THE "REAL JUNK" AESTHETIC is THE ONLY FLEX
AND ALL YOU NEED IS PRECISELY 1 (ONE) VERY EXCELLENT EXPENSIVE PIECE OF DÉCOR
Dear Snoops,
This is one you cannot “buy” — the absolutely rich, personal-history-oozing, anthropologically curious, !!! TOTALLY INIMITABLE !!! décor approach that is: REAL JUNK.
We have reported previously on “EXQUISITE MESS” – a décor state of being. And yes, that is great. But, it’s an instant. “REAL JUNK” differs from mess in that (a) it need TIME, (b) junk doesn’t need to be messy. Real Junk is about steady ACCUMULATION, without purge. What cheap detritus surrounds you, and has done so for decades?
THE VALUE HERE: is a décor middle finger to “Curation”; to “Everything is something!-ness”; and, paradoxically, to consumer culture: you needn’t “perfect” junkiness because it that is antithetical.
… And yet, for the skilled few, the “REAL JUNK” aesthetic is PURE MAGIC.
It is why, for example, there is an obsessions with those lucky f*cks who had rent controlled apartments in N.Y.’s CARNEG*E HALL, i.e. BILL CUNNINGHAM, the only fashion photographer who’s IDEAS about fashion matter (to us), and his cohort.
ABODE OF BILL:
JUNK-LADEN. “FREEDOM IS THE MOST EXPENSIVE THING” — Bill C. What he means is, don’t buy into The Establishment.
His neighbor, TO CONTINUE THE CARNEG*E HALL MOMENT:
This is not HOARDING, because this is not a trauma response, it is not stacks of newspapers, it is not dusty-disgusting. It’s the self-aggrandizing sense that this sh*t is CULTURAL ARTIFACT.
And thus begins the DÉCOR LESSON.
As with all the Best Aesthetics, there is absolutely no delight in the “TURN KEY”, “RIBBON CUTTING” stage. The unlived-in is… not quite fun yet?
(Aside: Rich folks keep their homes TOO TIDY, TOO CLEAN.)
So dull are many of these freshly-minted or overly-styled homescapes profiled in media today, where so often it feels like the inhabitant is ALSO touring for the first time. They’d never seen that bowl of limes before.
LIFE ADVICE that is also DÉCOR ADVICE: YOU MUST “LIVE!”. And true living leaves an imprint — THANK F*CK!!! (It’s so charming!)
Here is what MSM (mainstream magazines) ABSOLUTELY ARE NOT GETTING about how this also TRANSLATES INTO DÉCOR FLEX:
1.1 →
THE (as in THE ONLY") current décor flex that matters is having 1 (one) exceptionally rare and wildly expensive object/furniture item amongst a sea of unkempt trash.e.g. Struggled to find a great example tbh, but we KNOW it’s something. Adjacent to, like, “a casual Biagio”, which really gets our rocks off. e.g. this Biagio out of place and yet IDEAL in this 007 from ‘81, like some alien head creeping in on a MCM-sailor office. N.B. That 007 production designer (PETER L., R.I.P.) then five years later did in fact décor-izec ALIENS, the movie. So,…)
1.2 →
To reiterate: The having-everything-be-tidy-and-chic is really NOT the flex that most (rich) people think it is. Sorry!!!!
In the character-creating world of cinema, for example, you only seen a too-tidy place when someone is a F*CKING PSYCHOPATH!!!!
In short: FOR A FLEX (n.) TO FLEX (v.) IT MUST BE AMONGST SH*T.
“Real Junk” is the key. “OH, THIS OLD THING?”-NESS.
VISUAL MOMENT 1:
D.Y.K. DENISE SCOTT BROWN? Fantastic arch*tect; wrote about how arch*tecture needs to learn from pop culture in 1971; loved Vegas; ET CETERA.
And that’s where she f*cking lived. That’s her messy f*cking bizarre house, circa 2015.
Her flex being her own chair (that number with the confetti) which she did with Robert Venturi, her spouse-bizpartner.
This for us was all the incentive needed to UNPACK “JUNK” (pun intended) here today. Because you’d have expected D.S.B. to live somewhere TIGHT, when really it’s LOOSE. You’d expect a kind of GAE AULENTI cocophany but it’s still all kind of TOP TIER, when really it is ALSO some plain old satin-trimmed fleece blanket.
TIME: LONG AND SHORT
TIME, a resource, is needed for JUNK. And, where the slowest is the bestest, there is an important role for FAST, kind of despite logic.
And that role is the chaotic energy of THE AD HOC, which is the seed of “JUNK”.
The problem with “taking one’s time” in a middling way is that, though you might end with something “just right” you loose panic-instinct (which for some is actually “care-free"-edness), you loose energy. You might end up with something “perfect” but it will have spirit of Mid.
To move fast is to live in the AD HOC, to appreciate and use the resources in your immediate surroundings. What, for example, is at the thr*ft shop down the street? GO WITH THAT?????
AD HOC ASIDE:
Charles Jencks has an AD HOC manifesto and it’s like, truly impenetrable… for example (IF YOU DARE):
“If most everything on earth comes from something else and is compound, then we live in a pluriverse. Although the laws may be uniform in our universe today, they evolved during the first microseconds, and may be the bylaws of an ad hoc multiverse.”
Okaaaaaaay, Charles J. Very “the kinds of conversations you have when you’re h*gh”.
VISUAL MOMENT 2:
We adore, for example, the home of PATRICK CHAUVEAU (Paris). Found in the book “PRIVATE PARIS”, 1988.
The inward-facing sorta view-window-less, it is world-creation of Self’s Stuff and also Sky (because there is nothing else to see). A very lofty combo, PUN INTENDED. And, it is kind of art-junk laden – and note (again) that junk needn’t be hoarding-level.
sh*t sofa covered with blanket
ex-sewing table? as table
basic bistro chairs
plain old country-vibe table, covered with some kind of white board that doesn’t fit the dimensions AT ALL
janky plant pedestal
AND YET… looks quite chic.
See also the TEENAGE BEDROOM inspired “TAPE” art hanging approach — ABSOLUTELY OUR NEW FAVORITE WAY OF DISPLAYING “WORKS ON PAPER":
Thank you, Patrick!
Let us also briefly take a moment elsewhere in N.Y. – zipping to the EAST VILLAGE we present you with an image from the uber rencet N.Y.Times reportage on the ‘hood’s few remaining rent-stabilized apartments.
Within, there is evidence of how a “REAL JUNK” kind of attitude (defined by kind of just letting things be junky) reveals a different SORT of “Accumulation”. Not the sort that is Objects, but the sort that is Layers of Intervention.
LOOK AT THIS F*CKING FLOOR. Some décor-ator would charge you for this and also then expect to get into Archi D., but it’s really the result of TIME AND REPAIR AND GENERAL JUNK-Y ATTITUDE OF NOT REALLY TRYING TO BE F*CKING PERFECT AND NEAT AND WHATEVER ET CETERA.
Excellent, and VERY “CULTURAL ARTIFACT”. We await this as a BENI RUGS.
DON’T JUST TAKE OUR WORD FOR IT.
CRUCIAL TEXTS (5)
NO PLACE LIKE HOME, 1986, by AMY ARBUS
WEIRD ROOMS, 1996, by ALEXANDER VERTIKOFF, MAL SHARPE, SANDRA SHARPE
ADHOCISM, 1972, by CHARLES JENCKS and NATHAN SILVER
APARTAMENTO INTERVIEW WITH DENISE SCOTT BROWN, Issue 16 2015, by AMELIA STEIN
Until next week! LOVE AND GOOD LUCK,
"We await this as a BENI RUGS." hahaha perfect. I wish we saw two photos for each magazine rich person room. One styled and the other, ACTUAL and with all their daily life stuff in it.
God I loved this one. A wildly expensive out of touch piece in a sea of junk. Perfection. And Beni rugs and bowls of lime!!! Dead.