this is not so much a survey of American Makers and Observers; it is a diagnostic. Which is both a more clinical, and yet, humanizing term—there is the implication of a surgical approach to explaining a very living breathing subject matter—American design
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Friday, 27 January 12 - 04:06 PM (GMT -06:00) By ro / lu in design |
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chicago friends!
celebrate the release of temperature 2012, a book project curated by claire warner and sam vinz of volume gallery this saturday 01/28/12 at andrew rafacz gallery.
rolu is super honored to be included. i'll share the interview we did here at some point.
released in conjunction with The home front: american design now series at mad / museum of arts and design - curated by dan rubinstein.
Temperature 2012 includes content from: Lindsey Adelman, Tanya Aguiniga, Brian Anderson, Alan Brake, Rafael de Cardenas, Wendell Castle, Isaac Chen,CMMNWLTH, Joe Doucet, Felicia Ferrone, Patrick Gavin, Johanna Grawunder, Jerry Helling, Christopher Ho, Sung Jang, Michael Jefferson, Seth Keller, Scott Klinker, Christy MacLear, Kiel Mead, Moorhead & Moorhead, Jonathan Muecke, Jonathan Nesci, Object Design League, Charlie O’Geen, Patrick Parrish, Parrish Rash & van Diesel, Rich Brilliant Willing, Jen Renzi, Meaghan Roddy, ROLU, Dan Rubinstein, Silva/Bradshaw, Snarkitecture, Southern Design Concern, Brooks Hudson Thomas, Thaddeus Wolfe, Phillips Michael Wolfson.
so many of our favorite people!
please say hello for us if you can go!
posted by rolu
Noun "waste of time" - the devotion of time to a useless activity; "the waste of time could prove fatal" waste, wastefulness, dissipation - useless or profitless activity; using or expending or consuming thoughtlessly or carelessly; "if the effort brings-
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Friday, 27 January 12 - 12:49 PM (GMT -06:00) By ro / lu in misc |
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watching the australian open semis murray vs. djokovic (go murray!) the match is over but i don't know who won. i'm going to send murray my copy of this.
the sound is off and i'm listening to these.
i am laughing hard sometimes.
via javier peres on facebook.
have a good weekend.
posted by matt olson
In david Bohm's view, all the separate objects, entities, structures, and events in the visible or explicate world around us are relatively autonomous, stable, and temporary "subtotalities" derived from a deeper, implicate order of unbroken wholeness.
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Friday, 27 January 12 - 12:03 PM (GMT -06:00) By ro / lu in misc |
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between the photos of primary colors in the last post about fort standard's blocks...
greg.org's amazing post about the ellsworth kelly paper printed up in germany...
and the article in last sunday's ny times about ellsworth kelly...
how could i not share these amazing pieces by marine huggonier?
"In david Bohm's view, all the separate objects, entities, structures, and events in the visible or explicate world around us are relatively autonomous, stable, and temporary "subtotalities" derived from a deeper, implicate order of unbroken wholeness. Bohm gives the analogy of a flowing stream:
On this stream, one may see an ever-changing pattern of vortices, ripples, waves, splashes, etc., which evidently have no independent existence as such. Rather, they are abstracted from the flowing movement, arising and vanishing in the total process of the flow. Such transitory subsistence as may be possessed by these abstracted forms implies only a relative independence or autonomy of behaviour, rather than absolutely independent existence as ultimate substances.
so please enjoy the visual and philosophical connections you make today.
and go from fragmentation to wholeness.
posted by matt olson
Fort Standard is a contemporary design studio founded in 2011 by Gregory Buntain and Ian Collings. Having studied Industrial Design together at New York’s Pratt Institute and The Bauhaus University in Weimar Germany, their work is a fusion of craft-based
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Friday, 27 January 12 - 11:41 AM (GMT -06:00) By ro / lu in design |
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awesome to see our pals fort standard in nyc last week!
we met last spring through the noho next exhibit. they are great.
their hardwood blocks are amazing. only $85 for a bag full!
please enjoy the time while it is passing.
posted by matt olson
"when we see a picture that presents us with an image and when we have to confirm this by reading a word that is written nearby, obviously the operation has not been a success. we can't tell if the word or the image is the object. therefore the word... "
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Thursday, 26 January 12 - 08:37 AM (GMT -06:00) By ro / lu in art |
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aperture 8 (1965) and d867 (1967) - giulio paolini
please enjoy your day.
posted by matt olson
both are in the present so knowledge of the past is needed to continuous deduce future behavior (in terms of casual relation). for one to see the other in terms of present attention there is a mirror-reflection (of past/future) cross of effect(s). both...
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Wednesday, 25 January 12 - 08:36 AM (GMT -06:00) By ro / lu in art |
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publicity photo dan graham made for the piece post future split attention.
please enjoy the present.
posted by matt olson
"there are lots of images in the work but i'm not sure they're standing still - meaning - this is the only thing you're looking at... with the pictures i took in alaska, you're actually looking at something that can't be grabbed in a picture: the future."
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Tuesday, 24 January 12 - 02:07 PM (GMT -06:00) By ro / lu in art |
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towards tomorrow (international date line alaska) 2001 - marine hugonnier
marine hugonnier bender this afternoon.
"there are lots of images in the work. but i'm not sure they're standing still-meaning-this is the only thing you're looking at... with the pictures i took in alaska, you're actually looking at something that can't be grabbed in a picture: the future." via
here's to the future (which is already the past)
but please enjoy both.
posted by matt olson
fantasy is often posited as the antithesis of reality, but this is a fallacy. fantasy is a part of reality - perhaps the most vibrant, and certainly its most fun. without fantasy, the reality we inhabit would not only be grayer; it would not exist at all
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Monday, 23 January 12 - 01:01 PM (GMT -06:00) By ro / lu in art |
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the residue of a flare ingnited upon a boundary (1969) - lawrence weiner
(chemistry), material remaining after a distillation or an evaporation, or portion of a larger molecule - In particular, in biology, often refers specifically to an amino acid
(law), portion of the testator's estate that is not specifically devised to someone
(complex analysis), mathematics, complex number describing the behavior of line integrals of a meromorphic function around a singularity
(agricultural), Crop residue, materials left after agricultural processes
(relatioship), lingering feelings occurring after the commencement of a relationship often brought about by the unwillingness of one party to let go which can lead to sporadic emotional discharges.
Residue may also be: a) The remainder in modular arithmetic b) The heavier fractions of crude oil that fail to vaporize in an oil refinery
via wikipedia title via 032c
or is everything the residue of time?
please enjoy the time while it is passing by.
posted by matt olson
Music, happiness, mythology, faces belabored by time, certain twilights and places try to tell us something, or have said something we shouldn't have missed, or are about to say something; this imminence of a revelation which does not occur is, perhaps...
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Thursday, 19 January 12 - 07:38 PM (GMT -06:00) By ro / lu in misc |
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scenes from nyc part two.
amy's shirt (kinda)!
happy birthday e! (again : - )
i see kersti everyday on my coffee table. fun to see people irl!
magical & otherwise and amy! awesomeness.
for some reason seeing this every day made me think of this... every single day.
dia: beacon bound
this guy was here to greet us.
Jean-Luc Moulène! loved - loved - loved!
anonymous friends in cool clothes.
phillipe vergne's bentley
kiosk was closed : - (
spring street lombardi's was open : - )
big daddy cane! aka mondo patrick.
eric timothy carlson aka etc (who we did this & this with)
obsessed with these.
project no 8 = maison martin margiela oxfords for amy!
quality time with kyle (& aapc!) amazing energy. something great is coming soon.
went to see the maurizio cattelan show all. loved it! loved...
when i see this? i think of this... always.
one last look around brian and elizabeth's back yard. we loved staying here.
then off to the standard to watch the sunset...
looking south.
looking north.
i've always loved a reflection on a window.
late night snack.
then it was morning. (i got new shoes at project no 8 too!)
bye nyc
we'll be back soon! thanks so much everybody!
please enjoy the time while it is passing us by.
sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.
posted by matt olson
The systematic study of gratitude within psychology only began around the year 2000, possibly because psychology (and pop culture) has traditionally been focused more on understanding distress rather than understanding positive emotions. However, with...
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Saturday, 14 January 12 - 08:01 AM (GMT -06:00) By ro / lu in misc |
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my wife amy and i arrived in nyc exhausted.
we're staying in the new issue of apartamento. photo in magazine by mondo patrick.
amazing place amazing people.
blurring the lines? blurring the picture. amy and doug johnston.
the museum of art and design for blurring the lines panel.
awesomeness. i want one of these for the rolu scrapbook!
l-r felix burrichter, adam lindemann, christy maclear, myself, rafael de cardenas
such an honor for me. totally amazing people.
then amazing food and celebration at en.
an absolutely wonderful night. "gratitude is heaven" - blake
please enjoy the time while it passes.
posted by matt olson
ROLU’s Shapes After Guy (and Lost at Sea) necklaces resemble the trio’s plywood furniture, but take inspiration from the late artist Guy de Cointet. Say the designers: “In life, one becomes aware of a language beyond words: metaphysics, mystery, Bohm’s...
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Friday, 13 January 12 - 11:20 AM (GMT -06:00) By ro / lu in design |
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shapes after guy (and lost at sea) by rolu
available at sight unseen shop!
more here. so excited!
please enjoy your time.
posted by matt olson
rolu Haiku: you become yourself / while you become each other / again and again | pic is 1 of 3 posters made @ "graphic design: now in production" @ the walker ‘When Does Something, Become Something Else? Again and Again and Again,’ the tentative title...
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Thursday, 12 January 12 - 08:11 AM (GMT -06:00) By ro / lu in design |
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1/3 of 3 posters "when does something become something else again & again & again" poster fabrication by jurg lehni
so honored to be featured on the always great sight unseen. chk it!
we designed some jewelry for their shop too! more tomorrow.
please enjoy the time as it passes by again and again and...
posted by matt olson
As soon as a fact is narrated no longer with a view to acting directly on reality but intransitively, that is to say, finally outside of any function other than that of the very practice of the symbol itself, this disconnection occurs, the voice loses its
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Wednesday, 11 January 12 - 11:02 AM (GMT -06:00) By ro / lu in design |
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honored to be in the new surface magazine. beautifully photographed by with text by.
after u.r. (a magnetic superbox) was made for the exhibition "truth in form, reason for being" at wright 21. curated by claire warner and sam vinz who founded the fantastic chicago based volume gallery.
most of the time, i don't attempt to talk or write much about our work as its meaning changes so often for me that it seems sort of pointless. for some reason though, i feel compelled to share a bit more about this project and some of the thoughts and questions we've wandered into.
i'll start with the history of after u.r. (a magnetic superbox) as i remember it. twice in the same day - april 15th last spring - i encountered the work of an artist i wasn't familiar with named ullrich rückreim. first while i was reading avalanche magazine #3 and then later an image on joe gilmore's blog void (). the work in avalanche was mostly large outdoor stone sculpture that may have slipped past me had i not seen the work on joe's blog which was an image of the artist drawing circles around himself. intrigued, i googled his name and came across a photo, a pair of sculptures, that really, really struck me. i used the photo and the image i'd found on void () to make my own blog post. i was haunted by the sculptures for weeks. a month or two later, i tried to research the pieces but in the time that had passed, the photo of the two sculptures seemed to have disappeared from the internet with the exception of my post. a few days after my failed attempt at research, i encountered a large rock in northern minnesota that reminded me of the rückreim works. it's a landmark in the area because of it's size, but the thing i liked best? its magnetic properties. seemed like a perfect metaphor and a sort of mystical command that we make something to respond to the rückreim pieces which were mysterious not only in scale but lacked any kind of solid contextual information. we made a pair of cabinets that were based on what we saw in the photograph... we attempted to replicate the shapes as closely as we could using cheap materials we bought at the hardware store (as always : - ) and they ended up looking like this...
photo of after u.r (a magnetic superbox) by thea dickman / photo of work by ullrich rückreim unknown
so we sent these shapes back into the world as cabinets without knowing any more about the rückreim sculptures. just when we'd moved on we were contacted by ben heywood, the curator of the great minneaplis gallery the soap factory. he'd dropped us a note of congrats and said it was fun seeing those rückreim shapes again. wait. "what?" we asked... "you mean you know something about these?" it turned out ben had been involved in commissioning these sculptures when he worked at the henry moore foundation many years ago. there were nine in all. and we had the scale all wrong. ours were much smaller.
in the end, it felt like the rückreim work had sought us out... found us as much as we may have found it. amazing.
so what is this act of taking forms and recontextualizing through material? what are we doing? i attempted to explain this to my (amazing) friend john fleischer this afternoon... but it really seems to depend on the day.
sometimes it seems like we're looking at photos of objects, architecture, sculpture, design, etc. and turning them back into objects. trying to recreate a photo in 3d and, in the process, learning about how we interpret what we see. so much of the work i love i experience only through photographs and documentation. there are so many (unasked) questions i inherently answer (intuitively and instantly) when i first look at an image of an object or sculpture. is an experience with a photograph of an object less than a physical encounter with the object? something tells me yes but, either way, you are left with a memory which is, for me, hard to feel too concrete about over time.
other times it seems like we are exploring form. trying to unravel what makes an object powerful to us... is it the shape? the materials? the scale? the setting or place? and what do these things have to do with meaning?
it also feels related to internet language translators and the poetic possibility that's often present. i love that something very specific in japanese comes out beautifully clumsy, but essentially with the same meaning in english. what is the visual equivalent?
the ideas john cage spoke of about randomness and sound... they connect me to the beauty of field recordings. what is the visual equivalent of a field recording? is it looking at a thousand photos of art / design related things via tumblrs and blogs every day? and then turning the memory based residue back into something?
sometimes it seems like a sort of pseudo-appropriation, like using a quote by someone else in an essay.
i think often about something jo-ey tang said to me: "a ventriloquism of form" which leads me to "sitting as seeing" and "writing as sculpture" and "making as thinking" the critic Jeff Kelley writes “(allan) kaprow downplayed the significance of formal structure and social commentary in favor of direct experience … If you don't do the work, he seems to be saying, you can't reflect upon its meaning.”
and "we are following the work. the work is following us. we are both bewildering each other. we are giving the photos a kind of life they have never had before." - rauschenberg quote adjusted by rolu
"she knows that the content of her thoughts consists entirely of what she's read, heard, spoken, dreamt, and thought about what she's read, heard, spoken, and dreamt. she knows that thought is not something privileged, autonomous, originative, and that the formulation "cogito ergo sum" is, to say the least, inaccurate. she knows too that her notion of "concrete experience" is an idealized, fictional site where contradictions can be resolved, "personhood" demonstrated and desire fulfilled forever. yet all the same the magical, seductive, narrative properties of "yes i was talking..." draw her with an inevitability that makes her slightly dizzy. she stands trembling between fascination and skepticism. she moves obstinately between the two." - from "looking myself in the mouth" by yvonne rainer
most of the time it feels like all of the above. and this! it definitely feels like this.
please enjoy the time as it passes by.
posted by matt olson
bad day #12 features James Franco, Peter Saville, Barbara Kruger, Erwin Wurm, Miranda July, PFFR, William Hundley, ROLU, & Julia Text: Bruce LaBruce, Adam Jackson, Sheila Heti, Cathérine Hug, Juliana Moore, Glenn O’Brien, Adam O’Reilly, & Patrick parrish!
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Tuesday, 10 January 12 - 02:44 PM (GMT -06:00) By ro / lu in design |
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update: there's something wrong with my blog and i can't upload photos! so, i'll just change the date on an older post. i've already posted about this but i want to direct you over to mondoblogo where you can read the full interview i did with patrick ... aka mondo patrick aka p-dawg aka - read it! always a pleasure talking with the master.
ps. hi jennilee!
so psyched for the new bad day magazine! #12
rolu interviewed by patrick parrish / mondo blogo
photographed by cameron wittig. we are honored.
buy your copy here! and have a bad day and ...
please enjoy everything / everywhere in entirety.
posted by matt olson.
Goshka Macuga has become internationally known for using institutional histories as staging grounds for complex proposals. For her first solo museum exhibition in the United States, the London-based Polish artist seizes upon the Walker’s financial underpi
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Tuesday, 10 January 12 - 01:45 PM (GMT -06:00) By ro / lu in art |
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somehow missed goshka macuga chatting with curators peter eleey and bartholomew ryan about her exhibit it broke from within at the walker art center last year.
one of my favorite exhibits in recent memory.
please enjoy the time while it passes.
posted by matt olson
Along with an ever-growing public awareness for contemporary art comes an increased interest in architecture and design. As a result more and more young designers’ careers are being launched not in showrooms, but in galleries, and collectors commission...
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Friday, 06 January 12 - 12:38 PM (GMT -06:00) By ro / lu in design |
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panel discussion at the museum of art and design next thursday (01/12/12)
psyched! tix and details here.
four of my art/chitecure/design heroes. totally honored to be a part of it!
please enjoy the blurry lines that exist everywhere today.
posted by matt olson
These vesels, masks and sculptures utilize an old crafting technique in which rope or cord is coiled and stitched to forms bowls and baskets. The technique is itself based on the ancient method of making ceramic coiled pots as well as coiled basketry. The
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Friday, 06 January 12 - 08:26 AM (GMT -06:00) By ro / lu in art |
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ropeworks / sash cord studies! been meaning to blog this forever. love!
visit the shop.
rolu / doug johnston collab coming in the future. awesomeness.
please enjoy the time while it is passing.
posted by matt olson
everyone has an invisible bubble around their bodies. among its uses, the bubble limits just how close someone may approach before one feels uneasy; and it also precisely limits one's approach to another. among friends the bubble can shrink a few inches -
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Thursday, 05 January 12 - 08:40 AM (GMT -06:00) By ro / lu in art |
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now you can say you read a book today.
please enjoy your bubble.
posted by matt olson
I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities that I have visited, the art i've seen, my ancestors... I am not sure of anything, I know nothing.
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Tuesday, 03 January 12 - 09:37 PM (GMT -06:00) By ro / lu in art |
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Untitled (To Elizabeht and Richard Koshalek) - dan flavin
absolutely gorgeous early 70s walker art center pics that are a part of a great post called from the archives: 1971 and "everything that is farthest out in the current art scene" by our friend julie cagnilia.
slant, light, volume - robert irwin
the walker's collections catalogue bits and pieces just today found a home in our library... (can't really believe we didn't already have it!) so you can expect us to spend a lot of time diggin in the crates in the coming weeks.
for me, more and more, the past becomes the present.
please enjoy the time while it passes (and comes back.)
posted by matt olson
"Digression is an essential part of creating. It’s like hiking — every path that opens up in front of you is a viable one until it’s not, and then you find another or retrace your steps. It's a way of seeing more of the mountain." - various projects
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Thursday, 29 December 11 - 10:02 AM (GMT -06:00) By ro / lu in design |
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limited edition angora-covered Cappellini chairs
various projects (elizabeth beer and brian janusiak) made these beautiful and now, sadly poetic chairs as an extension of their collaborations with the late tobias wong.
short interview here at surface magazine.
more at elizabeth and brian's retail space project no 8.
please enjoy the time as it passes.
and the digressions that create a new path, again and again and again...
posted by matt olson
... More items are available in our News Archive
