Artist Carsten Holler’s slow-moving swing-chair “Mirror Carousel” at the New Museum in New York.
Monthly Archives: October 2011
On Line at Carsten Holler
“Objectified”
It’s movie night tonight at Global Graphica HQ. While everybody else is pre-Halloween partying, we’re staying out of the blizzard conditions here in New York City and staying in to watch the documentary film “Objectified” (see the trailer and poster below).
Directed by Gary Hustwit, who gave us the font-doc “Helvetica,”the feature-length “Objectified” is about the design of the objects we encounter and use in our daily lives.
We had a chance to see this film when it was theatrically released a couple of years ago, but fate intervened and we couldn’t make it to the screening. Since then, we’ve caught bits and pieces of it. And now, finally, we’re getting a chance to see the whole film. Yay!
Objectified – Documentary from Rohan on Vimeo.
Canal Street Station Artwork
“Empress Voyage” picto-diary artwork by artist Bing Lee at the Canal Street subway station in New York City. The station lies at the border of SoHo and Chinatown in Lower Manhattan.
Artwork from RADICAL!
The Occupied
Nike “Always On” Concept Store
Nautical Curtain at Lost Weekend – Vol. 3
Nautical Curtain Lost Weekend – Vol. 2
Nautical Curtain at Lost Weekend NYC
What’s Outside the Window? – Vol. 9
Heart-Shaped Sunglasses
Creatures of Comfort Neon
“Sports are Dead” by RADICAL!
Awesome artwork (“Sports are Dead”) by the upstate New York artist RADICAL!, who is currently having his work shown at the Munch Gallery on Broome Street, in downtown Manhattan. We are a big fan of his work.
NoMad View
We visited a photographer friend’s product lifestyle photo shoot held on the terrace of a penthouse apartment in Chelsea, in New York City, Sunday.
We’re not at liberty to disclose details of the shoot itself, but the 360 views of the NYC skyline were awesome.
Pictured here is the view looking east towards the recently minted “NoMad” neighborhood of Manhattan. “NoMad” for “North of Madison,” as in Madison Square Park.
The area is home to the Ace Hotel, a satellite Opening Ceremony clothing shop, the Breslin restaurant and (in Madison Sq. Park itself) the Shake Shack.
Alexander Wang Shop Branding
The exterior shop signage at the Alexander Wang store on Mercer and Grand streets in SoHo, in New York City. The shop occupies a massive ground-floor space that until recently was the home for many years to Japanese fashion designer Yoji Yamamoto. Both the old occupant (Yamamoto) and the new (Wang) share a black-on-black-and-white minimalism in the SoHo retail space and in their fashion aesthetic such that from a distance, the shop could be mistaken for that of the other if there was no sign, if there were no branding.
Lost Weekend NYC
Global Graphica’s new local go-to for really good coffee is around the corner from our HQ. It’s Lost Weekend NYC, an espresso bar and cafe with a side trade in a few clothing items and home-decor-stuff and walls dedicated to changing exhibit of photography. Lost Weekend’s serving Blue Bottle coffee, our absolute favorite brand (the “Three Africans” beans are the best), so we’re going to be spending a lot of time there. We like there super simple typographic logo.
The Fashion of Qaddafi’s Killer
Was Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi’s killer a New York Yankees fan? Was his executioner partial to graphic t-shirts?
The dramatic newspaper pictures and headlines of the late Libyan leader’s capture and captors suggest so (in typical hyperbolic New York style). Check out the pix of various New York City newspapers below. Compare the covers and headlines of the irrepressible New York Post versus the Daily News and the Times.
In any case, it’s unlikely, we think, that Qaddafi’s killer was into baseball. As for the graphic tee, well, the kid’s got style.
The Yankees hat, we suspect, has more to do with the global influence and mutations of American hip-hop culture and its fashion signifiers in its most trickled down, distilled, re-encoded ways. That is, it’s code. It’s style.
There’s some symbolic irony and cognitive dissonance in the images below, given the clothes, the gun, and political and historical and, of course, the cultural context.
Some journalists have speculated that the Yankees hat and t-shirt are being worn as a matter of some accident, that Qaddafi’s captor is wearing these specific clothes as a result of private charitable clothing donations ( a la World Vision ) to third-world countries such as Libya, which may be an explanation. But, in this case, we think it’s more about style.
More Giant Eyes in New York
Another massive “closed-eyes” mural called “Lakota, North Dakota” in SoHo on the side of a lofts apartment building at the corner of Wooster and Grands streets. The work is by the artist JR and part of a series called “Inside Out.” On the building at the diagonally opposite corner is another mural by JR. Yet another can be found at the corner of Houston and Bowery streets, a bit farther uptown.
The Ira Glass Sex Tape Parody
Speech Cloud
Olek Yarn Bombed Bike at Acne
Another of Olek’s (a.k.a., Polish-born, New York-based artist Olek Agata’s) yarn-bombed bicycles in New York City. This one is parked in front of the Acne clothing shop in SoHo and looks weathered, the usual saturated hues Olek uses for these knitted artworks appear faded and lighter here due, we presume, to exposure to the elements.
Acne Shop, SoHo
Root Hill Cafe Logos
Ken Rock
Here’s a picture of “Ken Rock,” a.k.a., artist Ken Hiratsuka, who we met at an open studio reception in Brooklyn last night. Ken is something of an underground art legend in New York. His work is literally part of the city — he’s famous for his sculptural carvings in the old stone slabs of NYC sidewalks, especially downtown. One of his best known works can be found at the corner of Prince and Broadway streets in the heart of of SoHo.
