Working 9 to 5 is no way to make a living – here's The Weekender!

Date
16 January 2015

On this day 96 years ago prohibition was passed by the U.S. government, plunging the United States into a parched wasteland of (mainly) sober, miserable people for a long 14 years. Thankfully this is the case neither in England nor in 2015, so we’re cracking open the beers and pouring one out for the prohibited. It’s the weekend! Here’s the Weekender, and our rundown of what’s happened in the art and design world this week. Have a good one!

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Nathalie Du Pasquier’s Bookshelf

– We had none other than Nathalie Du Pasquier, artist, designer and founding member of the Memphis Group, show us her five favourite books this week. What a treat!

– The most popular post on the site this week was this one, in which we predicted the top ten names to watch out for in the art and design world in 2015.

– Just in case it’s what you’ve been waiting for your whole life, here’s a website which allows you to create masterpieces from the entire Emoji library.

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The Guardian: Muslim Drag Queens

– Muslim drag queens are among the least recognised subcultures in the UK, which makes The Guardian’s new short film about them all the more appropriate. We spoke to journalist and producer Kieran Yates, who initially pitched the film, about her experience making it.

– Retro doesn’t necessarily have to be a dirty word, Tony Seddon assures us. He’s just finished writing and designing a new book which will help to distinguish between graphic design from different periods, and he told us all about it here.

– This week saw the opening of a brand new exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, The Adventures of the Black Square, following the subject of its title throughout the past century. We went down to see what all of the fuss is about – turns out it’s pretty good, geometric abstraction.

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Hubert de Lartigue: Framboise

Here’s an interview with artist Hubert de Lartigue, who paints extraordinary photo-realistic paintings of mouths and faces, and believes “emotion and soul” to be at the core of his work.

– Comics artist Orson has just launched a new comic book, The Adventures of Hal Dekenzin at the meagre age of 12. We interviewed the outrageously talented illustrator. His advice? “Practise a lot and listen to your Dad or Mum.”

– Artist Jens Wolf has a show opening soon at the Ronchini Gallery, as he told us earlier this week, and it looks set to be a corker.

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Kate: IDEA Books

IDEA Books have been mysteriously storming Instagram for months now, and we thought it was high time we have a word with the masterminds behind it, responsible for hunting down some of the most beautiful books ever published.

– Lovely magazine Kinfolk has just had an extensive redesign, and we spoke to creative director Charlotte Heal about the project, from type choices to image treatments and everything in between.

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Richard Linklater: Boyhood (still)

– It’s Oscar nominations week, and Richard Linklater is cleaning UP. Check up on some of the other films to have been nominated for awards in 2015 on The New York Times’s blog Carpetbagger.

– Following the deaths of cartoonists at the Charlie Hebdo offices last week, the magazine printed a staggering three million copies this week, and sold out almost instantly. Elsewhere, Robert Crumb and Ralph Steadman both had a thing or two to say on the subject.

– This week marked 50 years since the death of subversive Modernist poet T.S. Eliot, prompting this interesting piece from The Guardian reflecting on his continuing legacy.

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Björk: Vulnicura

– So far ahead of the rest of the crowd that she’s basically forming her own one, Björk announced her new album Vulnicura this week, the follow up to 2011’s Biophilia, with this lovely note. Never not cool, Björk.

– London Collections: Men stormed London last weekend, and just when the action looked set to subside, John Galliano showed his first collection for Maison Martin Margiela on Monday in the very same city. It was pretty bloody spectacular.

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Kate Moss by Corinne Day for The Face

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Kate Moss by Corinne Day for The Face

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Kate Moss by Corinne Day for The Face

Liv Siddall

Today is Kate Moss’ birthday. I love Mossy. I love the naughty stories about her – myths and legends whispered through the Groucho club about the spectacular woman who everyone speaks highly of, but will never be interviewed by the press. Exclusive, wild, fun, hilarious, iconic: she’s one of the few people on this earth that I feel still has that classic, rare celebrity vibe. A woman who’s has more champagne fuelled all-nighters than the whole of the fashion world put together, what a life she’s had, long may it last. Cheers, Kate! While you’re there, check out this enlightening interview with Nick Knight about her career over on SHOWstudio.

Emily Gosling

If anyone who directly employs me here is reading, look away now! No, not because what I’m about to write is riddled with typos or libellous things, but because I have a confession. Very occasionally when I type, in my head I’m actually playing a piano, sometimes with accompanying David Gray-esque head rolls. But at least the words I’m typing are real: some canny folk just fake type, it seems, in order to look busy. Like this guy, who had the audacity to do so live on the telly news. And for that, we applaud him.

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Dana Bechert for The Garden Edit

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Dana Bechert for The Garden Edit

Maisie Skidmore

Misguided as it might be, I occasionally enjoy daydreaming about a life spent as a budding horticulturalist, planting and growing beautiful, exotic plants in a secret garden-esque enclosure wearing a Marie Antoinette cotton gown and running my fingers through the long grass in an ethereal manner. Alas, I live in a fifth floor flat where the best I can do is to turn my bathroom into some kind of suppressed, semi-surviving jungle, but I placate my fantasies by scrolling jealously through The Garden Edit. Here’s Baltimore-based designer Dana Bechert living out my dreams in a particularly good example of how it should be done. She has bees, for God’s sake.

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About the Author

Maisie Skidmore

Maisie joined It’s Nice That fresh out of university in the summer of 2013 as an intern before joining full time as an Assistant Editor. Maisie left It’s Nice That in July 2015.

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