Design Loves Art: Sept 19 at the PDC

One highlight to summer drawing to a close: the revving up of the fall events calendar! We can't wait till Wednesday, September 19 at the PDC when Design Loves Art will kick off with opening receptions from 5-9pm for 15 galleries. The second floor of the building will feature works from celebrated graphic designer Paula Scher whose "Global Climate" acrylic silkscreen is pictured above. Scher, whose show runs through November 10, will host a talk on September 20 at 2pm. Serving as the artist's LA debut, an installation by Will Ryman will fill the Blue Lobby, remaining up through February 1, 2013. Here's his 2012 "Signature", digitally photographed at the Paul Kasmin Gallery in NYC, by Mark Markin:


We'll also be toasting the arrival of Wharton + Espinosa (formerly Annie Wharton Los Angeles), Hudson | Linc and LA Print Space to the PDC. They'll join these favorites on the second floor:

Industry Gallery, Isabel O'Neil, Art-Merge, and See Line Gallery.

Iris Apfel discussion at Sotheby's

Last night Sotheby's hosted a conversation with Veranda editor-in-chief Dara Caponigro and style legend and Old World Weavers' founder Iris Apfel. "A Conversation About Style and Design" was part of the inaugural lecture series to benefit the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club in partnership with Hearst Design Group. This year's show house, at the Aldyn on Riverside Boulevard, runs through June 14th. Two lectures remain in the series: tomorrow at 11am, Miles Redd will present "Fashion and Inspiration in Interior Design" and on Tuesday, June 5, Tom Savage will present "Addicted to Old Houses: Iconic Rooms and Influential Interiors." Click here for more information and to register. Cost is $75 each.


Caponigro, John Rosselli and Apfel

Apfel is a veteran storyteller and last night she was in fine form. She kicked off with a story from when she was eight years old and wanted to style a look based on ballerina Isabella Duncan, in anticipation of a visit to a photographer's studio. But there was no chiffon in the house, so "I improvised with cheesecloth! I looked like an amateur sculptor had worked me in clay, got bored and walked away, and I topped it off with a head full of corkscrew curls! I looked god-awful, but that was the first time I thought, 'What difference does it make as long as I like it."


Caponigro and Apfel with Christopher Spitzmiller

Another hit, "My father did a lot of mirror work and he was hired by Elsie de Wolff at a time when he was very busy with other projects, so he took her job on, under the condition that he could do the work on Sundays and bring me along. She spent Sundays in bed and she was always wearing a beautiful Sable bed jacket. I learned it was a Sears & Roebuck jacket she had brought to furrier Maximillian to copy. She would receive me in her 18th century French boudoir, and she always had her French poodle with her, whom I thought she had dipped in indigo. I never realized what an influence she had on me." On her book, Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel, a catalog of her idiosyncratic style, she said, "I feel like a great sponge, full of influences, and it was only in writing the book that I feel like someone just wrung me out."

All photographs by Annie Watt.

WESTWEEK Buzz: Design Loves Art Gallery Openings at the PDC

The Pacific Design Center's WESTWEEK 2012 is only weeks away, so we'll be letting you know all about what you can expect and shouldn't miss during the two-day market.

Beginning Tuesday, March 20, Design Loves Art presents new gallery openings from 5 to 8:30 p.m. throughout the PDC.

Spectrum: Live Performance is a dazzling perforation art piece in which artist orchestrates 343 people wearing dresses from her critically acclaimed yearlong, ongoing project 343 Dresses: The Chromatic Convergence Project. The performance, which incorporates sound and synchronized rhythmic color formations, will be held on Wednesday, March 20, from 6-6:30 p.m. Guests of the PDC are welcome to participate. Dresses (size 8-10) for the event will be made available in a changing room in Suite B239.

Stay tuned to GoDesignGo in the coming days for more WESTWEEK Buzz.

Design Loves Art: Performance & Public Art Festival at PDC (Part 2 of 3)

The Pacific Design Center's Design Loves Art series for 2012 has begun, and we're sharing a few of the fabulous features you can expect this year. Design Loves Art runs at the PDC from now through March 23, 2012.

Here is Elsewhere presents From King Kong to Queen Califia: Niki de Saint Phalle & the West Coast, which marks Saint Phalle’s first show in Los Angeles in decades. The exhibition, curated by Yann Perreau at Here is Elsewhere Gallery, examines Saint Phalle’s relationship to southern California. From her Shooting Paintings in Malibu from 1961 to her Black Heroes series, realized in the late 1990s in San Diego, Saint Phalle found the West Coast a unique, lifelong source of inspiration that culminated in 2003 with her sculpture garden, Queen Califia’s (the legendary queen of California) Magic Circle in Escondido, California.

The exhibition is organized in conjunction with Pacific Standard Time’s re-creation of Tirs: Reloaded on January 22, an homage to Niki de Saint Phalle’s “tirs,” or shooting paintings, that took place 50 years earlier at the invitation of Virginia Dwan, which inspired Ed Kienholz, Ed Ruscha, and other prominent Los Angeles artists.

Saint Phalle is best known for her public sculptures, such as the Stravinsky Fountain next to the Centre Pompidou in Paris (1983), the Tarot Garden at Garavicchio in southern Tuscany (1998), the Grotto in Hannover's Royal Herrenhausen Garden (2003), and Queen Califia's Magical Circle. Born in 1930, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Saint Phalle died in 2002 at the age of 71 in La Jolla, California. The exhibition is courtesy the Niki Charitable Art Foundation.

For more information, visit the PDC online and check back tomorrow to hear about two other inspiring exhibitions featured at Design Loves Art.

Design Loves Art: Collecting Contemporary Design

Mark your calendars for the DDB's upcoming Design Loves Art seminar if you'd like to learn more about collecting contemporary art. Guest speaker Zesty Meyers, Principal of r 29th Century Gallery in New York City shares her knowledge and some of her own contemporary art  for the Collecting Contemporary Design seminar.

The lecture examines the arena of limited edition and one-offs, which has taken a central presence in collecting design. A special review of the DesignMiami fair that brings collectors, design enthusiasts and the most updated materials in contemporary design will follow Zesty's discussion.

The event will take place Thursday, December 15 at 10:30 a.m. in the DDB's Designer's Library on floor 14. For more information, visit the DDB online. RSVP by calling 212-759-2969 or emailing rsvp@ddbuilding.com.