Salon.com > Michael Silverberg

Pinstripe legacy

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000

When the New York Yankees’ historic 1923 home in the Bronx was torn down to make way for a new, luxury-box-stuffed stadium, it seemed as though the House That Ruth Built would be nothing but a memory. That gave Stephen Doyle an idea.

Doyle was tasked by the city with commemorating the old stadium in Heritage Field, the park that was built in its footprint and opened in April. He came up with a ghost outline of Yankee Stadium—he prefers the term “indelible field”—traced over three new community ball fields. “The initial idea was to draw the field in bluegrass,” says Doyle, the creative director of Doyle Partners. “It would be sort of like a time exposure, and eventually Yankee Stadium would melt away.”

Secrets of the New Yorker cover

Fri, 11 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Françoise Mouly, the New Yorker’s art editor since 1993, doesn’t have normal relationships with the artists who draw the magazine's covers. “Think of me as your priest,” she told one of them. Mouly, who co-founded the avant-garde comics anthology RAW with her husband, Art Spiegelman, asks the artists she works with—Barry Blitt, Christoph Niemann, Ana Juan, R. Crumb—not to hold back anything in their cover sketches. If that means the occasional pedophilia gag or Holocaust joke finds its way to her desk, she's fine with that. Tasteless humor and failed setups are an essential part of the process. “Sometimes something is too provocative or too sexist or too racist,” Mouly says, “but it will inspire a line of thinking that will help develop an image that is publishable.”

The right cover for “Lolita”

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Among the problems Nabokov’s "Lolita" poses for the book designer, probably the thorniest is the popular misconception of the title character. She’s chronically miscast as a teenage sexpot ― just witness the dozens of soft-core covers over the years. “We are talking about a novel which has child rape at its core,” says John Bertram, an architect and blogger who, three years ago, sponsored a "Lolita" cover competition asking designers to do better.

[caption id="attachment_276861" align="aligncenter" width="460" caption="Design by Jamie Keenan"][/caption]

Advice from the original “Mad Man”

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 01:00:00 +0000

George Lois doesn’t need advice. But the designer for whom “legendary ad man” is practically a Homeric epithet has loads to share in "Damn Good Advice (for People With Talent!),"a slim, fast-paced collection that comes out in March (Phaidon, $9.95). Although there are plenty of tips for the aspiring “master communicator” (No. 6: “Follow your bliss”; No. 108: “Then why the fuck didn’t you make it that way in the first place!”), the book is best when Lois dispenses with the advice and simply speaks his brilliant, profane mind. Take this bit from No. 92 (“Why I resent being called the ‘Original Mad Man’”): “The more I think about 'Mad Men,' the more I take the show as a personal insult. So, fuck you 'Mad Men'―you phony, ‘Gray Flannel Suit,’ male-chauvinist, no-talent, WASP, white-shirted, racist, anti-semitic, Republican SOBs! Besides, when I was in my 30s I was better looking than Don Draper.” Now those are words to live by.

Art that fought the Soviet Union

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 01:00:00 +0000

[caption id="attachment_231193" align="aligncenter" width="460" caption="Warning symbols by František Stárek in "Vokno" magazine, c. 1985"][/caption]

In Russian, samizdat literally means "self-published," but the term has richer associations than vanity presses and Xerox machines. In the pre-glasnost years, artists, writers and intellectuals in the U.S.S.R. would circulate underground publications clandestinely, often using typewriters and carbon paper to reproduce them. In spite of the danger, or perhaps because of it, the work they created was revolutionary―just as much for its political content as for its mix of styles, which could swing from Surrealist collage to Otto Neurath-inflected symbols. Recently, the Czech Center of New York opened a show called "Samizdat: The Czech Art of Resistance, 1968-1989," which collects 120 such works on paper, as well as recordings by political bands from the same era. The exhibition is up through Jan. 12 and includes a few related events. Sadly, you've already missed the concert by Garáž, a hugely entertaining (judging from its YouTube footprint) New Wave band from Prague, but there's still time to attend the Velvet Revolution party tonight. Or just enjoy this selection from the show.

The powerful graphics of OWS

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 01:00:00 +0000

Last week I visited Zuccotti Park, the shaky seat of Occupy Wall Street. It was Thursday, the two-month anniversary of the Lower Manhattan encampment, and although the NYPD raided it earlier in the week and rousted the protesters from their tents, there was a sizable crowd there before 7 a.m. They were there to march on the New York Stock Exchange, the first in a series of events that day, ending with a rally in Foley Square. At the park, I picked up the newest issue of the Occupied Wall Street Journal, the movement's free newspaper, which is produced by volunteer designers and printers. I had seen the first issue in early October, and though it was impressive, this latest edition, a series of posters, is a marvel. Whether or not you think the movement could benefit from professional branding (and I'm with Steven Heller on this one), you can't pretend anymore that it hasn't produced beautiful, powerful visual work. Have a look at some highlights from the issue, or better yet, pick one up for free in Zuccotti Park.

Art you can experience

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Last week, "Carsten Höller: Experience," the New Museum's mid-career survey of the 50-year-old German artist, opened to the public. Among the highlights: an ambling mirrored carousel with swings; an ethereal sensory-deprivation pool; and a three-story steel slide that worms its way through the galleries. It was the latter that had, a few minutes into Tuesday's press preview, a line of slightly hesitant journalists―"Oh, no, you first"―waiting to slip into a canvas sack and disappear down the 102-foot-long chute. All had signed a waiver that included both commonplace legalese ("No suit, action, or proceeding against any Released Party shall be maintainable for loss of life or bodily injury to any visitor") and site-specific notices ("You may not use the [Giant Psycho] Tank fully clothed. Either disrobe entirely or wear a bathing suit."). A previous incarnation of the slide at the Tate Modern resulted in a few minor injuries, and one woman sued the museum after breaking her wrist. The trip from the fourth to the second floor of the New Museum takes about six seconds, and though it's quite thrilling, you're unlikely to suffer anything worse than a lost shoe. Have a look for yourself:

Recognition for a visionary designer

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 00:01:00 +0000

Recently, Steven Heller, one of our longest-running and most beloved contributors -- certainly our most prolific -- traveled to the White House to accept the Design Mind Award from the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. The award "recognizes a visionary who has effected a paradigm shift in design thinking or practice through writing, research, and scholarship." It couldn't be more deserved: Steve has an outsize responsibility for the inroads graphic design has made in the popular imagination, from his 33 years as art director at the New York Times to his tireless work chronicling design history. To mark his achievement, I asked Steve about his work ethic, what he learned from art directing a porn magazine, and his advice for the Obama administration.