Running, Jumping, Standing Still

Martin Munkacsi Peignoir in a light breeze, 1936

One of several shows opening January 16th at the International Center of Photography draws from a newly discovered cache of Hungarian photographer Martin Munkacsi's negatives. There was another exhibition of his work at ICP a few years ago and it was truly stunning. Munkacsi (my Hungarian friend tells me it's pronounced kind of like "Moon-Kashi") was one of the most famous photographers in the world in his day, influencing greats such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Richard Avedon with his unique take on photo-journalism – and, later, on fashion photography through his work with Carmel Snow at Harper's Bazaar.

Left, Martin Munkacsi, 1933 / Right, Richard Avedon, 1969

Here are some of my favorite Munkacsi images:

Martin Munkacsi, Berlin vs. Budapest, ca. 1928

Martin Munkacsi, Greta Garbo on vacation, ca. 1932

Martin Munkacsi, Lucile Brokaw on the Long Island Beach, 1933

Munkacsi's Lost Archive runs January 16–May 3 at ICP. If you can't make it or want more images/info, Steidl released a great book on Munkacsi's life and work in 2006:


All images © Joan Munkacsi

Closed for Construction

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Emily and I are FINALLY moving into our condo on Capitol Hill (I'm sure I have mentioned this 800 times – we bought it back in October 2007 and have been renting it out) so posting is going to be light this week. I cannot begin to explain how excited I am to end four months of living out of bags and boxes! So excited that I used an exclamation point.

Above, Detail from Word Map of Seattle, 1971 via Seattle Municipal Archives

When He Offers His Hand

Wallace Berman Untitled (Single Verifax #44). 1964–1976.

More Wallace Berman, in case you find yourself in Paris between this evening and March 10th.

Wallace Berman: Verifax Collages
Galerie Frank Elbaz (click for more images)
7, rue Saint Claude
75003 Paris
Tuesday - Saturday, 11am–7pm
Opening party tonight, 5pm–9pm

Objects of My Affection

Objectified is a new film from Gary Hustwit, who was responsible for Helvetica, the excellent documentary on the ubiquitous typeface of the same name. This time out, through interviews with Hella Jongerius, Marc Newson, Jonathan Ive, and others, Hustwit explores the wide world of industrial design, taking a look at the creative processes responsible for mass-produced material objects, and at how those objects impact our lives and identities. Objectified premiers in March (go to the website for updates).

(side note, this logo strikes me as the anti-helvetica. clever though.)

AND… In celebration of refined materialism, here are three brilliantly designed objects at the top of my want list. They have been there for a long time and I still don't have them. Maybe I never will but it makes me happy to know they are out there somewhere.

1. Olivetti Valentine portable typewriter, by Ettore Sottsass (1969)

2. Tie! A Land Rover (above) and a Boston Whaler.

In this 1961 Life magazine photo, Richard T. Fisher, the guy who designed the hull of the Boston Whaler, smugly demonstrates that his boat is totally unsinkable, even if some crazed logger sneaks underwater and attempts to saw it in half. Beautiful utilitarianism.

3. Pretty much anything designed by Dieter Rams.

I also want this new gigantic Samsung TV – it's only an inch thick and it consumes 40% less energy than other HDTVs. It's not on the top three though because you're not supposed to get excited about a TV.
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Your Weekly Mr. Littlejeans

Architecture in Idaho

Seattle-based architect Tom Kundig strikes again with a beautiful house in the middle of nowhere. There are a ton of things I like about it, the most significant being the way it blends and interacts with the landscape.

More here.

Malpractice?

Hmmm. Not sure about this yet. Some definite funny moments.
Will have to watch the rest and decide.

(Note, an ad that plays at the beginning of the video, and then you have to hit play.)

More episodes of Rob Corddry's Children's Hospital here.
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Smoke Like Ribbons

You may have already heard about Coco Avant Chanel, the forthcoming Chanel biopic, which stars Audrey Tatou as the great Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel.

Chanel has been portrayed on film at least a few times previously:

Marie-France Pisier in Chanel Solitaire (1981)

Shirley MacLaine in Coco Chanel (2008).

…and live on stage: Katherine Hepburn in Coco (1969).

When I think of Coco Chanel, I think of this classic 1935 Horst image…

…crossed with this 1961 photo of her adjusting a model's dress with a grandma-sized cherry at the end of her ever-present cigarette.
An interesting, multi-dimensional personality, to be sure.

Audrey Tatou seems like a fairly solid casting choice to me, and with Karl Lagerfeld's design direction, I think Coco Avant Chanel shows a lot of promise. More images here.
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Back to Basics

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I've run across a couple of interesting articles in the past few days on designing during tough economic times. No question it's rough out there, but I have to say that I find it inspiring to think about design becoming more resourceful, more practical, smarter. At Design Observer, Michael Bierut weighs in with an insightful, inspiring post on designing through the recession; in Sunday's Week in Review section of the Times, Michael Cannell takes it a step further, saying design loves a depression:

The pain of layoffs notwithstanding, the design world could stand to come down a notch or two — and might actually find a new sense of relevance in the process. That was the case during the Great Depression, when an early wave of modernism flourished in the United States, partly because it efficiently addressed the middle-class need for a pared-down life without servants and other Victorian trappings.

“American designers took the Depression as a call to arms,” said Kristina Wilson, author of “Livable Modernism: Interior Decorating and Design During the Great Depression” and an assistant professor of art history at Clark University. “It was a chance to make good on the Modernist promise to make affordable, intelligent design for a broad audience.”

Click here for the rest of it.

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UPDATE: Murray Moss completely disagrees.
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Above, a 1930s Lester Beall poster for the Rural Electrification Administration.

I thought we were traveling together.

Last night when we got back from Whidbey Island we watched The Go-Getter, directed by Martin Hynes and starring Lou Taylor Pucci, Zooey Deschanel, Jena Malone, Yaphet Kotto, and Maura Tierney. It's a good movie, really beautifully filmed, great music, and I recommend checking it out at your earliest convenience.

If you really want to hear about it

Today is JD Salinger's 90th birthday.

Happy new year, sir, wherever you are.

From Eudora Welty's review of Nine Stories, published in April, 1953, in The New York Times:

They all pertain to the lack of something in the world, and it might be said that what Mr. Salinger has written about so far is the absence of love. Owing to that absence comes the spoilation of innocence, or else the triumph in death of innocence over the outrage and corruption that lie in wait for it.

The feeling may arise from these warm, uneven stories (no writer worth his salt is even, or can be) that Mr. Salinger has never, here, directly touched upon what he has the most to say about: love. Love averts itself in pity, laughter, or a gesture or vision of finality possibly too easy or simple in stories that are neither easy nor simple in any degree.

Mr. Salinger is a very serious artist, and it is likely that what he has to say will find many forms as time goes by – interesting forms, too. His novel, "The Catcher in the Rye," was good and extremely moving, although – for this reader – all its virtues can be had in a short story by the same author, where they are somehow more at home.

What this reader loves about Mr. Salinger's stories is that they honor what is unique and precious in each person on earth. Their author has the courage – it is more like the earned right and privilege – to experiment at the risk of not being understood. Best of all, he has a loving heart.

More here.

Today is also the birthday of bass virtuoso Jaco Pastorius.
Portrait of Tracy (mp3) seems like a nice quiet song for New Year's morning…happy 2009.

Casting Anchor

I can't even begin to explain, much less comprehend for myself, what a blur this year has been, owing entirely to the fact that we moved across the freaking country. Rather than going into any further discussion of that entire process, which is still unfolding (we've been living out of bags and boxes for four months, waiting to move into our condo on January 11th) I will just say that, for me, 2008 was sometimes awe-strikingly great, sometimes palpably awful, and most of the time bouncing off the walls directly in the middle. I don't want to be all heavy 'n shit, but basically my head has just been swimming for the past several weeks, trying to figure it all out. Moving is a crazy experience, and finally, in the coming weeks, we will settle in.


I have never been happier for a fresh start as I am this New Year's Eve.

I wish you, and all the people you care about, the very best in 2009.

Hanne Hukkelberg Cast Anchor mp3
from her debut album Little Things – download it at emusic.
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Setwise

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Mary Ellen Mark, pictured above in 1976 on the Philippines set of Apocalypse Now, has a new book out: Seen Behind the Scene (Phaidon Press) collects forty years of her on-set photography from a wide range of movies.

Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson, Night Moves, 1973.

It would be too harsh and/or inaccurate to say that Mary Ellen Mark is the anti-Liebovitz, but I have to say that (predictably) I love the rawness of her work, and applied to celebrities, it provides a much more interesting perspective to me than high-concept Vanity Fair type stuff.

The cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Salem, Oregon, 1973.

More info at maryellenmark.com, or buy it here or at your favorite bookstore while supplies last.

Friendly Fire

We had a great trip to Idaho for Christmas, the highlight being a trip out to Emily's parents' farm, where it had snowed at least two feet over the previous week.

First on the agenda was making a bonfire. A huge burnpile had been waiting for us since we were last at the farm. Emily and her brother Drew lit some newspaper on the end of a pitchfork while their dad, Art, poured gas on the pile.

Drew walked toward it, threw the lit paper, and we all got a big surprise: the pile exploded as the top layer of leaves, hay, and pine needles blew off.



For the rest of the day we messed around in the snow, walked around the farm, and stood by the fire when we got cold.

When it got dark we went inside the cabin and had soup and coffee by the wood stove.
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Pictures of You

Check out The New York Times' website today for a great big slideshow, 2008: The Year in Pictures.

Above, top: In July, young members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints played outside their home in New Braunfels, Texas, three months after the breakaway Mormon sect's ranch in Eldorado, Texas, was raided by state authorities. (Photography Stephanie Sinclair/VII Network, for NYT.)
Bottom: In Harlem, 129th Street was closed to traffic one July day as part of a Police Athletic League program to let young people play in the streets. (Photography Chang W. Lee/NYT.)

The road to Lewiston & Clarkston, Idaho