Like householders the world over, Perth sculptor Christian de Vietri has been spending time in IKEA. Loitering in the Faktum kitchen and between the Billy bookcases, slumped on the Klippan two-seater and filling his pockets with allen keys, de Vietri is assembling something of a different order. For his latest work Configuration 3: Nuclear family fusion, 2006, currently on show at new Sydney gallery space thirtyseven degrees, De Vietri has taken the components of various IKEA products - the wooden structures of a bunk bed, curtain rails, parts of a rotating cupboard, knives, chopping board sets, chairs and tables - and created from them a tool of torture: a 3 x 3 metre ‘Infrafamily Conflict Resolution Unit’. Imagine a whirligig plus prodding stick: a contemporary reinvention of the barbarous medieval pillory, into which offenders were locked by their hands and neck and forced to rotate aimlessly, incessantly. For anyone who has done battle with a DIY assembly kit, it is clear that De Vietri has not so much transformed these IKEA products as pushed them to their cruel and natural conclusion: IKEA - the cycle of production and consumption - here reads as torture, as gross spectacle. It is possible, however, that the artist’s reasons for loitering in the local IKEA are far more mundane. A multi-award winner, having bagged the Art & Australia/ ANZ Private Bank Prize for emerging artists, the QANTAS Spirit of Youth Award, a Nescafe Big Break grant and the honorific title ‘West Australian Citizen of the Year’, Christian de Vietri is a man in dire need of a trophy cabinet.
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Also by KATRINA SCHWARZ
Australian fashion brand Lover, founded by Susien Chong and Nic Briand in 2001, arouses a particular type of devotion. Like the fashionable muses that inspire Lover’s strong and feminine collections – Patty Hearst for the ‘Black Rose Army’ (Spring/Summer 06/07); Rolling Stones groupies and biker babes for ‘Altamont’ (Winter 07) – fans of Lover know all about yearning, obsession … and waiting lists. Get in the swim and place your pre-orders for Lover’s newly launched Spring/Summer line, ‘One Plus One’, which includes the label’s first foray into swimming cossies.
Hot Box, by Barcelona-based Ana Mir and Emili Padros — for Emiliana Design Studio — is a design object with a different type of consumer in mind. If most highfalutin design firms pitch their sleek wares at Prada-clad architects and inner-city aspirants, the envisaged audience for the Emiliana Hot Box is another breed entirely: the chilly sex worker. A translucent structure that emerges from the ground, the Hot Box was created with the notion of providing warmth and light for those who spend a long time waiting on the street — namely prostitutes. Read more
In the 1985 movie Weird Science, a pair of happy misfits use tip-top technology and nerdy know-how to create something truly beautiful: in the form of ‘real life’ woman and sexed up diva Kellie Le Brock. The Australian fashion label Romance Was Born have created something equally beguiling with their Spring/Summer 07/08 collection, also called Weird Science. Sending coke-bottle spectacles, high-waisted acid wash and even a DNA inspired headdress down the runway at Rosemount Fashion Week, a real highlight of the collection is the label’s collaboration with hot Sydney artist Del Kathryn Barton. Del Kathryn Barton, who has previously collaborated on the label’s Regional Australia collection, will once again provide a unique fabric print that will be reproduced across a range of garments. Romance’s own misfit duo, Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales, know nerds get their revenge in the end. [see also Del Kathryn Barton]
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There’s some awesome new work up on New York-based illustrator, Sam Weber’s website, including this one above which is did for the Soulpepper Theatre. We asked him a little while back about what his studio workspace was like: ‘I am fairly particular about where I like to work, and what sort of stuff I like to have around me. There are things that I look at often — a book of Max Ernst collages, one on Yoshitaka Amano, and a big stack of clippings from magazines and the Internet that I will periodically leaf through to get inspired’. Read more
I’m a big fan of Alex Turner’s side project, The Last Shadow Puppets. It’s just really good music. When I first got their record, I didn’t know if it was a re-issue or if it was brand new. It doesn’t sound like a jokey pastiche. It sounds sincere.
I wish I could remember my dreams more often. I wish the damn things wouldn’t go in one ear and straight out the other. Who plants them and why? And how come the few I recall are like tiny portions of an indie blockbuster, minus the credible acting and the killer plot twists. Sigh. Life is like a dream sometimes. And then you wake up. [illustration by Sam Weber]
The New York Times recently posted a selection of Mad Magazine fold-ins from the past 40 years of the magazine’s history. The feature allows you to actually fold the images to reveal the decoded message and picture.
Says Van She bassist and vocalist Matt Van Schie about the Bush Tetras track — Too Many Creeps — from 1982: ‘I LOOOVE this tune. It opens with a perfect snare roll, and then the counter bass and guitar rhythms make it so cool. The lyrics are even more valid today. They’re one of my favourite bands of all time, and so many people try to do what they did for real. What a time! I wish I was born back then in New York, hanging out with these kids. Ahhhh!!’
Having lived in New York for over two years now, transplanted from the sunny beachside landscape of Sydney, Australia, I appreciate the gritty realism, yet positiveness and vibrancy in the photographic series on Manhattan locals by British writer and photographer, Ian Woolverton. In addition to his talents with the lense, Woolverton also has two humanitarian awards: one for the Australian Red Cross Service Medal for his achievements in the Bali bomb response and the other, Australian Government’s Humanitarian Overseas Service Medal, for covering the tsunami in Aceh. Read more
These Internal Organ Keds by Dynomoose remind me of the posters in front of Chinese foot massage places that show how different parts of the foot correspond to an organ in the body.
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Produced by In The Yellow, this six and half inch tall vinyl toy by Luke Chueh is limited to just one hundred pieces and comes in clear colorway with silver eyes.
We asked Arizona-based artist Joe Sorren what we would have been if he hadn’t been handed the most ridiculously generous serving of artistic talent: ‘Art historian and conservationalist. Or a botanist. Or I’d work with horses. It would be interesting to be behind the scenes in politics, at least for a while. Or maybe a studio musician, or invent games, or a … I would rather paint’. Ah, we agree.
Muraida, Radioactive Green Edition
This wicked new villain, Muraida, from the OSK line is a 10 inch vinyl with six points of articulation. It comes in a combination of solid and clear vinyl, and is packed with more punch than a thousand GI Joe’s.
James Blagden’s neon fantasies
New York illustrator James Blagden’s work is so wonderfully trippy, I feel like I need to wear shades and a top hat when looking at them just to do them justice. Read more
Chris Ware is my favorite comic book artist. If there’s a new Chris Ware book out, I buy it, no questions asked. He writes the most somber, sad stories about the simplest of people, but they’re written and illustrated with such beauty and elegance. All of the text and graphic design is done by hand. It’s absolutely mind blowing. Read more
Legendary pop culture artist and Agit Pop founder Ron English will be a guest compiler of an upcoming issue of our email newsletter, writing about his favorite cultural discoveries. To read Ron’s edition of Lost At E Minor, simply sign up to our weekly newsletter. It’s free, you win!
Made from 100 percent organic cotton and eco-friendly, this super soft tee celebrates a sinister world of kaleidoscopic colours and ripples of psychedelia, of serenading Queens, of dancing flamingos, of unimaginable euphoria. It’s all the work of Sydney label, Das Monk and it’s available through the Lost At E Minor online store for just US$40. Now, there’s one hell of a Christmas present, even if we do say so ourselves!
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