«Projector» magazine. Issue #23
Here comes out yet another Projector. This time, its cover looks like a notification board of the projects I’m excited about — the magazine as such, ART1.ru, and Poster Stars lectures. Poster Stars asked for a visual support, so I have vivified our logo a bit. Dear readers, I hope you will recognize us after all! The most attentive one will also see that Peter Bankov, featured in the issue, appears on the cover twice — in the publication announcements and the program of the talks in new Holland.
Raymond Loewy, the legendary American designer, is featured in the historical column. Read his story told by Pavel Ulyanov: «Andy Warhol regretted it wasn’t he who invented jeans. He wanted everyone on the Earth to be familiar with his products. Raymond Loewy is about to have managed this dream come true. In his lifetime, he implemented an incredible number of projects for over 200 companies, from the iconic Lucky Strike cigarette pack and Coca-Cola bottle to trains, planes, cars, and orbital modules».
I encountered Petr Bankov on the conference TypoBerlin. We were both giving talks, and I wasn’t sure which was more honourable — teaching a lecture in Berlin in front of the audience of 2000 people, or being on the same stage with Peter Bankov. I had always been looking up to him since 1997, when the first issue of [kAk) came out. Back in 1997, he seemed a godlike creature, and now we are friends. However, the way I see him hasn’t changed at all. Speaking of our job, he still remains a role model to me. When he finished his lecture and showed the posters, someone asked him an obvious question: «How come you work that hard?», and Peter just said the laconic «I don’t drink anymore». Now I have a crucial question: maybe so should I?
Another big interview, for the sake of which I had to fly to Greece and spend two days on the yacht of Axel Peenmoeller. Axel was born and raised in Germany, but he doesn’t consider himself a German designer. He has a much broader cultural and professional identity, same as the geography of his commissions. Speaking of his works, it’s hard not to mention that for the past four years he and his girlfriend have been living on a 40-feet yacht La Negra, travelling the Mediterranean. He nevertheless sails north as well, stopping in Rotterdam or Hamburg by perforce. Axel’s dream of a free life at sea with no harm to his job has come true. We talked about how he’s managed to do that.
We continue our series LightMusic with the white collection. Working with found-objects is mostly considered as a prerogative of art but not design. However, there’s now quite a fine line between the two allied genres. The collection LightMusic we are creating in partnership with Artlight is expanding to the field of art, demonstrating artistic and design features at a time.
In cooperation with the Finnish company Martela, Projector is exploring a new paradigm of a workstation: «These days one can work from anywhere they have access to the Internet. Another important social factor to trigger the transformation of the office environment was getting a job by the Y-generation born in the 1980-90s».
Pavel Ulyanov shares his new acquisition: «Soft chair is a huge mattress screwed to a round stool. The construction claims for space as a vacuum bomb: the more space it has around, the more eager it is to expand it. According to its concept, Soft chair is intended for a lobby. This is the way Designer Kaj Korhonen was desired to fill up the soulless spaces of modern architecture».
In 2013 YIVO insritute had a personal exhibition «Floating Worlds and Cities of the Future. Genius of Lazar Khidekel. Suprematism and Russian Avant-garde». Elena Dobryakova interviewed Regina Khidekel, who shared the story of her famous relative. The reproductions which illustrate the interview come from the family of the architect, and this is the first time when they are published. «Lazar Khidekel, same as Malevich in art, reached the level of abstraction beyond the framework of a certain historical period, on its way reviving the forms of architectural vanguard, which always looks ahead, and even now, 80 years later, remains revolutionary».
For the architectural festival City and its main theme «microhome» Art Studio Lesosplav (we have already mentioned their architectural experiments with hay in 2012) has designed and built a rocket right in front of the Central House of Artists in Moscow.
Design Panoptikum, a private museum in Berlin, is one of the strangest and most beautiful locations I have ever seen. A dozen little rooms house a unique collection of different tools, details, and mechanisms. They all are outstandingly functional, but anyway resemble of exotic artifacts of an unknown use. Vlad, a photographer and beautifully insane collector of interesting items of ХХ century, is the owner of this treasure cave. Giving a tour of his land, he showed us a lot of magic thingies.
Alexandr Florensky introduced us to a wonderful photographer Izmail Galin, and did an interview with him: «I was once showing my works to a colleague, and he said, „You care of not of a sensation but a situation“. This is probably true. It’s not necessary to be always looking for something to happen. In fact, nothing may be going on at all. In a nutshell, this is an artistic, even plastique, approach, similar to painting a picture. You don’t have to go far, it’s possible to shoot at home or nearby. You only depend on the light, like Monet and his plein air».
Sergey Helmyanov keeps recording the story of the famous graduates from our School. Soviet shipbuilding had only three head architects: Sergey Ivanov (fishing crafts), Anatoly Pavlov (carriers), and Igor Serebrennikov (research ships). All of them graduated from the Stieglitz Academy. In this issue, Igor Serebrennikov talks about his professional life and research ship design: «I got back to the workroom, and all the guys were kind of: „Hey man, we need to baptise you“. They gave me a cup of diluted spirit, pushed me into the center of the room, I drank, and so did they. Next, they told me to go to the chief mechanic and report him on the work process. And I came to him, leaned against the table and said, „The job is done! ’’
We go on with another publication by Sergey Helmyanov about his student’s work on hardscape design. «Urban area is a more complex notion than just an architectural solution, a general layout. We can describe lots of urban area details in a work specification, and no one thinks of many more of them, and even more are insensible. Nevertheless, everyone feels it’s cosy here and uncomfortable there, it’s OK in this town and feels too lonely in that one, you want to get back here and escape from there. fourth- and fifth-year students of industrial design facultee at Stieglitz Academy have tried to figure out why so».
Michail Karasik’s traditional publication on book design history of 1920-30s is now dedicated to two books by Alexandr Rodchenko: Steam train at self-support and For the Standard Public Catering. «The transition from constructivist posters, covers, books of poetry with very little image manipulation to a complex photo book was at first sight too harsh and sudden. Albums and composite books dedicated to Rodchenko’s art can hardly give an answer on how exactly the transition was going on, and what the artist was up to at the beginning of the decade».
ProArt, a magazine within a magazine, is issued in cooperation with the portal ART1.ru. By 2013, they’d issued over 500 serious articles. I was totally unable to choose the best ones. For this reason, I selected the four milestone interviews which were crucial for our project. «Modern art is hardly ever appreciated by its contemporaries» — says Vladimir Gusev, head of the State Russian Museum. «Enormous ambitions are a heavy burden», — says Semyon Mikhailovsky, the rector of St.Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts. «I’m not a professional collector. It all started with drinking, and was supported by friendship», — says Artemy Troitsky, a music critic and kulturtager, talks about his art collection.
In partnership with Aurora Fashion Week, we created yet another section «ProFashion». It is always interesting to know first-hand the story of how a successful project was implemented. Read a big interview with Artem Balayev, AFW executive producer: «St.Petersburg didn’t seem to have this kind of project before. The existing ones, such as Defile on the Neva, Admiralty Needle, Elle Fashion Days, were tackling different tasks. The designers we were interested in had either stopped participating in this kind of projects or had never done that because of their ideology. We managed to offer them an interesting niche product. This is how we now have 20 leading designers».
«ProFashion» finishes with Vlada Lipskaya’s digest on AFW shows which were held in spring 2013. «An outfit doesn’t make sense without a man, apart from other designer products. On a hanger, it immediately loses its symbolism, and turns into just clothes. Moreover, being put on a wrong person, it suffers the same (the image system is broken). Even more, as soon as its owner’s inner state, expression, or whatever else changes, the outfit turns into just clothes».
