[Marion Cotillard at the 2008 Academy Awards. Courtesy Jean Paul Gaultier]
Catching up with high fashion czar Jean Paul Gaultier
It was a career-making dress—for the woman who wore it, Marion Cotillard, and the man who designed it, Jean Paul Gaultier. When the French actress walked the red carpet and later accepted the Oscar for Best Actress at the 80th Annual Academy Awards this February, dressed in a la petite sirène gown of ivory crepe embroidered in silver thread, it catapulted Jean Paul Gaultier, l’enfant terrible of French fashion, from a figure of cult status known mostly to the cognoscenti into the rarefied realm of designers whose names, signatures and styles are globally recognizable, even outside of the world of fashion.
French doyenne of design Andrée Putman illustrates that life is best lived not in black, white, or gray, but rather in rich contrast
By Claire Naa
Upon opening the door to Andrée Putman’s office in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, visitors are immediately blinded by the light shining through the space’s playfully constructed design of glass openings and windows. Seated behind a black desk is a tall woman dressed in a stark white suit, her ash blond hair billowing slightly in the breeze from a nearby fan. The window behind her allows the light of day to shine gleefully on an elegant necklace—an item, the woman explains, that she has worn every day since she unearthed it at a flea market and replated it with white gold.
[Katsuya Restaurant, Brentwood, CA. Courtesy of Starck]
Checking in with ubiquitous designer Philippe Starck
By Lynn Morgan
He transforms the ordinary. Hundreds of objects we touch, use, and work with every day have been reimagined and redesigned in Philippe Starck’s vision. From the Microsoft optical mouse and the cult-object Alessi juicer to a Tokyo skyscraper, the Paris-born designer-turned-architect is the best-known advocate of New Design, the aesthetic that blurs the distinction between the utilitarian and the artistic.
The award-winning architect of the Bellagio and Horton Plaza examines inspiration, sustainable design, and the future of architecture
By Layla Revis
Art and Living: What are your favorite architectural styles?
Jon Jerde: We’ve come to the end of traditional architectural styles evolving over hundreds of years into ever-refined movements and pieces. I look more to ideas than styles. For me, the most important architecture connects to people in a very real way. Two individuals who had a profound impact on the quality of space—and who have greatly influenced me—were Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Kahn.
[Editor’s Note: Sadly, the legendary Robert Rauschenberg passed away late Monday night at the age of 82. What follows is a piece from the current issue of Art and Living about the legacy of both Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. As Peter Frank explains below, Rauschenberg will forever be remembered for his innovative oeuvre and momentous contributions to the art world. Rest in peace.]
Fathers of the Future
By Peter Frank
If there had been no Jasper Johns and no Robert Rauschenberg, we would have had to invent both of them. Our art, our lives, our current sense of the world are all inconceivable without their accomplishments, their lessons, their demonstrations of art’s—and life’s—simultaneous availability and ineffability. Art, they showed, could be ordinary and mysterious at once—and, indeed, mysterious for its very ordinariness.
[Ed Moses at work in his Los Angeles studio. Courtesy of the artist]
Seminal artists Ed Moses and Larry Belltalk with Art and Living about the nows and thens of the Los Angeles art scene
Art and Living: What was it that kept you in L.A. during the 50s and 60s?
Ed Moses: I thought about traveling but in the 50s I was still in school until the late 50s. Then I joined the Ferus Gallery in December of ‘57 where I was in a group show and met all of the primary artists of the Ferus Gallery—Bob Irwin, Larry Bell, Ken Price, Ed Ruscha coming later in 1959. And there was a huge amount of camaraderie and competitiveness. We fed off of each other in terms of attitude, not imagery. Everybody seemed to have their own view. A lot of studio visits took place and we hung out at Barney’s Beanery. It was a strong motivator when you returned from these studio visits. And that was all very convenient because we all lived in Venice and Sawtelle.
[From left to right: Robert Irwin, Ed Moses, Craig Kauffman, Ken Price, Billy Al Bengston, and Larry Bell. Photo by Howard Wise]
Ferus Gallery was the hotspot of the midcentury L.A. art scene. But it wasn’t the only one, writes art critic Peter Frank
Everything old is new again, especially in an art world that (literally) values its history but is always on the lookout for a good investment. So while bidding wars erupt over obscure contemporary artists because they come from the right school or gallery or country, whole movements and art scenes that hardly rated a footnote ten years ago are suddenly dug out of the basement, and artists whose phones haven’t rung since they were rotary suddenly have to get answering machines—and e-mail, and agents, and calendars. The cutting-edge artists of postwar Los Angeles, for instance, attracted much attention in their day, and not just locally; many Angelenos who emerged back then jumped from local group shows into Whitney Biennials and even enjoyed their first one-person exhibitions in New York galleries such as Pace and Castelli. Similarly, La Cienega Boulevard’s “gallery row” featured outlets vigorous, sophisticated, and well-supported enough to show the latest work from New York and San Francisco and even Europe.
Winston Churchill is best known for his leadership of Great Britain during WWII, and his historic speeches. Yet, few people realize his brilliance as a painter. Normally, Churchill paintings are not sold in the United States. They are usually reserved for sales in the United Kingdom. This Wednesday, April 23, 2008, a Winston Churchill original will be auctioned at Bonhams in New York City. To date this is the sixth Churchill painting sold in the United States over the past twenty years.
Art and Living gets the latest lowdown from artists, curators and directors themselves, courtesy of correspondent Emily Grossman
The group show Between the Lines: 5 Artists and the Lucid at William Turner Gallery from February 23 – March 22, organized by prolific curator and critic Peter Frank, has lent me a tantalizing chance to document perspectives on the new work of L.A.-based artists Michael Braden, Alex Couwenberg, Peter Lodato, and Charles Arnoldi, while chronicling the history of a unique glass piece imparted by its creator, Larry Bell.
At first glance, Beverly Hills-based plastic surgeon Randal Haworth is unassuming. His office is modest yet inviting. His stature is average and void of the materialistic trappings of success. Yet, as he talks, the true duality of his being emerges: a dichotomy of limits and possibilities, a struggle between the rigid principles that guide him in medicine and the universal truths of an endless imagination. Read the rest of this entry »
Artist Brandon Hawkins, age 28, recalls drawing as a toddler—not on paper, but on walls. “I didn’t talk much, so crayons spoke through me,” he smiles. Read the rest of this entry »
For luxury housing designer Richard Landry, designer of homes for celebrities Wayne Gretzky, Eddie Murphy, Sugar Ray Leonard and Kenny G, the architect is a stage-setter, fantasist and businessman—all at once
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