Takeover #17 - Sean Robert Hussey
Process as a living experiment
When you thought it was all over, a summer mail pops up in your inbox. It is refreshing as a cold exotic fruit mix. It is supposed to be read with great calm, hopefully sitting in a shaded place with a nice view in front of you.
Only for the Takeovers my text will be in italic, just to distinguish it from the guest’s. My name is Federico and welcome to Representations of Architecture #43.
Intro
Graphic research has no fixed paths. It is a series of trials, well-performed mistakes, poorly-performed mistakes, shards of genius, shards of stupidity, until one day our character is defined: we have a style. One could say that achieving that point is the best thing: you can finally monetize the hard work that brought you there and start to sell “your style” for the greater good of capitalism.
Some others1 instead think that it is what lies inbetween to be really intriguing and damp of meaning. The research, the classic “it’s not the destination, but the journey”, there great things happen.
Sean Robert Hussey’s work is still in this great shifting moment. In his old drawings (see IG) you can see him flirting with great names as Gordon Cullen, Cedric Price, Mike Webb, John Hejduk and Ryue Nishizawa. In the current state of his graphic research there are clear references to the late 80s Zaha Hadid drawings, but something more is happening. You can perceive that the drawings still hold new possibilities. We can only wait to see where they will bring us.
Insights
I never really know what I'm going to draw, I usually just have a vague idea in mind, a starting point, a question or a provocation for myself... What if I did this instead of that? What if I used that colour instead of this colour? What if I retrain myself from using a certain gesture?
Recently, I've been making these drawings with crayons. They aren't some future vision of architecture, but they definitely have architectural qualities to them, like structure and perspective. However, I never imagine them as plans or elevations, but spatial moments do seem to leak through within the collisions of shapes and colours.
I like to shift from different mediums: digital, pencil, pen, paint, crayon... Each tool demands to be used differently and teaches you different things which can then be carried into the next set. Beyond collisions and overlays, I'm extremely interested in gestures. My ideal drawing would be one in which each gesture has its own identity and autonomy - each line as its own entire universe.
Very beautiful links
- HOUSE after five years of living:
So much can be traced back to the Eames! This beautiful video illustrates the domestic and atmospheric qualities of their house beyond the purely architectural elements that it is usually associated with. Every surface and every object carry meaning.
- Alexander McQueen spring/summer 1999:
This video from the Alexander McQueen 1999 spring/summer show is the most over-the-top moment of performance I've ever seen. The theatrics, the cut of the dress, the dripping paint... undeniably brilliant.
- The Sky Ladder by Cai Guo- Qiang:
Astonishing in scale, ambition and poetics.
Sweet IG pages
Katharina Grosse's installations are unmistakable and immersive. With each show, she blurs the boundaries between architecture and art. The brushstrokes appear to scream.
Okolo_Architecture: One of the things I love most about architecture is when you find a building that has a tiny, but wildly eccentric detail. This account does a great job of documenting some of the most fun moments in modern design history that are often overlooked.
Misc
Sandfuture by Justin Beal is a book I’ve recently read and enjoyed immensely. It performs simultaneously as a biography of Minoru Yamasaki and as a personal memoir. As a result, it is both informative and deeply intimate. In more than one way this book defies conventional boundaries between genres.
I'd like to end with this quote by the artist Amy Sillman and her ideas on drawing and process:
"the idea that process is how you develop form, and that process is a living experiment, corporeal like walking or breathing; the idea of a personal performative space, actions made maybe even absurdly just to find out the shape of your own thoughts"
An ethos for drawing and for life!
Thanks for reading,
Sean
Thank you Sean for your time, but mostly sorry for the wait.
The newsletter is now entering in a third phase. It will become super discontinue but more on point. Expect some takeovers, some retrospective, some thematic issues.
Take care my friends, enjoy your summer.
CIAO
Federico
Like finnish comic artist Tommi Musturi.