20/07/2012

Heath Ceramics Summer Shop and Show

Heath Ceramics Summer Shop and Show

Even though you may not be into arts&crafts, you have to admit that design is and will always be part of your everyday life. Some things, besides being incredibly beautiful, are also fundamentally necessary and utterly useful for our daily experiences. 
One of those things are ceramics, which can be a tricky subject to handle as pottery is a mastery that often merges with art. That is why choosing to speak about a specific manufacturer among a long list of quality producers could have been a though decision, if we hadn’t found Heath Ceramics.

Founded in 1948 by Edith Heath, the company has a 60-year-old history based on a strong belief in beautifully crafted objects. But besides that, Mrs. Heath also believed in simplicity and innovation, thus creating ceramics that can be produced at a lower temperature, which allows saving energy while producing a durable and non-porous product. Through years, Heath Ceramics has become known for the simplicity of its products – functional and thoughtfully designed tableware and tile.

Besides being fully engaged with their small, partially hand-made production, Heath Ceramics also dedicates itself to promoting other excellences in the world of design and ceramics. Hence, you can often find their Los Angeles and the new San Francisco showrooms dedicated to pop-up shops and exhibitions. This time, Heath has paired with Starnet, a Japanese manufacturer, for a summer shop that features designs made by its founder Baba Koshi and the Starnet workshop. In the same time, the newly opened San Francisco showroom is featuring the work of Akio Nuraga in the exhibition titled “Very New Work”, showing the artist’s hand-thrown pots and vessels.

If you’re in California and don’t mind a six hour drive between SF and LA, make sure to check both of them, running respectively until the 10th and 5th of September.


Rujana Rebernjak

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17/07/2012

Century of the Child: Growing by Design at MoMA

Century of the Child: Growing by Design at MoMA

“Children are the future and our most valuable resource,” is an overly heard saying whose meaning we don’t take quite seriously. That is why a soon opening exhibition at MoMA, taking design as its maginfying glass, should open our eyes to the infamous saying and make us reconsider the position of a child in our society. 
Titled “Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900-200”, curated by Juliet Kinchin and Aidan O’Connor. The exhibition departs from Swedish design reformer and social theorist Ellen Key’s book “Century of the Child”. The book, written in the 1900, tries to emphasize the importance of children’s well-being as an interest of utmost importance to all society.

The paradigm of children’s prosperity was taken throughout the 20th century as a paradigm for progressive thinking and the renewal of the modern society. As a consequence, designers and artists have produced work that often involved childhood, but as such, has even more often been disregared in design cycles. Hence, many of the objects (around 500) exhibited in the show, even though created by famous figures of design and architecture history, have remained almost unknown. For their authors, the design projects have functioned as a sort of escape, particularly during the avant-garde, from the roughness and routine of everyday life.

The exhibited works include Jean Prouve’s School Desk, a glass desk designed by Gio Ponti, children’s chairs by Marcel Breuer, Alvar Aalto, and Kit Nicholson, LEGO building blocks and the Slinky, Charles and Ray Eames’ projects, Aleksandr Rodchenko’s photograph Pioneer Girl, Roald Dahl’s The Gremlins, to name but a few.

If we are fond of believing that design has a fundamental role in our society, and that children are its future, then this exhibition showing years of prolific designers’ work on the theme can only confirm it.

“Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900 -2000” will be on show from July 29 – November 5, 2012 at MoMA.

Rujana Rebernjak

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10/07/2012

Bauhaus Live at The Aram Gallery

Bauhaus Live at The Aram Gallery

When this May the Barbican opened a major Bauhaus retrospective in the UK since the 1960s, 
it didn’t only organize a ‘normal’ high-end and widely acclaimed exposition. The programme created by the curators and their team, aimed both at browsing the school’s rich past as well as unveiling its relationships with the present. 
Hence, the London based The Aram Gallery has been invited to collaborate with the Barbican, in setting up their take on the Bauhaus’s legacy reflected in contemporary design practice.

Bauhaus, the revolutionary arts and design school founded in Weimar in 1919, has surely played a decisive role in shaping our visual culture. Although its influence was and still remains strong, its most notable heritage can be seen in the modernist practices of the 50s and 60s. With the subsequent appearance of post-modernist wave, it is sometimes difficult to figure out what contemporary designers have learned from Bauhaus and how has its influence been handed down through the years.

Interested in the way designers think and work, “Bauhaus Live” explores the way this hugely influential period is being manifested in the present. While in some cases the starting point of a project is traced with no difficulty, in others the reference is more subtle and appears through the use of colour, form and proportion. 
The invited designers show a vast array of projects, thus coherently replicating the original Bauhaus approach that touched almost everything man-made – from the spoon to the city. Among the names included in the show we must mention Konstantin Grcic, Martino Gamper, Jasper Morrison, Tomas Kral, David Chipperfield Architects, Sebastian Bergne, Peter Marigold and BCXSY.

The show runs until the end of this week at The Aram Gallery, London.

Rujana Rebernjak

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03/07/2012

2nd Cycle by Artek – A Sense of Sustainability

2nd Cycle by Artek – A Sense of Sustainability

As Alvar Aalto, the famous Finnish architect once said: “Nothing old is ever reborn but neither does it totally disappear. And that which has once been born, will always reappear in a new form.”
 Artek, the design company with Aalto among its founders, has taken the architect’s assertion as starting point for one of their recent projects.

Founded back in 1935, Artek is perhaps the most forward-looking one among the contemporary trend-setting design companies. Still producing the iconic pieces of design created by the genius Aalto and his fellow colleagues, Artek has decided to promote the values and importance of this significant design heritage. Led equally by Aalto’s ground setting ideas, as well as seriously good and cheap reproductions by IKEA, the company has started to collect some of the 8 million Aalto stools sold since 1935. These stools, found in vintage shops or friends’ basements, have created the starting point for 2nd Cycle. 2nd Cycle is a vintage shop in Helsinki, dedicated entirely to original design pieces by both Artek as well as other design companies. Among the products you can find the above mentioned superstar stool, various Aalto chairs and armchairs, as well as pieces like Tulip and Swan chairs by Eero Saarinen for Knoll and Fritz Hansen.

While some design giants look for sustainability through clever speeches about new recyclable materials and innovative production processes, Artek has once again shown to be one step ahead. With 2nd Cycle project, Artek is trying to put forward a different idea of design – a quality design of everyday objects that acquire value and beauty through use. Opposed to a consumerist idea of design, Artek’s 2nd Cycle items are part of the environmental strategy that wants to ‘raise the issue of conscious consuming, praise the authentic design and honour the importance of originality’.

Rujana Rebernjak

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29/06/2012

Art Edition at Art Basel

Art Edition at Art Basel

Even though it has been almost two weeks since Art Basel has closed its doors, some of the things we have experienced there are still in our minds. Among the big galleries and incredible artworks they presented, a special space was dedicated to printed artworks. This section of Art Basel, named Art Edition, presented the collaborations between renowned publishers and contemporary artists.

Quite distant from the cosy ‘independent publishing’ world, this book-works were breathtaking for the impressive quality of their production and the incredible selection of work by contemporary artists.


Even though this introduction may induce you to think that the works shown at Art Edition are far far away from the whole ‘independent publishing’ ideology, it can make you realize how the whole idea of a book as an object can constantly be rediscussed.


Among exhibitors like Lelong Gallery, Crow Point Press or Gemini G.E.L., we were most impressed by the Parisian Three Star Books . “Three Star Books are artworks”, as they strongly state themselves. This small publishing house produces some extraordinary limited book editions, and their books are highly crafted and produced in a closed editorial collaboration between the author and the publisher. Among artists that work with them, we fell in love with Ryan Gander’s book “I’m Trending” and Lawrence Weiner’s “Suomi Finland Passi Port Passport”.


Next to the Art Edition section, we were also able to see our all time favorites – Parkett, Zurich-based contemporary art magazine, Art Metropole and Printed Matter, two organizations dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of publications made by artists.

As Printed Matter is an institution for all the independent publishing geeks, and they have since long brought us a whole stack of books we have been dying for, we are going to be quite biased this time and claim that this was kind of the best part of Art Basel.

Rujana Rebernjak

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21/06/2012

Delphinarium – A Tribute to Delfina Delettrez

Delphinarium – A Tribute to Delfina Delettrez

Delfina Delettrez, fourth generation Fendi and talented jewelry designer, is not new to The Blogazine. From the We-Men collection in 2010 to the beautiful pieces of Metalphysic, we have been following the steps of this internationally acclaimed and appreciated young designer. Yesterday afternoon during Pitti 82, The Blogazine attended the opening of Delphinarium – A Monographic Exhibition on Delfina Delettrez and got a tour through her world of jewelry.

“The fact that she is one of the most interesting and eclectic Italian artists in the field of contemporary jewelry, the fact that her prolific creativity coupled with an outstanding degree of curiosity and a profound sense of discipline and professionalism (resulting in ten different collections over the course of only five years) is already reason enough to dedicate a monographic exhibition to her – the first.”

These stolen words are an excellent motivation for the initiative of the show, expressing what the viewer will experience when walking through the four rooms at Palazzo Ricasoli in Florence – the new exhibition area of Galleria Antonella Villanova and Galleria Alessandro Bagnai. In addition to the short film Delfinasia directed by Asia Argento and the piece of jewelry made especially for the gallery, the exhibition presented iconic pieces from Delfina Delettrez’s collections between 2009 and 2012. Part of the presentation was an installation about the research of movement and it includes live animals; a beehive, colourful frogs and spiders, complementing the jewelry.

The inedited piece, Slow Emotion, expressively created for the gallery in 6 numbered pieces, marks a bond between Florence and Rome through the iconographic symbol of the turtle. It is a figure that has wide-ranging values attributed to it and which can be seen in piazzas and fountains in both cities. The bracelet showcases a beautiful range of colour and transparency with a nanoceramic finish, in the shape and pattern of a turtle’s shell.

Lisa Olsson Hjerpe – Image courtesy of Delfina Delettrez 

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19/06/2012

Art Basel -Vitra Design Museum

Art Basel -Vitra Design Museum

Having seen VitraHaus photographed so many times, you don’t expect to be surprised when visiting for the first time the Swiss-German complex. Actually, taking the first glance at the beautiful Herzog & de Meuron building and seeing the already design monument among the green in Weil am Rhein does come as a surprise. Although the superstar building is the first one you fall in love with, the whole complex situated at Charles Eames Str. n. 2 is pure poetry for design lovers.


Even though VitraHaus is the first attraction you wander in, it may come as a delusion for those expecting it to be the altar of design. If you imagine yourself entering VitraHaus and finding a design museum, expect to be slightly deluded. VitraHaus is simply an incredibly beautiful showroom of an incredibly innovative design manufacturer. Nothing more, nothing less. Although all the interiors are designed to the tiniest details (such as jars on the kitchen shelves or books on the coffee tables), it doesn’t offer a tour of the company’s history.

For these purpose, Vitra has built a Design Museum (designed by Frank Gehry) that periodically creates exhibitions, drawing significant amount of the material out of their archives. The exhibition currently on stage is a retrospective of Gerrit Rietveld’s work, entitled “Revolution of Space”. The Dutch master is being told through a series of objects, furniture, drawings and architecture, showing his relation to De Stijl movement as well as modernist design in general.


While the museum was paying the honours to the grand designer, the nearby gallery has gathered a number of contemporary designers working in The Netherlands. The show has been entitled Confrontations and displays the work produced in collaboration between designers and local Swiss industry and artisans. The designers invited are Lucas Maassen, 2012 Architecten, Studio Wieki Somers, Dirk Vander Kooij and the omnipresent Studio Formafantasma.

The aforementioned exhibitions weren’t the only thing on display at Vitra Campus. We must mention seeing a geodesic dome by Buckminster Fuller, a bus stop by Jasper Morrison, a fire station by Zaha Hadid, a petrol station by Jean Prouvé, an auditorium by Tadao Ando and production line buildings by Frank Gehry, Kazuyo Sejima/Sanaa, Alvaro Siza and Nicholas Grimshaw. A line-up that may just take us a while digesting.


Rujana Rebernjak

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18/06/2012

Art Basel – Design Miami/Basel

Art Basel – Design Miami/Basel

Speaking about collectible design is almost a contradiction in terms. The idea of design we might have inherited from modernist ideology, differs significantly from the one seen at Design Miami/Basel. Even though the space offered by design galleries, a reality from complexities of industrial production, is surely an incredible platform for inquiry and experimentation, Design Miami/Basel doesn’t exactly leave you with your mouth open.

The line-up of this year’s fair was a mix between European and American galleries, extremely different in nature and attitude. The exhibitiors ranged from Gallerie Kreo, the ‘institution’ that raised to glory many of today’s most important designers, commercial giants such as Fendi or Italian jewels, like Milanese Nilufar, showing both modernist Italian furniture as well as pieces of contemporary designers, among whom the incredible Martino Gamper.
In a long list of exhibitors there were a few that stood out. The British Gallery Libby Sellers has shown a chess set project, insipired by a 1944 exhibition titled “The Imagery of Chess”. While Gallerie Kreo has dedicated its stand to lighting projects, one of the true highlights of the show was Galerie Ulrich Fiedler showing two Frederick Kiesler pieces designed for Peggy Guggenheim.

Among a very shy selection of contemporary pieces, two projects have to be mentioned. The first, and most obvious one, was Formafantasma’s performance Craftica, showcasing a collection of objects made with leather. The second one was Matali Crasset’s “Cutting” project exhibited by the Parisian Granville Gallery. “Cutting” is a collection of glass vases which take their shape from pieces of a tree personally chosen by the designer.

If collectible design, as much as a contradiction in terms, must also be an inevitable reality, maybe our culture might gain a bit more if the idea of design promoted by events like Design Miami/Basel would shift from a burgeois attitude towards the idea of design as a democratic place of research and critique.

Rujana Rebernjak 

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13/06/2012

The Editorial: Pretence. Plastic.

The Editorial: Pretence. Plastic.

It’s likely that we’ve all sat in a Louis Ghost chair. Every fighetto and fighetta in Milan has one or two ironically hanging around their “design” apartment. For me, the first time was a few years back at a beach house in Tuscany adorned with iridescent shells and pastel pictures of boats that seemed to exist only to forcibly remind everyone inside that “you’re on holiday, AT THE BEACH, goddamnit”. Two Louis Ghost chairs sat, noses upturned, at either end of a long table flanked by another six, less stately (but also clear plastic) Kartell chairs. “This place is POSH, goddamnit,” they said, hollowly.

For a piece of iconic “design” (an irksome classification, since everything man-made is designed, and is therefore design), the Louis Chair is incredibly derivative. It is an old, established form rendered in new material. It is invisible, yet its symbolic intentions are crystal clear. It was the perfect companion to the literal gaudiness of shells and pastel boats, as it is the perfect companion to a kitschy nail salon decorated with tropical plants and smelling of acetone, as it is the perfect companion to the generic posters and bad brochures of a second-rate travel agency. The Ghost chair is pretence in plastic. Nothing more.

And although the chair has lost must of the ooh-aah, genius gee-whiz novelty it once had, it has unequivocally become an instantly recognisable classic. An icon not only for Kartell and Starck, but for the 2000s and for contemporary Italian design. And it will be the first ugly thing your kids sell for 50¢ at a garage sale when you die.

So, to honour this extraordinary object, artist Simon Martin this week opened an exhibition at Collective Gallery in Edinburgh focusing squarely on it. And while Scotland may not be the design powerhouse Italy is (was?), its artists are positively on fire. Plus, a hearty mix of whisky and bluntness might be just what the doctor ordered to knock some sense back into Italian design.

The exhibition is brilliantly critical. Although we’ve all probably given the Ghost at least some thought –certainly most designers have– but what an enigma it is! Deliberate, shamelessly appropriated, trapped in the present and yet thoroughly a relic of the past. Ugly. Stunningly gorgeous. Packed with history. Meaningless. In a short documentary, Martin juxtaposes the Ghost with plastic (ceramic?) lawn gnomes and their accompanying tree-trunk tables, African headrests, and a work by Donald Judd. Plastic wood. Wooden box. Box as symbol. Symbol as chair. And what it all does is call into question the very reasons for which we’d value such an object in the first place. It is the purest, clearest expression of our obsessive yet unthinking attachment to symbol. Perhaps ever. Why this objectively ugly chair has any value at all is pure sociological, anthropological, psychological magic.

While he may be a massive sellout (good businessman?), Philippe Starck is nothing if not an excellent designer. A designer who is extremely easy to hate for unleashing loads of ugly things on the world, but a very, very clever one, indeed. Maybe his snarky materialism–his oft-repeated mantra, after all, is “everything I make is absolutely unnecessary”–has actually been about coming to grips with the ills of materialism. Just maybe.

Tag Christof

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12/06/2012

Heatherwick Studio at V&A

Heatherwick Studio at V&A

Thomas Heatherwick is one of those creatives that you can’t actually fit in any precise category. He became quite famous in design-ish circles with his Spun chair produced by the Italian manufacturer Magis. When it comes to a wider acclaim, it only came about when he was charged with designing the British pavilion for the 2010 Shanghai Expo, and earlier this year with the re-design of the London bus. Not that designers ever become superstars outside of their closed world, but that says a lot about the knowledge wider public has of the discipline.


Fortunately there are some institutions that recognize the quality and importance of people that shape our visual and material world. Hence, when Victoria and Albert Museum announced a grand retrospective of Heatherwick’s work, it really came as a relief.

Entitled “Designing the Extraordinary”, the exhibition runs through almost twenty years of professional career that started with a small studio Thomas, opened in 1994, after graduating at Royal College of Art. The exhibition has been set up using primarily models and objects the designer has accumulated in his studio in all these years, spanning from small scale object to architectural models.


Heatherwick is extremely difficult to classify under the limited boundaries of a single profession, since he has given shape to almost every kind of tridimensional objects. Gaining himself some lament coming from the architectural community, he has successfully designed both buildings, pavilions, shops, busses, chairs, benches and tables, giving each object unique quality and a distinctive signature. In a moment when disciplines collapse and design is an over-abused word applied to describe almost anything, a wider public can finally confront itself with a design excellence.

Rujana Rebernjak – Images courtesy of Heatherwick Studio

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