No.4: Learning Within, Learning Without

New York-based professor Lytle Shaw journeys to Italy in this adventurous exploration of the life and work of architect, designer, and photographer Carlo Mollino (1905–1973). In 1933 the young Mollino received a commission from Mussolini’s regime for his first building: an administrative centre in Piedmont. Later works include furniture and interior design, a book on photography, and an asymmetrical car that raced at Le Mans in 1955.

The book centres around Shaw’s realisation that this prolific talent’s conflicted legacy offers a unique window on the role that post-war Italian politics and culture played in the country’s reimagining of itself as a victim, rather than a proponent, of fascism.

Collections Typologie reveal a new issue devoted to the Camping Tent. A common motif in both rural and urban landscapes, the tent is a ubiquitous typology whose apparent simplicity is deceptive. Halfway between the architecture we manipulate and the furniture we live in, the tent covers a wide range of uses and brings together heterogeneous realities. Reminiscent of primitive huts, descended from military encampments, shelter for leisure or refuge, precarious yet resistant, protective yet porous, tents are used in both delineated and extreme environments. Simply assembled from ultra-high-performance materials, they are designed in the West and produced in Southeast Asia. Even more than the single-material objects studied in previous Typologie reviews, this composite object makes us aware of the complex nature of the things that surround us. 

The book is composed of 136 pages and published both in a French and an English version. As in the former issues, the first part of the book gather a collection of 60 tents from all around the world showing the wide diversity of shape of this object. This part is carefully photographed and reproduced in black and white along 88 pages. 

The second part of the book put together an introduction text by journalist Sina Sohrab and a crossed interview between three professionals who are sensitive to and knowledgeable about it: Olivier Sirost, historian and sociologist specialized in Camping, Anna Ferrino, director of the Italian company Ferrino, the oldest manufacturer of tent in Europe and Raphael Têtedoie, a designer of outdoor gears and expert in tent.  

This section, which spans 48 pages, is illustrated with a photo report from a Chinese factory, archival images, and a photographic series by Anaick Lejart and Marine Armandin.

Texts by Sina Sohrab, Olivier Sirost, Anna Ferrino, Raphaël Têtedoie.

Do you remember the last time you were looking forward to the future? We're not talking about flying cars or floating screens. We're talking about a credible vision of a better time to come. So when was the last time? How did it look? How did it feel?

Have a glance at page 223, about two-thirds in. This is a portrait of Frantz Fanon by Milton Glaser. One of the biggest names in commercial graphic design of the 20th century, painting the likeness of the giant of anti-colonial thought. Let’s leave aside the question of "who's the Milton Glaser of today?" for now, but if there was one, whose portrait would they be painting?

What we’re attempting, in these few hundred pages, is to track our favorite examples of the visual language of revolt and solidarity in the 1960s and 1970s, put them in dialogue with our most beloved works of graphic design of those decades, and celebrate the heroes who made them. 
Creative currents flowing from Paris to Tokyo, Cuba to Milano, Beirut to New York, Berkeley to London, with innovations and revolutions (both political and artistic) happening every year. Causes supported by incredible talent and inspiring design that activated people, uplifted liberation movements, advanced the struggles for social justice, and created bonds of global solidarity.

Sadly this cross-pollination between commercial art and the political ended around the late 1980s and those two worlds are now completely isolated from one another.
Why do movements not produce beautiful and memorable visuals anymore? Why do the biggest image makers of today not lend their talents to the good fights that need their help? We hope that these will intersect again, and the first step is to study their history.Friends, we are here to tell you that fighting for a better world is, in fact, not only extremely cool, but the coolest thing you can do — and we have the images to prove it!

Ramdane Touhami and Émile Shahidi have spent years researching and traveling to assemble a huge collection of books, rare periodicals and radical art that will soon be available for consultation in person and online, and of which this little book is just a taste.

Started in 1989 by designer and writer Robert Ford, THING magazine was the voice of the Queer Black music and art scene in the early 1990s. Ford and his editors were part of the burgeoning House music scene, which originated in Chicago’s Queer underground, and some of the top DJs and musicians from that time were featured in the magazine, including Frankie Knuckles, Gemini, Larry Heard, Rupaul, and Deee-Lite. THING published ten issues from 1989-1993, before it was cut short by Ford’s death from AIDS-related illness. All ten issues of THING are collected and published here for the first time.

As House music thrived, THING captured the multidisciplinary nature of the scene, opening its pages to a wide range of subjects: poetry and gossip, fiction and art, interviews and polemics. The HIV/AIDS crisis loomed large in its contents, particularly in the personal reflections and vital treatment resources that it published. An essay by poet Essex Hemphill was published alongside the gossip columnist Michael Musto and Rupaul dished wisdom alongside a diary from the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. Joan Jett Blakk’s revolutionary presidential campaign is contained in these pages, as are some of the most underground, influential literary voices of the time, such as Dennis Cooper, Vaginal Davis, Gary Indiana, Marlon Riggs, David Wojnarowicz, and even David Sedaris.

THING was very much in dialogue with the club kids in New York and other Queer publishing ventures, but in many ways, it fostered an entirely unique perspective—one with more serious ambitions. In a moment when the gay community was besieged by the HIV/AIDS crisis and a wantonly cruel government, the influence and significance of this cheaply-produced newsprint magazine vastly exceeded its humble means, presenting a beautiful portrait of the ball and club culture that existed in Chicago with deep intellectual reflections. THING was a publication by and for its community and understood the fleetingness of its moment. To reencounter this work today, is to reinstate the Black voices who were so central to the history of HIV/AIDS activism and Queer and club culture, but which were often sidelined by white Queer discourse. In many ways, THING offered a blueprint for the fundamental role a magazine plays in bringing together a community, its tagline summing up the bold stakes of this important venture: “She Knows Who She Is.”

The magazine included contributions from Trent D. Adkins, Joey Arias, Aaron Avant Garde, Ed Bailey, Freddie Bain, Basscut, Belasco, Joan Jett Blakk, Simone Bouyer, Lady Bunny, Bunny & Pussy, Derrick Carter, Fire Chick, Chicklet, Stephanie Coleman, Bill Coleman, Lee Collins, Gregory Conerly, Mark Contratto, Dennis Cooper, Dorian Corey, Ed Crosby, The Darva, Vaginal Davis, Deee-Lite, Tor Dettwiler, Riley Evans, Evil, The Fabulous Pop Tarts, Mark Farina, Larry Flick, Robert Ford, Scott Free, David Gandy, Gemini, Gabriel Gomez, Roy Gonsalves, Chuck Gonzales, Tony Greene, André Halmon, Lyle Ashton Harris, Larry Heard, Essex Hemphill, Kathryn Hixson, Sterling Houston, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Gary Indiana, Candy J, Jamoo, Jazzmun, Gant Johnson, Owen Keehnen, Lady Miss Kier, Spencer Kincy, Iris Kit, Erin Krystle, Steve LaFreniere, Larvetta Larvon, Marc Loveless, Lypsinka, Malone, Marjorie Marginal, Terry A. Martin, Rodney McCoy Jr., Alan Miller, Bobby Miller, Michael Musto, Ultra Naté, Willi Ninja, Scott “Spunk” O’Hara, DeAundra Peek, Earl Pleasure, Marlon Riggs, Robert Rodi, Todd Roulette, RuPaul, Chantay Savage, David Sedaris, Rosser Shymanski, Larry Tee, Voice Farm, Lawrence D. Warren, Martha Wash, LeRoy Whitfield, Stephen Winter, David Wojnarowicz, and Hector Xtravaganza.

What does it mean to be a curator who writes, and, more specifically, how can curators write about textiles? This publication steps outside the framework of the typical exhibition catalogue to occupy "the space between literature and criticism".

The Community of writers was set up to create time and space to retreat from these outside opinions and demands and to let curiosity and the joy of writing be the driving forces of the writing process. This book has been realised under the auspice of Interweaving Structures: Fabric as Material, Method, and Message, and specifically through collaboration between the Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design at the University of Bergen and the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź. The two partners have strong positions of specialisation—the museum acts as a caretaker of material textile traditions and art in Poland, and the faculty has a strong textile art tradition and offers the only education programme for curators in Norway.

Edited by Anne Szefer Karlsen.
Contributions by Andreas Hoffmann, Heather Jones, Martina Petrelli, Anne Szefer Karlsen, Lea Vene, Johanna Zanon.