CRY BABY
Commercial photographer Jill Greenberg has captured the exquisite emotional
distress of crying babies and enlarged them (43 x 50 inches) for an
exhibition at the Paul Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles. Open until May
27, End Time is being touted as a politically charged exhibition and yet
the only thing political about these inflated images of distraught, bare-shouldered
children are the pretentious titles: “Shock and Awe” and “Four
More Years,” among others. It’s one thing to manipulate images digitally
and to refuse to discuss the techniques applied for fear of people copying
one’s work (that’s her prerogative), but quite another to try to sell it
as a legitimate political statement based on calculated captions. Like her
commercial work, these images are dramatic and highly stylized.
www.paulkopeikingallery.com, www.manipulator.com
THE WORLD OF YESTERDAY'S TOMORROWS
The 20th-century phenomenon of streamlined design welcomed a shiny cynosure
when a Burlington Railroad train named after the Greek god of the west wind,
Zephyr, pulled into Chicago for the 1934 World’s Fair. Not only did the passenger
train succeed in cutting all speed records in half—making the trip from Denver
in 13 hours, 5 minutes—but it also looked the glamorous part with its sleek
steel exterior. The Zephyr’s futuristic detailing appealed to the hungry heart of a
nation undergoing an economic Depression and approaching a World War—and
whistled at the birth of American consumerism. Soon everything was being redesigned
to look as if it were racing through time: from the typewriter in the office
to the torpedo-shaped power drills in the garage. Today, 180 objects representing
the best American Streamlined Design is on view at The Bard Graduate Center in
Manhattan until June 11. (Most objects are drawn from The Eric Brill Collection,
which was donated recently to The Liliane and David M. Stewart Program for
Modern Design in Montreal, sponsor of the exhibition.)
www.bgc.bard.edu
SPRING CLEANING
The exceptional European manufacturer of industrial design
Normann Copenhagen is releasing three new products this spring.
Boris Berlin and Poul Christiansen of Danish Komplot Design
hope their “Pot,” a deceptive flowerpot made out of rubber which
holds only one flower, will replace the traditional dining room centerpiece
this year. And because New York-based Karim Rashid
believes ordinary objects like hangers and piggybanks don’t get
the attention they deserve, he’s designed his own. Like sand in an
hourglass, see coins drop into his perky plastic piggybank, “Time
is Money.” Or, reorganize the closet with his lightweight hanger
“Orgo.” Still, it’s not his most progressive work—that’s on display.
His first one-man show, Pink, White, and Rashid All Over, is at the
Price Tower Arts Center in Bartlesville, Okla., until Sept. 17.
www.normann-copenhagen.com,
www.pricetower.org
GEHRY JEWELRY
Tiffany & Co. is unveiling a new line of jewelry
designed by Frank Gehry. And while
Gehry has a proven track record for producing
compelling, unconventional forms
in different idioms (the Guggenheim Museum
in Bilbao, the Chiat\Day Building in
Venice, Calif.), The Gehry Collection for Tiffany
doesn’t push the boundaries of jewelry design.
He’s working with new materials such
as pernambuco wood and cocholong
stone, but his familiar curvaceous
structures seem flat in the
smaller scale. His pendant, “Fish,”
is reminiscent of Elsa Peretti’s
trademark “Teardrop,” also for
Tiffany. So while the merchandise
might be “on brand” for Tiffany,
it appears contrary to his history
of innovative design. The Gehry Collection
is making its debut at select Tiffany
& Co. stores in the U.S. and Japan, with other Asia and
Europe locations launching in the fall.
www.tiffany.com
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