The first thing that comes to mind when we think of the Eames House, L.A.’s landmark of mid-20th century modern architecture? Ice Cube’s video tour of the residence, in which he describes it as “goin’ green 1949-style, bitch.” We don't disagree. The 70-year-old historic home and grounds of architectural legends Charles and Ray Eames exemplifies a nearly seamless integration with the nature that surrounds it. Currently, however, the Eames House needs a bit of work to conserve and preserve it for the rest of this century. So, The Eames Foundation, in conjunction with Herman Miller, Vitra, and digital marketing agency Nebo, created four limited-edition offset press prints with the goal of raising the remaining $20k needed of the $150k goal. You can score one of them for $75 a pop (L-2 Large is sold out) on the foundation’s web site. The funds will go toward sealing the roof and walls and painting the structure; damaged items will be restored and a climate control plan will be implemented, too. Nebo designed the posters in Eames’ modern, restrained style. Herman Miller and Vitra are matching those $75 donations for each print purchased.
It's a great week to be a New Order fan. Commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of the band's landmark album Power, Corruption & Lies, a new collaboration between Supreme and Vans will bring the iconic floral cover to a limited edition line of sneakers. We doubt Factory Records designer Peter Saville imagined his cover would end up on surf/skate culture-inspired footwear, but the joining of two '80s essentials works in this case. You can pick up a pair of the soon-to-be-rare kicks in shops in New York, Los Angeles, London, and Supreme's online store.
A decade ago, Matthew Hoffman's "You Are Beautiful" campaign began as a sticker project in an edition of just 100. Milions of stickers later, he began producing installations and public murals around the same theme. This year, with help from Johalla Projects, he'll bring the words in 8-foot-tall wooden format to the fifth annual 35 Denton Music Festival in Denton, TX March 7–10, 2013. The 100-ft.-long word sculpture will be mounted on top of the Dan’s Silverleaf venue, in downtown Denton.
The animated GIFs posted to the Rrrrrrrroll Tumblr seem to exist in the same meditative state. Characters and objects spin seamlessly on a single axis against a static setting, typically with an intense focus and a deadpan expression. Although there's no context provided for the images, it's tough to not project ideas about indecision or dissatisfaction watching a figure rotate endlessly staring at a plate of food or shopping in a store.
Factory Records designers Peter Saville and Brett Wickens created an incredible sleeve for New Order's "Blue Monday" single. Released March 7, 1983, the design remains a stark, modern time capsule of the era. The floppy disk-inspired, die-cut outer sleeve featured only FAC SEVENTY THREE as text for the label catalog number, while the show-through inner sleeve was silver. The records were expensive to produce and "Blue Monday" was an unlikely but massive hit. The record label said it lost a few cents each on the original singles sales, though it is likely that it was losing money in various other ways as well.
Chicago artist Deb Sokolow seems to be more influenced by Thomas Pynchon than by the Old Masters, and consequently it’s her blend of surreal humor and conspiracy theories that makes her art so refreshing. We love how Sokolow’s large, mostly paper-based works draw us into the text-based narrative of the pieces. Her works are like a giant, meandering comic book that place the viewer (“You”) into the narrative itself. The stories are always based on some stray fact or conspiracy theory—an anecdote from Willem de Kooning’s biography, the strangeness of the Denver International Airport—but the narratives take wild turns while collapsing fact and fiction.
Sokolow’s work is as visual as it is textual, and half the fun is in the irreverent asides addressed to the viewer. "Understanding Scarface" (2005) functions as a paranoid riff about how the film Scarface could be connected to Fidel Castro. We dig the homemade element of Sokolow’s art, too. Some pieces are over 40 feet long and held together by tape, filled with scratched out text, eraser marks, and additions. Sokolow’s hare-brained stories might try to convince us that Richard Serra is a mob hit man in "Dear Trusted Associate" (2008-2009), but her generous sense of humor is far from the paranoid theorists who inform her work.
Artists Lernert Engelberts and Sander Plug wanted to create their own perfume. Instead of hiring a perfumer, the pair collected samples of every fragrance released last year (in around 1,400 tiny bottles) and combined the scents in equal parts. They called the resulting product "Everything" and housed the creation in a 1.5 liter bottle they blew themselves. Watch the creation of "Everything" below, and if you live in Paris, and you're daring, the scent is available to try through March 9 at Colette. [via Design Taxi]
While gazing out of windows is considered much less creepy than gazing into windows, New York City-based graphic designer Jose Guizar has chosen the latter as a source of inspiration for his latest project. Part an ode to architecture and part a self-challenge to never stop looking up, Guizar’s "Windows of New York" project is a weekly illustrated fix for his growing—you guessed it—window obsession. “A product of countless steps of journey through the city streets, this is a collection of windows that somehow have caught my restless eye out from the never-ending buzz of the city,” explains Guizar. And while the designer has done an impressive job of illustrating the many windows of Manhattan, we’re hoping he’ll venture over to New York’s outer boroughs with the same amount of enthusiasm—and creepiness—in the weeks to come.
During a busy trip to Boston from their native São Paulo, Brazil, brothers Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo, who are better known as Os Gêmeos, held their first "solo" exhibition in the United States and painted a mural as a gift to the city of Boston. MOCAtv was on hand for the exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, as well as the painting of the mural, the first of this scale in Boston.
There might not be a better place to talk to a filmmaker than in his/her favorite video rental store. Despite the increasing scarcity of such shops, Nowness managed to interview Michel Gondry in his favorite video store in Paris, La Butte Video Club. During a tour of the tiny shop Gondry opens up about his influences, his love of Wim Wenders films, and explains why he prefers visiting a physical store to "watching movies on the net."