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Another little piece has been added to the Moleskine journey. From June 1st to June 29th, Detour is on display at the Art Directors Club in NYC. The 70 notebooks given by Moleskine to some of the most creative artists, architects, film directors, graphic designers, illustrators, and writers around the world, fill the endless corridor of the ADC in a project designed by Zetalab to support Lettera 27 , a non-profit organization whose mission is to defend the right to literacy and education in the world's
most deprived areas.
Detour, - says Raffaella Guidobono , Curator of the exhibition, - is designed to allow the viewer to stumble upon a series of little masterpieces. The group show presents 70 notebooks created by different artists. To offer an appropriate setting for the vast scenes described in every single book, visitors are invited to wear a pair of white cotton archival gloves. The artists involved formulate a theatre piece within a notebook, to unravel visions of private memories and futuristic plans, as well as accidental notes on a poet's weekly diary. Breaking the rules, I placed architecture alongside writing, contemporary art and interior design, in order to reveal how much the intimate nature of
every creative process is sometimes closer than you think.
So you're saying that the philosophy inspiring Detour is a merging of interlacing stories...
As in the previous Detour exhibition in London, the group show results in
an intersection of disciplines. Like in
wunderkammer , each artist has a transparent box and freely transcends its frames. The Philosophy is to capture the vast array of materials and inspiration coming from
different point of views; as if in a
Cabinet of Curiosities, the pages become a means of expression and communication. The result need not be structured or even realistic. We just ask for the artists to engrave their ideas inspired by journey onto paper. Any of the artists' technical languages was welcome: each person was encouraged to use the medium through which his/her imagination takes form. Between the covers of the book they left notes, symbols of their hometown or simply significant paths, exciting neighbourhoods, streets surrounding their dreams, and even signs and symbols of the city unravelled into photography, sketches, or tales that now might astonish us.
Can you tell us something about the artists and their notebooks?
Gabriel Lester follows his personal
Food Chain and carves a brand new sequence of creatures in the pages.
Dror Benshetrit plunges all of the pages into a grey infinite gouache on which are drawn simple gesture drafts of a dance.
Ragnar Kjartansson , the Reykjavik artist currently on exhibit at
The Bard College CCS , makes an unexpected journey. Titled
'A journal of Life, Death, and Travel', Kjartansson's work reflects on the immediate nostalgia possible from his memories of the most recent two weeks; he transcends the physicality of the notebook and evokes a lyrical folk soundtrack throughout its pages. Drawing instead of sewing, Kent Henricksen uses his own traditional ropes and hoods on pastoral creatures in a sensual dark narrative. Heavy chains and locks transform the little black book into a beguiling mystery in
Tom Sachs ' hands. Two security locks on the front-cover guard the unknown inside, as stated
by the title carved white on red, in a classic American typewriter Dymo-font:
TOM SACHS SECRET. 2007.
Same inspiration drives the for-private-view-only Isola&Norzi' s notebook sealed with a series of tape's strings, leaving undiscovered all of the business cards conquered in one week between Art Fairs and Vernissages. Manfredi Beninati presents a true sketchbook in which fabulous gouaches of an ancient dreamy place live alongside pencil sketches and a Leonardo-esque portrait of Milena of Los Super Elegantes. Piero Golia's conceptual piece plays on the packaging of the notebook just with his signature without even open it. Alessandra Cassinelli brings her drawings into a golden shape. Cristina Lei Rodriguez and Scott Henderson re-imagine the notebooks as sculpture, one of a crystalline brightly coloured flower, and the other a triumph of curled paper. Milan-based installation artist duo Vedovamazzei turns the notebook into the smallest swimming-pool ever; Han Bing sends his legendary Diary of Walking the Cabbage Performance, now going on 6 years all over the world.
Suncica Perisin Tomljanovic and John Taki Theodoracopulos, in keeping with the length of their names, both present a huge sequence of portraits on a Japanese album. Neasden Control Centre , aka Steve, performs his own visionary graphic design on a concertina book. Caterina Nelli replaces the pages with a wooden frame for one of her typical pinhole camera shots. Valerio Berruti drawings are a perfect miniature replica of his signature giant canvasses. Massimo Vitali and Paolo Pellegrin filled the whole book with fascinating storyboards for their next solo show. The multifaceted books by Francoise and Douglas Kirkland include special portraits of Gordon Parks, gouaches by Rene Burri, photographic glimpses into their nomadic summer of 2001, and intimate images of Kirkland's famous photo shoot of Marilyn Monroe; the notebook closes with dried flowers from their garden. Mary Ellen Mark sets her eyes on NYC with a visit, while Vincent Cianni documents the skater community in Williamsburg. Desideria Burgio iconizes a series of human bodies while Gordon Cheung talks about greed with retouched mini-sequences Muybridge-style. Maia Sambonet throw a word into the book and watches the creation of a contemporary cadavre exquise. Architect Michael Graves presents new painted magenta hard candy in the perfect middle of the book, while Architect Massimiliano Fuksas reveals his desire to become wind power in only one central double page. Alberto Meda and Odile Decq each translate their respective specialties into one intense work on paper. Film director Spike Jonze directs a short story on paper, made of two small storyboard sequence shots, of a man whose arm is suddenly cut. Cutting edge industrial designer Ross Lovegrove 's elliptical drawings reveal the essence of his aesthetic and style.
Ron Arad and Javier Mariscal send poignant sketches from their last journeys. Karim Rashid 's signature use of circularity continues in the pages of his notebook, creating a piece that sits in harmony with the motifs present in all of his designs. The luxurious books by fashion designers 
Cynthia Rowley and Antonio Marras are entirely covered by fabulous drawings and fabric swatches. Illustrators Paul Davis, Paula Scher , Maira Kalman , Ruben Toledo, Steven Guarnaccia and Attilio Cassinelli appeared in the guise of their own musts. Stefano Faravelli and Simonetta Capecchi bring a nomadic season onto paper, while Tom Krens, Guggenheim Foundation Director plays with numbers and thoughts. Moreover we have the privilege of seeing Dave Eggers express his distinctive style of poignant irony in a visual narrative, vast and sumptuous as only writers' imagery can be. From architect Renzo Piano , we have a sketch of the New York Times Building that imagines the view of New York seen from a great height.
Here below, the list of all the authors:
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