We don’t particularly enjoy screaming ‘One not to miss!’ at you but seriously, if you have the urge to catch an exhibition and you find yourself in London then hit the newly opened Yayoi Kusama retrospective at the Tate Modern. Obsessed with repeating patterns, dots and intense colour, the 83 year old has accumulated a body of work that includes just about every media you could think of. Apart from being an incredible talent, she also looks like an 80’s Hollywood movie idea of a conceptual artist, which makes us feel like we really are in the presence of greatness. If you need any encouragement spare a couple of minutes and watch on.

“The nine decades of Yayoi Kusama’s life have taken her from rural Japan to the New York art scene to contemporary Tokyo, in a career in which she has continuously innovated and re-invented her style.”

Not sure how we missed these on release but a heads up from Arkitip was most welcome. Peter Mendelsund designed editions of classic Franz Kafka works. Mendelsund, art director at Pantheon Books, part of Knopf Publishing, had always hoped to design covers for Kafka novels and talks extensively on his website about the ideas and decisions behind the bold imagery he carries through the set. Under the Schocken Books header, another Knopf off-shoot, he manages to distill key themes running through the son of Prague’s work, into beautiful, deceptively simple designs.

“Whenever I’m asked (and I’m asked with some frequency) which authors I’d most like to design jackets for, I always say Kafka ..There’s just something about Kafka- and this something is so very hard to pin down.” Find them at Amazon.

If you’ve ever wished to come face to face with a six metre high inflatable Murakami then you might want to book a flight to Qatar. Murakami’s Altered Ego exhibition opens today at the Al Riwaq Exhibition Hall and features the usual eye-popping riot of cartoonish nightmares and psychedelic pop art. A man very aware of his stature in the art world, the big (literally) draw has to be the sinister ‘balloon’ version of himself standing guard at the entrance. Reminding visitors that Murakami sees all and will cover it in pink paint if it stands still long enough, this is nothing short of awesome.

The exhibition also includes new canvas work, most notably a 100 metre, three wall piece described as a reaction to the Japan earthquake and its aftermath. The show was described as a “dialogue with one’s own ego,” but Murakami takes time to look outside himself for this incredible piece.

Anyone who has found themselves staggering out of Frieze Art Fair will understand the low grade migraine that results from visual overload. These images remind us of that feeling, but if you don’t leave a Murakami exhibition feeling a bit spaced-out you probably didn’t get your money’s worth. More at CR blog.

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As we reported here last week, one of our favorite road trip/party/bedroom accoutrements—the Polaroid SX-70—is getting polished up and put in a useful, good-looking kit, thanks to a collaboration between outerwear mavens Holden and analog saviors, The Impossible Project. Now we’ve got some details on the camera case, which is itself a little collaboration between Holden and Tanner Goods—Portland fabricators of heritage leather.

Made from domestically sourced, vegetable-tanned English bridle leather, the hand-stitched camera case should easily outlast anything you put inside it. Of course, it’s meant to hold the SX-70, and, to that end, features a special sleeve pocket for film. Close it all up with a leather flap fitted with a brass knob closure, and you should be very happy indeed.

“[This] is, in essence, everything we love about a collaboration,” Co-Founder and Creative Director of Tanner Goods, Sam Huff, says of the project. “Aside from all of us being fans of the Polaroid medium, the camera itself is one of those iconic designs that is one of our all-time favorites … While Holden and Tanner Goods create products for different markets, we both share a few important ideals: durability, utility and craftsmanship.”

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How many reading this remember hunting down copies of Deadline back in the day? In the States it was a pain in the ass. Mailorder was usually the best option but even then, it took some months for those back issues to crawl off a boat from the U.K. The covers took me in. Imagine being 15 years old and seeing this slightly butch punk girl on the cover with a cigarette in her mouth… I definitely did not gravitate to it for any other reason. But truth be told, once inside, the discovery of the Tank Girl saga. Those new to Tank Girl can skip the movie and go straight to the current graphic novels.

Step into the late 90’s and the first Gorillaz record which had that very familiar comic art style of Jamie Hewlett. I was pretty much sold.

Today, ABSOLUT delivers their latest artist collaborative, part of their city series with ABSOLUT LONDON featuring the art of Mr. Hewlett, who takes on the history of London’s fashion scene over the last 200 years. On the bottle you’ll find all those scenes represented: the dandy’s, the punks, the mods, and our favorites, those terrace riding 80’s casuals.

50 total bottle of ABSOLUT LONDON will go on sale starting March 1 at Selfridges and Harvey Nichols. Good luck, collectors.

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This is the iconic image of Calvin & Hobbes that may of us remember from the early 90’s. Bill Watterson, the creator and artist behind what two of the most well recognized characters in modern day comic strips, painted this watercolor for the cover of the Calvin & Hobbes 1989/1990 calendar. The very rare artwork will hit the auction block on February 23 during Heritage Auction’s Vintage Comics & Comic Art Signature event, at the Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion (Ukrainian Institute of America) on Fifth Avenue. The artwork is expected to exceed $50,000, as reported by Artdaily. This is comic art at its best.

Fgr loads us up on this beautiful photo essay, photographed by Terry Richardson of Candice Swanepoel for Harper’s Bazaar. The sports-themed essay lands inside the pages of February’s issue. Lovely, isn’t she?

Many more looks at Candice Swanepoel from the Harper’s Bazaar shoot after the click.

The Selvedge Yard points us towards the 21 Helmets exhibition currently showing at The One Motorcycle Show in Portland, Oregon. Custom, illustrated helmets designed by “noted weirdo artists” including Ray Gordon, Brent Wick, Gretta Anne and Cheyenne Sawyer. Pure white Bell Helmets play canvas to all kinds of off-beat creations. Makes you want to attack your nearest white surface with a Sharpie.

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Some days we get worked up in a genuine tizzy over the surplus of clever font stuff perpetually oozing from the crevices in the Interweb. Other days we wish everything could just be left in American Typewriter. This collaboration between London design studio Johnson Banks and Ravensbourne, a digital media university in the U.K., doubles down on the zeitgeist obsession with typography by turning the alphabet into a series of conceptual sculptures. In that sense, perhaps they are tripling down. Whatever the numbers, the letters are interesting. The jumping off point for each piece is a font that beings with its parent letter (A is Akzidenz Grotesk, B is Bodoni, C is Courier …). We’re taken with E, F, J, L, S, and T. O gets an honorable mention for looking like a vaginal take on Superman’s house. - jt

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This is Colossal fill us in on the Luminarie De Cagna, an incredible structure that featured as part of the Light Festival in Ghent, Belgium. Hitting somewhere between a manic Christmas tree and Tron, onlookers gaze in wonder and possibly lose the use of their retinas.

“The festival was host to almost 30 exhibitions including plenty of 3D projection mapping, fields of luminous flowers, and a glowing phone booth aquarium, however with 55,000 LEDs and towering 28 meters high the Luminarie De Cagna seems to have stolen the show.”

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