~SIX THINGS: SAGMEISTER & WALSH .. ASK
SIX THINGS: SAGMEISTER & WALSH
MARCH 15, 2013 – AUGUST 4, 2013
THE JEWISH MUSEUM – 1109 FIFTH AVE, NYC
as in, designers: STEFAN SAGMEISTER, and his new business/creative partner .. JESSICA WALSH.
and that’s REALLY (!!)
SIX THINGS to do . . . on the path to HAPPINESS.
with the way the New Year started for me, sudden death to put it bluntly – I was so .. on it !!
the show opened on Tuesday, March 12, 2013.
I had heard about it just a few hours earlier that very same day, but like I said: sad things were calling for big change, and I was on it !! I was a seeker.
and as it turns out, I would be .. a believer.
what could be better than that. and, yeah I do call that .. HAPPINESS.
esp in the big city that can let you down, and .. eat you up.
truthfully, I approached the opening .. a little dark on the inside, with even a touch more skepticism . . . than usual.
though I had heard the museum, under new guidance .. was reaching for a new cutting edge, I wasn’t sure just how much they were prepared .. to ‘bleed’ !!
and those purple balloons with hand-painted white fonts .. the show’s first step forward, so to speak .. well, I dunno.
but not to fear . . . SAGMEISTER weaves his magic, as ever.
from the very moment you turn the institutional corner and come face-to-face, with what is really, in physical fact a small exhibit; large ideas and wonderful things … bloom irrepressibly into life. graphics animate & ideas: pop.
it’s an ‘art’ experience . . . that crosses many borders, and just for that very fact alone, is not to miss.
an oasis of thought, and super creative, yet mostly simple .. production values, ‘SIX THINGS’ is guaranteed to still even the most hyper-maniacs among us, and touch under even the most hardened skins.
in other words:
in this super-charged city of constant images but very little real substance.
let the Sagmeister Game of Substance … begin.
STEFAN SAGMEISTER, ‘If I Don’t Ask I Won’t Get’, short video in collaboration with STEVE ROMANO.
damn, NEVER JUDGE A ‘FONT’ . . . out of context !!
whoa, black hand-drawn oriental calligraphy-like .. single letter fonts – on balloons, way to .. go.
way to .. think.
way to .. fly !!
GET, IT ?!!
ideas .. take off, like balloons, and ideas / thoughts: like bubbles burst.
in your head.
connect . . the dots !!
wipe-out, wash-out. be born.
from left to right, that’s
SANTIAGO CARRASQUILLA, STEFAN SAGMEISTER, and JESSICA WALSH.
Santiago Carrasquilla is a designer in the new Sagmeister & Walsh studio, who worked on several of the concepts in the show, in particular .. the bubbling (!!) water ‘fountain’ .. in bubble letters (!!) on the floor. more on that, soon.
Jessica Walsh is Stefan Sagmeister’s new business partner.
this exhibit, ‘Six Things’ .. “marks the the first exhibition of their newly founded design firm, Sagmeister & Walsh”.
I have to tell you, I cannot lie – the moment I turned the stereotypical & proverbial (!!) museum corner and immediately faced up with this large scale video, my heart skipped a beat, and life was changed f-o-r-e-v-e-r. shock & awe.
what a rush.
literally you feel like you are 2 inches away from the the creative process, upfront & personal.
the word: exuberance does come to mind. so does, immersion.
so does: sharing.
the short .. visual attack / film’s premise is:
“If I Don’t Ask I Won’t Get.”
think on it. and if the bubble bursts .. so, what.
blow up another, and ask .. again.
persistence.
reaching. the hardness of a hand-made steel nail (the font) .. combined with the fragile pop / short span .. life of a balloon. the infinite potential of a momentary thought, desire, want, and .. need.
ps: the texts that accompany the pieces .. are very good too, illuminating without being draining. plenty of thought pathways, but no information-overload on Sagmeister’s dime, that for sure.
naked in the water, naked in your thoughts.
ASK.
apparently the first step on the road to .. HAPPINESS.
SO: what I also liked about the video, on a purely technical tangent . . was how it caught the ‘state’ of photography today, and the implicit potential for ‘pure’ & universal visual communication.
going even more technical .. it also gets in-your-face technical about the essential difference between say, old school 35 mm film and digital photography, which was a little hard to get used to in the beginning but now, as obvious .. here, reigns supreme – and that would be: the loss of ‘depth of field’, if not the concept of ‘background’, altogether.
in short: auto-focus. face/subject forward, background: wipe-out.
flat screen, white field, big energy. high def.
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH