After some entertainment for the bank holiday weekend? Here's the Weekender!

Date
1 May 2015

If you’re in the UK, IT’S BANK HOLIDAY SEASON, PEOPLE. We’re downing our pens and replacing them with pints, and we’re not going to stop until it’s Monday afternoon and we’ve got tennis elbow from all the lifting.

Of course, you’ll need some entertainment to accompany all the snoozing, boozing and schmoozing you’ll be doing this weekend, so here’s the very best of what we’ve posted on the site all week in the form of a weekly digest for you. Why? Because we have your concerns at heart, dear reader, and we’ll never hesitate to take care of your needs first. Allez!

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Christoph Niemann: Über die Ursachen der Geschichte / The origin of the story

– Christoph Niemann can do little wrong in our book, so when we got word of a new exhibition devoted solely to his simple, charming and endlessly playful drawings we jumped at the chance to get a look at them. Berliners, get yourselves down to the Galerie Max Hetzer in Charlottenburg before 30 May and we’ll enjoy it vicariously through you!

– Making a magazine is a challenge, as Matt Willey – who is now part of Gail Bichler’s design team at The New York Times Magazine – confessed to us back in March, but that isn’t stopping him beginning a whole new venture with co-founder of Port Dan Crowe and explorer Ben Saunders, in the form of Avaunt. Filling that gap in adventure magazines and bringing together some very exciting talent, it’s already shaping up to be a treat.

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Freunde von Freunded: Erik Spiekermann

– This week the wonderful Freunde von Freunden explored Erik Spiekermann’s Berlin home and studio; a labelled, organised, haven of printed, typography and design, and one which we’re all the richer for having explored.

– In the week that Vangardist printed an entire magazine using ink made out of HIV positive blood to tackle stigma and JR created a 150 foot-long artwork on the streets of New York, we took a moment to chat about new events in publishing, plus art and design news in our weekly Studio Audience podcast.

– Wise woman of lettering and judging extraordinaire Marian Bantjes took a moment to share some of her wisdom about entering design awards this week, and young designers thinking of doing so, or in the process of putting together a portfolio, could do far worse than to listen to her.

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Image by Olivia Charlesworth

– Kingston University tutor Zelda Malan is a great believer in teaching ideas rather than aesthetics to design students. She makes a strong case for why in this week’s Opinion piece.

– David Blanco, the graphic designer behind covers for the likes of Kanye West and Rihanna, founded record label Blank Editions from his kitchen table. We had a chat with him to find out more.

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David Hockney: Perspective Should Be Reversed, 2014 © David Hockney. Photo Credit: Richard Schmidt

– David Hockney’s new exhibition at Annely Juda Fine Art adds fuel to our belief that he might never stop making new work. This time around he’s blending photographs and paintings to challenge our understanding of perspective.

– Photographer Ruvan Wijesooriya took a break from touring with the likes LCD Soundsystem to give cameras to kids at a school in Kabul. The resulting images provide a fascinating alternative perspective on a place we read about only in the news.

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Iris Apfel in IRIS, a Magnolia Pictures Release. Photo © Bruce Weber

– This week saw the US launch of IRIS, the new documentary and very last film by Albert Maysles before his said death last month, which examines businesswoman, collector, fashion icon and nonagenarian Iris Apfel. To celebrate the occasion, Interview magazine called her at her holiday home in Palm Beach Florida, and recorded this gem of a conversation.

– How do you become an artist without going to art school? Dazed has an answer.

Creative Review wants to know why Colette is launching a McDonalds capsule collection. And in all fairness, so do we.

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Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck Paintings

– Next up in the world’s never-ending celebration of the life of Kurt Cobain is this, from Oyster magazine, on his unseen paintings. To tell the truth, they’re not very good.

James Cartwright

I’m an hour away from the pub and this is how I feel… Probably my favourite online character since that techno viking. God bless the internet!

Emily Gosling

I had the good fortune of attending the totally nuts Found Footage Festival this week, and boy it was bonkers. One of the most wonderful clips we saw was about an artist named Frank Pacholski, who is so dedicated to his craft that he takes it to bewildered old people. Here he is, sharing the love through the media of ketchup, peanut butter and small, patriotic underpants.

Maisie Skidmore

If you regularly eat at dining establishments and value the use of a knife and fork, you’ll likely share my frustration at being served your dinner in an enamel mug, a bucket, a plant pot, and even on occasion a pint glass. INT Works art director Karl Toomey came across a whole Twitter feed of people facing similar struggles, entitled “We Want Plates,” and it’s equal parts reassuring and hilarious. Sweet vegetables on concrete and granite, a trio of puds in a nest in a plantpot, pork medallions in a novelty urinal, anyone?


Liv Siddall

Somesuch is a London-based production company that represent some of the coolest filmmakers working today (Emily Kai Bock, Daniel Wolfe, Tyrone LeBon, you get the idea). They’ve recently got together with writer Suze Olbrich to create a corner of their site called Stories, which sees a bunch of writers and creatives like Noam Klar, Tom Ravenscroft, Caspar Salmon and Betty Wood among others submit a piece of writing loosely inspired by film. The result is a bunch of fantastic, well curated articles that should be devoured by you over the weekend. If nothing else, it’s a fantastic way to reming yourself which films you need to get around to seeing.

Rob Alderson

This week is quite simply all about Yes That’s The Joke a site which catalogues instances where people on Twitter have waded into something comedic with a glorious lack of self-awareness. I could spend days looking at this.

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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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