Ettore Sottsass: "Metaphors"

[ED: Back in February, David John of You Have Been Here Sometime invited me to put together a short piece on the work of Ettore Sottsass, and I realize in hindsight that I never posted a link. That piece can be found here. The following images and text are also all by Ettore Sottsass, taken from the 2002 monograph "Metaphors".]

DECORATION WITH POSTCARDS; 1977 (MILAN)

▶ BJORK: SUN IN MY MOUTH

"In Veneto, if somebody asks a question and the other doesn't know how to answer, they say 'Conforme' ('It all depends').

Which means that the answer depends on a large number of complicated situations.

Decorating, too, depends on numerous different situations. There are those who decorate by putting an eagle over the entrance to their home because they want to show that they are powerful.

There are those who decorate with photoraphs of children, grandchildren, uncles and aunts, grandparents and wives because they want to remember that they have a large family.

There are those who decorate with a pot of red geraniums partly in order to feel involved in the life and death of the geraniums and partly to let people know that their life is happy.

You can also decorate with the red and white ribbon used to tie the Sacher cake packet.

And you can decorate your girl friend's skin with the stripes of summer sunlight that come through the venetian blinds."

DECORATION WITH MOQUETTE, 100% NYLON; 1977 (NEVADA)

DECORATION WITH AUSTRIAN RIBBON (RED AND WHITE); 1977 (MILAN)

DECORATION WITH SUNLIGHT; 1977 (MILAN)

ALL PHOTOGRAPHS AND TEXT BY ETTORE SOTTSASS, TAKEN FROM "METAPHORS", 2002, EDITED BY MILCO CARBONI AND BARBARA RADICE

Lot's Wife / The Weeknd / Various Images

Still taken from A Song of Love/Un Chant d Amor, dir. Jean Genet, 1950

▶ THE WEEKND: WICKED GAMES

"First of all, she had a name, and she had a history. She was Marah, and long before the breath of death's angel turned her to bitter dust, she had slipped from her mother's womb with remarkable ease, had moved in due time from infancy to womanhood with a manner of grace that came to be the sole blessing of her aging parents. She was beloved."

via Flickr

Mod Poster Bed, via Converso and You Have Been Here Sometime

"And like most daughters who are beloved by a mother and a father, Marah moved about her city with unflinching compassion, tending to the dispossessed as if they were her own. And they became her own. In a city given to all species of excess, there were a great many in agony - abandoned men, abandoned women, abandoned children. Upon these she poured out her substance and her care."

Photo of Whitney Houston's bathroom, via The National Enquirer and hollywoodrag.com

Marc Handelman at Sikkema Jenkins & Co., via joshuaabelow.blogspot.com

Judith Beheading Holofernes, Caravaggio, 1598-99

"Her first taste of despair was at the directive of the messengers, who announced without apparent sentiment what was to come, and what was to be done. With surprising banality, they stood and spoke. One coughed dryly into his fist and would not meet her eyes. And one took a sip from the cup she offered before he handed it back and the two disappeared into the night."

Brutalist Lamp by José León Cerrillo, via Tell You Today

Image result for "Victorian Opium Den", via writingwomenshistory.blogspot.com

Richard Artschwager at Carlson, via Contemporary Art Daily

Frank Majore, via Jason Cawood/eightiesart.tumblr.com

"Unlike her husband - coward and sycophant - the woman remained faithful unto death. For even as the man fled the horrors of a city's conflagration, outrunning Marah and both girls as they all rushed into the desert, the woman stopped. She looked ahead briefly to the flat expanse, seeing her tall daughters, whose strong legs and churning arms were taking them safely to the hills; she saw, farther ahead, the old man whom she had served and comforted for twenty years. In the impossible interval where she stood, Marah saw that she could not turn her back on even one doomed child of the city, but must turn her back instead upon the saved."

Lobby floor of the Pegasus Apartments by Kelly Wearstler, via diannvalentine.com

via Webshots

Home on the grounds of the Spahn Movie ranch, home to the Manson family, via Google's Life Magazine archives; Samuel Steward's murphy bed, via cruiseorbecruised.tumblr.com

Still Life, Dean Sameshima, 2011, via cruiseorbecruised.tumblr.com

IMAGES SOURCES CITED VIA CAPTION; TEXT OF "LOT'S WIFE" BY SCOTT CAIRNS, TAKEN FROM RECOVERED BODY