Archive for the 'Pram Art' Category

Ghost Stroller

Published on August 18, 2010 in Contemporary Stuff, Miscellany and Pram Art. 0 Comments

It’s a mystery, but not to us. A stroller, painted chalk white, appeared chained to a sign at Union and Sixth Avenue in Park Slope. (Stroller culture fans — there are more than one, aren’t there? — know that Park Slope is upscale stroller heaven, and in Brooklyn. New York.)

The ghostly nature of the modified stroller seems to reference bicycle memorials that have appeared in recent years in various cities, but according to a NYT article about the spectral stroller, there’s no evidence that any babies died at this particular intersection.

“Every day my kids say, ‘What does that mean? Did a baby die?’ ” said Lauren Abrams, a midwife who lives on Union Street and was chatting with Mr. Rudnick and Ms. Bernstein. “Usually I cop out and say I don’t know what it is.”

“We don’t know what it is!” Mr. Rudnick reminded her.

Well, we at Pram Watch most certainly know “what it is”. “It” is an Inglesina Zippy, an excellent stroller by any measure.

What does it mean symbolically? The NYT article speculates:

. . . the ghost stroller, in its bulk, feels more like an assault, possibly a deliberate upending of the Park Slope dream of better parenting through good taste.

Pram Watch does not hesitate to point out how misguided this sentence is. It is not possible to associate “bulk” with an Inglesina Zippy; it is the leanest possible machine. “Upending” of parental good taste? Nonsense; if anything this piece immortalizes the good taste and sensible consumerism manifest in the choice of the practical Zippy as an infant cart.

Pram Watch does not claim to comprehend any greater symbolism incarnated here, but we humbly suggest that perhaps it’s the stroller, itself, that has died, and the flowers simply a tribute to a beloved workhorse, now removed forever from service.

Or maybe it’s just “art”. For sure, deep colors look cool against matte white. However, we disapprove; destruction of a fine pushchair in the name of art is never acceptable. The “assault” here is upon a fine, wholly innocent, stroller.

Via daddytypes, who rightfully calls out the NYT for its reporter’s exemplary use of the word “etiolated”

Image from Fucked in Park Slope (“Serving Park Slope since the great depression of 2008″), which credits @aboutmattlaw (but offers no link)

And special thanks to Cully

Update: NYT gets the story on the 16th, Gothamist reports the stroller trashed — trashed!!!! — on the 17th. Sic transit gloria.

From Russia, With Love

Published on March 15, 2010 in Pram Art. 0 Comments

Well, from Gizmodo, actually (check out the comments; they’re worth a look):

Is that Robo-Tyke riding backwards? Walking in front? Or is it standing on a hidden Robo-Bub who’s riding in the red stroller? And why, oh, why, can’t we see the strollers better? Russian pushchairs? Time for me to learn Cyrillic — and acquire a new keyboard.

Via daddytypes

A Thousand Lights

Published on January 27, 2010 in Pram Art. 0 Comments

Well, all right, only six, and a bunch of mirrors. It’s UK comedian Ian Moore, crossing a street with quite a cheerful-looking vintage pushchair:

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Note his vigilance. Smart. It’s best not to rely only on your equipment.

Mind you, I don’t know why he’s pushing this stroller, or what he’s got in it. Could be a couple of puppies, the day’s shopping, or several cartons of cigarettes (of which he seems quite fond). It’s hard to say. Cool wheels on the stroller, though, and nice bit of dash, that yellow.

Source: Sir Lord Thomas, who seems simply to be flogging Moore’s PR stuff

Naughty Ad With Pram

Published on November 6, 2009 in Pram Art. 0 Comments

Here’s a still from a NSFW ad previously posted on BoingBoing:

mnyprm Yes, that’s a mashed-up woman made of currency (identified by many as the composer Clara Schumann, though we can’t see her face here), pushing a paper-money pram full of multiple infants, also made of currency. As I recall, the fictional pram was a rather good design.

The ad was made for Bontrust, a German financial services company, and was about money procreating multiplying. Opinion seems to have been divided regarding the utility, effectiveness and overall taste of the project, and it’s possible that the ad was pulled due to a general feeling that currency should not engage in conjugal activities.

In any case, the video has been removed from youTube (and hence, BoingBoing), but the BoingBoing post has some interesting links describing how the film was made. And we, of course, are immortalizing the inclusion of a traditional pram (albeit one made of money — and how is that different from your Bugaboo?) in an ad, because we do stuff like that here.

Meccano Pram

Published on October 22, 2009 in Pram Art. 0 Comments

While searching for something quite different, I accidentally ran across this wonderful creation. It’s a mechanical nanny, pushing a pram. A man named Simon Johnson has written an extensive article about the design, and how to replicate it. The original, apparently, was made by a man named Andreas Konkoly.

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The parts are largely from a Meccano set. Johnson says that Konkoly claimed that the nurse took 80 steps (“tripping, short steps” which were “based on the mechanism of woman’s walk”), but Johnson is dubious about that. He offers quite a good discussion of why the device can’t quite work that way. And a lot of information, too, on how the bosom was created. Modelers, take note.

Pod-Pram

Published on October 14, 2009 in Pram Art. 0 Comments

Stella Yang, a Canada-educated designer based in Shanghai, China, has designed a clever “concept” stroller that manages to be both sleek and whimsical at the same time:

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With hoods:

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And, for you uber-sophisticates out there, here’s the edgy version:

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The video makes it look oh, so feasible – but don’t get your hopes up. Though the artist is described as an industrial designer, this resume looks really heavy on computer skills, and kind of light on production experience. I’m thinking this lovely pod stroller exists only in Yang’s imagination. It would be pretty cool to see it go from concept to prototype, though. That lean, efficient tripod fold is to drool over (so to speak).

Pram and Phalli, 1964

Published on October 6, 2009 in Pram Art. 0 Comments

Previously unbeknownst to us, Oberlin (an institution beloved to the Pram Museum family), numbers a notable piece of pram art among its collections. May we present Baby Carriage, by Yayoi Kusama?

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Unfortunately, this small image almost certainly dims the impact of the work itself. Those — what? curlicues? dreadlocks? — well, let us say, protuberances, represent dozens of phalli. The referential significance is clear.

Said phalli are constructed of fabric, and were originally made from “red fabric with white spots as well as black and white striped fabric”. After its original exhibition in 1964, the artist altered that colorful landscape though the judicious use of silver paint, which, I’m guessing, must have had the rather surprising effect of subduing the work.

Kusama also added several stuffed kangaroos to the sculpture. “Their inclusion further emphasizes the disturbing juxtaposition of the sexualized phallic forms and the childhood associations evoked by the baby carriage”, according to Oberlin’s Allen Memorial Art Museum’s web page.

Academia. Ya gotta love it.

Source: Allen Memorial Art Museum, Art Since 1945