21/03/2013

Applied Design at MoMA

Applied Design at MoMA

The word design has infinite meaning. We witness it every day while we shop for our groceries, drive a car, use the computer or buy our clothes and furniture. Every single object we touch has, to a certain level, been designed. That is what makes design so interesting, because it impacts our lives in deep, yet almost invisible ways. Nevertheless, its meaning and usefulness have for so long been publicly distorted. Hence, we often confuse design for styling, for a superficial quality which can be applied to an object to our choice. But this conception of design is completely wrong, since without this silent practice we wouldn’t even have those objects we interact with daily.


As Paola Antonelli, senior curator of architecture and design at MoMA puts it: “We were able to realize that design artists are the ones that transform the great revolutions into small gestures. Scientists and engineers produce disruptive inventions but designers are the ones that transform those innovations into objects that we can all use.
 Without them, there would be no progress in our lives; we wouldn’t have microwaves to heat up our food, we would not be able to use the Internet, we wouldn’t be driving cars with such ease. I could go on because the list is long, and the same goes for all the different types of technology. So design artists therefore play a fundamental role. If you compare society to a digestive system, design artists play the part of enzymes because it’s thanks to them that society is able to digest the inventions it receives.”


It is exactly this approach to design that the current exhibition at MoMA, “Applied Design” curated by Paola Antonelli and Kate Carmody, tries to highlight. It testifies the amazing diversity of contemporary graphic design and all the different forms it can take, from interface and interaction design, dynamic visualizations, products, furniture, 3D printed chairs and bowls, emergency equipment, and biodesign. Hence, you can see mine detonator by the young Dutch/Afghani designer Massoud Hassani to a bowl made by transforming desert sand into glass using only the energy of the sun, together with 14 video-games that the museum has recently acquired with the idea of pushing the boundaries of common preconceptions about what design is, or should be.

As the wider public, through bombastic design weeks and posh magazines, is being falsely induced in thinking that design should only be beautiful, almost as a piece of art you can just sit on, it is the work of curators like Antonelli and shows like “Applied Design” that we should all be more aware of since as Gui Bonsiepe states: “Design still is in this transition period, in which it is often considered a kind of external extravagance, which you can do or not do. For this reason, the notion of design as ‘added value’ is so misleading, because it presumes that you can have an object that is without design, to which you can ‘add’ something. But no, it is design by itself, whether it is bad design, this is another question.”

“Applied Design” is on show at Museum of Modern Art in New York until the 31st of January 2014.

Rujana Rebernjak 

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20/03/2013

The Believer Turns Ten

The Believer Turns Ten

The Believer celebrated its tenth anniversary at Le Poisson Rouge in Greenwich Village last week, and they’ll soon be having another party, this time at Greenlight Bookstore on Fulton Street in Brooklyn, on March 25th. The celebration at Le Poisson Rouge featured guest spots from editors Heidi Julavits, Vendela Vida, Ed Park, Sheila Heti, and a hilarious and insightful reading about the absurdities of day labor from noted author and Believer contributor Nick Hornby. It also included, to the delight of many, a dessert table overflowing with cupcakes, cream-puff strawberries, carrot cake, and free issues of the magazine’s 10th anniversary issue. It was delicious.

The Believer is ten. Woo hoo. So what’s the big deal?

Any print publication that can survive ten years in today’s publishing climate should give themselves a toast. But a literary magazine that routinely publishes things like reviews of forgotten foreign films, profile pieces on children’s books from the 1940s, innovative poetry and interviews, and an advice column by Amy Sedaris? They deserve the keys to the liquor store.

The Believer was founded by Dave Eggers and Vida, and it features regular columns by notable writers Nick Hornby, Daniel Chandler, and legendary cultural critic Greil Marcus. The magazine serves as something of a defiant reaction to a diminishing publishing industry and a diminishing demand for physical objects: it’s beautifully printed on heavy paper, in full color, thick at the spine, and full of thoughtful writing from serious writers who refuse to take themselves too seriously. “As you all know, the publishing industry is booming,” Julavits said at Le Poisson Rouge, “so we’re not going to sit up here and ask you to subscribe for a year, tell that it’s only $40, or that we’ll be throwing a raffle for those who sign up tonight.” The raffle included a week-long email conversation with Hornby, in which he agreed to answer any question about anything. Anyone who’s thumbed through “High Fidelity” has a pretty good idea about just how sweet that would be.

The night also found Interviews Editor Sheila Heti caught in a semi-awkward interview with comic artist Gabrielle Bell and author Amanda Filipacchi about the nature of creativity, habits, and where they would all be without an outlet for their artistic urges. “On the street,” Bell admitted, adding yet another reason to be grateful that The Believer continues to persevere against all odds.

Lane Koivu

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19/03/2013

Men in Skirts

Men in Skirts

What would you say if we told you that Alexander the Great conquered half of the planet wearing a skirt? You would probably laugh, but it’s true. Back in the days, really back, wearing a skirt was routine, it didn’t matter if you were an emperor or a slave, a woman or a man, no difference at all. That was true until 1760. Later on, someone created trousers for riding horses easier, and they quickly became the standard apparel for working men, identified as the symbol of masculinity in the Western culture.



Except for the kilt, which was invented in 1720 by an Englishman, industrialist Thomas Rawlinson, and emerged as one of the main symbols of Scotland and Ireland, which was probably the latest official tradition of skirts in the male wardrobe. But there have been and always will be some rare exceptions. During the 60s appeared a kind of a unisex fashion movement, well represented by a designer indicated as the responsible for unisex clothing concept: Rui Gernreich. He conceived interchangeable clothes for men and women such as floor-length kaftans. His goal was to break down boundaries between genders.

After him there was London in the 80s. A group of cool, young people, tired of conservative and glossy fashion, created a movement called Buffalo, where random guys on the street turned into models wearing a mix of couture and second hand clothing. The leader of this revolutionary wave was the pioneer of stylists: Ray Petri. Not only was he mixing high fashion and recycled clothing, the look he created for men was tough and androgynous, feminine and very virile in his primordial way. Meanwhile the concept of gender-benders started rising thanks to Boy George and New Romantics who used to dress up with medieval and feminine clothes.



Some years later, in September 1984, Jean Paul Gaultier credited Buffalo creating a whole collection of men in skirts, “Et Dieu Créa L’Homme”. Another, Walter Van Beirendonck, during his Autumn/Winter 1999-2000 collection called “No References”, gave tribute to men in skirts. As Gernreich in the 60s, Beirendonck is considered a highly visionary designer using skirts to challenge the traditional idea of masculinity. He strongly believes that skirts on men are more than simple garments, they are statements.

In 2003 The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York honored the masculine skirt dedicating a whole exhibition to it. Outside the MET building there was a march of hundreds of men: “We have the right of wearing skirts as women wears trousers”, they declared. Recent years see skirts as protagonists again, on for example actors Jared Leto and Vin Diesel, designer Marc Jacobs and rapper Kanye West. Fashion gave them the chance to re-discover the item, thanks to Comme des Garçons, John Galliano, Etro, Rick Owens, Givenchy, J.W. Anderson and many others following the same path.

So, skirts have already been the item for the masculine men in the past, will they some day be that again?

Francesca Crippa

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18/03/2013

Giuseppe Gabellone at GAMeC

Giuseppe Gabellone at GAMeC

Giuseppe Gabellone (b. Brindisi, Italy 1973, works and lives in Paris) is probably one of the most celebrated member of the Italian scene of artists and friends known as Il gruppo di Via Fiuggi (the group of the Fiuggi street); young authors from the late 90’s, who actively work for the re-definition of contemporary art in Italy, giving new meaning and developments to the hard heritage left by the Arte Povera and conceptual art. 
The absolutely independent artistic research carried on by Giuseppe Gabellone first focused on the crossing of sculpture and photography. With a particular analytic and incisive approach in regard to the media, he initially created visual enigmas made of sculptures, which couldn’t survive without the distance achieved only through the photographic reproduction.


Strange shapes that seem to refer to recognisable and functional objects and places, were actually reproductions of shapes, which alluded to the reality, but deprived of their physical status and natural contest, photographed and then destroyed to add further obstacles to their uderstanding. Among them: a cactus made of wet clay pent-up in a garage; curvilinear streets of down tree that never leads to any places; flowers and plants scaled down and apparently out of order, plus objects set into heavy armored structures. 
From this first approach suspended between sculpture and photography, Gabellone moved to a new series of works where matter is represented through the form of bas-relief. Characterized by the use of unusual materials, which contrasts with the tradition of their shapes, these sculptures create ambiguity whilst surprising the viewers by referring to exotic imaginaries.




For the exhibition, expressly thought for GAMeC space, and after a long absence from the Italian artistic scene, once again, Gabellone created original works that analysed the sculpture as main media, but this time focusing on high relief. To do this, the artist put themes like color, surface, and contrast between vast and master to the centre of his research, producing intense chromatic juxtapositions, which remind drawings made by children with crayons. 
This strange promenade made of stuffed fabric guides the path throughout giant components that remind the “movable type”, hypothetical letters that seem to compose only meaningless words, which don’t allude to anything specific, but maintain their conceptual potential, both striking and puzzling the viewers.

Giuseppe Gabellone’s show will run until 5th May 2013.

Riccardo Conti – Editor’s thanks to Monica Lombardi – Photos by Roberto Marossi, Courtesy greengrassi, London e ZERO…, Milano, Courtesy GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo

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17/03/2013

Sunday Breakfast by Love For Breakfast

Sunday Breakfast by Love For Breakfast

Green, the color of spring, of the fields that tempt to let yourself go on the grass. Now it’s just hope, but soon it will be real.

Alessia Bossi from Love For Breakfast

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15/03/2013

Parking in London

Parking in London

It’s that time of year when we in the Northern Hemisphere consider braving the outside world again. Even if the weather isn’t quite warm enough for frolicking just yet, it is dreams of the happy summer months ahead that keep us going through the last miserable cold days. In the interest of encouraging your sunny fantasies, we’ve put together a list of delightful London parks that we know you’ll be dying to get into by April (and, lets face it, with the right preparations, you could enjoy these parks right now. After all, the Scottish say, ‘there’s not such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing’).

1) Regent’s Park
Located in central London, Regent’s Park has many reasons to recommend it: a boating lake, the elegantly sculpted Queen Mary’s Gardens, the London zoo and even an open-air theatre in the summer months. Its location, its (relatively) small size and the gorgeous flowers on view in the gardens, make Regent’s Park an ideal spot for a workday coffee or lunch break; it is your own personal idyll in the middle of the bustling city.

2) Hampstead Heath
The rolling hills, ponds and large trees that hide the surrounding houses, all combine to make Hampstead Heath feel like a tiny bit of wild English countryside growing free in the city. Dogs gambol happily across the fields, their owners fast on their heels. The wonderful view from Parliament Hill over the rest of London makes the city feel a million miles away. Hampstead Heath is the perfect place for a summer Pimm’s and cricket party.


3) Greenwich Park
Located as it is next to the Cutty Sark museum, the National Maritime Museum and the University of Greenwich, visiting Greenwich Park is like stepping back in time to grand Regency era England. Greenwich Park’s main avenue boasts an impressive view across the Thames to the financial district. The oldest of London’s parks, Greenwich is also home to the Royal Observatory and the Meridian Line. A must-see park for naval and historical enthusiasts.

4) Richmond Park
If you’re feeling cramped and all you want is space, space, space, then Richmond Park is the place to be. The largest enclosed area in London, this is a park to forget yourself in amongst the roaming deer, the ancient trees and lovely wetlands. If you’re a fan of cycling, the cycle paths will be a treat and for those of you without your own set of wheels, there are bicycles for hire at the park entrance. A park for explorers and adventurers stuck in the metropolis.


Jennifer Williams 

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14/03/2013

Knitting Peace

Knitting Peace

“Is it possible to knit peace?” This is the question behind the new performance by Cirkus Cirkör: a Swedish contemporary circus that aims to promote the circus as a contemporary art form worldwide. Since 2005 Cirkus Cirkör has approached the contemporary circus as an art and pedagogical tool to promote and discuss issues of our contemporary society. Directed by Tilde Björfors, Knitting Peace follows this direction and proposes a parallel between the dangerous life of the contemporary circus artists and our condition as a human being. The performance asks: Why would anyone choose to spend their entire life walking on a thin line?

The answer is left to the emotional stage where each acrobat challenges his/her own aspirations by walking or flying on threads. Circus’ chains and trapezes are replaced by white knitted threads that resemble the thin-line on which we constantly live our lives.


The artists involved are five of the most world-renowned contemporary circus artists: the handstand and acrobatic dancer Jens Engman, the live-knitting Aino Ihanainen: the ring acrobats and rope equibrists Ilona Jäntti and Matleena Laine; and the aerial acrobats and singer Alexander Weibel Weibel. Knitting Peace is an astonishing performance and the artists look like spiders on a stage. They entwine themselves in knit-human compositions that seem to suggest that the only form of liberation for us is to be woven all together.


Knitting Peace will be held at the Dansen Hus in Stockholm on the 15th, 16th and 17th March 2013.

Marco Pecorari – Images Mats Bäcker, Mattias Edwall 

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14/03/2013

Martin Kippenberger: sehr gut | very good at Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin

Martin Kippenberger: Sehr Gut | Very Good

On February 25th this year, the iconic artist Martin Kippenberger would have turned 60 years old. That said, if the multi-talented enfant terrible of German art wouldn’t have died way too early at the age of 44, following a life of too much too fast. For the first time in Berlin, the National Gallery in Hamburger Bahnhof, the German mothership of contemporary art, is now honoring Kippenberger with a large retrospective. 300 of his works – paintings, drawings, sculptures, posters, books, music and photographs – are on view in Martin Kippenberger: sehr gut | very good, arranged as an approach to Kippenberger as a person and artist rather than a chronological retrospective.


Kippenberger was a painter, actor, writer, musician, drinker, dancer, traveller, charmer – an ‘exhibitionist’ in his own words, and his life cannot be separated from his work. During the few years he spent in West Berlin, from 1978 until 1981, he set up Kippenberger’s Office together with Gisela Capitain, where he exhibited his own or his friends’ works and offered a whole range of other art-related services. Later he became the business director of the punk, new wave and visual art venue SO36 in Kreuzberg, and even started his own punk band. In the legendary Paris Bar in Charlottenburg, where the German and international crème de la crème of artists, actors, musicians and other heavyweights were hanging out back then (and to some extent still do), Kippenberger traded his paintings for a life long provision of food and drinks.


Martin Kippenberger: sehr gut | very good at Hamburger Bahnhof is an ambitious attempt to show every side of this multi-faceted artist, as well as his private and public person. In one of the side rooms, the seldom exhibited so called “white pictures” are on view; fusing irony, concept and avant-garde rhetoric into transparent, glossy writing similar to school reports stating “sehr gut/very good”. Refusing to adapt to one single style, Kippenberger’s enormous variety of artistic output still feels rebellious, but sometimes also slightly confusing. The widespread exhibition takes a while to get through, but is worth every turn. Be prepared to get surprised: there is a very small chance that you will be able predict what will be on view in the next room.


Martin Kippenberger: sehr gut | very good is on view at Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – from February 23rd through August 18th 2013.

Helena Nilsson Strängberg

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13/03/2013

Turkish Red by Formafantasma

Turkish Red by Formafantasma

There is something about certain colours that leaves us speechless. Deep blue, aquamarine, bright yellow, each colour has a profound ability to communicate a lot about both our culture as well as our history and surroundings. It is inevitable that we link certain colours to certain material artefacts, hence TextielMuseum in Tilburg has decided to dedicate an entire exhibition to Turkish Red, a particularly vibrant hue of red. The curator of the show, titled Turkish Red & More, Caroline Boot has invited five Netherlands-based designers to draw inspiration from the museum’s archives and develop a new project around what they have discovered: “the five projects are presented in a special context, together with the sources that they refer to: Art Nouveau weavings, objects from the Art Deco period, sample books, dye recipes, antique handiwork manuals, blankets and trimmings.”


The Italian duo based in The Netherlands, Formafantasma, has created a collection of 17 silk textiles titled BTMM1514 (Turkish Red), based on the archive of Driessen family and numerous samples of turkish red Felix Driessen has collected through the years.


Turkish red is drawn from madder roots, and was first developed in India and later brought to Turkey and Greece. Playing with the traditional modes of production, particular of Andrea Trimarchi‘s and Simone Farresin’s approach, they have created a series of silk textiles dyed with madder roots in collaboration with a German colourist, while the patterns were taken from the Driessen’s books, together with other visual element historically associated with Turkish red.

This apparently simple project clearly evokes the influence of colours, the Turkish red in particular, in our historical and present economic, geographical, cultural, aesthethical, social context. 
Turkish Red & More is on display until the 26th of May 2013 at TextielMuseum in Tilburg.


Rujana Rebernjak

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12/03/2013

David Bowie Is Alive and Well

David Bowie Is Alive and Well

When the Flaming Lips released a song called “Is David Bowie Dying?” in 2011, they seemed to be highlighting what was in the back of everybody’s mind. Ever since suffering a heart attack onstage in Germany in 2004, David Bowie has remained more elusive than Thomas Pynchon, cropping up only for the occasional fashion show photo or Arcade Fire concert. No tours, no new songs, no albums, no interviews. For a while he seemed to vanish into thin air. Where was he? Was he ok? Was David Bowie dying? Until very recently, the question seemed appropriate.

The Next Day, his first album of new material since 2003, finds Bowie alive and as relevant as ever. “Here I am, not quite dying,” he chants in the title track, the first of the album, picking away at the inevitability of his own mortality, and the public’s fascination with it. The Next Day is deeply rooted in Bowie’s own eclectic past, from the bizarrely re-appropriated Heroes cover to “Where Are We Now?”, a deeply moving “Five Years”-esque ballad that finds the elder statesman looking back whimsically on his mid-70s Berlin heyday. “The Stars (Are Out Tonight)” doesn’t hit the same emotional high-water mark, but it works as a flashy radio single, and the Lynchian video finds Bowie and actress Tilda Swinton being stocked by celebrity vampires that look eerily familiar to Ziggy Stardust. For her part, Tilda Swinton looks like The Man Who Fell to Earth, and by the end it’s hard to tell exactly who’s who.


The Next Day has the air of a final statement, but maybe that’s because many of us had already written him off as long gone, retired, dead. In the last few weeks plenty of comparisons have been made to Bob Dylan, whose late-career resurgence seems to have no end. In addition to a new album, there’s also “David Bowie Is…“, an upcoming exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum that will run from March through August. But unlike Dylan, Bowie has no plans to tour, give interviews, or otherwise open himself up to the public. Maybe having a heart attack on stage has something to do with it, but either way it’s refreshing to see a guy who’s spent most of his life endlessly toying with the notion of celebrity identity seems content to step back from the limelight and let his work stand on its own this time around.


Lane Koivu

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