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Category: Europe

Enzo Mari’s Autoprogettazione

Published September 5, 2014

Enzo Mari’s Autoprogettazione project of 1974 is a brilliant approach to home built and moderate design home furnishing. Of the many ideas around the Autoprogettazione is that you make your own furniture, save money, use your hands and build with a minimal approach to tools. In a word, extreme self sufficiency. with a high design approach. It has echoes of Arte Povera as well as american mid-century aesthetic in the approach.

The furniture based on the designs of the Autoprogettazione are constructed from standardized pine, all of the same width and thickness, and built making a very stable and long lasting piece of furniture. This approach also maximizes the material use while minimizes material waste. This is something that Mari has always approached in a very serious way – even with his least serious designs.

As I learned more about the Autoprogettazione the more I found myself thinking about furniture as a system (as well as sculpture as a system). I then spent a bit of time designing furniture that would be built as a modular system of using the same dimensional lumber that would be made with simple tools and primarily 90 degree cuts to the wood. I should also note, that as of this writing, I have yet to build one of my own designs of said furniture.

While I try to think that I know quite a bit, I don’t know everything, the place I was first alerted to the “Autoprogettazione” is via Greg Allen (greg.org) and his version of the EFFE table. I was actually looking for Ikea hacks (his table is that as well) and suddenly I found myself down the rabbit hole as it were.

More and more I find these ideas from the late sixties and early seventies to be far more contemporary and forward thinking than much of what seems to pass for the contemporary design of today. That is not to say that I find todays modern design bad per se, I do however find much of todays designs more towards just being interesting consumer products. Mari’s Autoprogettazione work to me is powerful and subversive, while understanding the personal nature of daily design.

Resources: 
Enzo Mari, Autopregettazione?, 1974 (PDF)
Greg Allen’s EFFE MarixIkea table

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Die Welt – The Artist Editions

Die Welt – The Artist Editions

Published April 13, 2012

I like to admit it when I’m late to the game and in this case it’s by a few years. I was over at greg.org recently and stumbled over the post about the Elsworth Kelly issue of Die Welt, in which every illustration in the newspaper is a Kelly image. After kicking around on Die Welts website I realized that there are probably electronic back issues available of the paper.

A few moments later I discovered that George Baselitz had also done an issue for them as well.

So color me impressed. Pretty interesting take on the use of “High Art” in the arena that is usually looking for context specific visual documents, and in its place we get Kelly and Baselitz. I never really thought that a Kelly artwork would be a good for the news about soccer. I guess you learn something everyday.

You can download a PDF version of these issues: Kelly | Baselitz

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Anthony Wilson is still missed.

Published October 27, 2010

Factory Records founder Anthony H Wilson died in August 2007. Just over three years later, a memorial headstone designed by Wilson’s long-term collaborators Peter Saville and Ben Kelly was unveiled in The Southern Cemetery in Chorlton-Cum-Hardy, Manchester.

The black granite headstone carries a quote, chosen by Wilson’s family, from The Manchester Man, the 1876 novel by Mrs G Linnaeus Banks (aka Isabella Varley Banks), the story of one Jabez Clegg and his life in Victorian Manchester.

Tony Wilson’s coffin is “Fac 501”.

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Linder Sterling and Jon Savage: The Secret Public / Punk Montages, Photography and Collages 1976-1981

Published May 24, 2010

“London’s Outrage” (a zine or samizdat – depending on your terminology) was produced in November 1976 in Manchester, England. Clearly under the spell of the new music of the day it was done in two days. London’s Outrage was influenced by other publications, especially Sniffin’ Glue, Who Put The Bomp, Bam Balam, and, on the visual side, Claude Pelieu and John Heartfield.

The first issue of “London’s Outrage” was 50 xeroxed copies and 1000 printed issues. Issue number 2 (all photos and montage set in Notting Hill, Ladbroke Grave and Notting Dale) — only 50 copies xeroxed were sold.

However the collages (or photomontages) they made speak distinctly about a time when pop culture, especially pop culture was a far more dangerous place than it is today. I’m not going to bore with what was – you can read about that anywhere – but here is the main thing you should be aware of…

This approach was everywhere at the time, and it may have created Richard Prince. (accidently, of course)

I don’t want to dismiss the work when I say “This approach was everywhere” in fact I believe that to be one of it’s strengths. The “rip it up and start it again” aesthetic is core to the visual history of Punk. What makes these a bit different is that while these images have a relationship with “outsider art”, ready-mades and found art, at the same time they comment upon sexuality, consumer consumption, and deep social commentary. While many of their contemporaries used this method in a far more decorative approach.

I think it is this crossroads that makes the images from The Secret Public stand apart from the graphics of other punk/new wave designers like Jamie Reid and Barney Bubbles. Where these artists have a visual dialog that has easily entered the mainstream in recent years – the cool sheen of Sterling and Savage’s images reflect an intuitive and darkly sardonic worldview.

Manchester, so much to answer for.

Images in the show expand beyond just London’s Outrage to include work done in Manchester for bands like the Buzzcocks, Magazine (Howard DeVoto’s band after he would leave the Buzzcocks) and for The Factory (in the near future that night club would spin out to also become a legendary music label).

I will admit to being “a bit” of a factory records fan – of great interest was one of the early fliers that Tony Wilson made for The Factory (at top). Even more interesting as this style is clearly anathema to the visual language that Peter Saville would later go on to produce for The Factory, and become world famous for. (within design circles) It’s inclusion certainly brings an additional bit of grit to the pristine sheen that The Factory became known for.

THE ARTISTS:
John Savage’s writing has been in the forefront of my memory since the very early eighties, where I read him in magazines like Melody Maker and The Face. Recently he is probably best known for his book England’s Dreaming.

I will admit to knowing nothing about Linder Sterling before walking into this exhibit.

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Part of this article references information from Andrew Gallix’s 2002 interview with Jon Savage in 3 A.M. magazine.

Linder Sterling and Jon Savage: The Secret Public / Punk Montages, Photography and Collages 1976-1981

Boo-Hooray
c/o The Steven Kasher Gallery

521 West 23rd Street
New York, NY, 10011

EXTENDED PLAY: The show catalog is online (here) if you are unable to attend.

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Van Gogh’s Favorite Painting

Published April 29, 2010

The Van Gogh museum is currently restoring one of the planets favorite paintings; Van Gogh’s “The Bedroom” (sometimes called “The Bedroom at Arles”). What is noteworthy about this is the blog that the museum has dedicated to showing the process from beginning to end.

The site has been there from the beginning, from posts about the trolley that moved the painting, to the condition of the stretcher. Complete with photos of the condition of the tacks that hold the painting to the stretcher – as well as the back of the painting and stretcher. It also highlights a previous version of restoring the painting and how those corrections are fairing.

I’m impressed by the very nature of using the blog as a tool for allowing an audience that is interested in seeing the work being done – but really has no reason to be allowed to see it done, see it up close. It’s not really transparency but it is a great record and fantastic behind the scenes peek.

While not updated everyday, it is certainly worth a few minutes of your time. Follow this link for the English language version.

All Photos from the Van Gogh Museum’s blog.

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