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Pentagram Papers 39: SIGNS
We have all seen the homeless on street corners holding hand-scrawled signs. Their messages are desperate, heartbreaking, and at times, even humorous. These naked forms of self-expression have unintentionally become some of the most basic, raw and compelling examples of graphic communication in our society today. The 39th edition of our privately published Pentagram Papers series was designed by DJ Stout. It features signs from the personal collection of the legendary musician and writer Joe Ely and photographed by Randal Ford. These images are combined with a series of large-format portraits of the homeless by Austin-based photographer Michael O’Brien, who worked with Alan Graham, president of Austin’s Mobile Loaves & Fishes, and Brother Duane Severance, a pastor to the street people. Ely wrote the book’s foreword.
We have adapted the contents of the paper online here:
Our Austin office recently launched the publication of SIGNS with a benefit that raised $5000 to help feed the homeless. We hope that you find Ely’s essay and the photographs of O’Brien and Ford as moving as we do and we encourage you to join us in supporting one of the charities listed here or a local one of your choice.
Peter Gabriel Comes Face to Face at Pentagram
Peter Gabriel gives a wonderful namecheck to Pentagram and Harry Pearce in his latest monthly video diary, citing the photographic faces on display in the front conference room of our London office. In his comments Gabriel attributes the authorship of the photos to a partner, but they were actually created by Jean Edouard Robert, who worked in the London office on Pentagram Papers 4: Face to Face, which was designed by John McConnell and published in 1977. Gabriel is the Chairman and Co-founder of the human rights organization Witness and saw the “Face to Face” prints during a Witness brainstorming with Harry Pearce, who has designed for Witness for the past thirteen years.
More faces after the jump.
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Akiko Busch on the Pentagram Papers in Fine Books Magazine
Quick Link: Akiko Busch on the Pentagram Papers in Fine Books Magazine
Good Signs
The Pentagram Paper 39: Signs book launch event last Saturday night was a rousing success. We raised money to feed the homeless and had great fun doing it. Pentagram will be sending Mobile Loaves & Fishes $5,000 collected during the benefit.
The weather was perfect for the 300 or so guests who gathered under the big tent in the parking lot of the Austin office on the last night of the SXSW music festival. Legendary Texas musician Joe Ely and photographer Michael O’Brien signed copies of the Pentagram Paper and Alan Graham of Mobile Loaves & Fishes told the crowd moving stories about many of the homeless people photographed by O’Brien for the book. Sharon Ely’s “Holy Pozole” soup and cornbread were delicious and Darden Smith and his stellar band put on a great show. Joe Ely finished out the evening with an inspiring solo. Joe leaves on April 1st for a 68-city tour with the Flatlanders.
It was an amazing evening. Pentagram would like to thank everyone who came to the event for their donations and support. For those unable to attend, signed copies of Signs are available by mail for a suggested donation of $20 to Mobile Loaves & Fishes. Please email howdy@texas.pentagram.com for details.
Signs of the Times
DJ Stout and his team at Pentagram Austin invite you to join them on Saturday, March 21 for a fundraising party to help the homeless and to celebrate the release of Pentagram Papers 39: Signs. Designed by Stout, Signs is a collaboration with legendary Texas musician Joe Ely and renowned photographers Michael O’Brien and Randal Ford that focuses on the issue of homelessness. Donations received during the event will benefit Mobile Loaves & Fishes, a 501(c)(3) social outreach ministry for the homeless and indigent working poor. The event is free and open to the public—download the invitation poster here.
Stout, Ely, O’Brien and Ford hope Signs attracts attention to the current state of homelessness in our own communities and around the world. To support the book’s creation, Ely contributed a series of homeless signs he collected over the years and wrote a compelling foreword for the book that recounts his brief experience of homelessness after he jumped on a freight train out of Lubbock, Texas when he was 17 years old. Ely’s sign collection was photographed by Ford, and these images are juxtaposed with portraits of the homeless shot by O’Brien.
Complimentary copies of Signs will be distributed at the party, and Ely, O’Brien and Stout will all be on hand to sign books. Musician Darden Smith and band will be performing, and Sharon Ely will be serving up her famous Holy Pozole soup!
When: Saturday, March 21, 7 pm
Where: Pentagram Design, 1508 West 5th Street in Austin
RSVP: howdy@texas.pentagram.com
The event coincides with the final night of SXSW, so if you’re in town, please drop by! For those unable to attend, signed copies of Signs will be available by mail for a suggested donation of $20 to Mobile Loaves and Fishes. Please email howdy@texas.pentagram.com for details.
Pentagram Papers 38: The Russian Garbo
In the early 1930s Samuel Goldwyn brought the Russian silent film actress Anna Sten to Hollywood. Hoping he had found his Garbo equivalent, Goldwyn failed to recognize that as the silent movie era was quickly fading, Sten was unable to speak English. Before this realization, and upon her arrival, Sten and her husband commissioned Richard Neutra to build them a house in the Hollywood Hills. Virtually unknown, this modernist masterpiece had had only two owners before Pentagram Architects’ James Biber and Neutra house specialists Marmol Radzinger began a restoration. Aimed at balancing Neutra’s original vision, Sten’s demands and the current clients’ desires, the ensuing process was “a live experiment in mediating between the past and the future,” says Biber.
Pentagram Paper 38: The Russian Garbo is a documentary of the Sten-Frenke House that tells the stories of its evolution, architect and owners through reproductions of Neutra’s original documentation and the post-renovation photography of Julius Shulman. The prodigious 95-year-old photographer had never shot the house before, adding yet another story to the history of the residence. “The process of restoring the Sten-Frenke House involved research of the most intimate kind,” recalls Biber. “The extensive documents tell one story, and quite a personal one, the house tells another and the photographs by Julius Shulman tell yet another.” Together they form a portrait of the creation and restoration of this remarkable house.
We have adapted the paper’s content online here:
Pentagram Papers 37: Forgotten Architects
In the 1920s and early 1930s, German Jewish architects created some of the greatest modern buildings in Germany, mainly in the capital Berlin. A law issued by the newly elected German National Socialist Government in 1933 banned all of them from practicing architecture in Germany. In the years after 1933, many of them managed to emigrate, while many others were deported or killed under Hitler’s regime. Pentagram Papers 37: Forgotten Architects is a survey of 43 of these architects and their groundbreaking work.
The paper is based on the extensive research of architect Myra Warhaftig, who sadly passed away last Tuesday, 4 March at age 78. Warhaftig spent twenty years investigating the fates of these architects and only recently published her findings in her book German Jewish Architects Before and After 1933: The Lexicon. An exhibition based on her work is set to open at the Jewish Museum Berlin later this year. David Sokol has written about Warhaftig and her project in an article published today in the Jewish culture blog Nextbook.
Forgotten Architects was designed by Justus Oehler and Christiane Weismüller in our Berlin office. We have adapted its content for a minisite here.
Pentagram Celebrates Julius Shulman and ‘The Russian Garbo’
On Wednesday night Pentagram Architects hosted a party to celebrate famed architectural photographer Julius Shulman’s 97th birthday and the publication of Pentagram Papers 38: The Russian Garbo, which features Shulman’s photographs of the Sten-Frenke House. The Santa Monica residence was designed by Richard Neutra in 1934 for the Ukrainian émigré actress Anna Sten (“The Russian Garbo”) and her husband, Dr. Eugene Frenke, and was restored by James Biber and his team at Pentagram Architects in 2005. Shulman, who photographed Neutra-designed houses for forty years, remarkably did not shoot the Sten-Frenke House until after the restoration was complete.
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