architectural block type: Newkirk, Iowa

photograph by versluis © 2011

Here’s an interesting example of a local 70 years old architectural block type style with nice letter spacing. The name is found on a dilapidated, obsolete public school building located in the very small crossroads (Dutch Reformed) settlement of Newkirk, Iowa (organized in 1882 as North Orange; Sioux County, Holland Township). The auditorium was added to the older classroom building in 1941. The addition was a community project constructed by the WPA (Works Projects Administration). And the building suggests very conservative Art Deco styling with streamlines as indicated by the photograph above.

In this case individual sans serif block style letters made of wood or hard rubber are cleverly adhered in reverse, on the inside surface of the wall formwork, as molds for the reinforced concrete. Once the poured concrete has hardened and the forms removed — the result is a “cast-in-place” sign, which produces the appearance of incised letters chiseled in stone. With this process there’s more than meets the eye. For example, the width of the letter stroke determines the depth of the letter as well as the angle of the bevel. This slight bevel helps to pull the letter molds out of the concrete and makes the edges stronger and helps prevent spalling.

“Architectural type has to compromise between materials and legibility.” [1]

1. Spiekermann, Erik, and E. M. Ginger. Stop Stealing Sheep & find out how type really works. 2nd ed. Berkeley: Adobe Press, 2003. 73. Print.

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sliced, uppercase typography = a noisy rebelliousness—a hint of disrespect

photograph by versluis, 2011

This framed piece was photographed at the recent Art in the Streets exhibition in Los Angeles and indicates the upper portion of a Polish poster for “Beautiful Losers: Sztuka współczesna i kultura ulicy.” This poster was a promotional piece when the “Beautiful Losers” exhibition was displayed at the Muzeum Sztuki, Lodz, Poland during May–August 2007.

As an identity “Beautiful Losers” uses a striking logotype, which was initially developed by Iconoclast Editions in 2004 for a multimedia project about “skateboarder/gang/graffiti art.” The design of the logotype fittingly utilizes sliced, uppercase typography that connotes a noisy rebelliousness with a hint of disrespect. The project, “Beautiful Losers: Contemporary Art and Street Culture” became a global touring exhibition along with an art book catalog and seems to have been the prototype for MOCA’s Art in the Streets show this year. An acclaimed documentary film, titled Beautiful Losers was produced in 2008, which featured many of the participating artists. Here’s The New York Times review of the movie (the comments are interesting too). And another movie review from the Guardian UK.

Here is a description about “Beautiful Losers” from Iconoclast, which collaborated with the artists to produce the traveling exhibition and catalog:

Beautiful Losers is an exhibition of multi-media art and design that explores the recent work of a diverse group of visual artists that have emerged from the subcultures of skateboarding, graffiti, punk, and hip hop in U.S. urban centers. The core of the project involves painting, sculpture, and photography, as well as film, video, performance, and product design by more than thirty individuals who have emerged in the last decade—some now established figures in the art world, but many receiving their first broad exposure here. [1]

1. Beautiful Losers: “Press Release.” Iconoclast Editions. Iconoclast, 2004. Web. 11 Aug. 2011.

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Steve Frykholm: Herman Miller Summer Picnic Posters (1970-1989)—Dordt College Campus Center Art Gallery

above: Steve Frykholm, courtesy of Herman Miller, used with permission
below: Show installation photograph by versluis, 2011

The Dordt College Campus Center Art Gallery (the department of art and design) proudly presents the exhibition:

Steve Frykholm, serigraphs
Herman Miller Summer Picnic Posters, 1970–1989
August 1 – October 2
On display are 20 posters from the Roger and Jeanne Knop collection, Muskegon, Michigan.

Herman Miller (located in Zeeland, Michigan) is known for their innovative furniture designs. Each year a poster is designed to promote the Herman Miller annual company picnic. This exhibition features, chronologically, the first twenty posters, which were designed by Steve Frykholm. The first poster, designed in 1970, started this wonderful series of serigraphs (silkscreen prints) and graphic design. The posters feature super-sized items like ice cream cones, cake, and fruit to illustrate the summer picnic theme. Several of Frykholm’s Summer Picnic posters are in the permanent collections of New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Smithsonian, Washington DC.

Steve Frykholm has worked for Herman Miller for over 40 years. He is the creative director and vice president of design for the National Design Award-winning furniture company. In an illustrious career he has worn many hats: designer, art director, artist and client. His work has been widely published and has been included in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and Danish Museum of Decorative Art. In 2010 he was awarded the AIGA Medal, which is the AIGA’s highest award.

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Chaz Bojórquez: calligraphic graffiti and art

Chaz Bojórquez, (b. 1949, Los Angeles; lives and works in Los Angeles)
Tres Placas (Three Tags), 2011
Acrylic paint on wall (Courtesy of the artist)
photograph by versluis, 2011

Art in the Streets exhibition at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA.
Closes August 8, 2011.

This is copy from the show documentation tag for this piece:

Tres Placas (Three Tags) is a three-layered tag that represents an evolution of my letter styles. The first layer, in light grey, is my name written in an early style representing the past. The second layer, in dark gray, marks the streets in my neighborhood where I first tagged. The top layer tag, in black, is written in my current letter style, stating “Los Locos de Cali” (“West coast crazies”) because we are crazy for living the life. —Chaz Bojórquez

This is an excerpt from the exhibition brochure:

The graffiti styles that emerged fro the American housing projects, subway yards, and bleak suburban parking lots during the 1970s form the foundation for what is possibly the most influential art moment since Pop—one that continues to thrive forty years after it began.

Interestingly, I’ve seen examples from “artists” in this show (Barry McGee for instance) on railcars passing through Sioux Center, Iowa.

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Ellsworth Kelly and Richard Meier: The Getty Center Los Angeles

left: Ellsworth Kelly, American
Untitled, 1988
Bronze
© Ellsworth Kelly
Gift of Fran and Ray Stark
Photograph by versluis, © 2011

right: Statue of a kouros (youth), Rear view
Stone sculpture, Naxian marble
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Fletcher Fund, 1932
© http://www.metmuseum.org/

Heading north from downtown Los Angeles, on the 405, and approaching the J. Paul Getty Museum one is struck by how the architecture stands out like a bright shining city on a hilltop in the Santa Monica Mountains. This monumental complex is the visualization of architect Richard Meier and his Renaissance realization of an ideal city of the twenty-first century.

Once inside the Museum complex at the south end of the Courtyard, one encounters Ellsworth Kelly’s striking sculptural piece called “Untitled,” which looks out to a panorama of the city of Los Angeles. The precise geometric contour is indicative of Kelly’s very fine drawing ability and hypersensitivity to classical form. The piece is fitting for the space and certainly complements Meier’s building that was built with blocks of Italian Travertine stone. Apparently, Kelly studied examples of ancient Greek sculpture as a basis for his piece. As the Getty Center’s website states:

In the early 1970s, Ellsworth Kelly began creating totem-like [obelisk] sculptures in a variety of materials including wood, aluminum, and weathering steel. This work is one of a handful of “totems” Kelly executed in bronze. The artist used a source from antiquity — the rigid, upright statues of young men known as kouroi.

Thus it seems appropriate to juxtapose and compare a photograph of Kelly’s sculpture to a picture of an archaic kouros statue from the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This Greek sculpture, a grave marker, was chiseled from marble. The MMA website describes the statue this way:

The [contrapposto] pose provided a clear, simple formula that was used by Greek sculptors throughout the sixth century B.C. In this early figure, geometric, almost abstract forms predominate, and anatomical details are rendered in beautiful analogous patterns. The statue marked the grave of a young Athenian aristocrat.

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National Farmers’ Bank of Owatonna, Minnesota

photographs by versluis ©2011
Note: the mural of milk cows in a pasture is by Chicago based artist Oskar Gross (1871-1963).

The 1908 National Farmers’ Bank (now Wells Fargo) of Owatonna, Minnesota
Louis H. Sullivan (1856-1924), principal architect

According to Jennifer Komar Olivarez, “Sullivan thought that a building should evolve organically, ‘germinating’ like a seed into a whole plant.” And, “He also felt that every structure needed a consistent, unifying ‘system of ornament.’”[1] Ornament was essential to Sullivan’s architectural design strategy, which was quintessentially inspired by the flora and fauna indigenous to the United States Midwestern prairie landscape. This importance is also characterized by the colors and textures of tapestry brick a preferred material that was used in Sullivan’s Midwestern “Jewel Box” bank buildings of the early twentieth century.

The following text is from the historical marker near the site:

Banker Carl Bennett wanted more than a prominent new building to house his family’s business. He wanted a work of art. Bennett’s search for an architect led him in 1906 to Louis Sullivan, one of the country’s most inventive designers. Together they created a magnificent home for the National Farmer’s Bank in the heart of downtown Owatonna. This brilliant collaboration of the patron and architect produced what many consider the finest small-town bank in America.

After helping to make Chicago the country’s architectural capital in the 1890s, Sullivan came through with a bank design for Owatonna unlike any other. Believing that function and form of a building should complement one another, he conceived a structure resembling a treasure chest, a fitting image for a bank that housed people’s savings.

Sullivan chose for his bank a theme he used often—an arch within a square—then attached to it a rectangular office building. He combined those simple, monumental shapes with complex ornamental details that bring the building to life. Set in sandstone-and-brick walls are two huge stained-glass windows, each framed by a wide band of terracotta—a hard, molded clay-accented by a narrow band of glass mosaic.

The architect did not create this masterpiece alone. His sketches were completed by his draftsman, George Elmslie, who designed much of the ornamentation and went on to become a noted Minnesota architect. Joining them were a team of skilled craftsmen who created the ornate interior—a “color symphony” of painted plaster, stained glass, and huge cast-iron chandeliers. The finished bank was dedicated in 1908.

Remodelings have altered some of the interior features. But much of the original splendor of Louis Sullivan’s bank remains. In 1976 it was designated a National Historic Landmark.[2]

1. Olivarez, Jennifer Komar. Progressive Design in the Midwest: The Purcell-Cutts House and the Prairie School Collection at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Minneapolis: Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2000. 20. Print.
2. Historical marker: Minnesota Historical Society.

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The Purcell-Cutts House in Minneapolis: a unified vision

photograph by versluis 2011

The Edna S. Purcell House (now the Purcell-Cutts House), 1913 (east elevation)
(Architects: William Gray Purcell and George Grant Elmslie)
Near Lake of the Isles, Minneapolis

For William Gray Purcell responsible architecture required that we must look and see and be sensitive to our environment — fitting for it’s time and place.

Think of… our prairies, fragrant [and] beautiful…vast riverways, our great lakes, and the procession of the seasons moving across the face of them…. Think of us as a people born into such [an]… environment, and dream of an architecture arising from the dynamics of a [people]…so nurtured, so blessed…. Do we believe in our spiritual resources? Then let us rely upon ourselves, let us not forsake ourselves. Do we believe in the divine creative impulse dwelling within us and working through us? Then let us…believe that beneficence may be worked through us, that genuine power is common to us all…. Do we believe in the reality of life? Then let us not deny our presence in…an ordered universe. Do we believe in the romance of life? Then let us utter a song! —William Gray Purcell [1]

Concerning details of the geometry of the house Jennifer Komar Olivarez writes:

The Purcells’ new house had a steel-reinforced structure and reddish buff-colored stucco exterior. In keeping with its site, the two-story house appeared strongly horizontal, owing to the overhanging eves, including a seven-foot projection at the front (east) of the house. The eves also regulated light and heat entering the house as a shield on hot days. A wall of windows under the eves connected the interior of the house to the garden and reflecting pool. Bands of windows on the second floor, some spanning more than one room, contributed to the horizontal line [along with the piers of spruce and cypress wood trim]. And a continuous band of red and blue stencil designed by Elmslie provided an imaginative, low-cost alternative to an expressive terra-cotta frieze. [2]

Here’s a link to an excellent website, produced by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, with 360° Quicktime® views of the interior.

1. Kennedy, Roger G. Introduction. Progressive Design in the Midwest: The Purcell-Cutts House and the Prairie School Collection at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Jennifer Komar Olivarez. Minneapolis: Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2000. 14. Print.
2. Olivarez, Jennifer Komar. Progressive Design in the Midwest: The Purcell-Cutts House and the Prairie School Collection at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Minneapolis: Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2000. 38. Print.

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