Josef Hoffman designed this stylized Table Lamp in 1904, when artificial light sources were shifting from gas to electric, which challenged designers to innovate in accordance with the new technology.
Rather than putting shades around the bulbs, Hoffmann left the light source exposed. The suspended glass spheres echo the bulbs shape and draw further attention to the new technology as they catch and reflect the electric light. The lamp was manufactured by Konrad Schindel of Denmark.
Photographed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan.
Corner Pocket By Masakatsu Sashie (All Photos By Gail)
Jonathan LeVine Gallery is currently hosting External Effect, a series of new works by Japanese artist Masakatsu Sashie. This is Sashie’s second solo exhibition at the gallery, and I somehow neglected to write about his first show, so I didn’t want to fail twice at sharing a series of artworks that is really special.
In a body if work that will surely appeal to fans of dystopian sci-fi. Sashie’s hyperreal 0il paintings and sketches depict a post-apocalyptic world, or series of worlds. The bleak visions of a future that is also trapped in the past analyze the influence of technology on the circle of life. The level of detail in these paintings is extraordinary.
Invisible Rule
Modeled after Kanazawa, the town he was born and continues to reside in, Sashie’s landscapes resemble landfills – capsized by burning vehicles, antiquated technology and an overwhelming amount of man-made debris. Massive orb-shaped amalgams of industrially manufactured products are the focal point of every piece, hovering over desolate cityscapes, drawing attention to the paradox of the vastness of the universe yet the finite amount of space mankind has to exist.
Smoggy Memory
Kanazawa is a small city in Japan that the artist describes as a miniature garden in which the obsolete and contemporary are fused due to its distance from an urban center.
Zero Sum (1 of 2)
Zero Sum (Detail)
Growing up within this isolation nurtured Sashie’s fascination with the notion of “the balanced aquarium,” a concept described by Nobel Prize winner Konrad Lorenz in his book King Solomon’s Ring: New Light on Animal Ways (1949).
Corner Pocket (Detail)
Lorenz describes an aquarium as a self-sustaining environment depending solely on the natural interactions between plants and other living organisms for survival. Once outside involvement occurs, balance is lost and disintegration immediately begins.
Oasis
The artist considers Lorenz’s biological phenomenon as the epitome of the world we live in; struggling to maintain stability among the complexities and demands of modern living. Revolving around themes of consumerism, globalism and environmentalism, Masakatsu Sashie’s self-contained environments are an archive of the past and a prediction of our future.
Masakatsu Sashie’s External Effect will be on Exhibit Through November 12th, 2016 at Jonathan LeVine Gallery, Located at 529 East 20th Street, 9th Floor, in the Chelsea Gallery District.
Left: Melt Into The Air Cool, Tight: Melt Into The Air Hot
The renowned designer Alfredo Häberli has joined forces with BMW to create a compelling installation for Designmuseum that tackles the values of future mobility at a conceptual level. Following the BMW Design theme Precision & Poetry, the Zurich-based designer embarked on a thought journey that begins with childhood memories, sketches and formal studies. It ends with a large-scale model, and leads to a spatial installation that allows personal thoughts on future mobility to be experienced in the present.
Spheres Wooden Model in Courtyard Viewed from Museum Lobby
The focus of the exhibition is a wooden ribbed model ten meters long by four meters high (located in the museum’s front courtyard) that translates the theme of future mobility into an avant-garde form of impressive precision and dimension. With its diverse formats and dimension, the installation invites the observer on an individual journey into the mobile future. Häberli’s futuristic perspective on mobility was created for Milan’s major design event Salone del Mobile in 2015.
