We are very excited to premiere to the world this brand new series of phenomenal collages named 'King of Worms', which is the biggest project till date created by one of our favorite artists period: Ashkan Honarvar. The Norway-based visionary has been producing collages for almost a decade now, both under his own name as the pseudonym Who Killed Mickey, always finding inspiration in the dark side of humanity and from the questions that rise about it. The extraordinary new project is no different; consisting of 107 collages, divided in 10 chapters with a unique aesthetic, although undeniably marked with Honarvar's signature style. It was inspired by a quote from Jane Arden's film The Other Side of the Underneath, with the overall theme focussing on how power corrupts and is abused as well as the role men play in this misuse and women’s faith. In our eyes Honarvar succeeded tremendously in created something like a second personal layer for the film, which has almost mythical status amongst fans of radical, experimental cinema, because of its visionary and disturbing depictions of the mental state of its schizophrenic protagonist. Today we share a selection of the first 5 chapters of 'King of Worms', with the other half coming soon. [ Continue reading ]
AMMA Studio is the label of New York City-based design duo Samuel Amoia and Fernando Mastrangelo, which they founded only last year. Introducing materials never before seen in furniture design like rock salt, sand, coffee, silica, pink and gray Himalayan salts, AMMA’s creations are at once geometric and organic, rough and smooth, earthy and elegant. More than utilitarian, AMMA tables, stools, benches and consoles are enduring objects that merge sculpture and design. Based on the East Coast, AMMA Studio emerged from a unique blend of sensibilities. Interior designer Samuel Amoia contributes a vision for design, color, texture and furniture, developed through his own commissions and experience working alongside the celebrated Stephen Sills. Sculptor Fernando Mastrangelo brings a conceptual use of materials and an original casting process, the result of years of artistic practice. Together, they have developed a visual language inspired by nature and geometry. We are blown away by the raw aesthetic their experiments with material have resulted in, making their creations some of the most interesting designs we've discovered recently. [ Continue reading ]
During last year's London Design Festival, in the second collaboration with BMW group, British design duo Jay Osgerby & Edward Barbar created this incredible bespoke installation, the largest structure that they have ever created, for the annual event. The project named ‘Double Space' – Precision & Poetry of Motion— was an immersive experience constructed within the V&A museum‘s prestigious Raphael gallery that combines technical precision with poetic semantics. It was the British creatives’ intention to interpret the leitmotif of BMW’s design philosophy, ‘precision and poetry’, bringing forth an all-encompassing piece that merged technology and sensuality into a single experience. The kinetic installation is composed of two large reflectors, each composed of one flat wall of mirror and one curved surface, hovering over the 600 m² space where Raphael’s famous cartoons for his Sistine Chapel tapestries hang. The two shimmering volumes (each measuring 15 x 10 meters each) revolving on their own axis, either simultaneously or alternatively, collectively citing the monumental size of the Raphael gallery – "A place that cries out something great," according to Osgerby, with which we can only agree. [ Continue reading ]
Michaël Verheyden is a Belgian designer, based in the city of Genk, birthplace of Martin Margiela for one, in the West of Belgium. The very talented creative mind creates fashion accessories, home accessories and furniture with a distinct elegant robust aesthetic. Verheyden graduated as an industrial designer in 2001 and before starting his own design label, worked together with, among others, another Belgium design master; fashion designer Raf Simons. The highly influential designer coached Verheyden's graduation project and commissioned him to make a series of leather bags for his Spring/Summer 2003 collection. In the same year as working on the pieces for Simons, Verheyden started his own label focusing on leather bags and accessories, which trained his exquisite eye for detail and dealing with all kinds of different materials. [ Continue reading ]
The impressive exhibition named BLUEPRINT, which opened on the 24th of January in the New York City-based Storefront for Art and Architecture, asks individuals from the world of art and architecture to embark on a trip of self-reflection to identify a place of origination for their work in the literal and metaphorical form of a blueprint. The fascinating curation of 50 pieces, dating from 1961 to 2013, are presented as traces willing to bring clarity to work, practice and the context in which they were created, selected by photographer Sebastiaan Bremer and Florian Idenburg & Jing Liu of design office SO-IL. With the installation which was created for the exhibition by SO-IL, BLUEPRINT leaves the gallery in a totally new organic form, totally open, but at the same time closed and fixed. Wrapped in time and in space, the Acconci-Holl façade opens its doors permanently to the works that –while present in the show by reference– are outside the gallery walls. The space looses its literal operational transparency to become a white, translucent icon of its curatorial aspirations. Rendering everything on either side as a world of shadows, the installation denies the spatial properties and the implications of the processional exit of the platonic cave towards a world of truth. [ Continue reading ]
American artist Margaret Boozer is internationally renowned for her magnificent sculptural works, whose material hails from the very earth we walk on daily. The artist focuses with her creations on the individuality, history, and geology of clay used as subject matters. She finds her material at areas like construction sites, the direct surroundings of her Red Dirt Studio, in Mount Rainier, Maryland, or basically any place where purple, red, grey, brown, or orange clay might be found. Subsequently Boozer starts creating her works from the natural material without modifying anything. Everything is created by hand, with the sculptures ranging from more traditional forms like her paintings made out of clay, among which is for instance a delicate work of cracked white clay, named 'Winter Landscape', large floor installations like her 'Dirt Drawings' and 'Line Drawings', to constructions like the incredible 'Dichotomy of Dirt' consisting of clay disks, forming a beautiful wall-mounted work, which is our favorite piece by Boozer. [ Continue reading ]
In October of last year the biggest and most ambitious private museum of Paris opened its doors for the first time. The new institute named Fondation Louis Vuitton aims to become a monumental contemporary-art museum, housed in a building designed by the legendary Frank Gehry and commissioned by the LVMH director Bernard Arnault himself. In the first months visitors could tour the building, view sketches and maquettes of Gehry's design, and discover a rotating selection of artworks from the Fondation's own impressive collection. In December the very first art exhibiting was opened, featuring tremendous new work by the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson named 'Contact'. Like 'Riverbed', which we were lucky to visit at the end of 2014, Eliasson once again created a highly immersive world, but instead of a rocky riverbed he takes the visitor on a virtual space odyssey after which one is intermittently plunged into darkness, making the exhibition a dark opposite of his exhibition at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. [ Continue reading ]
In conjunction with the 'Contemporary Morocco' exhibit at the Paris-based Institut du Monde Arabe, which was designed in 1987 by French architects Jean Nouvel and Architecture Studio, a tremendous traditional Moroccan tent has been constructed on the square in front of the building. The beautiful project by Tarik Oualalou and Linna Choi of the Paris-based architecture firm KILO, harmonizes contemporary design and technical innovation with traditional fabrication methods. Constructed from more than 650 m² of camel and goat wool woven by female cooperatives in the Saharan desert, the tent serves as an extraordinary urban landmark and a fitting symbol for the 'Contemporary Morocco' exhibit. In a highly elegant fashion the design of the tent pays homage to the nomadic traditions of southern Morocco. The result of both the particular design as the location is a wonderful clash between both modern and traditional aesthetic as materials, making the project a highly fascinating temporarily highlight when visiting Paris. [ Continue reading ]
Since this summer the Humlebæk-based Louisiana Museum of Modern Art hosts the first solo exhibition of the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson. The main work on display in the extraordinary museum 30 kilometers away from Copenhagen which was exclusively created by Eliasson features an incredible giant landscape unfolded throughout the South Wing of the museum which he named 'Riverbed'. Although the radical work hints to grotesqueness in its core, from the moment when we were finally able to see it with our own eyes yesterday, we can only underline what everyone has said before us: walking through the 'Riverbed' is truly a tremendous experience. If in the position we highly recommend to visit the work before it closes on the 4th of January. Eliasson’s exhibition questions the meaning and experience of the museum itself, and the complexities of the relationship between the artist, building, and viewer. By exploring the process of inhabiting space, Eliasson focuses the visitor’s attention on the art itself by encouraging the visitor to explore the landscape. Thus, the visitor is both at the exhibit and actually on it: living the artist's mantra Contact is Content. [ Continue reading ]
This week inspirational Berlin-based industrial design studio Geckeler Michels released a limited silver edition of their fascinating HOLLOW object. HOLLOW is a self-aware home accessory which ties in with the genre of eccentric and generous centerpieces. It is mainly characterized by its visual idea of a graphical structure, the smoothness of intersecting tubes and its implementation in a precision milling technology. Each centerpiece is carved out of a solid aluminium block before its finely grain-structured surface is being treated by a durable anodized coating. The visual idea of a graphical structure and the smoothness of intersecting tubes are the main characteristics of this eccentric centerpiece. Each bowl is precision-milled out of a solid aluminium block before its finely grain-structured surface is being treated by a durable anodized coating. We love this minimal yet still elegant piece, which was beautifully caught by photographer Tobias Faisst. [ Continue reading ]
A year ago Pim de Graaff, an Amsterdam-based freelance copywriter, launched Nothing, a 2.6 x 2.6 x 5.1 inch piece FSC of certified wood with a matte black finish, each handmade and with a unique number, that intends to remind people to enjoy everything they already have, which from quite some perspectives can be seen as everything. The product went viral with posts on blogs like PSFK, Fast Company and swissmiss, which helped Pim to sell hundreds of Nothings this year. His wish was to sell a Nothing to every continent, in which he almost succeeded, with the exception of Africa. To finish the project in style, this Christmas Pim launches his final ten pieces of Nothing in a limited all-white edition, with the revenues of the final batch, no. 351-360 to go to Oxfam which fights poverty worldwide. [ Continue reading ]
We have been writing, indirectly, about the beautiful space at the Looiersgracht 60 in Amsterdam, which is a new project space for contemporary art, design and architecture, when they first opened their doors for De Gevonden op Marktplaats Salon earlier this year. The last few weeks the space has been hosting another incredible project named 'The End of Sitting', which closed last weekend. The project is an installation at the crossroads of visual art, architecture, philosophy and empirical science. In our society almost the entirety of our surroundings have been designed for sitting, while evidence from medical research suggests that too much sitting has adverse health effects. RAAAF [Rietveld Architecture-Art Affordances] and visual artist Barbara Visser have developed a concept wherein the chair and desk are no longer unquestionable starting points. Instead, the installation’s various affordances solicit visitors to explore different standing positions in an experimental work landscape. The project marks the beginning of an experimental trial phase, exploring the possibilities of radical change for the working environment, reminding of the aesthetic of fashion designer Rick Owens and the work of architect Daniel Libeskind. [ Continue reading ]
The Offenbach am Main-based David Schiesser is a very talented (tattoo-)artist of only 25 years old. He recently opened a small private tattoo studio where he works at least two days in the week, with the rest of the days focussed on his free work and preparations for exhibitions. After graduating in visual communication at the HfG of Main in the city of Offenbach he’s been working hard and slowly getting his work out, through his two main outlets. And even now he still follows the advice from renowned mentors, famous artist Manfred Stumpf and like-wise known graphic designer Eike König, who support Schiesser in his endeavors. His drawings show typical tattoo-aesthetic elements although in some work one even gets a sense of medieval artwork. Schiesser draws in ligne claire, reducing his work to the bare essentials, in which the artist succeeds to infuse a lot of personality through his unconventional juxtapositioning and overal subject choices. His main inspiration in these choices are the human body and its coexistence with technical expansion: how the sense of body have or will transform in the future. [ Continue reading ]
CITIx60 is a new pocket-sized collection of travel guides by Hong Kong-based viction:ary, the publishing brand of leading publisher viction workshop ltd, founded by Victor Cheung 13 years ago. The guides feature an artistic edge with a handpicked list of hotspots loved by 60 stars of the cities' creative scene, wrapped in a city map drawn by talented artists. Recently viction:ary presented, as an addition to the maps, a collection of collectors items in the form of beautifully illustrated maps, which were specially commissioned for the CITIx60 City Guides. The maps are produced as high quality art prints, in a limited edition of 60 respectively at A1 and A2 formats. Exaggerated details produced at gallery quality enable its collectors to re-explore the distinctive and elegantly portrayed landscapes of Tokyo, which was illustrated by Masako Kubo, Paris by Allan Deas and finally Berlin, by the talented Finnish illustrator Vesa Sammalisto. [ Continue reading ]
The inspirational Torino-based art collective Nucleo, which is directed by Piergiorgio Robino, recently collaborated for the second time with Gabrielle Ammann Gallery for PAD 2014, the fair for 20th century art and design. With these last amazing creations by Nucleo, which were exclusively produced for the gallery, they explored the the symbiosis of wood and resin, while the new pieces also incorporate references to stone and metal fossils, resulting in the Nucleo's representative blend of opposites; old and new, light and heavy, lost and strong and arousing the law of gravity and in their unique aesthetic which combines a highly futuristic sentiment with elementary organic forms. Stunning! [ Continue reading ]
We have written about the extraordinary work of the French artist Marc Giai-Miniet before and on the 11th of October his one of a kind sculptures have finally crossed the the Atlantic Ocean for his first solo exhibition in the United States. The work of Giai-Miniet is truly unique and balances the fine handcraft involved in the creation of his tiny dioramas with poignant explorations through memory, association, and dreamscape. His tiny homes, though dealing with images of mundane possessions, industrial equipment, and furniture, evoke a feeling which is surreal and even a touch sinister. His sculptures are heavily influenced by childhood visits to the garage his father worked in as a mechanic, hence the systematic arrangements of the spaces and industrial influences, but also the exposure of the images of the Holocaust at a young age are mentioned when one deconstructs where in his life the roots for his incredible art have grown from. [ Continue reading ]
Since the 10th of September inspirational Birmingham-based Ikon Gallery is hosting the first solo show in the United Kingdom of the extraordinary works of one of the most influential modern Korean artists: Lee Bul. The show is a judicious survey of early drawings, studies, sculptural pieces and ambitious installations, including a new commission especially made for Ikon, showcasesing the visually compelling and intellectually sharp works which have established Lee Bul to her status of one of the most important artists of her generation. In conjunction with Ikon’s exhibition, Korean Cultural Centre UK in London presents a large-scale floor installation entitled Diluvium. Lee has created a new version of the work, which is specifically designed for the exhibition space of KCC. Overall the elements combined of the exhibited both in Birmingham and London simply blows our mind, with both explosion-like shows feeling like some sort of perfect contemporary Gesamtkunstwerke. [ Continue reading ]
The Austrian-born and -based illustrator Stefan Zsaitsits creates highly fascinating dark pencil drawings of childlike figures in which he oftenly seems to hybridize particular thoughts and emotions directly on or with the body part which is involved, mostly the head. And even if he chooses to portray his subject in a more traditional fashion, one can always observe that sense of astonishment combined with a touch of fear. The results are surrealistic and sometimes even slightly repulsive raw images, which evoke a sense of unsettlement, clearly representing the unfiltered stream of thoughts one mostly finds within the disclosure of the world in all its beauty and hardships during childhood. And although most people lose that particular perspective on the world with the years, Zsaitsits rightfully seems to question if growing up inherently has to mean the end of sincere astonishment, despite the fact that most people choose it to be the case. [ Continue reading ]
On the 15th of September during the London Design Festival, The Map House, London's oldest seller of antique maps, relaunched their Mews Gallery with a beautiful exhibition of new work by prizewinning artist Kristjana S Williams, in a contemporary exploration of the traditional art of cartography which they named 'Art Cartography'. For this exhibition Williams brings incredible historical works of art back to life using her eye-catching signature style, by featuring new vibrant digital collages on historical maps of locations such as London and China as well as maps of the world. Alongside these intricate prints, the artist will also present her first ever three-dimensional hand cut paper collaged maps, and a series of her incredible designs superimposed on to globes of the world. Beautiful! [ Continue reading ]
Although there had been earlier clues towards it, last Friday one of our favorite artists of the moment, Ashkan Honarvar, announced that the collage works which have been released under the pseudonym Who Killed Mickey for the last three years were also the product of his fascinating mind and that the project now has ended. The idea for Who Killed Mickey, which progressively grew over the period of the last years, came up in order for Honarvar to have an output where he could use all his leftover scraps from his regular work, but also to create collages just for the fun of it. These prerequisites translated into some of Honarvar's most bold work, using familiar images from the fashion industry and pop culture combined with pornography and anatomical images, without a clear overall concept to be observed, but with his incredible signature aesthetic written all over it. [ Continue reading ]
Located at the ninth and last level of a building in Beirut, Lebanon, this tremendous three storey apartment is articulated by architect Bernard Khoury through an independent structure capping the building. Structurally, the apartment only shares the building’s vertical circulation core, as well as the perimeter along which its two peripheral walls lie. Beyond the ninth level, the structure of this residence becomes autonomous. The result is what resembles an independent house placed atop a building. Virtually situated on the former demarcation line which separated east and west Beirut, this apartment opens up onto the hell of its city, placing it neither east nor west but in between. Whereas usual preference for Mediterranean roof apartments is to turn their backs on the urban fabric in exchange for a sea view, this apartment is oriented toward the city, taking advantage of the setbacks imposed due to the surrounding projects defining its entire periphery. The result is a thrilling mixture between futurist, reminding of a giant robot, lines combined with a way more classical interior due to the use of wood making it a true gem within the heart of Beirut. [ Continue reading ]
We love elegant design which is boiled down to its core and the Square Wind Bell by the very talented Kouichi Okamoto of Kyouei Design inhabits everything of those elements. The designer, who first gained attention in the world of music at the end of last century and since stretched his spectrum of output significantly, created the minimum wind chime from metal and glass, utilizing the properties inherent in each of the resources used to produce sound. The Square Wind Bell is created out of two iron lower-outs covered in trivalent chrome plating, which are united to every single other by a basic slit in each and every corner, forming a mixed geometry that teeters on the edge of a consuming glass. As one plate catches the wind, the other acts as a excess weight, striking the transparent volume repeatedly and resounding with the action of the wind. Highly sophisticated and elegant. [ Continue reading ]
Last week the amazing work of the highly talented Singapore-based Michelle Yu was brought to our attention. In everything the 25-year old creates there is a sense of dark brooding energy to be found, and we particularly love the work named 'mad girl's love song' which is inspired by the poem with the same title written by American poet Sylvia Plath in 1951. Plath who suffered from depression most of her adult life, which she ended by suicide when she was 30, left an oeuvre of poems, short stories and a novel which are considered to be a significant milestone for the genre of confessional poetry, which focusses on individual experience, the psyche, personal trauma, and taboos. This sentiment of personal trauma, very apparent in 'mad girl's love song' is beautifully caught in the black and white drawing by Yu. All figurative elements in the drawing, a girl's head, hand and feet, two birds and what appears to be a set of lungs are drowning in a fire-like pool. Beautifully catching the emotions of despair and misunderstood love which are expressed by Plath. [ Continue reading ]
Since its foundation in January of this year New York-based WorkOf is changing the way interior designers and consumers connect to independent, locally made home décor by creating a go-to source for direct access to the nation’s independent designers and makers. Founders Charlie Miner and John Neamonitis saw that interior designers wanted an easier way to source independent design, and consumers were interested in furnishing their homes with locally made home décor but neither had a reliable destination to source these pieces and therefore they created the digital platform to provide in this service. Since its launch in January the start-up has grown to include over 40 designers and makers with more than 300 home design objects. During NYCxDesign this last spring, WorkOf debuted the inspirational WorkOf Apartment. Using close to 40 pieces from their partnered designers, the whole apartment installation introduced products from Calico, Souda, Eskayel and Vidi Vixi, among several others, resulting in an amazing overview of their catalogue which is now also offered online. [ Continue reading ]
