by Claudia Dias on June 5, 2009
Interestingly enough, whenever there seems to emerge a new high-tech material, it arrives ‘camouflaged’ in a vintage design. I feel this way again with nando’s blown-fabric designs. Discovering “Smash”, a specialized long-fiber non-woven polyester, a light and rip-proof product of Japanese advanced synthetic-fiber technology, can be blown into unique shapes, nando applies this technique to create Japanese-style chochin paper-lanterns. While admiring the outcome of the experiment, I wish for a less retro application, … but maybe that’s what we generally call ‘progress’. To keep it vintage: “One small step for men, one giant step for mankind.”
‘Smash’ … can be manipulated into different forms through hot-press- forming technology. Because it is thermo-plastic, (…) but glows beautifully when light passes through it, we wanted to create lighting fixtures in the style of vernacular Japanese chochin paper lanterns with it. (…) We realized that Smash’s particular properties would allow us to shape it like blown glass into a seamless one-piece lantern. It is impossible to completely control the process, so each fixture takes a unique form as heat is added and pressurized air is blown into it. As in glass-blowing, we can intervene during the production of each piece, resulting in a collection of objects whose infinitely varied imperfections are reminiscent of the infinite formal mutations of viruses and bacteria in response to environmental changes…’
‘The fixtures are weighted at the base by the light source.(..) Smash changes form if the interior temperature rises above 80 degrees centigrade, so we mounted low-heat LED bulbs in machined aluminium sockets that double as a heat-sink to maintain a low interior temperature.”
Text quoted from nendo
nendo created blown-fabric for ‘Tokyo Fiber ’09 Senseware’ presented in April at the Milan 09 Triennial
www.tokyofiber.com
source: www.nendo.jp
by Claudia Dias on May 21, 2009
I am always flattened by Josiah McElheny’s fascination with modernism, his quality of craftsmanship as a glassblower, and his final sublime concepts of display. I spotted Chromatic Modernism at Art Basel Miami 2008 and could not let go.
‘As with a lot of his work, Chromatic Modernism highlights McElheny’s fascination with how the role of the designer and artist intersect.The idea that a designer decides the look and function of an object, rather than a kind of vernacular tradition, is a modernist one. Until the early twentieth century, most quotidian and utilitarian things were designed by cultural groups, in a kind of feedback loop over generations, rather than by individuals.(..)
Josiah McElheny based the general geometric structure of this group of six new sculptures (…) on the what is likely the first modular-rod display system (…) that Francesco Ruscone created for the Milan Triennale in 1951. (..)The vitrine and light system were an intrinsic part of Ruscone’s design.(…)
Each object begins as a thin, coloured cup in red, yellow or blue; then Josiah gives the initial form enough material to complete the design by pouring clear glass into the coloured cup. This creates a colour layer that is just under the outside edge, so that when light passes through the clear glass, the colour is incredibly luminous. Also, you’ll notice when you look closely at each vessel, the degree of thickness of glass doesn’t saturate the colour. (…)
Formally, the black lines of the display and the blocks of primary colour immediately bring to mind a Piet Mondrian painting. The primary colours relate directly to the history of modernism, and to the shift from when colour no longer had a descriptive function, but an expressive, or theoretical one.’
Quoted from Craig Burnett
Chromatic Modernism (Blue, Red, Yellow), 2008
Hand blown and polished glass, anodized aluminum, laminated colored sheet glass, low-iron glass sheet, electric lighting
87 1/2 h. x 60 1/2 x 19 1/4 inches (222.3 x 154 x 49 cm)
Please refer to the Gallery for inquiries and prices.
Donald Young Gallery
224 S Michigan Ave Suite 266, Chicago Illinois 60604, Tel. 312.322.3600
Many thanks to Emily at Donald Young Gallery for photographs and material.
emily@donaldyoung.com
Chromatic Modernism is currently on display in Chicago through the end of August.
http://www.donaldyoung.com