From November 9, 2013 through March 2, 2014, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) will present Project Los Altos: SFMOMA in Silicon Valley, an exhibition sited throughout the downtown commercial core of Los Altos, a town located in the heart of Silicon Valley. Through the lens of national and international artists, this exhibition will explore the history and culture of this innovative region, the community of Los Altos and its surrounding areas, and the distinctive character of each artwork’s setting. Project Los Altos will be on view at indoor and outdoor locations—ranging from commercial spaces to a public intersection—and include existing artworks as well as newly commissioned, site-responsive projects. Featured artists include Jeremy Blake, Spencer Finch, Charles Garoian, Christian Jankowski, Chris Johanson, Mike Mills, Kateřina Šedá, Alec Soth, and Jessica Stockholder.

Project Los Altos will be free to the public and is organized by SFMOMA in collaboration with the City of Los Altos and lead sponsor Passerelle Investment Company, a local group working to enhance the vitality of the Los Altos community. Representing all curatorial departments of the museum, the exhibition is curated by Jenny Gheith, assistant curator of painting and sculpture, and Janet Bishop, curator of painting and sculpture; with Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher, assistant curator and acting department head of architecture and design; Rudolf Frieling, curator of media arts; and Corey Keller, curator of photography.

The exhibition is part of the extensive off-site programming SFMOMA has developed for the two-and-a-half-year construction phase of its major expansion project. While its building is temporarily closed for construction from the summer of 2013 to early 2016, SFMOMA will present a dynamic slate of jointly organized and traveling exhibitions; outdoor and specially commissioned projects; and newly created education programs throughout the Bay Area and beyond. On view concurrently in Silicon Valley with Project Los Altos will be a collaborative exhibition with the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, Flesh and Metal: Body and Machine in Early 20th-Century Art (November 13, 2013–March 16, 2014).

“While SFMOMA is off-site, reimagining the museum’s role and exploring new ideas, Project Los Altos provides an exciting moment to capture the experimental nature of exhibition making,” notes Gheith. “With this collaboration, we’re thrilled to present a compelling platform for artists to make new work and for the community in Los Altos and the surrounding areas to engage with contemporary art in an unexpected way.”

“The City of Los Altos has a rich history of supporting the arts, particularly public sculpture,” explains Los Altos City Manager Marcia Somers. “By providing open space for a wide variety of art installations throughout the city, residents of all ages are able to experience fine arts on a daily basis. This unique collaboration between the City of Los Altos, SFMOMA, and Passerelle will strengthen the artistic presence already thriving in the community and welcome a whole new audience to experience the beauty and charm of Los Altos.”

Exhibition Overview

Located 37 miles south of San Francisco, Los Altos was initially an agricultural community known for its apricot orchards and small cottages. A large period of growth occurred from the 1950s through the 1980s, and in recent years Los Altos has again experienced a moment of development and transformation. Responding to this unique setting, this exhibition will feature existing artwork including Jeremy Blake’s Winchester trilogy (2002–4) from the SFMOMA collection and documentation of performance art that Charles Garoian organized with his students at Los Altos High School from 1969–86 alongside new commissions by seven national and international artists. These site-specific and site-responsive projects will be situated in the downtown commercial core in indoor and outdoor spaces that resonate with the artists’ interests. Ranging in scope and scale, the commissions will include a public street intersection that Jessica Stockholder will transform through color and form; photographs by Alec Soth that explore the emptiness and possibility of Silicon Valley, from the Googleplex to Steve Jobs’s garage; and others currently in development. More details on the artist projects will be announced in the coming months.

This exhibition is organized by SFMOMA in collaboration with the city of Los Altos. The lead sponsor for this exhibition is Passerelle Investment Company. Premier support is provided by Randi and Bob Fisher. Major support is provided by Christie’s.

Artist Overview

Jeremy Blake (1971–2007)
Blake’s Winchester animation was inspired by the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, an elaborate and bizarre 160-room Victorian mansion built between 1884 and 1922 by Sarah Winchester, heir to the Winchester rifle fortune. Believing herself to be cursed by those killed by Winchester firearms, she was convinced that continuous construction on her house would keep their malevolent spirits away. For Blake, Winchester and her mansion offered ideal vehicles for exploring American mythologies and identities. Interestingly, in the late 1800s Winchester owned the 100-acre plot that became the townsite of Los Altos.

Charles Garoian (born 1943 in Fresno, California; lives and works in University Park, Pennsylvania)
Garoian received his BA and MA from California State University at Fresno (1968, 1969), and his PhD in education from Stanford University (1984). He is currently a professor of art education in the School of Visual Arts at Penn State University. A performance artist since 1970, he introduced exploratory, experimental, and improvisational processes of art making and teaching in his visual arts studio and art history courses at Los Altos High School between 1969 and 1986. In his book, Performing Pedagogy: Toward an Art of Politics (SUNY, 1999), Garoian conceptualized several of the live events that he and students performed at the high school, and those performed by his students at Penn State University, as critical pedagogy.

New Artist Commissions

Spencer Finch (born 1962 in New Haven, Connecticut; lives and works in Brooklyn)
Finch explores the uncertain nature of perception and experience through careful recordings of the natural world. Often engaged with literature, historical figures, and events, his projects translate his observations into a range of media, including pastel, watercolor, photography, glass tile, fluorescent light tubes, and television sets. Finch has noted, “My work doesn’t capture a moment; it captures the fleetingness of a moment.” Finch has exhibited internationally since the early 1990s. His mid-career survey titled What Time Is It on the Sun? was organized by MASS MoCA, North Adams (2007–8). He has had solo exhibitions at Indianapolis Museum of Art (2013); The Art Institute of Chicago (2011); Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane (2009); Portikus, Frankfurt am Main (2003); and Artpace, San Antonio (2003). He has participated in numerous group exhibitions including the 53rd International Venice Biennale (2009) and Whitney Biennial, New York (2004).

Christian Jankowski (born 1968 in Göttingen, Germany; lives and works in Berlin)
The work of Christian Jankowski is a performance, which engages often unsuspecting collaborators to innocently collude with him, making them “co-authors” of the final result who participate (sometimes inadvertently) in the very conceptualization of the work. The collaborative nature of Jankowski’s practice is paramount, as each participant unwittingly contributes his or her own texture. With Jankowski, there is as much emphasis on the journey as the destination, and the risks and chances inherent in his collaborations ultimately give surprising shape to the final works. Jankowski’s work has been featured in various solo shows at institutions including Kunstmuseum Stuttgart (2008); Artsonje Center, Seoul (2006); and MACRO | Museo d’arte contemporanea Roma, Rome (2003). He has also participated in the group exhibitions Stage Presence: Theatricality in Art and Media (2012) and The Studio Sessions (2009) at SFMOMA; Common Ground, Public Art Fund, City Hall Park, New York (2012); Realisms, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (2008); and Whitney Biennial, New York (2002).

Chris Johanson (born 1968 in San Jose, California; lives and works in Los Angeles)
Johanson came of age as part of San Francisco’s Mission School—a loosely connected, community-minded group of artists inspired by street and skate culture. With insight and humor, he creates deceptively simple paintings or rough-hewn sculptural environments that serve as armatures for personal, social, and cosmic concerns. Johanson has had solo exhibitions at Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (2011); the Portland Art Museum (2007); and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2001). His work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions including the Glasgow International (2012); 75 Years of Looking Forward, SFMOMA (2010); Baja to Vancouver: The West Coast and Contemporary Art (2004); 2002 SECA Art Award Exhibition, SFMOMA (2003); and the Whitney Biennial (2002). Johanson has a forthcoming solo exhibition at MOCA, Los Angeles this June.

Mike Mills (born 1966 in Berkeley, California; lives and works in Los Angeles)
Mills is a filmmaker and graphic designer. As a filmmaker, he has completed a number of music videos, commercials, short films, documentaries, and feature films. His early short films include The Architecture of Reassurance (2000), which focuses on ennui and anxiety in suburbia as seen through the eyes of a bored California teenager. Mills adapted and directed his first feature film Thumbsucker (2005) from Walter Kirn’s novel of the same name that won awards at the Sundance and Berlin film festivals. His second feature, the Academy Award–winning film Beginners (2010) was inspired by Mills’s father and explores the humor and transformative moments found in the most serious circumstances of life. His graphic design work includes album covers for Beastie Boys, Air, Sonic Youth, and others. Mills’s work has been featured in the National Design Triennial, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York (2003), and Beautiful Losers, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2004).

Kateřina Šedá (born 1977 in Brno, Czech Republic; lives and works in Brno–Líšeň and Prague)
Marked by collaboration, Šedá’s projects often involve a community of participants that are brought together in order to address a situation or issue. Her orchestrated actions center on the lives of ordinary people and on furthering communication through shared experience. Whether she is synchronizing the daily actions of a village or holding a contest for neighbors to draw the view from their front door, Šedá’s meaningful shifts alter perceptions and the definition of normalcy. Šedá has had solo exhibitions at the Kunstmuseum Luzern (2012); Tate Modern (2011); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2010); and the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago (2008). Her work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions including 10th Lyon Biennial (2009); The Generational: Younger Than Jesus, New Museum of Contemporary Art (2009); and 5th Berlin Biennial (2008). Šedá will represent Taiwan in the Venice Biennale this summer.

Alec Soth (born 1969 in Minneapolis; lives and works in the Twin Cities)
Soth is a photographer and a member of Magnum Photos. His work is rooted in the distinctly American tradition of on-the-road photography developed by Walker Evans, Robert Frank, and Stephen Shore. From Huckleberry Finn to Easy Rider there seems to be a uniquely American desire to travel and chronicle the adventures that consequently ensue. His photographs have been featured in numerous solo and group shows, including the Whitney Biennial (2004) and São Paulo Biennial (2004). In 2008, a large survey exhibition of Soth’s work was exhibited at Jeu de Paume in Paris and Fotomuseum Winterthur in Switzerland. In 2010, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis mounted a comprehensive exhibition with an accompanying catalogue entitled From Here To There, Alec Soth’s America. Soth’s first monograph, Sleeping by the Mississippi, was published by Steidl in 2004. Since then he has published NIAGARA (2006), Fashion Magazine (2007), The Last Days of W (2008), and Broken Manual (2010). In 2008, Soth started his own publishing company, Little Brown Mushroom.

Jessica Stockholder (born 1959 in Seattle; lives and works in Chicago)
Stockholder explores the pictorial potential of sculpture through vibrantly colored installations and autonomous floor and wall pieces. Her site-specific installations have been called “paintings in space” and often consider the architecture that frames them. For Color Jam (2011) she playfully transformed an intersection in downtown Chicago. Stockholder observed, “The corner is canvas, stage, pedestal, and frame against which the public can view a parade of shifting color relationships.” Stockholder is the chair of the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago. She has had solo exhibitions at Reina Sofía Museum, Madrid (2010); MoMA PS1, Long Island City (2006); Dia Center for the Arts, New York (1995); and many others. A fifteen-year survey of her work was co-organized by the Blaffer Art Gallery, University of Houston; and the Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro (2004–5). Her work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions such as the Whitney Biennial (2004) and the Venice Biennale (1997).

The icons of the New York Skyline will soon have a new companion. Located on Park Avenue between 56th and 57th streets, 432 Park Avenue will be the tallest residential tower in the Western Hempishere upon its completion in 2015.

The views from this soaring, 1,396-foot tower in the center of Manhattan will take in the entire city below, from the Hudson to the East River, from the Bronx to Brooklyn, from Central Park to the Atlantic.

To learn more about this project, please visit http://www.432parkavenue.com

Directed by filmmaker Dan Sully – who also created the video for the first album’s single ‘Come Closer’– this cinematic love letter to Liverpool offers a series of emotionally resonant vignettes shot in classic black and white. From the boxing ring to the ballroom, a vast array of scenes and characters are captured to convey the richness of the city combined with powerful performances from Miles and his band against the city’s skyline and in the renowned Liverpool landmark that is St. George’s Hall.

Founded in Connecticut in 1975, Ghurka has served as a symbol of superior American leather craftsmanship for almost forty years. Specializing in fine men’s leather accessories ranging from business cases and travel bags to wallets and other small leather goods, Ghurka remains loyal to its heritage of exacting design and trademark manufacturing processes. With new design innovations firmly rooted in Ghurka’s heritage and principals, the company is committed to addressing the portage needs of their clients with style and grace.

The Ghurka collection is available exclusively at our flagship store at 781 Fifth Avenue in New York City, through the Ghurka website, and at select fine retailers. Ghurka is a subsidiary of Brightwork Brand Holdings Corp. To shop online or learn more about Ghurka please visit http://www.GHURKA.com.

The GROUND, a bi-annual publication that focuses on contemporary ideas in art, music and fashion through creative collaborations with its profiled subjects and readers.

The magazine strives towards facilitating new experiences with printed matter through its multiple platforms; web based social exchange,
print and its manifestation as exhibitions in built spaces. Readers are able to participate in the creation of the magazine by posting to the Internet blogs and reviews hosted by The GROUND’s website. By facilitating interactions and experiences with The GROUND in multiple platforms, the magazine creates diverse ways of engaging with and creating its content. The GROUND embodies a genuine desire to share and expose a plethora of creative voices.

Ryan Yoon is the founder and president of Artistic Cube Inc., a creative agency providing high-end clients with special needs in creative direction and photography services. Born in South Korea, Ryan moved to America to capture the trendy styles of the fashion and art world. Currently settled in New York, before making his portfolio an international jewel, he acquired all the techniques of photography at the State University of New York, College of Oneonta.

After earning his qualification, he also received another degree at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Having obtained his masters, Ryan had his first exhibition in 2004 and a year later, his work was featured at the Pixel exhibition in New York. Known for his edgy yet elegant images, Ryan’s creative work is created to capture the moment. He prefers to concentrate on fashion and artistic documentary photography, where he can expand his creative visions. His published work includes Numéro Homme, Elle, Ponytail UK, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Playing Fashion magazine and various advertising clients.

Daniel: Ryan, what an honor. Our friendship spans over quite some time – I’ve had the pleasure of working with you and The GROUND Magazine a bit through the colder months of 2012. I truly admire what you guys are doing.

Ryan: Thank you Daniel. It is an honor for me as well.

Daniel: Where shall we begin? Maybe we can start with you telling us about “The Ground?”

Ryan: Simply speaking, The GROUND is a platform where contributors and editors collaborate in the creation of art, music, fashion and charitable subjects, concepts and ideas. The GROUND Magazine is a print version of the platform.

Daniel: Tell us a bit about yourself, who you are, where you’re from.

Ryan: I spent most of my life looking for what I am good at and what I like. I realized that it is really hard to find the matching of what a person likes and what he or she is good at.

People who find their passion at an early age are very lucky. I studied computer science back in Korea. I was in the e-commerce business for a while, and then I was in the army for five years. I actually came to America to study sports marketing in order to be a sports agent. It was really hard for me to imagine myself where I am now.

Currently, I am Ryan Yoon, editor in chief/creative director of The GROUND magazine and a photographer.

Daniel: How did you get started in this industry?

Ryan: I was supposed to go to the University of South Carolina to study sports marketing in 2003. I had this big dream of being a sports agent. A couple of months before the first semester started, I opened my eyes to the fashion industry and decided to be a model agent instead. Later, I studied business, fashion merchandising, and photography.

I did my first internship at New York Models during the last semester of college. That is how I entered into this industry.

Daniel: You were studying photography out on the west coast. What brought you over to New York?

Ryan: Before going to school in South Carolina, I went to school in California, taking a couple of business classes. After I changed my goal, I moved to upstate New York and studied photography there. Once I decided to get into the fashion industry, I transferred to the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan. That is how I came to New York.

Daniel: Do you think there was a chance you would have stayed out there?

Ryan: I really liked living in upstate New York. However, I am sure I would have come to New York anyway to look for my passion. Maybe, I will consider living upstate again when I retire.

Daniel: The original magazine was named VIRGINE. You pretty much had to re-start your entire brand from scratch. What did you learn from that experience?

Ryan: I learned that the biggest challenge for a start-up company are legal issues and you have to be prepared for it. I named the magazine, VIRGINE, by combining the words, Virtual, Virgin and Magazine, which has nothing to do with the Virgin Enterprise. However, using the name VIRGINE was a big concern for the Virgin Enterprise.

I really did not know what to do because I was not ready for a big lawsuit and could not afford it. It was a devastating moment. After months of negotiations, I settled with the Virgin Enterprise, but I had to change the name. I learned how to stay positive in a critical situation and became a more mature human being through this incident. I do not think I had to start over since The GROUND became a more mature version of the VIRGINE brand.

Daniel: Was that experience an opportunity to improve the magazine?

Ryan: We came up with a new name, The GROUND, which I like very much and the name reflects my vision very well. I also set a right and strong direction for the publication.

If you compare the first issue with the second and the third issue, you will see significant changes in many ways besides just the name change. Now, The GROUND is more focused on consistency in direction and content creation.

Daniel: What sets The GROUND apart from the rest?

Ryan: The GROUND is a direction, not a destination. The GROUND is about how, not what. I believe The GROUND is an effort to create a better platform to help artists. Because of this reason, The GROUND does not limit its presenting format or topic subjects.

The GROUND’s first exhibition, “The GROUND Collective,” is a good example. By collaborating with an electronic company, Samsung, and a cultural hub, Milk Gallery, The GROUND created a new event concept where people can experience and interact with magazine content in a physical space.

The GROUND will host a charity project in 2013. We are expecting to release an expansion of The GROUND Social website. In turn, The GROUND will evolve by creating new formats and concepts.

Daniel: Take me through the creative process of this incredible magazine: from whom you work with to how their talent adds to the production.

Ryan: The most important process of content creation in The GROUND is brainstorming and editing. The GROUND editors spend enormous amounts of energy to keep a certain consistency by repeatedly brainstorming and editing. Once we’ve decided on a theme for the next issue, we look for possible contributors who might fit under the theme, and we look for relations among contributors. For example, for the third issue of the magazine, under the theme of “balance,” a The GROUND editor interviewed the musical duo, The Black Soft. Their debut single is called, “Eating Kandinsky.” Coincidently, we have a feature article about Wassily Kandinsky.

Additionally, Lady Gaga’s famous stylist Nicola Formichetti often collaborates with the musical duo, The Black Soft. Lastly, we have a fashion editorial called, Der Blaue Reiter (The blue rider), which was the name of the artist group that included Wassily Kandinsky. This is how we find the relationship among contributors under one given theme. If you look at the corner of certain pages of The GROUND, you will find small color tabs that show how all contributors of a certain color are related to each other.

So far, we interviewed one of the greatest fashion designers, Azzedine Alaia, world-renowned photographers Robert Polidori and Gregory Crewdson, architects Tadao Ando and Santiago Calatrava, many fashion designers, musicians and famous models.

One of the features I am very proud of is of up-and-coming artists with industry leading artists at the same time. In a way, they became mentors and mentees for The GROUND. The most memorable interview was the interview of fashion designer, Azzedine Alaia. The GROUND exclusively interviewed Azzedine Alaia who had not accepted an interview for decades. We also succeeded in bringing out his greatest thoughts and brutal criticisms toward the fashion industry.

Daniel: Back in 2012 you mentioned making a “hard” copy of The GROUND, a more “limited edition.” Are you still considering it?

Ryan: We produced hard cover cases with leather finish for the second issue. It is a limited-edition version of the magazine where possible sponsors have the opportunity to collaborate with The GROUND by producing a specialized case. The GROUND is currently looking for the right sponsors for this opportunity.

Daniel: There are two versions of your magazine. White and Black. What is the difference between the two?

Ryan: Black edition is sold at bookstores. White edition is a limited version that is not for sale. The contents are the same, but the white version has a more artistic feel and value. We only print 200 copies of the white edition. When we have the right partner or sponsor, all white editions will have a hard cover case with a leather finish.

Daniel: Is there a meaning behind the name, “The GROUND?”

Ryan: I broke new ground in order to provide more opportunities and connections to those who are struggling with their careers and for The GROUND to work on contributing more toward a better society.

Daniel: Let’s talk a bit about the site. How is that coming along?

Ryan: It has been doing great. We are still experimenting on how we can bring the physical magazine and the exhibition to the website.

Daniel: What has been the most exciting story to work on in The GROUND’s third issue?

Ryan: I have to say, all interviews and feature stories were exciting and special. The most meaningful aspect of the third issue was a chance to work with UNICEF. We are now trying to work with United Nations and UNICEF to create a really meaningful charity event along with creating content for the next issue.

Daniel: What’s the industry like in Korea? How often do you travel back home?

Ryan: I went back to Korea only twice in the past 11 years so it is really hard to tell you what it is like. I know that the Korean market is one of the fastest growing markets at the moment. I am so thrilled about it.

Daniel: Is there a Korean version of The GROUND?

Ryan: Not yet, but definitely in the future. I think it is too early to adopt another language version of The GROUND, but maybe within the next three to five years. It is one of the most meaningful plans that I have in my mind. I hope I can create a Korean version soon so that I can see my parents more often.

Daniel: What are the future plans for The GROUND, and where do you see the magazine in two, five and ten years from now?

Ryan: I am sure that I will experiment with more things and I will try to create new concepts for The GROUND in the next few years. Perhaps, in five years, The GROUND will become a new standard for publication or media. In ten years, The GROUND will become a common term that will stand for a platform that helps and connects artists.

Daniel: Moving on from The GROUND, you’re a photographer yourself. How often do you shoot for the magazine?

Ryan: I don’t shoot as often as I used to. I am too busy to solely be a photographer at the moment. However, I never thought about solely being a creative or art director either.

Photography is a true calling for me. I have been shooting more portraitures and creating more experimental images for The GROUND. I am going to start shooting more fashion stories, art projects and documentary projects this year.

Daniel: From photographer to creative director – quite the transformation! Perhaps even every photographers dream. What has been your most creative shoot thus far?

Ryan: It depends on the project, but I believe all photographers have an art or creative director somewhere inside of them. In my case, I just focused more on being a creative director than being a photographer.

The most exciting shoot for me was when I shot an entire print advertisement using RED cameras with the film crew in 2010. We shot entire scenes much like filming a TV commercial and pulled out still images from movie clips. At the beginning of 2010, it was not common to shoot print editorials or advertisements with a movie camera. I created a new work method in order to work with the client who was not very familiar with the RED camera. We created hundreds of short video clips and shipped them on iPads to the client.

During the image selection process, they sent me video clip numbers along with the respective time frame numbers. It was a lot of work to produce traditional picture images by using this method. However, it was a lot of fun and allowed me to produce more dynamic images.

Daniel: You’ve got a photo studio in Manhattan, Artistic Cube. Big names have dropped by your studio, from magazines to models. How’s the space coming along?

Ryan: We host small events and parties here. Many publications had shoots here including V, Numero Homme, Elle, Blackbook and many others. Designers are renting the space during New York Fashion Week for preparation and casting. Casting directors are renting the space as well, so I have been meeting amazing people in the studio. Also, Artistic Cube studio is used for The GROUND’s content production. We invite many industry-leading people to the studio.

Daniel: What do you hope to achieve in 2013?

Ryan: Shoot more fashion stories. Work on art projects. Most of all, I hope that more people will understand what The GROUND is and support The GROUND. Also, we are hosting a charity exhibition called, “ The GROUND Collaborative,” this year.

Daniel: Favorite quote?

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.” – Steve Jobs

This quote explains what we do at The GROUND.

Daniel: Here’s a fun question I love asking: if you could be anywhere, at any time (past or present), where would it be?

Ryan: I want to be in New York City during the 1920s or 1960s. I love the ‘20s and ‘60s eras. Those are such unique time eras for fashion and art. At this moment, I want to go to San Francisco or Venice, Italy since these two cities are my favorite cities of all time. In the future, I want to live in London for a while and I will start a sister publication of The GROUND there.

Daniel: Anything else we’re missing?

Ryan: I love Bloginity!

Full Credits
Photography by Sandra Fourqui, Angeladebona.com
Styling by Karine Martins
Makeup Emilie Peltier
Hair Olivier Schawalder
Model Katya, Karin Models
Wardrobe of Paule Ka
Edited by Daniel Haim

Some of the Works that sold:

As the day progressed, visitors continued to pile in for a glimpse of the works on display (and some people could only catch a glimpse due to the crowds). “It was truly an incredible sight to see such a wonderful turnout after all the hard work that went into making this show possible,” said Lance Rehs of Rehs Galleries. “We could not have asked for much more, except maybe a few more sales,” he said with a smile. Don’t let that fool you.. by the end of the day 9 works had found new homes.

It is estimated that over 700 people attended the opening although an exact number could not be confirmed. According to Howard Rehs, at a certain time the crowds were so immense that keeping an accurate count was nearly impossible. Even more amazing is the fact that at around 1:30, the elevators in the building broke down (we would guess because of the high volume of traffic) and yet, people continued pouring in; Young and old were climbing up 8 flights of stairs to see the exhibition. The elevator issues continued throughout the afternoon, but people just kept coming.

It did not seem long until we were approaching the 6 pm closing time, yet visitors remained – filling the gallery. By 6:45 the crowds had dwindled and there was room to breathe. Lucky for us at Bloginity, we had the opportunity to sit down with some of the most talented artists featured in the show and learn more about them. It is always interesting to learn where an artist came from, what inspires them and where they hope to be in the future. Make sure to check back throughout the month to read about these incredible artists, only here at Bloginity.com.

In less than a week Rehs Contemporary Galleries will open its doors to premiere “THE BIG GAMBLE”, a gallery exhibition featuring talents from the Ani Art Academies.

The show, which runs from April 6th through May 3rd, will feature the first significant concentration of works in New York City from The Ani Art Academies instructors, alumni and current apprentices. Throughout the month of May, Bloginity.com will conduct interviews with a number of artists exhibiting in the show which will be featured on their website. These artist features will give the reader an opportunity to learn more about each of the artists: where they came from, what inspires them, and their hopes for the future.

“Contemporary works led the art market in 2012 and many place a great emphasis on shock value. We want to know what happened to the love, support, and celebration of technical skills and talent. When did the ultimate goal of perfecting the human body on paper become less important than spilled paint and scribbles on canvas? In life, you have little choice as to the cards you are dealt and it is up to you to know how to play them right. We believe that the artists from The Ani Art Academies were dealt royal flushes.”

Rehs Contemporary Gallery’s ultimate goal is to celebrate the good, the talented, and the skilled through a series of exhibitions featuring established, as well as up-and-coming, contemporary artists in the Academic field.

“We begin this series with an exhibition entitled, “THE BIG GAMBLE,” and chose this theme for a number of reasons. First, the whole idea of an exhibit in today’s art world (especially in New York City) that is academic in nature is a gamble in and of itself. Will people respond? Will they react? Will they come? Only time will tell.”

More importantly, Rehs Contemporary Gallery felt it was important to give the works in the exhibition a common thread. The participating artists (currently 32 in number) were asked to use the phrase, “THE BIG GAMBLE,” as inspiration for their work. Some chose to explore the theme quite literally, others took a humorous approach, and still others explored ideas that were more personal – reflecting a big gamble in their life (a choice or turning point that made life more interesting and fulfilling.. or not J). Whichever road the artist chose, we know you will be intrigued by the stories that inspired them.

“We had originally planned to show 30 works from 27 artists; however, with just a couple of weeks until the opening we now have over 40 works from 32 artists- and maybe a few surprises will show up before the 6th.” Among the participants in this inaugural exhibit are highly esteemed artists such as Anthony J. Waichulis (Director of The Ani Art Academies, Waichulis), Timothy W. Jahn (Director of The Ani Art Academies, Anguilla), Ed Dillon (Director of The Ani Art Academies, Dominican Republic), Tim Reynolds (Founder of the Ani Art Academies project), Helen Crispino, Brian O’Neill and Jay Davenport. In addition, young and talented student’s works will be exhibited; included are Deborah Lloyd’s first drawing Gamble Everything for Love and 15 year old Max Reynold’s Raising in the East and many more.

Be sure to visit http://www.rehs.com for additional information regarding this special event in the coming months. Rehs Contemporary Galleries, Inc. is located at 5 East 57th Street, New York, NY 10022. For more information on the Ani Art Academies please visit http://www.aniwaichulis.com and http://www.aniartacademies.org.

Art as practiced by M/M (Paris) is a cumulative affair, spreading from medium to medium in a process of endless expansion. M/M’s concern is signs: their absolute plasticity and their persistence. Making play with scale and context, the work of this duo founded by Michael Amzalag and Mathias Augustyniak in 1992 is fuelled by transpositions of media and form that trigger corresponding effects of meaning. Thus M/M (Paris) exhibitions function equally as updates of their archive and as a pause allowing signs already produced to assume new forms and continue their trajectory.

C’est Wouf! is specifically a display of their three-dimensional output, featuring domestic items that are either functional or intended for contemplation. At the core of the installation, Infinitable (Mise-en-abîme) (2011) offers a miniature catalog raisonné of their artefacts set on a replica of the table in their studio. Around this scaled-down nucleus, the gallery is displaying works that are emblematic (Paravent, 2001), hitherto unshown (Left/Right Hemisphere, 2007) or specially created for the exhibition (Pouf (C’est Wouf!), 2013). Wouf, the character who gives his name to the exhibition, conjures up and extends the notion of The Agent (2000), drawn from a rejected project that has become a recurrent part of the M/M (Paris) oeuvre; we imagine him as “man’s best friend”, a paradoxical embodiment of an affective figure in a simplistic register of forms. He is sheltered – hidden away – under the presentation structures of The Carpetalogue (2012), a group of four carpets that provides a domestic-scale breakdown of M/M’s different registers of artistic language: drawing, geometry, photography and writing.

The limited edition publication accompanying the exhibition, a collection of 12 ephemeral transfers titled A Lifetime upon M/My Skin, investigates the temporality of signs in a mingling of indelible markings and fragile embellishment. This is a reaction to the spontaneous appropriations their signs were subjected to, and a recurrence of the mythic Tattoo show at Air de Paris in 1991 – another form of vectorization. So art as practiced by M/M(Paris) may be a matter not so much of space as of a certain temporality, residing not so much in the originality of its forms as in a very specific form of memory: ever ancient, ever changing, ever new.

Exhibition Details: April 12 – May 18th, 2013.

You can read the Bloginity.com exclusive interview with M/M Paris right here.

In the past twenty years, design has branched out in new directions, galvanizing young practitioners, sparking novel business models, and attracting worldwide attention. A designer today can choose to focus on interaction, interfaces, the web, visualization, socially minded infrastructures, immersive spaces, biodesign, sustainability, video games, critical scenarios, and, yes, even products and furniture. Outstanding examples of this vitality and diversity are on display at the MoMA, ranging from a mine detonator powered by the wind to the immortal spatial puzzle Tetris. Tetris is one of the first video games to enter MoMA’s collection, selected with thirteen others as a pillar of interaction design—one of the most important and oft-discussed expressions of contemporary design creativity.

One of design’s fundamental tasks is to help people deal with change. Designers stand between revolutions and everyday life: they make innovations manageable and approachable, so that they can be embraced and assimilated. For this reason, in the years to come, designers will increasingly be at the nexus of culture, politics, and society. Like physics, design will be loosely divided into the theoretical and the applied. Theoretical designers will be exquisite generalists, but ready to roll up their sleeves. Applied designers will continue to make objects, never forgetting functionality and elegance. Objects, however, will not always be physical; they will often be shared, not owned; they might be starters that people will complete and customize at home using 3-D printers and other on demand services; or they will be tools that allow scientists, policy makers, and citizens to visualize and manage complex systems.

Design is not only about making things, people, and places pretty. Like the artifacts of applied design on view at the MoMA, it is sometimes ugly, but it is always meaningful, and it encompasses all facets of human activity, including science, education, politics, and even war.

Applied Design
The Philip Johnson Architecture and Design Galleries
March 2, 2013 – January 31, 2014

The Museum of Modern Art presents Applied Design, an installation in The Philip Johnson Architecture and Design Galleries showcasing approximately 100 objects from the Museum’s collection. Representing the new directions of contemporary design, the exhibition features outstanding examples of interface and interaction design, dynamic visualizations, products, furniture, 3D printed chairs and bowls, emergency equipment, and biodesign. A testament to this vitality and diversity, the objects on display range from a mine detonator by the young Dutch/Afghani designer Massoud Hassani to a bowl made by transforming desert sand into glass using only the energy of the sun. Also on display are the first 14 video games to enter MoMA’s collection as part of ongoing research on interaction design. The exhibition is organized by Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator, and Kate Carmody, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art, and is on view from March 2, 2013 until January 31, 2014.

In the past twenty years, design has branched out in new directions that have galvanized young practitioners, sparked business models, and attracted worldwide public attention. Mine Kafon for example, Massoud Hassani’s dandelion-shaped mine detonator, is equipped with a GPS to record a safe path and designed to roll through mine fields. If the object, made from bamboo and biodegradable plastics, encounters a mine and detonates it, it will only partially destruct and can be salvaged and reassembled into a new specimen ready for deployment. Hassani grew up in the war-torn countryside of Afghanistan, where many of his friends were injured or killed by landmines. Hassani drew on this personal experience to design a universal and low-cost tool that can save many lives.

Markus Kayser’s Solar-sintered bowl was made using desert sand and sun. The process of converting a powder into a solid by heating is known as sintering, and it is central in 3D printing, a process by which computer-controlled machines deposit or solidify liquid or powdered resin layer by layer, to create a three-dimensional rendering of a digital design. Kayser applied this technology, which is closely identified with computers, robotics, and resins, to natural resources. He tested his first manually operated solar 3D printing machine in 2011 in the Moroccan desert, using silica sand, which turns to glass after heating and cooling. He completed a bigger, fully utomated, computer-driven version called SolarSinter later that year and tested it in the Sahara. The bowl in the exhibition was produced by the SolarSinter and will have an accompanying video that documents the process.

Wind Map, by Martin Wattenberg and Fernanda Viégas, is an online application that pulls information from the publicly available National Digital Forecast database, rendering a living portrait of the wind landscape over the United States. The Earthquake Proof Table by Ido Bruno and Arthur Brutter—Brutter’s final project while a student in the Industrial Design program at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem—is inexpensive, lightweight, and can provide shelter and protection during earthquakes by absorbing the impact of falling debris.

The 14 video games, the seedbed for an initial wish list of about 40 to be acquired in the near future, features: Pac-Man (1980), Tetris (1984), Another World (1991), Myst (1993), SimCity 2000 (1994), Vib-ribbon (1999), The Sims (2000), Katamari Damacy (2004), EVE Online (2003), Dwarf Fortress (2006), Portal (2007), flOw (2006), Passage (2008), Canabalt (2009). The criteria used to select these specific games emphasized not only the visual quality and aesthetic experience of each game, but also the many other aspects—from the elegance of the code to the design of the player’s behavior—that pertain to interaction design.

Interactive games such as Passage, Tetris, Pac-Man, Katamari Damacy, Vib-ribbon, Cannabalt, flOw, Portal, and Another World are playable using controllers, while games such as Eve Online, Dwarf Fortress, SimCity2000, The Sims, and Myst, are presented as walkthroughs or demos. Headphones will be provided for games that have sound; an ongoing game soundtrack that features the sounds of one game at a time will be audible in the galleries.

It is an exciting evening for gentlemen around the world, receiving the news that Zegna has renovated their website. I’ve just spent the last hour exploring the new layout which features Zegna’s traditional gold and brown color palette and even noticed that the sites new design is responsive, or in other words – it works perfectly on any tablet or any size monitor.

As part of its comprehensive digital strategy, Ermenegildo Zegna, has consolidated its online platforms, Zegna.com and the Zegna Online Store Powered by Yoox Group, under a single interactive structure that delivers full coverage of hot new style trends, fashion news and exclusive content together with a fashion-forward online shopping experience. To celebrate the launch of the newly renovated online platform Zegna will honor the first 100 clients with a black satin bow tie together with a video tutorial on tying it. Additionally, Zegna will design dedicated capsule collections which will be sold exclusively via Zegna.com.

The “Zegna Online Experience” has been redesigned to better meet the demands of the Group’s growing international user base in yet another example of Zegna’s impeccable attention to quality and overall customer experience. With a truly global focus, Zegna.com now delivers multi-faceted content ranging from the history of the Brand and its world-famous Wool Mill (Lanificio Zegna) to red-carpet Zegna looks, style tips for every occasion, behind-the-scenes content, exclusive event videos and an enhanced shopping experience: all in a single, user-friendly website. The improved editorial offer features weekly cover stories and highlights which keep visitors in-the-know regarding the latest happenings in the world of Zegna. What’s more, Zegna’s ongoing collaboration with some of the world’s most influential bloggers will be showcased together with links to the Zegna Live App, Google+ and other leading social networks.

The interactive shopping area, specifically designed to reflect the sophisticated and refined atmosphere of a Zegna boutique, features the latest clothing and accessory collections by brands Ermenegildo Zegna, Z Zegna and Zegna Sport. With a strong emphasis on usability and user experience, Zegna.com now offers a complete commerce solution including an innovative interface design, advanced photography with zoom and multi-view options, detailed product information and premium customer care. The new website Zegna.com, which has been optimized for iPad, will be available in more than 10 languages and the online store is accessible from Europe, the USA, Canada and Japan.

This strategic repositioning of Zegna.com forms part of the Group’s growing digital strategy development that is focused on creating quality connections with customers and fashion-savvy fans using today’s and tomorrow’s digital, mobile and social media platforms.