This reader in Whitechapel’s Documents of Contemporary Art series investigates the interchange between art and design. Since the the Pop and Minimalist eras–as the work of artists ranging from Andy Warhol to Dan Graham demonstrates — the traditional boundaries between art and architectural, graphic, and product design have dissolved in critically significant ways. Design and Art traces the rise of the “design-art” phenomenon through the writings of critics and practitioners active in both fields.

Edited by Alex Coles
With contributions by David Bourdon, Peter Cook/Archigram, Douglas Coupland, Kees Dorst, Charles Eames, Experimental Jetset, Vilêm Flusser, Hal Foster, Liam Gillick, Dan Graham, Clement Greenberg, Richard Hamilton, Donald Judd, Frederick Kiesler, Miwon Kwon, Maria Lind, M/M, N55, George L. Nelson, Lucy Orta, Jorge Pardo, Norman Potter, Rick Poynor, Paul Rand, Tobias Rehberger, Ed Ruscha, Joe Scanlan, Mary Anne Staniszewski, Superflex, Manfredo Tafuri, Rikrit Tiravanija, Paul Virilio, Joep van Lieshout, Andy Warhol, Benjamin Weil, Mark Wigley and Andrea Zittel

Thank you Tiffany!

Interesting article in the New York Times — even if you think it’s all rubbish.

Here’s some pics from Andreas Angelidakis at the “In Present Tense” exhibition, National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens.
I hope all these buildings will be built some day in my life time.

Profile of Tony Wilson (RIP) on C4 TV in 1984.

Personal Blog of Toru Adachi, Bookendless. Mr. Adachi is the Editor of the books Moriyama, Shinjuku, Aaraki and Unlimited: Comme des Garçons for the Japanese Publisher (Heibonsha LTD).

Flickr page of Vitra Catalogue by Cornel Windlin.

anthropometries, shrouds, anthropometries, cosmogonies, fire paintings, fire paintings color, blue monochromes, monochromes, monogolds, monopinks, sponge reliefs, planetary reliefs, sponge sculptures, sculptures, drawings, actions, zones of immaterial, air architecture, dimanche, the void, monotone symphony…

Gift t-shirt is in the new issue of Fantastic Man.

The new 032c has arrived, available through Textfield Publishing and Distribution. Wolfgang Tillmans, Cecil Balmond, Juergen Teller, Rem Koolhaus and Idea Magazine. Please contact for ordering details.

“Cecil Balmond is a structural engineer, author, and man of ideas; he is deputy chairman at the global design and engineering firm ARUP, and director of its think-tank, the Advanced Geometry unit. Architects Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid, and Toyo Ito, among others, are indebted to his groundbreaking structural work. Both Cecil Balmond and artist Wolfgang Tillmans have dismantled the very architecture of their genres – Balmond’s genre being architecture itself, and Tillmans’ being the representational genres of portraiture and still life. A dismantling pictured and reformulated in an image essay, in which Tillmans distills an early 21st century office life so liberated by innovation that it is uninhibited by its cubicles.”

Updates at Michael Wells Photography, including The New New South and Scorched Earth.

Forms of Inquiry exhibition opens today at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London. Forms of Inquiry presents architecture as seen through the practice of graphic design. The exhibition highlights work by 20 contemporary international graphic designers who were asked to contribute ‘inquiries’ into architectural subjects. These self-propelled inquiries have been developed into a myriad of media and forms. The works exhibit a common desire to reframe the circumstances surrounding graphic design practise at the start of the 21st century.

A Reading Room situated in the Front Members’ Room will make visible the process of debate and exchange. This open library is guest-curated by eight publishers/designers who will contribute a selection of independent scholarly publications, books and zines, both new and historical, exemplifying graphically driven modes of inquiry from around the world.

Gary Leonard, 1992

There has been very little dialog about the 1992 Los Angeles Riots/Uprising. This photograph shows what looks to be some early-morning opportunity looting at a Thrifty Drug Store in Lincoln Heights, though I don’t remember looting extending that far north. My middle school (John Burroughs on Wilshire) was closed for several days, our school was about 30% African American, 30% Korean, 30% Latino and 10% White. It was especially awkward to watch some students come to class with duffel bags filled with things looted while others wept because their families business had been looted/burned. I remember there being very little dialog afterwards, except for the kind of courtesy grieving that has become synonymous with events like Hurricane Katrina. Anyway, I’m rambling.

Malls are of course a cliche of Southern California, but the Los Angeles Mall is truly remarkable and one of my favorite places in the city. The LA Mall is owned by the City of LA and has never been remodeled. Because of paranoia about Terrorism (it is adjacent to City Hall), there has been debate on whether or not to close down the Mall. Located above is Fletcher Bowron Square and the Triforium. Please visit if you can.

[“…depressingly awesome.”]

Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles (Thank you Mark).

Jacque Fresco says: “At the beginning of World War II the US had a mere 600 or so first-class fighting aircraft. We rapidly overcame this short supply by turning out more than 90,000 planes a year. The question at the start of World War II was: Do we have enough funds to produce the required implements of war? The answer was No, we did not have enough money, nor did we have enough gold; but we did have more than enough resources. It was the available resources that enabled the US to achieve the high production and efficiency required to win the war. Unfortunately this is only considered in times of war.”