Archive for the ‘Exhibition’ Category

RCA 50 Year Anniversary Graphic Design, London 2014

The Royal College of Art is hosting a major exhibition, book and talks, revealing the rich history of graphic design at the RCA since 1963.

At Zuzunaga we were so proud to find out that Cristian Zuzunaga’s work has been included in this historical exhibition with different creations:

The Wallpaper award winner rug, Deep Grid, a collaboration between Cristian Zuzunaga and Brintons, 2014.

The Steel armchair designed by Enrico Franzolini upholstered with pixelated fabric, a collaboration between Cristian Zuzunaga and Moroso,  printed by Kvadrat, 2008.

An outfit from Quadrat’s final MA RCA collection, a collaboration between Cristian Zuzunaga and Peter Maxwell Smith, 2007.

 

More about the exhibition

In 1963 the first ever exhibition of graphic design took place at the Royal College of Art. Graphics RCA: Fifty Years tells the story from the exhibition of 1963 and traces the development of the School, through the impact of digitisation, the influence of RCA graduates on the creative industries and the role of graphic design in the future.

The exhibition features rarely seen works from the RCA archive, including typographic experiments, early examples from pioneers of digital design and print and designs made at the College by RCA alumni who have gone on to become leading practitioners.

Origen Exhibition, Lima 2016

Cristian Zuzunaga travels back to his native Peru, in an exhibition titled Origen at Lucia de la Puente Art Gallery
Halls I & II
From January 11 to February 10

Paseo Sáenz Peña 206 – A,
Barranco
Lima, Perú

gluciadelapuente.com

 

Cristian Zuzunaga has turned his surname into a brand. His textile designs are appreciated all over the world and his collaborations with companies such as Kvadrat or BD Barcelona Design and institutions like Tate Modern have given him international recognition. His commercial products have their origin in the artistic work that Zuzunaga has retrieved from his trips through London, Barcelona and Garrotxa, a place almost lost in the country where he currently resides, to exhibit in Peru and to the world.

Zuzunaga’s work is wide-ranging including prints, typographic, sculptural, textile and furniture design as well as photography. He founded his company Zuzunaga in 2009 as a vehicle to explore his many creative interests. His artistic activity is the symbiosis of his interests and reflects his way of dissecting the world into infinitesimal parts in order to find beauty. The visual core of his work is based on the pixel, which is an icon of our time. The use of color comes directly from his heart and its process of creation is based on a philosophical reflection that impregnates with meaning everything he does. He is inspired by architecture and the urban environment, nature, Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, anthropology, sociology and the psychology of Carl Gustav Jung. While his work initially explored the idea of duality, his practice has evolved to incorporate the synergy of opposite forces.

Read Press here

In Origen, Zuzunaga also returns to a country, Peru, which has marked him genetically. He presents a series of works on paper created with an old letterpress machine, a Swiss FAG from the 1950s, made in Germany. Only eight of them actually work, including his. With this system, he reproduces the ideas, which will then become his graphic work, a table or fabric for a sofa. He also presents a series of large prints, many of which where part of the process of the Inca collection.

Cristian Zuzunaga was born in Barcelona in 1978, of Peruvian father and Catalan mother. He studied Typographic Design at the London College of Communication and a Master’s degree from the Royal College of Art in London. He has received a number of awards and recognitions such as: Augustus Martin Award for Best Use of Print, 2007; Elle Decoration International Design Award for Best Fabric Design, Skyline curtain collection for Kvadrat, 2011; ICFF New York, 1st Prize for Textiles, Handwoven collection, 2012; Wallpaper Award for Best Pixelation, 2014.

He has exhibited at: YCN, 72 Rivington Street, London, 2013; So Sottssass, Darkroom, London, 2013; Faberge Big Egg Hunt, Commissioner to design a giant egg, London, 2012; Volta 8, Basel, 2012; Outside In, Ventura Lambrate, Milán, 2012; Gravity, solo show, EB&Flow Gallery, London, 2011; Fraternal Twins, group exhibition, Moss Gallery, New York, 2011; Work in Progress, solo show, Barcelona, 2010; Tokyo Design Fair, group with ICEX Embassy of Spain, Tokyo, 2010; Significant Colour, group show, Aram Gallery, London, 2009; Fashion vs Sport, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 2008; among others

Among his projects and collaborations are: Domaine de Boisbuchet & Vitra; Summer workshop in collaboration with Teixidors, 2013; Collaboration with Wool and Brintons Campaign, 34m corridor design exhibited at Somerset House, London, 2013; Digit rug collection for Nanimarquina, Salone del Mobile, Milán, 2010; Skyline curtain collection para Kvadrat, Orgatec, Cologne , 2010; Special commission para Tate Gallery, silk scarves and bags for Color Chart exhibition in Tate Liverpool, 2009; y el cabinet Dreams for BD Barcelona Design, among many others.

Gravity Exhibition, London 2011

“I deducted that the forces which keep the planets in their orbs must be reciprocally as the squares of their distances from the centres about which they revolve: and hereby compared the force requisite to keep the Moon in her Orb with the force of gravity at the surface of the Earth.”
– Sir Isaac Newton
Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, 1687.

The English Dictionary defines gravity as the force that attracts a body toward the centre of the Earth, or toward any other physical body having mass.

Gravity has a duel connotation, simultaneously positive and negative. On one hand without the gravitational force present on earth, life would have never developed. Thanks to gravity we are able to move everyday through the space in which we live, constantly interacting, creating, and destroying. On the other hand as NASA explains, the power of the earth´s gravitational force is the most challenging obstacle to space travel and any initiative of outer space exploration.

Of the four natural forces Gravity is the weakest. It has the capability of construction systems and making them interact but it is a force that doesn´t allow elements to escape from its field. Prisoners within their own positions, they are prevented from being able to explore what surrounds them outside of this field. The way we perceive and approach the world in which we live is often limited and short sighted. in our daily lives the enormous quantity of visual input that we receive formes us to scan over details frequently without noticing what composes our daily visual landscapes.

London Brick 312, London 2011

Building Blocks

The brick: simple, humble, beautiful, practical, functional. Imagine London with its countless brick houses, monuments, bridges, museums. Each building contains tens of thousands of bricks. With a population of over seven and a half million people. London is made up of millions of houses, most of them made of bricks. Even a quick and vaque calculation makes us realize that London is made of tens if not hundreds of billions of bricks.

Billions of bricks. The building blocks of society.

Aside from the sheer incomprehensible quantity this represents what is inspiring is to think of the millions of people these bricks symbolise: those who made them, those who built them, those who live and work within their walls, the past they reference and the future they promise. The interest in architecture has always been present, not just from an aesthetic point of view, but a philosophical one. I view the city as a metaphor for our lives, a living organism that is perpetually evolving.

A brick can exists in and by itself, however it only takes on a meaning when placed with others. Each brick is connected in one way or another to another brick, whether next to it, somewhere else in that building, another building, another country, another time…

A townhouse in London may directly reference a Roman palace of a Greek temple. Equally, modernist architecture, though vastly different in appearance, is intimately related to the humble brick that it strives to be different from it.

One cannot exists without the other. The same is true of humans. We can of course exit as single entities, but we define who we are in relation to others. We may strive to define ourselves in clear terms, to be precise about our individual characteristics and how we differ from others, but the truth is that each one of us is a collection of universal traits and their opposites. In Chinese philosophy, this duality is best described by yin and yang, the principles of the universe.

This duality is equally present in the building blocks of architecture. The brick can be used to create or to destroy. Immobile, unused, its use is undetermined, only intention gives its function.A building can be seen both as a shelter, offering a haven from the chaos of everyday life, as a prison, creating a barrier between the individual and the world.