Photographer Lisa Klappe and spatial artist Joachim van den Hurk detect decay, boredom and slackness in many people. Is that blatant decadence the price we have to pay for prosperity and the so-called individual freedom in which we live?
With the exposition Decadent Pigeons both (together and separate) hold up a mirror to us. From the parallels they discovered between the behavior of pigeons and people they drew the not very roseate conclusion that if we continue this way, we will end up being exactly as those birds, grey shadows, still further removed from out nature, dismally bored and scandalously discontented.
Their works of art are unequivocally blunt and direct. Static portraits, grubby film mountings and living sculptures do confront us with their black humor and their nearly perverse overtones. In that way, they create an ‘unheimisch’ feeling that in itself leads to an immediate reflective mood.
Decadent Pigeons opens September 09, 2010 until September 30, 2010 at Gallery Fort Pienc in Barcelona, Spain. In October 2010 Decadent Pigeons will under proviso move to the former textile factory De Ploeg near Eindhoven, The Netherlands for a special exposition during Eindhoven’s Dutch Design Week.
At the beginning of the 20th Century, the city of Detroit developed rapidly thanks to the automobile industry. Until the 50’s, its population rose to almost 2 million people. Detroit was the 4th most important city in the United States. It was the dazzling symbol of the American Dream City with its monumental skyscrapers and fancy neighborhoods.
Increasing segregation and deindustrialization caused violent riots in 1967. The white middle-class exodus from the city accelerated and the suburbs grew. Firms and factories began to close or move to lower-wage states. Slowly, but inexorably downtown high-rise buildings emptied. Since the 50’s, “Motor City” lost more than half of its population.
Nowadays, its splendid decaying monuments are, no less than the Pyramids of Egypt, the Coliseum of Rome, or the Acropolis in Athens, remnants of the passing of a great civilization.
If you by any chance will pass Stockholm in the next coming weeks you have the possibility to see the exhibition “The Ruins of Detroit” by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre at The Gun Gallery, Runebergsgatan 3, Stockholm. The exhibition opens August 27 and runs until September 19.
This year Kivik Art Centre presents a new work that manifests the basic concept of our project: an architect and an artist in collaboration. It is also the first time that both are women and we can present a Swedish participants. Architect Petra Gipp has created a Refugium, a refuge in the forest of solid wood and concrete. An architectural sculpture that doubles as a small cinema, a walk-in-cinema” with a few seats for both a contemplative and an intense experience. The film shown was filmed by Runa Islam in a museum in Washington during her research stay at the Smithsonian Institute. The film called Cabinet of Prototypes, was commissioned by Kivik Art Centre and form an exquisite combination with Petra’s architecture.
From previous summers most works are still here. The five structures by Snøhetta Architects, three in collaboration with the photographer Tom Sandberg (2007). The visionary Venturo house by Matti Suuronen (1971/2009) and the sculpture for the individual experience of architecture, a collaboration between David Chipperfield and Antony Gormley (2008). In one of the old stables on the farm the exhibition KIVIK ART 2020 will be installed.
individually studied the conditions for Kivik Art Centre, and then, without any thoughts on politics or money, have visualized their visions for the future. Local presence, sustainability and environmental aspects have formed the critical platform for the project. It is important to note that these are indeed visions - sometimes utopian - but are all healthy stimulus to our imagination and for our dreams of what Kivik Art Centre one day might become.
The latest performance test for Electrolux Ergorapido was conducted by Swedish artist and set designer Tobias Allanson. Experienced in working with the overlap of art and technology, he built a machine to take Ergorapido through a number of challenges.
With Electrolux’ test labs as a benchmark, he put together a test track that any good instant cleaner should pass. “Pick up, easy handling and flexible steering are three important qualities we have developed to excellence”, says Christer Månsson, Product Manager for the Ergorapido at Electrolux. “With this exciting experiment we wanted to see how Ergorapido performs in a test situation outside laboratories.”
“Building a moving piece around a vacuum cleaner was an unusual assignment”, says artist and set designer Tobias Allanson, who has created works for among others Urbanears, WESC, Modart and Freitag.
“The biggest challenge for the machine was to show the two in one function, since the movements are more complex and I really went through some struggles with strong magnets. But my favourite one is the one where a bunch of shoes draggle the floors and Ergorapido picks it up right away.”
The machine was filmed and is now touring Europe to different exhibitions.
Bruce Munro installed his new artwork ‘CDSea’ in a field near Kilmington over the weekend, after his appeal to collect unwanted CDs from the general public netted him 600,000 discs for the installation.
Munro’s ‘CDSea’ is the first of a number of self-funded installations using discarded or recycled materials, planned for Long Knoll Field, which is bisected by a public footpath. “It’s a great public gallery space” says Munro.
Over the weekend 140 friends and colleagues, including Kevin McCloud and other celebrities from the design-art world, helped to lay the installation. One family arriving from Frome in Somerset for a day out helping to build the artwork had a young boy with them. He sidled up to Munro and asked, “ Are you the one making the sea?”
One man who had already donated 40,000 CDs brought his family and a further 1,000 CDs in the trunk of the car, keen to do all they could to contribute to this unusual artwork. Cider, sausages and sunshine added to the atmosphere.
The 10-acre field at Long Knoll is where in 2005 Munro installed a prototype of his installation ‘Field of Light’ which went on to huge acclaim at the Eden Project in Cornwall.
In this setting ‘CD Sea’ is on public view for the next two months. Munro conceives it as an inland sea reflecting light from the sun and moon. His assistants Ben and James fashioned the footpath into a meandering shape, following his design.
“I was very nervous about it” says Munro. “You never know how something will work out, but now I could not be happier. I’m so grateful to everyone who turned out to help. We had a magical weekend and CDSea looks amazing, like a giant painting on the grass.”
Even though his energy has been monopolised for the past four decades by writing, preparing and recording his films and musical arrangements, film maker David Lynch has maintained his interest in the fine arts and has produced, in particular, drawings, watercolours, furniture, photographs, and paintings, with or without the addition of organic materials. For David Lynch, the important thing was to find the appropriate mood and medium each time to convey the ideas that came to his mind.
“There is a small story in my head for each lithograph. Sometimes, characters are suggested, and a story is born, and from this story, a still image is born. You know, all of this is enhanced by the organic qualities of the stone, the ink and the process. This is not inspired by films, rather, it is inspired by ideas, and the films are also inspired by ideas. Therefore, it is the same process: ideas, stories, and characters. It is theoretically possible for a lithograph to inspire a scene or an entire film, it is totally possible.”
Miami based Jen Stark’s vibrant oeuvre of the last few years comes full circle in a Miami show at Carol Jazzar’s with works that pay homage to her own prolific trajectory. A recessed paper hole in the wall reminiscent of a seminal early work sets the tone for a reflective collection of characteristically mystifying sculptures. Complex gradients and intricate, mingling lattices of color and geometry push the envelope of the artist’s own expectations and explode the ocular sense. A freestanding zig-zag form that invites viewers to encompass it, beguiled by its illusionistic surface further enforces the 360 degree quality to this offering. Opening is May 14.
Jonathan LeVine Gallery is announcing Three-Handed, a three-person exhibition of new large-scale paintings by New York based artists Eric White and Nicola Verlato, along with Palermo-based artist Fulvio Di Piazza. Showing together for the first time at the gallery, these three skilled painters take a realist approach towards fantasy subject matter.
For his largest work to date, Eric White takes inspiration from Bruegel’s Massacre of the Innocents— which documents Spanish infanticide in 16th century Flanders, and stands as a condemnation of war and it’s resulting atrocities. White’s version translates these ideas into contemporary terms, as American involvement in war has become so established and enduring that it ceases to be shocking. In the painting, idealized monochromatic female figures referencing 40s-era Hollywood starlets wander nonchalantly across a war-torn cinematic landscape. The war motif is paralleled by themes familiar to the artist’s work, including psychological dysfunction, nostalgia, the dream state, and the limits of perception.
Nicola Verlato’s highly dramatic allegorical compositions are each rendered with remarkable use of perspective, reminiscent of the Renaissance-era yet also influenced by video game technology. One painting portrays a group of heavily armed male and female terrorists invading an art fair, fully nude, wearing only athletic footwear and animal masks. Another piece depicts an apocalyptic vision as seen through the window of an airplane. Finally, on a large linen canvas, a figure representing legendary blues guitarist Robert Johnson sells his soul to the devil, while a vision appears to him of Jimi Hendrix’s guitar being played by demons in the sky—as a premonition of the birth of Rock & Roll.
Fulvio Di Piazza’s whimsical paintings depict rivers running through sunny nature-scapes, forests populated with wildlife and lush green woods that stretch far beyond the horizon. With extraordinary detail and depth, the fantasy realm of the artist’s saturated woodland scenes are revealed through his imaginative anthropomorphized plant life as distinct faces emerge from unsuspected hills, rocks and tree trunks, sprouting limbs rather than branches.
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.
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.
Social networks