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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If ever there were an apt description of our time, it would be that we are the ‘mobile generation’, in every sense of the word. We are a people of movers, we are offered choice on so many levels. And, in this way, we are far removed — both in ideology and practice — from those generations before us, who were generally more static and certainly less transitory. Read more
The incendiary energy of Canadian quartet, Tokyo Police Club is electric. We caught up with keyboardist, Graham Wright. Read more
I’ve been a big fan of Michelle Vandermeer’s work since I came across her Mini Majellen zines at this year’s Sydney Writers Festival. Describing herself as a doer — as in one of those people who are always doing or making something — Michelle’s work, which includes book binding, illustration, jewelery making and her zines, stems from an internal creative springboard and a double degree in architecture and graphic design. Her work is smart and succinct. Read more
In my next life, I want to sing like Frightened Rabbit frontman Scott Hutchison. Oh, and grow a lush beard, so I can play in their band. Better start cracking.
The young architect Junya Ishigami is pushing the boundaries of the weightless aesthetic stream of architecture. Here, for the Kanagawa Institute of Technology, he has designed a glass and steel pavilion with a roof that floats on a sparse forest of thin steel columns or ‘flats’. Read more
A new idea has emerged in Norway that we think could be the precursor to things to come in the way our societies interact and develop. The general gradual demise of traditional gathering places such as town halls, community centers and churches has seemingly gone in hand with a generational shift and sharp increase in online virtual communities. However, humans still need to rub shoulders at some point to get things done, until, say, we perfect the sensitive hologram. Read more
The Virtual Shoe Museum was initiated by Liza Snook in 2004. Once the idea was born, a long search began for designers, photographers and publishers connected to shoes. New friendships developed and their mailbox filled with loads of material on fantastic shoes, art and design on shoes. The Shoe featured above is the Electric Light Shoe by Strawberry Frog.
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French design dynamo Jean-Marie Massaud has created a Manned Cloud. A cruise airship with a hotel for 40 passengers and 15 staff, Massaud worked with the Office National d’Etudes et de Recherche Aérospatiale in this proposal. Read more
Ok, so I’m speaking from first-hand perspective here because as I type on this warm morning, with the faintest slither of sun creeping its way through the privacy blinds in my living room, I’m wearing the very same shirt that the dude in this photo is wearing. Yup, the same damn one. Perhaps I’m not looking quite as groomed as he is, but hey, it’s a start. Australian fashion label Das Monk is my new favourite t-shirt label and this shirt is more comfortable to wear that a thousand pairs of Ozone socks. Das Monk? Yes it is.
Chris Mars paints the kind of paintings you’d expect to find in the basement of a serial killer after he’s shown the cops where all the bodies are. Read more
A master of juxtaposition, Canadian photographer Liz Wolfe has updated her site with her newest series which focuses on characters and confection. The photos are never what they first seem, revealing something a little more macabre on closer inspection: a meat tree, a diseased dear, a melting icy pole dripping blood. It’s all presented in hyper-real candy colours.
Philip Toledano’s photo series, ‘Days with my Father’
Photographer Philip Toledano’s photo essay, Days with My Father, documents his 98-year-old father. Accompanied by some simple text, the images are intimate, heart-breaking, and ethereal, honestly depicting the nuances and tenderness of the photographer’s relationship with his subject. Read more
Thanks to our friends at Universal Music, we have three Beck 7″ vinyl Chemtrails singles, off his new Modern Guilt album, to give away to randomly selected Australian subscribers. Read more
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