Nike 'Ballman' Made of 3000 Soccer Balls For World Cup

Nike continues to impress with more of their interesting and artful projects for the 2010 World Cup. In addition to the fabulous carved crayons, a giant sculpture comprised of almost 3,000 footballs (that's soccer balls for those of us in the US) designed by Leeds-based Ratcliffe Fowler Design hangs in the atrium of the Carlton Centre shopping mall in downtown Johannesburg.



'Ballman' as he has become dubbed, is a World Cup project for the leading sportswear brand.



Prior to being sea freighted to South Africa, a complete Ballman test build took place at Magna, the Science Adventure Centre and steel visitor attraction in Rotherham, UK. This was one of the few places in the UK with enough room to host the operation, which was co-ordinated by the Magna technical team, Transmitta.




Summit's project manager Jay Call studied the Carlton Centre's structural plans and discovered that the atrium of the building has a 12 x 12m steel grid, complete with 5 beams, 3m apart. Summit then designed an aluminum mother grid to fly below this, which is picked up on 4 x 5 ton hoists.



Once the sub-structure was flown at its 15m trim height, the bottom was filled in with flat panels and clad with moulded polystyrene - all with 537 holes drilled exactly in the right places for the 2x steel wire drops. This completely conceals all the metalwork and rigging, giving the appearance of a solid ceiling with the Ballman 'floating' in the air.



Ballman will stay in place for the whole World Cup tournament period, and when dismantled, the intention is that the balls will be given away. Jay Call commented: "It was a great pleasure to be involved in this project, which was different, challenging and extremely rewarding, both as a feat of engineering and a creative work for public enjoyment."

images and information courtesy of World Architecture News

SKULLMATES By Luke Twigger

Okay, so there's another yet artist who has created a series of skulls. Big deal, right? But Luke Twigger's Skullmates also function as tabletop storage. More than just a decorative item, the glazed earthenware skull has a removable 'brain' made of vintage fabrics.



Embellished with high quality transfers and the occasional spot of gold lustre, the skulls can hold anything from buttons to pasta.




Note that they are not dishwasher safe, so if you choose to eat from them, you'll have to hand wash them.



Each Skullmate is lovingly handmade and comes numbered and signed.




'The Skullmate' (2009), shown above is made of glazed earthenware, ceramic transfers, gold lustre, vintage fabric, stuffing and measures 4.5" x 5". You can buy it here.

The Skullmate/City Edition celebrates and reflects its surroundings, this could be cultural, mythical or just purely beautiful.



The first in a brand new series of Skullmates, The Skullmate/City Edition/Nottingham nods its head toward the City's most famous darling, Robin Hood. Using gorgeous, forest green, vintage woolen fabric to create the cushion, complete with natural feathers; it's definitely more stylish than his band of merry men:








To inquire about purchasing The Skullmate City Edition Nottingham, contact Luke Twigger.

• Also worth nothing are his wonderful wall mounted vases, "All Deer, No Antlers" in which you can place flowers where the antlers would be on a earthenware mounted animal head.

All Dear, No Antlers (pink), 2009:


All Dear, No Antlers (romance), 2009:


Both the above are created in editions of 9 and are available from Opus Interiors.

See more of Luke Twigger's work here.

Nike World Cup Players Carved In Crayons By Diem Chau

Our favorite crayon carver and artist, Diem Chau, about whose unusual art I have blogged before here and here, just had a super cool assignment from ad agency Wieden + Kennedy.

She was commissioned by them to carve 66 crayons for this year's Nike World Cup press kits. "This project was a welcomed challenge" says Chau, "I definitely pushed my physical limits. I had 18 days to make around 70 crayons! There was a week I slept 3 hours a night."

Using metallic crayons and white for the first time, Chau immortalized six footballers in Crayola for 11 Nike press kits. Here are the results.

The design team at Wieden Kennedy made the box, base and contents, while Diem Chau made the crayons for the press kits from Nike for World Cup 2010. W+K also chose the colors, a metallic/stone theme. Diem had never worked with metallics or white before and now is a big fan of the silver and white crayons.

The Nike Press Kit

The press kit contains each of the six carved figures, a wooden box that also serves as a display stand, a colored brochure and all are in a clamshell presentation box.





The 6 figures that are in each kit.


In the final version Robinho (far left in Silver) sticks his tongue out slightly and Rooney (Grey) has his arm folded instead of raised above his head. Diem says she wishes she could have captured Rooney's signature pose, but it was impossible considering the form of a crayon.

Fabio Cannavaro in Antique Brass from Crayola. This color was introduced in 1998 in the 120 box set:



Didier Drogba in Copper from Crayola. This color was introduced in 1957 and is Charles Schulz's favorite color from Crayola:



Franck Ribery in Gold from Crayola. The color was introduced in 1949 in the 48 box set:



Robinho in Silver from Crayola. This color was introduced with Gold in 1949 in the 48 box set:



Cristiano Ronaldo in White from Crayola. Introduced in the Studio & School 12 box in 1903:



Wanye Rooney in Timberwolf from Crayola. Introduced in 1993 in the Big Box of 96:


Press kit photos courtesy of Wieden + Kennedy, individual crayon carvings courtesy of Diem Chau.

Now, if you haven't seen the Nike Ballman for the 2010 World Cup, learn about him here.

Brand Trophies (Gucci, Nike, LV, Cartier & More) By Artist Pucci de Rossi

above: Gucci is written in the stylized horns of Rossi's Shopping trophy

What at first appear to be stylized wall mounted animal head trophies made of steel, wood, ceramic, plaster and leather, when examined more closely, contain famous brand names such as Cartier, Gucci, Prada, LV, Danone, McDonalds, Coca Cola, Nike and more (some surreptitiously) within the horns.


above: Nike swooshes are hidden within the wooden stag horns

Pucci de Rossi's Brand Trophies, also referred to as 'Shopping Trophies' or 'Metropolitan Trophies', are a commentary on marketing and a comparison of contemporary art with the tradition of hunting*. A surrealistic representation of how trademarks and brand names have infiltrated our society to such a point that they have attained an almost mythical significance. Even when taken out of their natural context, separated from the products they represent, they continue to have loyalty and value attached to them.


above: Installation view at the galerie Anne de Villepoix

Each trophy is hand-crafted and there are multiple versions of certain pieces in various materials as you will see from the images below. The show exhibited at galerie Anne de Villepoix in Paris under the name of Têtes bizardes » (trophées de chasse métropolitains) in 2003.

Gucci:


Prada:


Louis Vuitton:

Cartier:

Fendi:

Dior:

Coca Cola:

McDonalds:


Nike:

Nike -Texas:

Danone:

Others in the collection are simply ornate:


*An article about the series written by Alexandra Senes
Brand Tyranny


above: Pucci de Rossi (photo: Anne-Sophie Granjon)

The designer Pucci de Rossi, a sort of Italian Gyro Gearloose (the Disney-created madcap inventor) has always tended to joke about everything. The focus is now on his provocative logo sculptures. 

Hunting in Le Marais district of Paris: magnificent and disconcerting, weird sculptures are growing on the walls of a Parisian gallery in the "Shopping Trophies" exhibition. These trophies, with their sensuous and erotic curves, like some kind of extra-terrestrial fauna slain in the course of an imaginary hunt, are set to disconcert us by exhibiting between their antlers familiar logos such as those of Nike, MacDonald’s, Cartier, Gucci and Prada. 

Their creator, Pucci de Rossi, has always pushed luxury to its limits, asserting both its usefulness and uselessness.

This time, he alienates everyday realities from their usual meaning by juxtaposing them with their apparent opposites: nature versus culture… brand culture. A tone of cynical derision together with a craftsman’s expertise testifies to the symptoms of an industrial society polluted by logos which endlessly invade our field of vision. Values which consumers, for want of any clear direction, identify with when making their purchases. Values which have become a refuge in a world that is undergoing an identity crisis.


Customisation in limited series.
These sculptures display a panorama of an era. Through them, Pucci questions and subverts the image of advertising. These luxury brands, trophies of a kind (an insult to the language of hunting), which we flaunt more or less ostentatiously, these exotic antlers are the mouthpiece for anti-consumerist messages. With the arrogance of a seasoned "domestic hunter", Pucci sets out to explore and reflect on this. Now that he has got over the monochromatic silence of his minimalist period, his liberated and unpretentious trophies speak out amid the cacophony of provocative logos. Pucci uses these capitalist symbols and logos as the instrument of his revolt. "We are all prostitutes who’ll go with the first punter."

Far removed from political manifestos, his art plays with the customisation of limited series, and his sculptures stage an ephemeral image of a certain section of our society. In keeping with this sense of humour, these logos are an inspiration to the imagination, showing how an independent mentality could be exhibited. Depending on your mood, you could exhibit your fascination with chaos and your hatred of confusion on a wall in your apartment. Provocatively, Pucci takes a particular prop or pretext and invents a new form of media, developed from his work: creative resistance to globalisation. "Globalisation is a subject I find both troubling and challenging and which I considered sufficiently important for me to tackle and do something with."

Exorcising the marketing element 
"Paradoxically, by exhibiting these brands, I am, in effect, glorifying them. But it is also an animal that I have slain and defeated. A way of exorcising it." Being allergic to marketing, he does not censor himself: from his condemnation of the power of multinationals to anti-globalisation demonstrations, everything is the object of his critique. And should one suspect him of wanting to "act like a cheap salesman", he transforms his client into a vengeful buyer who ends up by following him, willingly, thanks to his lively language that overrides jargon. (published in magazine Jealous n°64, Octobre 2003)

images courtesy of the artist, made75 and the gallery

Pucci de Rossi