Received with great excitement during the Sundance Film Festival, Exit Through the Gift Shop is a documentary by Thierry Guetta (aka Mr. Brainwash), a French expat turned shopkeeper. The film documents his obsession with searching for the Banksy, a name eponymous with the street art movement. The artist, however, is very secretive of his identity for fear of prosecution. Guetta’s search eventually leads him to travel the globe with artists from Shepard Fairey to Invader, and yes, Banksy himself often leaving behind his family and work. The final result is poignant chronology of the street art movement.
Exit Through the Gift Shop will be showing in Seattle at the Harvard Exit Theater on April 23, 2010. Don’t miss your chance to see it!
Northwest Film Forum and The Sprocket Society, in association with Center For Visual Music, present this special series celebrating the history of Visual Music. Over the past century, there have been a number of prescient artists who’ve approached cinema as a tool for merging visual art and music in order to create a new synaesthetic art form and explore uncharted areas of experience.
Through a vibrant history of cinematic experiments, these pioneers have been inventing the concepts, aesthetics, techniques and technologies on which our modern image-and-sound culture is based. Visual Music is a rare opportunity to see restored film prints of work by such master animators as Oskar Fischinger, Mary Ellen Bute, Jordan Belson and Robert Breer on the big screen.
In addition, we’ll host a panel discussion on Seattle’s own history of visual music in the 1960s and early 70s.
Curated by Peter Lucas Special thanks to the Center For Visual Music, Cindy Keefer, Cecile Starr, Spencer Sundell and Alex Bush. This program is made possible by a grant from the National Endowment For The Arts.
The above image is a still from Oskar Fischinger’s Kreise (Circles) (1933), 35mm, color, sound (c) Fischinger Trust, courtesy Center for Visual Music.
“In an age of digital design and portable media, this new documentary explores the twilight of an analog craft and the small town museum that once was a thriving center of the printing industry. The Hamilton Wood Type Museum in Two Rivers, WI bears an important part of the lineage of American graphic design. On most days, a lone employee waits in a cavernous old industrial building for its occasional trickle of visitors to arrive. But come Friday, the place comes alive as printmaking workshops led by, and filled with some of the nation’s top design talent, descend on the sleepy enclave. Typeface investigates the history of wood type, introduces us to proponents of the letterpress process around the country, and champions the convergence of modern design and traditional technique.”
The husband and wife team Charles and Ray Eames are among the most influential designers of the 20th century. In addition to furniture, industrial and graphic design, they also created exhibitions and nearly 100 short films. This selection of their films playfully documents their Herman Miller furniture, their private home and even a solar powered kinetic sculpture. Includes Eames Lounge Chair (1956), S-73 (Sofa Compact) (1954), Kaleidoscope Jazz Chair (1960), Fiberglass Chairs (1970) and others.
EAMES COMMUNICATION (Charles and Ray Eames, USA, 1953-72, Beta-SP, 65 min)
This selection of short films by influential designers/filmmakers Charles and Ray Eames focuses on their exploration of concepts of communication, science and new technologies.
The program features rarely seen films, including A Communications Primer (1953); House Of Science (1962/64; a composite of multi-screen projections at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair); and View from the People Wall (1965; presented at the New York World’s Fair as the multi-screen film, Think). And of course, in our tenth year, we just had to include their classic film Powers of Ten (1977).
“ByDesign explores the intersection of graphic design and moving image, and celebrates multidisciplinary artists who push the boundaries to create new techniques, styles and forms. Over the past decade, we’ve had the pleasure of hosting a great number of special guest artists, and presenting hundreds of new and historic films. We’ve seen new technologies developed, old techniques revived and watched as interest has grown in this overlap of design and film.
The tenth annual ByDesign program features a range of film title sequences, animations, documentary portraits and guest presenters. We are especially pleased to present films by Charles and Ray Eames, as the work of the legendary multi-disciplinary husband and wife team was the main inspiration for our starting this program a decade ago.”
From LA to Vancouver, a legacy of inspired living by the pioneers of West Coast Modernist Architecture.
Filmmakers Michael Bernard and Gavin Froome will take us on a journey from Los Angeles to Vancouver; from 1922 up to the present exploring modernist architecture on the West Coast. A core group of architects embraced the Coast with its particular geography and values and they have left behind a legacy of beautiful and inspired dwellings. Today, architects have picked up the thread and they continue to explore and celebrate the principles established by their predecessors.
Interviews with architects, photographers, and dwellers of modernist houses will be featured.
The modernist houses themselves will take centre stage, shot in high definition: the open plans, simplicity of form and integration of site will awe and inspire.
THE VISUAL LANGUAGE OF HERBERT MATTER is a revealing look at the fascinating life story of the highly influential mid-century modern design master. Known as a quintessential designer’s designer, Swiss born Herbert Matter is largely credited with expanding the use of photography as a design tool and bringing the semantics of fine art into the realm of applied arts.
Inspired by Russian constructivists and taught by artists such as Fernand Léger, Le Corbusier, and A.M.Cassandre in Paris in the late 20s, Matter designed a series of cutting-edge Swiss travel posters that won international acclaim for the pioneering use of photo-montage combined with type. Always striking a balance between fine art projects and commercial work, the taciturn designer found his own unique language, which resulted in the creation of such iconic works as the corporate identity for Knoll Associates and the New Haven Railroad. With his photography he was adept in documenting the early furniture of Charles and Ray Eames and creating covers for Vogue and Arts & Architecture as well as documenting his contemporaries Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning or Alberto Giacometti. As a filmmaker, he directed a critically acclaimed film “Works of Calder” about his good friend Alexander Calder, with music composed by John Cage. Later in life he was a professor for photography and graphic design among Paul Rand and Josef Albers at Yale University.
In today’s commercialized and oversaturated world, the documentary directed by Reto Caduff (“Charlie Haden - Rambling Boy”, “A Crude Awakening”) lets luminaries such as Robert Frank, Massimo Vignelli, Alvin Eisenmann, Steven Heller, Elaine Lustig Cohen and others explain why Matter still matters. Through never-before-seen footage, personal photography and stunning graphic design work, the film explores the social and cultural impact of his personal visual langauge that influenced a whole generation of designer and artists.
Italian luxury brand Prada has announced the release of a book. The book documents the brand’s diverse projects in fashion, communication, architecture, film and art. You can order the book now directly on the Prada website for 100 Euros.
ART & COPY is a powerful new film about advertising and inspiration. Directed by Doug Pray (SURFWISE, SCRATCH, HYPE!), it reveals the work and wisdom of some of the most influential advertising creatives of our time — people who’ve profoundly impacted our culture, yet are virtually unknown outside their industry. Exploding forth from advertising’s “creative revolution” of the 1960s, these artists and writers all brought a surprisingly rebellious spirit to their work in a business more often associated with mediocrity or manipulation: George Lois, Mary Wells, Dan Wieden, Lee Clow, Hal Riney and others featured in ART & COPY were responsible for “Just Do It,” “I Love NY,” “Where’s the Beef?,” “Got Milk,” “Think Different,” and brilliant campaigns for everything from cars to presidents. They managed to grab the attention of millions and truly move them. Visually interwoven with their stories, TV satellites are launched, billboards are erected, and the social and cultural impact of their ads are brought to light in this dynamic exploration of art, commerce, and human emotion.
Imaginary Forces created a short film, combining original animation with a videotaped interview of Rand himself, that encapsulated his unique and timeless contribution to the design community.
“a work of art is fully realized, when form and content is indistinguishable”
