Marc Newson,
On Time magazine's list of the 100 most important
people who shape our lives, Australian-born, European-based Marc Newson
is one of today's most distinguished designers. His work, which includes
industrial design, furniture, watches, perfume bottles, and aircraft
interiors, has been called "seamless."
Santiago Calatrava
Combining Spanish modernism with his own studies of the natural
world, Santiago Calatrava's designs have become internationally
recognized. Notable projects include the Montjuic Communications Tower,
the Quadracci Pavilion and the current design of the World Trade Center
Transportation Hub
Frank Gehry
Frank Gehry has become known for brilliant, angular and
curvilinear buildings. A recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize in
1989, a member of the steering committee of the Aga Khan Award for
Architecture, Gehry is a Distinguished Professor of architecture at
Columbia University.
Victoria Hagan
As one of America's leading interior designers, Victoria Hagan's
work is defined by a sense of timeless elegance. Best known for her work
with high-end residential clients featured in magazines like
Architectural Digest and Elle Décor, Ms. Hagan has also designed for a
broader audience with corporate clients including Starwood Resorts and
Hotels and Target.
Ron Arad Known for sculptural, sensual and surprising designs that embrace
innovative technology and advanced manufacturing techniques,
Israeli-born designer Ron Arad's work includes architecture,
limited-edition furniture, sculpture, media installations and
mass-produced objects. Recently the subject of retrospective shows at
the Centre Pompidou and the Museum of Modern Art, Arad presents his
celebrated work, most recent projects and future plans.
Read about the event at Flavorwire.com and Mimeographic.com.
Karim Rashid and Gaetano Pesce With the use of new and unorthodox technologies, Karim Rashid's
playful, colorful and exciting design sensibility stands at the
forefront of a new renaissance. The architect and designer Gaetano
Pesce is one of the forces behind the birth of Italian Postmodernism.
His conceptual work is known for its new forms, techniques and
technologies that have been integrated in to the global design world
for almost 50 years. Rashid and Pesce share the stage in a dialogue
moderated by Martin Filler, the former editor of House and Garden.
Ralph Rucci and Ike Ude Recipient of the National Design Award for 2008, Ralph Rucci is the chief and only representative of American design in the Parisian Haute Couture. For the past fifteen years, through his womenswear label Chado Ralph Rucci, the Philadelphia-born designer has made his name as a modernist of intricate yet restrained aesthetic, where high craftsmanship, refined, often complex cuts, exquisite materials, and sophisticated, minimalist color palette merge into a super feminine agenda. His work has been showcased and recognized in such groundbreaking exhibitions as The Little Black Dress of the 21st Century at the Victoria & Albert Museum (1985), Goddess at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2003), and Skin + Bones: Parallel Practices at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (2005), the show that examined the common principles of fashion and architecture. The two monograph shows, Chado Ralph Rucci at the Costume Institute at Kent State University (2006) and Ralph Rucci: the Art of Weightlessness at the Fashion Institute of Technology (2007) explored the wide spectrum of Rucci’s vision and integrity. A true art connoisseur, Rucci, in his splendor and sensual garments has proved that in our age and time when mass-production, signatureless, and casualty are the chief rules, his fashion of purity and perfection is a true manifestation of art. His discourse of clean and timeless fashion represents the very essence of an artistic approach to clothing in the most orthodox way. His signature style is rooted in the perfection of Belanciaga, the femininity of Madame Grès, and the abstraction of Halston, all those who have been instrumental in the development of his own identity. This event acknowledges and celebrated Rucci as an American icon. The Nigerian-born Iké Udé is one of the most extraordinary visionaries working in New York City today. Artist, editor, writer, and a publisher of the cultural and fashion magazine aRUDE, Udé has made his name with creative work and philosophy that merges art and mass media. Ambitious and stimulating interviews with high profile personalities such Comme des Garcon’s Rei Kawakubo, Jil Sander, and Isabella Rossellini, just to name a few, have become a touchstone of his work. Udé started his artistic career in the late 1980s as a painter, but soon moved to photography, establishing a signature art that challenges issues of sexuality, identity, and race through the use of the medium of photography. His work is rooted in mass communication, magazines, video, film, and fashion, all arenas which provide thematic discussion. Udé’s artistic work can be found in private and museum collections, including the Guggenheim and Smithsonian National Museum. A monograph show that honored his work and explored issues twentieth-first style, mass-media, gender, race, and communication of the body, all at the core of Udé’s projects, was entitled Beyond Decorum: the Photography of Iké Udé (2000). It had traveled to such art institutions as Harvard University’s Sert Gallery, Vienna’s Museum of Applied Art, Portland Institute of Contemporary Arts, OBORO Contemporary Art in Montreal, and University of California’s Museum of Photography, and resulted in a catalogue, published by MIT Press. Udé’s forthcoming book, Style File: the World’s Most Elegantly Dressed, to be published in October by Harper Collins, is a collection of interviews with fifty-eight figures whom the author considers to be today’s top thinkers and creators in the filed of style. With interviews by Udé, Harold Koda, Valerie Steele, George Pitts, and Nicholas Boston, this publication explores and redefines the intriguing, yet complex notion of the “stylish,” and its role in our society.
Milton Glaser, Stephen Doyle, Paul Stirton Milton Glaser, the creator of our beloved logo “I love NY” hardly needs introduction. Globally, his work has been regarded as American as Coca Cola, not only for its enormously beneficial impact on various industries, but for it originality and optimism Milton has crystallized through the medium of graphics. He empowers both his students and the public with a mandate to think critically about all forms of propaganda, and by directing political anger and frustration into transfiguring initiatives. His images would remind us all that “what happens in Darfur happens to us,” that “a worldwide effort will stop” the AIDS crisis, reassuring us that after the tragedy we all “love NY more than ever.” The young talent who will be conversing with Milton here tonight, Stephen Doyle, is, in a real sense, a magician. But instead of merely pulling rabbits from hats, Stephen pulls character out of words, transforming their resonance through his mastery of the graphic form. Known for creating identity, packaging, environment, and editorial design with his witty signature style, the recipient of the national design award for Communication for 2008 made his name with an exceptional talent for extracting visual personality from words. As the Creative Director of the NYC-based Doyle Partners, Stephen, with his strong passion for innovation, sophistication, and excellence, has created graphics for such major publications as the New York Times and Vanity Fair.Our remarkable moderator, Paul Stirton, is a senior lecturer of Art History at the Glasgow University and a fellow of the Centre for Whistler Studies in Glasgow. Currently residing in NY, Paul serves as a Visiting Professor at the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design and Material Culture, where he teaches the history and theory of printmaking and graphic design. He has published widely on 19th- and 20th-century British and Central
