The Oxford Dictionary defines a "portrait" as a painting, drawing, photograph, or engraving of a person, especially one depicting only the face or head and shoulders. This definition highlights the traditional artistic representation of individuals, which focuses on their facial features and expressions. However, as Oslo-based artist Jason Boyd Kinsella demonstrates, a good portrait need not necessarily capture physical likeness; in fact, it can even completely ignore it. His series of abstract portraits visualizes a person’s unseen essence through elaborate assemblies of immaculately painted, colourful geometric volumes. Fascinated since his teens with the Myers-Briggs personality indicator, his geometric visual language aims to represent the building blocks of psychological attributes, in other words what his subjects are like rather than what they look like.
Intuitively created, Kinsella's portraits are both reductive and expository, retaining a sense of humanness despite their abstract form. Spanning painting, sculpture and video, his work, which he terms ‘fleshless portraiture’, uncannily conjures the quirks and idiosyncrasies underpinning the subject’s personality while simultaneously conveying the commonality of humanity. Stylistically, Kinsella’s portraits draw from modern art movements like De Stijl and Cubism, but at the same time, whimsically channel the classicism of the Old Masters by incorporating elements like the 3/4 pose and linear perspective. Their fluid, deconstructed figuration also reflects the concept of the malleable digital self in the age of social media and the metaverse. Yatzer recently caught up with the artist to talk about his artistic practice, his approach to portraiture, and his interest in psychology.
(Answers have been condensed and edited for clarity.)
Creatives benefit from project briefs and client feedback just as writers are made better from editorial assignments and proofreading. Critiquing oneself is never easy. But what happens when an interior designer is tasked with crafting their own sanctuary? Such was the monumental task for Ania Dunlop of Home for Zen who recently bought and completed a gut renovation of her Westchester family home after 30 house tours. Built in 2003, the structure continues to be the ideal stage for soulful expression as she showcases decades worth of art, heirlooms, and the occasional graphic print for extra pops of personality.
Prospective buyers are enticed by a plethora of things from amenities to flashy finishes, but for Dunlop it will always be about potential. “Despite being a dated Mediterranean-style home, it had great bones, expansive space, and the kind of grounds that are perfect for entertaining,” she says. “I could immediately envision the transformation. It was clear this house was more than just a property; it was a canvas to create something special.”
The sprawling residence now comprises three levels – basement, ground, and first – with a dining, family, living, sunroom, kitchen with cafe nook, two offices, five bedrooms, six full bathrooms, two powder rooms, an indoor pool, entertainment area with bar, gym, and screening room. What’s more, the extensive glazing and generous greenspaces extend the interiors for a great deal of living al fresco all year round. Architectural fixtures like the grand double staircase are retained with a new, streamlined railing to contrast the original, more ornate moldings.
Dunlap maximizes daylighting in the ground floor open plan with barely off-white walls and a whisper of natural hues for paint that barely blushes when kissed by the sun. Other areas are punctuated with lively wallpapers and surface patterns to create visual interest, often organic in appearance. The solarium has quickly become everyone’s favorite room evoking the spirit of a tropical oasis from its botanical surface patterns, gold velvet chairs, and thriving flora staged throughout.
References to earth’s other elements include luxe marble mantles and backsplashes, a smattering of metal accents that will patinate, and handmade ceramics. Much of the home furnishings are made from ash and rift oak then upholstered in shearling, mohair, and boucle textiles. Of note is the first floor design studio, which features a large, weeping willow tree wall treatment whose tendrils extend across the space.
The interior atmosphere can best be described as a fusion of tastes to satisfy aesthetic palates from the Mediterranean to Parisian Chic. Artisan goods and handcrafted collectibles further imbue the otherwise minimalist spaces with some soul. This type of meaningful curation is what the designer encourages her clients to practice for the sake of quality, sustainability, and timelessness. Implementing it herself is a testament to how fulfilling the return on emotional investment can be when the project is fully realized despite self-doubt.
“Designing my own home was more complicated than designing for someone else. I really have to trust my gut that all the decisions that I made are the right ones,” Dunlop adds. “The joy came from doing it on my terms, not for future owners or clients, but for my family.”
With professional degrees in architecture and journalism, New York-based writer Joseph has a desire to make living beautifully accessible. His work seeks to enrich the lives of others with visual communication and storytelling through design. When not writing, he teaches visual communication, theory, and design.
Multimedia artist Futura 2000’s new career retrospective at the Bronx Museum of the Arts has been decades in the making – and has only come about due to years of intense perseverance. While Futura has reached the heights of his chosen medium, now boasting high-level collaborations with the likes of Virgil Abloh, Uniqlo and Nike, he spent years struggling to break into the art world and build a name for himself. His exhibition, Breaking Out, represents a new milestone and an achievement of validation from the New York art world that has long proved elusive to him.
The artist first began creating work in the early 1970s as a part of the graffiti scene that was flourishing in his home borough of Brooklyn. From the beginning, Futura’s work stood out for its abstraction and sci-fi themes, which the artist has credited to the black and white TV shows and B-movies that he watched as a child and young adult in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. The Stanley Kubrick classic 2001: A Space Odyssey was a major touchstone that got the artist thinking about space and the future, and he also found inspiration in 1979’s franchise-starter Alien, particularly in how the alien’s form influenced his own cast of characters.
A major early piece for Futura was 1980’s Break, referenced in the title of the new exhibition, in which the artist spray-painted graffiti over an entire subway car. The work, represented in the show through a photograph, is an explosion of bright, cloud-like pastel hues in oranges, reds, mauves and blues. It’s a good orientation as any to Futura’s work, which tends to collage imagery of space rockets, starscapes, alien figures, atoms and planets over backgrounds of oozing, almost biological-feeling runs and seeps of colors.
Futura titled the subway car piece Break because he saw the work as doing just that – breaking from typical motifs of elaboration and lettering that were then considered essential components of graffiti art to pursue abstraction. Looking back, he now regards it as “the genesis of everything”, insofar as his creative efforts go. “When I did Break I was trying to come into this new creative space,” he said.
El Diablo by Futura 2000 (1985). Photograph: Genriquea/Collection of Kaws
According to Futura, the piece “ran” for perhaps three months before it was either painted over by other artists or cleaned off by the city. As with the rest of the art he created in those days, Break was ephemeral by definition, and it lives on now only in photos, memories and as an influence in Futura’s later work. Even the train itself no longer exists, and the artist speculated that it may have ended up in the Atlantic Ocean. “They removed all the bad materials that were in subway cars and dumped them in the ocean to create reefs,” he said, citing a 2008 plan to sink about 1,000 decommissioned subway cars off various parts of the east coast. “Maybe it did end up there. That would be kind of cool.”
Futura’s transition into gallery spaces was a challenging one that took him many years to figure out. He experienced significant amounts of rejection throughout the 1980s, and even when he did land prime gallery spots, the art world could be off-putting and hurtful. “At the time I was kind of just angry, because quite frankly I wasn’t succeeding,” he told me. He recalled feelings of exhaustion and exclusion over being nickel-and-dimed out of earnings by galleries, and getting run down by the chase of it all. “It was obviously not for me at the time. I had to go do other things and find another route.”
Things began to substantially turn around for Futura when the French fashion designer Agnès B became a patron of his in the early 1990s; she has continued to support Futura’s work for the past three decades. “At a moment in my life when things weren’t amazing,” he recalled, “she showed interest and helped me get my first real studio. She was someone who wasn’t there to take advantage of me.”
Under Metropolis by Futura 2000 (1983). Photograph: Studio Sebert/Collection of Kaws
This was around the time the Futura was diversifying into arenas like streetwear and digital files created via computer, although he’s always seen himself at core as a spray painter. He believes one of his key innovations is inverting the spray can, holding it upside down when he works, and sees this as essential to his ability to exert minute control overhis paint application. He also loves to be active on his canvases, draping them with plastic so he can walk over them and embrace the fundamental fluidity and chaos of his medium of choice. “Sometimes there will be a happy accident, a Bob Ross moment where something cool will happen,” he said.
Breaking Out is touted to be the largest retrospective of Futura’s career – in fact, he views it as his first true museum show – and it follows on the heels of a similarly titled show at the University of Buffalo that ran until last winter. This version of the exhibit goes deep into the artist’s history, having received a wealth of loans from private collectors, in order to present a full picture of Futura’s history and development as a creative force.
This is a show that is very much about championing an artist who still is an outsider of sorts, and whom the Bronx Museum contends should be seen alongside other great Black artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat, who made a similar transition from graffiti to canvases.
Futura is fully enjoying being involved in planning the retrospective and is ready to savor a major moment of his own in New York. It’s a sign of his resilience, and the fact that somehow, some way, he’s managed to triumph as an artist. “It’s been very improbable, my career, I don’t think I would ever have imagined all this. I think the show is going to be awesome. As I used to say back in the day, we’re gonna rock the house.”
Luca guadagnino and Nicolò Rosmarini in homo faber 2024
In Venice, Homo Faber 2024 welcomes its third edition at Fondazione Giorgio Cini on San Giorgio Maggiore island, running from September 1st to 3rd, 2024. For this year, the organizer Michelangelo Foundation for Creativity and Craftsmanship and its partners have chosen the theme ‘Journey of Life,’ devised by the Foundation’s Vice-Chair, Hanneli Rupert. They tapped director Luca Guadagnino to stage the event’s scenography and artistic direction, but it’s not a one-man team, not after he teams up with Milanese architect Nicolò Rosmarini so his production and exhibition design can come to life, one that designboom had had the chance to witness before its opening.
And life does come as ten themed exhibitions that welcome visitors. Their names follow the life-to-afterlife timeline: Birth, Childhood, Cypresses and Magnolias: a papier-mâché wood, Celebration, Inheritance, Love (Courtship), Love (Union), Journeys, Nature, Dreams, Dialogues, and Afterlife. In the Venetian event, Luca Guadagnino and Nicolò Rosmarini’s scenography leads viewers to what life means and what the afterlife may look like. The filmmaker says it has always been his job to find a way to tell a story with what is given to him. ‘This amazing and very streamlined and universal concept of the Journey of Life led us to understand how to envelop the audience through the amazing architecture of the Fondazione Cini so that the craft on display was not going to be overwhelmed, but at the same time the place itself was given a lot of relevance,’he says.
Birth, Giulio Ghirardi | all images courtesy of Michelangelo Foundation, unless stated otherwise
‘Journey of life’ brims with pastels, pink and lots of vibrant hues
Luca Guadagnino is known for his movies Call Me By Your Name, Bones and All, Suspiria, and recently, Challengers. It’s no surprise he takes the meaning of life to heights by adding his flair for art-making. When visitors step inside Homo Faber 2024 in Venice, they walk through a ticket booth, showered with pastels and pink, and plenty of them. They pass through the passerella, thriving in colors such as apricot, powder, gray, and pink, linking each of the ten exhibitions. Mirrors become an object of repetition for the Italian film director, appearing in all stages to reflect the island’s surroundings as well as the natural light. Some pleated fabric walls come up too, a way for Luca Guadagnino to pay homage to the Venetian-born designer Carlo Scarpa, one of his artistic influences.
Beauty and color shine through Luca Guadagnino and Nicolò Rosmarini’s life and afterlife. They’re not bleak and fiery, but filled with lightness and playful objects. They’re flocked by a pair of 12-meter-high papier-mâché cypress trees, a dream-like reimagining of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini’s former swimming pool, and a forest of chandeliers descending from the ceiling of the Sala degli Arazzi. Even tributes to architecture and design notables such as Lina Bo Bardi come through, especially with the use of her famed glass easels with concrete bases. There’s even a tea room gleaming in Art Deco design, and at the end of the exhibition, the two art directors ask the visitors to ponder what death after life can feel and look like with two final rooms: one in black and one in white.
Reef, Josh Glukstein | artisan: Alexandre Vazquez
Contemporary crafts with over 800 objects by 400 artisans
Still, the main stars of Homo Faber 2024 are the craftspeople and their crafts, the way they make art, and the art itself. The event spotlights more than 800 objects by more than 400 artisans from more than 70 countries around the world. Some of these objects and processes aren’t immobile because some artisans stage live demonstrations and participatory workshops on how they make their art and crafts. Visitors can join and learn the techniques in making vases, laces, globes, watches, jewelry, shoes, writing instruments, and more. They may be able to embroider murmurations, a depiction of a huge flock of starlings, and make their own Japanese bookbinding, guided by master artisans and presented by Mazda.
If they wish to just gaze, they can marvel at craftsmanship and techniques such as the ones found in Sala Bianca. A room full of flowers, visitors meet an enfilade of vitrines right before their eyes and flowers made of paper. The art directors also shed light on the history of Fondazione Giorgio Cini’s architecture. While in previous editions they were hidden, Luca Guadagnino and Nicolò Rosmarini decide to exhibit photos of their restoration in the 50s through a collage of black-and-white images. In its own form, the restoration exudes craftsmanship that Homo Faber 2024’s theme resonates with. ‘It has been a tremendous experience of reflection on many of the great inspirations that have led our ideas, from Carlo Scarpa to the memory and history of Venice as a city of art,’says Luca Guadagnino.
Celebration, Giulio Ghirardi
Homo Faber 2024 isn’t just on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore. It spreads out across the city of Venice as artisanal workshops for the city visitors. Seventy ateliers open their doors to the public, without the need for pre-booking, where they can dabble in the local arts and crafts of the city. Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d’Arte has developed the program with the support of Cartier and in collaboration with prestigious Venetian institutions, so Homo Faber 2024 can extend its events, exhibitions, and presentations. The list of events includes an exhibition entitled L’Italia nel cuore at the Hotel Splendid Venice – Starhotels Collezione, and a series of events each Wednesday evening at the Fondaco dei Tedeschi until the end of September 2024.
Perhaps the roots of Homo Faber 2024’s theme stem from objects dearest to people’s lives; at least that’s the impression Hanneli Rupert may leave. ‘I am particularly excited by the geographic variety of crafts and skillsets that we are showcasing side by side, many of which urgently need help to keep them alive for future generations to appreciate,’ she says. She chose ‘The Journey of Life’ as the foundation for Luca Guadagnino and Nicolò Rosmarini to work on because these words may sound simple, but their depth is philosophical and profound, a phrase masters such as the Italian filmmaker may help light up as a scenography. ‘Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined the beauty and simplicity of vision with which Luca Guadagnino and Nicolò Rosmarini could have interpreted this,’she adds. And in Venice, her statement rings true.
Dreams, Giulio Ghirardi
Love bed, Charlotte Colbert and Peter Reed | artisan: Alexandre Vazquez
The interior unfolds as a series of interconnected spaces spread across its two floors. On the ground floor, an open-plan dining and kitchen area is separated from a spacious living room by a corridor that essentially bisects the house. Large openings on both spaces serve to bring in views and light, integrating the immediate surroundings into the domestic experience, while an elongated lightwell in the heart of the house ensures that natural light also reaches the circulation area in-between them. A curved staircase leads to the private quarters upstairs, namely three bedrooms and a study. Here, each space boasts its own distinct orientation, strategically placed windows are used to provide carefully curated views, while windows opening onto the central lightwell ensure that the bathrooms also enjoy light throughout the day.
The architecture’s sculptural sensibility is matched by the soulful minimalism of interior design which is underpinned by a muted colour palette and plain materials. White surfaces dominate, imbuing the spaces with a soothing ambience, with hardwood floors adding warmth and raw concrete accents providing playful glimpses of the building’s underlying structure. The interior’s ascetic sensibility makes for a contemplative living environment. As the architect explains, “to fully appreciate this project, it is desirable to move through it, to invest a little time”. It seems that this home is not just a place to live, but a space to truly experience and savour.
Finding balance between concrete and nature within New York City will always be a struggle – one that resonates deeply with every denizen of the metropolis. The quest to harmonize these seemingly disparate elements is a nuanced negotiation that developers and designers alike unite to reconcile. In the case of Bergen, a 105-unit residential building amongst the tree-lined streets of Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, creative pioneers Frida Escobedo and Workstead teamed up to compose a building that reflects this paradigm shift in urban living philosophy.
Frida Escobedo drew inspiration from the brownstone bay windows typical of the Boerum Hill neighborhood. The building’s celosia facade reflects this heritage, with rhythmic geometry and natural stone masonry that respects and complements the surrounding context of Brooklyn’s historic architecture. The result is a structure that feels both grand and rooted, establishing strong ties to the neighborhood while providing a sense of belonging for its future residents.
Complementing this exterior, Workstead utilized simple geometric forms and natural finishes within the interiors to emphasize a sense of quality and understated luxury. The result is a design that feels cohesive and soft, avoiding excessive ornamentation, which blends indoor and outdoor spaces for a stronger connection to place.
In the kitchens, the warmth of white oak flooring and custom millwork is balanced by the cool elegance of honed quartzite and brushed nickel. This interplay of materials continues in the spa-like bathrooms, where subtly veined honed marble evokes a sense of tranquil luxury. At the heart of Bergen stands the Glass House, a transparent jewel box connecting the residential wings and offering a visual bridge between Dean and Bergen Streets. Its striking cylindrical staircase, bathed in natural light, becomes a sculptural centerpiece, unifying the building’s levels and amenity spaces in a celebration of openness and connectivity.
Beyond lighting, Workstead collaborated with local artisans to create Bergen-exclusive elements, such as custom white oak handles in kitchens and vanity pieces in bathrooms. These bespoke elements blend vintage charm with modern sensibilities, using materials that will develop a patina over time, giving the residences a lived-in quality.
Leo Lei translates his passion for minimalism into his daily-updated blog Leibal. In addition, you can find uniquely designed minimalist objects and furniture at the Leibal Store.
I’m walking through the town of Bad Aussee, in Austria’s alpine Salzkammergut region, where I’m expecting a vision of depravity to emerge through the drizzle. The artists Wolfgang Müllegger and Georg Holzmann gleefully tell me how their big pink sculpture, which was recently placed in the town’s cafe-flanked park, caused shock among locals. Many want it removed, they explain, as we arrive at the artwork. It’s a rather pleasant pastel-pink wooden piece that could depict a pig in a mildly psychedelic kids’ TV show.
I say that the sculpture is completely inoffensive. “It’s just ‘different’,” says Holzmann, wearing a hoodie and yellow waterproof dungarees, like a hipster fisher. He points to a traditional stone statue of a historic figure in the park. “This is what they’re used to.”
The pink sculpture is one of hundreds of exhibitions and events taking place across the region in 2024, thanks to the nearby town of Bad Ischl and the wider Salzkammergut region becoming the first rural alpine destination to get European capital of culture (ECOC) status. The contemporary art influx is a colour blast of creativity in an area that usually attracts tourists interested in historic villas, mountains and high-end lederhosen.
Villa Karbach, near the Karbach quarry, is showing works of unconventional power and intensity Photograph: Otto Saxinger
For the project, Vienna-based design studio Lucy.D redesigned rooms in guesthouses across the region, inspired by local craftspeople working with wood and dried grass. Venues previously closed to the public, from semi-derelict mansions to quarries, host exhibitions. Many people say they are invigorated by the buzz. But there have been belligerent reactions from some, who perceive an outsider threat to traditions.
To reach Salzkammergut, I take the Eurostar from London to Brussels, the European Sleeper to Berlin, then overland trains to Bad Ischl. Leaving St Pancras in the early afternoon, I arrive at 6pm the next day, spending the last half-hour travelling down the west flank of the sea-like Traunsee.
Outside Bad Ischl’s train station, I’m greeted by a chrome sculpture by Vienna-born artist Xenia Hausner depicting a gasping woman with a gas tank balanced on her head. It’s a “sensory image of despair”, according to the ECOC blurb, but elsewhere, Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph I is very much the face of this town, even though he has been dead since 1916. He and his mutton-chop sideburns are on postcards in every gift shop, and busloads of tourists visit the Kaiservilla: Franz Joseph’s former residence. It’s now a museum currently with a major exhibition of sculptures by Ai Weiwei.
Just past Bad Ischl’s market, where two boys in lederhosen are playing accordions, I come to the white-walled Sudhaus complex. It was once a facility for processing salt, which is almost as important in Bad Ischl as Franz Joseph. Salzkammergut means “salt domain”, and salt has been mined here for thousands of years. The centrepiece of the exhibition at Sudhaus is Motoi Yamamoto’s Labyrinth: an intricate maze created by the Japanese artist using salt grains on the gallery floor. A video by Israeli artist Sigalit Landau, showing boots covered in salt crystals melting into an icy lake, is projected on a wall. Football-sized sculptures of human teeth, carved from rock salt, litter the ground.
Georg Holzmann (left) and Wolfgang Müllegger in Wolfgang’s Bad Aussee studio. Photograph: Jamie Fullerton
Many Salzkammergut residents I meet agree that this ECOC content is tremendously exciting, but one taxi driver says it’s “too foreign”, and the authorities should promote traditional dancing and dressmaking instead. Others are aghast at some of the more daring events.
The ECOC programme began in January with a contemporary “powder dance” by choreographer Doris Uhlich, including lots of nudity and talcum powder, livestreamed to a church in Bad Ischl. For a town steeped in classical music history, which celebrates the great composer Franz Lehár owning a villa here, this must have felt radical.
Simone Barlian, an artist and curator from the nearby town of Gmunden, says she was confronted by a small mob of locals because of her role organising ECOC events. “They were like, ‘These ugly naked bodies … shame on you!’,” she says. “I burst into tears.”
I meet Barlian and members of her all-female performance art collective, Raumarbeiterinnen, in a floating wooden sauna on lake Traunsee that they built for ECOC. Barlian apologises for us having to wear swimwear. Local authorities warned the women not to do nudity here. Simone tells me that when a huge art piece depicting two women kissing was displayed in Gmunden, some people spat at city officials in protest.
Postcards of Franz Joseph I on sale in Bad Ischl. Photograph: Jamie Fullerton
“They just want traditional things in the countryside,” she says. “They’re not used to this. But the cool thing was, after the church livestream, the priests were like, ‘Come on! Jesus has been shown half-naked in church for centuries, so don’t make such a fuss’.”
Elisabeth Schweeger, artistic director of the Salzkammergut ECOC events, is similarly dismissive of such criticism, and says she wants to show me the importance of bringing new art to the area. She drives me to a leafy memorial complex on the site of Ebensee concentration camp, where 27,278 prisoners from more than 20 countries, including political prisoners and Jews, were held between 1943 and 1945. More than 8,000 of them died there, or as a result of their imprisonment. The Nazis used enslaved inmates to build infrastructure, and kept looted art in nearby mines. Goosebumps break out on my arms as we enter a huge stone tunnel cut into the mountain as part of the Nazi project. As the temperature drops, I see a cascade of red strands. This is Osaka-born artist Chiharu Shiota’s Where Are We Now: hundreds of kilometres of thin red string draped from the stone ceiling, incorporating about 20 red and white dresses.
“There’s red, which makes you think of blood,” says Schweeger. “But the white gives an optimistic vision. It’s not only darkness here.”
Information boards detailing inmates’ suffering adorn the walls next to Shiota’s dresses. Schweeger is concerned that younger generations aren’t learning the lessons of past horrors, and hopes that art might remind them. “This is a new way of reflecting on how we deal with it,” she says.
Where Are We Now by Chiharu Shiota, at the site of the Ebensee concentration camp. Photograph: Jamie Fullerton
Other big themes are being explored. US sound artist Bill Fontana has placed microphones in rivers created by the melting of Schladming Glacier, which is shrinking as the climate heats up. The sound of the glacier crying is being livestreamed into a nearby ice cave. Local artist Heidi Zednik has documented the impact of the climate crisis on fish, creating works using hatchery tank filters.
For other local artists, the ECOC status is simply a chance to unleash their creativity. Müllegger, who co-created the pink Bad Aussee sculpture, makes a living building traditional wooden boats. Now he has a chance to show off his passion project: garishly painted sculptures made from building foam.
“We understand that our role here is seen as representing the area,” says Holzmann, Müllegger’s art collaborator. “But we have the right to express ourselves, and this doesn’t happen a lot here. Contemporary art usually just goes to cities.”
Holzmann nods towards a full-scale “self-portrait” sculpture Müllegger made from building foam that resembles a half-melted mannequin. This, I agree, is way cooler than a boat. “We’re lucky to be part of this,” Holzmann says.
Train travel from London to Brussels was provided byEurostar(from £51 one way). Travel from Brussels to Berlin was provided by European Sleeper (couchettes from €79 one way). Travel from Berlin to Bad Ischl was provided byOmio. Accommodation in Bad Ischl and Gmunden was provided by Hubertushof (doubles from €198 B&B) and Seehotel Schwan (doubles from €98 B&B), via Austria Tourism and Salzkammergut Tourism. .
MSCHF and Mattel Creations release Not Wheels collectible car
MSCHF and Mattel Creations join forces to pay homage to a newbie driver’s often pre-loved and beat-up vehicle. They do so by bringing out ‘Not Wheels’, a collectible toy car that’s missing a wheel. Because of this, it can’t and doesn’t roll. No speeding away involved; just a passive ride in stasis. Hot Wheels may have started as children’s toys, but they soon lured in collectors, and MSCHF’s rusting, grayish memento may be a missing piece in their trove.
The duo says they drew inspiration from 1990s Japanese imports when they designed the MSCHF Hot Wheels car. It’s a die-cast vehicle with three different wheels: two Real Riders classic tires, one yellow spare tire, and one that’s missing, replaced by a rusted wheel hub. They say their collectible has tons of personality, and maybe they’re right, given the bright blue door, flag-like stripes and colors at the rear, stitches on the side, and blue stripes on the roof.
all images courtesy of Mattel Creations and MSCHF
dusty, rugged, and tarnished ‘not wheels’ car
There’s a reminiscence of childhood memories in MSCHF and Mattel Creations’ Hot Wheels car. The fogged-up windows have drawings of what’s supposed to be someone’s face, but the slogan emblazoned on the rear takes the limelight: ‘WASH ME!!!’. No one can wash the collectible car clean. It remains dusty, rugged, and tarnished as it should be. It’s dented and amateurishly repaired, as the art collective and the toy company describe, and that’s fine. The Not Wheels car wants to show how hard it’s been driven and how much it’s been loved anyway.
Someone has rolled down the driver’s window and left it open halfway before storming out. Perhaps the MSCHF Hot Wheels car has gotten into a car crash by the looks of its busted front windshield. There are parking tickets tucked between the wipers, but the driver has not bothered to take them out. Rust and dirt slowly gnaw at the bleached-out gray paint of the exterior. If the collector looks inside, the tan-colored seats appear as if they’re made of candle wax. And if they look closely, they’ll see the seat belt hanging out the door. MSCHF’s Hot Wheels car goes live on August 30th, 2024, priced at 30 USD per collectible.
the WASH ME!!! inscription at the rear of the MSCHF Hot Wheels car
MSCHF and Mattel Creations say they drew design inspiration from 1990s Japanese imports
detailed view of the rear plate
the collectible is a die-cast vehicle with three different wheels
MSCHF and Mattel Creations describe their Hot Wheels car as dented and amateurishly repaired
Needless to say, the selection of perfumes on sale is as eclectic as the store’s design. “We have spent months traveling and trying samples before finally deciding what we would include in our selection this first year”, Dimitra and Alexandros explain. “We selected perfumes based on that we personally love, could envision a friend wearing, or evoke memories.” The selection includes brands like Astier de Villatte, Atelier Materi, Ormaie Paris, Perfumer H, and Santa Maria Novella. Suffice it to say that they applied their selection to other scent-related products such as incense and candles, while flowers vary based on availability and seasonal constraints. “We prioritize using Greek producers in order to reduce our CO2 footprint and support the local market, currently offering just one bouquet arrangement each week to minimize waste.”
When asked about their favourite flowers, Alexandros mentions his preference for the bitter orange blossoms, jasmine and wisteria. Dimitra on the other hand, says she’s currently into carnations, a flower that holds a special place in Greek culture, viewed as it is as a symbol of love, admiration and distinction. Nowadays used mostly in churches and cemeteries to adorn altars and tombstones as well as at Greece’s popular live music venues, known as ‘bouzoukia’ where they are thrown onto the stage at the performing singers, it is nevertheless rarely chosen for arrangements in “high end” flower shops, a paradox that Dimitra finds very intriguing.
Plans currently in the pipeline include offering limited-edition objects crafted exclusively for PHĀON, organizing workshops with artists whose practices involve sensory exploration, and launching a series of flower bouquets composed by renowned designers and artists later on this year. With such a deep love and obvious passion for what they do, their infectious obsession with the magical world of perfumery, scents and flowers is destined to captivate and inspire the hearts and minds of their ever-growing discerning clientele.
Melange is the latest collection from Spanish brand WOW Design, a line of ceramic tiles that can be paired together to create striking representations of painterly ombré effects. While high-gloss tiles remain a staple, there’s a renewed interest in more muted looks. Yet rather than pull from the archives to reference previous offerings, the designers turned to another form of adornment for inspiration. “We wanted to bring the essence of textiles to the walls,” the studio shares, “A big tapestry in the style of a work of art that encircles our living spaces.”
The designers were captivated by the different types of yarns and dyes of tapestries that blend in gentle progressions from one hue to another. Melange fuses art and technology to bring similar variations indoors. Each piece is made of white body ceramic that allows the lighter glazes to pop. The durable tiles are also suitable for commercial interiors because they are stain- and UV-resistant.
Standard square tiles are perennial favorites, used for almost every application. Yet specifiers are now requesting options that they can use in different sequences, and Melange offers an alternative. The 4.2- by 21.3-inch rectangular wall tiles have a matte finish, a seamless canvas for users to experiment with.
The color transitions change the appearance of walls and make spaces appear higher, narrower, or wider. The size was selected so that a standard room can be tiled with the fewest possible pieces, a bonus for those looking to reduce waste and lower project costs.
The vertical orientation echoes the subtle movement of drapery or a wall hanging, and provides visual interest, a welcome shift from the everyday horizontal arrangements. Combined with the array of powdery tints available gives tiles a sophisticated update.
The tonal Melange tiles are ideal for framing, using the ceramic pieces to highlight a feature like a window frame or doorway, for example. This technique works well in retail environments to accentuate niches. The tiles, with light layers of color, have added depth, eliminating the need for too-busy motifs that may clash with the merchandise on display.
WOW Design is known for the sophisticated signature hues introduced each season, yet Melange includes coordinating groupings rather than a few trendy shades. Whether on the cool or warm end of the spectrum, the curated colors tap into emotion and evoke memories, just as a scent or taste can.
There are 15 tiles in the collection, presented in three sets of five. Solids like Earth, Lake, and Cream can be applied to form a clean, monochromatic backdrop. Two-tone combos like Talc-Rose or Sea-Cloud replicate pastel chalk shadings that enliven walls so that clients can customize their spaces and make them truly unique.
For more information on the Melange tile collection, which goes on sale in the United States this fall, head to wowdesign.eu.
Anna Zappia is a New York City-based writer and editor with a passion for textiles, and she can often be found at a fashion exhibit or shopping for more books. Anna writes the Friday Five column, as well as commercial content.
