Don’t Mess with Art

Luxor Temple stone relief (Luxor, Egypt): 3,500 years old

 Ding Jinhao (of Nanjing, China): 15 years old

Ding Jinhao inscription on stone relief at Luxor Temple (May 2013) (click on image to view source)

runic inscription by Norse Halfdan at Hagia Sophia (400 AD aprox) (click on image to view source)

15 year-old Jinhao went Halfdan on a stone relief at the Luxor Temple with the totally unoriginal graffiti marker: Ding Jinhao was here (in Chinese) in May of this year. A Norse named Halfdan did likewise on a parapet of the Hagia Sophia (Istanbul, Turkey) some 1,113 years ago and now that graffiti (ahem, runic inscription) is a historical marker itself. There should be a book with phrases that prospective graffiti makers could consult that would aid those without creativity when they are fucking up really, really old shit. If you’re going put a single mark (or series of marks) on something that had survived fairly well for some 3,000 years before you came along, why not put some more thought into it? Critique of the graffiti itself aside, the act troubles a ton of people (rightly so). I mean, the graffiti was noticed and an investigation took place. The Chinese tracked this kid down in a day! Do you know how many human atrocities take place around the world everyday that go unnoticed and/or not investigated? This case of Jinhao and his inscription has had this big viral outrage of Oh, my gosh! (and other such more heavy, intellectual speculation). Kudos to the art world on this one! Rapists, murders, human traffickers and the such go unnoticed and authorities have a hard time investigating or even tracking down the perpetrators, but the world is rocked by this 15 year old Chinese tourist how wrote his name on a piece of 3,500 year old stone. Let this be a lesson: Don’t mess with Art History peoples or we will track your ass down and make you apologize! (or make your mom apologize as was the case with Jinhao)

Klein blue, who knew?

The Monotone Symphony (1960) done in International Klein Blue

‘The blue sky is my first artwork’ said Yves Klein // He signed the sky in 1948 

In 1958, at the Iris Clert Gallery in Paris, Klein served blue cocktails (made with Gin, Cointreau and Methylene Blue) that caused visitors to urinate blue for days.

He created blue monochromes.

He painted with nude bodies of women covered in blue in his Monotone Symphony (1960).

12 years after he signed the sky, Yves Klein got a French patent on the color blue. Well, his color blue anyway. International Klein Blue (IKB // patent # 63471) is Klein’s blue. It is Hex Value #002FA7, Pantone #286 (96%)

Godfrey, Tony. Conceptual Art (pp. 89-70)

(Click on image to read more about International Klein Blue)

What typeface is the Declaration of Independence set in?

Declaration of Independence (1776)

The typeface used for the Declaration of Independence is Caslon. Caslon was designed by William Caslon I in approximately 1722. Printed by John Dunlap, this broadside is all that is left of the original Declaration of Independence that George Washington read to his troops on 9 July 1776.

For more information visit the American Treasures of the Library of Congress:

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trt024.html (or click on the image)

For more about the Dunlap Broadside:

http://fontsinuse.com/uses/1666/the-dunlap-broadside

the tin book

Tullio D’Albisola

The futurist sculptor Tullio D’Albisola created a book that aligned itself with the machine and movement. In his ‘litho-tin’ book “Tactile Thermal Olfactive Futurist Words in Freedom (1932),” D’Albisola combined his lithographs along with poetry by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in an experimental book that reflects the Futurist view of the book as object (the book object). D’Albisola spent over 4 months creating this rare book made out of tin, ball barings, and wire. Tin is a disposable material used by D’Albisola to reference the temporarily of commodities and mass printed ephemera. He gave the reader a familiar yet unfamiliar experience with text – the few who have actually had the opportunity to experience one of only two that exist in the public sphere (this one at home in the British Library).

European Cultures: Studies in Literature and the Arts, International Futurism in Arts and Literature (p. 483)

This Stool Rocks - Fabsie

Reblogged from surface & surface:

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Here's a new kickstarter from a fellow Irish Architect James McBennett (Fabsie) looking for support for a really great initiative to produce ready to assemble on demand laser cut plywood furniture. The stools come in 3 different designs and can all be out together in less than a minute.

www.fabsie.com

visual sound

His voice is metal-colored, horn-shaped.

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale (p. 21)

Temporality of the Written Word

In Walden, Henry David Thoreau wrote that “A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips; –not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself.”

My graphic design history professor has laid out before me a truth of life that has its origin in the dawn of civilization. It is a thread that has run through all humanity that will continue to do so until the end of time. That truth has to do with the relationship between text and humanity. Humanity breaths life into text and text breaths life into humanity – and as such, it is a marker of time, place, society, history, etc.- as noted by Thoreau. I am reminded of this symbiotic, temporal relationship in almost every reading that he has assigned to the class. The following are just a few examples of this truth:

“All form is either a development or a degradation of forms used hundreds of years ago.” (Morris)

“A book is a flexible mirror of the mind and the body. It’s overall [design] reveals a little about the world in which it was made.” (Bringhurst)

“The identity of a typeface resides not only in its look, but also in the ideas and ideals that its formal sensibility expresses.” (Drucker)

Sources: 

Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style (p. 143)

William Morris, The Lesser Arts (p. 35)

Johanna Drucker, Graphic Design History: A Critical Guide (p. 96)