If It's Hip, It's Here (Archives)

From Flat To Flux. A Modern Folding Chair.

It's hard to find a lot of nice options in modern design when it comes to folding chairs. Enter the Flux Chair, a stylish foldable design lounger made of polypropylene. As a matter of fact, the Flux was awarded the UK's Grand Designs Product of the Year Award in 2011.

The Flux Chair transforms from a flat package with a built-in handle into a modern looking chair and back again in minutes. Available in eight different colors, the chair has seating pads especially designed for it available in four colors making varied combinations and looks possible.

The chair looks stylish, is durable, easy to clean and care for and is at home indoors or out.

Wanna see how many Flux chairs fit into a MINI Countryman? Check this out:

A short history of flexible design :
Over the course of history, from the age of the Egyptians up to that of Napoleon, a folding chair has always been seen as an object of status and beauty. In recent times this focus has shifted. This is a pity; especially in today’s world the concept of folding has so much to offer!

above: Flux founder Douwe Jacobs and industrial designer Tom Schouten

"A folding chair not only saves valuable floor space and makes moving a breeze, more importantly it allows you to sit down wherever you like. The beach, the park, you name it! Add to that the fact that it’s easy to send by mail, and thus drastically reducing CO2 emissions when transported efficiently in bulk, and you can see why in a modern world foldable furniture is as relevant as it ever was.

Keeping this in mind and being inspired by folded paper sculptures, I folded a tiny, elegant, paper scale model of a chair. Even though it was just a simple cut-out from a single sheet of paper, it was surprisingly strong. And even better: it didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen before!

Early 2009, I and fellow industrial designer Tom Schouten founded our company. We called it Flux, referring to change and the words flexible and luxury. Since then, we have put all our energy into turning this small paper model into our first fully-fledged flexible design: the Flux Chair.

Our goal is to create a new generation of furniture and associated living items; so stay tuned for more flexible designs from Flux!" -- Douwe Jacobs, Founder/Inventor of Flux

Material: polypropylene
Dimensions: Centimeters: 64 x 62 x 85. Inches: 25.2 x 24.4 x 33.5 envelop: LWH cm: 1,5 x 85 x 77. Inches: 0.6 x 33.5 x 30.3

• Buy the Flux chair in several colors and the Flux cushions here at Adelbrook

• and here at Yliving.

• or here (white only with anthracite cushion)

A Hip Eco-Friendly Hammock For Dogs (or cats) From Pet Lounge Studios.

Well, since I blogged about a hammock for cats awhile back (shown below) , it's only fair that I give equal press to this one for dogs (although cats can use it, too).

above: the Cat Hammock Coffee Table Combo

The Bambu Pet Hammock (patented) by Corey Drew, designer and founder of Pet Lounge Studios, is an eco-friendly pet bed made with an exotic strand bamboo material, which has the look of a cross between teak and rich mahogany.

The sling-like cushion is secured with stainless steel anchors and carabineers. One of the additional bonuses of the stretched cushion is that it will help relieve the pressure points often associated with arthritis in pets.

The washable cushion is made with upholstery grade ultra-suede and is also reversible. The supporting canvas has minimal stretch and is designed for pets up to 30lbs in weight.

Dimensions:
Frame: 34"L x 25"W x 8"H
Cushion: 27"L x 21"W x 1"H

Pet Lounge Studios is using the Kickstarter forum as a way to launch the Bambu Pet Hammock and an elevated diner they also make at a special price.

Bambu Hammock Retail Price: $169.99 plus shipping
Kickstarter Price: $125.00 plus free shipping
(within the Continential United States)

Bambu Diner Retail Price: $99.99 plus shipping
Kickstarter Price: $65.00 plus free shipping
(within the Continential United States)

Bambu Hammock and Diner Retail Price: $249.98 plus shipping
Kickstarter Price: $190.00 plus free shipping
(within the Continential United States)

Nina Levy Compels Us With More Creepiness at the Salamatina Gallery

above: Nina Levy, Boy With Eyes, 2011 (cropped)

Artist Nina Levy recently exhibited “Related Forms” at the Salamantina Gallery in New York. Her first exhibition in New York in five years, it featured two new sculptures, a new series of photographs, and a selection of Levy’s work from the last ten years.

This has prompted me to reprise a post I wrote on her work a few years back and share the new pieces with you along with much of her work.

above: Nina Levy, Boy With Fist, 2011

Artist Nina Levy has been living and working in Williamsburg, Brooklyn since 1996. A prolific photographer and sculptor, her work has been widely exhibited across the United States, including The National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. where her life-sized portraits of four artists' heads hung as part of the gallery reopening in 2007 (shown below):

above: a view of the installation in the National Portrait Gallery in the Smithsonian, 2007

above: life-sized self-portrait sculpture Spectator, 2002 (also used in the 2007 National Portrait Gallery installation)

An artist who has long worked with body parts made of oil-painted resin, gypsum or clay, fiberglass, cast polyurethane and other materials for over a decade to create large outdoor sculptures, indoor installations, portrait heads, and self-portraits in many forms, created her own series of family portraits or 'family resemblance' from 2006-2008.

above: Woman with huge fist (self-portrait) 2008

She has a very impressive education, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude from Yale with a B.A. in English and Art in 1989 and she received a Masters in Fine Arts from The University of Chicago in 1993. She's also the mother of two young boys, whom are frequently the subjects of her recent photographs. But these aren't the kind of family photos you're used to seeing embellishing hallways and mantels.

above: family resemblance, 30" x 24" EDITION OF 6 + A.P.

To say that her portraits of herself and her family, consisting largely of her two sons, Archer, now 8 and Ansel, now 4, are bizarre is an understatement. Creepy and disturbing may be more appropriate descriptors for some viewers.

above: Nina's older son Archer with giant prosthetic baby head,2007

above: Nina's youngest son Ansel with giant prosthetic baby head, 2007

What's respectable, and certainly unexpected nowadays, is that there is no digital manipulation involved in her photographs. She actually sculpts the enlarged body parts or prostheses and then juxtaposes them with her subjects, so that the size relationships you see are actual real physical representations.

Babies eating babies, children cradling what look like lifeless bodies and small-framed, vulnerable boys sporting hulk-like hands and steroidal limbs are the subjects of some of her these recent photos. Here's a look at much of her family portraits and family resemblance photographs, 2006-2008:

Nina explains: "I have been interested in using fragmentation and shifts in scale to explore both discomfort with the human body and with other people"

"I started to make photographs, mostly featuring myself interacting with a series of sculptural props and prosthetics that I modeled and fabricated from clay or plaster and cast in resin," she says.

"I am now the mother of two small boys, and the primary subject of my work has become my own dysfunctional parenting and the often overwhelming intensity of small children"

"Ansel, however, boycotted my last photo shoot," says Nina, "and is under-represented... but thanks to the promise of a highly desirable set of action figures, Archer was willing to assist me"

"The photographs were, and still remain, very low tech - there is no digital manipulation," says Nina. "All of the objects and people in the images exist exactly as they appear."

Special thanks to the UK's Telegraph for the quotes from the interview with Nina.

HER PORTRAIT COMMISSIONS:

Her commissioned portrait heads are available cast in resin, ultracal or gypsum painted with oils and in more traditional treatments and materials (bronze, plaster, cement). Please contact Nina Levy for more information.

See her website here.
To check out her work prior to 2002, go here.