Tokyo Electro 80s Studio 54
Tokyo Electro 80s Studio 54 era. Remember when the world feared Japan's business might back in the 1980s? It all started when the Japanese company Namco released the Pac-Man game in 1980. The start of a new era for sure. Movies from that time included Blade Runner with Harrison Ford (heavily tinted with Japanese signs), Black Rain with Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia. And Japanese business investors were snapping up companies, art and real estate in a buying frenzy: snapping up Vincent Van Gogh's Sunflower painting, Rockefeller Center, Palm Beach Golf Course, Columbia Pictures, etc. Those where the days.
Claes Oldenburg Knäckebröd
Knäckebröd, 1966.
Cast iron.
9.5 x 16.3 cm
Current Value Estimate: $1,000
Andy Warhol La Grande Passion
La Grande Passion, 1984.
Collage on paper with silkscreen on acetate and coloured graphic art paper.
Unique work.
44.2 x 31.9 cm
Current Value Estimate: $22,500-$27,000
Roy Lichtenstein Reflections on Girl
Roy Lichtenstein
Reflections on Girl from Reflection Series, 1990.
Lithograph and Silkscreen in colors with relief and metalized PVC collage with embossing.
Published by Tyler Graphics.
114.6 x 139.1 cm
Current Value Estimate: $45,000-$75,000
Roy Lichtenstein
Reflections on Girl
Detail
Roy Lichtenstein
Reflections on Girl
Detail
Arne Jacobsen AJ Lamp
Royal Table Lamp by Arne Jacobsen
Italian Design
In Italy, everything is design, everything, everywhere. Companies takes pride in their craft and style. Take for example the design of an item as simple as this industrial baking oven.
Brazilian Modernist Design
This exhibit retrieves the history of the first design biennials organized in Brazil. In Rio, the International Design Biennial had three editions, in 1968, 1970 and 1972, which were organized by the Industrial Design Institute (IDI). They used the wonderfully beautiful building of the Modern Art Museum, which had just been inaugurated, and made clear what potential design had in a developing country.
In Curitiba, Professor Ivens Fontoura headed two editions of the Brazilian Design Biennial, in 1990 and 1992. Using a reference system that ensured the participation of the whole national design community in the selection of works to be exhibited, these editions presented a diversified panorama of design in many areas of specialty. All the works exhibited had excellent repercussion among public and critics and contributed to disseminating a design culture in our country.
http://www.bienalbrasileiradedesign.com.br
Bau Lamp by Normann Copenhagen
More images of the Piet Mondrian styled Normann Copenhagen Bau Lamp. Bau is a sculptural pendant lamp designed by the Danish designer Vibeke Fonnesberg Schmidt for Normann Copenhagen. The design is based on interlocking geometric circles, sticking out in all directions. The Bau lamp has an immediate pattern that is broken up by the discs' colors, sizes and off-center linkages. This lamp combines the primary colors in the manner of De Stijl and Piet Mondrian with geometric circular shapes. A unique and creative design inspired by the Bauhaus movement. This lamp ships flat packed, assembly required.
Italian Table Lamp
Cobra Table Lamp by Elio Martinelli
One of the most iconic lamps ever created, the Cobra lamp designed by Elio Martinelli in 1968. The Cobra lamp is a table lamp with a real futuristic look. It is a very functional table lamp with a swiveling upper arm which allows for 360 degree rotation. Elio Martinelli's Cobra lamp is considered to be a masterpiece of mid century modern Italian design. This space age table lamp displays the exemplary design talent of the Italian designer Elio Martinelli. This attractive modern table light is the ultimate modern icon. Always stylish, effortlessly elegant and uniquely beautiful, the Cobra lamp is a modern classic that evokes a minimal and refined atmosphere. The Cobra lamp is a modernist light vessel to be treasured forever. Its gracious rounded curves and organic shape make it an easy choice for any modern interior.
Cobra Table Lamp by Elio Martinelli
Mirrored Cabinet
Mirrored Sideboard Cabinet by Tonelli
Mirrored Sideboard Cabinet by Tonelli Detail
Mirror mirror on the wall: Tonelli Psiche mirrored wall-mounted high sideboard. Truly stunning and luxurious with reflecting mirrored glass panels. Simply incredible! Psiche is a sideboard that reflects and modifies unexpectedly its surroundings, thanks to its doors, top and sides! Each multi-angled piece of glass allows natural light to cast beautiful reflections around the room. Produced with concave and convex panels covered with mirrors. Available with either gold mirrored glass, mirrored glass or white lacquered glass.
Mirrored Sideboard Cabinet by Tonelli
This very attractive modern sideboard was designed by Giovanni Tommaso Garattoni for Tonelli in Italy. Looks perfect in bedrooms and living areas. Matches the other items in the dazzling range of multi-facet mirrored Tonelli Psiche furniture line.
Mirrored Sideboard Cabinet by Tonelli
Round Wall Mirror Tonelli
Isao Hosoe Shiki Revolving Round Wall Mirror
This functional round wall mirror was designed by the Japanese designer Isao Hosoe for Tonelli. This stylish mirror has two concentric circles. The outer circle fluidly spins 360° around the inner fixed circle with a gently push, thanks to a patented revolving mechanism hidden from view. This is one of the most beautiful modern mirrors we have ever seen. Tonelli's Shiki mirror will add style and elegance to any room.
Tonelli Shiki Mirror available from nova68
Art meets Fashion
And perhaps the most beautiful spaced out rendition of Ave Maria you have ever heard:
Manolo Valdés Butterflies
We absolutely love the sculptures by Manolo Valdés. The Butterflies sculpture by Manolo Valdés. Butterflies is part of the Beyond Limits sculpture sale organized by Sotheby's at Chatsworth in the UK (the exhibition is about to close on October 31st 2010 so if you have a couple of millions to invest, this is your chance). Note that we use the worth "invest" since we are pretty sure that in the 21st century the sculptures by Manolo Valdés will certainly command the same prices as the sculptures by Henry Moore. The present work by Manolo Valdés is Butterflies which he conceived in 2010 and which is a unique piece. It is an impressive and large sculpture, perhaps not suitable for the average apartment in London or NYC: it measures an astonishing 4.6 by 9.5 x 5 meters. It was partly inspired by a Henri Matisse painting; the elegant countenance, distinguished only by the brow and line of the nose, bears the influence of the Fauve's early portraits such as Woman with a Hat.
Manolo Valdés "Butterflies" detail
But Butterflies was also the fruit of happenstance, as Manolo Valdés has explained: 'one day, while strolling in Central Park, I saw a group of butterflies that had landed on top of a sculpture and the idea of the headpiece was born.'
Manolo Valdés "Butterflies"
The beguiling headdress imbues the sculpture with a sense of movement and weightlessness, its solid forms dissipating into the surrounding space. At once monumental and accessible, patent yet enigmatic. Butterflies, cast in shimmering aluminium, is characterised by a unique approach to volume and materiality that has become the defining quality of Manolo Valdés' large-scale sculptures and accounts entirely for their powerful, mesmerising presence.
Manolo Valdés "Butterflies"
Architecture by Gerrit Rietveld
After a major restoration, the Gerrit Rietveld Pavilion in the sculpture garden of the Kröller-Müller Museum in the Netherlands is accessible to the public again.
Gerrit Rietveld (1884-1964) designed the pavilion for the display of small sculptures at the Third International Sculpture Exhibition in Arnhem’s Sonsbeek Park in 1955. This ‘Sonsbeek Pavilion’ was intended as a temporary structure, and it was dismantled when the exhibition was over. On the initiative of several Dutch architects, the building found a permanent home in the Kröller-Müller Museum’s sculpture garden, under a new name: the ‘Rietveld Pavilion’.
From the very outset, the maintenance of the Rietveld Pavilion was a constant source of concern. Every conceivable method was considered and tried, from conservation and restoration to copying and replacing parts of the building, but it eventually became clear that the structure was beyond saving.
The 1965 pavilion has now been disassembled. Today, in 2010, the museum has rebuild the structure with new materials, while adhering as closely as possible to Gerrit Rietveld’s original design. Wherever possible, parts of the 1965 pavilion that were still in adequate condition have been reused. Construction work began in January 2010 and finished in September of this year. The new, third version of the pavilion now stands in the museum’s sculpture garden, preserving Rietveld’s world-famous design for the future. The pavilion is the property of the Government Buildings Agency (GBA) of the State of the Netherlands, which, as its owner, is responsible for its maintenance. The GBA was also overseeing the restoration project on behalf of the Kröller-Müller Museum.
To coincide with the opening of the reconstructed pavilion, a small presentation is on display in the museum’s old wing, with archive material on the pavilion and several pieces of furniture made by Rietveld from the museum’s collection. The current State Architect Liesbeth van der Pol B Sc commissioned a documentary to be made on the realization of this version of the Rietveld Pavilion. This documentary by Pieter Kiewiet de Jonge, entitled ‘According to Rietveld - the reconstruction of the Rietveld Pavilion’, is ca. 40 minutes long and is also showing in the museum.
NB: the exhibition Rietvelds Universum is on display from 21 October 2010 in the Centraal Museum in Utrecht.
Images taken by Hans Jan Dürr from durr-architect and Marjon Gemmeke. Pictured is the Gerrit Rietveld Pavillion Sonsbeek Arnhem, Netherlands, designed by Gerrit Rietveld in 1955, reconstructed in 1965 in Otterlo Netherlands.
This modernist open structure was designed in 1955 for Sonsbeek Park in Arnheim for the exhibition of small sculptures. In 1965 it was rebuilt in the sculpture garden of the Kröller-Müller Museum on a site Rietveld himself selected. This building has the simplicity and geometric qualities characteristic of De Stijl architecture. Around a central space (12 by 12 meters) Rietveld arranged three corridor-like open galleries. The materials of the construction are clearly evident: concrete block brick, glass, and metal beams. Not only is the transition easy within the structure, but the open structure suggests a relationship between nature and the built environment.
Kröller-Müller Museum
Forgotten Modernist Architecture
Chances are you know Belgium for its fashion, waffles, diamond cutters and the Atomium from Expo 58. But this amazing collection of photographs by Dutch photographer Klaas Vermaas shows a truly dazzling collection of true modern architectural gems, some of them semi- or completely abandoned, forgotten, overgrown and in total disrepair. I am sure we have all dreamed of stumbling on a totally forgotten hidden masterpiece; well Belgium (and the Netherlands) seem to be the place. Browsing through this vast archive of fantastic modern buildings may make us move to rainy northern Europe after all.
Klaas Vermaas on Flickr
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