BOOK
$30
"Most inflatable design is rubbish," proclaims Sean Topham in the first line of his new book, Blow-Up. He then spends the next 160 pages celebrating a delightful gamut of exceptions and their social significance. Touching on radical politics, the Goodyear blimp, and kinky sex, Topham suggests that pneumatic objects serve as symbols of technological utopianism, escape, and, well, fun.
Like the random path of a balloon aloft, the author drifts from subject to subject. From the Montgolfier brothers' hot air balloon flights in the 1780s (they launched a sheep, a duck, and a rooster before King Louis XVI and 120,000 onlookers in France) to the inflatable decoy planes of World War II, Topham segues effortlessly between tales. This playfully wide purview suggests how PVC is culturally meaningful.
Historical detail bolsters the stream-of-consciousness writing style. Take, for example, Topham's pages on the evolution of disposable and inexpensive inflatable architecture. It was first conceived of in the 1960s as a rebellious alternative to the rigid, boxlike designs of modernist masters like Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. To prove his point, Topham recalls the work of daring young collectives such as Britain's Archigram. Archigram designed funky, soft, portable, and colorful air-filled plastic buildings and furniture that threatened to make citizens reject hard-edged walls, ceilings, and floors. He likens Archigram's idealistic and mass-market attitude to that of the pop artists (every pun intended, surely). Andy Warhol, as Topham reminds us, released helium-filled Mylar pillows over Manhattan. "The act of allowing the sculpture to escape from the confines of the gallery space," he writes, "can be viewed as an attack on art galleries which were, and still are, regarded as elitist institutions."
Despite his grand proclamations on the ongoing influence of the medium, Topham's book is grounded by skepticism. He's careful to point out the failures of overly ambitious designers seduced by turgid forms. Remember the Hindenburg ?
Prestel: www.prestel-usa.com.
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