SOLIDQUALITY

Saarinen's TWA Terminal at JFK

The Museum of the City of New York has an exhibit about the architect/designer Eero Saarinen. The exhibit is worth it, covering all his major buildings. I wish there were a few more models for the corporate headquarter work he has completed. The interiors were great also. The MIT chapel seems special. I think I will have to visit next time I’m in Boston.

The TWA terminal at JFK airport still has to be my favorite. I used to use the terminal when I was living in SF. It was a pleasure. It really made you ofeel like why can’t all buildings be like this.

Overall I was pleased to learn about this great modernist and began to realize the influence he has had on today’s architects. Especially one of my current favorites Santiago Calatrava. You really can’t look at any of Calatrava’s works with out seeing the TWA terminal or the Dulles Airport terminal. It is always cool to make these connections.

Calatrava's Liege Train Station

Ofcourse, Calatrava did take it to a whole new level of light airiness that I’m sure Eero would have approved.

I always loved Craigslist’s Missed Connections section. Some of course are crass, but most are honest little haiku’s of fleeting emotions. Passing looks and wandering imaginations of what if.

Well, Sophie Blackwell has put her talent towards the admiral attempt of putting visuals to the most interesting of them. And she does so with great success. Learn more about her and this work at her blog.

Bravo Sophie! Bravo!

Recently I became a Contributing Editor to a blog dedicated to cataloging the vernacular typography of NYC. The blog was started by Jason Powers and Matthew Anderson. I know Jason from working together at AOL.

I have to say it has been a real pleasure to have an outlet or those found moments of design glory. Silly type all over NYC that hasn’t really been appreciated now has a home. I am very glad to be apart of it and will do my best to contribute quality finds from around town.

I have pretty much depleted the blocks around work so soon I will have to branch out. Send me an email if you have any suggestions. Check out the blog here: nyctype.com

I have always known of Francis Bacon and his work but I must say I never really allowed myself to truly take it in until now. The Met in NYC has a retrospective of his work marking the 100th anniversary of his birth. The exhibit contains over a 130 pieces spanning his entire career.

I guess for me it his use of color that really struck me. Typically, I felt like most of his paintings were these dark anomalies and in some ways muddy. And there are moments int he exhibit that the work felt like that, but remarkably the moments were few and far between. Rather than muddy monochromatic chaos I found a very focused use of form and color. So focused that there really aren’t any artist before or after that ave come close to his style. (I guess I use the word style here loosely.)

The bodies and forms are distorted, with a quick glance might seem like careless abstractions. But each is very well thought out and the strokes perfectly placed to create  and build the form. A way of deconstructing it while simultaneously constructing it. Perhaps there are sketches and perhaps internal formulas that guided him, a language. But like a language, concepts are conveyed and the system carries a weight, an authority that really make the paintings something more, art.

And the colors! It is true you can’t really appreciate the  light without the dark and vice versa. The very graphic nature of the paintings of dark set against rich vibrant colors. reminds me of Lautrec’s poster art.

I would highly recommend the show, but try to go during a time of day with less people. You really need to sit with the work. Read the lines. Absorb the colors and get lost. It is a dark muddy world, but if you have the right eyes it will always seem bright.

For the 50th anniversary of the Guggenheim Museum building in New York, they have mounted an exhibit about Frank Lloyd Wright. The exhibit includes many of his famous buildings but also many lessor known unbuilt concepts. To make these unbuilt ideas come to life they have created these great models an in some instances creating animations using elements of Wright’s original drawings.

Two things struck me about this show. Actually three. Maybe four.

One is that the show does a pretty good job of making the work come alive. The models are great. The animations go a long way for those less spatially savvy to understand the scale and movement through and around a building. Job well done there.

Two is how crazy some of his ideas were. Crazy is the wrong word. I guess whimsical. They feel like movie sets for far off lands. Perhaps many set designers have stolen from his vocabulary. His idea for an aquarium with spherical tanks that you can walk underneath. Very cool.

Three, how intricate his design were. So much details in the patterns he developed to decorate the outside and inside of his buildings. That Tokyo Hotel was insane. Such detail, just thinking of drawing it out seems like an accomplishment never mind thinking it up.

Four. Why don’t we use his design for the Mile High Tower at the new World Trade Center?

I guess that is it. Go see it, it lasts to the end of August.

Claes is an artist who’s work has always struck me. Often these big plush, flaccid everyday objects. What was he thinking? What was he trying to do? Why didn’t he fit the other artists of the time? Or was not fitting in, fitting in?

I will always remember his hanging electric mixer. All his objects really look like the originals they are meant to represent, but some how transferred by a magic raygun into softer, bendable versions.

This show at the Whitney is a good introduction to his work. Some prime examples are the Fries pictured above and the entire music room collection of instruments. And finally the ice bag. Off on a room by itself, heaving as if some bastard of a hot-air lawn Santa. What should one think? Totally wonder struck. Freezing your thoughts and suspending that loud social cloud. Definitely a cure for a weak moment in history of art.

Hear the artist talk about his work in this great NY Times interactive tour of the work.

The Jenny Holzer exhibit at the Whitney, Protect Protect, has closed but I was able to catch it and several other good shows. I will write about those in seperate posts.

I half liked this show. It was made up of what I see as two parts even though they may have been related. One part was a set of her LED word art sculptures. And they were fabulous. Well, I would say I didn’t care mouch to read them. I’m not sure why, but I always appreciated her displays, but not really the content. Perhaps it is the visual designer in me that loves the look but feels a disconnect from the content.

The second part was some paintings and enlargements of declassified document around the Iraq and Afghan war. Some specifically about the war prisoners abuse. Very topical and very important issues. I just didn’t want this political debate to mess up my visual experience. I’m not saying art can’t have meaning, I guess I just felt like, the content was exploited for its relevance and once I felt that way I couldn’t take it serious anymore. Thus receding to only appreciate the visual nature of her signs.

You can see a video overview of the exhibit here.

It has been two weeks since I saw Waiting for Godot with what I would have to say is a supremo cast. Nathan Lane, Bill Irwin, John Goodman and Jon Glover. They are all the type of actor that really flourishes in dialog that out of context would seem mundane, but strung through their bodies an acting performance comes out unmatched. It really is a physical play. And again, these are all very physical actors.

I first saw the play in college and frankly all I could remember was that it was a real college type play. bare set, abstract ideas, vague references to a Christian god. Totally college. But that was of that time in my life and it was too easy for me to write it off then.  But I guess that is one of the points of the play. Life. The time we spend each day and what we do with it. Are we in control of how we spend it? Do we understand why we spend it the way we do? Could this repeating day with slight variations and the enduring desire for ways to make it go faster allude to that day job while we wait for the other to pay us a visit?

Oddly enough the play I think is becoming more relevant in these modern times. One could almost see the whole play as a commentary about a TV culture. Always waiting for the next program. Never ending or meaning schedules kept daily by folks not exactly knowing why they are watching, but just knowing they need to.

Ultimately that is what makes this a successful work of art. It allows so much interpretation and application that it doesn’t try to define things for us, but rather forces us to question how we currently define things for ourselves. When we are revealed the shabby construction of our society only then could we spot those areas in most need of repair.

Last night I saw the documentary Valentino: The Last Emperor at the Film Forum in NYC. And they had the director there with an editor from Vanity Fair do a little Q&A afterwards. Overall it was a great experience.

The movie gave a really great insight into one of the last iconic fashion brands and men as they were exiting the fashion industry. As a sign of the times, with hedge funds buying and ruining businesses, the film showed how critical the original creative force behind something as fantastic as Valentino. is crucial to the continued success. Its not to say the Valentino brand is dead as a business. But when he was involved and running the show , it was precisely just that, a show. More than a business, a grand show that made folks appreciate life, but especially the finest things of life. And as one result, a successful business occurred as well.  He created art for the world and we supported him. Perhaps you didn’t even feel like you were being sold something, rather acquiring some of the energy that made him reign for 45 years.

The other touching part was that Valentino’s lifelong partner was essential to his long success and frankly Valentino would not have been around for this long if it wasn’t for Giancarlo Giammetti.

So I say watch the movie. It was good film making, but it is easy when you have such characters as Valentino and Giammetti, set in the backdrop of awe inspiring fashion for the last 45 years.

I also wanted to say a quick note about being a master at something. There are scenes int he movie where you see Valentino sketching and he was so quick. And from sketch he grabbed the fabric and it seemed in a matter of minutes he had a masterpiece. Amazing that after all these years his creativity is still so bright.

And finally I have to shout out his seamstresses. They would make these amazing gowns in record time and they would exactly replicate the sketch Valentino made the day before. Note to self: surround yourself with talented people.

See trailer here:

Luckily my wife travels to Japan often, so we can take advantage of Japanese technology for a cheaper cost than could be had int he states. Recently she picked a Fuji Instax Camera for us to take photos of the baby and such. The Instax is basically a Polaroid. The film format is smaller  and more rectangular but the quality is just as surprising and rich. I will have to eventually scan some of the results but if you find one I recommend it as a good replacement for a Polaroid.

I think the most surprising thing for me is that its the first time I used a real film camera in a while and it made me realize how much better I am with a viewfinder. And with the added pressure of a limited number of shots. The digital camera with 4 gigs of space has really made me lazy when taken photos. So much so, I am almost always dissatisfied with my digital results. But a real film camera , you really need to take a moment to make sure everything is composed right. I should really try real film again.