’s mid- and large-scale sculptures had never been publicly shown before their inclusion and wider discovery in the 2014 Whitney Biennial. A teenage runaway without a high school degree, the self-taught artist began an initial period of intense hand carving using salvaged materials while often homeless. Demonstrating an attunement with imbalance and precariousness, Allen’s sculptural forms are a marked departure from iconic stone carvers Constantin Brancusi and Isamu Noguchi, to whom his untrained sensitivity for shape and material have been compared. Recurring forms in Allen’s work take a cue from quantum particles and body organs and make indirect associations to psychological pain and wonder.Many of Allen’s new sculptures, made of marble, travertine, and Claro walnut, weigh several tons. Despite their solidity, the works appear to undulate and vibrate, as if they are about to be sucked in or pushed out by some external force to the point of dissipation. In a series of bronze sculptures, the edges of an unknown trajectory are revealed, as tensive and fluid as the expanding universe. Presented in groupings and as individual forms, Allen’s sculptures arrive out of inherent chaos and chance provided by nature, as well as the precision of technological operation and mastery, all the while suggesting a range of anthropomorphic and visceral associations.The obstinate sincerity of Allen’s work belies a process as anti-scriptural as the work itself. After repeated injury from obsessive over-carving left Allen unable to use his hands for extended periods, the artist built a large-scale robotic system out of spare assembly-line parts and developed its proprietary software as a mechanized extension of hand carving. The feat of engineering with emerging technology, rather than relying on third-party fabricators, allows Allen to continue his devotion to immediacy and reckless intuition in the creation of labor-intensive sculptures. Instead of being Untitled, all works in the exhibition are referred to as Not Yet Titled. In the smallest curve in Allen’s works, and in their weighted sensuality and bare longing, is an ongoing consideration of the moment before loss and/or becoming."more here... Alma Allen "Many of Allen’s new sculptures, made of marble, travertine, and Claro walnut, weigh several tons. Despite their solidity, t... Read more » 10:30 AM