you have been here sometime

"In gestures that wipe away what we can only assume lies beneath the surface,
Syed makes space for absence."

SHAAN SYED - One Minus One
March 20 – April 18, 2014 @ Ana Cristea Gallery

"Negation and loss play an inherent role in the production of Syed’s paintings. As opposed to the additive construction of the multimonochromes of Ellsworth Kelly, which have been described in their approach as 1+1=1, Syed builds his works from a reductive construction that separates and isolates, rather than joining together. The use of filler has become a predominant component of Syed’s large-scale paintings. This collaboration began when Syed used the material to return a textured surface to a blank slate. Its fast-drying, colorless and utilitarian qualities won the artist over and have since found a greater presence in his practice. In this body of work, the surface area of the filler swells to take over the painting. The filling in and the covering over signify just as much as the impasto of the colors reveal. "

Ana Cristea Gallery
521 West 26th Street
New York, NY, 10001

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new lighting by Bert Frank

Now we're going down, And I can feel the eyes are watching us
so closely oh I'm trying not to make a sound, cause I'll be found out somehow.. (Haim)

New lighting out of the UK by a company called Bert Frank. Finshes in brass,black, and old English white! - David John

"Bert Frank items are designed to oppose the throw away culture we live in today and are built to last at least as long as you will. During this time they will age and mature with you. The brass will soften and darken (unless you don't want it to and treat it to a little polish) and any knocks or scratches it may pick up over the years will add to its story. That's how we see them anyway, if you don't, you can always book them in for a recondition session."

"Shear Wall Light: this versatile wall light is perfect for bedsides, kitchens or anywhere a wall mounted task light is required.."

view the whole collection here...

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"In Gutai, matter is the true vehicle of expression. It represents nothing other than itself. The ego of the artist never prevails over it. The artist is at the behest of the medium. Gutai is about the concrete: that is its essence. A painting does not have to represent a landscape or still life: it does not have to represent anything at all. Instead it presents itself in all its pure materiality.

Paint is paint; found canvas is canvas… It is what it is."

Strings II (front), 1959, burlap, strings, oil on canvas

Tsuyoshi Maekawa's solo exhibition at Axel Vervoordt Gallery

Opening in presence of the artist on March 13th, from 6-9pm.
Exhibition runs from March 13th 'till May 3rd.

"The work of Tsuyoshi Maekawa is an ode to matter. As is common to the art of all Gutai artists, his practice entails an authentic and personal approach with great respect for the material in all its purity. The tactility he manages to convey is deeply moving.

With Maekawa the primary index is the artist’s hands, mind and eyes combined, which actively confront the material. The traces expressed in the coarse fabric, whether it is mounted on canvas, squared, ripped, folded, creased, painted over, tied together or glued, are dependent on the various decisions the artist makes when he is caught in the midst of creative flow. What we as viewers are privileged to see (and experiences) is the residue of that process. Every splash or fold is the result of an active decision. The viewer is drawn along by the brute force of the momentum it expresses and taps into the multiplicity of options it proposes.

Maekawa’s art travels down many roads: it is an art of possibility. His work shows us common materials as we have never seen them. A multitude of wrinkles swept round in curved formation, evokes patterns that seem familiar; perhaps it is their playfulness we recognize; or that gentle interplay of light and dark, echoing rhythms that remind us of the patterning of an animal hide or the plan of some primeval city structure. These associations were never intended by the artist, but the work strikes a chord with countless archetypal residues that sit in our collective unconscious.

Maekawa’s work tells us about our place in the world. It does so, not through images or representations, but via the material, which stands for itself."

more here...

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new works by Aneta Regel Deleu @ Hedge, SF

"A romantic to the core, she wants not only to capture the forms, energies and rhythms of these natural phenomena but to suggest the emotional response they evoke in her. Growing up in her native northern Poland, she was often confronted by the large stones, smooth round excrescences left behind by glacier action, that abound in the forests and have become the focus of legends, being endowed with anthropomorphic and quasi-magical powers. " (text taken from here)

“I don’t need the horizon
To tell me where the sky ends
And it’s a subtle landscape
Where I come from...." - Real Estate's "Atlas"

March 4 to March 15, 2014 at Hedge Gallery, San Francisco

Ceramic Works of Aneta Regel Deleu

"Inspired by the anthropomorphized natural rock outcroppings of polish legends from her childhood, Aneta Regel Deleu’s asymmetrical, abstract ceramic forms evoke a curiosity from her viewers, and allow the opportunity for a philosophical reflection; the heavily grogged clay and unprocessed volcanic rocks play the role of the natural elements with almost a granite-like texture, while the colored glazes, demonstrate a constructed order of human existence. Aneta developed and refined her sculptural ceramic and glazing techniques, which she acquired during her time at the Royal College of The Arts in London, to create the vivid and witty forms that highlight this dynamic tension between the unglazed natural world and the powerful finesse of the human world. Aneta Regel Deleu’s work has been acquired by such institutions as the Westerwald Museum in Germany and the World Ceramics Museum Icheon in Korea. "

“I combine the natural qualities of various clays from heavily grogged to porcelain often with unprocessed volcanic rocks. Work is hand formed often with additions of rock materials incorporated to clay while building the form up. The technique derives directly from the most traditional and ancient techniques of coiling and freeforming. Objects are usually multiple fired. First to stoneware temperature, to enhance the contrast of textures [and] strength of objects. Then thick layers of slips and glazes are applied and fired again several times.” —Aneta Regel Deleu

installation shots, by Patrik Argast

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Studi Notarili in Milano
Alessia Garibaldi, Giorgio Piliego

more information here.

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DISC Interiors featured in
March 2014 Condé Nast House & Garden

"Nine Cool Kitchens"

Excited to have a kitchen we designed in Los Angeles featured in the latest issue of House and Garden! For this kitchen we tiled from floor to ceiling in a vibrant green tile we sourced from Waterworks. - David John

"Condé Nast House & Garden launched in 1998 and is South Africa's premier luxury décor brand. The magazine is published both in English and Afrikaans each month, reaching a high-spending and aspirational consumer interested in the finer things in life: interior decoration, food, wine, travel and shopping."

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His crooked mouth is full of dead leaves.
Full of dead leaves, bits of twisted branches and frozen garden,
crushed and stolen grasses from slumbering lawn.
He is dissolving, dissolving before me and dawn will come soon. (Kate Bush)

images:

1. Anna Betbeze, Slag, 2013 Acid dyes, watercolor on wool 120 inches diameter Installation view, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York, NY, 2013

2. BC Workshop and Parabellum Bison Leather Medicine Ball Bison leather 21"H x 32" Dia

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Ruth Asawa @ LAMA

"Now after 57 years, the sculpture will save them. Proceeds from the sale of the sculpture will go to rebuilding the property and studio, continuing June’s legacy of teaching arts to children through dance, movement, and music."

Untitled S.437 (Hanging, Seven-Lobed, Two-Part Continuous Form within a Form

with Two Small Spheres)

"The February 23, 2014 Modern Art & Design Auction features one of the most impressive sculptures to ever come through the LAMA showroom. Ruth Asawa’s seven-lobed hanging sculpture, Untitled S.437 (1956) (Lot 236), is a beautiful example of the artist’s dedication to her craft and pioneering experiments in wire sculpture." - go to LAMA here.

"In the early 1950s, Asawa found time to work on her wire sculptures amidst significant life events, including her marriage to architect Albert Lanier and the birth of her children. She submitted a sculpture to the San Francisco Art Association Annual at the San Francisco Museum of Art (now San Francisco Museum of Modern Art), her first show outside of Black Mountain. Throughout the next five years, Asawa showed more regularly at local and national galleries and museums, culminating in a piece at the Bienal de São Paolo in Brazil. It was around this time in 1953-54 that June Lane Christensen commissioned Untitled S.437 (Hanging, Seven-Lobed, Two-Part Continuous Form within a Form with Two Small Spheres) for her dance studio in Santa Barbara. In early 1956, Ruth Asawa completed the hanging sculpture and personally installed the work in June’s studio, where June and her husband taught dance, music, and the arts to children. June studied dance in the late 40s and early 50s at Black Mountain College where she came to know Ruth Asawa. June then moved to New York to study with Merce Cunningham, John Cage, and Martha Graham, ultimately bringing modern dance into the awareness of the Santa Barbara dance community. The sculpture hung in the dance studio for nearly 20 years and has continued to serve as an inspiration and muse to June and her work since retiring three years ago at the age of 85.

On November 13, 2008 the Montecito Tea Fire erupted, destroying homes and buildings in the foothills of Santa Barbara. June’s dance studio was one of those buildings burned by the fire. While the property was burning, and her current residence evacuated, the family had very little time to gather their belongings, but they made sure to save the Asawa sculpture. Now after 57 years, the sculpture will save them. Proceeds from the sale of the sculpture will go to rebuilding the property and studio, continuing June’s legacy of teaching arts to children through dance, movement, and music."

text and images taken from here.

Detail of Untitled S.437 (1956), Ruth Asawa

"(Ruth Asawa's) diligence to her craft, her pioneering experiments in wire sculpture, and her comprehensive output in other mediums including public sculpture, painting, and printmaking have established Asawa as one of the most influential modernists of the 20th century."

The February 23, 2014 Modern Art & Design Auction will feature a rare and important Vija Celmins painting from 1964, Untitled (Ham Hock), being sold by the original owner, an impressive and early collection of custom George Nakashima designs from the collection of Edmund J. Bennett, and a large, complex hanging sculpture by Ruth Asawa.

Fine Art highlights include an outstanding selection of Hard Edge paintings by John McLaughlin, Karl Benjamin, Lorser Feitelson, and Frederick Hammersley, in addition to works on paper by Richard Diebenkorn, Robert Motherwell, and Nancy Rubins; multiples by Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Ed Ruscha, Joe Goode, and Frank Stella; and sculptures by De Wain Valentine and Charles Arnoldi.

Design highlights include a dining suite and rosewood rocking chair by Sam Maloof, furniture by Gio Ponti, a dining suite by Afra & Tobia Scarpa, a selection of designs by Hans J. Wegner, as well as an assortment of Walter Lamb furniture, Charles and Ray Eames panels custom designed for the 1964 New York World’s Fair, and a large selection of Scandinavian designs and ceramics.

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“It is not a must but a may. It is not either…or but as well as.”

“An open attempt” - Karl Heinrich Müller

Museum Insel Hombroich, Neuss

"Karl Heinrich Müller calls his Stiftung Insel Hombroich “an open attempt” and adds, “It is not a must but a may. It is not either…or but as well as.” The Düsseldorf art collector and patron purchased the island on the river Erft including park and nineteenth-century manor house together with the surrounding wasteland in 1982. On this remote piece of land, surrounded by cabbage fields in the Lower Rhine region north of Neuss, Museum Insel Hombroich was established in 1987. Müller and his artist friends imagined a place of poetical interaction between plastic arts, architecture, and nature.

Ten buildings designed by the architect Erwin Heerich are integrated in the 24-hectare landscape of parks and riverside meadows. They can be seen as accessible sculptures but at the same time they provide exhibition space for the foundation’s art collection. This collection ranges from treasures of antiquity to modern and contemporary art. Over the years, Hombroich has been expanded continuously. The Danish artist Per Kirkeby designed some studio buildings and the former military area Raketenstation has been converted for civil and artistic purposes: Artists, musicians, writers, and scientists from different nations live and work here. In addition, an exhibition hall was built for the Langen Foundation. Its Zen-like architecture, designed by the Japanese Tadao Ando, once again combines art and nature."

text via here.
more images here.

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Mud and Water @ Rokeby

"the exhibition investigates a current interest
in process, materiality and truthfulness to medium."

Svend Baye,
large wood fired stoneware vessel

Rokeby's inaugural exhibition in its new gallery space looks to the history of British studio ceramics and the Modernist rhetoric used by figures associated with the movement. Including work by a selection of British Studio Potters alongside contemporary artists working across media, the exhibition investigates a current interest in process, materiality and truthfulness to medium.

Will history please let me go? Let me be, leave me alone
There's a light, now there's a light, Coming down that mountainside
Oh my, my, you lonely souls, I can feel it in my bones - Jay Malinowski "There's a Light"

The Granchester Pottery, Large Bottle Vase

"Established in early 2011, The Grantchester Pottery is a decorative arts company set up by artists Phil Root & Giles Round. Drawing historical precedent from Roger Fry’s Omega Workshops as well as other artists’ decorative arts studios like the Rebel Arts Centre, Hammer Prints & Atelier Martine, The Grantchester Pottery seeks to produce a series of utilitarian ceramics together with other decorative household items such as printed & woven textiles, wallpaper, painted furniture and hand painted murals. The Grantchester Pottery aims to substitute, wherever possible the directly expressive quality of the artist’s handling for the deadness of mechanical reproduction." more here

more Omega Workshop inspiration here, from a past conversation with Christopher Farr..

Nicola Tassie, Set of Three Porcelain with Black Iron Inlay Jugs, 2013

Rokeby is an independent commercial gallery for

contemporary art, exhibiting work by UK based and international artists.

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Traveller, there are no paths, paths are made by walking . -Antonio Machado

"It is good good to be back home, how I missed this time zone, strangers are exciting their mystery never ends, but there's nothing like looking at your own history in the faces of your friends..." (here)

Beth Nelson's "Voyages" line launched

the first ever edition of Chronicle Books Giftworks.

rem·i·nisce ˌreməˈnis/
verb gerund or present participle: reminiscing
1. indulge in enjoyable recollection of past events.

Beth Nelson is a friend that I met many moons ago on this journey that I've called "You Have Been Here Sometime." She's become a dear friend through correspondence, an old-fashioned pen pal of sorts, a connection in the vast sea, a light in the distance.

Her online journal "by land by air by sea" has been a source of continual inspiration, her work is simply visual poetry, reflecting on voyages, the sea, photography, art, and her life with her family. Beth Nelson is an an art director, stylist, print maker, product developer, to name a few. Take a moment to look at her work over the past 20 years, it is simply remarkable.

Beth, looking forward to your next project, and your next voyage. X David John

Beth Nelson's portfolio here.

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the work of Piet Boon

"A seamless marriage of functionality with timeless design, natural materials, distinguishing signature details and a keen eye for aesthetics defines the work of fêted Dutch designer Piet Boon (1958)."

"white, the most beautiful color there is."

Piet Boon is a Dutch designer that started over 25 years ago as a building contractor working with other architects and designers. Over the span of his career, Piet Boon and his team which include Karin Meyn, business partner and creative director, have designed private residences and villas, as well as corporate projects throughout the world, both large and small that emphasize function as well as craft and beauty. Piet Boon most recently completed a 58 unit loft condominium project in New York City at 404 Park Avenue South, called Huys, that offer views over Park Avenue South and lower-Midtown Manhattan. His past projects have ranged from Las Vegas, Spain, Portugal, Paris, New York City, Korea, and South Africa to name a few, each creating a different design for clients seeking his team, as well as a furniture line sold in 46 countries. I recently received a copy of Piet Boon Book 3, and it is nothing short of remarkable. Piet Boon's work is characterized by vaulted spaces, a sense of openness in color and form, a modernist and calming sensibility that grounds his projects. - David John

The third book by renowned designer Piet Boon, featuring the latest interior design projects from Portugal, USA, the Netherlands, South Africa, Bonaire, Denmark, South Korea and France The designs of the successful Piet Boon are well-known worldwide. Throughout the world over 80,000 copies of his books Piet Boon and Piet Boon 2 have been sold. Piet Boon III, containing more pages than the first two books, shows recent design projects of Piet Boon, both in the Netherlands and abroad: Portugal, USA, South Africa, Bonaire, Denmark, South Korea and France. The text can be found in seven languages at the back: French, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and Russian. This spectacular collection of Piet Boon's latest projects together make up for an impressive, inspiring book.

Piet Boon is one of the most celebrated designers in the Netherlands and abroad. He is especially famous for his furniture designs and for his all encompassing designs for homes and city districts. 'Piet Boon' has become a worldwide brand name signifying a luxurious lifestyle that serves clients worldwide. Joyce Huisman has published numerous titles, both culinary and interior design books.

all photography by Richard Powers

go to Piet Boon here.

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What would you do , If it all came back to you
Each crest of each wave , Bright as lightning
What would you say , If you had to leave today
Leave everything behind , Even though for once you're shining (Junip)

Matthew Fairbank is making some incredible new lighting works, and recently uploaded some new images on his website. I happened to have met him a few years ago at the AD Home Show in New York, showcasing at the time his floor lamp. The two new chandeliers are "bright as lightning" as they might say in the folk clubs, casting shadows on the lookers in the backseats, mouthing the words, quietly singing the tunes late into the evening. - David John

Matthew Fairbank Design is an American furniture and lighting fabrication company dedicated to the creation of well-crafted, timeless designs. Matthew Fairbank is head designer and craftsman of heirloom quality wood furniture and hand-built lighting. Matthew’s tables, seating, lamps, and cabinets are made from lasting techniques and the most exquisite materials. The forms draw influence from history while maintaining a modern attitude. Each piece of furniture is made to order to the client’s exact needs. Works from the collection can be adapted or work can be fabricated from a designer’s specifications.

In addition to limited edition pieces in the portfolio, clients may custom order furniture in virtually any size or design. Each year, Matthew Fairbank Design produces dozens of custom furniture pieces for residential and commercial applications. Our manufacturing capabilities can meet the needs of both one-off pieces and high volume production for hospitality, corporate, and residential interiors. We look forward to collaborative projects and offer our refined design aesthetic and expertise in materials and fabrication knowledge.

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