RefGrafika

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We really ❤ the work of Reynald Drouhin. And yes we are obsessed with Courbet's 'Origin of the World'. Don't ask why...

infos/ RD

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Creator Conrad Ventur and Art Director Andrien Pelletier will be in Paris to (re)present Useless at the Salon Light. Get some copies while you can.
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Salon light # 4
50 independent publishers
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Saturday 3 November,
11am-11 pm
Sunday 4 November,
11 am- 6 pm
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at Le Point Ephémère,
200 Quai de Valmy
Paris 10 eme
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Metro:
Jaurès (lignes 5, 2 et 7 bis)
Louis Blanc (ligne 7)
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bus : 26 /46 / 48

infos/ USELESS

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Michel Wlassikoff will give some important History of Graphic Design courses. Thanks to Etienne for the tip! Infos below in French.
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Michel Wlassikoff, historien du graphisme, auteur d’Histoire du graphisme en France, une coédition Carré – Les Arts Décoratifs publiée en 2005, décrit et définit les différents aspects de la pratique du graphisme : art de l’affiche, création typographique, graphisme éditorial, de presse, d’information, multimédia, habillage télévisuel. Les évolutions graphiques et typographiques sont examinées en lien avec les grands courants esthétiques français et internationaux, avec les arts plastiques, la photographie, le design ou encore l’urbanisme. L’apport des créateurs et des mouvements graphiques étrangers est précisément indiqué.
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Programme:

21/05
• La contestation des signes
« l’héritage de Mai 68 »
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Tarifs : 5€/2€ la séance
Les mercredis d’octobre 2007 à mai 2008
18h30 à 20h30
Salle de conférences des Arts Décoratifs
111 rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris

infos/ AD

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Some really good infos grabbed on the site of Etienne Mineur. For the French-speaking, there will be a very interesting series of conferences at the IMEC looking at the relationship between, authors, editors, artists, graphic designers. Guests include Frederic Teschner, Catherine de Smet, Etienne Mineur, Roxanne Jubert, Chipp Kidd and many others big guns. Hope the IMEC site provides the conclusions of those conferences for the ones who will miss it...

infos/ IMEC

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"Anna Sanders Films is a production company that was created in 1998 by Charles de Meaux, Philippe Parreno, Pierre Huyghe and the Association for Diffusion of Contemporary Art (X.Douroux, F.Gautherot). Dominique Gonzalez Foerster recently joined them. Anna Sanders proposes a production tool for projects that are shaping new landscapes or rather « moments in landscapes »."

infos/ AS

watch/ mmparis opening title for Charles de Meaux's film Marfa Mystery Lights with NY band The Secret Machines

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Yael Burnstein is currently finishing her MA at the Royal College of Art in London. We ❤ her work very much! Something undefinable on the edge of surrealism and überrealism.
Soon an interview of her in the COMMIS D'ARTISTES section

infos/ ...in a few days!

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The Refgrafika team wishes you a ••••••••••••••>

••••HAPPY 07!••••

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The Most Beautiful Swiss Books can also be found at the Design Museum.

◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊
05 December – 28 January 2007

The Most Beautiful Swiss Books 2005 presents the 32 titles short-listed for the Swiss Federal Office of Culture’s annual award in 2005.
The display in the café focuses on the competition and the work of Swiss-born designer, Laurent Benner, who, for the last three years, has been commissioned to design the catalogue to celebrate the winning titles. Working closely with Jon Hares, the pair has designed a publication which skilfully uses the printers and papers found in the winning books, enabling the reader to experience Swiss book design at first hand, giving a genuine insight into the breadth and quality of the designers, printers, bookbinders, photographers, illustrators and paper suppliers currently working across Switzerland today.
(This exhibition was made possible through the generous support of the Swiss Federal Office of Culture).
◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊

infos/ TMBSB 2005 (thanks to Renaud Huberlant for the pics)

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We ❤ Grand Popo Football Club, Hot Chip, Felix da Housecat, Kings of Convenience, Jagga Jazzist amongst others...

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"Though shrouded in mystery, this much is known about the Valenzetti Equation: it is a mathematical formulation designed to predict nothing less than the exact number of years left before the extinction of the human race [...]".

infos/ Valenzetti is not Fibonacci

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We ❤ not the over complexity of TV show Lost
Why the numbers? Spoiler below in French to make it even harder to decypher ;-)

le mystère a été résolu. C'est Alvar Hanso lui-même qui l'explique dans une vidéo de la DHARMA Initiative. Les nombres "4 8 15 16 23 42" représentent l'équation de Valenzetti, une formule mathématique censée établir le temps restant avant l'extinction de l'humanité ! Une étude commandée par les Nations Unies en 1962 avait abouti à cette équation, basée sur des hiéroglyphes égyptiens, chacun étant représenté par l'un des nombres.
La DHARMA Initiative, mise en place par la Fondation Hanso, avait pour mission de prévenir l'inévitable. Lorsque le projet s'est révélé être un échec, le Dr Thomas Mittelwerk, président de la fondation, a mis en place une autre solution radicale pour sauver l'humanité : éliminer un tiers de la population mondiale ! Pour y parvenir, il a testé dans deux villages l'inoculation d'un virus qui n'est mortel que pour 30% des personnes infectées. (Source Allo Ciné)

infos/ HansoExposed

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Lighter and for French only (sorry). Chaos de Famille, vous fera adorer le votre.

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Littell is the favorite for the Goncourt (French 'equivalent' of the British Booker Prize). It's a massive book which tells the story of a German. The main character is a Schutzstaffel (S.S), cold-hearted, mathematician in search of the most efficient way of killing masses, evil spirit, you name it. You may be disturbed by this impossibly calm accumulation of horrors. But it is the other reality of what Hitler called the Final Solution and one should be able to face it.

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what would the world be without Bourriaud?

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a good companion to the book below/

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must read 'imo'/

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Speaking of Truffaut, here are a few must have or must see movies from the French Nouvelle Vague...if anyone has an idea of where i can put my hands on the Histoire(s) du Cinema dvd, please add a comment. Thanks.

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A most clever, talented and passionate musician. G.Ligeti was a follower of Bartok; he met with Boulez, Kagel and Berio while working at the Westdeuscher Rundfunk's studio. His most famous work is the o.s.t of Kubrick's 2001, a space odyssey but you should also check Melodien (1971) and Nonsense Madrigals (1988-93): the summum of polyrhytmie!

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What was, What is and What for...Read, Compare and Critic the pre, post and future history of Graphic Design.

infos/ theinfamousnetbookstore

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Peerspex's way of color-organizing their CDs collection made me think of this interesting article back at DOBs

infos/ DOBs/Rob Giampietro

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Tom Burr we love, his catalogue Extrospective is for you to pick up. If you're on the train don't forget to bring the interviews of artists by curator star Hans Ulrich Obrist.

infos/ TB, H-U.O

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After Serge, after Jane we give you Charlotte. Listen to 5.55 (pronounce fa'fa'fa NY style), the fresh solo album by Gainsbourg's daughter. Collabs with Air and Jarvis Cocker. Sublime and so tendance!

Posted by lefrøg at 11:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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Ludwig Karl Hilberseimer (1885-1967) was a German architect and urban planner best known for his ties to the Bauhaus and to Mies van der Rohe. Hilberseimer fled Germany in 1938 for Chicago to work for Mies, and became director of Chicago's city planning office.
Adrian Forty is Professor at The Bartlett, University College London, on the 17th February 2006 he lectured at the RCA (The City Without Qualities) and argued for the existence of an architecture without 'markers'."Landmark architecture has been talked about a lot recently - and has been reacted against too. But what would a city without 'landmarks' be like? One strand of late nineteenth and early twentieth century thinking about cities - explored in this talk - argued that what made a city habitable for a modern person was precisely its lack of distinctive features. Does this 'city without qualities' have a future?". Perhaps the city as a grid...(merci Archizoom)

Top to Bottom/

Hilberseimer, The Vertical City (1924)
Hilberseimer, The Vertical City, perspective view E-W (1924)
Le Corbusier, Plan Voisin, city planning, Paris (1925-27)
Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, La Cité-Refuge, Paris (1930)
Archizoom, No Stop City, (1968)
Julien Penven, Jean-Claude Le Bail, Front de Seine, Hotel Nikko, Paris (1976)

read/
Modernism and the Postmodernist Subject, The Architecture of Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Hilberseimer (K. Michael Hays, MIT press, 1992)
Towards a New Architecture (Le Corbusier)

look/
-Cité� de Refuge, 12 rue Cantagruel 75013 Paris
-Le Front de Seine, 75015 Paris

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Feartown, Ideal Cities of Uncertain Futures....

The empty piazza and linear perspectives of Mussolini's 1938-42 project: E.U.R. or Esposizione Universale di Roma (Universal Exhibition Rome). A series of cold and perfectly ideal blocks of buildings which were certainly inspired by de Chirico's paintings of claustrophobic/surrealistic architectures.
One of the most iconic building of E.U.R. was the Colosseo Quadrato or Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana (Palace of the Italian Civilisation), build by fascist architect Marcello Piacentini, the 216 arks facade was supposed to remind Romans of the perfection of their past and future and praise the fascist ideal of the Duce. A rational approach to idealism.
Ideal cities always puzzle me. I feel like looking at kids playing with lego bricks. The human is totally absent as if no one really cared in the end about who was going to inhabit those spaces. You can find an echo of this in two fantastic French movies: Playtime by Jacques Tati (the modern version of the futurist city) and Paul Grimault's Le Roi et l'Oiseau (the surrealist intemporal and poetic version of trapping cities). And if you read French do get your hands on Les Cités Obscures, a series of comic books by Francois Schuitten and Benoit Peeters, super inspired by Fritz Lang's Metropolis and Ridley Scott's Blade Runner.
Don't you just love it when designers make you realize that almost everything is a reference to something?
In the same vein altough more weirdly linked is the Babylonian and utopic vision of a future where cities would mix influences and pose for an universal vision of the megapolis. The need to compete with the general subconscious of perfect cities as a way to re-embrace the classical past and its grandiloquent architecturhomage to Gods. Perfect cities, Ideal Futuropolis would flirt with Retro-Futurism and Goggie architecture while the Nagasaki and Hiroshima chocs would make way to a darker vision of the city of tomorrow. Vladimir Tatlin and his Monument to the Third International, later Albert Speer and his vision of a perfect Nazi Berlin, Ozamu Tetzuka and his retro futurist version of Metropolis and finally Richard Buckminster Fuller's post futuristic geodesic ensemble, all of those are ricochets bouncing on the surface of our dream of the perfetta città.
Perfection and Perversion of tomorrow...

"For the first time in history it is now possible to take care of everybody at a higher standard of living than any have ever known. Only ten years ago the 'more with less' technology reached the point where this could be done. All humanity now has the option of becoming enduringly successful."
—Buckminster Fuller, 1980.

infos/
Mario Chiattone (1891-1957)
Antonio Sant'Elia (1888-1916)
Le Roi et l'Oiseau (1979)
Tetzuka's Metropolis (1949)
Rintaro's Metropolis (2002)
Lang's Metropolis (1928)
Playtime (1967)
Montparnasse Station (1914)
Les Cités Obscures (1992)
R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983)

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Harmony Korine, a beautiful loser...

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Conrad and Adrien are the happy founders of USELESS! Issue 3 is out now!
Best Wishes and great successes!
"USELESS is a tabloid-sized magazine on newsprint. Based in New York with an office in London, we feature interviews with artists, actors, designers and people we believe are working on interesting projects from Manhattan to Paris and internationally. We are an art magazine with a fashion/film/music twist."

infos/ Useless Magazine

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For the ones out there who feel the world can be summed up to an equation, especially love the Gradus Suavitis article...
infos/ ----->

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the article 'Critics don't R.I.P.' by Catherine Guiral is now published on Limited Language.

©image/ still from Agnes Varda's "les glaneurs et la glaneuse"

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Beauty and the Book is not just the title of a catalogue designed by Julia Born. It was a great exhibition at the Israel Museum. Amongst the pieces exhibited was the work of artist matej Kren. A sculptural house of books. Splendid.
Infos/ Beauty and the Book. Thanks to Patricia for the link+pics.

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Richard Vijgen is a researcher at the JvE Akademie and part of the Tomorrow Book Project with Sarah Infanger and Harrisson Vijgen. They will complete their research in 2006. Richard is currently working on a project called: RealTimeBookDesign 1.0
Check it out, it's the potential somehow future of graphic design...

RTBD1.0

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She is internshipping at the New Museum in NY and sending me postcards from the Big Apple! Merci Coline!
NM-NY

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a must-see 1982 video on ubu! Thanks to *work* for the links!

go to/ Sonne Statt Reagan

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Le Livre que j'aurai voulu offrir à Stéphane

Suite à une récente discussion sur GH avec Stéphane (un des chroniqueurs) à propos du livre 'Design for Help' (1), je lui avais promis de conclure la polémique en parlant d'un livre très particulier que j'aurais voulu lui offrir.
Ce n'est pas vraiment un livre. Plutot une brochure. Editée et imprimée dans les années 60, cette revue en noir et blanc a été spécialement concue pour le 14ème Type Director's Club Show de 1968.
J'en avais entendu parler comme d'un mythe par Lorraine Wild, qui avait d'ailleurs écrit un article très intéressant là-dessus en Juillet 2005 dans DesignObserver (2). J'avoue avoir eu beaucoup de mal à en trouver une copie. Ce petit imprimé est rarissisme, et c'est aussi l'adjectif qui décrit le mieux le concept général de la revue.

Le titre de cet annuel qui regroupe tous les travaux typo-graphiques des pointures de l'époque est: 'Business as Usual'. Le sous-titre est 'Fourteenth Annual Type Directors Show — Typography Wherever It Exists'. A la page 3, on peut lire le texte suivant:
“Think of your work and think of what’s going on around you. The theme of the 14th Annual Type Directors show is 'Typography Wherever It Exists.' It’s still the theme. We’ve just expanded the theme. Added a larger context. Look at the winners for their excellence in type direction. That’s how they were judged. If the news photos seem to overshadow the show’s winners, think of how it is in real life.”

Je vous offre une rapide traduction:
Pensez à votre travail et regardez ce qui vous entoure. Le thème de ce 14ème Annuel du Type Directors Club est 'La Typographie Partout où elle Existe'. Ca reste le thème. Nous l'avons cependant étendu. Elargit le contexte. Choisit les gagnants pour leur excellence en typographie. C'est ainsi qu'ils ont été jugés. Si les photos des journaux vous donnent l'impression de faire de l'ombre aux lauréats, pensez à ce qui se passe dans la vraie vie."

La lecture de l'article de LW sur DO vous donnera de plus amples details mais j'aimerai juste vous résumer le contexte de l'époque: nous sommes en 1968. Avec la guerre au Vietnam, la Contre-Révolution Culturelle, les droits bafoués des minorités, les USA sont secoués de l'intérieur et de l'extérieur. Le monde, des pavés de Paris aux faibles tremblements des satellites de l'Est , est lui en pleine mutation.
Et voila un groupe de jurés du Type Director's Club de New York qui se pose la question de l'utilité de donner des prix, de célébrer le typo-graphisme. Ils pourraient fermer les yeux, se boucher les oreilles, ne rien dire. C'est vrai après tout, que peuvent faire une bande de typographes devant le tsunami social et politique du monde? (pardon pour le private joke en rapport direct avec l'article de Stéphane à GH).

On pourra dire tout ce que l'on veut, les traiter d'opportunistes ou de naifs mais la mise en page, le concept meme de cet Annuel-Ovni est un exemple d'une certaine idée 'idéale' du role du graphisme et du graphiste (3).
Le titre meme de l'Annuel, 'Business as Usual', vous percute comme une claque d'humour noir. Comme le souligne LW, "il faut une sacrée dose de bravado et une touche de cynisme" pour ne pas faire de cette brochure un simple objet de lamentations. Oui le monde allait mal à l'époque mais la vie continuait et le graphiste faisait son travail. Avec ce petit détail en plus. Il n'ignorait pas le monde autour de lui.

Avec sa mise en page simple et efficace, les images des travaux des lauréats à gauche et une photographie plein page à droite (et inversement), l'Annuel fait plus que simplement répertorier les moments sombres et les meilleurs travaux typographiques de l'année en cours.
Il y a un jeu subtil qui s'opère entre le lecteur et les images. Que lire d'abord? Forcément ce qui se voit en grand. Mais aussi ces perfections typographiques qui par leur valeur meme d'excellence soutiennent le rapport de taille. On va et on vient. On est obligé de réaliser que tout ca fait partie d'un meme tout. Que regarder une belle affiche c'est ne pas non plus oublier de voir ce qui se passe à coté.

La limite de tout ca? Peut-etre qu'avec la distance, voir ces images rythmées ainsi dans un catalogue de travaux typographiques leur retire de leur vraie puissance. 'Une protestation silencieuse' seulement dirigée vers un groupe bien ciblé (les lecteurs de ce genre d'Annuel) reste une goutte d'eau qui ne fera pas déborder la mer des sarcasmes.
Quand bien meme. Le TDC cuvée 1968 a ce mérite de ne pas vouloir tirer la couverture mais bien au contraire de se mettre au service de. Ici le who's who du gratin des graphistes-typographes ne fait pas de show-off et sait s'effacer devant ce qui malheureusement continue de faire l'actualité.
Aucune volonté de changer le monde, juste témoigner avec leurs outils d'ouvriers de l'image et du texte. Sans etre maladroits non plus. Il n'y a rien de pire que de rater sa cible par excès ou manque. Ici les vertus typographiques et de composition arrivent à transcender le message. Les cadrages concentrés sur l'essentiel ne font pas non plus oublier ce qui se passe hors-champ. C'est cette ironie cynique, permanente à travers les 48 pages, oui regardez nos travaux mais ne soyez pas dupes, qui donne tout son coté rare à cet Annuel.

Le principe peut paraitre démodé maintenant que Toscani, Benetton et le sensationalisme sont passés par là. Faut-il pour autant choquer les gens pour les sensibiliser? Ou faut-il faire de belles images qui ne servent pas à grand-chose?

Le travail des designers du Type Director's Club 1968 nous prouve en tout cas que si on met les deux ensemble de facon intelligente et simple on obtient un effet dévastateur et efficace. Je regarde les pages de cet Annuel et je me dis, 1968 aux Etats-Unis c'était ca. Un graphisme engagé, une société en chaos.
Qui a dit que les graphistes ne devaient pas etre des observateurs et des interprètes?

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(1) 'Design For Help' est un livre-catalogue d'images de graphistes produit en un temps record pour rassembler des fonds pour les victimes du Tsunami de 2005.
Stephane a recemment ecrit un article sur GH qui a souleve une petite polemique a propos de l'efficacite ou non du livre Design for Help.

(2) Lorraine Wild, A design Annual Captures 1968, Design Observer 7 Juillet 2005.

(3) l'idée sera reprise dans les 70s par Sheila de Breteville alors directrice du Dpt Graphic Design a la CalArts lorsqu'elle a fait le catalogue-prospectus de l'école. Je n'ai malheureusement pas de copie de celui-ci mais Ian Lynam devrait m'envoyer des images sous peu. Patience.

Posted by lefrøg at 02:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

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Beautiful Evidence (Hardcover)
by Edward R. Tufte
List Price: $52.00

Posted by lefrøg at 11:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Alissa Walker, a design Observer contributor is teaching two interesting classes in Los Angeles this summer. If you're in town...

Design Writing for Designers
Breaking Into Design Journalism

infos/ here

Alissa Walker is a regular contributor to STEP Inside Design, HOW, and Dynamic Graphics, and also writes for I.D., Wired, Metropolis, ReadyMade, DesignObserver.com, and the Los Angeles Times. She is a production assistant on the KCRW show, "DnA: Design and Architecture," hosted by Frances Anderton, editor of the mediabistro.com design blog UnBeige, and recently contributed to a book for the School of Visual Arts in NY. Last year, Alissa was named the first storyteller for AIGA, the professional association for design, where she heads up a comprehensive design writing initiative, including organizing the first design writing award, to be given this fall. She holds a journalism degree from the University of Colorado, completed the writing program at the Portfolio Center, in Atlanta, and is a design conference

Posted by lefrøg at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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© Aam Solleveld graphite pencil on paper 72 x 102 cm 2003

Aam Solleveld
Motive Gallery — Amsterdam
17 June - 08 July 2006

infos/ Motive Gallery

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Agnes Varda
L'Ile et Elle
Fondation Cartier
21 June - 01 October 2006

infos/ Fondation Cartier

Posted by lefrøg at 10:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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© S. Tykka / © Allora-Calzadilla

Salla Tykka
Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla
Palais de Tokyo
09 June - 27 August 2006

infos/ P2T

Posted by lefrøg at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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© Bill Viola

LOVE/DEATH: The Tristan Project
Haunch of Venison
21 June - 02 September 2006

infos/ HoV

Posted by lefrøg at 10:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Bjorn and Dieter Roth / Martin Kippenberger
25 May - 27 August 2006
Hauser & Wirth — London

infos/ H&W

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My friend Luke and his alter-ego Curtis work respectively as designer and editor of this brand new magazine called The Colonial. Part based in NY and LA, The Colonial is a cultural mag whose aim is to re-explore territories of music, design and art and push forward the old frontiers.
It is a must read. Subscriptions here!

Posted by lefrøg at 04:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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| |     | |__   | |__   | |/ /   | |___  
| |  _  |  __|  |  __|  | |\ \   \___  \ 
| |_| | | |___  | |___  | | \ \   ___| | 
\_____/ |_____| |_____| |_|  \_\ /_____/ 

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| | | | | ____|     /   | | |     |_   _| | | | | 
| |_| | | |__      / /| | | |       | |   | |_| | 
|  _  | |  __|    / / | | | |       | |   |  _  | 
| | | | | |___   / /  | | | |___    | |   | | | | 
|_| |_| |_____| /_/   |_| |_____|   |_|   |_| |_| 

 _____   _____    _   _____   _____   _____    _   _____   _   _   _   
|  ___| |  _  \  | | /  ___| /  _  \ |  _  \  | | |  ___| | | | | / /  
| |__   | |_| |  | | | |     | | | | | |_| |  | | | |__   | | | |/ /   
|  __|  |  _  /  | | | |  _  | | | | |  _  /  | | |  __|  | | | |\ \   
| |     | | \ \  | | | |_| | | |_| | | | \ \  | | | |     | | | | \ \  
|_|     |_|  \_\ |_| \_____/ \_____/ |_|  \_\ |_| |_|     |_| |_|  \_\ 

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For the French speaking out there: two very informative blogs where you can find a mine of infos. I will try and regularly post on GH. Which somehow makes me think that one day blogs should simply collaborate more and create big platforms instead of those solitary islands of discussions....tbc!

infos/ GH /// FRIGO

Posted by lefrøg at 04:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Here is the revised text about Poynor's essay on the death of the critic. Soon to be published on Limited Language.

Critics don't R.I.P.

You might want to read the recent essay written by Rick Poynor on The Death of the Critic (1). Here Poynor comments on the state of criticism in the Art field in general and the Design world in particular and summarizes the different levels of criticism from the mild version of it, journalism and observing the new, to a more hostile and arcane ‘cultural-studies’ way of criticizing the world around us. A 1955 article on Subtopia written by Ian Nairn and published in the AR (Architectural Review), is seen by Poynor as the essence of what design criticism should be and where it should go. Critics should be less accommodating and have a «profound idealism and shared sense of what matters». A quick look around and it’s easy for Poynor to notice the lack of critics these days. He suggests that, amongst other things, critics are hard to spot because they are probably missing good publishers. I wonder though if what we are missing is publications or just good/serious writers/critics. If we lack good critical writing then who really cares about publications?
Still, when RP says the critic might be dead, I wonder where the body is…

Poynor’s article somehow reminded me of Martin Walser’s Death of a Critic not just for the obvious similarities in their respective essay/book titles but in the way Poynor keeps being the trublion of the Design Critic scene… in a very good sense.
Walser’s book is constructed like a roman noir where a journalist, Hans Lach, is suspected of the death of critic André Ehrl-König. One of his colleagues investigates and discovers, in the media and publishing milieu, a web of relationships between critics that protect each other, a web that also guaranteed the power of Ehrl-König. A web that will, later in the novel, accuse Hans Lach of an anti-Semitic murder without any proof.

Let me pause for a second here and go back to the violent polemic that took place in Germany in 2002 around the time of the book’s publication :
Walser as part of the so-called Gruppe 47, a German post-war literary association of left-wing realist writers, was severly criticized for crossing the line with his novel Tod eines Kritikers (Death of a Critic). In May 2002, Frank Schirrmacher, publisher of the conservative newspaper Frankfürter Allgemeine Zeitung, wrote an ‘open letter’ in which he refused to reprint Walser’s latest novel arguing that it was a «document of hate» full of «anti-Semitic clichés». Obvious for any German reader, the main character of the book, André Ehrl-König, was a caricature of the Jewish German literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki (2).
The question raised by this polemic revolved around the idea of whether an author was allowed to attack the most famous critic in Germany, previous Head of the Cultural section of the most read German newspaper, survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto and German for half a century.

For months the different newspapers and literary magazines in Germany fought a Bataille d’Hernani over a book that most of them had not even read ! (3)
In an article in the French newspaper Le Monde (01 July 2002) Daniel Vernet described the ‘war’ between the pro-Walser and the anti-Walser as something that lightly looked like the duel for the defense of the author against the critic, and more sadly underlined the denunciation of a supposed anti-Semitic book.
Walser defended himself against anti-Semitic calls by stating that he was «breaking a taboo» and that Germany had suffered enough of the «moral bludgeon that was the Holocaust». «I am not an Anti-Semite» he said in a speech in Frankfurt, «if I had smelt a single trace of Anti-Semitism in my book, I would have erased it». He instead suggested that the subject of his novel was the «exercise of Power in the Intellectual and Cultural Milieu».

This description of a fight between an author and a critic particularly interested me in the light of Poynor’s article in Icon.
Walser at the time of the polemic is 75 and Reich-Ranicki 80. One is a famous writer, the other «makes and unmakes the reputations of authors and still attracts the hatred and love of the big names of German Literature». They’re both long time adversaries and lived under the spell of criticism and counter-criticism for almost half a century.
Perhaps Sigrid Löffler (ex-assistant to Reich-Ranicki) is the one who best described the whole affair : «Walser’s book, if it is a document on this love-hate obsessive relationship between an author and his accredited critic, is stupidly clever. If it is the mad revelation of all the disturbing weaknesses and human defaults of this critic then it is disgusting».
In Lire (October 2002), the journalist David Midgley also mentioned that Walser when calling his critic André Ehrl-König was not creating a simple double of Reich-Ranicki. The name is more a jeu de mots on the demoniac character in Goethe’s poem : Erlkönig (Erlking, 1782). Besides, Walser already used this name in another of his novels. He once named a critic Ehrl-König because books died in his arms.
So was all this shaking of the German cultural megalosphere done ‘just’ for the sake of another rivalry between a critic and an author ?

Being a critic and/or an author is not an easy thing. Especially if one of the two is almost dead. I would characterize the relationship between them by quoting a codename in Vergez’s 1985 espionnage film Bras de Fer : Sans Judas pas de Christ (without Judas no Christ). I find it difficult to believe that the critic could be dead. His role is so dependent on the work produced by artists and designers that stating his disapearance would equate to saying that no (new) critizisable form of art or design is being created anymore. I’m intentionally implying that when you usually see the face of the critic appearing somewhere you know you’re in presence of something worth of a certain interest.
One of the best examples of this was a generation of critics at the Cahiers du Cinéma who, in the early 50s, gradually built to become a group of auteurs famously known as the French Nouvelle Vague and invented a new way of making films. Before being recognized as markers in Cinema history, Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol and some others called themselves critics. For them Cinema had to be seen from a different angle and this ment a new and more implicated way of looking at and criticizing movies. The hours spent in the dark rooms of the parisian Quartier Latin’s theaters watching B-movies or more obscure challenging films helped generate their politique des auteurs theory where the movie director was seen as someone whose work you should « love and critic » (Truffaut, Ali Baba et la Politique des Auteurs, Les Cahiers du Cinéma, Fevrier 1955).

There was a real consistency in the way critique was done at the Cahiers. You may take issue with it, but they believed criticism had to be «an exercice of modesty». The critic would always disapear behind the auteur it criticized and if sometimes the general opinion went against a movie then it just meant that the opinion did not judge it properly or didn’t understand it.
In a way Truffaut believed more in the «personal genius of the auteur than in the acuity of the critic, the latter being often too mainstream while the first one would implicitly belong to the avant-garde» hence misunderstandings were to be expected on occasion.
Nonetheless even if they loved the directors they criticized, the critics at the Cahiers weren’t slaves to them. There is a French saying that fits this way of criticizing perfectly: qui aime bien, chatie bien (one who loves well, punishes well) it could also be turned into : one who loves well, criticizes well.
It is hopefully accepted that to be a good critic you need to know your subject, hence Rick Poynor states that «the critic, as traditionally understood, was a person of superior knowledge and insight […] presumed to know best about his areas of expertise».
It takes some time and education to become a critic and something undescribable to be a good one. The same goes for the critics’s reader who should thus understand that it also takes more than a «handy star ratings» to appreciate art, music or architecture. The critical judgement works both ways: from the critic to his audience, everything is a matter of education and passion.

I wouldn’t start writing the oraison funèbre of the critic yet though. What is in a bad shape, not just dead but almost, is not the critic himself but the way critic is being done.
If you’re too mild to avoid polemics, you face the risk of being boring. A critic shouldn’t just «report on the latest news» as Poynor points out. That is indeed the role of the journalist or the observer.
Today’s design critic must face great challenges according to Rick Poynor. First you need to be hyper critical and not just a highlighter. You must «open people’s eyes and make a difference».
With the democratization of the net, almost everyone out there is a critic. Good or bad that’s the way it is. Unfortunately as my late economics teacher used to say, «too much of something destroys the purpose of that something» (replace ‘something’ by faux criticism and you’ll get the idea).
Blogs were certainly a good thing in the beginning. They helped spot new voices in design criticism or at least make the existing ones more present to some of us children of the web. But looking back I can still hear the voice of Jeff Keedy who warned us in a Design Theory class at CalArts against the overdose of blogs.

A counter-balance to the souk of design blogs-slash-critic blogs could probably be searched for in the publishing world.
Critics need a good editor and this is not a mere cautionary tale. Whether on paper or via. a blog (although blogs still bug me for practical reasons but this is another subject), you need someone that can make choices and give a direction. First you will avoid the risk of isolated pieces of criticism that always feels like someone pouting in a corner. Second, and in this I follow Poynor’s point of view, you get rid of commenters who are not always interested in the subject being criticized but just want to shout.
Still a good editor and a clever looking magazine wouldn’t be enough in my opinion. You need more polemics.

Polemic or dispute was long ago a very stimulating sport not to say an art. Mastering it meant you certainly had convictions but also arguments and fine spirit to support them as insults were usually forbidden. Two good examples of this can be found amongst others in Manoel de Oliveira’s movie Palavra e Utopia (Words and Utopia) or some of Bataille and Desnos’ articles in the über-surrealist and critical writing publication Documents. Like players on a field, critics and polemists would toy with controversy and challenge the mundane pensée bon marché (you could translate that as cheap thinking). Every effort was made to convince the reader of the solidity and validity of their arguments. Most of the time this implied criticizing the pensée ambiante (ambient thinking or take-no-position thinking) and assuming the position of an outsider. As Robert Storr pointed out, «Criticism is a war against received ideas. The surest way of losing it is to become the full-time promoter of the next generation of intellectual clichés, although this looks like victory to those who value being mentionned more than they value thinking.» (4)

As critics, it seems we’ve become afraid to say what we think. We ‘politically correct’ all the time. We state the obvious to avoid taking a dangerous but perhaps more interesting position. We hate fights. We are the polite critics. Of course they are a few exceptions. But not enough.

As designers we should be careful. If critics don’t do their job anymore we also have to ask ourselves if the work is worthy of the critic in the first place.
Having good critics, whether on the web or on paper, will force us to keep on raising the stakes. It is a necessity. The author feeds the critic and vice-versa. In return the critics will hopefully want to be more like auteurs and less like critics. Meaning that criticism is again not just a matter of saying ‘I like/ I hate’. I mean, who really wants to read that sort of thing anyway ?
There is certainly a third route between plain observation and arcane critical writing. A route that would emphasize good writing that is yet accessible to everyone. I don’t mean by that that critical texts have to become more ‘simple’ but perhaps more digestible. I’m in favor of criticism that is constructive and enlightening, not just angrily impassionate. A critic that challenges us.

Indeed we must fight with critics and they must fight back. No need to be overly sarcastic like Walser and kill them though. Or «remuer la merde» (stir the shit) as Céline once said to denounce the critics who questioned his positions during the Second World War.
Oh wait. Actually no. Shit stirring is good. But just stirring is pointless. You have to dig the bad shit and the good shit to find something we, afficionados of criticism, are craving for. That is something you might disagree with but that will trigger your capacity of arguing with. If not then Céline was right you’re just a shit-stirrer.

The role of the critic has evolved throughout the centuries. From Baudelaire to Bataille, from Benjamin to South Park, the spectrum drawn usually goes from one extreme (bouffon) to the other (auteur) with, hopefully, a consistency in not taking anything for granted.
But as the Walser story tells us, the critic also makes mistakes.
He is not God’s gift nor, as we know designers would say, is he the next design guru… a very pale, near-to-death guru if we are to follow Rick Poynor’s point of view though.
But isn’t it when you’re having a NTD experience that you usually see the light and you’re kicked back into reality ?

What will revive the critic? A bad designer or indeed a very strong one? People ready to express their ideas without fearing (too much) to shock ? A slap in the face ?

Come back in the arena, critic ! The fight has just begun…

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(1) Icon Magazine nº33
(2) for more infos, the case has been covered in English by The Guardian and Telepolis.
(3) the book was sent as a pdf to most of the journalists as it hadn't been published at the time of the polemic. Read the interesting article by Olga Goriunova here.
(4) Frieze, A Place in the Sun, p.23, May 2006. Robert Storr is a critic and curator and Dean of the Yale School of Art. He will be director of the 2007 Venice Biennale.

Posted by lefrøg at 11:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Leçon de classe
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Ah j'aime le couple viking-disco. ils sont blonds comme les bles. c'est beau. ca scintille. je veux etre une barbie islandaise dans une autre vie! je veux des rollers et un short daisy duke...en jeans! une permanente et un accent scandinave. qu'on me dise que je serai maginifique dans le prochain james bond en espionne venu de la planete Laser. je veux un duo avec un chanteur au torse non epile. avec une chaine qui se prend dans les poils que le mec il a un sourire crispé quand tu joues avec. je veux des boys qui dansent dans des futes en cuir moule-bite. des photos sur fond de coucher de soleil sur la baltique.
dire qu'on a rate CA! nous sommes la generation perdue. revenez les chanteurs morts! revenez flash gordon! je vous aime!

on est beaux. on est rares. on est le moulin vivant.

les cheveux se melangent avec le fond de la photo. ils font partis de l'univers. et apparement elle va encore a l'ecole a son age. checkman les livres cahiers. remarque lui il doit chasser les vampires la nuit ou alors c'est une cle en croix.

on change de couleur mais on reste dans les memes tons. ou alors l'imprimeur est miro. il a des fausses dents mais de vrais cheveux. elle se demande si la photo a ete prise ou si il faut encore qu'elle serre les fesses.

il a peur. et les tetons qui pointent. c'est charmant. elle s'accroche a son pull en esperant que non, on ne va pas lui demander de faire 'ca'.

le micro en forme de femme a roulettes.

ca ne vieillit pas d'un poil/ entre le yoddle autrichien, la choré a la veronique et davina et le mauvais gout kitsch...excellement mauvais!

Posted by lefrøg at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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Le 1er mai 1922, la revue Littérature a publié un curieux sonnet dont l'équipe surréaliste affirmait ignorer l'auteur. Pour être plus précis, elle prétendait que " la plupart des collaborateurs " consultés (nous soulignons) avaient " donné, comme l'on dit vulgairement, leur langue au chat ". La revue conviait donc le lecteur à participer à un concours d'identification : " les six derniers vers, notamment, nous ont paru dignes de Littérature. " Ce Sonnet du Trou du Cul - dont la rédaction de la revue n'ignorait aucunement la composition ambidextre - n'était pas une découverte pour tout le monde. Maurice Rollinat, par exemple, l'évoquait déjà dans une lettre du 20 novembre 1877 :

"La poésie en question est de Verlaine et de Rimbaud. Je l'avais copiée un jour au café Voltaire pour montrer à Lafagette jusqu'où peut mener l'abus de l'absinthe qui a été l'inspiration de ce sonnet si odieusement pédérastique. "

©Cocteau/dessins érotiques

Ceci permet d'inférer qu'une version du sonnet indiquant cette double attribution circulait dès cette époque. Un autre indice de cette existence crépusculaire de la pièce apparaît dans un témoignage de Félicien Champsaur datant de 1886 :

M. Verlaine, qui, depuis quinze ans, ne peut pas être consolé, répète ce vers insignifiant de son camarade, à peine adolescent, ainsi qu'un ronron de litanie : Obscur et froncé, comme un œillet violet

En fait, le vers cité, qui est le premier du sonnet, provient de la partie du poème composée par Verlaine lui-même, les tercets seuls étant de Rimbaud si l'on se fie aux indications de l'aîné des deux auteurs. Le poème avait déjà été publié en 1903 " sous le manteau ", dans Hombres, par Albert Messein, grâce à une transcription de Verlaine qui se trouvait au départ dans les archives de son bibliopole de prédécesseur, Léon Vanier, et dont ce dernier avait lui-même pris une copie.

©cocteau/dessins érotiques

À l'origine, le sonnet avait été transcrit au verso de la seconde page de l'Album zutique par Rimbaud. On sait qu'il s'agit d'un " complément " férocement parodique au recueil de sonnets - impeccablement hétérosexuels - d'Albert Mérat, L'Idole. Ladite parodie fut peut-être à l'origine des rapports conflictuels entre Verlaine et Mérat, mais il pourrait tout aussi bien représenter une revanche poétique prise contre un délateur (quoi qu'il en ait été, Mérat disparut illico de l'Album zutique pour n'y plus reparaître).

Ce poème composé avec Verlaine n'était pas le seul sonnet " pédérastique " à mettre à l'actif de Rimbaud, comme le savait notamment l'auteur - vraisemblablement Ernest Raynaud - d'une parodie décadente intitulée Instrumentation, véritable centon de citations rimbaldiennes qui indique narquoisement que l'auteur a accès à des inédits de Rimbaud : " Et même je détiens, quelque part, les ressources / De la flûte où s'abouche un rêve goulûment ", allusion au Sonnet du Trou du Cul accompagnée d'une référence au mot à la rime au huitième vers du sonnet " Les anciens animaux […] ".

©finland/the art of pleasure

Les Stupra

On donne ce titre éloquent à trois sonnets attribués à Rimbaud, publiés pour la première fois ensemble en 1923. Le dernier (L'idole. Sonnet du Trou du Cul.) se trouve dans l'Album Zutique. L'obscénité des deux premiers ne tire guère à conséquence, bien que Verlaine ait extrait du premier l'épigraphe « Ange ou Pource » pour la série Filles de Parallèlement, et du second la formule « Nos fesses ne sont pas les leurs », qu'il place sous le titre de Morale en raccourci, dernière pièce de Femmes. Le fait que Verlaine attribue ces citations à Rimbaud plaide en faveur de l'authenticité de ces sonnets. Quant au Sonnet du Trou du Cul, il se trouve aussi dans Hombres de Verlaine (imprimé "sous le manteau"), avec cette explication : « Le Sonnet du Trou du Cul, par Arthur Rimbaud et Paul Verlaine. En forme de parodie d'un volume d'Albert Mérat, intitulé L'Idole, où sont détaillées toutes les beautés d'une dame : Sonnet du front, Sonnet des yeux, Sonnet des fesses, Sonnet du..., dernier sonnet. » En face des deux quatrains, on trouve encore dans Hombres : Paul Verlaine fecit, et en face des deux tercets : Arthur Rimbaud invenit.

©cocteau/le livre blanc

Les Stupra
Les anciens animaux saillissaient, même en course,
Avec des glands bardés de sang et d'excrément.
Nos pères étalaient leur membre fièrement
Par le pli de la gaine et le grain de la bourse.

Au moyen âge pour la femelle, ange ou pource,
Il fallait un gaillard de solide grément ;
Même un Kléber, d'après sa culotte qui ment
Peut-être un peu, n'a pas dû manquer de ressources.

D'ailleurs l'homme au plus fier mammifère est égal ;
L'énormité de leur membre à tort nous étonne ;
Mais une heure stérile a sonné : le cheval

Et le boeuf ont bridé leurs ardeurs, et personne
N'osera plus dresser son orgueil génital
Dans les bosquets où grouille une enfance bouffonne.

***

Nos fesses ne sont pas les leurs. Souvent j'ai vu
Des gens déboutonnés derrière quelque haie,
Et, dans ces bains sans gêne où l'enfance s'égaie,
J'observais le plan et l'effet de notre cul.

Plus ferme, blême en bien des cas, il est pourvu
De méplats évidents que tapisse la claie
Des poils ; pour elles, c'est seulement dans la raie
Charmante que fleurit le long satin touffu.

Une ingéniosité touchante et merveilleuse
Comme l'on ne voit qu'aux anges des saints tableaux
Imite la joue où le sourire se creuse.

Oh ! de même être nus, chercher joie et repos,
Le front tourné vers sa portion glorieuse,
Et libres tous les deux murmurer des sanglots ?

***

©musee d'orsay/l'origine du monde/courbet

L'IDOLE
SONNET DU TROU DU CUL

Obscur et froncé comme un oeillet violet
Il respire, humblement tapi parmi la mousse
Humide encor d'amour qui suit la fuite douce
Des Fesses blanches jusqu'au coeur de son ourlet.

Des filaments pareils à des larmes de lait
Ont pleuré sous le vent cruel qui les repousse,
A travers de petits caillots de marne rousse
Pour s'aller perdre où la pente les appelait.

Mon Rêve s'aboucha souvent à sa ventouse ;
Mon âme, du coït matériel jalouse,
En fit son larmier fauve et son nid de sanglots.

C'est l'olive pâmée, et la flûte câline,
C'est le tube où descend la céleste praline :
Chanaan féminin dans les moiteurs enclos !

infos et copyright des textes/
mollah | les sentiers poetiques
Steve Murphy, Jean-Pierre Cauvin, Jean-Jacques Lefrère

Posted by lefrøg at 08:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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interesting research by Geitner Simmons
infos/ h e r e

Posted by lefrøg at 07:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

©taschen
Mario Botta
Tour de Moron
Malleray, Jura
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New series of books on countries and/or architecture, i have a thing against Taschen sometimes the writing isn't that interesting, most of the time i feel as if they were just recycling contents from other books and simplyfing it. Granted it is quite cheap but if that's the only thing...

Posted by lefrøg at 05:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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must-read articles by workholic Ian Lynam back at pingmag, especially the one on type designer/typographer Kobayashi. Great interview!

infos/ Lynam Studio
articles/ Akira Kobayashi: transcending typo boundaries

Posted by lefrøg at 05:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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funny.

Posted by lefrøg at 09:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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A very refreshing (sorry had to do it) text by new head of the Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Marc-Olivier Wahler:

Fresh Théorie
Collectif.
Editions Léo Scheer
parution 24/10/2005
576 pages - 11x18 cm - 15 euros
isbn 2-756100-05-6
EAN 9782756100050
code article : F65308

[texte ©Editions Leo Scheer] La pensée française des années 1970 a fait récemment un retour remarqué sous le nom de « French Theory ». Avec elle, avec Deleuze, Guattari ou Foucault, viennent ou reviennent aussi les auteurs et les disciplines qu’elle a inspirés dans le monde anglo-saxon : Judith Butler et les gender studies ou Paul Gilroy et les postcolonial studies. A l’heure où le climat politique se fait pesant, reviennent aussi la pratique révolutionnaire d’un Toni Negri, inspirée du marxisme hétérodoxe de Mai 68, et une critique des industries culturelles et de la société de consommation aux accents marcusiens. Que pouvons-nous faire de cette pensée qui a déjà plus de trente ans, dans un cas ; qui s’est développée sur un sol américain, dans l’autre ; à des époques et dans des contextes différents du nôtre ? Ses concepts n’ont-ils pas besoin d’être « rafraîchis », son voltage converti ? Telle est l’interrogation qui est à l’origine de ce livre.
Le lecteur trouvera ainsi dans Fresh Théorie, développées par 35 auteurs, des nouvelles pensées du politique (« Communautés »), du corps (« Identités »), des formes (« Formes »), basées sur une nouvelle lecture du monde (« Mutations »), qui en passent parfois par la French Theory, parfois non, mais le plus souvent rafraîchissent la French Theory grâce à la French Theory elle-même.

Posted by lefrøg at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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don't say the French hate to be criticized especially by a British profesor lover of Analytical Philosophy... an interesting pamphlet on the decline of French intellectuals.

infos (in French) /
le déclin de la critique | Bernat-Winter
French Bashing | Pierre Assouline

infos (in English) /
on P.Anderson
LRB | Vol. 26 No. 17 dated 23 September 2004 |
LRB | Vol. 26 No. 18 dated 23 September 2004 |

La pensée tiède de P.Anderson
un regard critique sur la culture française
trad. de l’anglais par William Olivier Desmond. Suivi de La pensée réchauffée : réponse de Pierre Nora. Paris : Éd. du Seuil, 2005. – 136 p. ; 19 cm. ISBN 2-02-080304-6 : 11 €

texte par: Anne-Marie Bertrand

Ce petit et joli ouvrage est constitué de trois parties. Les deux premières sont la reprise de deux articles de Perry Anderson, publiés en septembre 2004 dans la London Review of Books. La troisième est la réponse qu’y fait Pierre Nora.

Perry Anderson, « essayiste britannique et historien de gauche réputé » comme le présente la quatrième de couverture, développe dans ses papiers une analyse sans complaisance sur le déclin français. Notons que, honnêtement, il a également quelques pages sévères sur le déclin britannique, dont « l’icône culturelle est une star du football », dont « les universités n’ont plus un sou », dont « la diplomatie est à la botte des États-Unis ». « La façon dont la Grande-Bretagne déchoit dans le monde pourrait elle-même être qualifiée de médiocre », conclut-il.

Mais le cœur de son propos concerne la situation française. Après quelques pages nostalgiques (pour l’auteur comme pour le lecteur) sur la brillante vie culturelle et intellectuelle en France dans les années 1960 et 1970, son diagnostic est sans appel : « Tout ceci est du passé. » De façon à la fois facile, pertinente et consternante, il égrène d’un côté les Lévi-Strauss, Braudel, Barthes, Lacan, Foucault, Derrida et autres Bourdieu et, de l’autre, la « dégringolade culturelle », BHL, Houellebecq et Amélie Poulain.

Si le constat est imparable (quoique à nuancer : la fin des intellectuels maîtres à penser ne signifie pas la fin des intellectuels en France), l’explication qu’il apporte à ce phénomène est plutôt cocasse. Pour lui, le déclin culturel et intellectuel français est dû à la conversion de la classe politique au libéralisme, conversion accompagnée et cornaquée sur le plan intellectuel par « Furet, Nora et leurs alliés » qui ont mené une « campagne organisée, conduite avec habileté et détermination ». Cette « matrice libérale » a imposé sa « domination universelle » dont l’indicateur est « la pensée unique ». Les Lieux de mémoire sont l’objet de critiques spécifiques et acides, « entreprise de bout en bout élégiaque », « somme d’apaisement patriotique », « l’un des programmes les plus ouvertement idéologiques de l’historiographie mondiale d’après-guerre » qui participe au grand complot mené par François Furet pour imposer un regard libéral sur notre propre histoire.

Pierre Nora n’a, évidemment, pas grand mal à répondre à ces attaques. Il reconnaît le « déclin français » mais y voit un phénomène européen : « Perry Anderson peut-il citer un seul grand intellectuel anglais, espagnol, italien qui rappellerait de près ou de loin ce que furent Sartre et Lévi-Strauss, sans parler de Benedetto Croce et de Bertrand Russell ? » La situation américaine n’est pas plus brillante. « L’anémie des cultures nationales et la raréfaction des théories d’ensemble sont des phénomènes de grande ampleur qui dépassent de beaucoup le cas français », assure Pierre Nora. Ce qui ne nous rassure pas : qu’est-ce qui provoque cette « anémie des cultures nationales », cette « brutale et mystérieuse dénivellation de [notre] production culturelle » ? Nora suggère quatre pistes : l’abandon des humanités classiques, la fin du « révoltisme natif » (avec la fin des grands récits du monde, la chute du mur et la mort du gaullisme), la fin de l’exception culturelle sous toutes ses formes (« la recherche scientifique et l’université, mais aussi l’édition, le cinéma et le théâtre ») et la mise en question du « modèle national et républicain classique ».

En somme, le déclin culturel, la « dégringolade française » seraient dus à l’air du temps. On regrette que l’analyste n’ait pas été jusqu’au bout de son raisonnement : la concentration de l’édition et des moyens d’information, la valorisation du présent, la paupérisation des universités, le relativisme culturel, la prime à l’émotion, etc. Tous ces facteurs (et bien d’autres) valorisent la réaction médiatique plus que le travail de réflexion. Les « grands intellectuels » d’aujourd’hui sont absents de la scène. Comment leur redonner une place ? Cela aurait pu être la conclusion de ce petit livre, malheureusement inabouti. Mais amusant.

Posted by lefrøg at 10:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Monsieur Jean Luc Godard has his retrospective at the Pompidou in Paris. A must see if you're in Paris. Vive les Utopies de JLG!

[Text ©Pompidou] This retrospective is the first ever to be devoted to the director, in which all his films will be shown. Also to be shown are his numerous television appearances, where he talked about the subject of images, as well as many films and documents with or about him, in order to retrace the major developments in his work and his thinking. With the publication of a catalogue, Jean-Luc Godard: documents, this retrospective will accompany the major exhibition designed by Jean-Luc Godard for the Centre Pompidou, "Voyage(s) en utopie, Jean-Luc Godard, 1946 –2006".

Posted by lefrøg at 07:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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O. Eliasson's installation for the xviiith century facade of the Grassi Palace, an allusion to the venitian tapestries which hang from the roofs of the palazzi in xviiith century Venice...

April 30 is a day to celebrate for Mr Pinault as the famous Industrial Condottiere and Art Collector will reveal, in the much awaited Where Are We Going? exhibition, a part of his fabulous art collection. 200 or so pieces will be displayed in the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, interiorarchitectured by Tadao Ando, amongst them: Koons, Huyghe, Uklanski, Hirst...

Pictures soon!

Infos / Palazzo Grassi / About Grassi / Olafur Eliasson

Posted by lefrøg at 03:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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In Eye No. 16 Vol. 4 (Spring 1995), Michael Rock and Rick Poynor talked writing and criticism. Almost 10 years later where are we now? If the design critic isn't totally dead what is his/her future?
Read this article on 2x4 website > reading room > what is this thing called graphic design critcism?

infos/ 2x4

Posted by lefrøg at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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if you've got some money to spare...
top to bottom:
Serialize
Family Faces and Variety in Graphic Design
edited by R. Klanten, M. Mischler, B. Brumnjak
208 pages - 24 x 28 cm - € 44,00

Influences
A Lexicon of Contemporary Graphic Design Practice
edited by A. Lutz, A. Gerber, R. Klanten, H. Hellige
264 pages - 16,8 x 24 cm - € 29,90

Disorder in Progress
edited by Nando Costa
96 pages - b&w - 24 x 32 cm - € 19,90

Posted by lefrøg at 11:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You might want to read the recent essay written by Rick Poynor on The Death of the Critic. It somehow reminded me of Martin Walser's Death of a Critic not just for the obvious similarities of their respective essay/book titles but in the way Poynor keeps being the trublion of the Design Critic scene... in a very good sense. When RP mentions that critics are missing good publishers i still wonder though if what we are missing is indeed publications or good/serious writers/critics.
When RP says the critic might be dead i wonder where the body is...

Let me pause for a second here and go back to a violent polemic that took place in Germany in 2002:
Walser as part of the so-called Gruppe 47, a German post-war literary association of left-wing realist writers was severely criticized for crossing the line with his novel Tod eines Kritikers (Death of a Critic). In May 2002, Frank Schirrmacher, publisher of the conservative newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, wrote an "open letter" in which he refused to reprint Walser's latest novel Tod eines Kritikers, arguing that it was a "document of hate" full of "anti-Semitic clichés". Obvious for any German reader, the main character of the book, André Ehrl-König, was a caricature of the Jewish German literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki. (The case has been covered in English by The Guardian and Telepolis).
The question raised by this polemic was revolving around the idea whether an author was allowed (or not) to attack the most famous critic in Germany, previous Head of the Cultural section of the most read German newspaper, survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto and German since half a century.

For months the different newspapers and literary magazines in Germany fought a Bataille d'Hernani over a book that most of them had not even read! (1)
In an article in Le Monde ( 01 July 2002) Daniel Vernet described the 'war' between the pro-Walser and the anti-Walser in something that lightly looked like the duel for the defence of the author against the critic and more sadly underlined the denunciation of a supposed anti-Semitic book.
For known reasons anti-Semitism is a sensible subject in Germany. Martin Walser defended his book by stating that he was "breaking a taboo" and that Germany had enough suffered of the "moral bludgeon that was the Holocaust". "I am not an antisemite" he said in a speech in Frankfurt, "if i had smelt a single trace of antisemitism in my book, i would have erased it".
Die Zeit quite cleverly gave an end (?) to the polemic by stating that Walser book was not his best (badly written) and that he was criticising Marcel Reich-Ranicki "not because he is Jewish but despite the fact that he is Jewish".

The supposed anti-Semitism of the book is one of the three levels of a discussion that developed because of Death of a Critic.
It was and still is a marker of the hyper-sensibility of the German Society towards the dark ghosts of its past.
Second it also revealed the fights going on between the big German newspapers whether Left or Right orientated. The polemic around Walser's book was merely an excuse to attack the adversary. Not to mention the problem it caused at Suhrkamp Publishing (the publisher of the book).
Siegfried Unseld, the owner of Suhrkamp, who was seriously ill at that time had called a Council of intellectuals (amongst them J. Habermas) to look upon the future of his publishing company. Despite the phone calls of Marcel Reich-Ranicki he finally decided to publish the book (with a few changes) and Walser added, with good reasons, that the subject of his novel was precisely "the exercise of Power in the Intellectual and Cultural Milieu".

What interested me in the light of Poynor's article is the third level of the discussion: the fight between an author and a critic. Walser at that time was 75 and Reich-Ranicki 80. One is a famous writer, the other "makes and unmakes the reputations of authors and still attracts the hatred and love of the big names of German Literature".
Perhaps Sigrid Löffler (ex assistant of Reich-Ranicki) is the one who best described the whole affair: " Walser's book, if it is a document on this love-hate obsessive relationship between an author and his accredited critic, is stupidly clever. If it is the mad revelation of all the disturbing weaknesses and human defaults of this critic than it is disgusting".

Tod eines Kritikers is not just a roman à clés with foul smell of anti-Semitism; it is also a harsh and clever critic of the power of the critic. Walser had predicted the reactions of the press towards his book. The journalists, mostly taking position against the anti-Semitic aspect of the book and the attack against Marcel Reich-Ranicki, are fooled.
The book is constructed like a roman noir where a journalist, Hans Lach, is suspected of the death of André Ehrl-König. One of his colleagues investigates and discovers, in the media and publishing milieu, a web of relationships between critics that protect each others, a web that also guaranteed the power of Ehrl-König. A web that will, later in the novel, accuse Hans Lach of an anti-Semitic murder when nothing has been proved.
In Lire (Oct 2002), the journalist David Midgley also mentionned that Walser when calling his critic André Ehrl-König was not creating a simple double of Reich-Ranicki. The name is more a jeu de mots on the demoniac character in Goethe's poem: Erlkönig (Erlking 1782).
Besides, Walser already used this name in another of his novels. A critic was named Ehrl-König because books died in his arms.
So was all this shaking of the Cultural German milieu done just for the sake of another rivalry between a critic and an author?

Being a critic and an author is not an easy thing. If you are mild or even too nice to avoid any polemics you face the risk of being boring. A critic shouldn't just "simply report on the latest news" as RP points out. That is indeed the role of the journalist.
Today's design critic must face great challenges according to RP. First you need to be hyper critical and not just a highlighter. You must "open people's eyes and make a difference".

With the democratization of the net, almost everyone is a critic. But as my economics teacher once told me, too much of something destroys the purpose of that something (replace something by criticism and you'll get the idea).
Blogs were certainly a good thing at the beginning. They helped spotting new voices in design criticism or at least make the existing voices more present to some of us children of the web.
But looking back i can still hear the voice of Jeff Keedy who warned us in a Design Theory class at CalArts against the overdose of blogs.
A counter-point to the casbah of design blogs slash critic blogs (and i might include myself but won't because i don't consider myself as a hyper critic a this time) is probably to be searched for in the publishing world.

Critics need a good editor. Of course. First you avoid the risk of isolated pieces of criticism which always feels like someone poutting in a corner. Second, and in this i agree with RP, you get rid of commenters who are not really interested in the subject being criticized but just want to make an useless point.
Still a good editor and a clever looking magazine wouldn't be enough in my opinion. You need polemics. Not silly ones. Not cynical ones. Possibly ironic ones. Definitely "assume your choice" polemics.
It seems we've become afraid to say what we think. We politically correct all the time. We state the obvious to avoid taking a dangerous but maybe more interesting path. We hate fights. We are the polite critics. Of course they are a few exceptions. But not enough.

As designers we should be careful. If critics don't do their job anymore then maybe we have to ask ourselves if the work is worth the critic in the first place.
Having good critics, wether on the web or on paper, will force us to keep on rising the bar. It is good and a necessity. The author feeds the critic and vice-versa. Alright sometimes excessive egos on both sides can cause some, shall we say, problems...but this is another subject.

We must fight with the critics and they must fight with us.
No need to be overly sarcastic like Walser and kill them though. Or remuer la merde (stir the soup of shit) as Celine once said to denounce the critics who questionned his positions during the Second World War.
Oh wait. Actually no. Stirring the shit is good. But just stirring is pointless. You have to dig the bad shit and the good shit to find something we, passionates of criticism, are craving for.
The role of the critic has evolved throughout the centuries. From Robin Hood to Michael Moore, from Baudelaire to Benjamin he/she has opened our eyes and made us change position. He/she also made mistakes. The critic is not God's gift. Nor the next design guru...a very pale, moribund guru if we are to follow RP's point of view though.

The critic is like the one he/she criticizes with the only difference that he/she can put some distance so as to be able to have the best angle of criticism. Let's just be aware that sometimes by putting to much distance you end up dissapearing or missing the point.
Come back in the arena the critic! The fight has just begun...

What will revive the critic? a bad designer? People ready to express their ideas without fearing (too much) to shock? a slap in the face?

tbc & tbe

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(1) the book was sent as a pdf to most of the journalists as it hadn't been published at the time of the polemic. Read the interesting article by Olga Goriunova here.

Posted by lefrøg at 06:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)