In 'L'amateur' Murielle Victorine Scherre, the visionary force behind lingerie brand La Fille d'O, illustrates a world that balances sexual self respect and an object of lust, naughtiness, fantasy and reality: her personal Wunderkammer of the senses. She captures an erotic world, where mind and body each find their own way. The book provokes questions about the contemporary beauty ideals and the universal appeal of the human body and of eroticism. The result is a visionary scrapbook in search of the true meaning of 9 hollow words like beauty, attraction, eroticism and pornography. Words which have been over-used in our modern day hyper-visual commercial world and Murielle finds herself confronted with in her everyday creative process and therefore wanted to visualize into her personal discourse. She draws from the immense image archive of La Fille d'O, which was built over the course of the last 11 years combined with contributions by like-minded amateurs (meaning enthusiast in French, not incompetent) like Jesse Draxler (USA), photobooth meister Marco Ferrari (IT / UK), Richard Kern (USA), S magazine (DK / USA) and Rita Lino (DUI). 'L'amateur' is like a very intimate diary; diligently and obsessive as life itself. In girum imus nocte et igni consumimur. [ Continue reading ]
A year ago Pim de Graaff, an Amsterdam-based freelance copywriter, launched Nothing, a 2.6 x 2.6 x 5.1 inch piece FSC of certified wood with a matte black finish, each handmade and with a unique number, that intends to remind people to enjoy everything they already have, which from quite some perspectives can be seen as everything. The product went viral with posts on blogs like PSFK, Fast Company and swissmiss, which helped Pim to sell hundreds of Nothings this year. His wish was to sell a Nothing to every continent, in which he almost succeeded, with the exception of Africa. To finish the project in style, this Christmas Pim launches his final ten pieces of Nothing in a limited all-white edition, with the revenues of the final batch, no. 351-360 to go to Oxfam which fights poverty worldwide. [ Continue reading ]
We have been fans of the American-Japanese brand Postalco for many years now, also including some of their incredible products in our selection for Our Current Obsessions Nº 1 – NOIR. Last month the inspirational people of Postalco presented an extraordinary new collection of stationery and leather items inspired by the work of the artist Alexander Calder and developed in close collaboration with the Calder Foundation. Postalco was founded in Brooklyn in 2000, but soon moved to Tokyo, where they produce all their products from traditional Japanese craftsmanship, with every colorway of this particular collection carefully selected from those found in the artist’s work. After a visit to the Calder Foundation archives in New York, which contains more than 26.000 historic photographs, dozens of films, and over 130.000 documents covering all aspects of the artist’s life, Postalco discovered the artist’s lesser-known works, including jewelry, textiles, and domestic objects. Inspired by the way Calder erased boundaries between established genres, the resulting collection offers a unique glimpse into the prolific life of one of the most important artists of the twentieth century in an utmost elegant manner. [ Continue reading ]
We have been writing, indirectly, about the beautiful space at the Looiersgracht 60 in Amsterdam, which is a new project space for contemporary art, design and architecture, when they first opened their doors for De Gevonden op Marktplaats Salon earlier this year. The last few weeks the space has been hosting another incredible project named 'The End of Sitting', which closed last weekend. The project is an installation at the crossroads of visual art, architecture, philosophy and empirical science. In our society almost the entirety of our surroundings have been designed for sitting, while evidence from medical research suggests that too much sitting has adverse health effects. RAAAF [Rietveld Architecture-Art Affordances] and visual artist Barbara Visser have developed a concept wherein the chair and desk are no longer unquestionable starting points. Instead, the installation’s various affordances solicit visitors to explore different standing positions in an experimental work landscape. The project marks the beginning of an experimental trial phase, exploring the possibilities of radical change for the working environment, reminding of the aesthetic of fashion designer Rick Owens and the work of architect Daniel Libeskind. [ Continue reading ]
Andy Rementer is an award winning graphic artist from USA. He grew up in a Victorian beach town where an early exposure to the sun faded, local signage educated his love of type and hand-painted lettering. A sense of timelessness and nostalgia is to be found in the world he creates. Another reoccurring theme of Rementer’s work is isolation, something he cites as an effect of his abrupt relocation to an urban environment in formative years and often depicted in his work through his characters’ underlying unease with their surrounding. He graduated from The University of the Arts in 2004. After working with Benetton's Fabrica in northern Italy, he relocated to the East Coast where he divides his time between drawing, painting, and developing his first graphic novel. His work has been featured all over the world, among them Apartamento Magazine, The New York Times, Le Monde and Creative Review. We've been following Andy for many years now and therefore asked him what inspires a bright mind like his. [ Continue reading ]
In August of this year our friend Sergei Sviatchenko took his Close Up And Private project, which we've appreciated from the very beginning, to a new level by starting Private Classicist. The new label which roots deeply in the vision created through Close Up And Private aims to create a solid range of classic menswear items that verges on pushing the boundaries of current minimalist fashion towards the classic style championed by Sergei himself and his work by collaborating with an international rage of heritage brands and skilled craftsmen. When Private Classicist was introduced at the last Copenhagen Fashion Week, Sergei created a tie and belt. Last week the third staple piece was released in the form of a limited edition t-shirt marked undeniably with the letters CUAP in kobalt blue or white. Inspired by the shirt worn by Paul McCartney on the cover of the US edition of the HELP album and on the other hand Teruyoshi Hayashida's 'Take Ivy' photo trip through Ivy League universities in 1965, the t-shirt forms another elegant step towards a complete Private Classicist wardrobe. [ Continue reading ]
Over the last few years Instagram has risen to become the most revealing creative social medium which gives insight into the lives of people all over the globe. With technology now truly supporting the creative needs one can slowly observe something like a canon within photography disclosed within the unique preconditions of the now mature medium. A very interesting project out of this new emerging field is the series 'I Think Things Are Getting Better' by the New York City-based Amardeep Singh, which has been translated back into a more traditional form, a book, by Chris Black's Done to Death Projects, also responsible for our friend Mikael Kennedy's last publication 'California'. The new outing by Done to Death Projects documents a year and a half of the life of Singh caught in 97 digital photos, taken with his phone and initially shared on his Instagram account, with the final photo dating back to only 5 October 2014. The photographer has a tremendous eye for detail both when it comes to shape and color, which in the publication is underlined on every page through the juxtapositioning of the images forming an incredible example of what soon very likely will be seen as an important new genre within photography. [ Continue reading ]
