events

Less than a month stands between you and Dwell on Design, a veritable feast of modern design in the form of thousands of products, oodles of presentations, modern home tours, and demonstrations galore. This year’s three-day celebration, “Modern Beyond Expectations,” takes place June 22-24 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, where Dwell has taken an additional 60,000 square feet of exhibition space. Among the highlights in store for the event’s seventh go-round are an exhibition of the best in Swiss design, an original installation by Oyler Wu Collaborative, and a screening lounge that will show films such as Modern Tide: Midcentury Architecture on Long Island and Hella Jongerius: Contemporary Archetypes. Featured speakers include Miami architect Chad Oppenheim, who will discuss the life-enhancing power of houses, and prefab innovator Mitchell Joachim of ONE Lab. The Brooklyn-based architect and TED fellow will speak about cities and how we think about all kinds of urban scale simultaneously. “Cities are always shifting and their smallest components can have the greatest implications,” says Joachim. “I call it ‘from the doorknob to the democracy.’”

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

Hedge fun. The logo topiary at the Party in the Garden, hosted by the Museum of Modern Art.

• A new Diane Arbus biography? A new Diane Arbus biography! Journalist Arthur Lubow has inked a deal with Ecco to publish A Secret About a Secret: The Life of Diane Arbus. Word on the street (and by “the street,” we mean the deal report at Publishers Marketplace) is that the book “reveals the extraordinary facts of her life and explores the way she used her gift for intimacy to probe complex ideas about identity in a manner revolutionary to both her art and her time.” Tide yourself over by reading “Arbus Reconsidered,” Lubow’s 2003 piece in The New York Times Magazine, which ignites thusly: “‘Giving a camera to Diane Arbus is like giving a hand grenade to a baby,’ Norman Mailer said after seeing how she had captured him, leaning back in a velvet armchair with his legs splayed cockily.”

• And speaking of colorful characters (monumental lips! glittering eyes!), the Cyclops Trannies are back. The colorful paint-marker portraits by assume vivid astro focus, exhibited earlier this year at New York gallery the Suzanne Geiss Company, are now available in book form. This evening (6-8 p.m.), Printed Matter hosts a reception and signing with the artists. Stop by the store anytime in the next week or so to check out two editioned neon works from avaf in the window. Next up, in June, is a window installation by book artist David Sandlin.

• Commencement season is in full swing, and the New York School of Interior Design celebrated its 175 graduates with the help of Amy Lau. The interior designer was the keynote speaker at Friday’s NYSID commencement ceremonies, where she received an honorary doctorate in fine arts along with Martha Stewart, Architectural Digest editor-in-chief Margaret Russell, and interior designer John Saladino.
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Remember those commercials featuring Zack the Legomaniac? His real-world, adult equivalents are known as LEGO Certified Professionals, a designation that only a dozen people worldwide have achieved. One of them is Adam Reed Tucker, a Chicago architect-turned-“architectural artist” that now builds exclusively with tiny plastic bricks. “Working with my hands, creating art and sculpture, the freedom to create and explore my own vision of design without computer reliance, and to share architecture with the world all made this a natural move for me,” he says. “I wanted to work on ways to inspire and motivate those familiar with architectural elements and those with no design knowledge at all.”

Tucker is to thank for the LEGO Architecture product line, launched in 2008 with kits devoted to the Sears Tower and the John Hancock Center. He’s also the tireless brickbuilder behind “LEGO Architecture: Towering Ambition,” on view through September 3 at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. Tucker’s 15 globe-spanning LEGO landmarks (including the Empire State Building, Frank Lloyd Wright‘s Fallingwater, and the Burj Khalifa) recently got some new neighbors, as the museum welcomed LEGO versions of 15 Central Park West (downsized by its original designers, Robert A.M. Stern Architects) and a couple of hometown favorites: a Metro station (ZGF Architects) and a traditional center hall colonial home (Gulick Group). Total brick count on the three models? 77,000. This weekend, Tucker returns to the museum to put the finishing touches on his LEGO White House. Stop by between noon and 4 p.m. on Saturday or Sunday to join in the architectural fun. Can’t make it to Our Nation’s Capital? Build your own LEGO White House (considerably smaller than the museum version) with this 560-piece kit. No word as to whether the gift shop also sells a LEGObama figure to place inside.

At the Herman Miller pop-up shop, a family of Alexander Girard figures implore visitors to peruse Todd Oldham and Kiera Coffee’s mega-monograph on the designer. At right, an Eames lounge and ottoman with pedestal tables and an asterisk clock designed by George Nelson. (Photos: UnBeige)

The International Contemporary Furniture Fair doesn’t kick off until next Saturday, but Herman Miller is getting a jump on New York design week with a pop-up shop in Soho. The 6,000-square-foot showroom, open to the public through July 1, is arranged as a series of vignettes sprinkled with whimsical objects and designer-friendly books as well as art from Portland’s PDX gallery. It’s also the first place to see the Herman Miller Collection, a mix of classic pieces (Eames chairs, Noguchi tables, George Nelson‘s enduringly endearing Marshmallow sofa) and the work of contemporary designers such as Konstantin Grcic, Jasper Morrison, and Naoto Fukasawa. The portfolio of freestanding furniture for home and office is a revival of sorts. Ben Watson, executive creative director of Herman Miller, looked to heed Nelson’s 1948 call for “the continuing creation of a permanent collection designed to meet the requirements for modern living.” And so Ward Bennett credenzas mix with Stefano Giovannoni‘s swooping Paso Doble chairs, and BassamFellows’ elegant Tuxedo sofas cozy up to Nelson’s own mod tables. Watson has lined up future Collection pieces from the likes of Leon Ransmeier and Ayse Birsel and Bibi Seck.

Wooden bears by David Weeks prowl a table of books and accessories. At right, Grcic’s new Medici chair, produced by Mattiazzi, has a mod Adirondack vibe.

A rainbow of Eames molded plastic chairs around a Nelson X-Leg table.
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A couple of centuries ago, when the Revolutionary War was in full swing, the British commandeered a patch of farmland in the East River and used it to launch amphibious attacks on Manhattan. Today we know it as Randall’s Island, and a new crop of Brits have seized it for friendly, aboveground purposes: an international contemporary art fair. The first edition of Frieze New York opens Friday in Randall’s Island Park. Nearly 200 galleries will showcase works inside a light-infused temporary structure designed by New York-based Solid Objectives–Indeburg Liu (SO–IL).

“We build a very big fair and to try and find a spot for it isn’t easy,” Frieze New York co-director Amanda Sharp tells us. “It has to be a space that is accessible, that has a little bit of romance and panache about it, that feels in tune with the idea that perhaps Frieze is more of an innovation.” Determined to avoid setting up shop in a hangar on the Hudson, Sharp and co-director Matthew Slotover scouted fresh locales, including one they had never heard of: Randall’s Island. “I go out there, I get out there very easily, and I’m basically standing on the river, in this beautiful open green space, looking back at this fantastic view,” says Sharp, who also discovered “a bit of grittiness” reminiscent of ’70s New York and films such as The French Connection, which was shot on the island. “So it is unknown, but oddly enough, it’s very familiar. It has a little bit of magic about it, and that’s what we were looking for,” she adds. “If you build a fair with really good galleries, I assume that really good collectors will come because they like to see good art, but if you make it an event, perhaps you open art up to more people, and that really excites me.”

Above: A rendering of the fair’s temporary structure. (Courtesy SO–IL and Frieze New York)

“Outlaws and Icons” is the theme of this year’s Gravity Free design conference, which kicks off tomorrow at Chicago’s Spertus Institute. The multidisciplinary affair brings together disparate design stars, from Chip Kidd and Brian Collins to Rafael de Cárdenas and Margie Ruddick. Jonathan Alger of C&G Partners will be on hand to moderate, probe, and query. And the big finish? A Wednesday afternoon keynote address by George Lois. Register here.

Back in New York City, the month of May brings flowers and the Parsons Festival, 20 spring days worth of exhibitions, symposia, panel discussions, critiques, and special projects that celebrate the next generation of artists and designers. There are graduate shows a-plenty, beginning with tomorrow’s fashion benefit honoring designer Donna Karan and entrepreneur Sheila C. Johnson.

On Wednesday, all eyes will be on the D-Critters at the School of Visual Arts as the MFA Design Criticism program presents “Eventually Everything,” its third annual conference. Change Observer co-editor Julie Lasky will moderate a day of presentations from the likes of media historian Stuart Ewen, Pentagram’s Michael Bierut, and the whipsmart student speakers. MFA candidate Anna Kealey’s talk sound particularly tasty. “I’ll be presenting my thesis topic ‘Unpacking the Pastoral Food Package,’” she tells us, “which discusses the role designers have played in perpetuating myths about how food is produced in the United States.” Yum! And save room for talks from her classmates, who’ll tackle topics including the implications of Anthropologie and the AK-47.

The annual AIGA Awards are a little like the Oscars, but with better kerning, bolder eyeglasses, and much less Botox. At this year’s gala celebration, co-chaired by Pentagram’s DJ Stout and Su Mathews of Lippincott, guests were encouraged to wear hats shaped like buildings (make your own with this handy template). We dispatched graphic designer Prescott Perez-Fox to lash a cardboard Eiffel Tower to his head and scope out the scene.

From left, AIGA medalists Ralph Caplan, Robert Vogele, and Elaine Lustig Cohen with AIGA executive director Richard Grefé; reveling designers strike a pose in the urbane photo booth. (Photos: Angela Jimenez for AIGA; Denise Ginley and Steven Robinson)

Much like the return of migrating birds and an elevated pollen count, spring brings with it the design industry’s very own prom, the annual AIGA Awards. Last week’s event, entitled Bright Lights Big City and held in Manhattan at the Altman Building, didn’t make use of the pastel ubiquity of April, but instead opted for a deco-inspired architectural theme, where the entire event was set in black-and-white, referencing the Beaux Arts Ball of 1931 in which architects dressed in costumes of buildings they had designed. This year’s guests were invited to design and create hats in the shape of their favorite buildings, bringing some unexpected wit and levity set against the relative severity of black cocktail attire.

However, the focus of the evening isn’t fashion, it is to honor the newest recipients of the prestigious AIGA medal. This year’s honorees were not simply accomplished design professionals in their own right, but together represent four of the essential archetypes of design. Ralph Caplan represents The Observer, following his career as a design author and having gained the unique ability to find perspective and turn that into something informative and enticing. Elaine Lustig Cohen comes to us as The Artist, creating groundbreaking work in typography and illustration, and raising the status of the designer and of design as a whole. Armin Hoffmann is The Mentor, demonstrated by the generations of design students he taught directly, and the enduring popularity of the Swiss style so closely linked to him. Finally, Robert Vogele embodies The Entrepreneur, demonstrating that classic American story of a regular Joe who created a scrappy upstart that became a thriving business and influential design practice. To the younger designers in the audience, it was inspirational—our challenge is how to embrace these qualities in our careers and become the next archetypes of design.
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(Photos: Nico Neefs)

Bound for the Milan Furniture Fair yet short on time? Focus on the work of designers named Maarten! That will keep you plenty busy. Start at Ventura Lambrate, where Maarten Baas will have a bunch of new projects on display beginning tomorrow. Among them are spidery clay stools that Louise Bourgeois would have loved, a massive tablecloth woven—in a typeface called “Font of the Loom”—with the names of the inhabitants of Amsterdam (all 780,559 of them), and a still-under-wraps “kinetic object” for Laikingland. Also on view will be his Martin Puryear-esque “Empty Chair,” a 16-foot tall ladder-back seat created for Amnesty International in honor of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo.

The other Eindhoven-educated must-see Maarten is Maarten De Ceulaer, who’ll be exhibiting at three locations during the Salone del Mobile. Head to Rossana Orlandi and the Triennale di Milano to be charmed by his “Mutations” series (pictured). “The pieces in this series look like they weren’t made by hands, but have grown to their present form organically,” says the Brussels-based designer. “They might be the result of a mutation in cells, or the result of a chemical or nuclear reaction. Perhaps it’s a virus or bacteria that has grown dramatically out of scale.” In fact, De Ceulaer created the molecularly marvelous seating, a kind of deep-buttoned upholstery run amok, by carefully composing patterns with sections of foam spheres that are then applied to a structure. The final step is coating the entire piece in a rubbery or velvet-like finish. “It is largely impossible to ever recreate such a specific pattern,” he says, “so every piece is completely unique.”

If over the years you had developed a vague idea of what types of public talks and concerts the Metropolitan Museum of Art would be hosting over any given week, you’ll need to run out and get a new calendar. Yesterday, the Met announced that its annual performance and talk series will be renamed “Met Museum Presents” and would be varying fairly substantially from years prior, all due to last summer’s hiring of new Concerts & Lectures General Manager, Limor Tomer. While you’ll still see plenty of classical pieces being performed, Tomer has said that she’s interested in tying those performances together with current exhibitions, so there will be programs like composer Tan Dun performing a Chinese opera to go along with an exhibition devoted to Chinese garden imagery. In the business world, we think they call that “synergy.” The new “Met Museum Presents” will also introduce for the first time, a performing artist residency, kicking things off with DJ Spooky, the celebrated musician, artist, and writer, who will perform five times at the Met, as well as hosting “a number of panel discussions, conversations, workshops, and gallery tours for audiences.” He is set to begin the residency this October, which will run through to next June.

(Photo: Sasha Arutyunova)

“Brands are like people,” Reed Krakoff has said. “They are all different and you get to know them in different ways.” The versatile designer’s observation on the diversity of brands, quoted back to him by Pamela Golbin, curator of fashion at textiles at Les Arts Décoratifs in Paris, was a fitting way to begin the first in a trio of “Fashion Talks” presented by the French Institute Alliance Francaise (the chic conversations continue tonight, when FIAF welcomes Stefano Pilati, who earlier this month stepped down from the creative helm of Yves Saint Laurent). In two short years (and five runway collections), Krakoff has created a luxury brand—an American luxury brand, no less—from scratch, which in an industry that trades on centuries-old saddlery skills and wildly embellished “heritage” narratives is no simple feat, especially considering that he’s developed his eponymous label while also maintaining posts as president of executive creative director of Coach.

“When I came to Coach [in 1996], I had never done accessories. I was a menswear designer, and what I loved more than anything was starting something that was an amazing challenge, something where I knew I could learn and be on path to discovering what I could do—or not do,” he told Golbin at last week’s sold-out event at Florence Gould Hall. “I really love the idea of learning and challenges, and after fifteen years, I felt that I wanted to do more that was in keeping with my own true aesthetic.” Influenced by everything from ultimate fighting champs and vintage football jerseys to the artful aviary of John James Audubon and design masterpieces from his own astounding collection, that aesthetic is refined but flexible, as likely to embrace a sleek clutch (in matte python) as a bold trench stamped with a painterly monochrome print that only the most eagle-eyed shopper would recognize as an abstracted version of the brand’s geometric logo. “It’s a direct reflection of the things that I love,” said Krakoff. “The aesthetic is a combination of disparate ideas—things that are quite sexy and sensual and romantic, things that are quite minimal and architectural.”
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