Here’s a video that might interest Peksies and PB: Colliding Forces

“Fashion can qualify as art when it’s done at the highest level. But I don’t think it’s exclusive just to fashion, I guess it’s true to the practice of law, or engineering, or… bicycle riding.” — Tom Sachs.

Take that! All those research papers — ART! And again…

“I love fashion when it makes you feel sexy; I hate it when it makes you feel fat for not having it.” — Tom Sachs.

Select works from Tom Sachs.

via

Studio Tractor, Cotter Pin Bike Rack (digital rendering), 2009 Courtesy Peter Kirkiles design + fabrication, Kent, CT, and Studio Tractor Architecture, Brooklyn, NY

As bicycles become a more common mode of transportation, the architecture to park and protect them—the bike rack—has become increasingly ubiquitous, particularly in urban areas. However, the recent revolution in bicycle design has not been reflected in a proliferation of bike racks that combine useful function with high aesthetics. Stripped down to its core, the bike rack provides two basic functions: a support structure that keeps bikes upright, and a solid armature for securing bikes from theft. Included in The Aldrich’s exhibition are three radically different takes on bike rack design, all of which have been installed outside the Museum for cyclists to use during the duration of the exhibition. Designer and fabricator Peter Kirkiles has teamed up with Studio Tractor Architecture and designed a rack based on a rigid geometry. Artist and fabricator David Gelfman has made the steel Bike Crab, a radial design that is based on the form of the common blue crab. Artist Tom Sachs has contributed a bike rack made from “found” wood from a New York City Police barrier that states, “These Bikes are Being Watched, You are Being Watched.”

–Mónica Ramírez-Montagut, curator, and Richard Klein, exhibitions director

Curators of Bike Rides

Well I was doing my usual rounds on the net a lookie what i found.

Beheading by Chanel, Now Imagine that!

IMG|SOURCE: Tom Sachs

I was so busy this weekend hanging out at The NY Art Book Fair that I didn’t get a chance to blog.  But here is my attempt at a re-cap of the first two days…

This year there were about 200 vendors spread out in the labyrinth of classrooms at PS1. The Fair opened early on Thursday evening for a preview. I was overwhelmed with the amount of publications to look at, but really excited about returning over the weekend to take a better look.  The benefit party, at Deitch Projects in Long Island City, following the preview was fun.  I attended with artists Jenn Brehm, Brent Owens, and Jennifer Sullivan.  I had never visited Deitch L.I.C. before and the gallery space, which is in a warehouse right next to The East River, is huge. When we entered we all received an editioned Tom Sachs screwdriver with our tickets.  We hung out, listened to DJs Tim Lokiec and Gary Murphy, ate some empanadas and had some drinks.  I.U.D. didn’t play until 11, so I stayed for a bit of their set and then headed home for a good nights sleep before the weekend of events.

On Friday morning I attended The Contemporary Artists’ Books Conference session: ‘Empirical Experience: The Artist, Information, and the Book.’  The panel was moderated by Bernard Yenelouis who began the session with a history of data gathering and it’s relationship to artists books.  In his lecture he mentioned Minimata, Michael Lesy’s Wisconsin Death Trip, Ed Ruscha’s Royal Road Test, Martha Rosler’s The Bowery in Two Inadequate Descriptive Systems, The Center for Land Use Interpretation’s Points of Interest in Ohio, and Harun Farocki’s still video images, as examples of artists books and projects that use information to get to a new kind of knowledge.

After Yenelouis’s introduction, William E. Jones spoke about his project Mansfield 1962.  Mansfield 1962 started off as a film project.  Jones had pieced together footage from the Mansfield, Ohio police department where they secretly documented a tea-room in the center of town.  The police filmed 8 hours a day and Jones created his own film from the 16mm footage that he shows and following the screening explains the history of the situation.  When Jones was asked to be a part of The Whitney Biennial he realized he would not be able  to be present for each daily screening, so he decided the project should be made into a book.  The second printing of the book Tearoom is available through 2nd Cannons Publications.

Jacqueline Hassink then spoke about her books The Table of Power and Car Girls.  The Table of Power is Hassink’s series where she documents the conference room tables of international corporations.  Car Girls is a series of photographs taken at car shows, of the women or girls who work there.

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After The Conference session I went for a look around The Fair.  The first magazine I stumbled upon was Graphic, a quarterly graphic design magazine from Seoul, Korea.  Graphic explores one theme in each issue and is written in both Korean and English.  Issue no.6 is themed ‘Magazines’ and it contains information about 39 Korean magazines and 61 other international magazines!  I can’t wait to check that one out.  I was really excited to see Korea represented at The Fair and look forward to seeing more issues.

Pyramid Power, from Vancouver, Canada was another art magazine that was new to me and I bought myself a copy of their most recent issue no.6, 2009.  Pyramid Power is an art, design, and literature magazine that is published three times a year and is full of lush images.  The issue I picked up has articles with Jonathan Meese, Mark DeLong & Jason McLean, and Dick Oulton, a commercial photographer from Vancouver whose amazing photographs can be seen below.

I then went over to Motto’s table and spoke with Alexis Zavialoff the head of Motto Distribution.  He showed me a new magazine from France called May, which I later photographed at the Ooga Booga table.  Alexis also gave me a copy of The Index to their One Day Self-Publishing Fair, which is a great resource full of magazines, zines, and books, etc. I have never heard of before.

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It was a really busy day at The Fair.  I also attended two events in The Classroom.  First, Michalis Pichler presented his book Un Coup de Des Jamais N’Abolira Le Hasard / A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance. The book is a copy of Stéphane Mallarmé’s book of the same name, however Pichler has cut out all of the words.  In doing so, he creates a visual poem devoid of text.  After Pichler gave a short description of his project we watched a video of the book being played on a player piano, the blank spaces struck the notes and created a song from the text.  It was really interesting to see the book change from text to visual shape to music.

One of the most exciting events I was able to attend in The Classroom was my rediscovery of animator Daniel Barrow. I had seen an animation of his at The Kitchen a couple of years ago as part of an Astria Superak program.  On Friday he presented his live animation The Face of Everything, a story loosely based on Liberace’s lovers.  The animation was absolutely mesmerizing as Barrow narrated and moved images on transparencies over a projector.

Reports on the events of Saturday and Sunday coming soon…

http://nyartbookfair.com

PREVIEW: The Fair opens for preview October 1, 6-8 PM at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center.

BENEFIT
Following the preview, Deitch Studios, Long Island City, generously hosts a benefit for Printed Matter, featuring industrial punk-and-dub duo, I.U.D. (Lizzi Bougatsos of Gang Gang Dance and Sadie Laska of Growing). DJs Tim Lokiec and Gary Murphy play vintage house. Tickets begin at $20 and include limited artist editions byElmgreen & Dragset, Jutta Koether, Tom Sachs, andMungo Thomson.
$20 – benefit plus ticket edition by Tom Sachs in a numbered edition of 450
$150 – benefit plus edition by Jutta Koether signed and numbered edition of 150
$150 – benefit plus edition by Mungo Thomson signed and numbered edition of 150
$3,000 – benefit plus portfolio of 26 prints by Elmgreen & Dragset signed and numbered edition of 26

LOCATION
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center
22-25 Jackson Ave at the intersection of 46th Ave
Long Island City, NY 11101 (map)

FAIR HOURS
Friday/Saturday, October 2 & 3, 2009, 11am – 7pm
Sunday, October 4, 2009, 11am – 5pm

Sweet Station

ABOUT: “Welcome to Sweet Station, a place for our thoughts and ramblings in the fields of paintings, illustrating, advertising, photography, product design, architecture, installation design, graphic arts and well, pretty much anything we want to talk about. We hope to bring great fun and referred for constant inspiration.”

Get a free Sweet Station sticker by emailing: honey4president@gmail.com

Sweet Station is pretty sweet. There’s a blog, an event section (that has cool art shows listed all over the US), and photo of the week section.

Sweet Station provides tons of images from emerging artists. You can even submit your own work. I love all the product design discovered on this blog:

I had to include this Ms. Packman ring (Thanks Weeds!).

“Ms. Pac-Man / Ghost Ring by Tiny Armour. Get Pac-man fever with this cool little ring! Looks great as a pair with the ghost. This item is custom made, usually ships in 1-2 weeks. $68.00! Cha-ching! Buy here”

Here are some cool soap rings—You’ll never have to worry about not having soap in a public restroom again!

“

These soap rings disappear when they are used. duh. Designer: Nancy Wu

And I’m totally digging these FLAT LIGHT BULBS!!!

“Flat bulb designed by Joonhuyn Kim from Korea.”

Below find some of the current art work featured on the blog:

TOM SACHS: “As an avid photographer and camera enthusiast, investing in one of these babies is pretty expensive. So if you’re still saving for a nice glass to go with your full frame camera, you can feast your eyes on these crafty and very resourceful paper replicas by Tom Sachs for now.”

Katrin Kirojood: “Take a peek at the extensive portfolio of Katrin Kirojood, a fashion photographer based in Göteborg/Sweden. Beautiful!”

JoKa: “Enjoy some mighty impressive work from Philadelphia-based artist JoKa. These are all painted with toothpicks and each one is just stunning. Visit his site or Myspace for more.”

There’s so many more images of art I want to put up from this site—explore Sweet Station to check out more art, product design and cool inventions.

The Fair opens up early this Thursday night from 6-8pm for a preview at PS1.  Following the preview is a benefit party at Deitch Studios with “industrial punk-and-dub duo, I.U.D. (Lizzi Bougatsos of Gang Gang Dance and Sadie Laska of Growing). DJs Tim Lokiec and Gary Murphy play vintage house. Tickets begin at $20 and include limited artist editions by Elmgreen & Dragset, Jutta Koether, Tom Sachs, and Mungo Thompson.”  You can get the $20 ticket with a signed and unnumbered edition by Tom Sachs (“This commemorative ticket edition by Tom Sachs for The 2009 NY Art Book Fair can be put to good use as a multiple-bit screwdriver after the party is over”)  here.

Tom Sachs daha önce Oslo’da düzenlediği ‘Araştırma: Amerika-Moderniz-Moda’ sergisinde yer alan Chanel idam sehpası (aslında kahvaltı masası olarak kullanılıyor) ve Prada ölüm kampı eserleriyle dikkatimi çekmişti. Şimdi kendisinin yeni işlerine rastladım. The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum’da düzenlediği sergisinde bu kez objeler ahşap yontma kameralar. 1972′den bu yanaki 12 çalışmasını bir araya getiren sergiden listografiye dahil olan 4 kamera… Leica’lara dikkat!

Creazioni di Tom Sachs

Tom Sachs è un artista, non un jewelry designer, e difficilmente prende parte a eventi legati alla beneficenza. Tuttavia vista la buona causa, ha accettato di realizzare un gioiello-scultura in edizione limitata a favore del “Endangered Species Coalition”.

Per l’occasione ha disegnato due collane (edizione di 12) con figure di animali in plastica (orsi polari una, cuccioli di cinghiale l’altra) e monete, accompagnate da una pochette firmata. Il prezzo è da opera d’arte, 2.500 dollari, ma l’intero ricavato andrà nella causa.

Creazioni di Tom Sachs

Creazioni di Tom Sachs

auf nächtlichen spaziergängen gibt es immer wieder buntes und skurriles zu entdecken:

altes museum berlin: “all art has been contemporary”

is this contemporary art? this box is a house. wofür sie dienen? keine ahnung. aber stockholm hat immer wieder skurriles zu bieten.

paris aber auch. kunstobjekt “crying hello kitty” vom künstler tom sachs am trocadero. im hintergrund die europasterne auf dem zu diesem zeitpunkt blau beleuchteten eiffelturm.

neben kunst gibt es in paris auch kunstvoll zerlegte fahrräder.

das wäre nicht passiert, hätte der eigentümer den grandiosen fahrradparkplatz ein paar straßen weiter benutzt.

dann hätte er auch die grandiose fahrradaufpumpstation nutzen können. vorausgesetzt, er hätte es mit seinem rad nach stockholm geschafft. (warum gibt es so etwas eigentlich bei uns nicht???)

auf dem weg dorthin hätte er sich noch diesen wunderschönen deckenleuchter im hamburger thalia-theater ansehen können. der an ein feuerwerk erinnert.

mit einem feuerwerk wurde das year of the pig beim chinese new year in sydney nicht eingeläutet, dafür mit diesem brennenden schweinchen. good luck!

für andere schweinereien gibts im sydney opera house wunderbar beleuchetes toilettenpapier. designt vom sohn von jørn utzon, des architekten des opernhauses. und schon schließt sich der kreis. denn auch das ist contemporary art.

]]> http://cverwaal.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/hello-kitty/ Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:10:57 +0000 Cornelis Verwaal http://cverwaal.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/hello-kitty/

Hello Kitty, originally uploaded by CVerwaal.

Tom Sachs statue of Japanese cartoon character Hello Kitty at Lever House, New York City, taken with the Olympus OM2, and Zuiko 24mm f2.8, on Ilford XP2-400 film. With all the convenience of digital photography I still find shooting with my old Olympus SLR a joy and the results are very satisfying. The 24mm Zuiko lens was perfect here to get the perspective I was looking for – an odd and whimsical juxtaposition of art and architecture.

In 2005 Tom Sachs wanted to create a sixty foot whale for his show at the Prada Foundation. I made the whale (Balaenoptera Musculus 2006) for him in Italy with the awesome team at Modelleria Angelino.

In 2007 I made a series of outdoor sculptures for Tom Sachs. The originals were made by me. The bronze reproductions (& fountain construction) was done by Arizona Bronze. *I loved this project!* I love that they were public pieces that everyone could enjoy & I love that some of them are fountains. I always feel good when I’m near a fountain.

Thank you Tom! Thank you for trusting me with these pieces. I hope they live for many years & bring joy to many lives. I will not forget the work & those who helped make it happen. I’m grateful. -Xo!

In 2002 I spent an entire year (-well, a little more than that…) making an aviation series for Tom Sachs. On the list was a Concorde, DC-10, Boeing 747, Boeing 767, and the Challenger Space Shuttle (-named The Crawler by Tom). The Crawler took months to build and had many hands that helped. It is on display at the Utrecht Centraal Museum in the Netherlands.

Out of all the work I did for Tom (-and all other clients), the aviation series gave me the most injuries. Burns, bruises, stitches ..& scars that still remain. I was very into the idea of making these pieces. I’ve always loved planes & birds. (-What is better than flying?) With any job worth something, you accept the risks. I have no regrets about my scars. I’m happy to have been part of this work.

Shepard Fairey Obey 'Soup Can' 3 Release Info

FROM ICONOCLAST: The next print in the series from Shepard Fairey Soup Can III print and Henry Chalfant’s 1980 archival photograph of Futura and Kell’s train car piece are included in our September releases. Also being released are two Tom Sachs editions, a Spike Jonze artist book, and a print by the Royal Art Lodge. While all the other editions are now available, the Fairey Soup Can III print will be made available on Wednesday, September 9th. For the first hour of its release, the Fairey Soup Can III will only be accessible by password, given to our Facebook and Twitter subscribers. After the first hour, the print will be publicly available and will not require a password to purchase. Check it out HERE

Here’s a great little interview with KAWS done by the guys over at La MJC. They caught up with him in Paris where “STAGES” exhibition has just opened. A combined effort by Lance Armstrong, a long-time supporter or contemporary arts and Nike to raise money and awareness for the Livestrong Foundation in the fight against cancer. They’ve teamed up with top artists such as Ed Ruscha, Tom Sachs, Eric White, Christopher Wool, Shepard Fairey, Kaws, Cai Guo-Qiang, Yoshitomo Nara, Jose Parla, Richard Prince and Raymond Pettibon to name a few. The exhibit runs July 17th, 2009 thru August 8th, 2009.

Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin

76, rue de Turenne
75003 Paris, France
+33 1 42 16 79 79

“TOM SACHS is a sculptor, probably best known for his elaborate recreations of various Modern icons, all of them masterpieces of engineering and design of one kind or another. In an early show he made Knoll office furniture out of phone books and duct tape; later, he recreated Le Corbusier’s 1952 Unité d’Habitation using only foamcore and a glue gun. Other projects have included his versions of various Cold War masterpieces, like the Apollo 11 Lunar Excursion Module, and the bridge of the battleship USS Enterprise. And because no engineering project is more complex and pervasive than the corporate ecosystem, he’s done versions of those, too, including a McDonald’s he built using plywood, glue, assorted kitchen appliances. He’s also done Hello Kitty and her friends in materials ranging from foamcore to bronze…

A lot has been made of the conceptual underpinnings of these sculptures: how Sachs’ sampling capitalist culture, remixing, dubbing and spitting it back out again, so that the results are transformed and transforming. Equally, if not more important, is his total embrace of “showing his work.” All the steps that led up to the end result are always on display. On a practical level, this means that all seams, joints, screws or for that matter anything holding stuff together, like foamcore and plywood, are left exposed. Nothing is erased, sanded away, or rendered invisible. On a more philosophical level, this means that nothing Sachs makes is ever finished. Like any good engineering project, everything can always be stripped down, stripped out, redesigned and improved. 

The reward for work is more work.

–Mark van de Walle”

Love the art pieces by Tom Sachs

Tom Sachs: Work / NASAblad.

and

Tom Sachs: Work / Knoll Tunrtable.

He’s so cool he even has his own Tom Sachs Custom Sharpie! ( I WANT!)

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Salzburg