Milan Design Week 2009: Studio Libertiny at Craft Punk Design Performances

by Brian Fichtner

It seems that the Design/Miami Craft Punk affair was the place to be during the Salone del Mobile. Despite the somewhat inconvenient location, Spazio Fendi was swarmed with visitors clambering to witness some performance design. Fendi's hall was lined with the likes of Nacho Carbonell, Kwangho Lee, Massimiliano Adami and Raw Edges, all crafting objects on their respective stages while reporters and fairgoers eagerly snapped photos and sipped Campari sodas.

Truthfully, the event came across somewhat carnivalesque, but I was mesmerized by Tomás Libertiny's painstaking project of building a sculpture purely out of solder.

A natural evolution from the solder stools that Libertiny exhibited last year at Spazio Rossana Orlandi, this project brings him one step closer to his goal of using robotics to create singular design objects.

For our Rough Cut video, Tomás took a moment from his endeavor to model his Fendi apparel and explain the fascinating and laborious process behind fabricating the piece.

Still images via designboom, more after the jump.

DigiLens

by Karen Day

Delivering digital images from a smartphone or PDA to your eye, SBG Labs' optical technology prototype DigiLens makes it possible to seamlessly layer virtual information over physical reality.

Built from holographic optical switching technology, the DigiLens diffracts specific wavelengths and polarizations of light and guides them to the user's eye. To date, eyeglasses, which can store the necessary light-emitting laser diode in the side of the frame, best accomplish the feat. Once the laser diode shoots the beam toward the eyeglass surface, the holographic gratings computerize and diffract it.

Although eyeglasses are the easiest way to integrate this technology, biocompatible contact lenses are also in development, in which the light-emitting diodes are made separately from the lens and then added to it before the entire device receives a biocompatible coating.

Seemingly the only real applicable advantage to this technology is immediate access to frivolous information, but no matter which way you see it, the augmented reality is a stepping stone in the way we receive information in the future.

via The New York Times

Swoon: Swimming Cities of Serenissima Fundraiser

by Karen Day

Swimming Cities of Serenissima, international street and installation artist Swoon's floating art project, is the kind of undertaking that puts it in the creative ranks of other optimistically adventurous events like Burning Man. With a mission of inspiring hope in a time of over-consumption and economic despair, the collection of handcrafted sculptural vessels built from salvaged materials will make their way from Slovenia to Venice, collecting beautiful things along the way, such as flowers, seeds, music and stories, to build a cabinet of wonders to share at this year's Venice Biennale.

To help make this expedition a reality, Swoon—whose work has exhibited at MoMA, PS1 and Tate Modern—is selling two different limited edition silkscreen prints that are analogous to the Swimming Cities project. The first, "Serenissima," is a signed and numbered double layer silkscreen edition of 250, designed specifically for this year's venture. "Switchback Sisters," is a seven-layer, 106-edition silkscreen print on tea-strained archival paper that's an upshot of Swoon's maiden voyage, a flotilla that sailed from Troy, NY to Manhattan. The silkscreen takes its image from the 27-foot high paper-and-wood sculpture which formed the centerpiece of the resulting installation, "Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea," which will be incorporated into the new Serenissima raft.

The "Serenissima" print is available for $150 and the "Switchback Sisters" print for $700. The crew of 35 artists, performers, activists and home-brewed mechanics will be throwing numerous fundraisers and events in which you can show your support, to find out more information about the ambitious project or to make a donation visit the Swimming Cities website.

See more of photographer Tod Seelie's images of projects past after the jump.

Milan Design Week 2009: Established & Sons

by Brian Fichtner

The British manufacturer Established & Sons vaulted onto the design scene just five years ago as if out of nowhere. Despite the cheekily ironic assertion of heritage suggested by their name, a rambling selection of products that makes up their ouevre to date gives a sense of a company yet in its infancy, with frequent missteps and disappointing additions among the gems that have put the brand in the limelight. That said, this year's substantial exhibition during Salone del Mobile (they've been staging one for the past few years) featured a couple stand-outs.

I have to admit I found not only the exhibition display (a very Arne Quinze-like labyrinthine structure fashioned from wooden boards) but a few of the product additions to be quite refreshing. In particular, I was excited to see Maarten Baas continuing his collaboration with Established on one of his first production pieces, Standard Unique. A riff on his self-produced Sculpt series, similarly adolescent lines characterize the Standard Unique chair, but here Baas mixes and matches a standard assortment of parts lending perceived individuality to each chair.

Shay Alkalay's eye-catching Stack (launched last year) made an appearance in a combination of natural woods, elevating the design from pure pop sensation to a consummate design expression. Other additions included a set of mirrors by Front Design, a new (if rather frivolous) sofa design by Sebastian Wrong and Richard Woods and a fantastical seating series by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec.

Check out the slide show above for a brief glimpse into the exhibition.

Art/Work

by CH Contributor

by Ariston Anderson

Few arts institutions teach the fundamentals of business and law for visual arts majors. Enter Art/Work, a new book by Heather Darcy Bhandari and Jonathan Melber. Bhandari is the director at NYC's Mixed Greens Gallery while Melber’s background includes practicing art law at a major New York firm and representing artists at Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. Together they make for a powerful combo, offering both extensive knowledge of the gallery system and the ins and outs of art law, for some well-founded tips on how to succeed in the art world.

Of the many topics covered, the book includes the proper way to submit to a gallery, how to attract a curator, the importance of having a website, how to host a successful studio visit, how to edit work and install shows, how to apply for grants and much more. They give real examples of consignment agreements and even include an art fair survival guide. Packed with hundreds of quotes from artists and curators, vital advice on how to make the most of your career fills each page.

Presented in a simple, comprehensive language, it's the perfect gift for anyone working in a creative field. We caught up with Bhandari and Melber to learn more about what makes Art/Work an essential in every artist's toolbox.

Why is your book Art/Work timely now, when the art market is increasingly down?
JM: We wrote it to help artists in good economic times and bad. With a shrinking art market, there are fewer commercial options, making it more important than ever to know how to approach gallerists—and how not to—as well as apply for grants and residencies and find alternatives for showing your work when you do not have a gallery.

What’s the best advice for an artist to organize their time into productive work?
HB: No matter what kind of artist you are or what kind of personality you have, studio time should be prioritized above all else. We recommend that artists figure out when they are most productive in the studio and try to fit a day job around that time. Administrative tasks like inventory and applications shouldn’t be neglected, and some amount of time should be spent supporting the local artist community and receiving feedback. The amount of time spent on each component is up to each artist, but all three should be considered studio time. We know some artists who are very regimented and treat studio time like a job, with certain hours set aside to create, others earmarked for paperwork and time set aside to visit with other artists and attend exhibitions. For many other artists, scheduling is more fluid.

What is the number one thing artists should know when it comes to copyright?
JM: Given how much borrowing, appropriating and re-mixing goes on in the art world, artists should know what "fair use" means—and what it doesn't mean. Despite what a lot of artists are told, for example, it is not true that you're automatically allowed to use someone else's image as long as you "change it by 30%." The rules are more complicated than that and you shouldn't wait until the AP threatens to sue you for copyright infringement before you read up on them—we have good resource links on our website.

What advice do you have for artists who are constantly being rejected by galleries?
HB: Do a little self-reflection and think about your goals, your work and your ideal audience. Check to see if the galleries who are rejecting you have those same goals and interests. If they don’t, you’re submitting work to the wrong places. If you really want that commercial gallery, put in the time to get to know them and their artists. The number-one way that galleries find new artists is through the artists they already have.

How has the web changed the role of the gallery? Has it become a valid space to showcase work?
HB: I’m a little biased in my answer to this question because I’ve worked at Mixed Greens for the last nine years. We’ve always thought the web was a valid space to showcase artists and expose their work to a larger audience. While that was considered a wild and somewhat tacky idea in 1999, it’s widely accepted now.

Why should every artist buy this book?
We wrote Art/Work to be practical, user-friendly and relevant to every stage of one's art career. Art/Work helps new artists develop good habits from the beginning and keeps them from accidentally shooting themselves in the foot. For more experienced artists, Art/Work is a guide to advancing their practice and getting their work shown. Even successful artists with multiple representation will find in Art/Work a sophisticated resource for drafting consignment forms, negotiating commission agreements and understanding how their gallery relationships compare to other artists.

Art/Work is available for purchase from Amazon or Simon and Schuster.