2013 August | The Blogazine - Contemporary Lifestyle Magazine

13/08/2013

Summer 2013: Summer Design Shows

Even though you might long for those lazy summer days at the beach, you shouldn’t nevertheless forget to soak in some culture, too, during this year’s vacations. Here are a few interesting, but not too nerdy shows for you to see during the summer in Rome, London, New York and Hyères.

Memory Place at V&A Museum in London

“Memory Palace”, a show curated by Laurie Britton-Newell and Ligaya Salazar, tries to understand the role of memory in contemporary (and possibly future) cultural climate by putting on display a three-dimensional illustration of a novel. Especially commissioned for the show, the 10000-word novel was written by London-based author Hari Kunzru and was visualized by some of the world’s most important designers, authors and illustrators, such as Åbäke, Le Gun, Erik Kessels and Luke Pearson, with the idea of expanding the notion of the book as one of the most significant beholders of our collective memory. 

“Memory Palace” remains on show at Victoria and Albert Museum in London until the 20th of October 2013.

Design Parade 8 at Villa Noailles

Design Parade turns eight this year. Founded with the goal of promoting young designers, every year it chooses ten product designers who put their work on display in the beautiful setting of Villa Noailles. An international jury guided by Dutch designer Bertjan Pot has awarded French designer Mathieu Peyroulet Ghilini with his trestle project as the winner of this year’s edition.

The exhibition remains on display at Villa Noailles in Hyères until 29th of September 2013.

Young Architects Program 2013 in New York and Rome

Established in 2000, Young Architects Program is a competition that enables young architects to put in practice their skills, by designing a project to be displayed at MoMA PS1 courtyard in New York. This year, the project has expanded internationally and includes other three competitions held respectively at MAXXI in Rome, Santiago in Chile and Istanbul, Turkey. You can see the winning projects by CODA (Ithaca, NY) in Long Island City, bam! bottega di architettura metropolitana (Turin, Italy) in Rome, and SO? Architecture and Ideas (Istanbul, Turkey) in Istanbul throughout the summer in the courtyards of the respective museums, and in Santiago, Chile, from December 2013 through February 2014.

Rujana Rebernjak

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12/08/2013

Summer 2013: Tips for Art Trips

Palais de Tokyo, Paris

Nouvelles Vagues is a huge project arranged by the Palais de Tokyo in collaboration with 30 galleries spread out around Paris and 21 international young curators from 13 countries, presenting the up-to-date artistic practices from worldwide. The large-scale event includes 53 exhibitions, which underline, without a fixed theme, the new waves of contemporary art, retracing at the same time some of its most significant steps of the last century. Among the shows, featured within the amazing French building, there are the Méthode Jacobson by Marc Bembekoff, The Black Moon by Sinziana Ravini, the Champs Élysé́es by Julie Boukobza and La Fin De La Nuit (Partie 1) by Martha Kirszenbaum, an homage to the brilliant, experimental scriptwriter and filmmaker Kenneth Anger, just to mention a few.  If you end up in Paris by September 9th, this is definitely an unmissable exhibition!

Mart, Rovereto

If you are looking for a place in Italy to spend some days during the summer, to find a wide range of sporting and wine and food events, along with high level cultural and artistic locations, Rovereto is definitely one of the possible answers. Situated in Trentino Alto-Adige, in the northern of Italy, the city hosts, besides natural environments and historical buildings, the Contemporary and Modern Art Museum of Trento and Rovereto (Mart) offering always a worthwhile schedule of exhibitions. Among its current proposals we mention There and again, Souvenir de voyage, an experience for those who want to cross the boundaries of time and space. The show, through photographs, video and installations, retraces the changes in our way of traveling from the 18th century until present days. From the old masters Henri Béchard, Louis De Clercq, William Henry Fox Talbot to contemporary Patrick Tuttofuoco, Giulio Delvè, Julio Paz, Luca Vitone, passing through the brilliant works by Bruno Munari, Emilio Isgrò and Luigi Ghirri, the show presents a series of works that retrieve from memory and reflect on the present.  On view during all summer there are also the exhibitions Controcultura tra America e Italia, Adalberto Libera, The ideal city and The magnificent obsession. Enjoy your trip!

Monica Lombardi

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12/08/2013

Summer 2013: Fashion Exhibitions

Summer means relaxing, traveling and discovering. Here are some tips about fashion exhibitions worth visiting we would like to share with you, so that if you happen to be in London, Stockholm, Düsseldorf or Providence, you can keep your inner fashionista/fashionisto satisfied even in August.

I Only Want You to Love Me

A definite must-see in London, at Somerset House Museum, “I Only Want You to Love Me” showcases Miles Aldridge’s glamour and fiction photography. The show is going to be one of the artist’s largest, including a series of unpublished works together with hand-drawn storyboards, magazines and polaroids, to give visitors the chance to look deeper inside Aldridge’s life and art. His photographic approach bases much on women and colors and by working on details he describes decadent and bright beauty, portrayed as a movie scene. The show coincides with the publication of the book by the same name, published by Rizzoli.

“I Only Want You to Love Me” at Somerset House will run until September 29th.

Helmut Newton

Residing in Stockholm in August? Helmut Newton‘s unforgettable fashion images are showcased in Fotografiska Museum.  “The perfect fashion photo doesn’t look like a fashion photo, but more like a film still, or a portrait or a keepsake photo – somehow like anything but a fashion photo” he once claimed. By working for Vogue, Elle and many other big names, Newton established a new concept of fashion: he portrayed a story behind the frame, narrated a new generation of women with an erotic and sharp yet elegant touch.

Helmut Newton at Fotografiska Museum will run until September 29th.

Azzedine Alaïa in the 21st Century

If you happen to be in or near Düsseldorf in Germany, you could visit the exhibition about Azzedine Alaïa entitled Azzedine Alaïa in the 21st Century.  The Tunisia-born designer built his fame during 60s by traveling between France and USA, working for major names like Christian Dior and Thierry Mugler, before opening his own atelier, which has been recently bought by Prada group.  The exhibition will show the last ten years of the designer’s creations and in each exhibition room you’ll find a special focus on the fabrics he used to work consistently, such as velvet, fur, leather, knitwear and cotton.  

“Azzedine Alaïa in the 21st Century”, curated by Mark Wilson runs at NRW–Forum in Düsseldorf until September 8th.

Artist / Rebel / Dandy: Men of Fashion

Providence, USA, is situated between the mouth of Providence River and the head of Narragansett Bay and for the summer hosts an exhibition at RIDS, completely dedicated to dandy. From the gentlemen of old times, such as Beau Brummell to the revolutionaries of today – Rick Owens, Patty Smith and so forth, “Artist / Rebel / Dandy: Men of Fashion” aims to show the garments that best represent the idea of dandy along with caricatures, fashion plates, paintings, photographs and media representations that have portrayed them over the centuries.

“Artist / Rebel / Dandy: Men of Fashion” at RISD Museum will welcome you until August 18th.

Francesca Crippa

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09/08/2013

Summer 2013: London’s Hidden Treasures

London is absolutely brimming with artistic and architectural wonders, green spaces that lift the soul, vintage haunts and museums aplenty. But it’s the lesser known delights that truly astound. So, to get you through the English summer, we’ve found five fab London treasures worth checking out.

The Wallace Collection

Found within a stunning, time forgotten stately home in Central London, The Wallace Collection is famed for being a repository of l’ancien regime at its most opulent. Here you can amble through expansive rooms, delightfully furnished halls and ponder the Rembrandts, Watteaus, Titians and Fragonards that line the walls. An art and armour filled haven, the Wallace Collection is also a fab foodie find – it has a roofed, sun-bathed courtyard where you can indulge in petal adorned cocktails and salads that let you believe summer continues all year round. Tranquil, a tad self-indulgent and, for now, a London secret.

Petersham Nurseries

Leave the city behind (sort of) and make for the verdant haven that is Richmond, one of the most picturesque, history-rich pockets of the capital. Here you’ll find the quaintly delightful Petersham Nurseries, set in the actual Victorian nurseries of Petersham House. There is an attached Michelin starred restaurant, housed within a greenhouse and boasting a dirt floor. As soon as you tire of the food or magical floral setting you can simply make for the surrounding Thames-side water meadows. London at its most bucolic.

Regent’s Canal

Built by a creative with no experience of Canal’s (London architect extraordinaire John Nash) and the idea of a gentleman deported to Australia for embezzlement, the Regent’s Canal is nothing short of a design feat. 22km long – the entire system stretches from Little Venice to the Olympic Park (via the Thames) – the Canal leads walkers and cyclist past changing London landscapes, Regent’s Park, the newly re-developed King’s Cross, water-hugging restaurants, galleries, bustling basins and secretive spots touched by history. Wander here and encounter an untouched, unexpected London.

Camden Passage Antiques Market

Everyone knows the vintage wares of Portobello Road and the retro finds of Spitalfields. But what most are yet to discover is Camden Passage Antiques Market – London’s real antiques treasure trove. Found in the north London area commonly referred to as The Angel (oh, the whimsy), this narrow pedestrian passage is filled with oversized jewels, delicate earrings, floral headpieces, and locals keen to chat about their wares and the world. With an array of characterful restaurants and boutiques leading onto the passage itself, this is the ideal spot to dream (and shop) away a Saturday.

Kensal Green Cemetery

One of London’s earliest (and smartest) cemeteries, this out-of-the-way north west landmark is quite often empty, yet never unnerving. Containing over 250,000 bodies in a jumbled assortment of poetic gravestones and gallery-esque monuments, this crammed, uneven graveyard is the final resting spot of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Thackeray and Harold Pinter. To bask in the hidden rose garden in the summer sun or wander beneath chestnut trees on a winter afternoon is unexpectedly blissful.

So get out, get discovering and encounter the very best of lesser-known London.

Liz Schaffer – Images Kris Atomic, Stephanie Wolff, Garry Knight, Kotomi

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08/08/2013

Summer 2013: Music Festivals

Amongst many great things about the summer we all so dearly wait for around the year, perhaps the greatest and certainly the most entertaining, is the festival life. Hundreds of thousands of people of varied ages, classes and social statuses flock every year to the dozens of music festivals held in Europe in the summer. What do these people have in common? Well, it’s either a great adoration for music or a great knack to party, in many instances both. And where can they do this? That is, adore music and party. Fortunately, the choices are numerous.

With many of the best major music festivals – such as Benicàssim in Spain, Roskilde in Denmark and Glastonbury in the UK – having already come to an end for this year, where does one go to adore music, or indeed party for the remaining summer weeks? Sziget festival in Budapest (5-12 August) is particularly known for its hard partying, it has a great line-up including the likes of Blur, Editors, Franz Ferdinand and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds on the Main stage, and it goes on for a week. Other festivals in the forthcoming weeks with particularly good line-ups music lovers and party animals alike might want to check out include: La Route Du Rock (14-17 August) in Saint-Malo, France, Green Man (15-18 August) in the Black Mountains, Wales, Pukkelpop (15-17 August) in Kiewit Hasselt, Belgium, Lowlands (16-18 August) in Biddinghuizen, Netherlands, Reading and Leads (23-25 August) in the respective UK locations and Electric Picnic (30 Aug- 1 Sep) in Stradbally, Ireland. The point being made here at large is that where ever you are in Europe at the moment, you are very likely to be close to a great music festival.

Having said that however, if you happen to find yourself anywhere in the South of England between September 5-8, find the nearest port and hop on the ferry to the Isle of White, where one of the best music festivals, as its name so conspicuously suggests, Bestival, takes place. Bestival seems to have an uncanny talent for curating music. The line-ups there are always beyond good, or great for that matter, blending the best of Pop, Rock, Hip-Hop and Electronica in a way that might be a bit peculiar at first glance, but just works. I mean having Elton John, the former Snoop Dog (now known as Snoop Lion), Fatboy Slim, M.I.A, Franz Ferdinand, The Flaming Lips, The Knife and the Wu-Tang-Clang headlining the event together, as they are this year, is so much more than good or great, it’s just awesome.

Andreas Stylianou – Images Stelios Kallinikou

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07/08/2013

Summer 2013: Culture in NY

James Turrell at The Guggenheim

Anyone who can trick the public into standing in line for thirty minutes only to stare dully at a gray canvas in a dark room deserves a spot on this list. James Turrell has been playing with light and space for decades, and he’s developed the ability to find absurd humor in the nature of the universe along the way. There was quite a bit of that in Iltar, the 1976 piece in question, and a whole lot of natural grandiosity and wonder in the rest of the show. This is his first New York show since 1980 and part of a larger nationwide career retrospective (one is at The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the other at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art).

Because it’s hard to tell with Turrell whether you’re in a hallway or an exhibit, I unknowingly stumbled into one, a 1968 installation called Ronin, walked right up to the light and was promptly yelled at by a 250-pound security guard who had a voice like Captain Ahab. “What is this?” my friend asked in an effort at reconciliation. “An exhibit,” the guard deadpanned. He must get it all the time.

Turrell’s exhibit runs through September 25th. Pay the $22 just to see Aten Reign, a fantastical cosmic egg that recasts Guggenheim’s famous rotunda into a spectre of existential wonder.

Chuck Klosterman and Sloane Crosley in Conversation

Pop-culture philosopher Chuck Klosterman reads from his new book I Wear The Black Hat: Grappling With Villains (Real and Imagined) today. Klosterman, who now writes the Ethicist column for The New York Times and is a founding member of Grantland, defines a villain as “someone who knows the most but cares the least”. He’ll discuss his theory along with the nature of villainy in contemporary culture with Sloane Crowsley, the frequent Believer contributor and author of the memoir I Was Told There’d be Cake.

Chuck Klosterman and Sloane Crosley at Bryant Park today 7th August, 12:30PM EDT. Free.

Mac DeMarco @ The East River Waterfront

Mac DeMarco is 23 years old and writes better songs than guys twice his age. His second album, aptly titled 2, managed to stir up the blogosphere and wind up on many year-end lists. The praise is well-earned: the dude throws off dreamy slacker pop tunes like “Freaking Out The Neighborhood” and “Cooking Up Something Good” as if it’s the easiest thing in the world. He’s kinda like Kurt Vile, if Kurt Vile went surfing every day and still lived with his parents.

I could listen to “Ode to Viceroy” and “My Kind of Woman” and stare at the East River all summer long, but I’ll content listening to two free hours of stony slacker rock while the sun sets over Manhattan. His live shows are goofy and laced with irony. A recent gig found them playing a medley of Limp Bizkit’s “Break Stuff” and Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”. They also closed the show with a Neil Young cover, which should give you a better idea of where this dude is headed.

Mac Demarco at The East River Waterfront. 8/28, 7PM. Free.

Lane Koivu

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06/08/2013

Summer 2013: Cultural Berlin

Just because it’s summer it doesn’t mean you have to ditch your art interest, at least not in Berlin where luckily many galleries, museums and venues keep their doors open with interesting shows or festivals. To guide you through the summer jungle, The Blogazine has made a selection of some of the best things to see in Berlin this month.

Tanz im August
 If you’re even the slightest into contemporary dance or performing arts in general, Berlin is really the place to be in August. The annual festival Tanz im August will spread out across the city with a program of performances by young talents as well as legends who made postmodern dance history, such as Trisha Brown Dance Company that will perform Early Works from the 1970’s; a trio of iconic choreographies by the legendary choreographer. Another giant is Steve Paxton, godfather of contact improvisation technique and a member of the genre-defining dance collective Judson Dance Theater in New York since the early 1960’s, performing his work Bound from 1982.
On different locations in Berlin, 15th-31st August

Kraftwerk at Sprüth Magers 
Electronic pioneers and musical history makers Kraftwerk have been performing and presented in gallery and museum environments since the beginning in the early 1970’s, but this exhibition at Sprüth Magers is the first solo show dedicated to the group’s work in Berlin. On view is a 3D video and sound installation entitled 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8, specially developed by Kraftwerk for the gallery in 2013, relating to their album titles since 1974. Creating the soundtrack to the digital age of the 21st century already four decades ago, their complete audio-visual performances and “sound-paintings” still pin down the information era and the love relationship between men and machines today, something that the show at Sprüth Magers also proves.
 On view until 31st August.

Bas Jan Ader at Klosterfelde
After 18 years and 104 exhibitions, the Berlin gallerist Martin Klosterfelde is closing his gallery due to personal reasons. Don’t miss the last chance to visit Klosterfelde and see the solo exhibition In Search of the Miraculous by Bas Jan Ader (1942-1975), the Dutch-born and California-based artist who mysteriously disappeared in 1975 when he set sail on what was to be the smallest sailboat ever to cross the Atlantic, during the execution of the second part of his project, entitled as the exhibition. The show at Klosterfelde includes rarely before shown vintage photographs of two of his most important works – In Search of the Miraculous (One Night in Los Angeles), where dark and shadowy images show Ader walking all night with a flashlight, and studies of his work I’m Too Sad to Tell You, revealing the artist in the act of crying. Intense and personal, exploring the frailty and instability of humanity – perfect to prevent the approach of a sun stroke.
 On view until 10th August.

Helena Nilsson Strängberg – Image courtesy Klosterfelde/Bas Jan Ader

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05/08/2013

Summer 2013: In love with summer

“You fish, swim, eat, laze around, and everyone’s so friendly. It’s such simple stuff, but… If I could stop the world and restart life, put the clock back, I think I’d restart it like this. For everyone.”

If you live in Italy, when the first days of August come and the thermometer reaches around 35 degrees, you can see everything slow down. The cities are emptied and life becomes a sort of a slow motion movie. Everyone moves to the beach. Some may search for quiet, remote, tiny places far from the hustle and bustle of pompous seaside resorts, while others enjoy populating those towns that in winter are as deserted as Alaska, but in the summer appear to become centre of the universe.

Even though probably the only thing on your mind may be just the beach and the sea, the summer can also become the perfect occasion to catch up with all those things you have missed doing throughout the year. This is why, for these lazy summer days, we have tried to compile a list of things for you to do. From the books to read to festivals to attend, from designers to visit in their creative hubs to fashion exhibitions you should see to catch up with your style, from places to visit to food you should share with someone you really like, The Blogazine’s gift for your summer vacations is a compendium of curiosities and hidden treasures. We hope you enjoy it!

Rujana Rebernjak – Illustration Karin Kellner

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05/08/2013

European Fashion Schools: Università IUAV di Venezia

Università Iuav di Venezia, IUAV, was established in Venice in 1926, as one of the first architectural schools in Italy. Organized into three departments – ‘Architecture, Construction and Conservation’, ‘Design and Planning in Complex Environments’ and ‘Architecture and Arts’ – the IUAV is a University with full focus on design. “It’s the perfect place for a fashion design program” – for the last part of the European Fashion Schools series, The Blogazine spoke to Maria Luisa Frisa, fashion critic and curator, and fashion director at the IUAV.

The main focus of the school lies in the different aspects of design – IUAV and design are two words that walk hand in hand – and it’s interesting how this perspective to the world of arts and architecture can benefit the fashion students of the school. “The question of how a strong design profile can benefit our fashion students is one of those questions that already contains its answer. In Italy it’s not customary to find a public university which deals with the theories and practices in fashion design, but IUAV is the place where this is happening and honestly, it’s the only place where I can imagine where it’s possible to make such a thing happen.”

Venice, and Treviso, where the fashion campus is located, are world known cities even though they have never been considered as ‘classic’ centres of fashion. So for a school educating people that have to enter the industry, how can the IUAV compete with the schools located in cities that have ‘full access‘ to the fashion industry? According to Frisa, being at the periphery of things gives the IUAV the chance to experiment, to find new ways of doing things, to invite new faces and new designers to contribute to a project. Of course, during times such as during the Biennale, Venice becomes an important centre, for instance of the Prada Foundation. “Recently we had Yoko Ono visiting us for an open lecture and an exhibition, and even she felt that there is a lot of things happening in Venice! A lot of people meet here for various reasons and this privileged atmosphere should be treasured and preserved.”

The IUAV does not only work with the creative part of fashion but also offers several theoretical courses, and as Frisa herself works as a curator, we took a moment to speak about where she sees space for theoretical professionals in the fashion industry. “Museums, galleries and cultural institutions for sure, both in Italy and internationally. But since I consider fashion one of those creative industries which now have the duty to redefine what we are used to consider as “Made in Italy”, curators and thinkers with a specific profile on fashion design will be useful and are actually requested by industries and production teams. People with a theoretical fashion basis can bring innovative visions on what’s happening now and on future possible scenarios.” On the other side of the IUAV fashion programs, there’s the fashion design students, who graduated last month with their final shows. “The BA Graduation show was brilliant” says Maria Luisa Frisa. “They were encouraged to explore their own inspirations and imageries trying to find a new idea of pattern making, which considers the idea of mistakes as a source of innovation, while the MA show was much more experimental and a true performance curated by Kinkaleri.”

Coming from a place which combines theory and practice in an environment that might bring other influences than the big fashion cities, what is the most important thing for the students to bring with them out in the world of business from the IUAV? “The athmoshpere of our community: the idea of teamwork that we always experiment with during all the ateliers, and the idea of self-curating their own project. They need to consider the design process as a whole, which starts from research and getting ideas and ends with the presentation and staging of the project.” She speaks about freedom to experiment, but also to make mistakes, as an element that a creative school needs to provide for its students, in order to make them grow. What regards her answer for the standard question of a tip for people looking for a career in fashion, Frisa replies: “Two words I’ve recently used as a title for a lecture done during the Europeana International Fashion Conference in Florence: talent and discipline.” Two words that conclude the series well.