Rothko Exhibition
I finally made it to the Rothko exhibition at the Tate Modern last week. Its in its final week and closes on the 1st of Feb. Being a huge Rothko fan, I couldn’t give up this opportunity to see more of his work in the flesh. The exhibition at the Tate is focused on his later works, which stemmed from his Seagram Murals series. This series was initially commissioned to be hung in a dining room at the iconic modernist building, Seagrams Building, built by Mies Van der Rohe in New York. Rothko famously withdrew from the commission after working on the paintings citing the unsuitability of the site for his paintings, allowing a much wider audience to discover his works.
The exhibition consisted of 9 rooms, with the largest room housing the Seagram Murals, bringing together Tate’s own collection, with Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art in Washington. The other significant collection was the Black collection and his later works Brown and Gray works on paper.
I made it a point on not reading any reviews or researching about Rothko before going to the exhibition. I wanted to experience it ’pure’ as it were. And it did not disappoint! It was visceral, absolutely absorbing and undeniably primal. What was really paradoxical, was that his large paintings were very, very intimate rather than distant. The subtlety of his strokes, mastery of colour and layers is amazing. Sitting and staring intently at his creations reveals so many different imagery. I was also happy to discover his Black series, which as the name suggest, was painted using the black pallet. Of course its not as dull as pure black, its a Rothko, meaning that even using a single hue, he can create depth and visual interest in them. They are extremely powerful as a series and probably my second favourite Rothko series after the Seagrams Murals.
As a whole, the exhibition was extraordinary. I only wished there were less people, the crowds did make it difficult to truly enjoy his works. That’s why i love sitting in the Rothko room at the Tate, usually its empty and fill with regulars rather than passing visitors. You’re generally find me there, having a quiet sit.
New Interface!
Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard
Speechless!
International Journal of Design Vol.2 No.3
Volume 2, Issue 3 of the International Journal of Design has been published and is freely available online. Its a
Happy New Year - A new look for 2009
This is one of my favorite pictures of 2008 taken in Krakow.
2009 haven’t even began and I’m already on target with my new year resolutions! The promised new look of the website has arrived. Its completely driven by Wordpress now, rather than just the blog section. Hopefully this will make updating the site a whole lot easier and quicker. The site is divided into sections (research, design, type, photography). The right column contains sub-pages of each section as well as links that are relevant to the section.
I’ve added new content which are mostly in the Design and Photography sections, and taken some Teaching materials away. I will update this section after the new year. I’ve also decided not to move any post older than a couple of years old, I feel like a fresh start. Although, being sentimental, I’ve decided to keep posts that marked turning points of my life in the last couple of years. My 2nd new year resolution is to make sure that the post gets updated and content renewed every few months or so.
Thank you for your visit. Enjoy.
Favourite TED Videos
Recently, I’ve been using TED’s videos as a resource for my Contemporary Issues class that I teach to the MA students. The selection is eclectic, but usually linked to areas of Social, Economic, Technological, Environmental and Political issues. Instead of putting them all here, I’ve listed the ones which are my favourite in terms of most inspirational, informational and convincing.
1. Hans Rosling: Making Stats Sexy
2. Isabel Allende: Tales of passion
3. Cameron Sinclair Open-source architecture
4. Edward Burtnsky – manufactured landscape
5. Jonathan Harris: The art of collecting stories
Revamp Resolution
I’ve decided that the site needs a revamp…and also to make it easier for me to update the content - not just the blog. So an early new year’s resolution…I will try to get a new site up and running early next year. Hopefully by making this public, I will actually get down to doing this. Can you believe my WordPress version 1.2?
Creative Cities Talk by Scott Burnham
Went to a talk organised by DE07 event. Its entitled Creative Cities by Scott Burnham. I found him to be an enthusiastic speaker and in stark contrast to a talk I attended by Ben Drury (but I wont talk about that). Scott brought up issues relating to how a post-industrial city define itself. If they chose to define themselves as a ‘creative city’ - how then do we enable the public to be part of that creative dialogue? How do you get the public to reclaim public spaces and use them as creative outputs? His talk did not offer any practical answers to these question, merely some suggestions to how other artist have sought to address them through independent and fringe efforts. Some of the links that I found particularly exciting are:
Graffiti Research Lab
“Throwies LED”
(Check out their other projects as well)
Abstractor / Ji LEE
How to make abstract art…
Roadsworth
Playing havoc with road markings.
more commentary
You are Beautiful
Playful communication
(click on 1st row, the 5th down, with the fence cups)
Graphic Design Research Symposium
I’ll be giving a presentation at the Graphic Design Research Symposium to be held at Nottingham Trent University. Its a free half day event designed to demystify the process of embarking on a research degree, and to encourage Doctoral research in graphic design and its related areas. It will be on the 12th of September, from 1.30pm to 5pm. Teal Triggs will be the keynote speaker while Joe Eastwood, Rob Hillier and myself will be presenting case studies of our PhD experiences. More information can be found in the event’s leaflet. If you would like to attend, email Rob Harland before the 5th of September.
1st journal publishing
My first paper to be published in a journal is finally available. Its on the CG Publisher site which publishes a number of online journals.
Folded Square
Just redesigned a site called Folded Square which sells award winning origami paper and modelling packs. My favourite origami model is the frog. Have a look at their unique 26 models here.