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Review: Manystuff #1, One Possible Catalyst

Martine Syms — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 22:42:43 +0000

Photo by Charlotte Cheetham © Manystuff

Manystuff is a blog, edited by the mostly anonymous Charlotte Cheetham, that offers a “daily selection” of graphic design. Manystuff has a devout, international following of 5,000+ visitors a day, they regularly organize design exhibitions and recently began publishing a magazine. Manystuff #1 is actually the second issue. Manystuff #0, More Real Than Fiction was released in 2008, but I wasn’t able to get my hands on it, so it remains less real to me.

Manystuff #1, One Possible Catalyst states its case modestly. The objective is to “fix a laboratory of experiments and meditations released from formal and theoretical prejudices.” One Possible Catalyst is not for those seeking a practical treatise about running your own studio or how to do-it-yourself, nor those looking for a barrage of striking images to consume. It comes as a refreshing counterpoint to the glut of design thinking, design within reach, and design sponging that currently abounds. One Possible Catalyst is for serious thinking about Design. Read it when you’re feeling cynical, but not when you’re feeling sleepy.

(Contributors were asked to diverge from the following three themes:)

Photo by Charlotte Cheetham © Manystuff

Less is more
This way of life has become a cliché and/or vice versa. Less is More is an argument for minimal graphic design that features an essay on the public notice by Rob Giampietro, a collection of business cards from Christian Brandt and a historical survey by Olivier Marcellin. Succinctly, “Use of a sans-serif and a uniform background.”

Support Graphic Design
Support Graphic Design is a catalog of structures used to hold posters and other designed objects, including outdoor benches from EventArchitectuur, billboards from Experimental Jetset, and a mobile bookshop from Robin Gadde. I was struck by the beauty and economy of the mobile bookshop, a succession of plywood sheets with rectangle cut outs for shelves.

Transmission
The headline asks “What about intergenerational relations between designers?” I often wonder if it’s even possible to establish intergenerational relationships outside of an institution. Sometimes I lament that the only way I’ll be able to meet so-and-so is to go to X school or secure another internship with no pay but lots of prestige. Although One Possible Catalyst provides no alternatives, it does offer a series of texts pairing educators with students and employers with interns that contemplate the role of generational exchange within the field.

Manystuff #1, One Possible Catalyst features contributions from Christian Brandt, Lorena Cardenas, Change is good, David Conte, Pinar Demirdag, Neil Donnelly, Laurent Fétis, Kees de Klein, Wayne Daly, Bear Demen, EventArchitectuur, Experimental Jetset, Robin Gadde &team, Rob Giampietro, Hannes Gloor & Stefan Jandl, Catherine Guiral & David Cluzeau, Arnaud Daffos, Vincent Lalanne, Aurélie Guérinet, Rikard Heberling, Hey Ho, Hyoun Youl Joe, Julia, Konst & Teknik, Sacha Leopold, Olivier Marcellin, Fanette Mellier, Pipi Parade, Please Let Me Design, Thibaut Robin, Grégoire Romanet, Mathias Schweizer, Maki Suzuki (Åbäke), Pierre Vanni, Karen Willey, and Ivor Williams.

It is available now at Manystuff.

How Hard Is It To Make A Piano Speak Like A Human? Very.

Christopher — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:32:24 +0000

How hard is it to make a Piano sound even remotely like a human voice? Well Austrian composer Peter Ablinger spent a few years to create a sound wave to note translation system that gets pretty close. The video is of the system in action reading text from the “Proclamation of the European Environmental Criminal Court at the 2009 World Venice Forum”. Watch and be amazed at just how many keys it takes in succession to even get close to a single human vowel.

The World of Chemistry

Meg Onli — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 16:13:18 +0000

Episode 156: Christian Ehrentraut, and Martin Kobe

Christopher — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 23:53:08 +0000

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Break out the caviar and pop the champagne- this week Bad at Sports celebrates is 3rd anniversary with its 156th episode!

This week: Patrica hosts Brian, Christian Ehrentraut, and Martin Kobe for a conversation over blueberries, wine, and tea. They discuss the rise of Berlin as the new fashionable European art hot-spot, the Leipzig painter phenomenon, a German view of American cities, and and why it is important to promote quality painting in the face of the market. Christian Ehrentraut is a Berlin-based art dealer and director of Christian Ehrentraut Gallery. Martin Kobe is a painter whose architectural surfaces balance on the brink of collapse.
Christian
Ehrentraut
Martin Kobe
Berlin Biennale
Venice Biennale
Cannes International Film Festival
The Armory Show
Art Basel
Direct download: Bad_at_Sports_Episode_156-Christian_Ehrentraut.mp3

Episode 146: Art Basel

Christopher — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 16:32:01 +0000

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A Bad at Sports Basel Art Fair Overdose!

The intro and outro are extra creepy this week. Highlights(?) include Duncan talking about some fantasy involving wearing tight short shorts and Teena McClelland!!! Tom Burtonwood interrupts the recording by shooting rubber bands. Chaos!

After Richard and Duncan are done making a mess of things, the real pros come in and present a fantastic report from Basel.

Lamis El Farra, emerging artist, and the EuroShark Mark Staff Brandl, seemingly perennially emerging black sheep artist, traverse and discuss the entirety of the King of Art Fairs, Art Basel. Yes: the Fair Itself, Art Statements, Art Unlimited, Scope, and the Solo Project. They only missed Liste and Print Basel. Sorry, but all the rest was already enough. Of course they were at the VIP opening (ahem) and managed to talk to more people than you can shake a stick at: artists, gallerists, museum directors, curators, critics, art magazine editors, fair organizers, all the hangers-on, …er…, important elements of the international artworld.

Gerhard Mack
NZZ
Herzog and de Meuron
Schaulager Basel
Andrea Zittel and Monika Sosnowska
Vitra Design Museum
Rem Koolhaas
Basel Art Statements
Basel Art Unlimited
Marc Spiegler
Thomas Hirschhorn
Roland Waespe
Kunstmuseum St. Gallen
Udo Kittelman
The Rolf Ricke Collection
Dave Muller
Three Day Weekend
Florian Berktold
Hauser and Wirth
Mary Heilmann
Subodha Gupta
Dan Graham
Pippilotti Rist
Christoph Buechel
Tony Wuetrich
Hanspeter Hofmann
Leiko Ikemura
Leonard Bullock
Florian Suessmayr
Leipziger Schule
Neo Rauch
Boers-Li Gallery
Qiu Xiaofei
Alex Meszmer / Reto Mueller (Zeitgarten)
Elizabeth C. Baker
Art in America
Chaim Soutine
Museum fuer Gegenwartskunst Basel
Kunsthaus Zurich
Ferdinand Leger
Museum Tinguely
Gary Justis
Marcia Vetrocq
Glen O’Brien
Raphael Rubinstein
Interview magazine
The Magazine Antiques
Artforum
Museum der bildenden Kuenste Leipzig
Gunther Sachs
Berlin Biennale
Faye Hirsch
Sharkforum
ArtNews
Ellsworth Kelly
David Zwirner Gallery
Greg Kwiatek
Paul Bloodgood
Galerie Karin Sutter
Beyeler Gallery
Next Fair
David Reed
Erik Colan
Wesley Kimler
Scope Art Fair
Emma Biggs and Matthew Collings
Carrie Secrist Gallery
Loreen Hospodar
Kelly Chen
Art Chicago
Petroc Sesti
Robert Standish
Römerapotheke Galerie Zurisch
Philippe Rey
Filiale Galerie Berlin
Vera Ida Mueller
Solo Project
Stephanie Sherga
Hans Gieles
Vous Etes Ici Gallery Amsterdam
Martijn Schuppers
Olivier Houg Galerie Lyon
Mathias Schmied
Direct download: Bad_at_Sports_Episode_146-Art_Basel.mp3

End of the World as We Know it!

Christopher — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:30:16 +0000

All together now:

“And I feel fine”

I move back to Chicago to live and work and what happens those evil “physicists” who just can’t be content in knowing that it only takes 3 licks to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop have to split it open to find the “charm” inside. By doing so might in fact end the world as we know it.

I get back here only to have it all end? Well to help count down the moments to your doom (or the evaporation of your student loans if your of the college persuasion) here is a countdown clock ticking down the time before the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland is turned on. So aperently if it’s anything that the Swiss do well it’s clocks and very large high-energy particle accelerators, the two just go hand in hand.

Thanks go out to the Wanker we all know and love Richard “Speak Gravely but carry a Talking Stick” Holland for the clock.

In my world of Unicorns and Wizards.

duncan — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:53:13 +0000

Those of you are brave and fond of the “dirty” words. You might as well check out “Why The Fuck Not Ppodcast?“ Think of it as a more plat-formists, music oriented and bizarre Bad At Sports from Europe.

Ppodcast has a more aggressively open ended mandate for the project and offers sound artists and experimental musicians a platform for their stuff.

Also, they introduced me to Lily Allen and I think I’m in love.

Artist Nests on Rotterdam Tower

Meg Onli — Wed, 21 May 2008 05:55:01 +0000

Artist Benjamin Verdonck is currently nesting on the Rotterdam Weena Tower. His performance “The Great Swallow” involves a nest, man, and a gaint egg.

Here’s the YouTube video clip:

Italian Artist Pippa Bacca Murdered on Peace Tour

Meg Onli — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 03:47:03 +0000

From the New York Times:

MILAN — The two friends, both performance artists, hatched the idea about a year ago: wearing white wedding dresses, they would hitchhike from Italy to the Balkans to the Middle East to send a message of peace and “marriage between different peoples and nations.”

But the message delivered by their performance piece was mostly sad and raw. After just three weeks on the road, one of the two Italian artists, Pippa Bacca, 33, was killed by a driver who offered her a ride.

Her naked body was found on April 11 in some bushes near a Turkish village after a suspect led investigators to the site. Although an official cause of death has not been given, local Turkish authorities said Ms. Bacca had been raped and strangled.

The killing has stirred broad public anger and grief in Turkey and Italy. Still, what Ms. Bacca would have wanted, her family and friends said, was her message of peace to live on.

“She thought that in the world there were more positive than negative people, and that it was right to be trusting,” said Rosalia Pasqualino, a sister of Ms. Bacca, whose real name was Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo. “Trust is a very human factor, and she believed that to understand people, you had to get to know them.”

On Saturday the artist’s friends, relatives and supporters will honor her memory and her quixotic quest in a short procession from the Pasqualino family home here to a Roman Catholic church nearby.

A choir that Ms. Bacca founded will perform at the funeral Mass (they don’t sing very well, her sister said fondly, but they are always quite entertaining), and everyone has been asked to wear or to carry something green, the artist’s favorite color.

“The family wanted to remember her in a joyous manner,” said Silvia Moro, 37, the artist who set out with Ms. Bacca on the trip, billed as “Brides on Tour,” on March 8. She said she last saw her friend on March 19 in Istanbul, where the two split up and agreed to rejoin each other in Beirut.

The performance piece, a trip through nearly a dozen countries in the Balkans and the Middle East, many of them ravaged by war recently, was meant to underscore that “by overcoming differences and lowering the level of conflict,” individuals and cultures could come together, Ms. Moro said in a telephone interview. “Meeting people was the key.”

Ms. Bacca’s trip was cut short near the village of Gebze, about 40 miles southeast of Istanbul. An unemployed man, Murat Karatas, 38, has confessed to killing her shortly after picking her up on March 31, the authorities have said.

Accepting rides with strangers was crucial to the art performance’s success, Ms. Moro said. The artists’ statement at their Web site, bridesontour.fotoup.net, says, “Hitchhiking is choosing to have faith in other human beings, and man, like a small god, rewards those who have faith in him.”

Ms. Moro explained: “It’s a poor way of traveling, and we wanted to underscore that you can’t foster love between people if you’re holed up in business class. You can’t go to, say, Mauritius, and eat pasta. You won’t understand people until you break bread with them, because it’s in the small diversities that you find similarities.”

After reports of Ms. Bacca’s death circulated, Ms. Bacca’s family and Italian and Turkish government officials immediately emphasized that the killing had been a cruel act by a possibly deranged person and could have happened almost anywhere.

“Just read any newspaper — people get killed for playing music too loudly, and women get raped in the subway; there are fiends everywhere,” Ms. Pasqualino said. “This was not a question of Turkey or of religion.”

Stefano Canzio, the Italian consul in Istanbul, said by telephone that “the reaction was very strong” in Turkey, and not just in the news media. Turkish citizens have sent scores of condolence messages to the Italian consulate in Istanbul and to the artist’s family, he said, adding, “People were incensed that a Turkish man could carry out such a heinous crime on a young woman who was on a trip for peace.”

Turkey’s president, Abdullah Gul, called President Giorgio Napolitano of Italy to relay the “heartfelt grief of the Turkish population for the tragedy,” according to Mr. Napolitano’s office.

View the full article here.

Daniel Birnbaum Nominated for Director of the Visual Arts for the 53rd Venice Biennale

Meg Onli — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 04:03:57 +0000

The Board of Directors of the Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta, held a meeting on 7th April 2008 in which it nominated Daniel Birnbaum as Director of the Visual Arts Sector, with specific responsibility as curator of the 53rd International Art Exhibition, to be held in 2009.

Born in Stockholm in 1963, Daniel Birnbaum has been the curator of institutions and exhibitions at an international level, and has since 2001 been Rector of the Staedelschule in Frankfurt-am-Main in Germany, an international academy which concerned an assessment of traditional and contemporary art as well as the development of entirely new practices. Since 1998, he has also been a contributing editor of Artforum in New York, with which he has been working regularly since 1995. Since the early 1990s he has also contributed regularly to other magazines such as Parkett and Frieze

Following the nomination, Daniel Birnbaum declared:“My recent exhibitions have all been close collaborations with artists, often individually, sometimes in larger contexts. The Venice Biennale is a new kind of challenge, but the principle remains the same: the artist’s vision is at the center. How does one steer clear of the hierarchies dictated by commercial interests and fashion? As the director of an art academy, my interest has long been directed towards another kind of influence and another kind of significance.

There are artists who inspire entire generations and these key artists are not always the most visibile in the world of museums and fairs. I would like to explore strings of inspiration that involve several generations and to display the roots as well as the branches that grow into a future not yet defined. The geography of the art world has been expanding rapidly with new centers emerging: China, India, the Middle East… It will be my ambition to create a show that, although articulated into individual zones of intensity, remains one exhibition.

”The President, Paolo Baratta, for his part declared:“With the nomination of a figure with such a rich variety of experiences, the Biennale di Venezia has
found a curator for the 53rd Exhibition able to bring to bear original criteria for selection, geared to the artist’s point of view. I am convinced of this
choice, of which I am particularly pleased. Between the valleys of ideology and the valley of the market, there is the steep hill of quality. This is where
the Biennale must plant its standard. The new Director”, added the President, “will also be an interlocutor for our reflections concerning the future development of more permanent activities”.

Read the rest of the article here.

Bad at Sports » Europe

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