Exhibition: Spaces Etc./An Exercise in Utility

Ron Gilad’s latest body of work, Spaces Etc./An Exercise in Utility has launched its own site.

Gilad refuses to be pigeonholed and is not interested in distinctions. Instead he moves with ease between disciplines and materials. Borrowing from the history of art and design, he draws references from the work of artists such as René Magritte, Giorgio de Chirico, and Marcel Duchamp, as well as a later generation of designers such as the Italian masters Enzo Mari, Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, and Ettore Sottsass. Links can also be made to more recent innovators, especially the work of Jurgen Bey and Richard Hutten for Droog in the Netherlands. Like them he takes an intuitive, rather than a rationalist, approach to his practice imbuing his works with a diverse range of ideas that seek to radically alter the evaluation of an object beyond its utility.

Exhibition: Spaces Etc./An Exercise in Utility by Ron Gilad, April 29 - May 9, at Wright, Chicago, USA

Exhibition: Ron Gilad: Spaces Etc. / an Exercise in Utility

A philosopher of the everyday object, Ron Gilad’s designs invite viewers to question and even doubt the form and functionality of everyday objects, furniture and lighting. Ceaselessly exploring and conceptualizing notions of proportion and scale; Gilad’s works do indeed (as his own website asserts) sit on the fat, delicious line between the abstract and the functional. From a Room Divider fashioned to resemble a door and blatantly reminding the user that he or she is entering or exiting a divided space, to a Freestanding Shelve, a tabletop surface that literally sits atop a pair of human-like legs, Gilad’s designs are an amalgamation of material wit and aesthetic play.

The works of Ron Gilad can be found within the permanent collections of many museums and institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. Born in Tel-Aviv, Ron Gilad lives and works in New York.

Exhibition: Ron Gilad: Spaces Etc. / an Exercise in Utility, April 29 - May 9, at Wright, Chicago, USA

Moon Fragment by Tokujin Yoshioka

Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka has designed two perfume bottles for French jeweller Cartier. Called Moon Fragment, the bottles each include a single diamond. They are on show at the Tokyo National Museum exhibition ‘Story of…’ - memories of Cartier creations, directed by Yoshioka.

Moon Fragment by Tokujin Yoshioka, for Cartier
via: dezeen and designboom

Vessels by Jennifer McCurdy

Vortex Vessel no.5, Wheat Bottle, by Jennifer McCurdy

Exhibition: Second Nature by Noriko Ambe

Exhibition: Second Nature, works by Noriko Ambe, directed by Tokujin Yoshioka at 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT, Tokyo

E-Cyclorama Immersive Painting

The E-Cyclorama is a painting, but a painting that you’re immersed in, that you view from within. Painted on the inside of a huge cylinder, using one hundred and nine separate colours on more than seven hundred square feet of canvas, the E-cyclorama surrounds its audience, filling the field of vision with a rainbow of shifting colour. The colour moves through the spectrum, but the transitions are rendered in so subtle a way, that you can never be sure where one colour ends and the next begins. The effect is dynamic, an experience almost more like music than painting, more like surround-sound painting.

E-Cyclorama, Edinburgh Art Festival 2008, by Sanford Wurmfield,
via: Art Daily

Exhibition: Fragiles: Porcelain Glass & Ceramics Kuwait

After successfully touring the US and Europe making stops at Design Miami 2007 and Quinze & Milan’s Gallery 113 in Belgium in 2008, Fragiles eclectic showcase of contemporary porcelain, ceramic and glass design and artwork, will travel to the Al-Sabah Art & Design in Kuwait, a contemporary art and design gallery created by Villa Moda founder Sheikh Majed Al-Sabah.

Fragiles at the Al-Sabah Art & Design Gallery has been designed to occupy the new gallery space and introduces several new works by artists not shown in the previous exhibitions. The spectrum and quality of these innovative projects shows a current generation of designers and artists just how relevant and challenging working with these traditional materials can be.

Exhibition: Fragiles: Porcelain Glass & Ceramics, June 7 - July 5, Al-Sabah Art & Design Gallery, The Corniche, Arabian Gulf Road, Shaab, Kuwait

Zaha Hadid Silver Paintings

Zaha Hadid has consistently pushed the boundaries of architecture and urban design. Silver Paintings showcases Hadid’s discipline in a new light and medium. The title of the series refers to the surface of the works, which in their raw state resemble polished metal or mirrors, an effect created with a polyester skin treated with chrome and gelatine and then di-bonded.

Initially, the images are digitally generated, then photographed in their virtual state. Once the images are printed they are hand-painted in a medium that complements the subject. This might be stained glass paint (which creates the transparent and cathedral like feel), acrylic and Chinese lacquer (Opaque and POP qualities) or UV resistant ink combined with Vinyl (highly reflective). These techniques combine to suggest a gradual intersection between reflectivity and opacity, from one architectural feature to the next.

Silver Paintings, by Zaha Hadid, at Buchmann Galerie

Exhibition: John Lautner in Glasgow

Between Heaven and Earth: the Architecture of John Lautner shows work from the Lautner archive, held at the Getty Research Institute.

Known for his extensive and progressive residential work, Lautner’s hand was behind over 100 (some built, some unbuilt) projects, many of which are present in this show, which promises to be architectural heaven for the lovers of rare hand drawings, sketches and detailed models. A series of events have been organised to accompany and compliment the show, so if you are keen to find out more about the American architect, there is a number of happenings to choose from, from exhibition tours, to film screenings.

Between Heaven and Earth: the Architecture of John Lautner, originally curated by Nicholas Olsberg and Frank Escher, Lighthouse Gallery, Glasgow, 20 March 2009 to 26 July
via: Wallpaper

Long overshadowed by modernist contemporaries Rudolph Schindler and Richard Neutra, John Lautner and the homes he built in Southern California are set to receive unprecedented attention thanks to the publication of a book published by Rizzoli. The book details Lautner’s inspirations, philosophies and legacy, not the least of which is the Chemosphere, originally derided by some critics as a silly fantasy.
Between Earth and Heaven: The Architecture of John Lautner, Edited by historian Nicholas Olsberg
Buy it here: Amazon

Bronze Sculpture by Tony Cragg

Born in Liverpool, Tony Cragg Lives and works in Wuppertal, Germany.

Sculpture by Tony Cragg, at Buchmann Galerie