Peter D. Cole, Sculptor

Let's be honest for a second: The internet is wonderful. It's a fantastic platform for research, and it enables creatives all over the globe to gather inspiration. It allows for artists and designers to see what exists, what's missing, and to create accordingly. It's hard to imagine a world without it. But what if you were a young artist trying to make it in 1960s Australia? Where did one find insight and inspiration? If you were artist Peter D. Cole, you probably looked to your art-history textbooks and the latest imported magazines from that hotbed of modernism, New York. Perusing his work, you begin to see patterns, and his influences become ever more apparent. There's the very basic color palette of fire-engine reds, cool sky blues, and bright sun yellows, reminiscent of a Mondrian palette. There's the tilted shapes, which could be a nod to the fathers of abstraction, the Russian Suprematists. Further still, you begin to see a pattern of grids and cubes, an obvious allusion to Sol LeWitt, one of the most famous artists practicing when Cole graduated in 1968. Mobiles similar to Calder's, colorful forms attached by thin black lines reminiscent of Miró — we could go on but we'll stop ourselves there. It's through this weird, sometimes obvious amalgamation of influences that Cole is able to create original, inspired work that's evocative yet far enough removed to be his own style.
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Week of January 12, 2015

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week was all about material experiments: ping-pong paddles in Plexi or wood, a yoga-ball holder built from inflated concrete and pigment, and furniture made from the remnants of an imaginary construction site.
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Lisa Mayock: Welcome to Big Biba

If there's anyone we would trust to guide us through the annals of vintage fashion literature, it's Lisa Mayock, co-founder of the sadly defunct, cool-girl label Vena Cava and now a Brooklyn-based creative consultant. So we were pretty thrilled when we sent out a call for this column a few months back and Mayock immediately responded with one of her most beloved and referenced books, BIG BIBA: Inside the Most Beautiful Store in the World. The book traces the short life of the 7-story Big Biba department store, which opened in 1973 after the fashion label's massive success as first a mail-order catalog and then a series of London boutiques.
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Eyebodega’s Vase Series

If we had a nickel for every time we heard a designer or artist express the desire to work across scales, disciplines, or dimensions, we could probably buy one of these. But earlier this week was the first time we’d heard this zeitgeisty little zinger: “It’s exciting to be producing things we can share with people, as opposed to just clicking a ‘share’ button.” While most graphic design studios dabble in physicality by way of books and other printed ephemera, the young New York duo Eyebodega — to whose co-principal Rob Chabebe said quote can be attributed — have been using 3-D printing to quite literally turn their Pinterest-ready digital illustrations into objects you can have and hold.
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Ron Nagle, Ceramicist

One of the best things about ceramics' recent ascent in the art world is that a brighter light has been shone on designers who were practicing in the medium long before "urban claymaking" was ever a thing. The latest artist to experience a massive upswing in attention is Ron Nagle, the San Francisco–based postwar ceramicist who, in his 70s, still adds to his already massive body of work at an amazing clip. Shown at the last art Biennale in Venice, Nagle is currently the subject of both an exhibition at the San Diego Museum of Art and a lovely feature in the new issue of PIN-UP Magazine, who writes of Nagle's process: "Each [piece] boasts the presence of a monument covered in variations of fine stucco textures sprayed with layers of pastel, blush fields often overtaken by thick glazed pools and electric pinstripes. The pieces begin as collections of hand sculpted elements, and are slip cast, carved and fitted to each other, gaining their deep beds of color from multiple firings that are finished with chinapaint. The forms have shifted in theme through his career: from lean green tendrils hailing from ikebana to diorama scenes housing pulsing red cubes." We're particularly fond of a recurring trope in Nagle's work that resembles glassy spears of asparagus, so we've rounded up a few of our favorite examples here.
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At the 2013 Frieze New York Art Fair

Halfway through our ferry ride across Manhattan's East River to Randall's Island this weekend, thunder rang out, the skies opened up, and a torrential downpour enveloped our little boat, ruining our hair and prompting dozens of our fellow travelers to whip out their iPhone cameras with glee. But neither rain nor sleet nor snow was going to keep us away from this year's Frieze Art Fair, especially after we missed the 2012 show due to Noho Design District preparations and — through the reports of friends and critics — definitely lived to regret it. Once we were inside the giant white tent (designed by the local architecture firm SO-IL), snapping away on our own iPhones while drooling over the smell of Mission Chinese that hovered mercilessly over the central arc of the space, we didn't mind so much that our feet were sloshing around inside our shoes. We managed to see nearly everything — including an amazing performance piece by our favorite, Tino Sehgal — identified several strange recurring trends (art made on or from mirrors, references to outdated technologies), and had a major celeb spotting (Jared Leto) to boot. Check out some of the pieces we Instagrammed after the jump, then head over to our Facebook gallery to see even more photos.
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New Textiles by Alyson Fox for Ferm Living

When we profiled the designer and artist Alyson Fox last year, on a visit to the home she and her husband built themselves in the wilds of Texas, we spent much of the story marveling at the sheer, unrelenting range and volume of her creative output. Which is to say: We could theoretically be writing about some new project of hers every week if we wanted to — she's just that prolific. We won't go there, of course, yet when of-the-moment Danish housewares brand Ferm Living offered to let us be the first to share the new line it's done in collaboration with Fox, in advance of revealing its full 2015 collection to the world tomorrow, we figured it was as good a time as any to check in with the talent.
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Alma Charry, Illustrator

The ____-a-day trope — wherein a designer sets quotidian goals for him or herself in order to achieve maximum work efficiency and output — has reached epic proportions lately, and you know what? We're okay with that. The latest example we've come across is an advent calendar by Parisian illustrator Alma Charry, called 24RAPIDO, where the designer produced one drawing a day, each day leading up to Christmas (as well as some cute bonus GIFs). We like Charry's work in general, which is a mix of Society 6–ready patterns, freeform ink-washed drawings, and figurative prints.
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Week of January 5, 2015

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: chairs knit from sweaters, furniture made from kitchen flooring, and a sculpture fabricated by a robot and installed by a crane.
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Melbourne Visual Artist Esther Stewart

Even though we often talk about how globalization and the internet have vastly accelerated the velocity of cool, there sometimes seems to be a lag when it comes to scouting talents from Down Under. Case in point: Are we the last to know about Melbourne-based Esther Stewart's incredible geometric paintings and angular sculptures?
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Oyyo, Swedish Textile Designers

Lina Zedig and Marcus Åhrén, of the Stockholm-based studio Oyyo, take a best-of-both-worlds approach to their work. If Zedig is the self-described perfectionist who obsesses over color and composition, Åhrén is the “action person, always keen to get new projects going and thinking that everything is possible.” For their first collection, which launched in 2013, they employed age-old techniques to craft flat-weave dhurries, but imbued the familiar form with unexpected geometric and architectural patterns. And while their carpets — in combinations of pastel pinks, yellows, and oranges, deep blues, greens, and black — have a cozy, at-home feel, they also reflect the restless, roving spirit in which Åhrén and Zedig, avid travelers, created them. It’s design for settling in, not settling down.
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Hallgeir Homstvedt, Designer

As we prepare to welcome the new year, let's all take a moment to reminisce about how great 2014 was. Sure, some had better years than others, but there's one thing that can't be contested — Norwegian designer Hallgeir Homstvedt had an immensely successful run, launching four products to the market and cementing relationships with companies like Muuto, Lexon, and Established & Sons. So what is it exactly that brings manufacturers knocking at his door? We've got a hunch that it's the designer’s ability to be adaptable and cooperative throughout the design process, whilst sticking to a very distinct concept, something he learned on the job during a three-year stint with design studio Norway Says. His products are tactile and interactive, smart and perfectly proportioned.
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The Best of 2014

It's been a big year for Sight Unseen, from the launch of our OFFSITE show to the expansion of our staff to celebrating our 5th anniversary, not to mention having recently started the process of redesigning our website for the very first time. But the more exciting and action-packed things get, the faster time seems to speed by — it's nice to take a moment to pause and reflect. With the holidays upon us, we decided to put together a simple best-of list that highlights some of our most popular content from 2014, including the five stories that got the most traffic on Sight Unseen, the five (er six, counting the one above) images that got the most likes on Instagram, and our five most-repinned photos on Pinterest.
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