12 January 2009

Beloved Curiosity, Jonathan Adler.

I just love, love, love Jonathan Adler. I mean, most people already know all about this guy, but here are some interesting facts about Monsieur Adler that I have come across today in my search for all things Adler...

He's married to Simon Doonan!! I literally had NO idea. What a couple!

He went to Brown to study semiotics in the early eighties, which I think is kind of present in some of his pieces--like the condom caddy and similar pieces, as well as the drug container cookie jars. Semiotics is the study of signs and signifiers--what is communicated and how its meaning is understood. These pieces manipulate our understandings of what is meant by an image of a phallic sword, a pill box, or even the slang drug terms that fell out of popular use in the 1970s. They're clever. They're funny. But most of all, they're so beautiful.

Here are some of my favorite Adler pieces, beginning of course with the quaaludes and downers and prozac and uppers and dolls... (click on the image to follow the link, all of course from Jonathan Adler.)




And I just love the Utopian pottery series, too. It reminds me of 1950s/60s tiki/island inspired figurines. I think it's the bulbous heads with tiny eyes and the proportions of the bodies. These are some of my favorites...


3 comments:

  1. love him as well....did you see this post i did thursday?

    http://peppermags.blogspot.com/2009/01/matte-stephens-at-jonathan-adler-stores.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. No I didn't! Going to check it out now!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you for this article. You gave me an idea what to post on my blog.

    ReplyDelete