A Picnic in the City!

Just a friendly reminder....


Tonight!
Fanny Bostrom: Picnic
31Grand
143 Ludlow St
7-9

The Father of Grunge {Design} & Ray Gun

"Don't mistake legibility for communication"
-David Carson


Perhaps the most important & influential music and culture magazine of the entire 90's was a bold graphic statement published by Marvin Scott Jarrett & directed by David Carson, it was called Ray Gun. Many of you will be familiar with Jarrett as he is the co-founder of Nylon magazine however the true genius, or sheer accident of the magazine falls upon Carson's three monumental years there. It remains pointless to argue if he knew what he was doing the whole time or as he admits "flat-out mistakes" were made in the proofing stages, regardless it changed things, drastically.


The first three years {circa 1992-95} saw Carson break every imaginable rule in the book and literally set the style and feel for the next five years or seven following art directors. One of the better tales of Ray Gun is Carson's boredom & blatant disgust towards a rather bland interview with Brian Ferry that he decided read better in Zap Dingbat. For those unfamiliar with Zap Dingbat, it's the one at the bottom of your font list and consists of only symbols.


The brilliance behind Carson's design first lies in his naivety towards the medium followed by his passion & emotional attachment towards his work. He admits, in reference to breaking the rules, that he knew nothing of them as he was self taught; it was only later someone explained the word "modernists" to him. In regards to his passion & emotional involvement to his work, self indulgence comes to mind at first yet a second look provides the answer. His type treatment & layouts ooze feelings and thus create an automatic response, sometimes good & sometimes bad, you in a sense are visually reading the article before you even read the first word. When its good, it's bloody great but when it goes astray, well it is what it is, a giant experiment.


So, if you bothered to read this far we happen upon a small collection of post-carson Ray Gun issues that convey the spirt & awesomeness that Carson started. Unfortunately this collection {1996/7/8} went for around a hundred or so dollars on eBay so the chances of getting the early stuff (Carson Era) are slim. However enjoy the period dubbed "grunge type" and a few of our favorite pages below:

Cheers to Jeff for letting us borrow these period pieces, hopefully there is something for everyone in there.

Just one more bit;
Artist Series: Design: David Carson (Interview)
{via HillmanCurtis}

Blasting on ya'll,
The Nutopia Norm

{Sunday Read} At Work with David Strettel of Dashwood

So we once had this brilliant idea to go around to some of favorite little independent shoppes in the area and do a small feature on them. Of course very near the top of our list was the wonderful Dashwood Books. Well to our pleasant surprise someone beat us to it and for that matter did a fantastic job to boot.

For those not familiar with Uniqlo, imagine American Apparel but not trying so hard to be cool. One thing we very much admire about them is their bi-seasonal magazine known as Paper. It is a very controlled experiment seeing that they are in their infancy (this is issue No. 4) but they have thrown all the rules out the window and always present something new. We highly recommend you swinging by their flagship store in soho to pick up a free copy and hey you may even find some new threads along the way.

Spot on Uniqlo for the fine publication & to David Strettel for Dashwood.

Have a memorable memorial day,
The
Nutopians

Something Something for The Evenings

Hey y'all,
We wanted to let you know about a few amazing upcoming openings/evenings in lower manhattan area, get your iPhones out and take down some dates because these range from the fanciful, to the obscure to the stupendous and then some.
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First on thursday night {the 29th} we jet down to ludlow st. for our mate Fanny Bostrom's first solo show, Picnic. The show will be at The 31Grand Gallery, at 143 Ludlow, confusion no? the reception is from 7-9. We have been fortunate to see some of this brilliant work and highly recommend a viewing.

Fanny Bostrom: Picnic
31Grand
143 Ludlow St.
Opening May 29th 7-9PM
May 29th - June 28th


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Next up our new favorite gallery hidden at the end of Canal St, Pablo's Birthday is opening their newest offering, Winston Roeth on Saturday night {the 24th}. We were lucky enough to find this amazing gem somewhere near Canal St. & the Westside Highway and can't get enough of it. We don't know much about Roeth other than he has a very good understanding of color but we do know there will a plethora of good people throughout. One of which is Jimi, whom we had a great chat with & hope to feature in Nutopia Magazine very soon.

Winston Roeth: New Paintings
Pablo's Birthday
526 Canal St.
Reception May 24th 6-9PM
May 24th - June 21st

(Pablo's website is having a bit of trouble at the moment)


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And last but not least, Whoa this looks totally rad. Creative Time & David Byrne present Playing the Building at the old Battery Maritime Building. The gist of this gargantuan project is this, a 9,000 sq foot open space with a retrofitted organ that is attached to various structural pieces (i.e. metal beams, plumbing, conduits & pipes) hence the title of the piece. The opening is next friday {the 30th} and looks to be a mad house but atleast there will be music, or maybe sound.

Playing the Building: An Installation by David Byrne
Presented by Creative Time
Battery Maritime Building
10 South St.
Opening May 31st 6-8PM
May 31 - August 10th (Friday, Saturday, Sunday Noon-6PM)

Cheers to Brendan for making us aware of this & for all the great graphic work.


Case Closed,
Nutopia

Platon on Putin

As the old sang goes a picture is worth a thousand words, we already disproved that but in any case this picture is worth at least a ten minute story by the only man who could tell it, Platon. The World Press Photo contest has put together quite a nice collection and very nicely designed, we may add presentation of select images with accompanying photographer turned storyteller.

While we have enjoyed many of the stories from the amazing photographers who contributed there is something truly gripping about hearing the harrowing tale from deep in the dacha. It appears we are not alone as well, others are too impressed with Platons public speaking, maybe there is a retirement plan somewhere in there.

Anyhow fair play to both Platon for the brilliant story and image & to World Press for putting this all together, keep rocking it.

A bit of extra random knowledge for y'all, anyone who occupies a dacha is for the time being called a dachnik. Use that information as you please.


Do svidaniya!
tNf

Show&Sell

Clever title that, anyhow a bit of short notice but tomorrow night two mammoth monsters of the New York photo industry unite, Picturehouse & thesmalldarkroom for a night of boozing, bidding & benefitting. Amongst the massive & impressive list of contributors we find a few familiar names, that of Platon, Glenn Glasser & Andreas L Konrath. So make your way over to The Chelsea Art Museum from 6-9 tomorrow to get down with some charity {Coalition for the Homless} and possibly drop some loot on some rad pictures.

Cheers to Alec of Picturehouse for reminding us about this fine event.


And while we are spreading the internal love that is Nutopia we wanted to also let you know, Mr. Andreas Laszo Konrath will be presenting/(possibly) speaking about his work on wednesday night at the SoHo Photo Gallery, busy boy he is. He insists they just found him out of the blue and requested his presence but we think their is a bit of foul play here, possible payoff?

Who knows, but jokes aside this should be an interesting evening as this group has a bit of age on Nutopia but seems to be interested in similar ideas. In addition we will be featuring some of the work from the contributing photographers of this event in future issues of Nutopia Magazine. For those interested the details are below.{a side note, they are not affiliated with SoHo Photo, if you google that and get misinformed and thus lost, like we did}

Spot on to all whom have got involved.

T   N  F
H  U  O
E   T  R
     O  U
     P  M
     I
     A

Wheels and Heels & Buenos Aires ala BLU

Well the abundance of sunshine has been violently washed away from New York City but at least we still have the weekend. And with the abundance of time the weekend {hopefully} provides we thought we might entertain you with a few choice videos.

First we skate off to Paris with Ari Marcopoulos & the NYT crew to check out a cluster of gnarly young skate kids thrashing it up on top of and over some beautiful young models decked out in exquisite costume.
Haute Wheels {Pictures via NYT}

High Flying Fashion {Videos via NYT}
Hint: click the link above not the image


Then we jet off to Buenos Aires to the insane mind of renowned street artist BLU and his newest morsel of greatness, just watch and be amazed. (While you are at it, check his rad website too)


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Mad respect to Mr. Konrath for the clips.
nUTopia

PDN {2008} Packs Platonic Punch

We hope everyone is enjoying the abundance of sunshine that is filling the sky above new york this fine afternoon. As all are a buzz about the PDN 2008 Annual we decide to pick up a copy and have a gander.


Firstly we would like to congratulate a very special distinguished guest of Nutopia, Jody Quon for inclusion in the annual for both Platon's portrait of Richard Serra & the incredible collaboration with Paolo Pellegrin in New York LOOK: Spring 2008. And while we are on the subject, if you have not seen LOOK: Fall 2008, shot by Christopher Anderson go have a look; Jody has proven this too be quite a brilliant photographer/diretor collaboration and we very much look forward to more of it.


As mentioned before, Platon is also included in this years annual with Richard's Arc, which is always good news around the studio. However that is not what surprised us, something in the student section caught our eye. Our extremely talented & super cool intern, Iveta Vaivode does her best to represent Bournemouth & her native Latvia with some radical fashion imagery. We look forward to featuring some of her awesome work in an upcoming issue of Nutopia Magazine.


TNFORUM

The Hackney Biscuit & Cookie {That's a Bookie}

We swung by our favorite little basement bookshop, Dashwood just the other day and they kindly reminded us of their rather non-disappointing book signing featuring Stephen Gill & A Series of Disappointments.


The premise of this project is quite simple, like most of Gill's work, yet their is something personal & individual about the images that grip you and pull you in. He sports a very impressive and thought out collection of sophisticated designed art books, that act more as objects than traditional books. For example his newest book expands and provides mounting holes to be present on a wall in exhibition form. He has shown his ability & talent by publishing no less than seven books in the past three years under his own publishing name, Nobody.

So if you are looking for a bit of excitement, some free beers and a whole lotta books get yourself to Dashwood friday night for a real good time.

Book:
{Image via Dashwood}



Baked Potata,
{See ya Lata}
The Nutopians

Japan & Norway Collide in Noo Yawk

“The crushing force of time is before my eyes, and I myself try to keep pressing the shutter release of the camera. In this inevitable race between the two of us, I feel I am going to be burnt up.” – Daido Moriyama

For those not fimilar with the Steven Kasher Gallery let this juggernaut of a double feature help be an introduction. Steven and the gang just might have the most visually appetizing & challenging display of photo work on offer this month in New York.

First they present a legend of Japanese photography, Daido Moriyama with prints from a legendary time, the 80's. Then they hit you with the darkest of Norwegian adventures, Peter Beste and his document noir better known as True Norwegian Black Metal. 

So wait for the rain to clear, grab your fishnets & splash a bit of fake blood on yourself and get to 23rd Street to see something brilliant.

DAIDO:

{Images via Steven Kasher}

BESTE:

{Images via Steven Kasher}

Lots more to come this week including, yet more book signings, we can't get enough of them and a Russell of a film screening in the LES.

Adjø,
Nutopiaaaa

PS: True Norwegian Black Metal on VBS.TV

{Forgot to add this to the post, our bad}