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Toyo Ito Wins Pritzker Prize
Portrait by Yoshiaki Tsutsui. The photo at right is Iwan Baan’s “Tokyo #1″ (2006), part of a project to celebrate the opening of Ito’s Mikimoto Ginza 2 building. See more of Baan’s work in a solo exhibition on view through April 13 at Perry Rubenstein Gallery in Los Angeles.
“Firmness, commodity, and delight.” These are the three words–cribbed from Vitruvius, who considered “firmitas, utilitas, venustas” to be the fundamental principles of architecture–that appear on the Louis Sullivan-inspired bronze medallion that is awarded to each laureate of the Pritzker architecture prize. This year the coveted hardware goes to Toyo Ito, who’ll receive it along with $100,000 at a ceremony in Boston on May 29. Ito is the sixth Japanese architect to receive the prize, which has previously been awarded to Kenzo Tange, Fumihiko Maki, Tadao Ando, and SANAA’s Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa.
Ito was selected by a jury that included Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who lauded the 71-year-old for “improving the quality of both public and private spaces,” and 2002 Pritzker laureate Glenn Murcutt, who praised Ito’s dogged, shape-shifting pursuit of excellence. “His work has not remained static and has never been predictable,” notes the Aussie architect. And for Ito, that’s exactly the point. “I have been designing architecture bearing in mind that it would be possible to realize more comfortable spaces if we are freed from all the restrictions even for a little bit,” said Ito upon learning of his award. “However, when one building is completed, I become painfully aware of my own inadequacy, and it turns into energy to challenge the next project. Probably this process must keep repeating itself in the future. Therefore, I will never fix my architectural style and never be satisfied with my works.”
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Walker Art Center Welcomes Letman: Watch Tonight’s Live Webcast and Lettering Demo
The amazing Letman (a.k.a. Job Wouters) will be on hand tonight at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis to discuss and demonstrate his eye-popping approach to the alphabet–think illustration meets grafitti meets graphic design. The Amsterdam-based designer’s talk and hand-lettering demo, which will be webcast live at 7 p.m. EST, is part of the Walker’s “Insights” series of design lectures that earlier this month welcomed Geoff McFetridge and Eike König, and next week features Wouters’ fellow Mokummer, Luna Maurer. Each of the designers has been commissioned to create a project for the Walker, and Wouters is at work on mural. While you await tonight’s webcast, enjoy his 2003 video, “”abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz” (below), in which Wouters and his then four-year-old nephew, Gradus, practice their penmanship.
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Lori Greiner Discusses ‘Oprah Effect,’ What Inventors Need to Succeed
Lori Greiner knows firsthand the power of Oprah Winfrey to sell product.
In part two of our conversation with Greiner, the “Queen of QVC” and regular on ABC’s “Shark Tank” tells SocialTimes editor Devon Glenn what happens when one of your products makes the list of Oprah’s favorite things, how every inventor thinks they have the greatest thing in the world and what they need to do to make sure they’re right.
For more videos, check out our YouTube channel and follow us on Twitter: @mediabistroTV
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In Brief: Met Museum Admission Fee Kerfuffle, Swiping at Pictures, Fashionable Philanthrophy
• Elsewhere in museum thievery news, Gerald Jones, a disgruntled former employee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art–who insists he is not disgruntled but a whistleblower (someone’s been watching Englightened!)–is speaking out about the museum’s tactics for getting visitors to pay the suggested $25 admission fee. “I arranged for security officers to forcibly remove the museum visitors who demanded entry without paying,” Jones told the NY Post.
• How has technology reshaped contemporary life and what does it mean for photography? Curator Christopher Y. Lew considers “Swiping at Pictures” in an online-only essay commissioned to accompany Aperture‘s boldly redesigned spring 2013 issue.
• Fashion powerhouses such as Donna Karan, Michael Kors, Diane von Furstenberg, and Zac Posen are serious about philanthrophy. Gotham goes inside the minds of “6 Designers Who Give Big.”
• The selection of a new pope prompted Norma Kamali to consider how much the Catholic church has influenced her career in fashion. “The tapestries and brocades, the candles, and the bar reliefs, and sculptures, and the holy water. Every one of my senses was a part of the experience,” she wrote in a recent “Note from Norma.”
• And speaking of fashion influences and pyramid schemes, Vince Camuto has ripped off Valentino’s wildly successful rockstud heel. Camuto’s “Mikhal” model is priced at $118, while the Italian original goes for around $950.
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Break in Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Heist: Thieves Identified, Says FBI
Exactly 23 years after the stunning heist of masterworks from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, FBI officials announced today that they have identified the thieves (“members of a criminal organization with a base in the mid-Atlantic states and New England” is all they’ll say, dashing our hopes that Thomas Crown, Steve McQueen, and/or Pierce Brosnan was involved) and determined where the 13 artworks had traveled in the years after the robbery (Connecticut! Philadelphia!), but the hunt is still on for the pilfered trio of Rembrandts, a Vermeer, a portrait by Edouard Manet, and sketches by Renoir, among others. Check out the FBI’s newly released video (above). There may be a $5 million reward in it for you.
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2012 Brand New Awards: Designers' Deadline Addiction
3 Ways Apple Actually Innovates
How did Apple rise through the ranks to become the world’s most profitable tech company? As it turns out, good timing and shrewd planning have played as much of a role as innovative thinking for the Silicon Valley juggernaut.
For example, take the first MP3 player — MPMan, produced by South Korea-based SaeHan Information Systems. MPMan appeared in 1998, three years before the first iPods were released. As the original pioneer of portable MP3 player technology, SaeHan spent a good deal of time in court negotiating terms of use with various record companies. By 2001, a clear legal precedent was set for MP3 access — allowing Apple to focus less on courtroom proceedings and more on cutting-edge marketing campaigns for their new product.
Apple also exercised a great deal of patience when it came to smartphone technology. The world’s first smartphone, the Symbian from Nokia, appeared in 2000 — seven years before the iPhone — and was equipped with features considered revolutionary at the time, such as a touchscreen and built-in camera. A few years later, Blackberry introduced the concept of email accessibility via one’s cell phone. By the time Apple released the first iPhone in 2007, the market was well-established and software developers had fine-tuned many of the technical kinks related to smartphone functionality.
In some cases, Apple has gained an edge over competitors by purchasing innovative software developed by smaller firms. That was the case with Delaware-based tech firm FingerWorks, whose brainchild, the TouchStream, was one of the first models of ‘gesture recognition’ technology. Apple purchased FingerWorks in 2005, two years before the release of the first iPhone; TouchStream’s technology and functionality heavily influenced the touchscreen features later implemented for Apple’s smartphone and tablet devices.
Via: onlinemba
Wanted: Photo Director with Good Taste
Are you a die-hard Top Chef fan? Do you have strong views about “flavor profiles”? Were you able to enjoy Julie & Julia without becoming distracted by the hideous costume choices for the Julie character? Then clear your plate for this job opportunity: the healthy foodies at Cooking Light are looking for a new cook—and by cook, we mean photography director—to join their smart yet delicious Birmingham, Alabama-based team. Ingredients of a successful candidate include two cups of “deep experience gathering and directing photo teams,” one cup of “ability to manage photo budgets and schedules,” and two heaping tablespoons of skills for finding new photo talent, all sprinkled with an abiding faith in quinoa–and in making it look delicious. Got tablet experience and a scrumptious sense of humor? That’s icing on the (upside-down) cake.
Pack your knives and apply for this photography director, Cooking Light job or view all current mediabistro.com design/art/photo jobs.
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Portfolio Night 11 for Young Creatives Set for May
Serif Updates DrawPlus for Vector and Bitmap Image Creation
Sagmeister & Walsh Design Business Cards to Flatter, Provoke, Insult
(Images courtesy the Luxe Project by moo.com)
We’re declaring March Stefan Sagmeister month! The designer’s “Happy Show” opens Wednesday in Los Angeles at MOCA Pacific Design Center (he’ll speak on “Design and Happiness” tomorrow evening in West Hollywood), and on the other side of the country, New York’s Jewish Museum offers up a room full of jaw-dropping, typographical whimsy in “Six Things: Sagmeister & Walsh,” the first exhibition of Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh‘s recently launched design firm. Between readying museum shows, the designing duo found time to whip up some new business cards for you–and all profits go to New York’s Coalition for the Homeless.
Now to muster the courage required to give the cards to others. True to their provocative nature, Sagmeister & Walsh have created something that is half graphic design, half social experiment. The seven sets of seven cards in their “Halftone Satisfaction” series are printed with bold sentiments that range from the flattering (“It’s a delight to be around someone who loves with they do.”) to the vicious (“You are a waste of time.”). Lest you vituperate someone (“Fuck you. Eat shit.”) you had meant to compliment (“Your eyes are lovely.”), the back of each card is printed with a mood-matched pattern, from solid white through gradations of dots and finally, solid black. “It’s a test of what kind of person you are and what kind of people you meet,” says Sagmeister, “what cards would you give out and why?” Sagmeister & Walsh’s motivations for creating the cards are easier to explain: they are a limited-edition collection for the Luxe Project, a moo.com initiative that gives 100% of net proceeds to the designer’s charity of choice.
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Executive Flock
Media Beat: Lori Greiner Talks About Swimming with the Sharks
If you like watching rich people buy things on TV or prefer doing it yourself while watching QVC, then you’re probably familiar with Lori Greiner.
Greiner, known as the “Queen of QVC,” is also a regular on the ABC show “Shark Tank” where those that have millions listen to pitches from those that have little more than a million dollar idea.
SocialTimes editor Devon Glenn sat down with Greiner to talk about the show, her reign on QVC and if any of the products she’s invested in on “Shark Tank” have any bite.
For more videos, check out our YouTube channel and follow us on Twitter: @mediabistroTV
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Quote of Note | Paola Antonelli
“[Since becoming a curator in 1994, my view of design has] definitely moved more towards the ‘five-dimensional.’ The common thread is always how people live and what design can do to make life better. If design has more to say in the immaterial realm then I focus on that. I can’t deny that furniture excites me less and less. I still get excited by some pieces, like Dirk Vander Kooij‘s “Endless Flow” rocking chair of 2011 (pictured). There needs to be innovation in the process and in the material because otherwise how many more chairs do we need? You need to justify your use of physical resources and your occupation of space with real innovation, real talent, and even fantasy and delight. I’m not so much of a moralist to think everything needs a purpose.”
-Paola Antonelli, director of research and development and senior curator of architecture and design at MoMA, in an interview with Ermanno Rivetti that appears in this month’s issue of The Art Newspaper
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PNG Express Adobe Photoshop Plugin Updated for PNG Creation
MARI Enhanced for 3D Digital Painting
TEFAF Photo Diary: 25 Things to See at the European Fine Art Fair
At the TEFAF stand of Tornabuoni Arte, Alighero Boetti’s “Mappa del Mundo” (1980), viewed through tulips. (All photos: UnBeige)
Armory Week has come and gone in New Amsterdam, but the European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) is just beginning in the Dutch town of Maastricht. Gluttons for sumptuously showcased masterpieces, we decided to take a field trip. With some 265 art and antiques dealers from 20 countries–and hundreds of thousands of tulips, the 26th edition of the fair opened to the public today after a vernissage that, in the words of a colleague, “makes Art Basel look like a slum”–all savvy lighting, high ceilings, and spacious aisles studded with fragrant blooms, thanks to fair designer Tom Postma.
TEFAF has long been a must for collectors of Old Masters and antiques, and in recent years has boosted its offerings in modern and contemporary art, design, and photography. Were the fair crass enough to have a slogan, it would be “where the museums shop.” We arrived in Maastricht and, fortfied with stroopwafels, set out to see works spanning 6,000 years of history. Let’s just say it’s a good thing that the fair runs through March 24. Here are 25 of our early favorites.
The multilayered stand of Axel Vervoodt. We couldn’t muster the courage to ask him whether he receives a monthly royalty check from Restoration Hardware.
Wartski of London offers (for six figures) the shot that almost killed Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. Fired–maybe accidentally, maybe as an assaination attempt–in 1906 three days before the Bloody Sunday Massacre, it was mounted in gold by Carl Faberge and presented to the tsar as a creepy souvenir.
Among the standouts in the design section of the fair, a 1921 Wiener Werksatte table lamp by Dagobert Peche (at Bel Etage, Wolfgang Bauer, Vienna) and a preppy combination of works by Gerrit Thomas Rietveld (at Galerie Ulrich Fiedler).
Claude Lalanne’s “Grand Lapin de Victoire” (2001) stands sentry at the Ben Brown Fine Arts stand and keeps an eye on the 1984 Basquiat across the way, at Tornabuoni Arte.
At the stand of Robert Hall, bottles, bottles everywhere, but not a drop to drink.
continued…
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