August 21, 2012 by collabcubed - 2 Comments

Stiletto Studios: Shopping Cart Chair

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One of our favorite pieces at MoMA’s Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900–2000 exhibit was this small shopping cart chair. This child version is titled Short Rest Chair (1989) designed by Frank Schreiner for Stiletto Studio in Berlin. Apparently a few larger, uncoated metal versions exist as well, titled Consumer’s Rest.

Originally a metal locksmith in the German armed forces, Schreiner later became a video artist and eventually, in 1982, started designing furniture and founded Stiletto Studios. The inspiration for Consumer’s Rest Chair came from a comment from Schreiner’s mother about wire-mesh furniture reminding her of shopping carts.

Update: The bottom left cart chair is not by Stiletto Studio.

Photos: collabcubed; eye magazine; atomic design; and neatorama

August 20, 2012 by collabcubed - 3 Comments

Dan Witz: Do Not Enter Project

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We went through the very quiet August streets of Chelsea last Thursday evening and stopped by the Jonathan LeVine Gallery to find a great show that included several works by Dan Witz from his Do Not Enter Project. The Brooklyn-based artist started the project in 2007, creating his own modifications – sometimes humorous, sometimes politically charged – of Do Not Enter signs and has since continued with the project in 2011 and 2012. The signs have been placed on the streets of Brooklyn, Vienna, Norway and Poland. The bald, white face that appears in many of the signs is Witz himself.

You can see some of Dan Witz’s signs at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery in NYC as part of the Detournement: Signs of the Times exhibit through this Saturday, August 25, 2012.

August 20, 2012 by collabcubed - 1 Comment

Sabine Ducasse: Melting Pot

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Perler beads—the small plastic beads that fuse together when ironed—were a favorite craft project material with Em and Dan for years, especially when they were younger. For a while we had stacks of the melted bead designs the size of coasters lying around, but attempts at more elaborate constructions proved difficult to execute without breakage. That’s why French designer Sabine Ducasse’s Melting Pot fashions are that much more impressive to us.

Ducasse used the beads to create East-meets-West armor style fashion; a melting pot of cultures with a literal take on “melting”. These amazingly well-crafted pixelated design pieces won the designer a scholarship at the International Fashion Academy. Nice!

via kerrysoup/the creator’s project

August 17, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

NYC Culture on the Cheap: Weekend 8/17

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Our picks for free and cheap art, music, performance, and food events this weekend (August 17 through 19, 2012) in New York City:

1. Music/Dance/Food– Lunch Break lunchtime dance party; DJ Michna at Le Poisson Rouge with free lunch and vodka. Friday 8/17 at 1 to 2pm. FREE 21+ RSVP

2. Food/Music/Sport – Jaguar Chill, Life-size snow globe at the High Line housing a skating rink including free skates, demos from professional skaters, and some Jaguars. Plus treats that (at least when we were there yesterday evening) included People’s Pops, Van Leeuwen ice cream, pulled pork sliders and more, as well as beverages, all free. 10th Ave and 17th St. Friday 8/17 12pm- 8pm, Saturday 8/18 12pm-5pm. FREE

3. Art/Beach – Rockaway Beach Sandcastle Competition Watch artists Ryan McNamara, Tom Sachs, Snarkitecture and more battle it out with their sand creations. Friday 8/17 at 3pm. 86th Street Beach. FREE.

4. Music/Art – Dumbo Summer Friday. An evening of music, art and technology underneath the DUMBO Archway with bands Bosco Delrey, Zambri, Prince Rama, and Javelin. Friday 8/17, 2pm-9pm. FREE.

5. Film/Party – Love Story by Florian Habicht. A funny meta-fictional romance. Rooftop films. 350 Grand Street. Friday 8/17, 8pm – 1am (film at 9pm).$12

6. Music – Though not exactly NYC, the Lackawaana Music Festival is just a Path ride away in Hoboken. Tokyo Police Club, Vacationer, and many more. Pier A, Hoboken. Saturday 8/18, 12pm to 1 am. FREE

7. Theater – Mormon in Chief. Unassuming Mormon, Connor Jorgensen, becomes the center of national media frenzy when his tweets about a Mormon presidential candidate go viral. Play by Matthew Greene. Saturday 8/18 at noon, Sunday 8/19 at 7pm. $15 in advance, $18 at door. Much more theater at FringeNYC.

8. Art/Photography – Lunch Hour NYC at the NY Public Library, Friday 8/17 and Saturday 8/18, 10am-6pm. Continues through February 17, 2013. FREE

9. Music – The Kills; Hudson River Park Pier 63, Saturday 8/18, 5pm. FREE

10. Music/Dance/Food – Jazz-Age Lawn Party on Governors Island. “One of the most memorable parties of 2009 and 2010” says the New York Times. Dress up in your best vintage clothing and head on over. Saturday 8/18 and Sunday 8/19, 11am to 5pm. $15.

Also, similar but totally different – Improv Everywhere’s zany Black Tie Beach. Saturday 8/18. Location to be disclosed Friday (today). FREE

11. Comedy/Performance – Upright Citizens Brigade All-Stars of Improv. East River Park Band Shell, Cherry St. and FDR. Sunday 8/19, 7pm to 8:30pm. FREE

12. Drink/Fun/Views – One of NYC’s best kept secrets: The WillyWall, Manhattan Sailing Club’s floating clubhouse sits in the Hudson River with a bar atop and beautiful views of Manhattan, Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Reserve Admiral’s Launch boat service to WillyWall which departs every half hour from North Cove Dock in Battery Park City. Fridays 5:30pm to 10pm. Saturdays 3pm to 10pm. $10.

Also in Film: Cosmopolis, directed by David Cronenberg opens. The director will be speaking at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center at two screenings. Friday 8/17, 6:30pm and 9:15pm.$13.

Also in Food/Music/Beach: Back to the Beach in Staten Island. Music, food and activities plus fireworks. Saturday 8/18 and Sunday 8/19. Noon to 9pm. FREE

Also in Art: Quay Brothers at MoMA. Great show. Through January 7th. FREE Fridays from 4pm to 8pm.

UPDATES…

Also in Comedy/Music: Heart of Darkness at Union Hall in Park Slope. Comedian Kate Berlant, music by The Bowery Riots and The Forgiveness. Saturday 8/18 at 8pm. $8 advance, $10 at the door.

Also in Film: Festival Express screening (documentary on Janis Joplin, Grateful Dead and The Band’s train ride together) at City Winery on Varick St. Sunday 8/19, doors opne 6pm. Film at 7:30. FREE

For more ongoing summer weekend suggestions see our previous Culture on the Cheap posts here, here, here and here. Also: check back throughout the weekend for possible updates.

August 16, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

FreelandBuck: Slipstream

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New York and Los Angeles based architectural firm FreelandBuck, run by principals David Freeland and Brennan Buck, has created an installation currently on exhibit at the Bridge Gallery in NYC titled Slipstream.

…Architects have used digital software to imbue structures and spaces with some of the same qualities as Da Vinci’s meticulous drawings: fluidity, undulation, instability and temporality. But while software has allowed architects to create novel, dynamic forms digitally, they have struggled to translate these qualities to the physicality of the material world. Slipstream is a physical structure that confronts that leap directly, translating a 2-dimensional digital line drawing into 3-dimensional space.

Alluding to Lebbeus Woods’ 2010 ‘Slipstreaming’ drawings of flow, the installation is a single drawing extruded through the gallery space and cut away to produce a set of interconnected spaces. The linear extrusion acts as both structure and dynamic visual filter, shifting views through the installation and between the spaces it defines. It’s integrity as a structure is masked by both its redundancy and bright coloration.

The exhibit runs through August 24th at the Bridge Gallery on Orchard Street.

Photos courtesy of the architects; Carles Faus; and the Bridge Gallery.

via archdaily

August 16, 2012 by collabcubed - 2 Comments

Slade Architecture Kitchen Cabinets

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Architects Hayes and James Slade of Slade Architecture (previously here) have designed a fun and clever set of kitchen cabinets. The wooden cabinet doors, coated in a smooth semi-gloss white finish, have minimalist outlined silhouettes of dishware and glassware etched into the sectioned panels. Very fun and a great centerpiece that catches your eye as you first enter the space.

Top photo courtesy of Slade Architecture; other photos collabcubed.

August 15, 2012 by collabcubed - 2 Comments

Tatzu Nishi: Discovering Columbus

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A couple of days ago we passed by Columbus Circle on our way uptown and noticed massive amounts of scaffolding around the Christopher Columbus statue. I assumed they were doing some repairs but, as it turns out, not at all. Em pointed me to the NY Times article that announced the new Public Art work by Japanese artist Tatzu Nishi, currently being built and due to debut on September 20th. The plan is to build a living room complete with couches, lamps and even a TV that surrounds the statue, six stories up from the ground. Visitors will be able to climb stairs or take an elevator up to the floating living room with Christopher Columbus’ head popping through the floor. Sounds very zany but very fun, too.

This is not the first time, nor probably the last, that Tatzu Nishi does something like this. Other similar ventures include surrounding a statue of Queen Victoria in Liverpool, England, with a temporary functioning hotel; creating a one-room apartment over the roof of a 14th-century cathedral — enclosing a bronze, angel-shaped weather vane — in Basel, Switzerland; and building a temporary hotel suite around the Merlion fountain in Singapore.

Discovering Columbus will be open to the public from September 20 to November 18, 2012. Admission will be free, but visitors will be required to reserve timed passes in advance through the Public Art Fund website.
UPDATE: FOLLOW-UP HERE.

Photos courtesy of the artist and the New York Times.

via The New York Times

August 14, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Straight Up: Cameron R. Neilson

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New York based photographer Cameron R. Neilson has photographed a collection of images with his camera leveled and pointed straight up. The series of photographs is aptly titled Straight Up. The abstract angles and shapes created by photographing city architecture this way is surprising and dramatic. Both recognizable and yet new. Though we tend to look up to some degree when walking city streets, ‘straight’ up is a less common angle. The concept for Straight Up started in NYC and has since grown to include cities across the country, and eventually Europe.

Straight Up will be exhibited at Openhouse, 379 Broome Street here in New York opening this Thursday, August 15th through August 22nd.

August 14, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Topographic Tweets

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English designer Richard Wolfstrome partnered up with Chalk Architects to create Topographic Tweets, an installation in the Chalk studio window for the Welcome Trail as part of the Love Architecture Festival 2012 in Brighton, UK. This ‘pop-up’ installation took 10 days from concept to finished execution.

Topographic Tweets invited tweeters to express an opinion, a view, an idea, contentious or otherwise, about architecture, which were designed into a typographic urban landscape. Strips of texts rising up the window in different shades of white, grey and frost give the impression of a skyline where the lettering, absent their counters (spaces in letters), ‘light’ up the architectural form. Fabrication and installation by Nik the Brush.

August 13, 2012 by collabcubed - 2 Comments

Piracy: Musician Mosaics from CDs

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These are impressive. Italian artists/designers Mirco Pagano and Moreno De Turco created these cd mosaics of seven classic deceased musicians for an ad campaign by U.S. ad agency TBWA and also an exhibition. The idea behind the project, titled Piracy, is that musicians are being brought down by internet piracy. The cds used in each portrait are that of each individual musician’s music. The musical artists include: Jim Morrison, Bob Marley, Jimmy Hendrix, James Brown, Elvis, and Michael Jackson. The typographic sculptures of the title are also well done.

Here is an animated video clip as well:

via visual news

August 13, 2012 by collabcubed - 1 Comment

Cool Pool at Holiday Inn Shanghai

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Jutting out from the 24th floor of the Holiday Inn Shanghai Pudong Kangqiao Hotel is a cantilevered windowed cube containing a glass-bottomed swimming pool. This very cool pool was designed, along with the rest of the hotel interior, by Singapore based architects Chan Sau Yan Associates. 30 meters long and 6 meters wide the pool offers views on three sides of its enclosure, plus above and below. It’s hard to decide what is more striking: to witness someone swimming above from the ground, or to be the person swimming looking down at the ground.

via juxtapoz, cnn, and trip advisor

August 6, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Desiree de Baar: Knitted Sculptures

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Move over olek, here comes Desiree de Baar. The Rotterdam-based Dutch artist creates knitted sculptures of objects that range from domestic fixtures to chainsaws. De Baar knits monochrome rooms, and the unnoticed objects within them, focusing on the details and highlighting the poetic side of the ordinary. She not only works with knitting but uses wallpaper and embroidery in much of her other artwork.

Photos: top two photos by Ed Jansen; rest of photos courtesy of the artist.

via Ed Jansen

August 6, 2012 by collabcubed - 2 Comments

Gary Deirmendjian: Do Not…

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Sydney-based artist Gary Deirmendjian created his, at once, humorous and critical sculpture Do Not… for last year’s Sculpture by the Sea in Bondi, Australia. An oversized version of the “do not touch” signs Deirmendjian had noticed beside all the sculptures in the previous year’s exhibit, the playful Do Not… most likely brought a smile to viewers’ faces. Here is what the artist has to say on the piece:

Superficially speaking the work takes its form and language directly from the actual warning signage developed and used extensively by Sculpture by the Sea. However to the artist it represents not only a site and event specific proposition, but more significantly a personal protest against what is quite simply a “sign of the times”. How is one able to do anything anymore?

The sculpture is currently being exhibited at Sculpture in the Vineyards in Wollombi, Australia, where Deirmendjian is one of four Australian artists selected to show their work in this year’s exhibit.

via Artereal Gallery

August 3, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

NYC Culture on the Cheap: Weekend 8/3

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Our picks for free and cheap art, music, performance, and food events this weekend (August 3 through 5, 2012) in New York City:

1. Architecture – The Grand Tour each and every Friday throughout the year at 12:30 pm in the sculpture court at 120 Park Avenue, located at the southwest corner of E. 42nd Street and Park Ave. directly across from Grand Central Terminal. No reservations are necessary. Friday 8/3 at 12:30 pm. FREE

2. Video/Music – John Cage, One¹¹ and 103,at the High Line, 14th St. Passage. Black and white video and sound, 94 min, in celebration of the John Cage Centennial. Part of the new High Line Channel 14, outdoor video program. 1pm – 11pm, Daily (all weekend) through September 13. FREE

3. Film – King Corn Screening at the Culture Project 45 Bleecker St. Friday 8/3 at 6pm FREE. Reserve seats here.

4. Interactive Performance/Music – Phil Kline’s DreamCityNine performed by Talujon. World premiere. To take part in this event, download the stories as one file from the Artist Links — upload them to your laptop, smartphone, tablet, or MP3 player, and bring them with you along with your battery powered speakers, or blast Q2 Music through WQXR’s mobile app. Friday 8/3; 6:30 pm at Lincoln Center’s Hearst Plaza. FREE.

5. Art Event/Walking Tour – Telettrofono by Justin Bennett and Matthea Harvey, part of Guggenheim’s Stillspotting NYC. An audio walking tour that braids history with fantasy along and around the Staten Island waterfront. Starts at the stillspotting kiosk at the Staten Island Ferry terminal in St. George. 1.5 hrs, Saturday 8/4 and Sunday 8/5, from 12 to 7 pm. $12 adults and $10 for members.

6. Fun! – Summer Streets nearly seven miles of NYC’s streets are opened for people to play, walk, bike, and zip(!) from 7am to 1pm on the next three Saturdays 8/4 (and 8/11, 8/18) from 7am to 1pm. Check site for route and activities. There will be a zip line in Foley Square as well as free bike rentals. FREE

7. Food – Parked! A Food Truck Festival at South Street Seaport. Saturday 8/4 from 10am to 9pm. FREE

Also in Food: Hester Street Fair Olympics. Corn-on-the-cob and BBQ Ribs eating contests plus burlap sack races. Lomography Photo Tour of Fair here as well. Saturday 8/4 and 8/11. FREE

8. Art– Edouard Vuillard: A Painter and His Muses, 1890-1940 at the Jewish Museum, (saw this last weekend…lovely exhibit!) through September 23rd. Saturdays FREE all day.

Also in Art/Design: Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900–2000 at MoMA through November 5th, 2012. Fridays FREE from 4pm to 8pm.

9. Music – 54/10 Music Marathon; Alice Lee, The Henry Millers, Night Fevers play at Ars Nova Theater
511 West 54th St. Saturday 8/4, 8 pm. Tickets $10 online; $15 at the door.

Also in Music: Amadou & Mariam / Theophilus London / and Just a Band at Central Park’s Summer Stage. Saturday 8/4, 3pm to 7pm. FREE

10. Performance/Installation – The Murders of Crows at the Park Avenue Armory. The largest sound installation to date by artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, a compelling “sound play” that envelops the audience in an unexpected physical and aural environment. Through September 9th, but this Saturday, 8/4, from 12pm to 7pm, FREE

11. Talk/Film Presentation – Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, Steve Carell and David Frankel talk about their new film Hope Springs at the Soho Apple Store. Sunday 8/5, 4pm. FREE

12. Music – Mad Decent Block Party at Williamsburg Park, with Major Lazer, Erol Alkan, Bonde Do Role and more. Sunday 8/5, 12pm to 10pm. RSVP required. FREE.

Dance – The Wind of Colorful Guizhou, Guizhou, China, Ethnic Song and Dance Troupe at Skirball Center, Saturday 8/4, 7pm. FREE (Tickets distributed first-come-first-served basis – call 973-917-3005 or bethb.sunels@yahoo.com)

Also in Film: If Yes Men Fix the World, screening at the Culture Project, Saturday 8/4, 8pm. Reserve tickets here. FREE

For more ongoing summer weekend suggestions (i.e. Rineke Dijkstra Retrospective at the Guggenheim [see post], PS1’s WarmUp and Street Art Walking Tours in Williamsburg) see our previous Culture on the Cheap posts here, here and here. Also: check back throughout the weekend for possible updates.

August 2, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Elian: Street Art from Argentina

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Elian is an Argentinean street artist from Córdoba who creates colorful geometric street murals. I like the clean lines and color palettes on these murals, and the transparency effect on the top one is clever, but there’s lots more to see on his site and flickr as well.

via graffitimundo

August 2, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Jim Lambie: Taped Surfaces

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I love it when random bits of information coincidentally relate to other random bits of information. There’s that ridiculously satisfying “Aha” moment, where you feel like Sherlock Holmes or Columbo, but without having done any real sleuthing. That’s how I feel with respect to my recent revelations about Jim Lambie, a Scottish visual artist. Last fall, I happened upon an exhibit of Lambie’s work at the Anton Kern Gallery in Chelsea. My favorite pieces involved concave, colorful conical forms embedded within large photographs of Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan. Later I spotted another similar piece at the NY Frieze Art Fair. Around the same time I did a post on an interesting townhouse renovation in our neighborhood, and creepily photographed the colorful staircase with its tape design from the window. Fast forward to today, when I came across photos of interesting taped floors created by none other than Jim Lambie. Among these images I found the same Greenwich Village staircase taken from inside and above. So, yes, you’ve probably made the mad leap yourself by now: Jim Lambie, who transforms spaces with his very cool taped geometric mazes of color, was the artist whose exhibit I saw in Chelsea and a few weeks later admired his impressive design work on the local staircase. Case closed.

Photos courtesy Anton Kern Gallery, Thyssen-Bornemisza, floorcrunch and collabcubed.

via balladora

August 1, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

NYC MetroCard as Urban Game

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This is such a great, smart, and fun design solution in response to the recent news that the front of NYC’s MetroCard will be offered as advertising space. Wayne Congar and Brendan Bilko of the creative and brand consultancy firm Mayday Mayday Mayday on New York’s Lower East Side, propose embracing the inevitable by making it into a design-y game. MetroCard as enigma. MetroCard as puzzle piece. Much in the way that a Chuck Close portrait is made up of hundreds of individual abstract shapes and sizes, why not take a billboard or an ad and blow up small sections of it rather than trying to fit an entire ad on the small space, creating an appealing abstract pattern on the MetroCard that will have New Yorkers looking at their neighbors’ cards trying to piece together the whole. Reminds me a little of the popular guerilla marketing stunts that have been adorning the city streets in the past decade. Piquing people’s curiosity and instead of ignoring the ad, creating more of a buzz. Mayday offers four possible ad scenarios on their site, though they admit to not knowing if printing of individual cards will be possible. The way I see it, even if this concept doesn’t work as a puzzle piece, having a uniformly appealing abstract image on all the cards that can get people guessing and interacting is win-win for everyone: we the MTA passengers get an aesthetically pleasing object (always a plus in my book) and the advertisers get people talking about what they’re selling.

via fastco

July 31, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Rineke Dijkstra: A Retrospective

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This may be one of those you-had-to-be-there kind of situations, but seeing Rineke Dijkstra’s retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum this past Saturday was more exhilarating than I would have imagined and could probably convey in this post. This talented Dutch photographer’s portraits, both photographic and videographic, capture youth in all its sweetness, innocence, self-consciousness and more, in the faces of her subjects. She could not have made up these faces if she had painted them, and many of them have a 17th-Century Dutch painting quality even when the subjects are not Dutch! The photographs and their size have an imposing presence, but my favorites for sure were the videos, especially the top floor’s series Krazy House where each wall is projected with one video at a time of adolescents from Liverpool alternating between self-consciously dancing and thoroughly enjoying themselves rocking out while mouthing the words to the songs. These are so surprisingly engaging—as well as touching and amusing—which seems to be the general consensus watching the crowd in the center of the room remain for long periods and swivel their gaze uniformly and eagerly from one wall to the next as each video ends. If you’re not in NYC you can take a look at the videos below, but seeing them in person is obviously a completely different experience and highly recommended.