Ubeautiqous

Visual Treats from the NYC

2009-11-12T08:02:00.000-08:00

Long overdue… spotted on my last trip to New York.

In my mum's neighbourhood in beloved Brooklyn.

Bathroom art at the Green Depot (seen during the Inhabitat launch).

Lighting, collages and packaging at the Green Depot.

Colourful door off Broadway in Soho.

Interesting hectic typography on the Union Square W hotel windows (how often do you see such funked up hotel windows?).

London, that design engine

2009-09-21T11:00:00.000-07:00

Earlier on during that designalicious morning, I spent time wandering through the Super Contemporary exhibit. This time a retrospective of an industry within a particular city, the exhibit “reflects London’s diversity, tracking its development over the decades, looking at the intersections between art, design, architecture and fashion” (exhibition brochure). And obviously, running through it all, culture – influencing and influenced by design.

A multimedia timeline runs around the room, highlighting significant designs, events, people and news from the past 50 years. The centre of the room is devoted to the 15 commissions created by influential London designers. Below is just a little taste:

Nigel Coates turns Battersea into a useful building again, this time as a multi-denominational symbol of faith, reflecting London’s diverse culture. How many symbols can you spot?

Listening Station by BarberOsgerby. Stand in the right spot and re-experience lost sounds of the city such as birdsong.

The Freedom Space invites us to interrogate how free… (look it up!)
(Did you know that London has the highest rate of surveillance in the world with Londoners caught on camera an average of 400 times a day?! Yes, each!)

One of my favourite things was the personalised London maps by influential London creatives, illustrating their experience of the city.

And in true innovative spirit, some of these commissions can be experienced at different sites around London (Paul Smith, Ross Phillips, Wayne Hemingway and through the Collabregator.

Super Contemporary is on at the Design Museum until October 4th, 2009. Catch it if you can – it’s a brilliant tale of the city.

(And the logo has an interesting story too…)

Type Love: Mariscal

2009-09-21T10:56:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of loving type, I thought Mariscal’s typography deserved a post all to itself. Enjoy:

TAGS: design, typography, Mariscal, exhibition

Installations of a career: Javier Mariscal

2009-09-21T10:47:00.001-07:00

On my last trip to London, I indulged in a morning of designalicious exploration at the Design Museum, taking in the Super Contemporary exhibit and an exhibiton devoted to Javier Mariscal.

Mariscal Drawing Life is quite a refreshing retrospective. Key work from the past three decades is turned into a collection of 13 installations, displaying how he sees the world. “Through them, Mariscal offers insights into the language, attitude and methodology that drives him and explores the vital role that drawing has for designers” (exhibit brochure).

What was particularly inspiring was the multiple media Mariscal uses (drawing, painting, furniture design, jewellery, interior design, clothes and textiles, ceramics, film, performance). The refusal to be pidgeon-holed and the spirit of exploration, by whatever means, is something to be emulated indeed.

The exhibition closes on November 1st, 2009. There are related workshops and talks on as well. I highly recommend a visit.

Save the ink

2009-09-06T17:14:00.000-07:00

Totally loving my friend Tanja Burgdorfer, aka Mayari's new project: Save the Ink!

Uneasy about throwing away an ink cartridge that needed to be replaced, even though there was still plenty of yellow ink left, she came up a solution that is beautiful "inside" and out.

"SAVE THE INK is not only art (a concept/an idea that might make you think and increase your awareness) but also a well designed product (a practical object). I think art and design can merge."

Challenging words

2009-09-04T04:56:00.001-07:00

Words have power, yes, but words can be even more powerful through the use of design. I thought I'd give Ubeautiqous some typography love (continue the affair on ilt).

Visuals above found here. Last but certainly not least - a Mark Titchner piece I once walked past every morning, on the london underground. I used to feel something like shame; looking at it, believing it, yet doing nothing. And then I listened to it!

Art and religion: The works of Wagner Pinto

2009-08-28T09:11:00.000-07:00

I am fascinated by religion, particularly yoruba and related syncretic religions. Here is an artist indulging this interest, Wagner Pinto.

Wagner's work is "developed through mixed and threatening forms of drawing and painting" and his research is "based on elements and symbols of umbanda, candomblé, indigenous graphics, religious dressings, alchemycal elements and folklore forest."

Catch Pinto's works live at Brazil Illustrated, from the 10th of September to the 2nd of October.

Murals. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

2009-08-18T14:12:00.000-07:00

At the Kempinski Hotel. The search for the artist's name continues…

Manchester Calling: Off Oxford Road

2009-08-16T15:07:00.000-07:00

M'Afrique: Africa inspiring western modernity

2009-07-19T14:06:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Sci-Cultura, I've just come across some beautiful industrial design celebrating and using African techniques and aesthetics. M'Afrique, a "major off-salon event devoted to Africa" by Italian design company, Moroso.

“Multifaceted, modern Africa deserves to be known and sustained for the originality of the creative languages with which it enriches global culture. The African continent is extraordinarily rich in creativity, materials and ideas that are sources of inspiration and nourishment for us. When applied to design, they engender products which exude tradition and modernity, innovation and history, form and beauty. I think there is so much of Africa and in this event my intent was to showcase the creativity of a few of the great artists and personalities of contemporary African culture. Going beyond the stereotypes that present Africa as a tragic or, at best, exotic experience, we want to highlight some aspects of contemporary African culture, which is in effect comparable to global culture. Looking at Africa through the eyes of contemporary art, photography, architecture and design is perhaps the most appropriate way of approaching this vast, powerful continent, so creatively rich and diverse that today it is still one of western modernity’s greatest sources of inspiration”.
Patrizia Moroso

Thanks to Yatzer for more info. Check out his blog for more pics.

Manchester Calling: Northern Quarter

2009-06-08T18:05:00.000-07:00

I've just embarked on a new adventure: full-time to freelance, London to Manchester. Below some delights from my first Sunday evening stroll.

Kehinde Wiley steals my heart

2009-02-23T14:40:00.000-08:00

I'm digging Wiley's The World Stage: Africa, Dakar-Lagos series! He's so exquisitely indulging my love of African textile prints and portraiture!

Looking for a Beautiful Read?

2006-10-06T09:03:00.000-07:00

I love books. And nothing makes reading an intriguing/enlightening/challenging piece of literature a more pleasant experience than it being bound within a beautiful cover. And yes, looks can be deceiving and books are prematurely judged by their covers but, sometimes disappointment is almost forgotten when you remember those first 5 minutes of looking-bliss when you picked it up off the 3 for 2 shelf!

Here's a site with some interesting book design. Check out the features too!

Thrice

2006-08-19T02:07:00.000-07:00

Three Times (2005) by Hou Hsiao-Hsien is a sight to behold that might truly test your patience. It’s only in these fast-paced-don’t-really-know-where-we-going-desperately-seeking-instant-gratification times where the latter comment is almost automatically considered a negative.

A combination of beautifully and apparently painstakingly composed shots, an amazing acting performance from the lead actress (Shu Qi) and a very economical use of dialogue (one of the ‘times’, set in 1911, appropriately takes the form of a silent movie where muted scenes are followed with frames showing the script!) make for an often delicate triptych with subtle, growing tensions (echoed in only-slightly altered repeated actions and settings that unassumingly capture the viewer.

So a hint on content? 3 love stories in 3 very distinct time periods. Innocence, naïveté, indulgence, defeatism, discovery … you know, all the usual things that come with the territory! But less usual perhaps, emotions are communicated and read almost intuitively through the film’s nuances … the audience must learn active viewing once again!

A Palatable Pursuit

2006-08-14T11:33:00.000-07:00

“Altogether equal in importance to the truth, indeed, even more important than the truth, is the manner in which it is accepted — and it would not be of much use to lead thousands to accept the truth, if, precisely by the manner in which they accepted it, they were to find themselves excluded from it.”
—Kierkegaard

In that spirit, this blog aims to be a platform for sharing observations and discoveries of beauty. From visual aesthetics to interactive experiences, the stress is that good design need not be inaccessible or exclusive. Beauty abounds and it would seem that sometimes we merely need to pull the wool off of our eyes, awakening to smell (and burn) the incense and maximize our eating, breathing, sleeping, bathing, reading, walking, talking, entertaining, luxuriating (and so forth)… pleasure. But importantly, in a Kierkegaardian vein, we can define our own 'versions' of beauty—as the independent beholders that we are. That said, my part of the bargain is to seek beauty out from the most unexpected sources and situations. Seeing as you have chanced upon this particular somewhat-self-indulgent pursuit, I hope that you will engage/participate/challenge/supplement along the way!