Interiors Now! Volume 2.

combined & juxtaposed!
aka
"the sky's the limit, man!"















Interiors Now! Volume 2. (here)
(I'm heading for the beach tomorrow with a stack of new books and magazines)


"Periods in the past are very much linked to distinctive prevailing tastes. The early 20th century was dominated by Art Nouveau and Jugendstil, the 1920s and 1930s by Art Deco, and the 1990s by pared-down minimalism typified by the likes of Christian Liaigre and John Pawson. In many ways, the first decade of the 21st century saw a reaction to the latter. We have witnessed the return of pattern and wallpaper.

We have re-embraced a certain exuberance and rejected the mono-style “total look”. Instead, pieces from different periods and vernaculars are combined and juxtaposed. Another trend has been the development of “design as art”—one-off or limited-edition creations produced by galleries that sell for astronomical sums..."



read forward to the book here...







--------------------------

Y H B H S (card catalog) selection 30

IKO IKO & WAKA WAKA, Echo Park
"There are so many examples of the tension in positive - negative space as well as the limitlessness of brush, ink, gesture and accident."













IKO IKO
IKEBANA by Sofu Teshigahara
with photos by Ken Domon, 1952.


"This book was given to me by a friend when I was taking ikebana classes. It's a diverse sampling of the art of Sofu Teshigahara, the founder of the Sogetsu School of Ikebana. It's all about the range of self expression with flowers as the medium and is my personal inspiration bible. So many incredible combinations of texture, palette, geometry, and feeling. I like that you can designate a kind of personality to the flowers in his arrangements."





















WAKA WAKA
Shohaku Show, Kyoto National Museum, 2005.


"This is the publication from the exhibition which I happened upon during a visit to Kyoto. There are so many examples of the tension in positive - negative space as well as the limitlessness of brush, ink, gesture and accident. It's inspiring to see the technical maturity of an artist in this way."















"The Shohaku Show explores the life and works of the iconoclastic Edo-period painter Soga Shohaku (1730-1781), who has long been believed to come from the province of Ise. His many works in this area even today appear to confirm this. However, records indicate that from his father's generation the family lived in Kyoto, where many eminent painters, including Yosa Buson, Ike no Taiga, Maruyama Okyo, Nagasawa Rosetsu, and Ito Jakuchu, were active. Ranking in line with such figures, Shohaku developed his own distinctive style by deviating from the contemporary art scene and professing to the then outdated style of the Muromachi (1392-1572) painter Soga Jasoku (d. 1483), undoubtedly in an attempt to undermine the overwhelming popularity of the realist painter Maruyama Okyo (1733-1795)."

(taken from here.)







--------------------




IKO IKO is Kristin Dickson's fantastic store located in the heart of Echo Park, Los Angeles. It's chock-full of art, ceramics, textiles, fashion, photography, and items she has sourced from the U.S and Japan. I'd suggest getting on her email list so that you are informed of the events at IKO IKO! Go to her blog here if you aren't local...


WAKA WAKA is Shin Okuda. He has been designing and building custom furniture under the WAKA WAKA name for the past few years in Los Angeles. WAKA WAKA is also sold at IKO IKO. YHBHS interviewed Shin about his work last year, his inspiration, and future plans for his work. Read the full interview here..










----------------------

Handcrafted Modern: At Home with Mid-century Designers
Written by Leslie Williamson

Oct 12, 2010







"An intimate and revealing collection of photographs of astonishingly beautiful, iconic, and undiscovered mid-century interiors. Among significant mid-century interiors, none are more celebrated yet underpublished as the homes created by architects and interior designers for themselves.

This collection of newly commissioned photographs presents the most compelling homes by influential mid-century designers, such as Russel Wright, George Nakashima, Harry Bertoia, Charles and Ray Eames, and Eva Zeisel, among others. Intimate as well as revelatory, Williamson’s photographs show these creative homes as they were lived in by their designers: Walter Gropius’s historic Bauhaus home in Massachusetts; Albert Frey’s floating modernist aerie on a Palm Springs rock outcropping; Wharton Esherick’s completely handmade Pennsylvania house, from the organic handcarved staircase to the iconic furniture. Personal and breathtaking by turn—these homes are exemplary studies of domestic modernism at its warmest and most creative."



go here....




--------------------------------

‘troublemaker turned traditionalist’

“I just had to have it for the drawing room of our castle in Regensburg.”
-Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis about Mattia Bonetti's work.

Mattia Bonetti. Lamp in denim.
(needing to buy this book soon! want/need this.)

"What links the objects is Mr. Bonetti’s use of scale — pieces are monumental and demand your attention. They are also made of high-end materials: bronze, cast aluminum, gold and silver plate, and so forth. He is collected by people like Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, who contributed an essay to a new book about Mr. Bonetti, out this month from Rizzoli. Seeing his work in the showroom of Christian Lacroix in Paris, the princess writes, “I just had to have it for the drawing room of our castle in Regensburg.”



taken from here...











Steven Gontarski, above...

It wasn't quite this sculpture, but I remember being in my early 20's, and stumbling into Saatchi's Neurotic Realism Pt 1 in London in 1999. Steven Gontarski's sculptures standing erect, mutating with socks and stitched fabrics. Monumental in every way....


Steven Gontarski: I'm not particularly interested in the monumental or in grandeur for it's own sake but I'm drawn to the monument as a sculptural form because it's meant to help us remember things/people and prompt reflection. Its association with death gives it dual reverbations; one of grim reality and one of spiritual timelessness or perhaps even a transition into a different space.












------------------------

fall sitting
fall reading
fall listening

summer fades.








































fall sitting
fall reading
fall listening

summer fades.




1. Colonel. go here to see more of their chairs.
"Colonel is a small human-size furniture company, founded in 2010 by Isabelle Gilles & Yann Poncelet, in Paris. Searching, selecting and bringing existing furniture to a new life, they also design their own collection, in collaboration with specialized craftsmen and small wood factories."



2. Man with a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Freud,
by Martin Gayford
"One of the most original, enjoyable, and informative publications about art in our time: the history of a portrait by a major artist as seen from the sitter’s point of view. Lucian Freud, perhaps the world's leading portrait painter, spent seven months painting a portrait of the art critic Martin Gayford. Gayford describes the process chronologically, from the day he arrived for the first sitting through to his meeting with the couple who bought the finished painting, and he vividly conveys what it is like to be on the inside of the process of creating a work of art."



3. Solo Andata, here..
"These four pieces seem to work toward a repetition or ‘ritual‘ between disparate elements so as to transport us, via a magical spell, to dense otherworldly habitats. In fact, the title of the twenty-minute piece Incantare translates as ‘to chant’ (a magical spell upon), which derives from ‘in’, into, unto and ‘cantare’, to sing. For the eight-minute piece Carving, there exists a ‘ritualistic’ image similar to that of Kafka’s In the Penal Colony, where an intricate carving device inscribes the Condemned prisoner's sentence onto his flesh. The whole affair of ‘Ritual’ is bound to leave listeners mesmerized by its vividness and bewitched by its intensity."






summer fades
summer fading
summer faded


-----------------------------------------

painting
below
zero

I just opened a package in the mail.
I always enjoy getting used books from Amazon,
especially when they arrive signed by the author,
but did not state that when I ordered them.

Painting Below Zero:
Notes on a Life in Art

Ronsequist writes about growing up in a tight-knit community of Scandinavian farmers in North Dakota and Minnesota in the late 1930s and early 1940s; about his mother, who was not only an amateur painter but, along with his father, a passionate aviator; and about leaving that flat midwestern landscape in 1955 for New York, where he had won a scholarship to the Art Students League.

George Grosz, Edwin Dickinson, and Robert Beverly Hale were among his teachers, but his early life was a struggle until he discovered sign painting. He describes days suspended on scaffolding high over Broadway, painting movie or theater billboards, and nights at the Cedar Tavern with Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and the poet LeRoi Jones. His first major studio, on Coenties Slip, was in the thick of the new art world. Among his neighbors were Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Indiana, Agnes Martin, and Jack Youngerman, and his mentors Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns.










---------------------------

DAVID HICKS

David
Hicks
Living
with
Design.

So enjoying this book a
good friend passed on!
Thank you!

Case History:
A Castle in Ireland

"An awkwardly shaped Victorian bedroom seemed to me to need an overwhelming bed, so I designed one which hangs from the ceiling. I covered it on the outside with plain green cotton trimmed with a patterned green frill...."


-David Hicks..









---------

Henri Michaux

Emergences/Resurgences
via The Drawing Center.








The Drawing Center, $5.00, via here....



The first English translation by Richard Sieburth of Henri Michaux's poem Emergences/Resurgences. Introduction by Catherine de Zegher.



"In recent years, Michaux has devoted most of his talents to painting. That, for him, is another form of exorcism. He has said that he can better express himself through this medium. Many of his books include original drawings and paintings.



Michaux is a poet of unique style, one that is particularly difficult to pinpoint. He most closely resembles the surrealists, but cannot even accurately be grouped with them. Frederic Sepher pointed out that much of his poetry reads like short stories, although most of it does rhyme. He stated that while Michaux is probably the "least lyric of all contemporary French poets," and employs few metaphors, "he is brilliantly imaginative, inventive and rythmic. He even verges on the musical in his haunting, desperate litanies with their repetitions and developments."

Untitled Passages by Henri Michaux

"Henri Michaux (24 May 1899 - 18 October 1984) was a highly idiosyncratic Belgian-born poet, writer, and painter who wrote in the French language. He later took French citizenship. Michaux is best known for his esoteric books written in a highly accessible style, and his body of work includes poetry, travelogues, and art criticism. Michaux travelled widely, tried his hand at several careers, and experimented with drugs, the latter resulting in two of his most intriguing works, Miserable Miracle and The Major Ordeals of the Mind and the Countless Minor Ones."

--------

Writings by Henri Michaux, essays by John Ashbury, Raymond Bellour,
Laurent Jenny, Florian Rodari and Richard Sieburth.
Edited by Catherine de Zegher.


-----this book here...




.





more here...,
via the poetry foundation

signed, by the prince!

Portrait
of a Man
Pt. 20


The Decorator:
Egon von Fürstenberg
(more portraits here.)

Today, "The Power Look of Home"
arrived. Little did I know that
it would be signed by the Prince Himself!
A total score for 2 dollars!

What a perfect man, for
Number 20, The Decorator....
Although, I'm left wondering who this Judy is?

Egon von Fürstenberg
(first read about this book on 2thewalls blog!)

"Egon von Fürstenberg was born at Lausanne in Switzerland. Brought up in great privilege in Venice, Italy, he was baptized by the future Pope John XXIII. Fürstenberg began his career as a buyer for Macy's, and took night classes at the Fashion Institute of Technology. He began designing clothes for plus-size women, and later expanded to full fashion and ready-to-wear lines, including fragrances, product licensing and a haute couture line based out of Rome.

On 16 July 1969 at Montfort l'Amaury, Yvelines, France, he married the Belgium-born Diane Simone Michelle Halfin, daughter of a Holocaust survivor. She was Jewish, and the senior Fürstenbergs objected to the couple's union on that basis. They had two children, Prince Alexander von Furstenberg (b. 25 January 1970) and Princess Tatiana Desirée (b. 16 February 1971), and were soon divorced. His wife launched her own fashion house at Egon's urging, where she created the iconic wrap dress..."

"I always assumed there was a division of labor in decorating.
Women would do it and I would critique it.
All of that changed the weekend I separated from my wife."



The Prince's Introduction..

Portrait
of a Man
Pt. 20


The Decorator:
Egon von Fürstenberg

(more portraits here.)


------------




------------

A Selection of
Snapshots
Taken by
Felix Gonzalez-Torres

"a visual report on Felix's outlook at particular moments
in time, small gestures of hope, pleasure, and desire. "








Felix Gonzalez-Torres;
Alejandro Cesarco, editor

A Selection of Snapshots Taken by Felix Gonzalez-Torres
New York, NY: A.R.T. Press. 2010

"This book presents a selection of snapshots, and accompanying inscriptions, sent by Felix Gonzalez-Torres to Doug Ashford, Julie Ault, Bill Bartman, Susan Cahan, Amada Cruz, David Deitcher, Suzanne Ghez, Ann Goldstein, Claudio González, Jim Hodges, Susan Morgan, Robert Nickas, Mario Nuñez, and Christopher Williams between the years 1991–1995. The snapshots are quick poetic communiqués, a visual report on Felix's outlook at particular moments in time, small gestures of hope, pleasure, and desire.

They give evidence to some of his multiple fascinations: pets, furniture, collectible dolls, politics, art, friendship, beauty, love and optimism."

buy the book at
Printed Matter here.

image take from here.

------

"Above all else, it is about leaving a mark that I existed: I was here. I was hungry. I was defeated. I was happy. I was sad. I was in love. I was afraid. I was hopeful. I had an idea and I had a good purpose and that's why I made works of art. "

— Felix Gonzalez-Torres

------

Early California

2 books
by Dave Hampton
here...

my book
shelves!







The Seeger Studio
1957-1962

"The early career of Dick Seeger, influential artist, craftsman and gallerist is re-examined fifty years later. Known for his innovative approach to plastics as an art medium (often for architectural application), Seeger became an important figure in Scottsdale’s mid-century art and architecture community but until now his story has gone untold. 28 pages of vintage photographs and original documents provide a glimpse of his work, his remarkable gallery and his associates, Paolo Soleri and Lloyd Kiva New in particular. A sense of Scottsdale at the time emerges, when young lions of desert modernism like Charles Loloma, Ray Graves, Ben Goo, Kiva and Soleri first walked its streets."

















Pouring Metal in the South Bay
Dave Hampton


"During the turbulent era of the 1960s, forces from the world of fine art, the American crafts movement and higher education converged in the San Francisco Bay Area making it the epicenter of an artist-foundry movement that swept the country. At San Jose State a group of graduate students became the first in that area to build their own cooperative studio-foundries from scratch and master the process of casting their own sculpture in bronze and other metals. Pouring molten metal became a direct means of creative expression under the artists’ control. Holt Murray, Daryle Webb, Peter Teneau, Richard Mills, Stephen Daly and Thomas Lynn made everything from jewelry and furniture to giant figurative sculpture and architectural elements over the course of an historic decade. They contributed to a nationwide reinterpretation of art casting and the nature of art and craft in general. Pouring Metal in the South Bay (Art Investigations Volume Two) shares their story for the first time with amazing period photographs and detailed narrative."




------



Dave Hampton:
"Collector, researcher, and artist representative, Hampton is involved in the study of mid-century art, craft and architecture from California and the Southwest - particularly communities of artists in San Diego, Long Beach, the Bay Area, Arizona, New Mexico and Hawaii. He has launched an Art Investigations Series in order to share stories of influential but relatively obscure artists, their work, and the scenes they created. "


--------
more info
at Objects USA
here.

"i wonder
what the
silence
is about."

Art in Ruins and Unknown Stranger,
London 1994,
an unpublished project for Frieze

"This booklet is published as part of I Wonder What The Silence is About, a body of work, speculating on the (temporary?) disappearance of Art In Ruins. This English collaborative art practice was formed in 1984 and created a radical stance towards the art world, based on critical post-modern thinking. They have been for a short period omnipresent in the London/Berlin art scene before they fell silent in 2001. I contacted Art In Ruins and asked for permission to reprint one of their publications as part of my project. This they rejected but suggested to publish this interview instead, which was initially written for Frieze Magazine in 1994. It has not been printed until today".

—Eva Weinmayr

go to textfield here
to purchase..

--

off
the
grid.
pt 2.
Lori Ryker

"Lori Ryker explores the value of case studies in understanding new alternative-energy technologies. She profiles three completed leading sustainable case study projects to lay the groundwork for body of the book, which presents six contemporary architectural projects that integrate alternative technologies for generating and conserving energy. Each project explores how the owner's desire to contribute to a more sustainable culture is brought to bear on the design and execution of the home. Diagrams and clear explanations of technologies and their appropriate applications help the reader understand how the technologies work and how they may best be used in their own homes.
At once groundbreaking and responsible, the ideas presented in this book will hopefully someday become commonplace and ubiquitous, for then we will be living in inspiring and beautiful homes in a pollutant-free, healthy, and thriving environment."

"Our homes are connected by a nearly invisible grid of infrastructure that binds us together. It is a system of electrical poles, wire, substations, hydroelectric dams, telecommunication towers, and water extraction and sewage systems. It is also one of the greatest environmental challenges known to modern civilization.

Profiling ten beautiful homes in regions as diverse as New York City, urban Germany, suburban Southern California, rural Canada, and the remote "bush" of Australia, Off the Grid: Modern Homes + Alternative Energy shows you how to take responsibility for your future choices and conveniences by living in a beautifully designed home that uses much less energy. Off-the-grid living is a concept that can be easily understood and adopted by everyone, regardless of where you live or how much money you make. Learn why understanding a site's geography and climate are vital to knowing which off-the-grid technologies will be the most efficient."

via amazon here..


go to studio ryker here.


-------

s i l v er l a k e

fantastic
windows.










telling
a new story.

Awesome windows Lucy!
Go to her blog here. Ivanhoe Books. a new addiction!

Ivanhoe Books carries the most beautiful design
and art books on the East side of Los Angeles.
1618 Silverlake Blvd,
LA, CA 90026.

stunning photography
via Sharlene Durfey, here.

Ivanhoe Books opened in August 2007 in Los Angeles' Silverlake neighborhood. Located in the back-room of furniture store Lawson-Fenning, Ivanhoe Books has become one of LA's hidden gems and is Silverlake's only independent art & design bookstore.

Ivanhoe Books specializes in rare vintage books, out-of-print and quality used titles as well as a large proportion of new titles. The new books focus on the best releases by fine publishers from the United States and around the world. As the face of book-selling changes at lightening speed, Ivanhoe Books aims to provide a wonderful selection of thoughtfully considered titles for all visual bibliophiles.


The books cover all aspects of art & design and are carefully curated by Lucy Spriggs. Lucy honed her book skills working in the art sections of various bookstores in her native United Kingdom, through her post-graduate studies in art history at Sotheby's Institute of Fine Art in London and as a member of the editorial team of the British contemporary art magazine ArtReview. Lucy maintains the Ivanhoe Books blog which highlights favorite titles.

go to Ivanhoe Books
site here..



------

new
book:
Brion
Nuda
Rosch

"In my work, I’m identifying very mundane shapes and ridiculous things as monuments,
not to downplay the importance of existing monuments, just that when you visit a monument you have your own meaning and understanding, you only take a very small part away with you. The person or event that it represents is far too large and infinite to take away the complete meaning. And often monuments are visited in short spans of time—
drive six hours, get out look, back into the car type of thing.
Art is viewed in a similar way—minus the drive. My monuments are void of meaning.
I don’t know if there’s a way that could be somewhat political. "

-Brion Nuda Rosch

Brion Nuda Rosch’s works—consisting of collages, paintings, installations, social projects and video—are inviting yet unpredictable.

Through basic maskings, removals, and additions, he plumbs the profundity of placing one idea upon another, producing results not unlike a warm, soft chuckle. Rosch’s works function as signposts and touchstones of his own investigation into his singular understanding of the world.

"My monuments are void of meaning.
I don’t know if there’s a way that could be somewhat political."

8 x 9.5 in., 90 pages,
Full-color offset printing100lb matte text / soft 120lb cover,
Perfect-boundReleased
March 2010

Limited run of 1000

go to little paper planes here.






,

please
don't
leave
me."









Bas Jan Ader
Please Don't Leave Me


Thirty years after artist Bas Jan Ader failed to return from a solo crossing of the Atlantic, the interest in his work continues to grow. In less than ten years he created some thirty-five works of art in which falling, physical and emotional vulnerabilty and mortality are the central themes. Published to coincide with a retrospective exhibition, this thoroughly illustrated catalogue provides a much needed overview of these and other aspects of Ader’s work. Also includes contributions by Tacita Dean, Jörg Heiser and Erik Beenker, amongst others. Published in Netherlands.


go to ooga booga store
here to buy..










---------------

Interiors Now! Vol. 1

book
list.






















Interiors Now! Vol. 1
Taschen
go here.




The first volume of Angelika Taschen's new series on contemporary interiors features the world's most amazing, exquisite, and interesting apartments and houses – from Antwerp to Zurich, via Chiang Mai, Copenhagen, Mumbai, Moscow, Tokyo, and Shanghai. With an inspirational richness and diversity of styles, here are homes, residences, hideaways, and studios to astound and astonish, no matter what your taste. Whatever your preference – flea market romance or space age bachelor pad, minimalism or neo-baroque – you'll find hundreds of fresh and provocative ideas. Highlights include French Vogue creative director and tastemaker Fabien Baron's minimal Swedish countryhouse by John Pawson; a penthouse miniature of Mies van der Rohe's Nationalgalerie atop a war bunker in Berlin, owned by art collector Christian Boros; the Chiang Mai retreat of Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija; Roberto Cavalli's Milanese apartment, a perfect reflection of his flamboyant personality; and a fantasy home created by a Dutch stylist and photographer in Shanghai.

Gotlund Verlag books.
go here.


"We are a small publishing house located just outside of Kutztown, Pennsylvania. We produce artist books and limited edition multiples. Founded by Nicholas Gottlund in late 2007 as a small studio dedicated to books and bound printed matter. We maintain a program of publishing books collaboratively with artists. Working primarily with emerging and mid-career artists our books follow in a lineage while being innovative and forward thinking. We strive to have our books communicate with utmost clarity the vision of their source.

Located outside of Kutztown P.A., the book house was built as an addition to a 19th Century P.A. German bank barn. Situated in a small wooded valley it offers a rare location bordered by a meadow, small creek and bamboo grove.

We work with a variety of domestic printers for flexiblity of process while retaining a modest pressroom of letterpresses. We also have a large workspace and bindery dedicated to producing objects for limited edition volumes such as book boxes and slip cases. Our office and archive are located above the pressroom in a loft-like space for storage of books and prints."

a book for the times.

QUALITY BUDGET HOUSES A TREASURY OF 100 ARCHITECT-DESIGNED HOUSES FROM $5,000 TO $20,000
Katherine Morrow Ford and Thomas H. Creighton

8.25 x 10.5 hardcover book with 224 pages and over 385 b/w photographs , diagrams, and floorplans profiling 100 postwar American Architect-designed houses! This book is a veritable rosetta stone for people interested in postwar modernism that was produced under (often severe) budget constraints. No Kaufmann Houses here -- just thoughtfully planned and brilliantly executed modern housing.

""Perhaps there is some money put away in the bank, and your credit is good for a reasonable sort of mortgage arrangement. The family income also may be secure, and the prospects for increases may be practically guaranteed. And yet you wonder if it would be foolish to obligate yourselves for a heavy monthly payment for years to come and to borrow to the point where sleep might be lost worrying about it. How big a budget does one really need for the sort of house we want, you ask yourselves? How about these houses some of the magazines show that Paul and Paulette built for a song, doing most of the work themselves on the weekends? Is that really possible? All of the beautiful things that have gone into the scrapbook must have cost their owners a lot of money. Perhaps you have heard stories about families who got in deeper than they realized-who found that extras appeared, that bids were not accurate, and that prices rose. You know perfectly well you would not want to risk the capital you have so painstakingly piled up in the savings account in that way."

see more out of print books for sale here.
at modernism 101...

a portrait of los angeles.

Los Angeles, Portrait of a City
Heimann, Jim (Editor) Starr, Kevin

go to taschen for more info!

"From the first known photograph taken in Los Angeles to its most recent sweeping vistas, this photographic tribute to the City of Angels provides a fascinating journey through the city's cultural, political, industrial, and sociological history. It traces the city's development from the 1880s' real estate boom, through the early days of Hollywood and the urban sprawl of the late 20th century, right up to the present day. With over 500 images, L.A. is shown emerging from a desert wasteland to become a vast palm-studded urban metropolis."

"Events that made world news—including two Olympics, Bobby Kennedy's assassination, and the Rodney King riots—reveal a city of many dimensions. The entertainment capital of the world, Hollywood, and its celebrities are showcased along with many other notable residents, personalities, architects, artists, and musicians. The city's pop cultural movements, its music, surfing, health food fads, gangs, and hot rods are included, as are its notorious crimes and criminals. This book depicts Los Angeles in all its glory and grit, via hundreds of freshly discovered images including those of Julius Shulman, Garry Winogrand, William Claxton and many other superb photographers, culled from major historical archives, museums, private collectors, and universities. These are given context and resonance through essays by renowned California historian Kevin Starr and Los Angeles literature expert David L. Ulin."

"