Bottle of Notes is a sculpture by Cleas Oldenburg, completed in 1993, it is a magnificent piece of public art in Middlesbrough, UK, home of voyager and mapmaker James Cook. On the inside is written “I like to remember sea-gulls in full flight gliding over the ring of canals”, taken from “Memos of a gadfly” a poem written by the designer van Bruggen in 1987 and based on recollections of his Amsterdam childhood. Outside is a quotation from Captain Cook’s journal “we had every advantage we could desire in observing the whole of the passage of the Planet Venus over the sun’s disc” according to Middlesbrough Council.
I could have sworn I had seen another interesting take on a letter on a movie poster by a film of Shyamalan, but could not remember the title. A quick search revealed – it was the movie poster for “Signs” which I had remembered. So much for my memory – I could not remember the word, but remembered the play with typography.
Designer Ron Arad on show at the Timothy Taylor gallery, London, this week. The exhibition, filled with voluptuous aluminium and mirror sculptures, features an installation called Oh, the Farmer and the Cowman Should be Friends (shown here) as its centrepiece.
word and image 