13/05/2013

Gilberto Zorio | Lia Rumma

The three floors of the amazing 2000 sqm white cube building of Lia Rumma’s gallery in Milano hosts the solo show by the master Gilberto Zorio (b. 1944, Andorno Micca, Biella, Italy). The renowned member of “Arte Povera” (Poor art) – the Italian movement of the mid 60s that involves ‘poor’ techniques, supports and materials such as rags, iron, plastic and natural elements to create artistic systems –, shows, in this unique venue, some of his most recurring themes. The exhibition starts at the ground floor of the gallery which presents Torre Stella (Star Tower): the five-pointed star, one of the artist’s most frequently represented archetype, which is depicted here through an imposing installation made of blocks of gasbeton that plays with the alternation of light and darkness.


Within the room the sculpture interacts with another impressive star-shaped structure created through the use of tubes, whose legs are immersed in two vessels containing odd yellow and blue liquids. Suddenly the light switches off and the silence turns into a noise that recalls the sound of an angle grinder or a compressor in a construction site or a foundry. From the dark of the ground floor we get to the first floor where, beside a gasbeton construction spreading to the terrace, we find again a star made of tubes that seem spears, and cables anchored to cement bricks enlighted through industrial light bulbs. The second floor closes the show with two hanging installations made of wire ropes welded to the walls thanks to a complex system of snap-hooks.


The artist’s poetry, moving from a conceptual and trial art, focuses on chemical reactions and alchemic research, always taking care of the symbolic value of the matter, its transformations and the exchange of energy in its different forms. Minerals and metals, tubes and stills, containers made of borosilicate glass (commonly known as Pirex) and crucibles are all essential components of Zorio’s universe since his early beginning. These symbols of unknown and immeasurable, with their hidden and magic meaning are accompanied, also this time, with luminescence, shocks, white-hot sparks that radiate the environment, trespassing the rooms and invading the external spaces, modifying the viewers’ perception. As it always happens with Zorio’s work, the show is a philosophical and sensory experience that examines the mental and material boundary lines: an opportunity, which must not be missed.

Monica Lombardi – Photos Monica Lombardi and Antonio Maniscalco – Courtesy Galleria Lia Rumma, Milano/Napoli 
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12/05/2013

Sunday Breakfast by Love For Breakfast

I keep myself awake by a delicate scent of flowers and the sweet taste of fresh fruit juice. Spring is passing by and I’m trying to stop her.

Alessia Bossi from Love For Breakfast 
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10/05/2013

4 Questions To – Martin Sebald

He spent his professional life working between London and Moscow, but now art director Martin Sebald is back in Berlin changing the finest fashion offices for his first own studio. Sebald and his team operates as a small design agency, and even though they are young as a company they offer over 10 years of experience from the fashion and publishing industry. In this studio questions are asked before answers are given, and focus lies as much on the big picture as on the details – “I believe they are inseparable”, says Martin Sebald himself when The Blogazine had a chat with him about independency, Berlin and where the things are actually happening.


After years of working for big industry names you are now back in Berlin working out of your own studio. Are you enjoying the independence?
It’s a really good question, it’s something I’m asking myself for the first time. Is this thing that I always wanted to do, work independently, a good thing? As for everything, there are advantages and disadvantages. To start with we have the advantage of not having a boss! Though, that means that I have to look for all of my jobs myself. I did this, started my own studio, because I was turning 34 and I thought “I don’t want to work for big companies forever, I want to start my own little ‘big company’”. Setting up my own studio has really enriched my life and made it more interesting, as well as it made me more multi-disciplined in comparison with when I worked in a magazine. Today I also do things for the web, for smart devices and videos and print. Running your own studio is also challenging, I realised that there are a lot of things I need to learn: how to run a business and how to pay taxes for example [laughs]. Budgets are smaller than when working for Vogue or Harpers Bazaar. There you just need to ask for money for a big photo shoot, even if it’s for a small designer. Now I have to deal with questions like ‘how do we pay the model?’ and ‘where do we get the model from?’ The question about where the money comes from is constant when working indpendently with small designers.


Berlin is your daily point of reference – is it as cool as they say?
Well, I was born in Berlin and obviously a lot has changed since the wall came down. I thought Berlin was really really cool when I was a teenager and started to go to underground clubs or squatted buildings, and the situation when I moved to Shoreditch in London was similar: it was an upcoming area that had just been ‘discovered’. Now Shoreditch is crowded, and maybe even the first McDonald’s will open soon, and that is my opinion about what is sort of happening in Berlin too. A lot of people come here and the city is becoming, let’s say, too popular and therefore commercial. The cool things are not open like in some other big cities, here they are hidden and you really have to look for them. Speaking about fashion, the interest here is something totally different, there are no rules of how you should be dressed. Anyone can walk around as they want in Berlin, someone really cool can look really ordinary.

So, Berlin is very cool if you are young, enjoy music and want to spend time discovering the city, but it’s actually not as cool if you talk about commerce and success. It’s a rough business area and very disconnected from all the big industries. People who want to be commercially successful have to bring in their clients from other cities or other countries.


Has the new “digital format” of fashion brought a lot of change to your work?
I felt this change already a long time ago. The budgets for photo shoots started to become smaller, people got fired and magazines had to close down. There was this recession in the industry, but in the same time I had friends who started to work with websites and became very successful. I was living in Moscow at that moment, and Russia was still emerging big time, so the impact of it wasn’t that big over there. Fashion was something really highly rated and fashion magazines were young. For sure the change in the industry has been huge, and even though there is still traditional art direction in advertising and for certain large fashion companies, but overall I can say that these digital changes have led me to get more and more smaller jobs and different types of jobs. I work with small designers on everything from website design, logos and business cards to creative consulting and look books. Recently I also worked on an online magazine where the news are generated by the users’ browsing behavior, and the design and images are automatically chosen by your computer and not picked by an art director or photo editor.

Your work takes you over country borders and to diverse markets. Where do you see the most interesting tendencies at the moment? Where do you turn for inspiration?
I believe that London will always have a big say in fashion and the creation of it. The UK has a strong media culture and London is on top of things, it’s a city where the creativity gets created. On the other hand, I was just speaking to Saigon a couple of hours ago. They are building a large publishing house over there and are launching several luxury titles, so even if it’s something I’ve never thought about, maybe the new magazine design will come from there. I have requests coming from Indian Vogue and friends of mine are working with Vogue Ukraine, it’s definitely a part of the market that is moving, but in the end I want to stay and work from Berlin. I always keep a foot in London and Moscow because I still have a lot of work there but I hope Berlin will develop into a bigger thing again!


Interview by Lisa Olsson Hjerpe – Images by Luca Campri 
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10/05/2013

Istanbul: The City of Contrasts

There is a single word that is able to capture the immense size of Istanbul better than any else: megalopolis. With its 15 million inhabitants, this city, standing between Europe and Asia, is the third most populated metropolitan area of the “Old Continent”, after Moscow and London. But Istanbul has another peculiarity, maybe more significant than mere dimension, that can destabilize tourists accustomed to a “European” concept of a city: the contrasts. Istanbul is incessantly in balance between East and West, old ages and modernity. The only way for not being overpowered by this feature is to forget where you come from, especially if you live in a European capital city. Forget identical architectures, orderly traffic, and a few of the rules that usually wall your life. Don’t worry if you see a man with a gun walking around like nothing happened. Don’t let words like “kitsch” and “trash”, always in vogue with some (Italian) tourists, repeat themselves too frequently in your head. If you aren’t able to manage this, and if you have the impression that everything is odd and out of control, stop and take a breath. Then start again.



Most relevant contrasts in Istanbul are the architectural ones – just see the differences between the Ottoman style of Topkapi Palace, a museum that was once the home of the Sultan, and the European look of the palaces of Dolmabahçe and Yildiz, or of the new Museum of Modern Art –, but one can’t certainly ignore the cultural ones. Turkey isn’t even a part of the European Union, because until now it didn’t give importance to the protection of minorities or to personal freedom. This doesn’t mean that you have to fear that something bad can happen to you, considering that Istanbul is a touristic destination. But keep in mind, in any case, that you are in an only partially Western city, and what is morally right for a Turkish person may vary from your point of view.




Istanbul is a constantly changing world. You could return here after one year and see that in the place of a tranquil palace you admired, of a square you crossed by foot, or of a garden you once spent your afternoon in, now there is something completely else. Among all these on-going transformations, don’t forget classical must-see venues: visiting Istanbul without visiting Blue Mosque, Grand Bazar and the same Topkapi Palace, would be like going to Paris without visiting Tour Eiffel. Lose yourself in the vivid colours and smells of the Bazar, breathe the fascination of the Sultan’s Palace, let yourself be washed, rubbed and massaged in the hammams of the city. If you can, avoid the expensive tourist spas and choose one frequented by the Turkish, for example in the Taksin zone. It will be a reinvigorating experience, almost sacre, which you won’t forget.



Antonio Leggieri – Photos Alessandro Furchino 
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09/05/2013

European Fashion Schools: Antwerp Royal Academy

When doing a series on the six most significant European fashion schools, it feels like a given to mention the school that gave birth to The Antwerp Six. Famous for the many creative talents that have left the building, the Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts is evidently not new to the pages of The Blogazine. Despite its many appearances, we figured another review of the Belgian magic couldn’t hurt – for what is it in an education that calls forth a certain number of celebrated and legendary names?


Looking at the history, the school’s (fashion) popularity started in the early 80’s when the fashion department resided under the wings of Mary Prijot, and it was during that time when names like Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten and Martin Margiela were formed to skilled designers. Today’s Head of the Fashion Department, Walter Van Beirendonck, also attended the school during this hot 80’s period, and by the looks of it, he has carried some of the past into the future.



As in most academic educations a subject is looked at from the perspective of the society, and so also in Antwerp. Clothing is not only about the quality of fabrics, cuts and seams but also reflects on where the society is moving, and questions it. Not putting the creative quality aspect aside, The Royal Academy of Fine Arts provides their students with a creative artistic atmosphere: during four years the fashion students also share the halls with painters, sculptors and graphic designers and looking at the outcome they all seem to influence each other. The students at the academy are though always encouraged to find their own voice and not to mimic what their predecessors already did, as innovation and experimentation are two highly valued aspects. Surely many students choose Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts as their destination of education for the fame that lingers in the school halls, just like many probably are attracted by the fact that it’s here that known concepts are being turned 360° and back again. What regards the school’s location, Antwerpen feels near, yet so far from the rest of the industry, that it seems like the set-apart position on the map could entice as well as discourage future applicants. Whether it’s the name of the school, the name of previous graduates, the creative atmosphere or the city, it only seems natural that the younger generation of Antwerpian designers would channel what foregoes them and keep on bringing the academy forth.

Maybe it lies in the strong focus on innovative creativity or maybe Mary Prijot’s 80’s blueprint for the fashion department set the standard – whichever the case, the Artesis Hogeschool Antwerpen has been one to watch over the last 30 years, and an uncrazy guess is that it will remain on the same list for another upcoming 30.


Lisa Olsson Hjerpe – Image courtesy of Boy Kortekaas & The Royal Academy of Fine Arts 
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09/05/2013

Remembering Gallery Weekend Berlin

During Gallery Weekend Berlin, 51 galleries opened up their doors to 66 new exhibitions within just a couple of days. Here’s a run through a few of our favourites ones, that we remember with warmth.

Alicja Kwade at Johann König
The brutalist former church building of ST. AGNES will re-open this autumn as an arts and culture center with the gallery Johann König as a natural landmark. But already as of Gallery Weekend Berlin, besides the solo show with Monica Bonvincini in their main space, Johann König is showing the Berlin-based artist Alicja Kwade’s light and sound installation Nach Osten (2011), translated “To the East”. Kwade transforms the monumental, archaic church hall via an extensive, electrical version of Focault’s pendulum, using a light bulb instead of a weight to visualize that the earth spins. Among other of the artist’s obsessions, Kwade is fascinated by scientific problems and visual experiments, killing two birds with one stone in her vast and hypnotizing installation. Although, in Kwade’s own words; “the earth doesn’t care, it just turns”. A must see, every weekend until May 26th.

Jerszy Seymour at Galerie Crone
Entering Jerszy Seymour’s installation on the first floor of Galerie Crone feels like taking the elevator to the 7½th floor in the movie Being John Malkovich. His solo show The Universe Wants To Play is a hallucinogenic travel into the brain of the artist and orginally industrial designer Seymour. In the main installation Brain Cave Spaceship, a glittering sandy beach stretches through the gallery, where stones and rocks, bones and animal skulls, painted bricks and branches have been scattered around. Even a live frog is hiding between the plants growing in his Memory Tanks. Seymour has drawn on geometric shapes, like pieces of a puzzle in his brain laboratory, and created a playground where the audience is invited to romp about, with or without shoes, in an anarchic homage to the mind. Do it.

Michel François at carlier | gebauer
For his solo exhibition Pieces of Evidence at carlier | gebauer, the Belgian artist Michel François started off with the photos he took in the basement of Palace of Justice in Brussels, of wrapped, numbered and labeled objects in an evidence room. Interested in the trivial, in the harmless meaning these objects and evidences of crime gets when outside of the court, François’ work can be read as a similar trace of what happens inside and outside the studio. In the gallery, an ice block melts in front of your eyes, a cube of sand has been pushed along the floor, a giant structure of burnt wood is still smelling of ash; all of his works are leaving traces perceptible by touch or smell, in a beautiful and forceful exhibiton.

Markus Bacher and Thomas Kiesewetter at CFA
On the second floor of CFA, Contemporary Fine Arts, Thomas Kiesewetter’s series of free-standing and wall sculptures in bright monochromatic colours resemble a playground of sculptural snapshots. Meanwhile on ground floor, Markus Bacher’s solo exhibition After Eight unfolds as an abstract landscape of mountains, lakes and dark forests. Bacher’s new works are made of superimposed juxtapositions and broad horizontal brush strokes in shades ranging from earthy chestnut and brick via strokes of bright yellow to intense sky-blue or cloudy white. Bringing his heimat of the Alps into his works, the young Austrian artist, based between Vienna and Cologne, is definitely someone to look out for.

Eva Kotátková at Meyer Riegger
Meyer Riegger’s irresistible They Are Coming by the young Czech shooting star Eva Kotátková revolves around configuration of the human body and our perception of it. Through drawing, photography, collage, objects, installation and even live performance, fragmented body parts occur and disappear, and movements and formulations of the body are marked or suggested by lines as a demarcation between figure and space. In a large installation, objects set up on a chessboard-like area, as props for an action that is yet to come. In a related video piece, made with the classic “black theatre” technique where the performers cover their body with black cloth, so that only parts of their bodies are visible, Kotátková shows precisely those shapes, interacting with the human beings. It is a refreshingly physical yet extremely visual show, on that perhaps basic but oh so important theme of what actually makes us human.

Helena Nilsson Strängberg – Images courtesy of Galerie Crone (Marcus Schneider), Meyer Riegger, carlier| gebauer (Nat Urazmetova), CFA Berlin, Alicja Kwade & Johann König (Roman März) 
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08/05/2013

On the Roots of Mozzarella di Bufala

Where does the best mozzarella in the world come from? We have been to Tenuta Vannulo, one of the most important and oldest dairy farms of Italy, located near Salerno, in the south. We witnessed the production of mozzarella made of buffalo milk, the most exclusive product of southern Italy. The buffaloes are in about five hundred, and the animals are massaged and pampered to get the most from them. The processing of the mozzarella starts at 4 AM with milking, and at 10 AM it’s already all sold out.

The particularity of this workshop is that they don’t export their product: if you want some, you have to go get it there! This guarantees an excellent quality and a good relationship with the customer. So if you have planned a trip to Italy, you just have to pay a visit to Tenuta Vannulo and have the opportunity to taste some of the most traditional cheese history of the country.








Stefano Tripodi 
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08/05/2013

Marc Maron Is Finally Enviable

Marc Maron has always been a jealous guy. For years the veteran comedian has watched pals like Louis C.K. and Jon Stewart become household names while he’s struggled to stay afloat — gigging in small clubs, running a largely ignored one-man off-Broadway show, hosting unsuccessful radio and TV shows — while also battling two divorces and a debilitating drug addiction. Over the years he’s begrudgingly come to be known as, for lack of a better term, “the comic’s comic”. Case in point: he’s appeared on Conan O’Brien more than any other comedian, 47 times by his count, but most people couldn’t pick him out of a police lineup. “There’s no such thing as a career in comedy,” he’s famously joked, and, for him at least, that seemed to be the case.

But with a new book, a new show, and a thriving podcast now in its fifth year, it’s safe to say that Marc Maron is finally having his moment. A personal memoir, “Attempting Normal“, came out earlier this month, and his new show, IFC’s “Maron“, debuted last week. In it Maron plays a dramatized version of himself as he navigates past missteps, relationships, and newfound success. Like Louie C.K.’s show “Louie“, Maron finds the comic examining real-life failures through the lens (shield?) of meta-comedy. In the show Maron is selfish and cowardly, but he’s also very insightful and charming. After watching a few scenes one begins to wonder if he even had to write anything that resembled a script before the cameras started rolling.

Such unfiltered honesty lies at the heart of Maron’s charm. WTF With Marc Maron, his homespun twice-a-week podcast, has more than 2.5 million listeners each month and ranks second in iTunes top comedy podcasts. He goes back and forth with comics, celebrities, and musicians such as Amy Poehler, Ben Stiller, Jon Hamm, Mel Brooks, and Dick Van Dyke about everything from failed relationships (mostly his own) to the entertainment industry to past drug and alcohol addictions. He is revered for being able to catch his subjects with their guard down. One episode finds Maron and Louis C.K. having a frank talk about why their friendship fell apart; another has him talking about alcoholism with Robin Williams. If his show is even half as genius and insightful, he should be just fine. “People say stuff to him that you can’t imagine them saying to anyone else,” Ira Glass, host of This American Life, told The New York Times in 2011. “And they offer it. They want to give it to him. Because he is so bare, he calls it forward.”

Lane Koivu – Middle Image from NY Times 
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07/05/2013

A Season of Blossom

Each spring season there are at least two things to be expected on the runway. Pastels and floral print seem to be two components essential for the time of the year. In the spring of 2013 nature’s influence in fashion and style are still immense.

At Alexander McQueen for example the crossfire of bees and floral came together in dramatic creations reminding of the theatrical fashion of the 16th century. Big dramatic gowns with a peek-a-boo crinoline and big floral appliqués in sheer fabric were spotted. At Bottega Veneta a flirtation with the fashion of the 1930s and 40s was made by using the silhouettes of these years with just a few tweaks here and there to update them to the 2013. Appliqués of flowers were however used in a smaller scale making the impression less theatrical but still elegant, a mindset of less is more was implied, still letting the print make a statement. Erdem’s appliqué can be said to be an excellent example of letting the two elements of spring melt together, light pastel colors and floral prints were presented in a simplistic and classical silhouette making it accessible for any fashionista to mold into her own.


Raf Simons for Christian Dior brought forward the thought of what the floral print might look like in the future. Presenting almost luminescent fabrics, the diverse colored flowers were literally highlighted becoming the focal point of the creation bearing a powerful resemblance in shape to “the new-look” first presented by the founder Christian Dior.

Whether looking back at the era of Queen Elisabeth I or gazing into the future with a new kind of fabric, the flower print is still very much present in the spring of 2013. It can be argued that flowers are the essence of natural beauty and are therefore something transcending time, which might explain the constant comeback each spring season.

Victoria Edman 
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07/05/2013

Florence Knoll Bassett’s Modern Design

If you think about Modernist designers, there probably won’t be any women among the names that pop in your mind. We might think about Mies van der Rohe, Charles Eames or Eero Saarinen, but, as Alice Rawsthorne stated in a recent article published by the New York Times, history rarely remembers female protagonists of the Bauhaus or designers like Eileen Gray, Charlotte Perriand or Florence Knoll Bassett.



The latter, who in less than a month will be turning 96, has silently influenced both the company that carries her name as well as what we regard as modern office design. Florence Knoll Bassett was born on the 24th of May 1917 and has studied to become an architect under Mies van der Rohe and Eliel Saarinen, two protagonist of Modernist design whom she would later refer to as her masters. In 1943 she met Hans Knoll, who would become her husband, and started working at his furniture company creating the Knoll Planning Unit, a sort of in-house design office that would develop specific projects for a long list of international clients.



Even though her work is highly influential for the contemporary design of the office space (where we pass much of our time every single day), she stated “I never considered myself a furniture designer, and still don’t. I designed furniture because it was needed for a specific plan. It was really people like Saarinen and Bertoia who created very sculptural pieces. Mine were architectural”. In fact, it was she who convinced a long list of Modernist designers to work with Knoll, like Mies van der Rohe, who surrendered after her promise that his furniture would never be produced in outrageous colours or materials.

Even though Florence Knoll Bassett left the professional design sphere in 1965, her approach to design as a practice still remains highly significant of a particular historical climate and should be reconsidered in the complex contemporary corporate design work. In fact, speaking about her work, Mrs. Knoll Bassett says: “I was fortunate to have good clients. The success of a good project depends upon the compatibility of client and designer”. Nevertheless, if you look back at her career you understand that it would have never happened without her dedication, profound knowledge and wit.


Rujana Rebernjak 
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