RAFAEL ESQUER

The good design.
Rafael Esquer, born in Mexico in 1966 has a degree in photography and has worked as graphic designer, art director and creative director. He's won a whole loads of prizes and trophies and exhibited in times square, AIGA and so on. His major clients include Bjork, Mtv, Nike and The Robin Hood Foundation.

Esquer faces every project as a new world, with new rules to be invented and broken in order to create a simple, beautiful solution to the design problem he is facing. "I try to bring moral integrity to my work by approaching every project as if it was the first and last". There isn't such a thing as style for him, it is more a matter of feeding his own creativity with culture, politics, love, dreams and everything that can boost it.

In his AIGA "join us" campaign, Esquer works on the idea of a Graphic Design community, analysing all the possible meaning, aims and interests of a graphic designer, the image above recalls the meticulosity of  Grayson Perry's maps and in a very similar way tries to consider all the possible options and points of view.

"Make the Idea clear and simple,

but the Design surprising and beautiful"

Semiotics

Italians know it better.

Did you know that we have a gesture for "what the fuck", one for "I couldn't care less", one for "gay", one for "I'm gonna kick your ass" and many more? In fact, we could say that Italian is the second more gestured language after the sign language.
Funny introduction yeah, but something happened to me a couple of weeks ago and I was very shocked (it has nothing to do with italians): I had an unplanned sleepover at my friend's house, this means I didn't have glasses with me and I had to throw away my daily contacts. This mean the next morning I was blind. Really blind: I am shortsighted like minus 4.50 or so. Basically I can distinguish colours and shapes but the world tends to look quite blurred. The next morning we go to the supermarket to hunt some breakfast, we enter the supermarket and I suddenly realise something is wrong. I can't see brands, names, signs, nothing! I was lost, I never realised before how much I usually rely on these informations. So, without seeing much I started thinking and thinking. Why have some brands become symbols? When did it happen that a brand, a name, acquired the meaning of the object it labels? When I was a kid, in Italy this used to happen even more, we called the kitchen tissue "scottex" (which is the italian for andrex), the anti-mosquito spray was "Autan" while the tinned meat was "simmental". It didn't matter if the product we were actually buying wasn't by that brand, we would still call it like that.
How did those brands manage to monopolise the market in such a way to become symbols for the product they represent? When adverts are created the target is in general to evoke an connection with the concept of "tribe"in the customer's perception. So, let's imagine we have this product with this logo and we are targeting male individuals in the age of 15-20. What we will try to do is create, through symbols, the ideal "tribe" for males in this age and pass to their brain the information that they need that product by that brand in order to be a part of that tribe. Like in here:

Open publication - Free publishing - More campaign

But what is the following step? How does a brand become an icon?

References:
http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/library/r67150_3.pdf
The tipping point, M.Gladwell, Abacus 2001

Postmodernism doesn't exist.

The only Ghost Movement of the 20th century.

Postmodernism could be called a product of/reaction to modernism. It is the rebel child that focuses on the task of underlining its parents' empty promises. Unlike most of the children, this specific one never grows to a stage in which to shape its own personality. A stage in which to identify itself as a new, independent individual, rather than someone whose personality is only related to the parents. 

What happens with this need to break with the arrogance of Modernism? Nothing. It dissolves in the years giving birth (and space) to an incredible number of different avant-guard movements.

If we ask  Jean Francois Lyotard what Post-modernism is he replies: "A work can become modern only if it is first postmodern. Post-modernism thus understood is not modernism at its end but in the nascent state, and this state is constant." (The post Modern Condition 1984, Manchester University Press) The philosopher gave this description in 1979, even though the book was only published five years later. If we consider that the word Post-modern was first used in the late 30s, well, how come the movement's manifesto was only published forty years later? I mean, in this perspective Lyotard's work looks more like an epitaph than a manifesto. Nevertheless, this book is what everyone refers to when writing about Postmodern art. Now, I don't mean to be arrogant nor cynical in any way, but this book is NOT a manifesto. Usually in a manifesto, a bunch of crazy artists come together and produce a document in which they make clear what they are doing and why they are doing it. Sometimes they make a bigger effort and write a document where they explain the rules of their style. The post modern condition, as its subtitle suggests, is "A report on knowledge". 
It is an interesting philosophical dissertation on the effects of modern (contemporary) life on men and society in all its expressions, including art.

Usually artistic movements are well represented by the work of their main protagonists. So I suggest we leave the official theory of Postmodernism and try to figure out what it is by listing some famous postmodern artists.

Surprise! According to Google, there is no such a thing as postmodern artists. They are mentioned everywhere and related to everything but no one makes a single name. So, everybody is sure they exist even though no one has ever seen them. From this I one could take there are either no postmodern artists or they are God(s).
Gombrich, in one of the latest editions of his "The Story Of Art" (1989, Phaidon),mentions two architects as purveyors of the movemen: Johnson and Stirling. "A world History of Art" (7th edition, 2009) was also of little help in identifying fundamental artists: talking about different aspects of the movement but only mentioning names of Architects who are part of more specific groups such as The Brutalists. Oh, I forgot, no mention of Johnson and Stirling here.

My conclusion and a proposal (and I stop here only because I keep writing too much):

There is no such a thing as Post-Modernism in Art, so let's stop using the word every time we talk about the trans-avant-guard movements. It is the use of the prefix, 'post' that fuels my debate. Couldn't Postmodernist architecture that reacts to the austerity of modernism by creating skyscrapers that look like a Leon Battista Alberti's bad dream, for example, in fact be described as neo-neo-classicism?


References

Google search (just to make a point)
http://www.postmoderno.it/
Wikipedia (for a general idea)


E.H. Gombrich, The Story Of Art, 1989, Phaidon
H.Honour&J.Fleming, A World History of Art, 2009, Laurence King
J.F. Lyotard,  The post Modern Condition 1984, Manchester University Press


Image http://it.123rf.com/photo_9208085_immagine-vuota-con-telaio-d-oro-in-una-galleria-3d-rendering-di-immagini.html

Modernism slash Post Modernism

Part One: Modernism

Towards the end of 19th century a new artistic movement takes its first steps in Europe. In England it is known as Arts and Crafts, in France as Art Nouveau, in Germany Jugenstil and in Italy Stile Liberty (after the department store in London). 
In these years the industrialization of the cities shows its first consequences and degradation and social discomfort become more and more visible. The first working-class districts begin to appear, with their lack of public services and their need for low quality products, based on a matter of quantity more than quality. 
In this social context a new issue arises amongst the artistic communities: there is a need to make a change in every aspect of the modern life.
The aim is to create a "global aesthetic design" (G. C. Argan. L'Arte Moderna. RCS Sansoni editore, 1990), able to change for better all aspects of every-day life. One of Modernism's main ideas is that "A modern man's life should be functional, enjoyable and sheltered". 
In order to create such a change it is fundamental for the barrier that existed between arts and crafts to come to an end. In the new "design" process the collaboration between the artist and the industrial production is extremely important to create a mixture of aesthetics and functionality. 
In architecture this approach means an enormous change of perspective: architecture is no longer the design of public/main buildings, it becomes the creation of human sized living spaces. Everything in modernist architecture is functional, pleasant looking and tailored on  men's needs.


G. C. Argan. L'Arte Moderna. RCS Sansoni editore, 1990
Arte Enciclopedia Universale, Leonardo Arte editrice.
La Nuova Enciclopedia dell'Arte, Garzanti. 1986

Appropriation not Plagiarism

When we look at the work of artists such as Jeff Koons, Andy Warrhol or Quentin Tarantino, we often enjoy that feeling of "I know that !" referred to something they decontextualize and then recontextualize. They are not copying nor stealing (as Picasso would say). 

The re-appropriation of iconic images carries a very important message in the history of art.  It is often, if not always, a polemical message that aims to bring to the surface an issue or a contradiction.

In the Equilibrium show, Jeff Koons creates Nike ads fac-similes that underline the cheesiness of the originals while in Andy Warrhol's Campbell's soup can the aim is not only to stimulate in the viewer the same reactions of advertisments, but also to bring up the debate about contemporary phoenomena such as capitalism, consumerism, fast food and last but not least the subliminal messages advertisements are filled with. 

As a wider idea the concept of appropriation could be associated with social movements such as the so called street art. In fact, all those underground/suburban forms of expression that are based on the re-appropriation of public spaces could be labelled as a direct form of appropriation: graffiti art is an excellent example of this phenomenon. In this case, though, the object to be appropriated is not an easily recognizable brand but a common thing such as an urban environment. This form of art can, in this context, be easily compared to Duchamp's dadaism in which the artist chooses to decontextualize every-day life objects such as a bicycle wheel.

In this perspective we can categorize the french parkour as a form of appropriation which is more similar to action-art and which purpose is to take all sorts of public spaces and turn them into a big playground. 

http://arthistory.about.com/od/glossary_a/a/a_appropriation.htm

http://www.jeffkoons.com/site/index.html

http://www.google.co.uk/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi

Almodòvar

and his women.


" Ivan: How many men have you had to forget? 
Pepa: As many as the women you remember. "

Pedro Almodòvar,

 Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown, 1988

Pedro Almodòvar was born in La Mancha, Spain. Like Don Quixote.

His heroic slash romantic story as per Imdb is as follows:

The most internationally acclaimed Spanish filmmaker since Luis Buñuel was born in a small town (Calzada de Calatrava) in the impoverished Spanish region of La Mancha. He arrived in Madrid in 1968, and survived by selling used items in the flea-market called El Rastro. Almodóvar couldn't study filmmaking because he didn't have the money to afford it. Besides, the filmmaking schools were closed in early 70s by Franco's government. Instead, he found a job in the Spanish phone company and saved his salary to buy a Super 8 camera. From 1972 to 1978, he devoted himself to make short films with the help of of his friends. The "premieres" of those early films were famous in the rapidly growing world of the Spanish counter-culture. In few years, Almodóvar became a star of "La Movida", the pop cultural movement of late 70s Madrid. His first feature film, Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom (1980), was made in 16 mm and blown-up to 35 mm for public release. In 1987, he and his brother Agustín Almodóvar established their own production company: El Deseo, S. A. The "Almodóvar phenomenon" has reached all over the world, making his films very popular in many countries.

(I put it in brown so to make it clear that the point of all this is not his biography.)

What I want to talk about is the way Pedro Almodòvar portraits women. The way he seems to understand them better than they do. With his daring style he likes to underline the metaphors and the sarcasm that are omnipresent in all his tragicomic artworks. In most of them he portraits the women's world with an incredible attention for details.

Being his recurrent themes The Mother, Homosexuality and Transvestitism, and The Church (corrupt), the talent of a great Master lays in the way they are intertwined in the different films forming all possible combinations. It is a witness of his genius the way he tells the life of women with cold sensitivity. In a world where "women" means not only those represented in the traditional way, but also all the others who think and live with a feminine sensibility, from Lola in All About My Mother to Benigno in Talk to Her. 

The Director's passion for the female universe leaves a mark in his choice for the actresses he features in his films: first of all, (also in chronological order) is that Carmen Maura who acts in many of his films from Pepi to Volver. Another favourite is Cecilia Roth, who is present in Almodóvar's filmography from the start but only in All About My Mother leaves her indelible mark. Then comes Victoria Abril, who stars in Atame! and High Heels and finally Marisa Paredes, the unforgettable character representative of the "mother" and "actress". Looking carefully at the Spanish film director's work, one realizes that he doesn't only use these four actresses. In fact, there's a whole universe of female "familiar" faces in Almodovar's filmography.

We can't say the same about males. 

Gender (Bender) Identity. Pat Two

Our beloved William Shakespeare plays around the idea in the comedy Twelfth Night, in which Viola (the main character) dresses up as a young man to enter Orsino's court and ends up seducing the lady he is after. 

Virginia Wolf of course faces the problem when writing about Orlando and I am sure Seneca knew what sort of topic he was approaching when describing Penteo's transvestitism in the Oedipus.

In figurative arts the examples are many and various: From Man Ray to Diane Arbus the aim seems   to question the rules by expressing all those feelings that we were never allowed to have.

Edward Munch's Puberty is an extraordinary "Dunno what Iam (yet?)" manifesto and there are funny stories about the Monna Lisa that are a bit too kinky to be written here but in general we can say that some of renaissance painters loved to use male models for their female characters.

There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender... identity is performatively constituted by the very 'expressions' that are said to be its results. (Judith Butler)