Zoë Ryan

The first monograph on the groundbreaking video artist and member of the seminal Video Venice News and Studio Z groups This is the first major retrospective on the groundbreaking Los Angeles–based video artist Ulysses Jenkins (born 1946). Since the 1970s, Jenkins has interrogated questions of race and gender as they relate to ritual, history and state power. From his work with Video Venice News, a Los Angeles media collective he founded in the early 1970s, to his involvement with the artists’ group Studio Z (alongside figures such as David Hammons, Senga Nengudi and Maren Hassinger), to his video and performance works, Jenkins explores how white supremacy is embedded in popular culture. Beginning as a painter and muralist, Jenkins was introduced to video just as the first consumer cameras were made available, and he quickly seized upon the technology as a means to broadcast critical depictions of multiculturalism. This catalog features an extensive portion of Jenkins’ archive, early documentary films, photographs and ephemera, as well as his video art.

The newest volume in the Art Institute of Chicago's successful A+D series, Fashioning the Object invites readers to visit three of the most visionary design studios at work today: Bless, Boudicca, and Sandra Backlund. Fiercely independent and far-reaching in their influences, these young designers from Berlin, London, Paris, and Stockholm are producing fashion objects that straddle the line between traditional craft and cutting-edge technique, both in their use of materials and in the promotion of their brands.Zoë Ryan establishes the context for understanding the exciting departures these design houses represent, as the young creators draw inspiration from an array of other disciplines, including architecture, performance, film, and fine art. From Bless's numbered editions, to Boudicca's graffiti-can perfume, to Backlund's ready-to-wear pieces of knitted copper, these designers adapt storied objects to new uses and break old conventions, promulgating their ideas in playful, groundbreaking ways.Distributed for the Art Institute of ChicagoExhibition Schedule:The Art Institute of Chicago04/14/12-09/13/12

An innovatively designed monograph on the work of Matali Crasset, one of France’s leading product designers. A darling of French industrial design, Matali Crasset has earned critical praise internationally with her unique spaces and products. Ranging from simple, ergonomic kitchen utensils to architecture, her work engages its end users by asking questions on the role design plays in their everyday lives. Crasset was awarded International Interior Designer of the Year at the British Interior Design Awards in 2004, received the Grand Prize for Design from the city of Paris in 1997, and was a previous recipient of the Premier Prix de Concours Louis Vuitton. Her work includes products and interventions for Philippe Starck (whom she worked with for five years), Established and Sons, Hermès, Swarovski, Authentics, Domeau & Pérès, Alessi, Meta/Mallet, Artemide, and others. She has also engaged in architecture in the round, including hotels in Nice and Tunisia. Raised in a small village in the north of France, where work and life were intimately bound, the designer’s formative experiences clearly inform her view on contemporary design. The uncluttered rhythms of life in the country are reflected in the simple—but often colorful—forms that have earned Crasset a name for herself in the realms of product design, interiors, architecture, and art installations. Lavishly depicted with more than three hundred sketches, concept renderings, and photographs in a unique and brightly hued book format, the projects are organized thematically, with a special emphasis on materials and process.

Water has been an important topic in architecture and urban planning for years. The revitalization of the waterfront has been a prevalent trend in cities around the world. On the other hand, architecture also had to respond to the threat of floods.The theme of Building with Water is the use of water in architecture. It presents buildings that explicitly refer to water in their design and form. It establishes a typology of building by the water: residential structures, recreation facilities, industry and infrastructure, buildings for culture and art. The various design parameters are explored in four essays. Subsequently, twenty-two international projects are presented, organized according to their locations by a river, a lake or the sea. The authors’ concern is not to show luxurious buildings in privileged locations but rather presenting projects that seriously grapple with the main criterion of the location—namely, water—in an ecologically sustainable way and respond to it with their design. Wasser ist seit Jahren ein wichtiges Thema in Architektur und Städtebau. «Building with Water» thematisiert die Verarbeitung von Wasser im architektonischen Entwurf; es werden Bauten vorgestellt, die sich in ihrer Gestaltung und Form ausdrücklich auf Wasser beziehen. Eine Typologie des Bauens am Wasser wird erstellt: Wohnbauten, Verkehrs- und Industriebauten, Bauten für Kultur und Freizeit. Ebenso werden einleitend klassische Beispiele des Bauens am/im/auf dem Wasser gezeigt, wie etwa Château de Chenonceaux an der Loire, Falling Water in Pennsylvania von Frank Lloyd Wright oder das Salk Institute in La Jolla, Kalifornien, von Louis I. Kahn. Geordnet nach ihren Standorten am Fluss, See oder Meer, werden dann etwa 20 internationale Projekte vorgestellt. Es geht den Autoren nicht darum, luxuriöse Bauten an privilegierten Plätzen zu zeigen, sondern Projekte darzustellen, deren Entwurf sich ernsthaft und ökologisch verträglich mit dem Hauptkriterium des Standortes – nämlich Wasser – auseinandersetzt und sich gestalterisch darauf bezieht

The hip, functional, and versatile furniture and products of Konstantin Grcic—widely recognized as one of the most important designers working today—are transforming the landscape of contemporary design. This book accompanies the first exhibition in North America of Grcic’s work, highlighting the innovative archetypes of form and concept that have marked his remarkable output since 2004. Grcic delights in creating fresh takes on familiar industrial objects, whether desks, chairs, benches, stools, a range of kitchen equipment, lamps, a set of salad servers, or Krups coffee makers. In his recent work, he has blended his characteristic simplicity and distinctiveness with the use of new technologies and materials—for example, a cantilevered stacking chair, Myto (2008), is made from a strong, fluid plastic typically used by the automotive industry.Distributed for the Art Institute of ChicagoExhibition Schedule:The Art Institute of Chicago (10/17/09 – 1/10/10)