Out of the ordinary : popular art, architecture and design / by Derham Groves ; with an introduction by Corbett Lyon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Groves, Derham, author.

Contributor:

Lyon, Corbett, writer of foreword.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Art and popular culture.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (320 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Newcastle upon Tyne, England : Cambridge Scholars Publishing, [2012]

Summary:

"Out of the Ordinary is one part unembellished documentation and one part verbi-visual equivalent of a Pro Hart work made with nineteenth-century, paint-loaded canons. It is a cultural history, resource for contemporary designers, imaginarium and luminous almanac of an explorer of the stranger species of creativity - from brick art to letterboxes, junk mail, mail art, television, fashion, food, model trains, Disney's imagineering, amusement parks, feng-shui, Postmodern architecture, human-scale craftsmanship, forgotten Australian architects in China, famous architects (that, perhaps, should be forgotten save for their bow ties), collectors of Sherlock Holmes memorabilia, outsider artists and clients - and none of these things exactly.Everywhere Derham Groves attends to and finds significance in the minutiae of everyday life, inter-association, and those things that affect us so profoundly but remain just outside the purview of the 'normal.' And in these things - objects, art, architecture, environment(s) - he finds stories and teaches his reader how to do the same. Out of the Ordinary is also a motivational text. It begins with bricks, perhaps the most standardized and repeatable units of construction, and reveals how they can be used as vehicles for unfettered creativity and not merely for the creation of containers. Groves shows how art and architecture can emerge and receive nourishment from the garbage of the everyday and creative collisions. Groves also calls, albeit subtly, for a turn away from homogeneity, the standardized, and unimaginative or 'lazy' design informed by principles of economy, efficiency, utility and function conceived in abstraction. Rather, Groves celebrates the reanimation and/or rejuvenation of place by the makers of anything out of the ordinary (who don't necessarily pray to the demiurge of good taste) who have created

spaces and things through which the creative imagination shines."- Dr Andrew Chrystall, School of Communication, Journalism and Marketing, Massey University.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Introduction by Corbett Lyon

SECTION ONE: THE BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS

The Third Little Pig: Showcasing Australian Brickwork

The Letterbox That Jerry Built

You Have Junk E-Mail

SECTION TWO: THE ONE-EYED MONSTER

Switching On the "Telly" Down Under

Gob-Smacked! T.V. Dining in Australia Between 1956 and 1966

Dressing Up (and Down) for T.V.

SECTION THREE: THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH

Walt Disney's Backyard

Feng-Shui Down Under

Hong Kong Disneyland: Feng-Shui Inside the Magic Kingdom

SECTION FOUR: THE ADAPTABLE SHOP-HOUSE

Sinaiwan: A Shop-House Town

Tall Storeys: Vietnamese Shop-Houses in Transition

"Mapping" Sydney Road, Brunswick

SECTION FIVE: THE GREAT DETECTIVE

John Bennett Shaw: Collecting Sherlock Holmes

Holmes Is Where the Art Is

SECTION SIX: THE IMAGE OF THE ARCHITECT

The Forgotten "Chinese" Architecture of Arthur Purnell

The Barlow File: A Curious Adventure in Building

Remembering Harry Seidler

SECTION SEVEN: A PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST

Almost Anything Goes: The Canvases of Pro Hart

Pro Hart's Frankenstein Monsters

About the Author.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

1-5275-5142-3

OCLC:

1162815029