Inspirational Links: Oct 23 – 29

What inspires you?

Five thought-inspiring things found online last week. 

First of all, this flexible cover for the November issue of design magazine Novum is awesome. Secondly, the elaborate production process revealed in this making-of video is totally incredible. Kudos to design firm Paperlux! [via Laughing Squid]

Light drawings are made by photographing a moving light in darkness. Sounds simple enough, but how does artist Brian Matthew Hart achieve these incredible results?! Please explain. [via illusion]

Getting creative with Halloween costumes is always inspiring, especially the DIY variety. I love this newsprint ensemble (complete with logo necklace!) by Tawfik Mounayer of Tribune Standard. [via T, NYTimes Style Magazine]

The designers at HappyCentro were challenged to create a cover for Domenica (the national Italian newspaper) that was about food without using real food. I might have fashioned something with Fimo. What would you have done? HappyCentro came up with these paper fruits and veggies. They are chic and sleek and adorable, and I want them! [via Plenty of Colour]

With her series of Posters for Girls, Amanda Visell hopes to “show girls they can do anything.” Yes we can! [via oh dee doh]

Leave a comment and share the links that inspire you. 

Broadway; Houston – Prince Sts – Zak Kitnick, Fashion Pictures, ONECITY

Right now at Clifton Benevento there is a vast array of produce but nothing to eat and a surplus of shelving but nowhere to store anything. This is the work of artists Zak Kitnick, who presents us with lattices of industrial shelving embedded in the walls and uber-detailed posters of produce varieties. Kitnick’s work exemplifies the compelling beauty of OCD. His posters and shelves present so much information in such an organized, lovely way. It’s hard to explain why this show is so good, so go see it and tell me what you think it is!

Venture up the block to Staley-Wise for an exhibition of highlights from renown fashion photog Deborah Turbeville’s new book The Fashion Pictures. Turbeville has a way of staging mysteriously beautiful scenes that draw you deeply into the lives of her subjects. They are gorgeous and chic and tragic and lonely, and their clothes are haute couture. It’s indulgent and fun to be a visitor in that lush world and then move on...

In stark contrast, Will Insley’s paintings at Westwood Gallery are lacking that rich detail. Rather, his “shape paintings” are sort of like Rorschach inkblots. These fragments are tools in Insley’s ONECITY, an architecturally elaborate, ficticious place that could house millions of people. They are bold abstractions that rely on you, the viewer, to piece the fragments together. The idea is that if you see a remnant of a wall, you can envision the building and by extension the city, the inhabitants, etc. Well, I’m sorry to say that here I see a pinwheel and not much around it. Can you help me out here? 

New York holds 8 million people and Insley's ONECITY was meant for 400 million. Mull this over while enjoying the fantastic baked eggs, paninis and pastries at Café Falai (on Lafayette). If you don’t have time to sit and ruminate, grab a to-go sandwich from Balthazar Bakery. As you stroll away, delicious latte in hand, look around and think about where all those extra people would go. Personally, I’m going to need a lot more than fragments to figure that one out!

Ingredients:

Venues: Clifton Benevento, Staley-Wise, Westwood

Artists: Zak Kitnick, Deborah Turbeville, Will Insley

Streets: Broadway; Houston to Prince Sts

Eats: Café Falai, Balthazar Bakery

Map:

W 59th St – Museum of Conan Art - NY COCO MOCA

New Yorkers are used to losing our favorite celebs to the west coast, but when Conan moved away the hurt was a little deeper. Now, for a limited time, those lovin’ feelings are back thanks to The New York Museum of Conan Art. (There hasn’t been this much “caution” orange in the area since The Gates were in Central Park!) This pop-up gallery (on the 2nd floor at the Time Warner Center) is a showcase for Conan O’brien fan art, and a lot of it is really good.The collection runs the gamut from oil painting to crochet sculpture, and there is even a free audio tour with commentary by Conan and Andy. Here are just a few of my favorites.

Lil' Crochet Coco by Allison Hoffman.
He comes complete with crocheted blimp and ice cream cone!

A Wordy Host by Josh Mirman.
In a world where Conan is made of words, his mustache spells "funnyman" 

Coco Tribal Mask by Stephen Kinsey. Polymer clay, leather. 

It's no more than 4 inches tall and a lot of that is the hair.

After you’re done perusing, head down to the Jamba Juice inside Whole Foods for a Mango Mantra smoothie because, you know, it is delicious and it is also that particular shade of Conan orange. For Conan's signature jitteriness, add a 3G Charger boost. Enjoy the rest of your day! 

Ingredients:

Venue: New York Museum of Conan Art, Time Warner Center

Artists: Allison Hoffman, Josh Mirman, Stephen Kinsey

Streets: 59^th St & Broadway, Columbus Circle

Eats: Jamba Juice

Map:

W 27th St – Subway, Many Worlds Interpretation, Geometric Variations

Periodically Billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg makes glossy headlines when he rides the subway. That is now, but it’s pretty hard to imagine him stepping his Italian leather shoes into the graffiti-covered cars of Bruce Davidson’s Subways. They are a beautiful, haunting memorial to a city that has been “cleaned up.” A mix of vibrant color and dark shadows, sweaty skin and gritty surfaces, they are a reminder of just how inspiring our city can be. Look around; see it all!

As you take it all in, do you wonder if eventually electronic intelligence will outpace human capability? Artist Peter Gregorio does. He studies “The Singularity,” which is the idea that eventually bio & tech will converge. His current show, The Many Worlds Interpretation, is full of modular, multi-dimensional, large-scale paintings and video installations that explore this idea. It’s totally fascinating and frankly pretty terrifying to think about.  

After that heavy stuff, Frank Stella's Geometric Variations at Paul Kasmin Gallery is a nice release. Stella’s concentric squares and mitered mazes are comforting in their smooth geometric patterns. This simplicity is easy to toss off, but stop and think for a minute about composition and color. There is a rich complexity in the execution. 

Then, reward yourself at Ovest Pizzoteca with a series of circles that require very little thought. I mean, with the lunch-special 8” pies, don’t even think about choosing between the Martha and the Bufala, get them both! You'll thank me... 

Ingredients:

Venues: Aperture Foundation, Artgate, Paul Kasmin

Artists: Bruce Davidson, Peter Gregorio, Frank Stella

Streets: W 27th St, 10-11th Aves

Eats: Ovest Pizzoteca

Map:

Inspirational Links: October 16 - 22

What inspires you?

Five thought-inspiring things found online last week. 

Browse the entries in this classic-art-remake challenge sponsored by BOOOOOOOM! and Adobe. Across the board they’re remarkably inventive while staying true to their roots. Test your art history prowess while you’re at it! How many originals do you recognize? [via BOOOOOOOM!]

Richard Serra’s Verb List (1967-68) struck me when I saw it this summer at the Met. (That retrospective is now at the SFMoMA, and it’s worth a visit if you’re in SF.) Since Verb List is a new acquisition for MoMA’s Dept of Drawings, it came up again in the blog-o-sphere this week. Read it aloud to yourself. Feel the energy. Act!  [via INSIDE/OUT]

Calligrapher/typographer Sabeena Karnik sculpted the alphabet out of vibrant, swirling paper. Wouldn't they be perfect on a playroom wall?! [via Behance]

I want to buy this Psalt Bubble Fish Tank and keep it on a shelf high above eye level. I’m not sure exactly why… [via designboom]

David Rockwell discusses How Good Buildings Happen with Architizer's Marc Kushner. Rockwell and his team are driven by curiosity and solving problems. He says, “From the air this city looks like this very neat organized Cartesian grid, but on the ground it’s this incredibly messy, vital, ever-changing opportunity for good design and bad design.”  Lucky for us New Yorkers Rockwell gives us the former with the new Film Society of Lincoln Center. [via Architizer]    

How Good Buildings Happen - David Rockwell from MAS on Vimeo.

Leave a comment and share the links that inspire you.