How Might One Live? #1: The Present Group

I am on a Deleuze kick at the moment and am loving the question he poses.... 'how might one live?' as applied to an art practice or the movement of art in society.

The Present Group : an art subscription service Exploring new ways to fund and distribute arist projects.  I'd say this is answering the Deleuze question in a very innovative way.  I found the The Present Group via an interview on Bad at Sports, and think they are just the bees knees.  TThis sbuscription based art distribution group is located in San Francisco.  The way it works is for 150 dollars a year you recieve 4 art works.  Money is given to the artist to produce the subscribed number of works and then they are distributed.  They are a true inspiration, so simple and yet so brilliant!

Artists apply to be involved. And with each release there is a critical essay that accompanies the work.

Check out their blog for more infomation.

Bad at Sports treats

Contemporary art talk.  These weekly pod casts are just about the best thing a girl can ask to listen to during her 9-5 stint.  They are a ray of sunshine straight from the heart of the good old Midwest.  Thank you Bad at Sports! 

Not only is there a weekly podcast, there is a blog and an amazing archive.

There is so much to listen to, but here are two of my favourites.

Episode 267: James Elkins and the Stone Summer Theory Institute

Episode 243: The Present Group

The Box Project

Come enjoy the unique works made by eighteen contemporary jewellers from Australia and New Zealand using unexpected materials they received in a mysterious brown box. An unusual ear plug neckpiece, shuttlecock earrings and brooches sprouting living grass adorn Gaffa Gallery’s walls amongst many other delightful pieces.

Curator Jasmine Matus conceptually revisits her childhood busy box, a box full of collected items brought out on rainy afternoons to inspire the making of imaginative objects. Twenty years later, The Box Project involves professional jewellers using complex materials and techniques to bring to life this intriguing past.


‘Working with a limited palette of things you would never choose yourself is quite a challenge but sometimes the best things come from foreign places’ ⎯ Sharon Fitness

theboxproject.tumblr.com

Triangular Design Manifesto

While I don't use the word designer to describe myself, I like this, see no.2
Thank you Conceptual Devices

00_ Design should not be based on formal principles – but always on an idea of society.
01_ Designed forms represent possible social orders and a lot of their contradictions.
02_ Design is everything. Anything could be designed. Everyone is a designer.
03_ Design allows social innovations. Often it is not made by designers.
04_ Design has not scale. It could be small and have great impact.
05_ Design is not an innocent practice. Designers are wicked.
06_ Design should engage people and interact with them.
07_ Design is an interdisciplinary applied science.
08_ Design produces visual consciousness.
09_ Design is a triangular manifesto.
10_ Design makes you smile.
11_ This is the top.
12_ Enjoy!

kicked into touch

Phew.  Back from the whirlwind of a Sydney visit, full of wonderful people and galleries.  Overall we were really happy with the show and its reception. 

It is hard to believe that it is in it's final days today.

The show might be coming to an end, but Raewyn Walsh has been keeping the blog evolving with featured artists: whose pictures are all remarkably indicative of their personalities.

We have had some good attention from the blog community:

melbourne jeweller

bijou 

kit and caboodle

strobed

and we even subliminally infiltrated our own show: subliminal infiltration 

Lisa Walker at Objectspace

Objectspace window will host Lisa Walker 6 November - 15 December 2010

Here is how Objectspace is billing the show:

This installation presents a selection of recent neck pieces by Lisa Walker, each of which utilises a range of materials from New Zealand collected by Walker when she returned home from Munich last December after 14 years abroad. The construction of the neck pieces resembles that of contemporary Polynesian lei, where the designs frequently draw upon found materials, both natural and manufactured, in 
bright colours and textures.