MDW19: These Short-Lived Installations Made a Lasting Impression

Milan Design Week concluded on Sunday, April 14th last week. Thereafter, installations were brought down, showrooms shuttered. But if design weeks are about brands and designers putting their most attractive foot forward to lure in clients and the crowd, then these eye-catching installations, short-lived as they are, have succeeded in their mission of creating an awareness of the people and studios behind them.

Tarkett and Magis exhibit at the Circolo Filologico with help from Swedish designers at Note Design Studio. Photo by Keshia Badalge.

Formations, inside the historic Milanese library Circolo Filologico, showcases all the ways that French floor and wall covering company Tarkett’s new iQ Surface material can be molded, bent, shaped, and used to furnish all kinds of spaces. The Stockholm-based Note Design Studio worked with Tarkett to conceive of something certainly noteworthy here: under a glass roof, in a spacious lobby, 24 speckled columns in shades of red, navy, white, and grey are topped with silver spheres, coral cubes, cones, spheres, and other assorted totems.

Table with shapes exhibiting Tarkett’s moldability at the library of Circolo Filologico. Photo by Keshia Badalge.

It’s an exercise in subtle showing off: instead of exhibiting how Tarkett’s new vinyl flooring can be used in various domestic roomscapes, the sculptural installation invites people to touch, play, and even rest. Yes, rest: one of the most important things a design exhibition can do, at Milan Design Week, is to create a space for visitors to slow down, rest, charge their phones, and just take in the sight of something without having to explicitly interact with it.

Aesthetics aside, the iQ surface is actually made from a quarter of recycled materials. At the end of the installation, the surface can be taken back and reused for the future.

In a cozy meeting room setting in the Circolo Filologico, Tarkett’s surfaces meet Magis’ furniture. Photo by Keshia Badalge.

Whether wandering through the Sala Liberty, or into one of the meetings rooms Tarkett designed with iQ Surface flooring and Magis’ furniture, or through the library room where smaller volumes are wrapped in iQ Surface to show—up close—the possibilities that this material can be made into, we never felt like there was something being sold to us. It felt more like a sculpture park or an art gallery, something made for pleasure rather than for purchase, and that pretty terrazzo-like surface has been stuck in our minds since.

In Sala Reale at Milan Central Station, Advantage Austria, created by architects Michael Vasku and Andreas Klug, transformed what was once the waiting room of the Royal House of Savoy into a “design pool.” All day, we saw visitors wade, run, swim, roll, bellyflop, through a sea of foam that was interspersed with designer objects propped on lavender colored pedestals. Groups came in to sleep within the styrofoam puddles and create styrofoam showers for their Instagram photos. One suggestion, though: what gives pleasure might not be the world’s treasure. Foam isn’t the most environmentally sustainable material, and while we’ll remember this approach to presentation, maybe there can be something else to shimmy through next year that won’t sit in the landfill for centuries after.

Nilufar Depot. Photo by Pim Top.

Inside a vessel at Nilufar Depot. Photo by Pim Top.

Nilufar Depot’s exhibition FAR, created by Studio Vedèt with exhibition design by Genoa-based Space Caviar, creates a fluid galaxy with habitable, translucent membranes. Elevated gobbles, injected with furniture, surround an open wide floor that doubles as a gallery space for some quaint, colorful designer objects. Whether you’re a bubble person or someone more down-to-the-floor, this place was made to delight.

Photo by Marc Wilmot

Photo by Marc Wilmot

For heated tobacco/vaping brand IQOS, British sculptor Alex Chinneck employed his signature rip/unzip effect to a building in Milan’s Tortona district. As the building’s 17-meter-wide wall appears to fall off, the interior layer reveals a blue light, similar to a vape pen that illuminates the street at night. The interiors of the building feature the same style replicated on the walls and the floor.

Even though these installations have a life of only a week, they’ve set people talking about the brands who helped to conceive them, and in Milan, it’s not just all the high-end sofas and designer lamps we see that’s important, it’s what’s left on our minds a week after that counts.

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The Dazzling Damaged Photographs of Paul Anthony Smith

Paul Anthony Smith pierces and picks the surface of his photographs thousands of times to create a surface that is both scarred and dazzling; that is visually magnetic and yet obscuring. The textured images are on view in a double-venue show titled “Junction” at two Jack Shainman Gallery locations in Chelsea, New York through May 11th, 2019.

Lands Apart (detail)

Paul Anthony Smith uses a technique he calls “picotage”, to cut into and lift the surface of the photograph into geometric patterns over images he personally photographs. When viewing the works in person, the greatest surprise is that the white sections change and introduce NEW patterns when viewed from the right or the left. Visible in the two images below, this strange phenomenon is the result of the angle he gouges the paper. When viewed from an angle, the scars in the paper will either mask their damage or reveal more of the torn white paper. So the thick white bars in “Junction” (below) will split into a dark stripe and a light stripe when viewed from the side, and then reverse when viewed from the opposite side. In the same way, Smith can reveal or hide select portions of the image when viewing from an angle.

Junction, 2018

Junction (detail)

The content of the images explores “the rich and complex histories of the post-colonial Caribbean and its people”. Smith was born in Jamaica and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, so the images are photographed in both places. For the New York images, dancers and crowds are captured at the West Indian Day Parade, an annual celebration of Caribbean islands and culture. The geometric patterns are references to “breeze block fences”, an architectural element in the Caribbean that are designed to partially veil and obscure. Those patterns perform that same sense of voyeurism, mystery, or an uneasy sense of imprisonment or separation from the subjects of the image. A tropical beach when viewed through a chain-link fence, for example, doesn’t feel much like paradise.

And yet, there is joy in every image, as those same scars seem to sparkle like sequins as you walk around the gallery.

Paul Anthony Smith “Junction” at Jack Shainman Gallery, 2019

Paul Anthony Smith “Junction” at Jack Shainman Gallery, 2019

Lost with Time, 2018-2019

Dead No Have No Reason, 2018-2019

Dead No Have No Reason (detail)

Paul Anthony Smith “Junction” at Jack Shainman Gallery, 2019

These works speak to extremely complex and often dark personal histories of displacement, colonization, belonging, and cultural pride. And I’m not an expert on any of that. But that’s exactly why this work is so incredibly successful, and why I’ve visited 3 times now.

The best art in the world doesn’t scream or lecture at a viewer, nor does it gently satisfy with something known. Great art makes you curious about something that has always been there, but wasn’t in your personal field of view. Paul Anthony Smith has beautifully damaged photographs with exceptional precision, and in doing so has locked the viewer (joyfully) in front of his images for several minutes as patterns shift with angled views. And what remains when walking out of the gallery is an insatiable curiosity about these histories and issues. For me personally, I’ve already marked my calendar for the next West Indian Parade.

Adjacent to the Evening Sun, 2018-2019

Paul Anthony Smith “Junction” at Jack Shainman Gallery, 2019

Paul Anthony Smith “Junction” at Jack Shainman Gallery, 2019

What: Paul Anthony Smith “Junction”
Where: Jack Shainman Gallery, 513 W 20th Street and 524 W 24th Street, NYC
When: April 4 – May 11, 2019

All images © Paul Anthony Smith. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

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The blu Marble Livestreams Heavenly Perspective of Earth From Space

Artist Sebastian Errazuriz’s latest public artwork installation transcends the description of monumental with an effort and scale deserving of the epithet of planetary. blu Marble is a 20-foot LED installation capturing a macro view of our planet created using data from NASA satellites as part of a new campaign, ‘Pledge World by Blu’.

Conceptual sketches of blu Marble by Sebastian Errazuriz.

The project cites the 50th anniversary of the first lunar walk and the renowned picture “Blue Marble” photo of Earth captured by the Apollo 17 crew from outer space as inspiration. blu Marble pays homage to the iconic picture using contemporary display technology to raise awareness about our global connections and responsibilities.

blu Marble is a reminder of our miraculously fragile existence. It places our very existence in perspective at a global level – as a tiny spec in space – beckoning us to live fully with an awareness and mindfulness of our limited time on this vulnerable and beautiful planet.

The image of Earth was created using satellite data normally used to monitor daily variations of vegetation, ozone, aerosols, clouds, and reflectivity across the planet. The audience passing by the installation at night sees a partially dark Earth with clusters of light and, in contrast, meteorological conditions during the day. Photo by Charles Roussel.

“blu Marble” is unveiled by Sebastian Errazuriz and Pledge World by blu on Wednesday, March 13, 2019 in New York. (Charles Sykes/AP Images for blu)

Displayed in cooperation with the New Museum, the blu Marble transformed the Manhattan skyline for a single night using a custom-created LED screen and software designed by Errazuriz to scrape, then merge the live imagery from a NASA satellite into a slow progressive feed of Earth as seen from space.

The result is a fleeting and flowing portrait of a planet not much different than that described by Carl Sagan, who famously remarked our lives were all unfolding upon “a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark…underscor[ing] our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

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Lee Broom’s Landmark Exhibition Park Life

One of the UK’s leading product designers, Lee Broom, has created a significant landmark exhibition with Park Life. The 4,000 square foot installation – Broom’s largest yet – is set in an underground car park in Sydney, Australia, directly below Space Furniture’s flagship showroom.

By transforming the industrial space into an interpretation of a traditional 18th century pleasure garden, Park Life takes guests on a journey through hidden passages with 16 vignettes that showcase the brand’s lighting, furniture, and accessories in an entirely new way. This modernist take gives the guest a sense of escapism, amusement, and drama – all of which Broom is known for.

Lee Broom commented, “I am delighted to return to Australia to present this exciting exhibition with Space Furniture and visit Singapore for the first time during Singapore Design Week. Australia has been a big supporter of my work for many years and it is an honour to create such a significant installation to showcase my collection in Sydney.”

Park Life also debuts a new version of Broom’s award-winning Eclipse lights, this time in a polished gold finish. A sculptural silhouette with a mobile-like quality, Eclipse features mirror-polished gold and acrylic discs that interact with one another for a warm illumination. It will be available as a single pendant, a chandelier, and a table lamp.

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Our march toward zero waste in our shops

How Lindsey Hampton Creates for Her Cross-Disciplinary Shop

The following post is brought to you by Squarespace. Our partners are hand picked by the Design Milk team because they represent the best in design.

Individuals who consider themselves creative usually have some crossover in mediums and disciplines, sometimes their current body of work is lightyears away from where they first began. Aside from that, few artists have the ability to successfully transition in a professional way from one medium to another. Then there is Lindsey Hampton. An established professional in both the worlds of graphic design and ceramics where the two meld together seamlessly through her aesthetic. We talked to her about practices, her two-pronged cross-discipline business, and how Squarespace’s selection of award-winning templates, e-commerce capabilities, and marketing tools help her business thrive.

The first thing we had to know is whether design or ceramics came first in Lindsey’s creative evolution. How do the two practices play off of one another when she’s creating? What commonalities emerge?

“Design definitely came first. I started my career as a graphic designer long before I ever touched clay. so my design brain was pretty strong by then. And because I’ve spent a long time in that headspace, I approached ceramics in a very similar way. It’s still a visual communication, it’s still problem-solving. If I want a handle to be a certain shape, what shape should the body be? Both practices are all about balance, weight, and space. They are both about evoking a feeling,” Hampton shared with us.

You can have a dozen graphic designers, ceramicists, etc. in the same room, working on the same project, and each one will approach it differently. Ideation and process are endlessly fascinating and we wondered how Lindsey approaches her work, in this case what creating a piece of ceramics is like in her studio.

She says, “There are mainly two processes I go through, a production method and a more organic method. The production method is very meticulous. Clay is weighed to a specific amount and then thrown to exact measurements. I keep a book where I sketch out and jot down the measurements and weight of any and everything I’ve ever made more than one of. The organic method is when I just take a hunk of clay and throw it down without any preconceived notion to see what it’s going to end up as. Each move is made in the moment. Even when it comes to glazing, I rarely decide beforehand what I’ll end up doing, I really just try to let it happen. It’s often that things I make organically end up being transferred into production but not always, sometimes it’s nice for something to just live as it is but I think I need the balance of both to be able to make things work.”

Rarely will you find two businesses that have taken the same path, so we often wonder where one has come from and how it arrived at its current place. Lindsey’s design and ceramics business has its own trajectory that we wanted to know more about.

“I know that I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing without Instagram, but that was really just good timing. I started posting my work right from the beginning when Instagram was in its infancy. There was that exciting time when you’d discover someone new every day, and shops and boutiques and artists and designers were all new on the platform and just super stoked to be finding each other. I was able to start selling my work at some great shops and the demand kept building. I was working a full-time design job that paid well but that I didn’t necessarily like, which made it easy to leave and set up my own studio. I’ve been able to dedicate a lot of time to build things slowly and never produce more than what people wanted. It’s still not something I think of as a business, I’m just a person that makes things that people buy. It’s nice!,” Hampton said.

It’s tough running a business on your own, so it’s nice to be able to reach out to trusted partners to handle the things you know nothing about. We talked to her about how Squarespace helps to streamline her business and allow her to focus on creating.

“I’ve always loved grid style portfolios, it’s so nice to be able to get an overall vibe of someone’s work in a single glance. That’s what drew me to Wells template. I did a lot of editing of my photos so they would work well as a whole set when you view them in a grid. I focused a lot on the type and the colour palette, and I stuck with two typefaces and three colours, being confined to only a few elements makes it feel really crispy and consistent.,” Lindsey said.

She also shared, “There’s an ease to Squarespace that makes it feel like you don’t totally need all of your shit together to be able to look like you do. I’m a one person studio so being able to make something, photograph it, put it online, and sell it is very gratifying. I’m solely involved in every single step and I never have to worry about the e-commerce side of things. I know that if I put something up and someone wants to buy it, it’s no problem at all, it’s easy for them and me. There’s a lot of trust there.”

All photos courtesy of Lindsey Hampton.

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MATERIAL LUST’s Return of the Oppressed

For MATERIAL LUST, aka Christian Lopez Swafford and Lauren Larsen, it’s been three years since their last body of work was shown. Their latest – Return of the Oppressed – was created both together and separately and recently debuted at INDEPENDENT as part of an incubator project for unrepresented young artists at New York’s Independent Art Fair.

The focus of this body of work is on the steady influx of external and internal oppression we as a population experience, and the way that oppression and our reactions to it manifest in our environment. MATERIAL LUST identified a number of pressures and stressors that can be external and environmental, or internal and physiological and created a collection that feels bodily in its forms.

We’ve all found a way to develop protection against these oppressors, what Return of the Oppressed seeks to translate is how these protective skins manifest through sculptures, reliefs, and paintings. The series utilizes modern materials such as rubber, latex, and plastic, as well as classic materials like wood, plaster, and steel. Nested forms depict protection, while much of the work was intentionally left in a prototype phase.

from Design MilkArt – Design Milk http://bit.ly/2GqphOZ