8.27.2007
8.26.2007
Audrey Hepburn
Born Audrey Kathleen Ruston in Ixelles/Elsene, a municipality in Brussels, Belgium, she was the only child of the Englishman Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston and his second wife, the former Baroness Ella van Heemstra, a Dutch aristocrat who was a daughter of a former governor of Dutch Guiana. The future actress's father later appended the surname of his maternal grandmother Kathleen Hepburn to the family's, and her surname became Hepburn-Ruston. She had two half-brothers, Jonkheer Arnoud Robert Alexander "Alex" Quarles van Ufford and Jonkheer Ian Edgar Bruce Quarles van Ufford, by her mother's first marriage to a Dutch nobleman, Jonkheer Hendrik Gustaaf Adolf Quarles van Ufford. She was a descendant of King Edward III of England and Scottish consort James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, from whom Katharine Hepburn may have also descended.
Hepburn's father's job with a British insurance company meant that the family travelled often between Brussels, England, and The Netherlands. From 1935 to 1938, Hepburn attended a private academy for girls in Kent. In 1935, her parents divorced and her father, a Nazi sympathizer, left the family. She later called this the most traumatic moment of her life. Years later, she located him in Dublin through the Red Cross. She stayed in contact with him and supported him financially until his death. In 1939, her mother moved her and her two half-brothers to their grandfather's home in Arnhem, Netherlands. Ella believed the Netherlands would be safe from German attack. Hepburn attended the Arnhem Conservatory from 1939 to 1945 where she trained in ballet, along with the standard school curriculum.
In 1940, the Nazis invaded Arnhem. During the war, Hepburn adopted the pseudonym Edda van Heemstra, modifying her mother's documents, because an "English-sounding" name was considered dangerous. This was never her legal name. The name Edda was a version of her mother's name, Ella.
By 1944, Hepburn had become a proficient ballerina. She secretly danced for groups of people to collect money for the underground movement. She later said, "the best audience I ever had made not a single sound at the end of my performance."
After the landing of the Allied Forces on D-Day, things grew worse under the German occupiers. During the Dutch famine over the winter of 1944, the Germans confiscated the Dutch people's limited food and fuel supply for themselves. Without heat in their homes or food to eat, people starved and froze to death in the streets. Hepburn and many others resorted to making flour out of tulip bulbs to bake cakes and biscuits. Arnhem was devastated during allied bombing raids that were part of Operation Market-Garden. Hepburn's uncle and a cousin of her mother's were shot in front of Hepburn for being part of the Resistance. Hepburn's half-brother Ian van Ufford spent time in a German labor camp. Suffering from malnutrition, Hepburn developed acute anemia, respiratory problems, and edema--a swelling of the limbs.
In 1991, Hepburn said, "I have memories. More than once I was at the station seeing trainloads of Jews being transported, seeing all these faces over the top of the wagon. I remember, very sharply, one little boy standing with his parents on the platform, very pale, very blond, wearing a coat that was much too big for him, and he stepped on to the train. I was a child observing a child."
Hepburn also noted the similarities between her and Anne Frank. "I was exactly the same age as Anne Frank. We were both 10 when war broke out and 15 when the war finished. I was given the book in Dutch, in galley form, in 1946 by a friend. I read it … and it destroyed me. It does this to many people when they first read it but I was not reading it as a book, as printed pages. This was my life. I didn't know what I was going to read. I've never been the same again, it affected me so deeply."
"We saw reprisals. We saw young men put against the wall and shot and they'd close the street and then open it and you could pass by again. If you read the diary, I've marked one place where she says, 'Five hostages shot today'. That was the day my uncle was shot. And in this child's words I was reading about what was inside me and is still there. It was a catharsis for me. This child who was locked up in four walls had written a full report of everything I'd experienced and felt."
These times were not all bad and she was able to enjoy some of her childhood. Again drawing parallels to Anne Frank's life, Hepburn said, "This spirit of survival is so strong in Anne Frank's words. One minute she says, 'I'm so depressed.' The next she is longing to ride a bicycle. She is certainly a symbol of the child in very difficult circumstances, which is what I devote all my time to. She transcends her death."
One way in which Audrey Hepburn passed the time was by drawing. Some of her childhood artwork can be seen today.
When the country was liberated by allied forces, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration trucks followed. Hepburn said in an interview that she ate an entire can of condensed milk and then got sick from one of her first relief meals because she put too much sugar in her oatmeal. This experience is what led her to become involved in UNICEF late in life
8.21.2007
artist:草間彌生
草間彌生（1929年3月22日－）被稱為日本現存的經典藝術家，出生於日本長野縣松本市，在1956年移居美國紐約市，並開始展露她佔有領導地位的前衛藝術創作。曾與當代卓越的藝術家如安迪·沃荷、克勒斯·歐登柏格（ Claes Oldenburg）、賈斯培·瓊斯（Jasper Johns）一起聯展。現居住在日本東京。
草間彌生的創作被評論家歸類到相當多的藝術派別，包含了女權主義、極簡主義、超現實主義、原生藝術（en:Art Brut）、普普藝術和抽象表現主義等。但在草間對自己的描述中，她僅是一位「精神病藝術家」（obsessive artist）。從她的作品中可以看到，她企圖呈現的是一種自傳式的、深入心理的、性傾向的內容；草間所用的創作手法則有繪畫、軟雕塑、行動藝術與裝置藝術等。
草間在相當早的創作時期就發展出了自己的特色，她善用高彩度對比的圓點花紋加上鏡子，大量包覆各種物體的表面，如牆壁、地板、畫布、家裡會出現的物品、還有裸體的助理）。她自己的打扮往往也與作品有很高的同質性，並以短上衣和非常強烈的眼影妝聞名。草間曾說明這些視覺特色都來自於她的幻覺，她認為這些點組成了一面無限大的補捉網（Infinity nets），代表了她的生命。
此外，草間也發展出自己獨特的「繁殖」特色，她有許多作品都以蕈類聚生的造型出現。在1990年代之後，草間加入了商業藝術的領域，與時裝設計界合作，推出了帶有濃厚圓點草間風格的服飾，並開始販賣許多藝術商品。
草間也算是日本當代作家之一，自她在1978年回到日本定居之後，陸續出版了含自傳在內有10幾本書籍。除了前面生平提到的幾本重要小說之外，還包括了《聖馬克教堂的燃燒》（1985年）、《天地之間》（1988年）、《拱形吊燈》（1989年）、《櫻塚的雙重自殺》（1989年）、《如此之憂》（詩集，1989年）、《鱈魚角的天使》（1990年）、《中央公園的毛地黃》（1991年）、《沼地迷失》（1992年）、《紐約故事》（1993 年）、《螞蟻的精神病院》（1993年）、《堇的強迫》（1998年）、《1969年的紐約》（1998年）
8.14.2007
Designer : Stephan Sagmeister
Stefan Sagmeister (born 1962 in Bregenz, Austria) is a graphic designer and typographer currently based in New York City. He has his own design firm, Sagmeister Inc. He has designed album covers for Lou Reed, the Rolling Stones, David Byrne, Aerosmith and Pat Metheny.
Sagmeister studied graphic design at University of Applied Arts Vienna, later receiving the Fulbright scholarship to study at the Pratt Institute in New York.
In 1991, he moved to Hong Kong to work the Leo Burnett's Hong Kong Design Group.
In 1993, he returned to New York to work Tibor Kalman's M&Co design firm. His tenure there was short lived, as Kalman soon decided to retire from the design business to edit Colors magazine for the Benetton Group in Rome.
After the closure of M&Co, Sagmeister formed his own firm, Sagmeister Inc., which operates to this day. Sagmeister Inc. has employed designers including Martin Woodtli; and Hjalti Karlson and Jan Wilker, who later formed Karlssonwilker.
-Interview-
Q: Most of your often-published work is taken from your book “Made you look”. Are you planning to publish a new book containing more recent work?
A: Yes, we are actually but we are not in a hurry. In fact, there are two books that are in progress: one that is somewhat similar to Made you look, in terms of featuring our newest work and there is another book that is going to be quite different. That other one will exclusively feature a series of work that we have been working on for the last four years and that we will continue working on.
Q: Are you talking about the “Things I learned in my life so far”- series?
A: Exactly! That is going to be a seperate book.
Q: Oh great, I can’t wait! This is actually one of my favorite Sagmeister ones, if not the most favorite!
A: The paper that you saw lying on the floor will be turned into a poster as part of that series. We will ship that out to Lisbon either tonight or tomorrow, where it’s going to be put together as a huge billboard. It is newsprint sheets with stencils on them, which we had lying on our rooftop for a week. Since it was exposed to the New York sun everything turns yellow, but the stencils stay white. Put together this billboard is going to read: Complaining is silly. Either act or forget. When we put it up in Lisbon, it’s going to be exposed with Lisbon sun, so eventually everything is going to fade away. So literally the sun will equal the difference, will make the complaining go away.
Q: In what way relate the built words to the material they are made of in the “Things I learned…”- series? How strict are you to yourself in terms of finding the right concept to “build” the word as opposed to just making them look nice?
A: We are using a different strategy for every single sentence in this series. Some things I have learned are very close in outward form and content, while others are further apart. For example, the form of “Everything I do always comes back to me” relates directly to its content, while “Money does not make me happy” does not.
Even though I am not a big fan of ambiguity in visual expression, (and HATE that stupid line: Oh, the viewer can take away whatever he or she wants), because of the fact that these thing are personal learning experiences from my own life, I felt it important to leave the form more open for interpretation to make it easier for people to relate. - - And yes, if they wind up looking nice, that’s nice too.
Q: Is there any particular meaning for this series to be set up in Lisbon or…
A: No, it’s just because they asked and I always do what I’m asked. They found a sponsor for it, so we accepted. The work will be shown as part of the Bienal de Lisbon, the Experimenta.
Q: There is quite a difference between the pre-Made you look and the post-Made you look. What are your most liked projects after the Made you look book?
A: There was a year without clients after we made the book and I got to think and sort out many things within that time. Before that our work very much focused on the music industry but we kind of stopped that now.
Now we concentrate on 4 things basically- we still do some stuff for the music industry, we do some stuff for art as far as galleries and museums go (books and posters and that stuff), we also do some work for regular corporations and some social work. You could roughly say, that everything is about a quarter. I guess I have favorites in each of these categories.
For music: the work we did for Talking Heads.
As for corporate work: maybe an annual report we did for the Austrian lighting company Zumtobel.
For social stuff: probably the stuff we did for True Majority and One Voice.
For art: when it eventually comes out the Monument to Now book for the contemporary art exhibition which took place alongside the Olympics in Athens. We already finished designing a soft cover book, which turned out fine and nice, but we also still working on a very delicious hard cover book, that is unbelievably complicated to make and therefore the production is so utterly vague…. If this ever comes out, that would probably by my favorite art project.
Q: I wonder, who pays for such a project?
A: Our Greece client Dakis Joannou has a gigantic art collection and that show is put together entirely out of his own collection. He is not as known as Charles Saatchi, but still, his collection is certainly one of the most significant ones of contemporary art in the world, much stronger than those of many museums. There are already several books on his collection and he asked us to do this special one for him. Since he doesn’t need to make money out of this project, we are able to try such a difficult production process. Usually a book like this simply wouldn’t be possible.
Q: Your work uses a lot of handmade typography. Is one of the reasons for that, that you find it easier to implement your idea of making the process of a project visible within the work with handmade typography?
A: It actually started with a page within a CD booklet for Lou Reed. This page was very well received, so we turned it into a poster, which then was extremely well received, mostly because that was ‘96 and everyone elwe was doing modernism, very slick and high polished work. Our work stood out, because it was something obviously handmade, human touched and haptic, going away from this cold world. At this time, I was also unhappy with changing styles all the time. Before, I had this period where I thought you can never re-use anything and always do a new style for everything. That basically proved impossible, besides you are in danger of just ripping different other styles off. Therefor, I was happy to explore that handmade typography idea a bit further. I absolutely don’t think that this is the solution to every project. I think each project calls for different strategies, not just content-wise but also form wise.
Q: A lot of your famous projects are handmade, though. The “Things I learned in my life so far”- series is also handmade typography.
A: But not exclusively! That would not be part of the strategy. A good number of them are made with built type- so you can see that they are human made but we did one exclusively on the computer with Ken Miki, or we did a mixed one where it is partly built type…. it varies.
Q: How much are other designers and your team involved in the design process? What is their main part?
A: Again, it varies wildly. For the one we are just working on “Over time I get used to everything and start taking it for granted” I gave an overall direction, then all three of us worked on concepts for single words. All three were involved with the shoot (Richard managing the camera) and Richard is also going to do the editing. Some others I did by myself and then there is the one I just sent off to Ken Miki, one of my favorite designers in Japan.
Q: Looking at work like your poster for Adobe, or the Japanese poster with the sofa, one immediately starts imagining your process of making your designs and is therefor much more emotionally involved, than if it was a computer generated clean style. Could you say, that you use this storytelling and handmade typography as a trick to get people involved in your designs?
A: Yes, this can be a way. I think that so many regular people, which are removed from the daily practice of graphic design - so maybe 99.9% - have actually no clue when they see a piece of well done graphic design, that there was actually a human behind it. Many look at a newspaper and think, that a machine did it all - and to a large extend, of couse a computer was involved, but they don’t quite get the fact that there are still many human decisions to be made when designing a newspaper: what typefaces are used, how wide the margins are… they just don’t think about it and why should they.
A: In my work, I can sometimes expose the process of making a design as a strategy to humanize the whole project. If the project allows it, I am happy to show the whole making of it, creating a little narrative whithin the piece. This is the ideal for me, just like it was done on the Pink Floyd “Animals” cover. (A huge inflatable pig was set up to fly over Battersea Power Station to be photographed, but then broke loose and flew all the way to Wales. It created a lot of press and admiration among fans.)
Q: You mentioned several times, that design should make somebodies life easier, rather than more difficult. I can understand it as a general approach towards design, especially for people doing information design, but didn’t you design a lot of music covers…?
A: Well I’d say as far as our work is concerned- I’d be happy if it does no harm. I don’t think that a music cover makes anybodies life easier. There is a possibility that a music cover- and I cannot talk about ours here, because I cannot see them in that way- but that music covers by other designers that I have seen brought a little joy to my life. However, I think that there are other pieces that we have designed which at least aim to make somebodies life easier.
Q: For example?
A: True Majority, the group that we are working for, was I think the first mainstream group that really pushed for having the situation in Sudan declared as genocide. That made - as far as I can tell - a huge difference for Sudan, because when the States agreed for this to be declared as a genocide, things moved there fairly quickly. It is in trouble again now, but I think for a while it really made a difference. Our design for True Majority really didn’t do that, but it helped a little bit, tiny little increments… but tiny little increments are tiny little increments. (smile) Every single person can somehow contribute and it doesn’t really matter, what you do.
Q: You always mention, that content is so important for you. How interested are you in getting involved in the content yourself?
A: Well- we already tried to be the charity ourselves- very un- successful! I found that if you want to act as a charity that is effective, you have to do that as a full time job.I would have to give up design and I think that I would be less effective on the whole.
Q: Much of the work that we did for True Majority wasn’t artsy at all. It was very much done with effectiveness in mind and not whether the design world would like it or not.
A: Is it enough to touch somebodies heart?
Q: For me- yes! It is so difficult already. What would you suggest to do beyond that?
A: I know (smiles)- that is probably the most difficult thing, but maybe - again - getting involved more in the actual content like you already do in terms of the “Things I learned”- series. Maybe that is why they are so powerful…
Q: I think there is some sort of desire like that, too, but I am still happy to be a graphic designer and fulfill this profession and what that profession implies. This is, what I feel I am best at.
A: You once said: work slower, do less work, do it better. This however implies a whole life-style, meaning that you can surly be picky with your work but have to accept to earn less money. How much freedom can you actually allow yourselves?
Q: Pretty much! The answer to that is simply to keep the studio small. You have seen how small we keep it here! It would be so “natural” to grow bigger, but I know - even at a 10 people studio - you can already feel this machinery behind it and are in big danger to just find stuff to feed your machine constantly to keep things going, rather than enjoying design and trying to do good work.
Q: How do you convince clients that your work is good? Can you prevent your original designs from client changes? Is it still hard for you to fight things through or are you famous enough, that your design ideas are simply accepted?
A: I was actually hopeing, that once your studio is running and you are established as a designer, things would get easier but I still find myself fighting with clients and having a hard time convincing them… seems like this will never change.
Q: New software is everywhere and more and more things can be achieved with the computer… Do you think that your designs would be different, if you had (for example) very high 3D modulating skills? Is this a criteria for hiring additional staff for that or do you simply stay away from newest technology?
A: Well yes, very likely my work would be different if I had high end 3-D computer modeling skills. But since I don’t have these skills, I don’t have to be involved in building wire grids and can spend my time thinking what we should do and for whom we should do it.
And yes, of course I try to hire people who love doing things that I am bad at. The last thing I need is a little Stefan in the studio…
Q: I know that you are a fan of free design projects such as street artist True. Were you ever thinking of going a bit more into the guerilla-good deeds designer yourself?
Actually, no! Some of my students have made beautiful works like that, or there are things I sometimes see in the streets like Ji Lee’s speech bubbles, he is this kind of designer/artist, who pastes big speach bubble stickers on posters and then people go and write stuff in them. He then comes back and photographs the results. I really love this kind of work, but just didn’t have a good idea yet myself. I have seen fantastic projects but never had the concept of doing something good myself. If I had, I would.
Thank you very much, Stefan! It was a pleasure visiting you.
8.12.2007
8.09.2007
只用傻瓜機的時尚攝影師 : Terry Richardson
所謂的“攝影”，是以熱情去捕捉生活中的影像。大多數的時尚攝影師都會找些漂漂亮亮的模特來，用最好的器材來拍些近乎完美的畫面，你對此怎麼看法？
泰利·理查森（Terry Richardson）是當今世界最招惹爭議的時尚攝影師，他只用傻瓜相機，但作品震驚世界。時尚的越界者SISLEY品牌的御用廣告攝影。，他的作品裏 充滿對性愛的玩味，對慾望的挑戰，露毛露點，赤裸、野蠻、真實、殘酷，力求打破所有的性禁忌。泰利說：「重點就是要讓人注意。平庸，是這個星 球上最要不得的事。如果覺得我的作品粗俗，或許該做做愛了吧。」他喜歡性愛，認為人的感官需要被挑戰，人們買衣服希望自己看起來容光煥發，其實想吸引人的 最終目的「不過就是性愛罷了。」他將買衣服與做愛聯想在一起，不知正在挑衣服的你是否跟他想的一樣？三十六歲的攝影師泰利·理查森之所以讓人驚奇， 不只是因為他帶著幾臺傻瓜相機就上工了——他作品裏強烈的情慾刺激，就曾讓不少人承受不住？泰利·理查森，人人常常稱之為時尚攝影界的“薩德”（法國作 家，作品多描寫性變態），他拍攝的時尚照片猶如性感的trip hop音樂，真實而誘惑，但骨子裏散發出懾人的狂野張力，直指年青一代的靈魂深處。
泰利·理查森為時尚攝影下了新定義，他的作品常 年在《I-D》、《VOGUE》、《THE FACE》等前衛雜誌上出現，同時他也是GUCCI、SISLEY、ARMANI等世界名牌追逐的攝影目標。Gucci和SISLEY都不約而同地採用以 效率與自然風格著稱的攝影師Terry Richardson掌鏡，但拍出來的效果卻大異其趣。
現年36歲的泰利·理查森Terry Richardson在1990年以一系列紐約東部社會景象的記錄照片開始其攝影師生涯。1990年中期以來，Terry Richardson成為一名專職的時尚攝影師。關於理查森攝影作品的書有〈太多〉（Too Much）、〈敬畏男人〉（Feared by Men）、〈渴望女人〉 （Desired by women）、〈鮑伯的兒子〉（Son of Bob）和〈極度魅力〉（Hysteric Glamour）。
反傳統 性與幽默共存
很多雜誌邀請理查森幫它們拍照。但是理查森不喜 歡把有關性的圖片放到色情雜誌上，他偏要為上流雜誌拍這種帶著強烈性意識的照片。他說：“可能色情雜誌上的圖片會讓人覺得很刺激，但時尚雜誌也可以發表這 些圖片，這沒什麼大不了的。我喜歡當個壞小子，我想盡可能地把這些影象的影響擴大，這是個挑戰，看看我的界限能到多遠。”
他是否 有意這麼幹的呢？理查森並不同意這種說法：“我只不過喜歡去探索性與人的問題，我才不會去搞什麼專門讓人吃驚的東西。”也許正因如此，理查森才成為了一名 藝術家。他是少有的能將藝術和商業結合起來的攝影師。他給像SISLEY這樣的名牌打上性的印記，而且看起來不錯。性與幽默並存，理查森被比喻成攝影界的伍迪·愛倫。理查森表示：“對於我來講，圖片的重點在於人，而不是衣服。我不是那種攝影師，人們看了他們的照片，會說：'噢，那件衣服簡直要讓我發狂。'”
做個“泰利·理查森”
理查森留著長鬢，八字髭，全身都是奇怪的文身，其中他的胸部和腹部分別刺著“SSA” 和“T-bone”的字樣。他個子很高，但走路有點羅圈腿，喜歡穿褪色的牛仔褲、帆布膠底運動鞋，常常戴著一副巨大的淺色飛行員眼鏡。雖然他的行為有時很 卡通化，但是很多女人覺得他很有魅力。
曾經有個女孩告訴理查森，有次她走在街頭，有人走上來跟她說他就是泰利·理查森，還盛情邀請她去他的工作室去。當然那個“泰利·理查森”沒有成功，但是理查森倒很想知道那個傢夥是誰，而且他還聽說有人在萬聖節的時候扮成了他的樣子。
其實要扮泰利·理查森沒什麼難度，只要戴上他那副著名的眼鏡，貼上奇怪的文身就是了。希思莉的郵購單裏就有泰利·理查森的面具出售，讓每個人都可以扮成“泰利·理查森”。
理查森說：“沒錯，戴上我的面具，這就是泰利的風格了。”有沒有女孩子是想要真的泰利呢？對此，理查森一本正經的說：“幻想是無罪的。”
專訪
答： 我喜歡不完美，我覺得不完美才美。我希望在我鏡頭呈現出來的女人是真實的，而不是夢幻的。在這個時代，你得拿出許多影像去煸動和挑戰群眾。我覺得跟群眾作 對是件不錯的事，這也是為什麼好幾年前，我會選擇用傻瓜相機工作的原因之一，當時還有不少人潮笑我。常常有人跑來大驚小怪。他們常會說：“這種相機我也 有。”不過，相機的大小並不重要，重點是你要怎麼去用它。
答：嗯，因為我的視力不太好，沒辦法用一般的相機對焦。再說，我從來都不確定自己想拍些什麼，這樣拍的話可以保留一點空間，造成一種不刻意的、詭異的結構呈現方式。我發覺這樣做的結果會變得非常有意思，相機本身會變成自我的延伸，能很自然地表現出一些東西。
你的作品拍得像是你跟模特兒都有一腿似的，你是怎麼在攝影時營造出這種親密感的？
答：嗯，我不會要求別人做我自己不願意做的事。重點就在於你要讓大家都覺得很輕鬆舒服，建立出彼此的信任感，讓大家都開開心心的。我試著釋放他們心中的表現欲。有時候連我都對他們的表現感到驚訝，而且那真是美極了。
你想，人們不喜歡你作品的原因是什麼？
答：有時候你可以對上某些人的胃口，但是你不可能永遠都受到所有人歡迎。如果大家都喜歡我的作品的話，我就不會繼續幹這行了。這些人的存在讓我覺得開心。
拍照這回事，是不是引起人們厭惡反感，總比被視而不見好多了？
答：最重要的，是要引起群眾的注意。一般人翻雜誌翻得很快，因此你必須創作出能吸引人們停下來看看的影像才行。對我來說，我只拍我喜歡的東西，這是非常個 人的。再說，有兩極化的反應最棒了，無論你是喜歡還是討厭。任何不能這樣表現的東西都是爛貨，沒有任何藉口。平凡無奇，是這個星球上最要不得的事了。
談談你最喜歡的攝影作品是什麼？為什麼？
答：我的自拍照，我傷心大哭的模樣能啟發我的靈感。
談談你和Sisley合作的情況吧！
答：我還是跟Sisley合作要來得最輕鬆，因為他們對我完全的信任。
請用坦率、有感情、有個性的字眼定義一下何謂“性感”？
答：簡單！就是有著美麗、熱情、有靈性的心和靈魂。
8.01.2007
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