Pretty Ugly Catalogue. Angela Pescolderung, Hana Tanimura, Isabel Sierra y Gómez de Leon, Jens Dan Johansen, Shi Yuan. Hato Press.

PRETTY—UGLY CATALOGUE
Presenting the Pretty—Ugly catalogue, as printed and bound on-site at The Gopher Hole over the course of two days in April 2011. We have here over 100 pages worth of interviews (OK-RM and We Have Photoshop), essays (Ken Hollings), discussions (Fraser Muggeridge, Holger Jacobs), and an index of the “pretty ugly” works that were most generously donated to our exhibition (Bendita Gloria, James Langdon, Zak Kyes, and many more).

Pretty—Ugly was a series of events organised by the second year students of MA Communication design at Central Saint Martins. “Pretty ugly” is a casual phrase and a paradox imbued with a range of subtexts: aesthetics and anti-aesthetics, desire and repulsion, interest and disinterest, polish and sincerity… Through workshops, an exhibition, a series of talks and an auction, we sought to raise a critical discussion on the subject of contemporary “undesign.”