Il Profilo Continuo (Testa di Mussolini)

This is a fascinating piece. I took this photo in the Guggenheim (NY), and while there were many interesting pieces on display at the exhibit, this one stuck with me the most. It's from 1933, by Renato Giuseppe Bertelli, and it's a bust of Mussolini.

I think it was intended to represent Mussolini as some sort of omniscient god. And to represent Mussolini's passion for speed, for power and for machines. And it does all of these things.

But it also shows a spinning Mussolini. The opposite of those creepy sculptures with glass eyes that follow you around the room, this sculpture is always looking in some other direction.

I love Italy, and it's upsetting to think that they could end up on the wrong side of WWII, of all wars. To send innocent people off to concentration camps, to invade the islands of Greece... it was a nation confused, spinning out of control.

On top of it all, this sculpture really does look like Mussolini..

The Bugattis

When I mentioned Carlo Bugatti in a design meeting earlier this week, I was met with blank stares. This is usually the case, so I thought I'd post a little about the Bugatti family.

Most people are familiar with the Bugatti family, but only for their luxury car designs, which began with Ettore Bugatti (born 1881).

The Bugatti car company is still around, producing not-so-shabby rides.

But it's Ettore's father, Carlo Bugatti (1856-1940) that I care about here. He designed some of the wildest furniture I've ever seen.


His father Giovanni was a prominent Milanese interior designer, so I imagine Carlo grew up surrounded by exotic objects (hence the unique influence from asian and islamic art)


But what's really fascinating is how perfectly some of his work encompasses both the flowing organic forms and intricacy of Art Nouveau, and the radial forms and simple geometry of Art Deco. It's all there.

Most designers from this period fall into one camp or the other- their work is either Art Nouveau or it's Deco. Carlo marched to his own beat.

And anyways, I hate categorizing people's work, and you especially can't categorize Carlo. His stuff is out there. The interior I show below was for a design pavilion, and was intended to raise eyebrows, but still...

Carlo's other son Rembrandt (brother of Ettore the car designer) was a sculptor. Here's a few examples of his work:


Rembrandt committed suicide in 1916, at age 31. Carlo, who had been very active up to this point, pretty much stopped working after this. I mean, he stopped building furniture. He kept busy on other things I'm sure (fish gotta swim, designers with this kind of talent gotta design). I read that he moved in with Ettore's family and spent his time painting, but I've never seen any of his paintings. I'll keep an eye out for them... I'm sure they are amazing.

The Art of Bookbinding

As an artist and a writer, and as a lover of books and craftsmanship, it was probably only a matter of time before I got into the art of book making.

I try not to judge books by their covers, but I've always had an appreciation for books that are beautifully bound. Good stories are treasures, and is there anything greater, anything more sacred than knowledge?

(think of the ancient hadith, that "the ink of a scholar is holier than the blood of a martyr")

(These tasteful F. Scott Books pictured above are by C. B. Smith: www.cb-smith.com )

(The books above that are classic Art Deco pieces, by Adler and Rose.)

Not only can you get into the design of the cover, but there are so many fascinating ways to bind the books themselves. For my own books, I've been using a form of Japanese stab binding for my own books... so simple and elegant...

and open it up:

But there are so many other ways, I'll have to keep experimenting:

And then you can even design boxes that the books will fit in... pretty slick. These are designed by (and created for) Santiago Calatrava's firm:

And then of course, you can get creative with the contents of the book itself, and how they are presented. Love this: