Are you thinking about making some changes to your living situation? A new place can give you a fresh lease on life and allow you to start a new chapter. But with average house prices in the UK for March 2022 rising to £278,000 – more than 8.5% higher than at the same stage last year – moving to a new home may not be an appealing, or even realistic, prospect.
Tag Archives: mirrors
Eye On Design: Circumspect Neckpiece By Kiff Slemmons
All Photos By Gail
Kiff Slemmons‘ neckpiece Circumspect (2003) is an object that does what it is and is what it does. Composed of lenses and mirrors collected and categorized for a purpose that the collecting itself reveals, it is both a tool of taxonomic assessment and a record of a taxonomic class of useful and evocative things.
Denying the role of jewelry as something only to be looked at, it meets and counters the gaze — returning agency to those being seen. It also asks us to emulate what it facilitates: the art of careful looking as a way of understanding.
Photographed in the Museum of Arts and Design in Manhattan.
Video Clip of The Week: Black Mirrors, “Funky Queen”
Oh boy, here’s a good one! This week’s Video Clip, courtesy of Belgian rockers Black Mirrors will coax you right out of any residual funk, because it is called “Funky Queen” — and it kicks ass all over the place! If Janis Joplin, Jack White, Anouk, Nirvana and Queens Of The Stone Age ever had the chance to breed, Black Mirrors might have been their very attractve spawn. Black Mirrors is Belgium’s answer to pretty much every rock band out there: fronted by the stunning vocalist Marcella Di Troia, these guys manage to gather an endless amount of influences which have been ruling the rock n’ roll universe for decades, combining them seamlessly into Black Mirrors‘ very own addictive sound.
The artfully-shot-in-black-and-white performance-based video for “Funky Queen” was filmed and edited by Van’s Ography and it perfectly showcases Di Troia’s incredible vocal chops, on-stage charisma and undeniable sass! “Funky Queen” is the title song from Black Mirrors‘ upcoming 4-song EP, due out on March 3rd, 2017 via Napalm Records! Like the band on the FaceBook at This Link! Enjoy!
Monir Farmanfarmaian: Infinite Possibility, Mirror Works and Drawings at the Guggenheim
Room Full of Mirrors…All Photos By Gail
If you are planning a trip to the Guggenheim Museum to see the On Kawara Exhibit – which is pretty sweet – you may be disappointed to discover that the Art Nazis are out in full force, forbidding photography in the Rotunda. And, frankly, that sucks, because if I can’t take pictures, it’s like I wasn’t even there.
Fortunately for those of us to like to capture and share the memory of seeing of great art, the Guggenheim is also currently hosting the very fantastic Infinite Possibility: Mirror Works and Drawings -1974-2014 featuring the work of Persian artist Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, whose artistic practice weds the geometric patterns and cut-glass mosaic techniques of her Iranian heritage with the rhythms of modern Western geometric abstraction.
Monir in her Tehran Studio (1975) Working on Heptagon Star
This is the first U.S. museum exhibition of mirror works and drawings by Farmanfarmaian (b. Qazvin, Iran, 1922) and it was also my first introduction to her work, which is just amazing. To provide some background on this accomplished artist, Monir spent formative years (1945 to 1957) working in New York, during which she met artists Milton Avery, Willem de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, Louise Nevelson, Barnett Newman, and, later, Andy Warhol, among others. She returned to Iran in 1957.
Sketches
There, she further developed her artistic sensibility through encounters with traditional craftsmanship, indigenous art forms such as Turkoman jewelry and clothing, coffee house paintings (a popular form of Iranian narrative paintings), and the technique of reverse-glass painting, resulting in a period of artistic discovery that culminated in commissions in Iran and exhibitions in Europe and the United States.
Mirror Detail (Above) and Study (Below)
The Islamic Revolution in 1979 marked the beginning of Monir’s 26-year exile in New York, during which she focused on drawing, collage, commissions, and carpet and textile design. In 2004, when she finally returned to Iran, she reestablished her studio there and resumed working with some of the same craftsmen she had collaborated with in the 1970s.
The exhibit includes plaster and mirror reliefs, large-scale mirror sculptures the artist refers to as “geometric families,” and works on paper, revealing the central role drawing has played in Monir’s practice and focusing on a sculptural and graphic oeuvre developed over more than 40 years (many examples of which have not been displayed publicly since the 1970s).
Monir with her Mirror Ball Sculptures, Seen Below
This body of work is characterized by a merging of visual and spatial experience, coupled with the aesthetic traditions of Islamic architecture and decoration. Her use of geometry as form allows for, in the artist’s words, “infinite possibility.”
Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Infinite Possibility. Mirror Works and Drawings 1974–2014 will be on Exhibit Through June 3rd, 2015 at the Guggenheim Museum, Located at 1071 Fifth Avenue (at 89th Street) in New York City.
Mid-Century Bar with Circular Mirrors
Photo By Gail
We spotted this fantastic Mid-Century Design Service Bar at an event at the Marriott Marquis Hotel and had to take a snap! The design would look great as part of any retro or modern decor, but in this case, we think that the carpet’s print reflects onto the mirrors to make the orbs look like a constellation of planets! Very Cool!