Face Projects

by Ami Kealoha

by Ezra Natalia

When they're not listening to bands like Phew, Googoosh, Yellow Magic Orchestra and Las Grecas, fashion designer Solomon Chase and visual artist David Toro are at work on their new avant-jewelry project Face. Starting the project about six months ago, their first Face product is their Bindi that comes in a variety of incarnations including plaid, plaited hair and a reflective smiley face. It will be sold at the "Cosmic Collision" installment of New High (M)art in Lost Angeles' Chinatown as well as directly through their site.

The latest facial region they've turned their attention to is the eyebrow. Their "brow-hats" come in many different shapes, all in a highly reflective material — perfect for haunting the outdoors at night!

With veils, glasses, visors, eyebrow wigs and more, their experimentation seemingly knows no bounds. There's no typical day for Toro and Chase, each one is magical.

The duo say they've always felt that when they have an idea, they should attempt to create it without hesitation. As now, past collaborations testify to their interest in simple products that are not only simple in form but also in function and concept. Their belief is that these type of ideas seem to hold strongest.

So why face jewelry and not anything else we might ask? They answer that face jewelry is an exploration, uncharted territory. Not much has been done with the face yet it's such an important part of our lives. Their thought was, why not transform, adorn and accessorize our faces? Faces have such a complex and interesting structure and each one is unique, attributes that the two have found very inspiring.

While their unusual creations might seem the work of fashion extremists, Toro and Chase claim mediocrity is their biggest inspiration though they admire others that take risks, push boundaries, genres, and work heavily with concept over pure aesthetics, citing the NYC-based designers Telfar Ohne Titel as favorites.

Advice from the designers? "Wear face accessories and your life will improve." Check their website for additional retail locations in the near future. Bindis are $30 for a set of three and $50 for a set of five. Reflective eyebrows are $30 a pair. Glow-in-the-dark Bindis are $10 each.

Five Eye-Catching Ceramics at London Design Festival

by Leonora Oppenheim

Comfort Station at London Fashion Week
Outstanding talent Amy Anderson has created another gorgeous collection for her jewelry label Comfort Station. Anderson consistently creates beautiful jewelry that's full of character, intricate detailing, interesting materials and engaging imagery. This season we loved the abstract art deco ceramic pieces, especially the Grey Geo Necklace (pictured above right).

Louise Hindsgavl at 100% design
You had to be on the ball to spot Louise Hindsgavl's porcelain sculptures at the expansive 100% Design show but once viewed they are difficult to tear away from. These strangely beautiful and somewhat disturbing figurines were exhibited on the Danish Crafts Stand in 100% Futures. Bizarrely entitled "Everyday Scenarios," these creatures evoke such mysterious and fantastical images in the mind that they cannot be forgotten.

Ikuko Iwamoto at Tent London
Iwamoto's Spiky Beakers are intriguing and off putting at the same time. So beautiful but clearly quite dangerous, like a sea urchin that you know you shouldn't pick up. We enjoyed this Japanese designer's take on texture which ranges from stimulating to potentially injurious. After graduating from the RCA in 2006, Iwamoto has remained in London where she has her own ceramics studio.

Jaime Hayon for Lladró at Vessel
It's not just the girls playing with porcelain, Spanish design superstar Jaime Hayon has also been creating in the kiln. As artistic director for Spanish ceramics company Lladró he has been busy making his mark on the brand. Hayon is exhibiting his latest work for Lladró at the Vessel Gallery in Notting Hill. Amongst all the pieces in "The Fantasy Collection" we were particularly struck by this seated figure modeling a distinctively Hayon-style head piece and (unmistakably" his shoes for Camper. Jaime are you in there?

Tamsin Van Essen at Designers Block
Exhibiting at the KithKin stand in the Designer's Block exhibition was Prague based ceramic artist Tamsin Van Essen. Her "Collection of Curious Objects" certainly aroused our curiosity and the "Quarks" (pictured above) were possibly the most tactile thing we'd seen in the whole festival. They induced such a strong desire to pick them up that Van Essen had to glue them to the table surface. She tells us that they were inspired by theoretical physics, playing "with the notion that today's cutting-edge scientific theories may one day be seen as quaint and curious museum pieces: theoretical antiques or abstract junk."

Cia de Foto

by Phuong-Cac Nguyen

Highly stylized, poignant and emotional are words that come to mind upon first encounter with Cia de Foto's breathtaking photographs. The São Paulo photo agency has been going strong for more than a few years now but has just launched a blog that shares news on happenings like what exciting project they're doing next or which international photo event they're participating in (for example, they managed the entire São Paulo Photo Week last month). Although most of the blog is in Portuguese, the pictures — spanning a variety of subjects from everyday Brazilian life to portraits — speak for themselves.

Assignments for the mainstream press are their bread and butter but Rafael Jacinto, one of the founding members of Cia de Foto, emphasized to me once that they also feel it's important to do projects they are personally interested in, a philosophy that shows through in their work.

If you'll be in Santiago, Chile for the Foto America biennial event between 29 October 2008 and 16 January 2009, you can check out a panel with them at the Museu Nacional de Bellas Artes on 30 Ocober 2008.

Wright Modern Design Auction

by Brian Fichtner

Unlike some auction houses, the Chicago-based Wright tends to eschew sensational events and publicity-hungry sales. Instead, it simply offers (quite modestly) some of the best design available on the secondary market. The forthcoming Modern Design auction, taking place on 7 October 2008, is no exception. In addition to showcasing the work of mid-century icons Charles and Ray Eames, Harry Bertoia, George Nakashima, Isamu Noguchi, Gio Ponti, George Nelson, Hans Wegner, Poul Kjærholm and many others, this auction features stunning inclusions from more recent decades. Here are a few of the designs that caught our eyes.

Nearly forty years ago, long before Marc Newson became the art world's design darling with his Carrara collection for Larry Gagosian, Angelo Mangiarotti created sculptural furniture out of marble. This occasional table (above) from the Eros collection, produced by the Italian company Skipper, was designed in 1971. It's estimated to sell for between $5,000 and $7,000.

Shiro Kuramata, probably the modern era's most renowned Japanese designer, created this glass chair in 1976 (above left), right around the time that Donald Judd was producing his minimal pinewood furniture. From a limited edition of forty, it carries an estimate of between $40,000 and $60,000. Like a tangerine Loch Ness Monster, the Floris chair (above right) by Günter Beltzig captured the attention of fairgoers at the 1968 Cologne Furniture Fair. One of the few successful three-legged chair designs, the fiberglass form proved too difficult to produce and only fifty were made. It's estimated between $30,000 and $40,000.

Check out more from the forthcoming Modern Design auction on the Wright site.

T.R. Ericsson: Nicotine Dreams

by Jonah Samson

I will openly confess to being an adamant non-smoker, but even I have admit the sexiness of T.R. Ericsson's latest body of work, "Nicotine Dreams," currently on view at Paul Kasmin Gallery in New York. Inspired by his mother’s lit cigarettes that "discolored the white ceilings and floral wallpaper patterns of the house into tarnished gold," he used nicotine to produce the pale, golden palette of this series.

To create these works on paper, Ericsson used a silkscreen process, which essentially acted as an intensified version of the process that turned his mother's white ceiling yellow. Digital photographs were burned into silkscreens, which were then placed above ashtrays filled with smoldering cigarettes, slowly creating pictures onto the paper while destroying the screen. The process required anywhere from fifteen to six hundred cigarettes to create a single image.

You can see more images on the website for Paul Kasmin Gallery. More information on T.R. Ericsson can be found on his website. Also be sure to check out Thirst Magazine, a limited-edition art magazine that he publishes bi-annually, as well as a limited edition series of photographs that can be purchased for just $75.

Nicotine Dreams
Through 15 October 2008
Paul Kasmin Gallery
293 Tenth Avenue
New York, NY 10001 map
tel. +1 212 563 4474