“Today, I see my work as detached from the expressionism of the drawing.
This idea grew out of my experience in industrial design which is directed at the broadest possible public. My aim is to achieve an economy in the result which can’t even be defined as minimalist: a commonplace.”

- Martin Szekely















This text taken from Six Constructions: An imagined dialogue... here... It's an essay on design and art and definitely worth considering when taking this voyage... Today, I'm sticking with monuments, but these monuments are smaller, and are side tables, as opposed to the cemetery I posted yesterday in Italy. Oh the simple delights of the cube, or the vertical rectangle. It makes no difference to me, they are shimmering, dense, gorgeous forms, that quietly will pull at your pant leg, as you drink a hot cup of tea.

Welcome to the weekend, warriors.




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"Design is cannibalistic. It feeds off itself.

In the wide field of visual culture, no single discipline (high or low, traditional or new, functional or purely aesthetic) has retained a sense of autonomy. Visual artists have cannibalized design to such an extent that the very notion of use-value can no longer be used to distinguish an “artistic” project from a “design” project. The post-utopian community and the furniture objects of Atelier Van Lieshout, Jorge Pardo’s house which is also his artistic opus in Los Angeles, and the functioning “Donald Judd bar” built by Tobias Reyberger fo the Munster Skulptur Projekte are all striking. Examples of visual artists blurring the boundaries of the desire of visual art to not only cannibalize its own history but also neighboring disciplines. Just like design.
Is it reactionary or visionary to think about the specificity of a discipline, to ask questions about the status of visual art and object production today? Is it possible to reconsider the fundamental issues that have been eclipsed by this process of blurring of disciplinary boundaries?"

please read full essay here....

Martin Szekely, images:

1. Fake side tables, round and square,2007 aluminium, ebony Galerie kreo limited édition
2. Side tables Sam and AA, 2005 honeycomb, corian, brass or cork

via Galerie Kreo....















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V A S A , studio visit

"the most sensuous and sensational colorist
of the southern California artists working in plastic."

The wonderful world of Vasa! These are some images that
I took the other day at Vasa's Los Angeles studio. Being a huge
fan of light, color, and California 60's work, I was excited to take a tour of his studio, and
discover how these acrylic cubes are constructed.

the cubes in production,
waiting to be packaged and delivered.





"Vasa began including plastic in his work. A painter interested in placing color in open space, he began to use clear plastic as a structural support for different planes of color. Expecting to explore this medium for a few years, Vasa, to his surprise, continues some thirty years later to discover new possibilities. In 1967 he also returned to teaching, joining the faculty at UCLA where he continues to teach. "

the cubes waiting to be polished.

stacks of cubes waiting to be cut, polished, and packaged

"Born in Yugoslavia in 1933, Vasa Mihich, an academically trained painter, became a member of the faculty at the University of Belgrade in 1956. During a visit to Paris that same year, Vasa became aware of the growing importance of American art, and four years later he immigrated to the United States. Influenced by the major changes taking place in art in the United States and especially in Los Angeles, Vasa began working in three-dimensional painted constructions in 1964. This work was first shown in January, 1966 in the Feigen-Palmer Gallery in Los Angeles and that same year was included in the seminal exhibit American Sculptures of the Sixties at the Los Angeles County Art Museum and other museum and university exhibits. 1967 was an important year for Vasa.













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two
incomplete
cubes
1974
2007

1974

2007

two
incomplete
cubes
1974
2007



1. Sol Lewitt Incomplete Open Cube, 1974
Ink and graphite on paper.
2. Jonathan Monk Complete Incomplete Open Cube
(With inside resting on outside forever), 2007
Two painted and brushed aluminium cubes. E










two
incomplete
cubes
1974
2007

images via
Phillips de Pury
& Company





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