”We wanted to create a sanctuary, where you can stay, think, dream and spend time together,” says Ted Muehling. ”Using the Svenskt Tenn archives, with all that Josef Frank and Estrid Ericson have left made available to us, we have staged a home.” Adds Mats Gustafson: ”In reality, interior design takes time to settle. Here we have had the opportunity to improvise, play with instant effects, and to mix the luxurious and extravagant with odd pieces of different value.”

While flowers assorted our most important moment in life: from birth and romance to marriage and procreating, there is only one comparable modern-day object that mystically embodies the same symbolism: scented candles. In a noisy world where a new awareness is arising, scented candles have become a companion in our most fulfilling and luxurious quest: stillness and calm.

Calming Park presents from February 5th – 20th 2010 the exhibition “Art & Candle” at Holm, Zürich. A selection of CALMING PARK candles will be available for purchase in the boutique. The work of seven internationally renomated artists, reveals how the stillness and calm of scented candles meet luxury, fashion, music, spirituality, graphic and visual arts.

The first product released in the series is “Dark Pepper” by Bruno Pieters. It’s a more peppery version of “Amber- Pepper”, the first candle he designed for the CALMING PARK collection unveiled in Milan in October 2009 at “10 Corso Como” during the 2010 spring/summer fashion week. True to Bruno Pieters’ style, “Dark Pepper” is a chic and minimalist candle wrapped in black glass, whose scent is inspired by his favourite Men’s eau de toilette.

The other artists involved in “Art & Candle” are Arielle Dombasle, OeO, Sabina Sciubba, Kristina Dryza (you know her as contributor to this blog!), Bruno Peinado and Agi Simoes.

Sabina Sciubba has put together a project where the candle becomes the point of collision between music and video. In the song “So Close And Yet So Far”, the dim light of a Calming Park candle accompanies her guitar performance. Sabina Sciubba has taken this opportunity to reveal that she is a true fan of the SPA De Provence CALMING PARK candle.

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On January 15, 2010, No Longer Empty (NLE) will re-open the legendary Tower Records store on Broadway and 4th street with a trans-media art exhibition: Never Can Say Goodbye.

Spotlighting more than twenty artists working with sound, light, image and installation,Never Can Say Goodbye recreates a fantasy version of the now defunct Tower Records withNever Records complete with record bins, album covers, cash registers, music posters and a performance stage.

Interactive installations by artists and musicians celebrate the stores historic role as the locus of the community– the old way to meet people face to face and share music and information.

Curated by Manon Slome, NLE; Steven Evans, Dia Art Foundation; Asher Remy-Toledo, NLE

In the coming exhibition at Galerie Nordenhake in Stockholm Mikael Olsson has delved into the legacy of Bruno Mathsson, one of Sweden’s most important Modernist designers and architects.

Frösakull is a house Mathsson both designed and lived in. Olsson interacted with the remains of the house, and just as Mathsson he experimented with the house and its possibilities. The result is a collection of images wich shows us an arrangement of an architectonic legacy. Olsson has arranged and transformed the rooms into a stage, only using props like light, emptiness and shadows.

The Södrakull residence, which had been closed off since the Mathssons’ passed away, Olsson approached in a different way, as a voyeur. It is photographed from the outside and through half-drawn curtains. With this method Olsson creates a feeling of frozen memories.

In this body of work Olsson has created an interplay between presence and absence, inner meaning and representation, turning the very notion of the human gaze inside out. The images are marked both by sober objectivity and by tenderness. Together, they form a sort of portrait, as well as a chronicle of architecture, remembrance and ageing. For this reason the photographs cannot be considered documentary but instead a very subjective depiction of Mathsson’s public and private legacy.

This project includes an impressive monograph, published by Steidl Verlag, to be released later this fall. The book includes texts by Beatriz Colomina, Hans Irrek and Helena Mattsson. Designed by Acne Art Department and Mikael Olsson.

The exhibition Södrakull Frösakull takes place 9 January – 14 February 2010.

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David Report is in Miami Beach visiting Art Basel and Design Miami. We will post some different images form Miami during the week. From the different fairs and also some street pictures. It’s not like in Milan or London, the art scene has a much heavier influence of the design over hear. It’s not about smart problem solving and functionality so to speak. But that’s Miami as a whole in a way. Design Miami is more relaxed, more cool drinks, more sun and palm trees. If you only went to here for Design Miami you would be disappointed. But in a mix with Art Basel Miami Beach and some hotel lobby life we can’t complain! Here we go.

On November 26th the new Secondome gallery opened at 26 via degli Orsini in Rome.  The concept store of via dei Pianellari 26 will be turned into a new centric gallery inside Palazzo Boncompagni. The space of new Secondome, designed by the architect Claudia Pignatale, with Lighting Design of the engineer Marco Frascarolo (Fabertechina studio) will be a place of pure design in which objects become the main subjects.

In fact, all that is there is merely a doorknob, meant only for opening the door.

However, despite having no lock, this door is not without security features.

How can this be? It is just that stereotypes have driven design such that we associate “security” with having a lock.Perhaps it was just our childhood selves that think doors can open easily.

Rather than the stereotypical door, we have designed a door where a physical lock is unnecessary by changing the stereotypical image of the door.

The only way to forcibly enter is to destroy the door.

That is our “lock.” And with this new “lock,” a new door is designed.

The food and drinks served at a party are as important as the party itself. For opening parties, say to launch an exhibition, even more so. It’s integral. But few event producers think in this integrated way. The food and drinks on offer should be a reflection of the essence of the exhibition. What guests put in their mouth is an equally valid creative expression of art – only temporary!

So to celebrate the recent lighting of the Parco Christmas tree and corresponding Motion + Design + Magic exhibition by renowned visual artist Masaru Ozaki, everything was themed to a T (well, a cube actually!).

To celebrate its 40th anniversary Parco, a Japanese department store, commissioned Ozaki to create a magical graphic wonderland. The high-tech display uses advanced technology to project 3D images onto 3 metre tall tree installations in the entrance court of Shibuya Parco Part 1. These giant cubes stacked into a Christmas tree shape with projections beamed on every surface create a wonderful visual feast.

For Food Creation, the company who created the food art for the event, not only is the appearance and taste of food crucial, so is the situation in which it’s eaten. What’s important is making the food come alive – delivering the concept to the stomach.

To express the conceptual catering, the Bread, Espresso & bakery invented three new cubed food products for the launch: chocolate bread with black pepper, tomato bread with squid ink and pink bread with curry. These creations were about ‘expecting the unexpected’ and for guests to be surprised and astounded by bread, a much maligned, taken for granted, daily staple of life.

The shoeless waiters dressed head to toe in black leotards with bow ties – their faces covered in masks – moved around the floor in slow, highly choreographed steps. As the lid was pulled off the serving tray, vapours evaporated around the cubed bread, which was delicately placed around lighted cubes. The waiters were as much motion, design and magic as Oazki’s visual creations.

Oazki’s most famous works involve projecting real-time visuals onto buildings, furniture and objects using the original quarter Cube visioning system. The technology involves the precise scanning of 3D objects and projecting these visuals onto 3D surfaces using optical illusions to give various effects. The artist has projected his work onto the Olympic stadium in Harajuku, temples in Kyoto and opening launches of international retail brand flagships. His use of projection technology truly amazes and stimulates.

To experience the Motion + Design + Magic exhibition yourself, visit Parco Factory, Shibuya Parco Part 1, 6F before 23 November 2009.

This is a new post by David Report contributor Kristina Dryza.

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Artist Jen Stark has recently updated her website. New drawings and some new t-shirt prints as well. Take a look.

Måltidets Hus (The House of Food) is the new 9000 m2 national and international resource centre for food development, host of the Gastronomic Institute and Norwegian chef team. Ralston & Bau was commissioned by Figgjo to make a permanent installation in the reception hall. A central wall that runs three flights high was transformed into a generous, vertical feast table. Combined iconic Figgjo dishes form organic shaped plates and bowls of the table, the wall was covered with an innovative laminated wood material simulating a linen table cloth. The wood was engraved with the shapes of ghost silver ware and glasses, while a classic chair backrest on the wall top completes the illusion of the vertical table. The installation was opened to the public on the 16th of September.

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