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  • Robert Geller Interview

    May 13th 10, 19:47

    Here is a look at an insightful interview with the CFDA Menswear Award-winning, New York designer Robert Geller. Conducted by Peter Nguyen, his design assistant.

    Peter: Robert Geller has the uncanny ability to throw a wrench into my life plans, After all, it was his last collection at the height of Cloak in Fall 2004 that made me leave my Fine Arts Major in San Francisco and hop on a plane to study fashion in New York. And when I found out he had started a namesake label in 2007, I left my senior year at Parsons and began working with him. (more…)

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  • Jeff Koons ‘Balloon Dog’ Fabricator Carlson & Co. Shuts as Recession Hits

    May 3rd 10, 4:36

    Although we’ve seen a number of record breaking art auctions amidst the recession in recent months, theres still no denying of the impact the economic downturn has had on the art world.

    Art fabricator Carlson & Co. for example (which gained fame by producing Jeff Koons’s stainless-steel “Balloon Dog”) has announced it’s plan to shut down after 30 plus years of fine arts fabrication and design-based engineering solutions for a wide range of clients spanning both the public and private sector. Yet another casualty of the slumping contemporary-art market.

    Bloomberg’s Lindsay Pollock reports:

    Company founder Peter Carlson said it will be filing something “akin” to bankruptcy.

    “The economic climate contributed very much to the condition we find ourselves in,” Carlson said in a phone interview. He declined to provide details on the company’s financial performance.

    Carlson fired the entire workforce of 95 employees last week in anticipation of the closing.

    “We had expectations that we would be able to work a solution to this problem, and ultimately we weren’t able to,” Carlson said.

    The company, based in San Fernando, California, was founded in 1971. It became one of the best-known resources for artists seeking to produce complicated, large-scale and frequently costly artworks.

    “Many artists trying to make work that involves high-tech and precise execution would go to Carlson and they could often figure things out that no one else could,” said New York art adviser Allan Schwartzman.

    The firm fabricated some of the most technically challenging artworks created during the six-year rise of contemporary art prices which began in 2002.

    Carlson produced Koons’s “Balloon Dog” sculptures, now valued at more than $20 million apiece and owned by billionaires including SAC Capital’s Steven Cohen, Eli Broad and Francois Pinault.

    Besides Koons, Carlson was the producer of choice for dozens of top contemporary artists, including Doug Aiken, John McCracken and Charles Ray (as well as some of our favorites the likes of Terrence Koh and Kenny Scharf). The company was submitting bids for projects as recently as three weeks ago, according to a dealer who had solicited a proposal.

    The company probably won’t finish a number of projects. “Our ability to complete projects is limited,” Carlson said.

    The use of high-end fabricators like Carlson became increasingly popular in the past decade as billionaire art collectors hunted for pricey large-scale artworks to fill private museums and foundations.

    Carlson’s reputation rose along with the contemporary art market. The company was featured in a profile in the New York Times in 2007, the same year Artforum magazine devoted an issue to “The Art of Production.”

    At the time, the company was engrossed in solving Koons’s latest puzzle: the construction of a 70-foot-long replica of a 1943 steam locomotive, designed to dangle from a crane, outside the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The work was estimated to cost $25 million, according to the Times article.

    Peter Carlson is quoted comparing the Koons train to the scale of “major industrial pieces, like the Eiffel Tower.” The project is “still in the feasibility study phase,” said LACMA spokeswoman, Barbara Pflaumer.

    Info: Bloomberg

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  • Banksy gives a £200k Painting to a Band

    April 30th 10, 1:45

    A Banksy painting  worth £200k arrived outside Simon Duncan’s west London home inside a battered old van last week, sent unexpectedly to Duncan, a 41-year-old web developer, as compensation for the world-renowned graffiti artist having coincidentally chosen the name of Duncan’s band as the title for his film, Exit Through the Gift Shop.

    “I am a drummer in a band that was called Exit Through the Gift Shop that I started with friends 18 months before I turned 40. It was a kind of midlife crisis, but we are still going, with a different line-up, and it has become a bit more serious,” said Duncan, who agreed to change his band’s name to Brace Yourself in an arrangement with Banksy.

    “We had these hilarious emails from someone saying he was Banksy, but we didn’t know if they were genuine,” said Duncan. “Then a scruffy white van arrived. The driver had no idea what he was carrying.”

    The band plan to unveil their new name and backdrop, which shows the grim reaper riding a dodgem car, at a London gig this week.

    “When we saw the painting we could not believe it,” said Duncan. “It is the size of a double bed, for a start. We had to insure it, so a man from Sotheby’s came over to see it in my loft. He said to me, ‘This is surreal. I have just been valuing an 18th-century portrait in a stately home, but it is not as valuable as this.’”

    The band have put the painting in storage at Sotheby’s and will perform in front of a full-size copy.

    Info: Guardian UK

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  • Levi’s Lefty Jean by Takahiro Kuraishi | Video

    April 28th 10, 5:22


    Levi’s Japan have released a video giving great insight into the brand direction and aesthetic of the highly anticipated Levi’s Left handed Jean collection from Kazuki Kuraishi (fragment design) and Takahiro Miyashita (Number(n)ine). The monochromatic video, directed by Azuma Makoto together with Takahiro Kuraishi, features an English narration of a poem about left handedness over dark layers of chaotic guitar reverbs and distortions. The collection is scheduled for release on the 29th of April, 2010. Take a look at the video here. (more…)

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  • Aaron Bondaroff: RIP Malcolm McLaren Obituary T-Shirts

    April 28th 10, 4:00

    Aron gives us a look at a small run of T-Shirts he made paying tribute to seminal punk and pop culture figure Malcolm McLaren. Using a Malolm Mclaren obituary made a few years back from artist Adam Mcewen, where he would make these obituarys about people and lies about how they died. Aron named it” the Malcolm Mcewen”. Take a look at the original artwork below, along with some images of Aron’s friends in the tees.

    (more…)

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  • Nike CEO Mark Parker shares an advice from Steve Jobs

    April 28th 10, 2:40

    At Fast Company’s Innovation Uncensored conference in New York this April, Nike CEO Mark Parker was interviewed by Fast Company Editor Robert Safian, in which he shared some business advice Apple CEO Steve Jobs had offered to him when Parker was assigned in 2006. Take a look below. (more…)

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  • New Balance x Undefeated Desert Storm CM1500

    April 26th 10, 23:13


    The New Balance x Undefeated Desert Storm 1500 is a collaborative project that brings historical context to footwear and design. Undefeated has always been a military and sport inspired brand with efforts to not only provide authenticity to projects, but to also inform the public of the often overlooked and understated aspects of design.

    The inspiration behind the New Balance Desert Storm 1500 is based upon military designs from the Gulf War. The light and dark brown panels with red and blue hits are colorways inspired from a Desert Storm operations patch. The premium suede fabrication of the shoe has been chosen to correspond with real army boots that were worn in the Gulf War. The chocolate chip camo, which is found on the shoe bed, interior lining, and shoe bag, is a specification to commemorate the design’s introduction in the Gulf War. 1500s feature embroidery detail on foxing and tongue of each shoe and collection call out on shoe insole.

    Undefeated’s main objective is to have authenticity direct the project, while instilling history into the design. There is much excitement with the New Balance Desert Storm 1500’s as it will be Undefeated’s first collaboration with New Balance US.

    Each pair of New Balance Desert Storm 1500s will be sold with a canvas shoe bag featuring utility camo print. The New Balance Desert Storm 1500 will be available beginning on May 15th (The Armed Forces Day)  for USD$120.00. (more…)

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  • Andy Warhol ‘Ghost’ painting up for auction at Sotheby’s

    April 19th 10, 8:35

    (more…)

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  • Andy Warhol’s Salvatore Ferragamo “Creation” Brogues

    March 28th 10, 4:49

    Salvatore Ferragamo’s extraordinary creativity and craftsmanship in footwear gained him many admirers, including pop art icon Andy Warhol; who owned a pair of Salvatore Ferragamo Brogues back in the 80s. It was the only style of shoes which the renown Italian shoe maker  designed for men in his lifetime (1898-1960), the brogues offered exceptional comfort, and Andy Warhol naturally wore these in the studio, painting and working in them. Over time, the brogues were speckled and splattered in paint. Then 19 years after Andy Warhol passed away, in 2006, the Ferragamo family bought the paint-specked Warhol shoes at a Christies auction (More here). And now the ‘Creation’ brogue has been recreated in honour of the great pop art icon.

    Authorized copies are now available for USD$990 at the Ferragamo flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York, as well as Dover Street Market in London.

    A pair of brown leather Ferragamo brogues, stamped on the insole in gilt with maker’s details, size 8, splattered with white, red, green and pink synthetic polymer paint — worn by Andy Warhol circa mid-1980s

    Info: T Mag

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  • Visvim ISDT Boot Folk

    March 28th 10, 4:21

    Visvim have released their ISDT boots on the honeyee store recently, offering their own rendition of the desert boot featuring a classic suede upper in earth tone colors. The ISDT boot features a softer cushioning with an enhanced stabilizer heel construction and a natural leather lining that wraps around the foot yet still allowing it to breathe. Available now on Honeyee. (more…)

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  • Keith Haring 20th Anniversary Exhibition Recap | Tony Shafrazi Gallery New York

    March 26th 10, 5:18

    Here is a look at the Keith Haring Exhibition currently on exhibit at Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York. Commemorating the 20th Anniversary of his death, the exhibition showcases an extensive collection of his works from the 80s including some never before seen pieces. The exhibition will enter it’s final week after this weekend and close on the 3rd of April. So make sure you head over to Tony Shafrazi Gallery for a look if you are in the area. (more…)

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  • Cy Twombly: The Ceiling | A Permanent Installation at Louvre

    March 24th 10, 20:00


    Selected by a committee of international experts, Cy Twombly is the third contemporary artist invited to install a permanent work at the Louvre: a painted ceiling for the Salle des Bronzes.

    The permanent installation of 21st century works at the Louvre, the introduction of new elements in the décor and architecture of the palace, is the cornerstone of the museum’s policy relating to contemporary art. This type of ambitious endeavor is in keeping with the history of the palace, which has served since its creation as an ideal architectural canvas for commissions of painted and sculpted decoration projects. Prior to Cy Twombly, the Louvre’s commitment to living artists has resulted in invitations extended to Anselm Kiefer in 2007 and to François Morellet for an installation unveiled earlier in 2010, but these three artists also follow in the footsteps of a long line of predecessors including Le Brun, Delacroix, Ingres and, in the twentieth century, Georges Braque. Twombly’s painting will be showcased on the ceiling of one of the Louvre’s largest galleries, in one of the oldest sections of the museum. It is a work of monumental proportions, covering more than 350 square meters, its colossal size ably served by the painter’s breathtaking and unprecedented vision.
    Twombly’s two best-known trademarks are perhaps the incorporation of passionately scrawled words into his paintings and the energetic use of splashes or drips of vivid colors. In this work, Twombly leaves behind such romantic expressiveness. Here instead, the visitor discovers an immense blue sky, enlivened by the movements of spheres and punctuated by white insets inscribed with the names of the leading Greek sculptors active in the 4th century: Cephisodotus, Lysippus, Myron, Phidias, Polyclitus, Praxiteles and Scopas. (more…)

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  • Neighborhood 2010. 1ST EX Series “The Magnificent Seven”

    March 23rd 10, 4:32

    Neighborhood have given us a full look at their April release of the 2010 1st Ex Collection entitled “The Magnificent Seven” drawing inspiration from both the 1960s American Western Film, and 70s U.K. rock band, The Clash. This latest release includes a range of shirts, denim, alongside a range of accessories all featuring Nbhd’s distinctive punk-inspired attitude and aesthetics.

    (more…)

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  • Visvim Foley Lo Folk Suede

    March 21st 10, 23:09

    Visvim have released their F.I.L. Exclusive Foley Lo Folk on the honeyee store. Featuring a suede upper, lightweight cork midsole, and a simple silhouette resembling the Adidas Campus and the Nike Tennis Classic. We can expect the construction and craftsmanship of the Visvim Foley to be of the highest standards. Available in Sand, Black, Navy, Burgundy, and Brown at the Honeyee Store. (more…)

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  • Daniel Arsham: Animal Architecture | Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin

    March 21st 10, 18:21


    Gallerie Emmanuel Perrotin opened on the 20th of March the exhibition entitled “Animal Architecture” by Daniel Arsham. Straddling between art, architecture, and performance. Arsham has worked across disciplines with Merce Cunningham, Hedi Slimane, Bob Wilson, and Jonah Bokaer. (more…)

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