December 28, 2011
Pop artist James Rizzi dies at 61
By Associated Press
Rizzi, a native of Brooklyn, died Monday at his SoHo studio at age 61. He had a heart condition, Lieventhal said.
Rizzi enjoyed some of his biggest successes in Germany and Asia.
“With his art, what you see is what you get,” said Alexander Lieventhal, an executive at Art 28 GmbH & Co. in Stuttgart, Germany, which manages and sells Rizzi’s work. “Any child can look at it and understand what he’s trying to convey: a celebration of life.” He became known for his bright, cartoon-like drawings and 3-D constructions. In 1996
Lufthansa commissioned him to decorate a jet with pastel stars, birds and travelers.
James Rizzi applied his playful, cartoon-like art style to unusual projects worldwide, from Volkswagen
Beetles and Japanese train ads to cow sculptures in New York and the front page of a German
newspaper. His creations included images for German postage stamps and a tourist guide to New
York published this year. He was the official artist for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, the
Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland and soccer World Cup games in France.
In New York, he created a limited-edition of the MetroCard subway fare-paying system for the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority. His designs also appeared in “CowParade,” an exhibit of
fiberglass sculptures displayed in New York public spaces.
There, he designed the ring coat for boxer Henry Maske, china for the Rosenthal company, the front
page of a newspaper in Hamburg and some vehicular art — a toy-size fire engine and three versions
of the 1999 Volkswagen “New Beetle.”
Rizzi was divorced and had no children. Survivors include his mother, a brother and a sister.
March 28, 2011
Aw, F**k! Is The Latest Calvin Klein Billboard Cursing?’
By Garth Johnston
Calvin Klein has a history of provocative ads dating back to when nothing came between a 15-year-old Brooke Shields and her Calvins. And over the years the company's billboard at Houston and Lafayette has garnered its fair share of controversy. But if we were supposed to be scandalized by the company's latest ad, well, it didn't quite work for us.
What's the issue at hand? According to CBS the problem with the latest poster for CK One is that it subliminally spells out "fuck." Gasp! Don't see it? To help you we spelled it out for you. Basically the side of the table behind that
emaciated young woman is the "F," her black panties are the "U"
and the "CK" from CK One is the "CK." How risque, right?
Also, yawn.
But one man's kinda boring poster is another man's porn, we guess. Because naturally CBS was
able to find some offended passersby to tisk-tisk the titillating poster: One woman from Manhattan
worried that "It’s subliminal messaging. I don’t think it’s healthy or good for anyone, not even just
young kids," and Mandy, from Jersey, says that “I think it’s disgusting, they shouldn’t have that out here.”
October 20, 2010
Now Showing | ‘Jean-Michel Frank in Argentina’
By PILAR VILADAS
The French designer Jean-Michel Frank lived a short life — he committed suicide in 1941, at the age of 46 — but his interior and furniture designs became among the most influential of his century, and they haven’t lost their power to astonish. A case in point is the exhibition “Jean-Michel Frank in Argentina,” which opens today (and runs through Nov. 19) at Gallery BAC in SoHo. The gallery — which was founded in 2001 by the architect Carlos Aparicio to sell 20th-century design of the elegant, pared-down style that Frank epitomized — is showing more than 30 objects in this exhibition, the first devoted to
Frank’s work in, and influence on, Argentina in the 1930s and 1940s. (A catalog, with an essay by the
gallery’s director, James Buresh, offers plentiful illustrations.)
Argentina’s economy boomed between the world wars, and the wealthiest of its residents were
frequent visitors to Paris, often spending months at a time there. By the early 1930s, Frank was
big in Buenos Aires. His Paris shop inspired the brothers Ignacio and Ricardo Pirovano to found
the furniture and decorating firm Comte, which imported Frank’s work. By 1937, Comte was
producing his designs locally, and soon Frank was designing pieces (like a striking oak lounge
chair with doe-hide upholstery) specifically for Argentinian projects like the Llao Llao Hotel in
Patagonia, or the sumptuous Born house in Buenos Aires, the library of which was lined in Hermès
leather, and which had a three-panel screen by Salvador Dalí and lighting by Alberto Giacometti.
Argentinians “got” Frank, and among his good friends and patrons was Eugenia Erràzuriz, whom
Frank famously quoted, in a 1938 article in Harper’s Bazaar, as saying, “ . . .Throw out and keep
throwing out. Elegance means elimination.” The same could be said of Frank’s designs; an iron
and leather settee in the exhibition looks perfectly distilled — and still modern after all these years.
http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/
August 9, 2010
The Drawing Center to Stay in SoHo
By ROBIN POGREBIN
After years of looking for a new downtown home, the Drawing Center has decided to stay put in its
SoHo neighborhood. “The economy made us re-evaluate what scale of project we want,” said
Brett Littman, the Drawing Center’s director, in an interview on Monday. “We’re like a nice small jazz
club — the scale of what
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July 21, 2010
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean Michel Basquiat was a Brooklyn-born artist whose brief career leaped from graffiti scrawled on
SoHo foundations to one-man shows in galleries around the world. He died from a drug overdose
in 1988 in New York. He was 27 but had
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August 4, 2009
When David Fought Goliath in Washington Square Park
Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs are the subject and the author of two of the most indelible nonfiction
books of the 20th century:
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July 27, 2009
Theater Where It’s Least Expected
It’s time for theater that doesn’t feel like theater. Performances in nontraditional settings are
commonplace in New York, no matter what the season.
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June 24, 2009
Ohio Theater Gets 14 More Months in Soho.
The Ohio Theater will remain at its longtime SoHo
home through August 2010. The highly regarded institution, which ...
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April 24, 2009
40 Years of Creations, Onstage and on Paper
A GRAYING water tower breaks up the blue sky beyond the large front windows of the SoHo loft
Trisha Brown has lived in since 1973
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Linkin Park @ Apple Store Soho, NYC 2/21/08
March 14, 2008
The Drawing Center has walked away from a plan to relocate from SoHo
to the South Street Seaport. It is the third time
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March 11, 2008
Prince St. mall plan provokes road rage
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March 9, 2008
The sculptor Josh Hadar’s hybrid-powered hot rods and
superstreamlinedpedal cruisers bring new meaning to the word “bespoke.”
He builds the bikes by hand
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February 20, 2008
THE SoHo International Arts Building at the "Gateway to SoHo"
will soon see some restoring and signage.
Retail maestro Jeff Sutton
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April 18, 2007
Soho’s well-known public artwork “The Wall,” which has been
gathering dust in a basement
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SoHo thrives on its artistic background and it sure shows in the numerous art openings and events throughout the year. Check in for the latest art news in the SoHo area.
Did you know that SoHo stands for “South of Houston”? That's because SoHo is the area South of Houston street.
