Paul Gorman

Architecture

And… I’m back!

Well, it’s been a while but I’m posting here again with takes on the usual, unusual and out-there from the world of visual culture.

There’ll be some changes made over the coming months and also some exciting announcements in regard to new projects but meantime here are two events to which I’m contributing in the next couple of weeks.

Tomorrow (Wednesday 16 September) I’m taking part in Facade Charade, a conversation about the relationship between architecture and fashion with writer/curator Priya Kanchandani and architects Sheila O’Donnell, of Irish practice O’Donnell + Tuomey, and Zaha Hadid’s Melodie Leung.

And on Sunday 27 September I’ll be in conversation at the annual countercultural fest Convenanza with publisher Lee Brackstone, major domo of the towering White Rabbit Books imprint, about the Granny Takes A Trip book we produced together last year as well as my earlier book The Look, which was admired by Convenanza’s figurehead, the late Andrew Weatherall.

Details on the Activities + Events page.

Jim Walrod August 25 1961 – September 23 2017

//Jim Walrod, 2012. Photo: Jeremy Liebman//

I said many times to Jim – and have reflected on this over the last few days – that not many people get to pursue their passion every day of their adult lives. Jim did that. He never went to ‘work’. He did not care if he made money doing it, he just wanted to be able to have you understand what he saw and to have your opinion on it.
Kathy Walrod

Jim Walrod, who has died aged 56, occupied a unique position in the world of international design.

A collector, curator, writer and sometime retailer, as well as an interior designer and locator of unusual and one-off furniture and lighting pieces for a diverse selection of celebrity and private clients, the rangy, sandy-haired Walrod cut a singular figure.

Enthusiastic, informed and slyly humorous, Walrod was founder with Jack Feldman and Fred Schneider of the B-52s of New York’s important 90s/00s store Form & Function and described as “the ultimate design raconteur” by hotelier André Balazs.

To Mike D of the Beastie Boys he was “the furniture pimp”, an accolade won in part for having sourced Memphis designs for David Bowie (Jim revealed to me just a few weeks ago that some of these Italian PoMo pieces came via Tommy Roberts, subject of my book Mr Freedom).

Continue reading Jim Walrod August 25 1961 – September 23 2017

Potential Architecture at Ambika P3

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//Poster 59 x 42cm. Garden Service, Apolonija Šušteršič with Meike Schalk, 2007//

This handsome fold-out poster is for the exhibition Potential Architecture, which opens at London’s Ambika P3 on March 11.

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//Clockwise from top right: Pavilion For Vodka Drinking Ceremonies, Alexander Brodsky, 2004; It Was All A Dream, Joar Nango, 2013; Garden Service, Apolonija Šušteršič (co-author Meike Schalk), 2007; Levitation, Sean Griffiths, 2015//

Continue reading Potential Architecture at Ambika P3

Metamodernism: Post-irony, new forms of sincerity and informed naivety

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What is Metamodernism?

In the 90s and the early 2000s it’s fair to say we grew up with a particular outlook on life, one of irony, of deconstruction and cynicism. This was noticeable in the music of Nirvana and Radiohead, in the books of Michel Houellebecq and Bret Easton Ellis, and we saw it in the arts with the YBAs and Jeff Koons. This is very much a sensibility that spoke to us, that we embraced.

That time was summed up by a sense of boredom in culture. This is it? And what now?

Throughout the 2000s we began noticing – as many people did and many have written about this – slight changes. First you get the complete reappraisal of writers such as David Foster Wallace, who started in the 90s but suddenly became big in the early 2000s. And you had sincere movies by Wes Anderson and Michel Gondry. This was all very different from the kind of stuff we grew up with. Something was changing. The irony of Nirvana, the desperation of Radiohead, the cynicism of Michel Houellebecq were replaced by something that was at once still cynical, still ironic and had an acknowledgement of how the world worked, but at the same time seemed to want more.

Continue reading Metamodernism: Post-irony, new forms of sincerity and informed naivety

‘The most radical designer of objects and furniture in the latter 20th century and early 21st century”: Jim Walrod on Gaetano Pesce in Bad Day #18

pesce1The current issue of arts and culture magazine Bad Day is enlivened by an engaging interview with the eminent designer and architect Gaetano Pesce by one of his most vocal champions, design authority Jim Walrod.

Augmented by Jeremy Liebman’s photographs, the feature makes a strong case for Pesce’s significance. “He’s the most punk rock person I’ve ever met,” writes Walrod of the 74-year-old.

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Issue 18 of Bad Day has sold out but visit the magazine’s excellent website for further elucidation.

Liebman’s website is here; Pesce’s is here.

The ART SCHOOL and the CULTURE SHED

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John Beck and Matthew Cornford’s intelligent and measured book The Art School And The Culture Shed may be a slim volume but it packs a hell of a punch in locating the ravages wreaked on our cultural life over the past 20 years by privatisation, the failings of local councils and town planners and the depredations of property developers.

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//Left: Moseley School Of Art, closed 1975. Right: The site of Sidcup School Of Art, occupied since 2010 by a Morrisons and a car park//

Continue reading The ART SCHOOL and the CULTURE SHED

I Knew Jim Knew: Jim Walrod knows a thing or two…

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//Jacket photograph Terry Richardson with shots from Walrod’s Instagram feed//

Design authority Jim Walrod wears a deep and wide-ranging understanding of his subject – specifically that pertaining to modernism in furniture, interiors, product design and architecture  – lightly.

This is refreshing in a field populated by bloodless experts and humourless know-alls. The founder of important 90s/00s store Form & Function, Walrod –  described as “the ultimate design raconteur” by André Balazs and “the furniture pimp” by the Beastie Boys – is above all an enthusiast.

Continue reading I Knew Jim Knew: Jim Walrod knows a thing or two…

Ten Sitting Rooms at the ICA, November 1-8 1970: Vaughan Grylls, Elizabeth Harrison, Simon Haynes, Patrick Hughes, Carol Joseph, Bruce Lacey, Diane Livey, Andrew Logan, Marlene Raybould + Gerard Wilson

“It isn’t so much what’s on the table that matters, as what’s on the chairs”

Jonathan Swift, from a letter to his friend Esther Johnson, 1711

//Simon Haynes in his ICA sitting room, 1970. Source publication: Unknown//

Ten Sitting Rooms was the title of a group exhibition curated by Jasia Reichardt at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1970. She organised a budget of £100 for each artist and gave them the brief of making a sitting room in spaces of either 15 x 18 feet or 12 x 24 feet.

I was alerted to the show’s existence by participant Simon Haynes, whose work I have been featuring here. Haynes’ Pop environment, which was produced in collaboration with his wife Sue, developed the themes and materials they used in the boardroom interior and furniture created earlier that year for Trevor Myles’ and Tommy Roberts’ boutique Mr Freedom at 430 King’s Road.

Continue reading Ten Sitting Rooms at the ICA, November 1-8 1970: Vaughan Grylls, Elizabeth Harrison, Simon Haynes, Patrick Hughes, Carol Joseph, Bruce Lacey, Diane Livey, Andrew Logan, Marlene Raybould + Gerard Wilson