30/03/2012

It’s Now Or Never

It’s Now Or Never

2DM celebrates the renewal of the Facebook page by launching a contest based on unleashing the creativity that may or may not be sleeping within everyone. The point of the contest is to create an image including the motto “It’s now or never”. The pre-buzz has already generated many photos including the motto poster, but we want to emphasize that to participate to the contest one doesn’t need to photograph the poster, but to compose any kind of image using any kind of tool, style, media and inspiration.

The idea behind the motto came one day after too many years of working nine to five in an atmosphere too grey and sleepy. “It’s Now Or Never” was printed into posters to spread the message to everyone to encourage them to adopt the carpe diem mentality, that we are now celebrating with this contest.

So whether you can release your creativity the best by using paints, pencils, magazine cut-outs or Lego bricks, we strongly recommend to find and join the Facebook group It’s Now Or Never to see the entries, participate yourself and to vote. You will have the whole summer to plan and produce your image. The winner will be the creator of the image that has collected the most ‘Like’s on the group’s Photo Gallery.

The prize will be a lovely trip for two with a B&B stay of two nights located in the continent the winner belongs to. We will be sharing more information on the group page.

Competition entry images from Gastón Suaya

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30/03/2012

Cloud Nothings

Cloud Nothings

“Cloud Nothings kind of sound like all of the bands from my hometown that never quite made it.” I heard someone say it, but the thought was at the tip of many minds during the band’s recent show at the Glasslands Gallery in Brooklyn. And it’s true: Cloud Nothings sound familiar. The primary difference between them and those lost hometown bands is that these guys made it, and quickly, a messy fact that begs the obvious question: Why? How the hell did they manage to get out of Cleveland? And what’s all of this about, anyway?

I might be older and further along on the cynical side of the stands, but it’s hard to be fully committed to a band that pens songs aimed furiously at teenage hormones. Watching Cloud Nothings live reminded me of how stupid I used to be― and probably still am. Cap’n Jazz, Jawbreaker, Pinkerton―they all once posed similar questions for me in high school, one that struck at the heart of my then-spongy soul: Will we ever grow up? More importantly, can we ever go back? Most importantly: Will Susie ever see ditch that shitty quarterback boyfriend of hers and meet me behind the bleachers just once?

No, and yes (and―sigh―no again). Cloud Nothings aim to fill the hole created by so many bands loved by people who discover them when first forging their identity. Modest Mouse did it for me when I was learning how to quit the football team without my friends finding out. A friend of mine said it best: I would really like this band if I were 16. She’s in her mid-20s. I’m in my mid-20s. People like us don’t have many heroes younger than us, at least not on paper. It’s bad form for the cynic. And when Cloud Nothings say a line as loose as “Forget everything, no nostalgia, no sentiment, we’re over it now, and we were over it then,” I’m glad to know they’re not talking to me.

But I don’t have anything too wicked to say about this young band. If anything, I’m a tad envious of their rapid ascent―singer/songwriter Dylan Baldi is just 20 years old, dammit―but it’s clear that it doesn’t knock me off of my feet the way he might once have. I’m, as they say, out of their demographic. But is it their fault, or mine? The crowd at their sold-out show (in support of their Steve Albini-produced new album Attack on Memory) was made up entirely of people over 21 year-olds, and most of them seemed to be enjoying themselves. What’s wrong with emo? I found myself asking myself while Baldi screamed lyrics like “I need time, to start moving, I need time, to stay useless” at my face. A little vague, sure, but isn’t all rock music open to interpretation?

Cloud Nothings performed at Glasslands Gallery 03.29.12

Lane Koivu

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29/03/2012

Peter Movrin – A Modern Take On Medieval Times

Peter Movrin – A Modern Take On Medieval Times

Slovenia might not be one of the most noted fashion countries to date, but it’s nonetheless home to Peter Movrin, the young avant-garde designer who has won countless awards in the motherland for his design and styling abilities. After having finished his studies in textile technology at University of Ljubljana in 2011, and having been awarded “the prize for special achievements” by his university, he was announced by Slovenian Elle as “the most promising young stylist with strong vision”. His latest collection “Franz Madonna” is heavily inspired by the medieval gothic era’s heydays. The art, the architecture and the religious beliefs of the time were all cultural factors taken into account during Movrins’ creative process.

”The collection is about the gothic era, Christianity and people’s humility,” Movrin explains. “All the architecture, paintings and statues were strongly marked by religion. I combined an investigation of the era and people’s characters with one of the eastern world and its Islam belief. Covered faces and the curiosity about what is hidden underneath of all the dark material makes us pay attention to the body movement.” The main part of the domestically produced collection consists of laser cut leather pieces, however, the sharp edges and bulky silhouettes have been juxtaposed with lighter materials such as lace to obtain a more sensuous edge. Crocheted mask and embroidered details adds a romanticist element, along with the silk underskirts.“ The collection has actually been quite well received.

“Franc’Pairon from Institut Français de la Mode said that he liked the collection, but a few people here in Slovenia were kind of frightened I think. The young generation is more impressed by the story behind it, but a little afraid of the actual clothes. But I like the fact that some people get scared of those wearing my clothes,“ he told us. Peter is currently working on expanding his own brand, but says that he wouldn’t mind working for an already established fashion house one day, and if we are to take him at his words, Slovenia is a fashion nation under development to keep an eye on.

“Since we don’t really have any real fashion critics and journalist with real knowledge of fashion, people in general don’t know that much about it. But we have some amazing designers, such as Nataša Peršuh who worked for Kenzo, and Nataša Čegalj who’s working for Stella McCartney, and not to forget artist Marina Abramovići. We have many fashion talents yet to be discovered…”


Petsy von Köhler & Peter Movrin

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29/03/2012

Words of Art by Marcel Broodthaers

Words of Art by Marcel Broodthaers

There is something mysterious, almost magic and charming in the Flemish territory, something that has joined – in a sort of crazy marriage – this small area with art, in all its many forms. Belgium has been for centuries an inexhaustible ground of minds, that gave birth to old masters and well known contemporary artists like Pieter Paul Rubens, Pieter Bruegel, René Magritte, James Ensor, Luc Tuymans, Wim Delvoye and Jan Fabre, just to name a few.

Marcel Broodthaers is among them with his personal, short – he died prematurely for a liver disease on his 52nd birthday in 1976 –, influential and unique experimental research. Broodthaers made his first step into the art world at the age of 40 – after living years in poverty as a poet –, creating an art object (an assemblage) focused on the status of the artwork: a pack in plaster realised with unsold copies of his book of poems Pense-Bête. In 1968 the artist played, in a sarcastic and ‘Duchampian’ way, with the cultural institutions founding the Musèe d’Art Moderne – Département des Aigles di Bruxelles: his private/sham museum where the exhibited works were accompanied by the words‘ this is not an artwork’.

Object, image and word are the ingredients of Marcel Broodthaers’ approach, dressed with a constructive and ironic critic of the art system, which aimed at demonstrating that there is no direct relationship between art and its message. Belgian thigh-bones painted as flags, columns of mussels bursting out from casseroles, visual alphabets and rebus, rooms set up with weapons, everyday life objects and antiques that clash and catch unprepared, are just some examples of the artist’s vivid and smart poetic, created through the interaction among different languages and an introspective eye. Even if Broodthaers is recognized as an international artist of the 60’s and 70’s, he always preserve his status of outsider, rarely mentioned or displayed, whose work is impressively up-to-date.

A current exhibition entitled L’espace de l’écriture is dedicated to the artistic genius Marcel Broodthaers and will run until 6 May 2012 at MAMbo – Museum of modern Art of Bologna.

Monica Lombardi

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28/03/2012

The Talented – Thomas Tait

The Talented – Thomas Tait

You know his name. You know he’s the youngest graduate ever from the MA Fashion Design course at Central Saint Martins and you probably know that the Montréal-native Londoner Thomas Tait received the Dorchester Fashion Prize back in 2010. And you most definitely know that he’s one of the top must-see-designers showing during London Fashion Week.

Tait wasn’t raised in the midst of fashion, nor did he find his calling precociously. But he was never content with the looks surrounding him, neither those on the streets nor those in the vintage shops in downtown Montreal. So he set to work. And once firmly on the fashion path, he earned a technical design diploma at La Salle College and then found his way onto the London scene. And it’s a scene he seems to have mastered since he was one of very few CSM graduates chosen to debut during London Fashion Week 2010.

Being involved in every part of the creative process, from designing to pattern construction and sewing the pieces together, Thomas Tait has gone from sharp cuts and all black, to whites and pastels matched with trainers for spring, to a Fall 2012 collection presenting wardrobe classics in scenic moss greens, dark navy and mustard colored leather.

But make no mistake: though the coats and jackets may have classical names, their shapes and cuts are as technically complex and worked over as ever. Curvilinear silhouettes and well defined shapes with low-cut or folded up high collars join to form a collection where the Tait’s aesthetics were well incorporated with aspects of wearability, an aspect that the designer at times have been criticized for when creating ‘too’ much of a structured figure.

Only three collections in, he seems to be working his way towards something that can balance his initially angular nature of silhouettes (starting from a fascination with shoulder blades and pelvic bones) with something that will fit the female body beautifully at the end of the day.

He is still young, and according to what he says, not yet ready to be categorized as a proponent of a certain aesthetic as far as the word “minimalist” is concerned. Clean collections with technical complexity behind them are reasonable to expect, but the Thomas Tait woman will surely continue to develop alongside his progress as a designer. And whether you yourself partake in London fashion scene or not, Thomas Tait is most assuredly a name you will come across again.

 

Lisa Olsson Hjerpe & pictures courtesy of style.com  

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28/03/2012

The Editorial: Robin Hood Gardens, Modernist Murder

The Editorial: Robin Hood Gardens, Modernist Murder

Modernism, especially in brutalist form, is an understandably misunderstood beast: its unfriendly concrete and absolutely unadorned exteriors are lightyears away form classical notions of beauty. Its major works are relics from a simpler time, when it was believed that human behavior could be easily influenced, predicted and planned for. And while many were poorly executed dilutions of their grand ideological underpinnings, others remain supremely important places that despite their controversy are key pieces of world architectural patrimony: more than Stonehenge or the Sydney Opera House, they are important because they reveal deep truths about the realities of human society.

Robin Hood Gardens, a social housing estate in London’s Poplar neighborhood designed in the 1960s by Alison and Peter Smithson, is a prime example of just such a place: its design was remarkably innovative and still distinctive and had a huge impact on successive architecture. And in a blow to the design community around the world, its definitive demolition was announced just this week. The news comes after a drawn out battle between a local council strapped for money and eager to shed its ghetto image and many prominent voices such as Zaha Hadid within the architectural community who have been outraged at the prospect of its demolition. The place was even a subject of a book, Robin Hood Gardens: Re-Visions, in which several practices pitched in ideas for its renovation and preservation.

But today in London, with the exception of the Barbican, the Commonwealth Institute (slated to become the Design Museum‘s future home), the Goldfinger towers and a small handful of others who have managed to achieve “protected” status, Robin Hood Gardens is now among many major modernist sites that are systematically being demolished to make way for other, less-offensive and less visionary projects meant to solve urban problems as cheaply and unremarkably as possible.

Still, the overwhelming truths about places like these have been well documented. From Pruitt-Igoe’s colossal failure in St. Louis, Missouri to the continued plight of South London’s rotting, crime-infested Aylesbury Estate and the notorious United Nations Plaza in San Francisco, gang violence, disproportionate poverty and blight all seem to be the standard aftermath of modernist solutions to urban problems. Apart from those which have been heavily gentrified and/or colonized by architectural connoisseurs like the Barbican and, more recently, Trellick Tower, the places are just dismal. Peter Pan Gardens is no exception: it is today in a shambles, with tons of blown-out glass and its lower floors entirely boarded up. But that’s a product of decades of neglect – what would these spaces have become under better circumstances? Perhaps models for an equally optimistic 21st century modernism?

It’s no great wonder that many want these places demolished, but it’s a nevertheless a shame that the grand ideas will be destroyed to make way for anonymous cookie cutter houses. But in the end, architecture’s role in society is that of open-minded innovator rather than sentimental preservationist. But I just can’t help but believe that many of these these last, iconic, exotically beautiful brutalist spaces can’t be preserved and responsibly updated. They could stand for centuries as reminders of the last time we humans fancied ourselves all-powerful creators…


Tag Christof – Images courtesy ArchDaily

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27/03/2012

Kristina Gill: Impromptu Picnic

Kristina Gill: Impromptu Picnic

There’s such an emphasis on food and what goes into what we buy and what we eat. Against my will I’ve become a skeptical shopper. I buy only from fresh fruit and vegetable markets. Meat, dairy and eggs I buy from a small working farm nearby. I only purchase non consumables at the supermarket. Sometimes though, what I really want is junk food. And though I know better, I go buy a basket full of junk. That’s kind of what happened this week. It was an confluence of ideas – a blue checked cloth reminded me of a picnic, a little can of coke… some potato chips… and well, why not hotdogs! And don’t forget the ketchup and mustard!


Kristina Gill

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27/03/2012

Uglycute: Questioning Modernism

Uglycute: Questioning Modernism

If somebody mentions Scandinavian design, you’ll surely be picturing its most prominent modernist examples. Born after the second World War and ideologically based on a particular form of social democracy, Scandinavian modernist design stands for simplicity, functionality and equality. If we take these premises into account, modernist design can’t simply be considered as a stylistic etiquette, on pare with other twentieth century -isms. It should actually be thought of as a forma mentis – a way of thinking that goes beyond any stylistic classifications.

Although this approach to design, promoting low cost materials and mass production, characterized by simplicity of form and pursue of functionality, might seem infallible, it did come to a crisis. Without even realizing it, around 1990s, Scandinavian design forgot its forma mentis and got lost in stylistic mannerism, thus openly inviting for criticism.
This apparently invisible call for renewal was caught by a group of four young creatives, that started their career in 1999 with a show mocking Bruno Matthsson‘s design. The group named themselves Uglycute and the creatives are respectively Andreas Nobel, interior designer, Fredrik Stenberg, architect, Markus Degerman and Jonas Nobel, artists.

Even though their different backgrounds may seem a sheer coincidence, Uglycute actually bases its practice on the idea of expanding the concept of design by crossbreeding it with different disciplines. This approach is being manifested through a series of edgy projects that question the common idea of form, beauty, proportions and materials in design. Uglycute tries to put a particular accent on the production process, questing for value in the most common objects and materials. Even though their chunky furniture and exhibition design might seem subversive and postmodernist, if you manage to capture the processes and meaning underlying each of their projects, you should catch more than a glimpse of modernist spirit.

Although it may have started as a young designers’ utopia, Uglycute’s work has through time grown into an impressive list of projects; to name a few: Cheap Monday headquarters’ interior design, exhibition installation for Onomatopee project space in Eindhoven, furniture collection for Kiosk shop in New York and “Sonic House” project for Utopia Station at Venice Biennale in 2003.


If their initial intent might have been shaking things up in the sleepy Sweden, seeing their retrospective at Marabouparken art gallery in Sundbyberg, you can’t but think that things got a bit out of hand. A 500 square meet maze-like exhibition not only shows their highly ironical and almost rebellious way of working, but also offers the opportunity to question the dogmatic separation between art and design and their respective social and political influences.

If Sundbyberg seems out of reach and you can’t make it to the show (running until the 13th of May), you should at least spoil yourself with “Uglycute” catalog, carefully designed by Research and Development and published by Revolver.

Rujana Rebernjak

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26/03/2012

Sean Frank – McQ behind the scene A/W 2012

Sean Frank – McQ behind the scene A/W 2012

Everyone remembers the mystery of the dried leaves at McQ’s breathtaking Fall 2012 show in London last month. And while we’re still not sure how they managed to fill the room with real autumn leaves in February, we’ve at least been given another look behind the scenes to see first-hand some of the other magic of the event in Sean Frank’s just-released backstage video. It captures perfectly the dark, ethereal energy of Sarah Burton’s larger McQueen universe.

Against a backdrop of a constantly crescendoing John Gosling track, Guido Palau’s otherworldly hairstyles steal the show. Quick flashes of intricately detailed pieces from the collection mix in chiaroscuro with models, makeup and, of course, those brilliant leaves on the runway. The end result is a sweeping narrative that gives perhaps the most visceral impression yet of the collection’s story.

Watch twice for the full effect – you’ll catch some of the more subversive details the second time around. Fantastic work.



Tag Christof

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26/03/2012

Painting Lounge

Painting Lounge

Let’s face it: being an artist can be a bitch, especially if you have to spend 40 hours a week stuck behind a desk or, even worse, flipping burgers just to make ends meet. Materials get expensive, inspiration runs dry and some of us just don’t have the time ―much less the chops― to make a real go at becoming the next Monet. Especially when we’d rather spend our free time at the bar, right? Thank god, then, for the Painting Lounge, a near-nightly paint and drink class that allows people like me and you the opportunity to play dress-up artist while milking a bottle of cheap red wine.

The Painting Lounge is not geared towards serious artists, but the stuff you paint is usually based on works done by artists were very serious. Picasso, Matisse, Cezanne, Bob Ross, and Salvador Dali are just a few subjects on the bucket list. It’s paint-by-numbers, only the numbers are a real instructor who encourages you to draw outside the lines. Meanwhile, the alcohol provides the courage necessary to push forward. This is particularly helpful when you realize you’ve somehow managed to turn a Van Gogh into a Pollack with one swoop of the brush.

The instructor, artist Kevin Tarasuk, reduces some of the world’s most popular paintings down to a basic science that even a blind baby could comprehend. Upon arrival you are seated in front of a blank canvas with tracing paper and a simple outline clipped over the top. You trace the outline, remove the paper and spend the next two hours painting whatever happens to be on the calendar that day. (Fun fact: “Starry Night” seems to be the most popular painting, which is somewhat surprising.) When I was there the painting was “Boone vs Bear,” an obscure folk-art scene that depicts a hunter about to grapple with a very angry grizzly bear. The bear has been shot, but the hunter is out of bullets and stands ready to strike, his gun hauled over his shoulders like a baseball bat. What happens next is open to artistic interpretation.

Thankfully, the Painting Lounge eschews pretentiousness and skill-level for a hands-on approach that allows everyone in the room to make something worth hanging on their wall. Interested? Here’s how it works: look at their calendar, pick a painting you want to replicate, and reserve your spot ($50 for two hour sessions, $65 for three). They provide the necessities: canvas, brush, easel, paint, apron, cups and instruction. All you need is the booze and a friend or two and you’re good to go. And hey, it’s the most practical way to get a Van Gogh into your living room.


Lane Koivu

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