Color Cuts Surrealism Surrealism was conceived in the 1920s in Europe, after World War I, as a revolutionary movement against the politics of its time. Surrealism began as ideas, as words, and above all, as a state of mind. Since then, what started out as an avant-garde movement has become an enduring influence on commercial art, fashion, architecture and interiors. In fashion, the most famous Surrealist collaboration is surely that between Salvador Dali and Elsa Schiaparelli. Under Dali's influence, Schiaparelli produced many radical pieces, such as the Lobster Dress (1937), a silk evening dress with a huge lobster print splashed on its front. Another Schiaparelli creation inspired by her many Surrealist friends is the Skeleton Sweater. The sweater had the bone structure of the chest reproduced trompe l'oeil (French for 'fool the eye') style on the front, thereby giving the wearer the appearance of being seen through an X-ray machine. Since Schiaparelli, many modern designers have incorporated trompe l'oeil into their work. Recently, in his spring/summer 2007 collection for Lanvin, Alber Elbaz designed a series of futuristic glossy dresses with the facial features of women prominently printed on the front, referencing the Surrealist fascination with body parts. Meanwhile, Comme des Garçons' Fall 2007 collection featured miniature frocks sewn onto dresses and grasping hands appliqued across the front of a blouse. Body parts also hold a certain fascination for interior designers today, probably because anatomical representations within a conventional setting tend to immediately draw the eye and always make a good talking point. Harry Allen's products for NYC-based design collective Areaware feature an incense holder that is a resin cast of his hand with the thumb and third finger holding the 'om' position in yoga. His collection is cheekily entitled 'Reality'. At the 2007 International Contemporary Furniture Fair held in New York City, many young designers had clearly caught the Surrealism bug. For his Arthur chair, John Reeves at Reeves Design replaced one of the legs of a traditional rattan lounge chair with a plastic one belonging to a chair of a different genre. The effect is both riveting and amusing. For the Tokyo-based Waawiz gallery, Tanaka designed a crystal clock with the mechanical parts suspended within the crystal in a scattered pattern, much like snow falling to the ground. Tanaka's clock successfully combines a Surrealist exercise in displacement with the quirky aesthetic common to so many Japanese designers.    The best example that blends Surrealist influences across fashion and interior boundaries is the Viktor & Rolf boutique on Via Sant' Andrea in Milan. Built in 2005, the space is a topsy-turvy retail experience where all the furnishings are upside down. Decorated in the neo-classical style, a chandelier sprouts from the floor while the ceiling is covered in wood-parquet flooring. In their Fall/Winter 2007 collection shown earlier in February, Viktor & Rolf sent models walking down the runway in vertiginous Dutch clogs, rigged with their own light and sound fixtures, looking very much like oversized costume dolls. It was a very surreal moment for both journalists and fashionistas in attendance. A recent exhibit at the Victoria & Albert museum in London not only charts the influence of Surrealism across many areas of design, it also examines the tension resulting from the increasing commercialization of Surrealism as a design aesthetic. In a twist of irony, the gift shop at the museum is selling a wide array of low-brow products referencing Surrealism, including a humble tea towel depicting Man Ray's 'Cadeau Audace' (cast-iron and nails).   - Louise Loh (abbreviated from CAUSEffect 06/07) Colorful Names Kingfisher blue is one of the many examples of color names derived from the brilliant plumage of birds. Aptly named, the kingfisher dives for food with its long pointed beak. According to legend, the kingfisher was originally a gray bird that got its crownlike tuft of vivid blue feathers by fleeing Noah¹s ark in such a hurry that it rubbed against the sky.  Heliotrope is a floral purple hue. In early times the name was applied to sunflowers, marigold and tulips, but it now refers to the plant of the genus heliotropium, small clustered purple flowers that turns toward the sun. A Greek myth surrounds this fragrant plant, derived from the Greek words helios, the sun, and anthros, flower. Clytie, a water nymph was in love with the sun god Helios who paid her no mind. Nine days she sat and pined without food or water. At last her limbs rotted and her face became a flower, always turning its stem toward the sun¹s path during the day. Sepia is derived from Greek word for cuttlefish, a relative of the squid and the octopus. Its origin lies in the word sepèin, which means to befoul - exactly what the cuttlefish does to seawater when it squirts its ink. Since ancient times the ink of the cuttlefish has been known as sepia. The Romans appreciated the ink¹s ability to outlast other natural inks. In the 18th century sepia became popular for drawings and watercolors. In the 19th century brown was used to coat photographs and now, many pre-20-century prints are cherished for their varied sepia tones.  - Margaret Walch, CAUS Effect 06/07 80's Retrospective Confrontational, wildly diverse and stridently colorful, American art from the 1980s seems pointedly relevant to our complicated times. The boldness in color and attitude of leading artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Eric Fischl, Keith Haring, Jeff Koons, Sherrie Levine, Robert Longo, David Salle and Julian Schnabel was especially remarkable in the conservative Reagan Republican climate. The decade witnessed Koons' pop sculptures, Barbara Kruger's abrasive red and black signage, Schnabel's large-scale plate paintings and the disturbing collages of David Wojnarowicz. While the jarring imagery often led to strong criticism of these artists, in retrospect their abrasively bright palettes are memorable and very suitable for creating distinctive, modern graphics. Probably the most startling and certainly the most delightful colorist of the decade was Jean-Michel Basquiat.  Born in Brooklyn to an African-American father and an American-Puerto Rican mother, Basquiat's brief career was like a meteor ­ rising quickly and enjoying enormous popularity before the artist died at the age of 27. His large-scale canvases established his palette of kindergarten yellow, Floridian pink and dark purple, apple green and Caribbean blue in addition to sinister reds and blacks. The juxtaposition of exuberant and dark colors led to glowing, almost fluorescent effects (a clear trend in our latest Fall/Winter 2008-09 forecasts), and made his graffiti forms of primitive faces and skeletal human figures arrestingly powerful. Painting in acrylic paint and paint stick, Basquiat suggested the chaotic energy of urban street life which Americans are becoming drawn to once again.  - Margaret Walch, CAUSEffect 04/07