This is already the nineteenth Projector, and it’s the second time when its cover is about love. The first one was the poster LOVE by Chaika two years ago, and now it’s decorated with a magical poster by my friends Karin van den Brandt and Alex Clay — All you need is LOVE. «Love is all you need» in general human understanding, and «All you need is a circle, a triangle and a square» in the view of modernist designers. The simplest geometric forms are everything for us. And, actually, I have already mentioned the magazine is not about design, but, in fact, about love.
Bruno Mathsson (Sweden), is the designer we are featuring in our historical section. A detailed story about the master is presented by our expert Pavel Ulyanov: «Bruno Mattsson made a revolution in the Swedish design, having re-directed it from geometric functionalism to organic modernism, and catching up with the far ahead Danes and Finns. Impressed by the works of Alvar Aalto and Marcel Breuer, Mattsson created his own ergonomic model, based on structural purity and human-centered logic».
And the heroes of the day are my friends Karin van den Brandt and Alex Clay, in other words — Lesley Moore Studio. See the interview I did with the founders of the famous Dutch studio about thousands (no kidding, thousands!) studio logos, the magazine Mark and museum projects. I remind you that the cover of this issue is their work, too.
Unfortunately, we did not manage to make a publication on Vladimir Yefimov in the previous issue. Maxim Zhukov, Yuri Gordon and Sergey Serov recall their friend, and I do the teacher and big brother: «At Projector, we usually try to avoid superlatives — „best“, „unique“, „most“ sounds kind of embarrassing. But not now, when we think of Vladimir, who all these words are applicable to easily and naturally. He played a never-disputed role in the profession. The polymath and the highest-class expert, he was a beacon, a landmark for a lot of designers, for the entire guild of type design, which was largely built with his effort».
This issue’s section # 4 «Object» is fishining bright. I present my new collection of lamps called LightMusic. In cooperation with Artlight Company, we make them from old musical instruments: «The most difficult part in the creation of this collection is not to overdo. A musical instrument has a very strong charisma as such, like most subjects, the shape of which is subordinated to function. Moreover, its shape and substantiality is the result of a long evolution, when the instrument was getting more and more advanced. Each tricky curve and every hole is in its place. To my mind, this material allows only one level of interference — adding efficient details in a delicate way».
Next, I spoke to a young but already quite a well-known on the international stage designer Maxim Maximov — he was one of those who represented the Russian pavilion at the recent Florence Design Week. «If I have a particular task, I try to dive into it completely. I use music, movies, facts, it’s important to me to feel the culture and everything associated with the project in order to create a clear and truthful image. Basically, I work at night, this is the time when I can concentrate in a relaxed manner and not to control my performance. I enjoy the time at daybreak, when the streets are slowly getting noisier, I can hear birds singing, and proudly finish my work».
Section #5 «Environment» shares two locations: Tkachi, the immovable one St.Petersburg, the Design Museum in Moscow — the itinerant one. The industrial zone of St.Petersburg along the Obvodny canal goes on acquiring beautiful creative spaces. Projector #17 has already examined the new life of the former gas tanks at the embankment of the Obvodny canal, 74. And just recently, literally next door, at 60, a new space called Tkachi has opened. The space is — wow! — ten thousand square meters of architectural companies, design studios, fashion shops and all other nice things called «creative industries». Ksenia Jurkova, the creative director of Tkachi, and its CEO Sergey Komarov have been interviewed by Projector.
The genre of the interview and the designers’ direct speech is becoming increasingly popular in my magazine. The human intonation and real communication is always much livelier than any bellissimo art review. That’s why I’ve interviewed Sasha Sankova, the founder and guardian angel of many design projects, since recently — the Moscow Design Museum located in a bus.
«Photography» shares the works by Yury Molodkovets. It’s surprising that we’ve released nearly two dozens of issues, and this is the first time when the pictures by Yury — our friend, the member of the editorial board and a constantly good adviser — have appeared in Projector! He is one of the most striking, and certainly the highest-demanded photographers in St.Petersburg. Estimating the number of projects he runs with his permanent artistism, you may think there are at least three Yuries. But I know that he is the one! We are happy to show one of his most famous projects — The New Hermitage.
In section #8 «School», we keep curiously watching the Finnish company Isku working with students. This time, Isku has brightened up the furniture design faculty of the Stieglitz Academy by organizing a professional competition there. «This experience has been extremely valuable for our students-furniture makers! The authors of projects found themselves in the situation very close to the real work of a European designer — the distinct terms of reference, the mandatory use of specific material (in this case, Grada plywood of UPM), consultations with representatives of the client company. And we ended up having absolutely serious professional results!»
Section #9 «Books» opens with the article by Mikhail Karasik: «The history of printmaking is the example of using new technical tools by an artist, when the progress has rushed far ahead. This is when production workers, with no sacrifising the quality of work, allow themselves to take advantage of it in creative ways. This is what happened with inlaid patterns, which in the second half of the 1920s tried to replace a line drawing or a vector, they’d say today. One of the most popular methods of illustrating a book in those yearsat the time was typesetting, and if simple and decorative lines and inscriptions (author, title, publisher) could be enclosed into a frame even by a novice printer, a drawing on the cover required a lot of skills, and sometimes an artist’s guidance».
In this issue, we also share a long-planned story by Andrey Rossomahin about the book masterpiece by Vladimir Mayakovsky and Alexander Rodchenko About That: «1923 may be considered the year of the highest achievements in the book publishing fate of Mayakovsky: firstly, nineteen of his books were published within one year (!), and secondly — nothing equal to the constructivist books-concepts For Voice and About That has ever appeared».
Section #10 «ProArt» goes deeper into the institutional links between an artist and a gallery owner, a gallery owner and an architect or designer, a designer and an art buyer. An ultimate collector, a connoisseur, of course, remains the key figure in the artist-gallery-designer-collector chain, but clear and smooth interaction of all the components of this system forms a transparent and civilized art market, the correct settings of which benefit every participant. We publish the talks of gallerists and curators, designers, architects and collectors, their stories about private practice cases. We try to understand the ways contemporary art finally reaches its consumer. The unique publications involve 22 pages of direct speech of art market heroes!
