Vanessa German and Charlee Brodsky: a good medicine for our lives

The Pittsburgh Center for The Arts is a special place in Pittsburgh. Every time I get there, I know I will learn something. I never pretend to find there the meaning of life, but for sure you can find a variety of plausible possibilities. Well done, well displayed.

This time, even if I waited until the last week (the show will close on October 28, 2012) it's Vanessa German and Charlee Brodsky's time. It is very nice to see two female talents under the same roof, with ways of expressing themselves (and themes) so different. In the whole, after watching both the presentations, you feel a sense of completeness. Each artist presents a 50% of Life. Together they are the whole. 

Vanessa German is the energetic energetic vitality of life. She is the Community, she is the History of America, she is the Memory of her brothers and sisters, of the past and of the present days. Her exhibition 21st Century JuJu is a magic of individual and universal memories (of the Afro American community, mainly).

Her pieces, created from blending old objects together -sometimes with modern ones- are simply astonishing  . You feel the History, but in front of each character or "doll" you cannot avoid to think about our society today.

The composition of each piece is very dense of meaning and messages. But nothing is left to chance. You can tell that because the colors are perfect, the volumes are balanced... It is exactly like reading a poem, and Vanessa is also a poet, eventually.

You cannot avoid or escape from this atavistic power, also because she directly involves you. This is evident in my favorite pieces: "dolls" with little mirrors that suddenly capture your image. So you are in the game, you cannot avoid it, because she is talking exactly with you, no one else. It's you that created the problem, it's you that have to face it, it's you that can be part of the solution. This is what she seems to tell.

I'm talking of problems, you see, because the masterpieces that I called "dolls" are pretty serious about that. Their components are not only knick-knacks found at the flea market. They are verses of the complex poem she is saying. And it is a poem of a community that suffered a lot, and still does. 

More than dolls, these are totems or, as I could recollect from my personal experience, even kind of holy statues of a laic religion. 

Charlee's exhibition Good Dog on the upper floor, is completely different and I had the pleasure to discover it little by little, as I was walking through the rooms. While Vanessa is the body, you could say Charlee is the mind. Vanessa's work is tridimensional (sculpture) and Charlee's is bi-dimensional (photography). 

Charlee Brodsky is a professor of photography at CMU and her pictures are a great lesson of photography, indeed. So balanced in terms of lines, highlight, accents or shadows... Each picture is accompanied by a sentence or a writing. You could easily forecast them just by looking at the picture, so much appropriate they are. 

 But the most important part of her work, even if I don't want anyone to put a label on this, is that in each picture you can see her dog Max. But she's not a dog photographer. This ain't funny, as you could think. The sentences are deep and the presence of the cute dog is always intense and dramatic, in a way. She knows, that what you feel. She knows about art, composition, photography, colors, literature, poetry, books, people... And she knows the city and the urban environment. Her work is a reflection upon life and urban realities that allows life (and certain situations) to show up.

The dog, Max Brodsky, is the main tool she uses to discover relationships and the world. Because animals know the world, and their curious approach to it is exactly what can start the first sparkle of Charlee's engine. The second tool she uses is the camera, to capture the exact moment and the perfect combination of light and volumes. Both are artists here, Max and Charlee.

Charlee is able to get strict to the point with a "simple" click, but then has the knowledge to match them with books that can exactly explain what is she feeling (or he is, coz here everything passes through Max).

Mary Shelley, Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Beckett... These are the most emphasized quotations (I love this one of Beckett...).

The exhibit is a lot about Nature and the City, I would say. It is very powerful also this work, even if different from Vanessa's one. Together, the two presentations are exactly what you need to give meaning to your days. One should "take" both every once in a while. Just like a good medicine: a vaccine against superficiality.

Young Architect Studio Competition, Pittsburgh

...and the winner is... ME!

I am very pleased to announce I am officially the Young Architect of Pittsburgh.
On August, 30th I submitted my project and yesterday night, during the wonderful Pittsburgh Design Awards 2012, I got a wonderful prize and recognition for my idea.

We were asked to submit a project for the Fort Wayne Bridge in Pittsburgh, a double deck metal bridge currently used only by trains, in the upper level.
We were asked to propose a new use for the lower deck, and here my idea:

symphony bridge

and more details of the project, in the submitted tables:

DESCRIPTION: The aim is to create a special and unique place that can be interesting not only for people living near the bridge.  This is done through the creation of a pedestrian passage and two bike trails.  Along this passage, the bridge will be equipped with little instruments that can make music out of the vibrations caused by the trains, by nature, or by the people passing through.

JURY COMMENTS: This is a strong idea with interesting potential.  It could be an event where the public participates all the way to a symphony performance.  It is a very organic notion.  And from one jury member…”I am dying to steal this concept.”

I really want to thank all the people that supported me, encouraging in applying and go on, despite the little time to develop the concept. It was challenging, but fun.

Now let's see how we can PLAY IT for real! 

My Pechakucha Night! vol.13

Yesterday I had the wonderful opportunity to attend and present my work at the Pechakucha Night organized by the AIA in the Cultural Trust Educational Center.

Pechakucha Night is a nice event that allows people to present whatever they want but using only 20 slides, and having 20 seconds to explain each slides. It started in japan, but soon became a popular format and a lot of cities all over the world are organizing that. I saw the 12th edition in June, in PGH, and manage to submit my slides for the 13th. It was great fun for me and for the audience, I can assure.

I talked about the Italian designer Bruno Munari, a master of creativity, and of his book "Fantasia", edited by "Laterza", but only in Italian. 

If you are willing to discover more about him, you can start reading "Design as Art", another masterpiece by him, edited by Penguin.

I spoked about the big distinction between the faculties we use while creating: FANTASY, CREATIVITY, INVENTION AND IMAGINATION.

The book gives you hints on how to use them (and when!) in the correct way. this lead to saving time and have more fun, for sure.

I'm going to talk about Bruno Munari, an Italian designer born in Milan in 1907 and died there in 1998. I'll first present his philosophy and then the book Fantasia, about how to manage fantasy and creativity. In this image, for example, he is showing creative ways to use an uncomfortable armchair. 

Mr Munari designed products for big Italian companies such as Olivetti or Danese furniture. He was also an artist. In 1954 he won the compasso d'oro, the most important design award in Italy, for one of the first polyurethane foam toys, the monkey Zizi standing on his shoulder.  

He also wrote a number of books about the design process and art. He was able to face problems of production and communication. Here you see one of his most fun and famous books, speak italian, a kind of appendix to the italian vocabulary, explaining our way to wave like crazy, while talking.

 

He approached the world from a diffrent perspective, totally unconventional. He analyzed the smallest components of a concept, and then synthetized those to create something new, starting from everyday issues and challenges. Here you see the X-hour clock, for the momentous times of the day.

His first concern was very practical. He always worked between factory ownners and machineries. He was able to understand them and to use them in a unique way, making the difference even when it seemed technically impossible, for the mass production technologies repeting the same actions.

He was more focused on create values, than temporary trends. The way to do this, according to him, was mainly through fun. In this case you see one of his most famous pieces, the chair for short visits, to be offered to people you cannot stand. For the 45degrees inclination of the seat, you cannot really sit there for that long, so you are obliged to leave quickly.

Mr munari's process dealt with tools and concepts. He was the first that, when the Xerox copier were sold, found a way to contraddict the main feature, that is obtaining identical copies. By playing with the original, he could obtain other originals from a copy machine. 

His sane obsession for the machines and his passion for contraddiction brought him to play with concepts and language. From the fifties he started producing "unuseful machines", a contraddiction even in the title, because the machines are supposed to be useful for their own nature. He did that before Calder, but he used meinly light materials and paper.

Mr Munari was a very practical man. This bed, called "abitacolo" (that means "capsule") weights 100 pounds and has been tested with 20 kids playing. It saves space and stimulates kid's creativity, being customizable. This bed has been included in the Moma collection. It stimulates creativity in the kids, having movable shelves and pockets. 

 Mr Munari wanted to share his knowledge, in particular with kids. He's aim was first to teach the people how to see the world in a different way. then how to reproduce it and finally how to create new pieces. He wasn't that interested in extraordinary things, but in the beautiful ordinary, much more durable and less expensive. 

 Fantasia that means Fantasy. this book teaches how to deal with creativity, moving from simple rules that, once consolidated in your mind,  can lead to incredible results, when you mix them. This book is fundamental for everyone has a lot of creativity but need a way to quickly go strict to the point and producing powerful solutions.

 Let's start with meaningful definitions and distinctions: fantasy is everything that wasn't existing before, even if unfeasable. You can freely use fantasy with no limits. It is the most easy to use, but can lead to a big loss of time in you don't quickly shift to the other faculties.

Is everything that wasn't existing before, but it's a technical issue. You don't have to think about aestethics at this very step. It's all about technique and how to create something from materials, tools and machinery. You must know the tools and how they interact with the materials. Then it's all about process and.. money, of course.

Is everything that wasn't existing but it is feasable in a global way, also from a technical point of view. It use fantasy but with a final aim. Creativity is the one used in the design process, mainly.

This faculty is very important and everyone should "train" to keep it flexible and always ready to be used. The book gives you ideas about how to increase it.

While fantasy, invention and creativity require you to think, imagination is only asking to see. You can visualize whatever you want, without necessarily think about how to obtain that. When you have to find an idea, it is important to use the correct faculty, to save time.

In the book he talks about materials, colors, dimensions, multiplication of pieces, subtractions or sum of parts... he presents common features that is always possible to mix, twist and interpret in a number of ways. All the best ideas start from simple themes remixed to obtain something new.

 These are examples Of his creativity. A part from the female brush, my favourite, i also love the collection of "flowers in the salad" that became also a book. Playing with vegetables and fruit he created stamps for children. These are all ideas you can recycle in a rainy day with your kids.

Start simple and then go on. we are surrounded by extraordinary objects, some of theme even unuseful, and just very appealing. But You can find cool ideas starting from nothing. In this case he thought of a problem, just for fun, such as how to send a message in the bottle and then add a post scriptum, once you close it.

The book gives a lot of hints on how to stimulate creativity. Munari presents workshops he did for kids with creative games. Munari's workshop can be very useful also for adults. If you have no time to manage your fantasy, this book can definitely change your life.

I leave you with a bunch of contacts. I'm not earning a euro, from this, I just want to share with you a piece of the best Italy. 

There is this book fantasia, only in italian, but also design as art, in english. At the Estorick Collection, in london, there is now a solo exhibit on him. I really hope you had fun, and wish you to have a lot of good and winning ideas, as Mr Munari had!

(Special thanks to ©Kevin Kunak, for the picture!)