These covers are from the instruction booklets of real Ikea products.
I have a copy of this booklet. It is some lonely designer's haiku to the emptiness of consumer culture.
While looking for the Lack instructions I found this guy. He was with a group of other Jerkers, but I chose him to represent his kind.
After parting ways with the Jerkers, I ran into these fellows. Very polite and sociable in a Scandinavian sort of way.
But seriously folks...
This is from the video Stealing Beauty by Guy Ben-Nar. I love it. You can read about it here if you are fluent in German.
Ikea images yoinked from IKEAFANS. Video via Especially Messily (I think...)
2 comments:
This abridged version of the video is better than the original, I think.
I like Guy Ben-ner a lot, and think he has a knack for making thoughtful, funny works, but I have some problems with "Stealing Beauty." I wrote a review for ArtCal Zine about the piece, in fact.
On the other hand, I'm generally a fan.
That's disappointing. Honestly, I'm not that surprised though. So many works of Art suffer from a lack of editing. Edward Gorey, speaking about the process of revision, said (loosely paraphrased) that the artist should take out all the good parts and what he has left will be better. It seems counterintuitive, but I think it's pretty dead on. The "good parts" are usually more accurately described as the parts that the artist thinks are neat. Too often the artist's attachment to those parts blinds him to their heavy-handedness or sheer absurdity. It sounds like Ben-ner's manifesto and attendant dialogue should have been cut, as they were in the abridged version.
I've been trying to keep that lesson in mind as I complete my own paintings. When struggling with a painting, my immediate impulse is to add elements. Within the last year, however, I've been subtracting a lot more. I think my work has improved as a result. At the very least, I've been having an easier time getting to resolution.
(As an aside regarding your link, it's weird reading old comments that I hardly remember writing. Makes me feel a bit awkward and embarrassed.)
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