16/02/2015

Frederick Kiesler: Visions at Work

“Frederick Kiesler: Visions at Work Annotated by Céline Condorelli and Six Student Groups”, which opened on February 11th 2015 at Tensta konsthall, is the first exhibition in Sweden of Frederick Kiesler’s genuinely transdisciplinary work. Frederick Kiesler (1890–1965) was an architect, artist, scenographer, pedagogue, theorist and – not least – a groundbreaking exhibition designer. From the 1920′s constructivist-inspired theater exhibitions in Vienna and Paris and the early 1930′s acclaimed shop window presentations in New York City to the legendary scenography for Peggy Guggenheim’s Manhattan gallery Art of This Century (1942) and the collaboration with Marcel Duchamp, Kiesler paved the way for a dynamic view of the art experience.

Working with the monumental ‘The Shrine of the Book’ (1965) in Jerusalem, he extracted ideas and forms from his often reproduced ‘Endless House’, a visionary bio-morphic building where, to quote Kiesler himself, ‘all the ends meet’. Underlying much of Kiesler’s work were his thoughts on the continual interaction between man and his natural and technological environments, as defined in the theory of correalism. Although Kiesler was a member of de Stijl, a close friend and collaborator of Duchamp, André Breton, Alfred H. Barr and several other key figures in the art of the 1900′s, as well as an influential teacher at Columbia University in New York, he is something of an unknown.

The exhibition features models and documentations of Kiesler’s designs for exhibitions, buildings, interiors, shop-windows, etc. from various periods, while it also showcases prototypes, including those of his Mobile Home Library and the mass-produced so-called correalist furniture, among others. The focus will be on Kiesler’s interest in the intersection between art and life and how this manifests in his works.

Rujana Rebernjak – Images courtesy of Frederick Kiesler Foundation 
13/02/2015

Museum of Islamic Art in Doha: a Design Perspective

The Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) in Doha represents an accomplished balance between content and container. Inaugurated in 2008 and soon transformed into the most celebrated landmark of the Qatari capital, this ziggurat-like building of staggered cubes, designed by archistar I.M.Pei, ignores the megalomaniac ambitions of the overlooking skyscrapers and evokes, instead, a gentle, human-scaled dimension. Even its permanent collection shares the same values of prestige and accessibility, offering an instructive yet intriguing introduction to Islamic art for the numerous, unaware, Western visitors who see the museum for the first time.

Collected from Afghanistan to Spain, with a prevalence of pieces from Iran, Turkey, and Morocco, MIA gathers Islamic artworks dating from 7th to 19th century. The different artefact typologies correspond to the museum’s sections, which are divided between ceramics, metal works, textiles, patterns, astrolabes, and calligraphy, thus representing the major themes of this specific art tradition.

The museum experience, however, is not limited to the time spent admiring objects of extraordinary craftsmanship, incredibly elegant in their decorative synthesis. Instead, the shift toward a different cultural perspective soon becomes a subtle but significant invitation that involves design as a potential interlocutor. In the Islamic vision is there a line of demarcation between minor and major arts? Is function accepted as a legitimate prerogative of a piece of art? How can horror vacui and hyper decorativism coexist with a dry, sophisticated object?

From a Western point of view, thus, MIA’s collection soon becomes a matter of design. Not only it shares the same typological partition of similar institutions – is there a significant difference with, for example, Victoria and Albert Museum apart from the geographical origin of their pieces? –, but the graphic essence of its recurring patterns and types are a clear symptom of a project-oriented attitude. Thus, this legacy could be a significant inspiration for worldwide contemporary design. At a first hint, it could suggest us to re-dimension the primacy of “less is more”, highlighting on the contrary a historical perspective that has always given space, not only in the Middle East and bordering countries, to “the better and the more” as a compelling approach.

Giulia Zappa – Images courtesy of MIA – Museum of Islamic Art Doha 
13/02/2015

‏The Fine Line Between Fashion and Art

Elsa Schiaparelli‪,‬ the grand dame of fashion‪,‬ remains a significant fashion reference‪,‬ several years after her death‪.‬ She thought of fashion as an art form, and the paradox of combining her artistry with one of the strongest mechanisms of fashion, the never ending desire for something new, had a great impact on her design‪. ‏She was inspired by the impulses of surrealist fine art which dominated Paris during the inter-war years, and embraced those ideas in her pieces as a productive tool. She drew clear parallels between fashion and art, and questioned the fashion’s needed to be beautiful and, more importantly, what was considered as beauty.

Schiaparelli would once have said that: “In difficult times fashion is always outrageous”, a quote that the curator of the upcoming Schiaparelli exhibition in Stockholm seems to agree with. In a time when the world is very complex, it might be a logic consequence for fashion to becoming equally as complex, although it is never that easy or simple to explain why we are seeing certain influences in fashion, at a certain time. The reasons or influences behind a new trend or tendency are mostly a complex development in themselves, and that includes the comeback of surrealism. The newly returned interest for Schiaparelli’s work might therefore partly also grow from a reaction to the growing commercial impact on contemporary fashion, and therefore become a way of rebalancing the relationship between the creative process and economic profit. Through surrealism Schiaparelli explored fashion as a place of freedom and creativity. In the same time she had to consider another concrete difference between fashion and art, the fact that fashion for most part is made with the purpose of being worn. Even though a lot has happened since she was an active designer, the premisses which she explored in her design are mostly the same. The reason behind the huge recent interest for Schiaparelli is not just grounded in her iconic pieces, but in her unique approach to fashion and not at least in her own creativity.

‏Hanna Cronsjö 
12/02/2015

Daily Tips: The Gin Library

Have you ever wondered what were the evenings of jolly drinks and good friends like in Dickens’ era? How did that classic gin really taste those days? Well, the Charles Dickens Museum in London offers the fabulous opportunity to step back in time and behold the home Dickens once occupied as dusk settles on the city and dazzle our taste buds with expert gin tastings in the original Victorian kitchens. In fact, tucked away at n.48 Doughty Street, the museum’s original basement kitchens provide a unique setting for a truly Dickensian gin experience, with experts in artisan and small batch gin the London Gin Club offering the opportunity to taste a library of hand-picked gins they are passionate about. Maybe a past-fuelled hangover, might be a bit less tedious than your usual weekend sufferings.

The Blogazine 
12/02/2015

When Fashion Shows the Danger Then Fashion is The Danger

Bernhard Willhelm 3000 – When Fashion Shows the Danger Then Fashion is The Danger is an exhibition currently on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) in Los Angeles. It is artistic designer Bernhard Willhelm’s first time showing in an American museum. German born Bernhard Willhelm graduated from the Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts and presented his first collection in Paris in 1999. During the same year, he also founded his own fashion label with his partner Jutta Kraus after which his career has continued moving forward.

Willhelm has a talent for combining fashion design, visual art and social reflection all in one. As a designer, he is known to be conscious of what is happening around him and to critically reflect on this. The concept of fashion and art has long been debated. Fashion is often trivialized into a mere surface but exhibitions like Bernhard Willhelm 3000 showcase the complexity behind the surface by introducing a conversation between art and fashion in both a critical and intriguing way. In such displays art becomes more than just backdrop a frame, it becomes part of a wider context. In fact, a closer look at the title of this particular exhibition indicates an ambiguity of both talking about the general concept of “fashion”, but also the notion of fashion show as in runway shows, expresses the fact that fashion always needs a second glance.

The exhibition features sculptural installations, photography, video and other objects all selected and curated personally by Bernhard Willhelm, generating his unique point of view. His newest collection, referencing and discussing ecological disaster and climate change, is also to be presented as a part of the exhibition. In fact, Bernhard Willhelm sees this exhibition as : “a response to the uniformity of fashion in the 21st century and a forecast of the fashion experience in the 22nd century.”

Bernhard Willhelm 3000 – When Fashion Shows the Danger Then Fashion is The Danger is on display at MoCA in Los Angeles until the 17th of May 2015.

Victoria Edman – Images courtesy of MoCA 
11/02/2015

Timeless Histories: Turtlenecks

As usual, The Blogazine is glad to offer a public service announcement for anyone even remotely interested in fashion: turtlenecks are definitely back. Of course, this is not the first time we deal with the return of this classy item, but the 70s influence seems to be quite strong in 2015, hence the booming turtleneck upheaval.

While the very first prototype of a turtleneck has been used by soldiers during war, it has later been transformed by Queen Elizabeth I with starched ruffles, only later to be rediscovered under the name of Polo Necks. It was around 1860 when polo players from England started using them, soon followed by navy sailors, officers and menial workers, who adopted the garment as part of their everyday look.

During the last century, though, the high collar jumper turned into the symbol of intellectuals and artists, smoothing the way to early feminists, who, unassumingly, turned it into a real fashion trend. One of the most fashionable moment of the item, before Phoebe Philo brought it back with her 2012 campaign at Céline, is to be found in Funny Face, the cult movie about Richard Avedon, where a young and bright Audrey Hepburn matches a turtleneck with skinny black pants and ballerinas. That is surely one of those eternal moments in fashion: in fact, whether we should still see turtleneck in the future, or it will prove to be just a passing flare, it will remain an evergreen piece in that silly story that is fashion history.

Francesca Crippa 
11/02/2015

Joan Didion Seen Through the Lens of Julian Wasser

When Julian Wasser first shot Joan Didion in her home in Hollywood in 1968, little did he know that his nonchalant images of the literary hero would inspire a fashion campaign almost 5 decades later. Posing with ease and carelessness, Ms. Didion, shot for Time Magazine after the release of her book “Slouching Towards Bethlehem”, unknowingly anticipated her current status as fashion icon and model for the French brand Céline. After causing much internet upheaval – the campaign was shot by notorious Mr. Teller and shows Ms. Didion hidden behind a pair of oversized black sunglasses – the great writer is now the main subject of a show at Danziger Gallery in New York. As part of their ‘project’ series, the gallery showcases selected images of Ms. Didion shot by Julian Wasser, posing with her Corvette Stingray car, or while smoking or with her daughter Quintana Roo on her lap. Recalling the afternoons spent at the writer’s house – the photographer would shoot her five times over the next couple of years – Mr. Wasser said: “It was a nice, cozy house. And she was a very easy person to talk to. No Hollywood affectations.” And it is exactly that atmosphere that still appears in Ms. Didion’s portraits, even those ‘staged-not-staged’ images set forward by Juergen Teller.

Images by Julian Wasser – Courtesy of Danziger Gallery 
10/02/2015

Daily Tips: California Surfing and Climbing in the 50s

Too accustomed to fairly recent images of Californian surfers and skateboarders, it might come as a delightful surprise to see that adventurous subcultures have always shaped the landscape of the “Golden State”. A book released by Tom Adler, a publisher rooted in West Coast culture, titled “California Surfing and Climbing in the Fifties” uses text, paraphernalia, colour and black and white imagery gathered from a variety of photographers and private collections, in order to reconstruct the everyday life of the pioneers of surfing and climbing in 50s California. Reduced in size, yet rich in content, the book captures the spirit of a small group of individuals who have, ever since, shaped both activities, from the first ascent of Yosemite’s Half Dome northwest face to the first waves ever successfully ridden at Waimea Bay.

The Blogazine 
10/02/2015

From Abstraction to Life: Adventures of the Black Square

In 1915, Kazimir Malevich first showed one of his suprematist paintings, titled “Black and White. Suprematist Composition” at the exhibition “The Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings: 0.10” in St Petersburg. Malevich’s painting of a black square on white background established a radical rupture with the past by setting forth the notion that “the visual phenomena of the objective world are, in themselves, meaningless; the significant thing is feeling, as such, quite apart from the environment in which it is called forth”. “Adventures of the Black Square: Abstract Art and Society 1915 – 2015”, an exhibition currently on show at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, reads that specific moment as a crucial event that would forever change both art and life.

Understood as an act of subversion of established hierarchies, a rebellion against rigid social norms and a proposal for change, Malevich’s ‘black square’ is the starting point of a reflection on points of intersection between society, politics and abstract art through a period of 100 years, from 1915 until today. Divided into four different thematic sections – Communication, Architectonics, Utopia, the Everyday – the exhibition aims at showing how abstract art permeates different spheres of ‘reality’, precisely as it questions, or abolishes, the established relationship between ‘realness’ and representation. The ground floor of the exhibition, thus, departs with works that shape each of the exhibition’s themes, such as Lyubov Popova’s Painterly Architectonic, Gustav Klutsis’ loudspeaker stands, or Sophie Taeuber-Arp’s wall hangings. These seminal works are, though, only a small part of the curators’ narrative on the intersection between art and society. The show, in fact, presents a rich structure as it showcases design, painting, photography, film and video, sculpture, performance, textiles and participatory work. Therefore, Max Bill’s painting sits near a wall upon which images of Bauhaus’ students having lunch on the school’s terrace are projected, while Anni Albers’ “Hanging” builds a dialogue with Italian magazines of the first half of the 20th century.

Yet, as the exhibition progresses, the radical impulses of the beginning of the century are slowly substituted by a diluted vision of abstraction in art. Concentrated on gestures, social action and the political, the second half of the exhibition sets a different understanding of abstraction. Works such as Amalia Pica’s “Memorial for Intersection #2” or Sarah Moriss’ “Beijing” focus on the act of social and political subversion itself. But as art evolves and engages with society through its media and formats, it seems to have built a distance, a critical reflection and a fundamental division of art and life, perhaps bringing it far from what the initial ‘black square’ intended to achieve.

“Adventures of the Black Square: Abstract Art and Society, 1915-2015″, curated by Iwona Blazwick and Magnus af Petersens will run until April 6th 2015 at the Whitechapel Gallery in London.

Rujana Rebernjak – Images courtesy of the Whitechapel Gallery 
09/02/2015

Style Suggestions: Wool

Don’t lock yourself away during the cold months. Keep toasty warm and look great with these woolen essentials.

Coat: Isabel Marant, Sweater: Stella McCartney, Scarf: Acne, Beanie: Eugenia Kim, Gloves: Missoni, Necklace: Lanvin,

Styling by Vanessa Cocchiaro 

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