Monarch of the Glen

Kit: Last weekend I went to  a viewing of Wes Anderson's film, Moonrise Kingdom, which was full of period detail, pretty much in sync with my own childhood. In the scoutmaster's (Ed Norton) tent hangs a painting of a stag in the wilderness.
There was always a copy of the same painting in my grandfather's house. It has a hole which we decided was the gunshot that killed the stag so he could be put in a painting. My grandfather's came with him from Maine and was probably painted between 1860-1880. It is a terrible, but charming copy. I was curious to find the original that had spawned an apparent Victorian repro business and dropped the image into google image search. Up popped the Landseer original, whose fate appears to be to have been made for appropriation. It was wonderful to discover the Peter Blake take on it, then Peter Saville's version of Blake's version of Landseer's original.
I have my Monarch close to me in my London studio. As an epilogue, this morning I walked past one of my favourite buildings on Giltspur Street, just near St Barts. Over the door is a huge stag's head, very similar to the Landseer… I had never realised why that building gave me so much pleasure until now- a cross Atlantic palimpsest of the best kind.

Original: Monarch of the Glen 1851, Edwin Landseer

Giltspur Street stag

Korean bojagi

Beautiful examples of Korean bojagi - silk squares traditionally used to wrap and carry virtually anything. In Modern Korea bojagi (also pojaki/bojaki) are primarily used to wrap presents.

The first image is a print by South Korean artist Sookang Kim, 2004.

Monday Portrait: Vivienne Westwood by Juergen Teller

Vivienne Westwood No 3, London, 2009

This week we have chosen a portrait by German photographer Juergen Teller to mark his upcoming show at the ICA. 'Juergen Teller: Woo' opens Jan 23 at the ICA and both his Fine Art and commercial work will be exhibited.

Greater Shakespeare

The tube is 150 today! Our local station Farringdon has been gearing up for weeks.  A few years ago we co-designed the Greater Shakespeare map for the RSC (with a lot of help from Cambridge academic Dr Hesters Lees-Jeffries).  Have you seen it before?

Large version here.

As we're looking at the tube, here are a few great old tube posters.




'Keeps London Going'  designed by Man Ray in 1938


































David Booth's 1986 poster for the Tate

Dover Street Market

This Christmas we swooned at all six floors of Dover Street Market; there are few shops that summon unadulterated admiration (and greed) from everyone at Kit Grover.




Where else would you find T-shirt vending machines, a giant Octopus sculpture and portaloos - albeit repurposed as changing rooms - under the same roof? On January the 26th DSM close for their biannual 'Tachiagari' during which they redesign the space, creating installations and making room for new designers. This exercise ensures that the concept store is constantly evolving - as fashion has seasons it makes perfect sense that a fashion store should too. So much sense that we can't work out why all of them don't do it...

A 'Tachiagari' for our office may also be in the pipeline.

See a comprehensive report by the Clothes Whisperer on the SS11 Tachiagari here.

Monday Portrait: Georgia O'Keeffe by Alfred Stieglitz

Aside from the warm sepia tones, the colour scheme of this Monday Portrait reminds us of early January mornings in London.


Gelatin silver print, 1920.

See a later portrait of O'Keeffe taken by Ansel Adams here.

Oblique Strategies

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Image c/o www.gourmet.com

On the first day back after the Christmas holidays Kit rediscovered Oblique Strategies on his desk.
This deck of cards created by musician Brian Eno and artist Peter Schmidt in 1975 will help break through a creative block. Though produced with musicians in mind, this selection of aphorisms can be applied to most creative practices.

Each card offers a strategy to overcome a creative block.
Ideal for those deciding on their New Years resolutions or needing to resolve a dilemma.


A random selection of Oblique Strategies:

Give way to your worst impulse
Question the heroic approach
What would your closest friend do?
Is there something missing?
Use 'unqualified' people
Remove ambiguities and convert to specifics