The New Formalists

A Blog about Art, Architecture, Design, & Media

[newformalists]

“The universal progress in art moves on the wings of tradition”

Bertram Goodhue

[hyperallergic]

After initially preventing him from traveling to the UK, the British government has granted Syrian-born, Sharjah-based artist Thaier Helal‘s second visa application, allowing him to attend the opening of his first solo show in London.

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[newformalists]

Garry Winogrand- Los Angeles (1980-1983) 

The Garry Winogrand Archive, Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona

The Pacific beaches are where young men stop going West, where the great waves of agrarian migration from Europe and the Middle West broke in a surf of fulfilled and frustrated hopes.

Reyner Banham, "In the Rear-View Mirror"

Banham, Reyner. 2009. Los Angeles: the architecture of four ecologies. Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press.

[newformalists]

Flawless

Jan van Eyck, The Annunciation (1436), NGA

[newformalists]

Seeing Each Other Differently | The Getty Iris

A single evening at the Museum unfolds an unexpected new chapter in Getty intern Anthony Merrill’s relationship with his father

- See more at: http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/seeing-each-other-differently/#sthash.IgMEyq1p.dpuf

[lacma]

[mikasavela]

The black and white photos here are from the 1934 World’s Fair “A Century of Progress”, held in Chicago. They depict replicas of villages and cities from around the world as in the ideology of World’s Fairs, it remained popular to represent various regions with what would now seem to be theme parks, or at least themed environments.

The colored photos are from suburban Shanghai, where in total nine European themed cities have emerged (British, Scandinavian, Italian, Spanish, Canadian, Dutch and German), bearing some similarity to the early modern World’s Fair treatment of “internationalism” – sans the Western fascination for the Orient.

If you Google something about themed cities of China, the results usually carry the certain tone of humorous unbelief, like “A Weird German Ghost City in China,” or “Odd British Town in Shanghai Serves as Set for Wedding Photos.” But I think the same disbelief is there when looking at both photos. Laid side by side, they are capturing somewhat similar strains and trajectories of becoming modern and becoming global.

As there currently is very little incentive to start building “authentic Dutch towns” in the U.S., it’s because the American contemporary culture already exists in its own right (and perhaps from the viewpoint of the rest of the world, sometimes frustratingly so). Anyway, who knows, once these themed cities will become culturally obsolete for China, perhaps we will see and possibly be part of some new Chinese forms of modernity. And I think that’s the kind of worthwhile thought to follow behind the humorous images.

[cooperhewitt]

Carolina Valdes-Lora

Poster: IBM, Every Man with an Idea Has at Least Two or Three Followers. Ken White (American, 1935-1985). Gift of Various Donors, 1981-29-442

Over a century ago, IBM founder, Chairman and CEO Thomas J. Watson Sr. (1874-1956) held a meeting with NCR...

[thegetty]

“I do not think…in terms of men and women or men [versus] women. I respect people—for integrity and achievement, kindness and wisdom. And to use an old phrase, I do not suffer fools gladly, of either sex.”

—Ada Louise Huxtable, whose archives have just been open for research

[newformalists]

Huntington Library, Art Collection, and Botanical Gardens- San Marino, California

[archatlas]

Skymetric Lino Russo

“The word skymetric is a construction composed by: sky and -metric (geometric).

The subject highlights the decontextualization of places and architectural spaces in order to alter the natural structure. These places considered have in common the fact to be all completely square, regular and schematic, so achieving geometric shots in a minimalist context, where the simplicity and cleanliness reign supreme. Another point in common is the sky, infact each shot shows with a light blue background that decisively contrasts the brilliant colors of the architectures. So this places will cease to exist, the vision that result, won’t be more accostable to the original, it will recognize only systematic and organized compositions and structures.”

[newformalists]

Downtown L.A.

[newformalists]

Historic District- Mexico City, D.F.

[thegetty]

This is 800 N. Alameda Street in Los Angeles today. But what did it look like in 1933? The Huntington knows.

We’re teaming up with The Huntington’s tumblr to bring you historic Los Angeles images on Wednesdays through August 6 as part of No Further West.

[theacademy]

In honor of today’s Star Wars casting news… check out these casting announcements for the original film back in 1976! Some highlights:  • Some reports had Luke’s last name as Starkiller (as he was originally referred to in the George Lucas script) • Alec Guinness’s part was dubbed the “top role.” • A description of Darth Vader as a “huge masked villain.” • And a great full-page ad from Steven Spielberg to George Lucas congratulating him on Star Wars beating Jaws’ box office record. (all of these are part of our Academy Collection)

[rodarte]

❤️❤️❤️

[newformalists]

Everything #2- Anthony Hernandez, 2003-04

Oakland Museum of California Art

  Anthony Hernandez has tunnel vision. In several recent series, he has been attracted to tunnels, colonnades or hallways as subject matter. He's like a man peering into the wrong end of the telescope, trying to see who's looking back from the opposite perspective. By photographing such spaces, maybe he can understand the point of view of people who build or inhabit them. 

  Sometimes the homeless actually were living in an L.A. River drainage tunnel such as this one. In summer, they could wedge a board against the curved walls and sleep on it without fear that a torrent might drown them in the night. Since Hernandez had also done a series on the homeless some years earlier, there was a certain confluence of interests here. He calls homelessness a "failure to face the future," and the same might be said of L.A.'s water use. 

  As he walked the river's concrete course for miles, watching the tunnels grow from 8 or 10 feet in diameter upstream to 20 feet downstream, he was also walking into his own past; Hernandez was born here and grew up playing in the river. Like an elevated freeway, this depressed riverbed carries the city's history with it. Hernandez's focus is narrow in this regard, too. For him, the light at the end of the tunnel is always one that illuminates his city in a new way. 

--Colin Westerbeck 

West Magazine, November 19, 2006, p.13

[newformalists]

Downtown Berkeley BART Station