So much i want to share with you from the last week or so, and as usual having trouble catching up ~ sensory overload! Inspiration OD? So i'm just going through pictures and will share pieces with you as they get me all giddy again. Firstly, being invited out to Sweden for the Absolut Art Collection celebration is a dream come true on so many levels ~ Absolut Ads were one of my earliest obsessions of where advertising met art, the ads were on my walls, i had the books and museum/art collection cds (totally need to find that when i get home), postcards in my notebooks, i probably even discovered a few artists through them (imagine 10 year old me?)... and over the years i've definitely grown up following the art they've enabled in so many mediums as i've also progressed further into the tech/art/ux/online/new media worlds... It's incredible that this weekend was celebrating 30 years of Absolut's creative collaborations! And the talks with their global marketing heads about the history and philosophies of the brand as well as the panel discussion with artists who have worked with them in the past on "Commissioned Art - Career boost or selling out?" was inspiring and thought-provoking for sure... but before we even delve into all of that... you know i fixate on the visual... and i had to show you the brilliantly simple portable/modular panel set up they popped up inside the Lydmar Hotel Restaurant!

Basically it is a series of two layered panels ~ lots of hinges... striped, in the front, had openings to expose the pink layer behind and also served as a frame for the flat panel TV behind. The A shaped stools were close didn't perfectly match the Absolut A, but the designer did say that it could be said it was inspired by the Absolut A (with a wink). Also adorable was that the stools also apparently make great little tables while the Absolut team had lunch perched on the audience set up of a rainbow of Starck's Kartell Ghost chairs... Apologies for being too mesmerized and immersed in conversation to take pics while they were taking it down, but it was impressive how quickly they collapsed it all before dinner! Take a closer peek at the set up on the next page...

p.s.
aren't the A's a little sesame street? I kept thinking, and today is sponsored by the letter A! (and A is for Absolut?)

TO PAGE 2 of "Absolut Flexible Panel Design"! ----->

Tags: absolut - events - exhibition - furniture - home

Finally, an alternative to paint chips and paint swatches to help you decide what paint to go with... at the Hardcore: New Finnish Design Exhibition in the Meatpacking District (i think this was the best exhibition i saw this trip), i was introduced to the work of Finnish group, Pentagon Design, and their great "Touching" Exhibition concept for presenting paint textures for Tikkurila Paints. It was hard not to go straight over to the large farm animals in various colors/glosses/etc... and impossible not to play with the magnets on the magnetically painted horse!

From the Pentagon Design press release: "Who can resist the urge to touch these near-life-size domestic animals, reined into modeling the diverse selection of Tikkurila paint coatings? Horses, pigs, cows, and calves have been given makeovers with surfaces to match their natures. You can feel the character of the coatings in your fingertips as you pet and stroke the nostalgic mammalian models. Beneath the feeling lie hard facts: the various options for covering a resin surface not only look different, they feel different. There's magnetic paint, textured coating, tinted light putty and chalkboard paint, oil putty, alkyd paint. There are pearl and silver glazes, done in a lace pattern. This urban petting zoo for the design world is amazingly illustrative, both tactilely and visually."

More images on the next page! (From both the Hardcore exhibition as well as their press images.)

TO PAGE 2 of "Touching by Tikkurila & Pentagon Design"! ----->

Tags: animals - exhibition - nature - paint