David Rudnick & Tim Marlow

David Rudnick & Tim Marlow

Meeting for the first time, graphic designer David Rudnick and Design Museum Director Tim Marlow discuss false dichotomies, paradigm shifts, 'junk layer' culture and the multifarious challenges and opportunities faced by artists and designers in a Web3 age.

The problem of having such an extraordinary array of tools to work with is that we squander them, that we don't refine them, that we don't need to take any of them to the delightful, inspiring peak of their potential – because they're replaced, upgraded and refined before we get the chance to master them.

David Rudnick

I think design is responsible for where we are to some extent, but is also the potential way forward – a way out. How we maintain our relationship or mediate our relationship with the planet and the world around us is obviously something that design will help us get through.

Tim Marlow

Starting from the genesis of Rudnick's visual practice, the pair move through the how, the why, the what and the what next of his work, and of art and design more broadly – both on and off-chain. By way of conclusion, Marlow puts Rudnick on proverbial trial. The charge? "Some kind of nostalgia."

David Rudnick (he/him) reinvents past tropes and codes to establish new visual systems.

On the horizon

We recently visited David Rudnick in Ghent, where he was perfecting the physical and digital elements of his imminent Tomb Series – a number of which will be created and released in collaboration with Avant Arte.

While there, we also stopped by the construction site of a new space for his collaborative studio, Terrain.

Rudnick's Tomb Series ecompasses 177 individual works in 8 'houses' – connected by an intricate framework of rules, mechanics and behaviours.

Credits
Photography and videography by Louis Mas for Avant Arte.


More in this series

Ai Weiwei – Everyone is a dragon
article

Ai Weiwei – Everyone is a dragon

It's the year of the dragon. Dragons wield godlike power in myths and folklore, but Ai Weiwei insists that everyone is a dragon. Here's why.

3 min read
Polaroid image of artist Slawn showing the middle finger
interview

Slawn – The good, the bad, and the Ugly Bastard

Ahead of our first collaboration, a satirical sculpture in his own image, we visited Nigerian artist Slawn in his London studio to talk about cartoons, racist tropes and lucid dreaming.

8 min read
Nigel Howlett at work in his studio
article

Nigel Howlett: The Face Before You Were Born

A solo show debut in London marked a tangible moment of inflection for Nigel Howlett and his faceless figures. In parallel, we collaborated to archive works from the show with a series of limited edition books and hand-finished prints.

3 min read
Peter Halley
article

Rising High II by Peter Halley – How it's made

Anastasia Vavilova, a printmaker at Make-Ready who specialises in experimental hybrid techniques, recounts the steps involved in an elaborate collaboration with Neo-geo painter, Peter Halley.

3 min read

Insightful?

Insightful?

Subscribe to the Avant Arte newsletter for the art world in your inbox.


Discover more insights

Photo of Larry Bell in front of his artwork
00:53
video

Larry Bell

Larry Bell, born in 1939 in Chicago, is celebrated for pioneering Minimalism and Light and Space art by manipulating glass and geometry to investigate light's influence on perception.

Black and white photo of Georgia O'Keefe
00:58
video

Georgia O’Keeffe

Georgia O’Keeffe was a pioneer of American Modernism. Her sensual paintings, from the early 1900s to her death in 1986, reflect the promise and pitfalls of the 20th Century.

black and white portrait of Hiroshi Sugimoto
00:54
video

Hiroshi Sugimoto

Hiroshi Sugimoto uses his 19th century box camera to photograph man-made projections of human existence.

2 min read
Portrait photo of Stanley Whitney
00:54
video

Stanley Whitney

Stanley Whitney was born in 1946 in Philadelphia, USA. His blocks of high-key colours have made Whitney America’s greatest Black abstract artist.