Surface volume 2011-11

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BORN A DECEMB ER 20 11 DISPLAY UIITIL JAIIUARY 11 0

How can design reinvent itself for the 21st century? Yoshiyuki Miyamae Melds Tradition With Color at Issey Miyake

Josephus Thimister Crafts a Collection for Fallen Angels

Hermes Petit h Looks Back to Expand the House's Future

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05 Brudnizki's art space of choice is the Timothy Taylor Gallery. Exhibits this year included black-and-white photographs by Lee Friedlander (pictured) and Hans Hartung paintings.

15 Carlos Place: 44-20-7409-3344; timothytayforgallery.com

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AI\EW UGHT On September 8, Surface hosted a Fashion's Night Out celebration at the Soiio sh owroom ofltalian lighting brand Flos, shining lights by the likes of Marcel Wanders and Jasper Morrison on the award-winning womenswear designer Wayne's fall/winter 2011 creations. Ba1-terhouse provided wine and prosecco for the guests, including graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister, trio Rich Brilliant Willing, architect Gisue Hariri, and furniture-design stars David Weeks and Brad Ascalon. Combining friends, fashion, and fix lures, the event offered a bright kick-off to New York Fashion Week. Event photography by Jakob Layman, airhornphoto.com.

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WAYNE

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PRODUCT

Give Them a Hand AS THE DAYLIGHT SHORTENS, EMBRACETHEDARK~TH

BLACK-AS-NIGHT TIMEPIECES THAT REFLECT SLIVERS OF STAINLESS STEEL AND WHITE GOLD. PHOTOGRAPHY JUSTIN FANTJ, EDITOR GREGORY Wl:I N

TOP ROW FROM L EFT: 18-karat white gold mechanical Calatrava on an alligator strap, PATEK PHILIPPE. Stainle.~s-steel analog 360 SV on a leather strap, NOOKA. Ceramic Chrono quartz mo vemen t on a bracelet, FENDI. Stain less-steel quartz-movement Bold on a TR90/polyurethane bracelet, MOVADO. Stainless-steel automatic Portofino on an alligator strap, IWC. BOTTOM ROW FROM LEFT: Stainless-steel automatic Clipper Classic on a leather strap, HERMES. White gold manual Altiplano on an alligator strap, PIAGET. S tainless-steel quartz-movement De Ville Hour Vision Orbis on an alligator strap, OMEGA. S tainless-steel manual Pam 112 Luminor Base on a calfskin strap, PANERAI.

TRANSPORT

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(CLOCKWISE FROM FAR LEFT) Moray Callum at Ford's studios in Dearborn, Michigan. The Evos concept. Digital instrumentation behind the steering wheel is framed in a trapezoidal cutout. mirroring the car's grille. The driver's seat. unlike the rest of the interior. is swathed in red. Included in the design: two sets of gullwing doors.

Evolution Resolution FORD'S LATEST P ROTOTYPE

DNA v.rill be harvested to create a number of new Ford vehicles, too-t he first examHERALDS A NEW, GLOBAL ERA ples of which are set t o debu t at January's North American Internat ional Auto Show OF UNIFIED CAR CULTURE. in Detroit. Though the Evos is not destined for proPORTRAIT PETER BAKF.R duction, it serves as a Rosetta Ston e whose distinct elements will be rendered "portaThree years ago, a New Yorker could drive ble," according to Moray Callum, who heads along London's M25 and see Fords that Ford's design studios in Michigan, California, looked nothing like their counterparts on and South America. "We came up v.rit h six elManhattan's Tenth Avenue. But as Ford ements, and most of these you can see in the consolidates its product portfolio- a strat- projects t hat we have going on in the studio," egy called One Ford-a Focus hatchback he says. The challenge: to make those elein Shanghai is now indistinguishable from ments look good on both family haulers and one in Houston. That shift has freed the sports cars. As Callum puts it, "It's impormanufact urer to start making tru ly global tant that we're cognizant of what can travel well style-wise across the range." These cues design statements. The Evos, a sensu ous fastback concept in clude a revised trapezoidal grille, an evowith gullwing doors unveiled at the Frank- lut ion from the one worn by the 2012 Focus, fu rt Motor Show in September, is t he com- and headlamps as thin as turn signals- a pany's latest effort in this vein. Strands of its testament to t he strength of the light beam

they project. Each element is intended to convey "premium," a trait often promised but rarely delivered by mass-market automakers, le t alone one of Detroit's Big Three. Premium details not slated for production include its gulhving doors. Ford wanted the Frankfurt throngs to appreciate the trapezoidal motifs and muscular contours of the console, which echo t he concept's exterior cues. Inaugurating a design language in any industry has its risks, not least being that the new look goes over gangbusters in one market but tanks in another. Callum and Ford know this. They wouldn't have undert aken One Ford- or made the Evos ~ its ambassador-had consumers not been ::2 on board. "Globally, tastes are surprisingly ~ aligned in terms of what p eop le expect 5 and what people think is true to the brand," 0 says Callu m. "Tt's a brave new world for us." ~ -JONATHANSCHULTZ

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LIMITED

The Casein Question

(CLOCKWISE. FROM TOP LEFT) Brass Grid-

lock objects for Malouin's Nextl evel Gallery show. A prototype of the sand machine from his Lobmeyr hourglass project in his studio. Philippe Malouin. Prototypes of his 1:4 bowls for KM & EM. The designer's sketchbook.

PHILIPPE MALOUIN ARUGES CONVICINGLY FOR A NEW BREED OF M INIMALISM. PHOTOS PAUL PLEWS

When Philippe Malouin graduated from the Design Academy Eindhoven three years ago, it was at the height of the design world's craze for all things crafty and imperfect. To understand how he ended up designing a chainmail rug requiring 3,000 hours of construction or a series of scaffolding furniture even more complex than his breakout, look to his family- every one of his close relatives is a lav.'Yer. Or trace his enthusiasm for the precise and the geometric back to his younger days studying chemistry and math in his native Montreal- followed by the pursuit of his industrial design degree. "I struted off making boring shit, like gas canisters for Ski-Doos;' Malouin says. "But it taught me how to use materials and gave me a basic technical knowledge." Malouin, in other words, is no conceptualist. While his peers at Eindhoven were turning out cracked vases ••.1HH and sofas made from dog poop, he was learning how to augment his intellectual, type-A design sensibility with a hands-on, process-based approach. It's a sophisticated alchemy that early on won him a stint in Tom Dixon's office and, since founding his London studio in 2009, a place in galleries such as Fumi, Cm·wan, and Rossana Orlru1di. , 'This fall, Malouin takes a stab at incorporating larger nruTatives into his minimalist repertoire. During Vienna Design Week, he launched a new collaboration with LobmeYl· of three oversize hourglasses that SYlTIbolically illustl·ate t he staggering amount of time that goes into handcrafting the Austriru1 glassmaker's wares. Each one shows time with progressively intricate engravings that took a LobmeYl· artisan five, 10, or 20 minutes to complete. Paired with the hourglasses: a sculptural brass sand-dune-making machine.

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f His new series of Gridlock objects, on view through November 26 at Paris's Nextl.evel Gallery, are rendered in brass and aggregate concrete rather than alu minum and glass. In shapes that reference Aztec pyramids and Scarpa buildings, the pieces are meant to reflect the Brutalist architecture of his adopted city. "Brutalism means something to me personally;' says Malouin. "It was extremely important in Canada at the same time as it was in the U.K." The commission that will take Malouin into 2012 has even greater ties to his roots: He's been asked to contribute furniture for the interior of the Quebec Government Office in London. Since he's never done any work back in Canada, he views the job as something of a validation. Says Malouin, with a laugh, "When I first decided to go t o design school, my dad was like, 'What the fuck do you want to design for? Yo u're not an artist."' Good thing he didn't listen. -MONICA KHEMSUROV

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GRUPOHAB I TA

ART

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(TOP TO BOTTOM) Portrait o f the artist.

"No Title (Under the Table)" (2003). as seen at Spruth Magers Munich. "Folding Tables and Chairs" (2008). as seen at the De Pont Museum o f Contemporary Art.

IN THE GALLERIES

"GRAPHIC DESIGN NOW IN PRODUCT ION" Walker Art Center, Minnesota. October 22-January 22. 20 12

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Organized with the Cooper-Hewitt, this exhibit consumes 10,000 square feet of gallery space to showcase graphic design's evolving mediums.

Wonder Lands "AZZEDINE A LAIA: 2001 - 2011 " Groninger Museum. The Netherlands. December 11 - May 6. 201 2 The follow-up to a 1998 exhibit this review catalogs the Tunisia-born Ala'ia's couture since 2001.

"MAURIZIO CATTELAN A L L" Guggenheim Museum, New York. November 4-January 22. 2012

Included in this retrospective of the Italy-born Cattelan's hyperrealistic work is a site-specific installation in the museum's rotunda.

"SHEVIRAT HA-KELIM: THE BREAKING OF THE VESSELS" Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Israel. November 2- April 15, 201 2 Jewish history and mysticism are front and center at this show of German artist Anselm Kiefer's work.

ROBERT THERRIEN'S EXTRAORDINARILY ORDINARY OBJECTS TAKE VIEWERS DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE. Childlike fantasies (and anxieties) surface in the work of Robert Therrien. The Chicago-born, L.A.-based artist, who has been working since the 1970s, warps scale and distorts context to give ubiquHous objects an otherworldly or uncanny feel. At consecutive shows this fall, one at Gagesian Gallery in Beverly Hills (through Oct. 29), the other at Spriith Magers in Berlin (opening Nov. 15), his works epitomize this. In "No Title (Folding Table and Chairs ITT, Green)" (2008)-part of an ongoing series shown at Spriith Magers- Therrien manipulates the scale of an otherwise o1·dinary institutional-green folding table and chairs, depicted with rust and all, so that they're three times typical size. The chair seats are eye-level and the table top is almost lO feet high, makjng one feel Lilliputian. In adjusting scale so dramatically, Therrien forces viewers to see beauty and potential humor in the details of eve1yday objects. "The simplicity of the objects allows people to read into [the art] however they want," says the soft-spoken Therrien, who's known to work slowly

and methodically. At Gagosian, Therrien's "No Title" (2006- 07), a nine-foot stack of oversize dinner plates that teetered precariously in the airy gallery, was both amusing and profound. Therrien's king-size art is balanced with human-scale work that is equally compelling. And eerie. One example: a piece at Gagosian, titled "No Title (Pink Spiral Bed)" (2011), comprising life-size beds coiled into delicate spirals. Another: "Transparent Room" (201.0), the centerpiece of the Sprlith Magers show and an evolution of "Red Room" (2000- 07), an iconic work of Therrien's that's part of the Tate collection. Jn "Transparent Room," a collection of translucent items are placed in a simple glass house, the disparate pieces becoming a unified whole. Jn blurring the distinction between the real and the remade, Therrien takes the viewer into a space between physical reality and one of his making. "Looking at the world through the eyes of a child is an experience we can all relate to," said Andreas Gegner, director of Spriith Magers London and organizer of the Berlin show. ··'That's why his works have an immediate emotional impact on the viewer. Looking at the world as a child makes you see it anew and gives you new insight into the reality of objects."-MARINA CASHDAi"'

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INTERIORS

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Phantom oftheOpera AT T HE H ISTORIC PALAIS GARNI ER IN PARIS, ODILE DECQ HAS CREAT ED A SUAVE RESTAURANT T HAT AMPLIFIES T HE BUILDING AROUND IT. PHOTOS ROLAND I·IALBE

When the Palais Garnier, the 1,900-seat opera house more commonly known as the Paris Opera, opened in 1875, it was considered highly experimental by the architectural standards of the day. Tapped by Napoleon III to design it, the building's visionary architect Charles Gamier not only created a structure that harked back to the Nco-Baroque style- an unusual architectural move in the late-19th century. He also implemented modern technologies, using, for example, metal instead of wood girders to support the building's massive framework. More than a century later, the French architect Odile Decq has to similar effect designed L'Opera, the Palais's first restaurant. Says Decq: "I though t, 'If Palais Garnier was Baroque, then I can play my own game and not be so serious."' That's not to say, though, that Decq was given free rein over the restaurant's design. Paris is known for strict guidelines for work on historic monume nts, and this project was no exception. According to L'Opera's owner Pier re-Fran