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I feel really bad for dropping this post on Grace so I’m stepping up and writing a review of the Sagmeister & Gondry exhibitions. On Saturday, February 16 we headed down to Deitch to check out Sagmeister’s show.

From outside the gallery you were greeted by a giant monkey, a snow monkey perhaps? With the words “Everybody Thinks…” On the exterior of the building. It was quite impressive seeing the large inflatable monkey and it was great to see everyone walking by on the street stopping to stare and taking pictures. Kudos Sagmeister, great advertising.

Upon entering the gallery you are greeted by a collection of bound books that had segments of letters on the outside edges of the pages which formed a message. Does that make sense? It doesn’t to me really and unfortunately I made a mental note to take a picture and since I have short-term memory I forgot. Well it doesn’t matter because you can click here and see the whole exhibition anyway and skip my step by step review and my bad pics.

But if you are continuing to read this, back on the subject of the wall of books… they reminded me quite a bit of a project that John Bielenberg’s participants at Project M produced. The Project M book on first glance looked like a normal photography book however when the pages were folded they formed a hidden message. Bielenberg is one of my favorite on the down-low designers. He’s definitely worth looking up. I researched him quite a bit in grad school and he was an extremely nice guy to talk to through email. He sent me a copy of the book so here it is, flat and with some pages folded. Unfortunately it’s starting to tear when the pages are folded and that makes me sad.

Continuing on, in the center of the main gallery there was another huge monkey filled with hot air, this one continued the message “… They Are Right.” “Everybody Thinks They Are Right.” To the right of the monkey were a number of prints of experimental typography panels stating messages, see below.

To the left of the monkey was the massive banana wall. I’m not sure if the scale of the banana wall comes across so I’ve added an additional shot. In the photo gallery linked above there’s a much more impressive shot that shows the scale. At the beginning of the show the wall was formed with green and yellow bananas that displayed a message. Given time they slowly changed color and by the time we visited several were starting to rot and fall off the wall. The overpowering smell of bananas was pretty great.

Brandon with bananas on Thursday (photo by Sagmeister himself).

Bananas on Saturday (photo by me)

Additional small galleries held interactive work, films, and additional prints. The interactive piece was a spiderweb-like form that changed in reaction to those in the room. There was also a mirror effect projected onto the piece, once again difficult to explain. The film consisted of individuals bearing letters forming words, whether they be in gondolas, swimming, or wherever they may turn up.

In the window of the gallery steam writings were being featured. Famous designers were brought in and given a window of time and a window of steam to write messages. Vignelli, Scher, Tucker Viemeister, Bielenberg, JP Williams, and two of my personal design heroes Jan Wilker and Hjalti Karlsson were featured in the ongoing project. I wondered if Vignelli wrote only in Helvetica or if he opted for Times New Roman. I bet he drew a grid no matter what.

Overall I do regret not taking more pictures of Sagmeister’s work but the great thing is that it’s very accessible. I’ve seen his work exhibited at several AIGA shows, plus he has several books that are filled with pages and pages of eye and brain candy. I really like the direction that he is taking his interactive typography and interactive video, and it’s really refreshing to see design that isn’t stuck to paper, type and visuals that people can interact with.

The Sagmeister exhibition is up until January 23rd.

On to Gondry. We didn’t know the opening was Saturday, but once we saw the announcement we decided to stick around for a few hours so we could experience it first-hand. A beer and a botched martini and a plate of fries helped to pass the time. We joined the line at 530 with doors opening at 6. At 530 the line was halfway down the block. 20 minutes later it was around the block and then some. After waiting about 45 minutes we were allowed to spiral through the space.

From the outside of the building you could see the sign for Be Kind Rewind, beautifully shot with my excellent photography skills. Or maybe Grace took this. Whatever, it was difficult to take a picture of it.

The first room was set up as a sparse video store with racks of video cases (videos, not dvds). We perused the selections, Nutty Professor 1 & 2, Mystery Men, can’t remember the others. Sparse I say. There’s a picture towards the bottom. The next room was a strange examination room with a selection of thrift shop items to the left of the examination table. I’m sure it makes sense when you see the film.

Continuing on you encounter a set with a large wallpaper mural and a tent, fake stones, leaves, and a fake campfire.

A bedroom was the next set discovered up a set of stairs, apparently you could turn a wheel and the wallpaper would change to four different variations. It seemed to be broken for the opening. Boo. A kitchen followed with a long hallway with fake cinder block forming the walls.

A cobble stone street filled with backdrops led to a cafe set. If you notice there are random people in every set, doing strange things. This is because part of the show is that people can arrange a time, come in, and shoot their own film. Then they can submit it and win something, I don’t know what. It was kind of annoying. Ok, it really annoyed me. It reminded me of a bunch of film students and wannabe actors trying to be bigger than life and over-animated. Overacting 101.

After wandering through the kitchen of the cafe there were two interactive sets. For these sets you could turn a handle and the foreground would move on a conveyor belt and at the same time a Mac controlled the backdrop to move in alignment with the conveyor belt. Each of the items comprising the scale set were attached to the conveyor belt so it was great to see cows, trees, and houses pop up and down with each rotation.

Another set held a partially deconstructed VW Bug that you could sit in, I chose not to. Stairs led down to another room, I don’t remember exactly what was in there. It was dark. I remember that outside of it was an escalator and upon flipping a switch the background would move up or down to reflect either traveling up or down the escalator.

A crow’s nest allowed for the most impressive viewing of the show. From here you could view all of the rooms through their open tops and you could take in the entire exhibition. I feel like we stayed forever, realistically we probably stayed 45 minutes or so keeping other people outside. But that’s how it works in NYC. People are late for everything and it drives me crazy. Show up on time or early and you get to enjoy things.

So though both exhibitions were great I feel as though the Gondry was something truly special and unique. But really it’s hard to compare the two. Both were great in their own ways. Gondry’s show was completely interactive and hands-on, plus it felt like being in one of his movies. From the large robots that you could pose with and touch, to the thrift store shelves that you could dig through in search of treasure, it was the anti-gallery show and for that I really appreciated it. It was dirty and grungy and felt like it was assembled from crap found at the Goodwill, and not the good Goodwill either. Gondry was an experience that I feel like you must live, you can’t feel it or touch it in a book or view it on the interwebs and maybe that’s what I wish all art was. Accessible to everyone and blurring the lines between art and the everyday. But Sagmeister was equally great, so like I said peanut butter and jelly, they both complimented each other very well and will probably stick to the roof of my mouth.

Gondry is on exhibit until March 22.