Monday, December 7, 2009

Connections

Zamila Karimi & Magdalena Bach operate Connexion Design Studio in Dunwoody, Georgia as a design and architecture firm and as a gallery that aims to bring together a variety of academic disciplines and artists from different cultures to address contemporary problems and issues.

"LESS IS MORE 2010" is an attempt at reflection on "sustainability and simplicity" that comes at the topic from a variety of unexpected viewpoints. A dulcimer is made from wood salvaged from the renovation of a historic home in Atlanta. An exquisitely modernist house is constructed to cutting-edge environmental standards while fulfilling some of the most extravagant dreams of modernist utopianism. A design studio in Athens (Georgia) creates a simple, elegant unit for cigarette disposal that adds beauty to the urban streetscape, is easy to maintain, and difficult to misuse for any other than its intended purpose.

As usual I find it difficult to write about the show in this format, hence am withholding names of the makers of the few selected outstanding examples I've cited above: there are too many others who deserve recognition. There are artists so emerging as to be virtually unknown, and artists who have been the subject of feature stories in art magazines (including the one that pays for my health insurance).

The basic premise of the exhibition is given on the gallery website:
http://connexiongallery-studio.com/connexion/gallery/gallery_currentShows.asp

Given the technical challenges met and overcome with skill, intelligence, and an unfailing sense of aesthetic integrity, the show serves as a confirmation of the long-neglected slogan "Be realistic. Demand the impossible."

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