No Paper was harmed during the making of this film.

11 Swiss designers collaborate with 11 Italian designers to celebrate the design heritage of both countries. They've made some lovely posters too. Check it out.

Too Much of A Good Thing

Mitch Cope and Gina Reichert run Design99, the Detroit-based, husband-and-wife collaborative who's vision it is to improve their neighborhood and engage their community through art and design. Their new project entitled Too Much of A Good Thing continues their exploration of art, community, architecture and spatial and social constructs. The project is centered around the Neighborhood Machine, a repurposed, freshly-painted Bobcat, part-sculpture, part-community tool. The vehicle can be hooked to a series of "project trailers," each specific to a task performed in the neighborhood: collecting found material, gardening (Design99 maintain a tree nursery in an empty lot), power generation with photovoltaics, and, of course, moving stuff around. 

The Neighborhood Machine is connected both physically and conceptually to their ongoing Power House project, a similar initiative to turn a house into both an art object and an innovative community space. Too Much of A Good Thing is currently on exhibit and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.

via Core 77

Beauty and the Beasties, by Resa Blatman

"Resa Blatman has built upon the intricate cutout framework of her heroically scaled “Beauty and the Beasties” and incorporated it throughout the composition in works like “Flux” or “Lemon Spray”. Using the wall as a background and the cut areas as monochrome silhouettes of intricate scrolls, branches and wildlife activates the compositions - even from across the gallery. Tendrils from separate panels reach across negative spaces and flirt with touching an adjacent edge."

The mixed media of graphic design, illustration and laser cut create a nice balance between the cold and hard with the organic and lively. Via psfk

She's got a solo show up from December 4 - January 17, 2010
at the Suffolk Art Gallery

Tim Burton's Exhibit at MOMA

 The Tim Burton Exhibit opened at the MoMA in Manhattan this past Sunday, November 22nd, and will run through April 26th, 2010.  The exhibit chronicles the work of the filmmaker and all-around creative, and celebrates the impact his films and art direction – including Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands – have had on art and popular culture.  Timed tickets are available via the MoMA site.

"This exhibition explores the full range of his creative work, tracing the current of his visual imagination from early childhood drawings through his mature work in film. It brings together over seven hundred examples of rarely or never-before-seen drawings, paintings, photographs, moving image works, concept art, storyboards, puppets, maquettes, costumes, and cinematic ephemera from such films as Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Batman, Mars Attacks!, Ed Wood,and Beetlejuice, and from unrealized and little-known personal projects that reveal his talent as an artist, illustrator, photographer, and writer working in the spirit of Pop Surrealism. The gallery exhibition is accompanied by a complete retrospective of Burton’s theatrical features and shorts, as well as a lavishly illustrated publication."

via psfk

China Design Now

Went to see the Chine Design Now exhibit today at the Portland Museum of Art.  From graphic design to architecture the collection really exhibited a new era and creative force in China. I was impressed with the sensory aspect of the show, the modern architecture displayed and the creative flow of the graphic arts. For me I could see the influence of western cultures in the design but it was clear that tradition and culture was also represented, they have they're own style and it is uniquely showcased.


Here are a few snap shots (using that fun Shakeit iphone app :).

Pictoplasma

"In spring 2009, Pictoplasma and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt hosted the PICTOPIA festival, the world’s first ever large-scale presentation and celebration of reduced and abstract character design and art.

Berlin was transformed into a character biotope and the meeting point for an international scene of designers, artists, producers and the public. At the heart of the festival was an exhibition which explored the huge diversity of the character universe, where artists remix and sample, condense the surreal and uncanny, inflate all proportions and stage bizarre rituals to introduce their characters into contemporary culture."


EXHIBITION: PICTOPIA
HAUS DER KULTUREN DER WELT, BERLIN
MARCH 19TH - MAY 3RD, 2009

Revisit Pictopia, the wolds biggest group exhibition on contemporary character design and art.
Including original work by: AJ Fosik, Akinori Oishi, Ben Frost, Borris Hoppek, Doma Collective, Doudouboy, Edwina Ashton, Friends With You, Gary Baseman, Golan Levin, Hideaki Kawashima, Ian Stevenson, James Marshall, Jeremy Dower, Juan Pablo Cambariere, Mark Ryden, Motomichi Nakamura, Nagi Noda, Olaf Breuning, Sam Gibbons, Shoboshobo, Tim Biskup, and many more…

If you could ...

If You Could is the self initiated project of London design studio HudsonBec. Working with established designers and illustrators as well as exciting emerging talent they produced work for publishing, exhibitions and events.

On the 1st of every month of 2008 If You Could released two new screenprints, one from an established artist and one from an emerging.

Responding to the question, ‘If you could do anything tomorrow, what would it be?’, these two colour, B2 (655 x 480 mm), limited edition screenprints were only available to buy from the If You Could website for the duration of that month.

This gave each print a unique edition, determined by the amount purchased and was signed by the artist as well as being stamped for authenticity. All No.1 prints were shown in a month-long show at Kemistry Gallery, London in December 2008 with a catalog of all 24 prints released alongside the show.

Although you can't get the prints anymore, you can still buy the catalog.

Manufactured

Manuf®actured: The Conspicuous Transformation of Everyday Objects introduces a provocative new class of objects emerging from the permeable edges of art, craft and design. The exhibition highlights works from fifteen international artists who appropriate manufactured products to create sculptural works and installations of all sizes and scales. If you live in Portland, I urge you to see it!

Laura Splan, Trousseau (Negligee #1), 2007; Facial peel, machine embroidery

Dominic Wilcox, War Bowl – Battle of Waterloo, 2002; Melted plastic army soldiers; Courtesy of Thorsten Van Elten Ltd., London

Devorah Sperber, After Warhol, 2008; 698 spools of thread,
stainless-steel ball chain and hanging apparatus, clear acrylic
sphere, metal stand

Livia Marin, Ficciones de un uso, 2004; 2,214 lipsticks