We love this insane project by the Japanese artist Makoto Azuma named Exobiotanica. Two weeks ago, in the week that NASA was celebrating the 45th anniversary of the first moon landing, Azuma pioneered a new kind of space endeavor by sending plant life to the edge of space. The result of this enterprise are some of the most beautiful surrealistic, extraterrestrial images since Apollo 8′s famous Earthrise imagery was shot. Using GoPro and Fuji Film cameras, the florist-turned-artist got both film and still shots of the entire process as the plants lifted off from Black Rock Desert in Nevada and traveled to almost 30 kilometer above the earth’s surface, the ceiling of the giant helium balloons used to propel their ride towards the perfect backdrop where these tremendous images were shot. [ Continue reading ]
We really like the most recent collaboration by the ever-inspiring publisher and producer of artworks CASE STUDYO, this time with regular collaborator Dutch artist Parra. With the sculpture named ‘Cold’, the Amsterdam-based artist once again translates his unique signature curved post-pop imagery into a beautiful porcelain sculpture. A surreal and hybrid character of a female birdlike creature with hands around the legs looking for warmth. The eye-catching sculpture comes in a screen printed wood box with a signed and numbered certificate of authenticity by the artist, making it another signature high quality addition to the already great catalogue of CASE STUDYO. [ Continue reading ]
From March 26th to May 6th 2014 the first retrospective on the art and design collective led by Piergiorgio Robino, Nucleo, named 'Manifesto' took place in Parisian Hôtel de Galliffet. The exhibition was conceived and realised by the Nilufar Gallery of Milan, and curated by Elena Giulia Abbiatici and Melania Rossi. It was set up under the 'Promises of Art' program, which aims to promote young talents from the ultra-contemporary Italian art scene. Manifesto tells the story of the highly creative collective and its assertions. A thought which translates into action, a meeting at the peak of artisanal and artistic research. Nucleo's work is simultaneously material and conceptual: molded by many hands, it has the ambition to combine three forms of knowledge: theory, practice and production (theoria, pràxis e poiesis). [ Continue reading ]
'Cy-collage' was the great pop up exhibition by the London-based collective Colectivo Futuro during last Spin London. Housed inside the iconic Old Truman Brewery building on Brick Lane, the exhibition featured works from both International and local, London-based, artists, most of which had been previously featured in the inspirational colectivo futurist series on their online platform. Each artist was commissioned to interpret cycling through the use of collage as a technique. In the eyes of Colectivo Futuro, like the act of cycling, a collage piece is made up of carefully assembled parts that harmoniously fit together to achieve their purpose, which resulted in beautiful raw works with a somewhat punk aesthetic. The unique and limited pieces by the artists are from now on for sale through Colectivo Futuro's webstore. [ Continue reading ]
Julien Rademaker is one of those people who has successfully translated his love for collecting into a personal blog project named Gevonden op Marktplaats, which gathered a large following rather quickly, making it the most-desirable location on the internet for every Dutch seller to be mentioned on. Julien uses his platform to showcase an ongoing curation of rare and stand-out furniture, objects, art, and other curiosities that he spots on Marktplaats, which is the Dutch equivalent of Ebay. As the digital world still quite lacks the aura of the materialized world, Julien has stretched the horizon of his project once again, after doing his first live event 'Spullen waar we niks vanaf weten' in December 2012, together with architect Samir Bantal he now presents: 'De Gevonden op Marktplaats-Salon' taking place the 5th until the 8th of June. Where in 2012 Julien and Samir only did a small exposition/sale of curated goods, the two friends now will fill up a large space on the Looigersgracht 60 in Amsterdam, which they arranged in different thematic areas or rooms; from baroque, Memphis Milano to Hollywood Regency. [ Continue reading ]
We highly recommend the inspirational exhibition 'Dries Van Noten Inspirations' in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris after visiting it last weekend. It is the very first exhibition devoted to the artist’s work and the broad field of inspirational sources for the designer of the Antwerp Six, making it an multidisciplinary feast for the senses. Dries Van Noten takes the spectator on an intimate journey into his artistic universe, revealing the singularity of his creative process which he illustrates with his various and numerous sources of inspiration. One receives an eye opening experience into the space within van Noten's mind or rather soul, bringing together the designer's men’s and women’s collections with iconic pieces from the museum’s fashion and textile collection. The show also includes photographs and videos, film clips, musical references, as well as artworks by renowned artists, from public and private collections, that have triggered the designer’s imagination throughout his life and career, making it one of the more extraordinary fashion exhibitions created till date. [ Continue reading ]
On the 8th of May the Toronto-based gallery Narwhal opened an extensive solo exhition of The Godfather of Japanese Eroticism, Toshio Saeki. His beautiful but at the same time sometimes repulsive artwork draws from the basement of a collective subconscious, depicting universal taboos through surreal narratives and dark humor. Filtering imagery from his photographic memory and childhood experiences through imagination and dreams, Saeki splits open a universally erotic world where iconic characters subject themselves to grotesque behaviors staged within traditional Japanese environments. [ Continue reading ]
On the 23th until the 25th of May, the remote and beautiful surroundings of Ireland’s Inis Oírr, will welcome the return of Drop Everything, a free contemporary culture Biennial, for its second edition. Situated on the edge of the Atlantic and close to Galway, Inis Oírr is the smallest of the three Aran Islands and provides an unforgettably atmospheric and unique setting for this intimate weekender of creativity and culture. Visitors to the island can expect talks, installations, screenings, DJ sets and impromptu pop-ups across the island, as well as communal dining, a curated boutique of editions and products created by the collaborating artists and ample opportunity to explore the wild beauty of this tiny and remarkable place. [ Continue reading ]
On the 1st of May graphic artist Andy Rementer returned to New York City-based gallery Mondo Cane, with his third solo show of new and previously un-shown paintings and drawings. The 'Meet Me Later' series transports the spectator to seemingly familiar street corners, domestic situations and subway platforms populated by characters caught in frozen moments of furtive activity. The work has a timeless quality which seems to draw from influences as diverse as Léger, The Italian Renaissance and even the narrative economy of Raymond Carver. Ambiguous narratives connect the work, while the spirit of Rementer’s work, with his familiar high key colors in the paintings, bold decorative patterns and the familiar but odd characters which interact in unexpected and often humorous ways with the surroundings in which Rementer has placed them. [ Continue reading ]
We are still amazed by the latest work of New York-based Australian artist Ian Strange for the 2014 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia, within the "Dark Heart" theme. The pitch-black site specific public installation is the structural recreation of the artist’s own 1920’s suburban-style home in Australia. Positioned on the forecourt of the gallery, the amazing ‘Landed’ has seemingly fallen from the sky breaking the surface of the ground it sits on, heavily juxtaposing the neo-classical composition of the museum. At the same time the iconoclastic work materializes the familiar post-modern theme of isolation, heavily experienced in suburban picket-fence-dominated landscapes, which for one is a theme one finds in the work of people like David Lynch to which this work seems to refer to, next to the inspiration Strange found in The Wizard of Oz. We love both execution and concept of this beautiful work by Strange and applaud the gallery for its boldness in accepting a project of this kind. [ Continue reading ]
In 2010 the Los Angeles-based architect Robert Stone finished his creation of something spectacular and totally unexpected on the fringes of the Joshua Tree National Park, boasting with every ingredient to amaze its spectator. Down a lonely stretch of dirt road Stone constructed this crazy amazing property, next to the sister project in all-black Rosa Muerta or 'dead rose', which both clearly show the architect's unique courage and vision and possibly even megalomania, as some have argued. With a very surreal aesthetic the project that was named Acido Dorado, which translates to 'golden acid', is a glamorous larger-than-life golden palace that shimmers like a mirage and transforms inside and out throughout the day, with the changing light exemplifying the intrinsic quality of every noble metal: to shine brightly. [ Continue reading ]
His latest exhibition closed days ago at the Brooklyn-based Kunsthalle Galapagos, but we still love the ninth and former solo-exhibition 'No Blue Skies' by New York City-based artist Eric LoPresti, which took place at the same gallery little over a year ago. The artist’s abstract landscapes are fascinating investigations into the 'apocalyptic sublime'. Whether rendering nuclear test sites, aerial views of the scarred desert of eastern Washington State where he grew up, or ominous undisclosed explosions across a region’s expanse, LoPresti’s environments are ones of man-made disruption. In the paintings, LoPresti continues his use of the color field gradient to represent another landscape in transition. With as the main eye-catcher a 15-foot canvas of an ominous dust cloud, 'No Blue Skies' presents the terrifying, exhilarating moment when the shock of circumstance blinds us to both past and future. [ Continue reading ]
On the 8th of March Galerie Gabriel Rolt opened a new exhibition named 'Don't Sleep On Your Moon'. The exhibition is the fourth solo exhibition of Amsterdam-based artist Nik Christensen, who creates sumi ink works on paper. These rambling, often larger-than-life pieces contain haunting imagery that straddles the line between the natural and the artificial, the organic and the mechanized, by interspersing intuitive strokes with pixel-like building blocks. It’s a tightrope-balancing act, which Christensen has made even more explicit for the forthcoming exhibition, juxtaposing man and nature, society and isolation both in his methods and in his imagery. Frantic, kaleidoscopic, enigmatic, disruptive Christensen works leave the viewer dazzled and dazed, yet at pains to pinpoint what exactly makes these works so eerily unsettling. [ Continue reading ]
The Dutch artists Lernert & Sander continue their string of fascinatingly beautiful projects with their concept named 'Last Season'. Amsterdam-based Lernert Engelberts and Sander Plug created a concept in honor of the arrival of the new seasonal collections at high-end Maastricht-based boutique Kiki Niesten, which yearly creates a concept in honor of the TEFAF Maastricht art fair. 'Last Season' revolves around the reduction of last season's knitted garments by Céline, Chloé, Jil sander and Prada to balls of yarn: "symbols of hope and aspiration." From the 14th until the 23th of March of this year, the results of the proces will be showcased in the window display of Kiki Niesten. Every year during the renowned art fair TEFAF, the prestigious boutique in the heart of Maastricht takes pride in participating artistically to the TEFAF experience, with this year resulting in the great collaboration with Lernert & Sander. [ Continue reading ]
Today is the launch of the latest Amsterdam-based project of Dutch entrepreneur Casper Reinders named Libertine Gallery. The store and gallery is promising to be a large cabinet of curiosities, filled with neon art, Art Deco, stuffed birds and a robot. Libertine Gallery, which will open its doors at the Prinsengracht 715 for the public officially tomorrow, is the result of a collaboration between the passionate art dealer Fredien Morel from Antwerp (sometimes referred to as master of curiousa), interior fanatic Danielle Pakes, Mark Chalmers and Casper Reinders. The new interior design shop and art gallery stood on the wish list of Reinders for quite a while and with this set of collaborators it finally materialised. [ Continue reading ]
The Lotus Dome by Daan Roosegaarde is a living Dome consisting of hundreds of ultralight aluminium foils that unfold in response to human behaviour. The high-tech work of art has been travelling the world since it was created in 2012. Having been on display at a number of historical locations abroad, the Lotus Dome is now facing a contemporary juxtaposition with the Rijksmuseum’s 18th-century period room. The Lotus Dome comes to life in response to a visitor’s body heat. Hundreds of aluminium flowers unfold, a deep bass sound fills the space and light projects the lotus flowers onto the walls. Roosegaarde calls it Techno-poetry. The smart Lotus foil was designed by Studio Roosegaarde and its designers. The foil is made up of different layers of Mylar, a type of polyester, which makes the leaves fold and unfold in response to light and heat. [ Continue reading ]
Marc Giai-Miniet is a French artist who makes highly fascinating dioramas that tend to feature reproductions of human organs, crime scenes, submarines in basements, and our favorite: libraries. The libraries by Giai-Miniet are detailed and striking, replete with book cover art, author names, and identifiable typography. Occasionally a diorama’s title will conjure a loose narrative, an obscure starting point from which the viewer might further consider the art. Giai-Miniet balances the handcraft of tiny diorama 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 that's very surreal and a little sinister. [ Continue reading ]
Stratifications is a beautiful collection of five objects by Paris-based designer Krzysztof J. Lukasik, based on the complementarity between the simplicity of the designed forms and sophistication of the texture of the laminated marble. One of the goals of Lukasik was to rid marble of the heaviness it is often associated with in funeral monuments, making it more suitable for the modern interiors. The technique of laminated marble used by the designer is a way to break the massive aspect of marble by slicing it and also to use otherwise unused scraps, just like with glued laminated wood. Lukasik found this approach to the natural stone collaborating with an experienced stone mason. The outcome of the laminating of the marble allows to bring forth the graphic aspect of marble by breaking the linear pattern of the natural veining. The series of objects is somewhat an echo of the natural stratified appearance of marble as found in quarries, before being transformed. [ Continue reading ]
Recently we stumbled upon this amazing collection of invitations, programs, flyers, posters, and broadsides from the period 1985 to 1987 of the legendary New York-based Palladium nightclub via recto|verso. The level of creativity and diversity is truly astonishing. The Palladium was a cinema, concert hall and later a nightclub. Designed by Thomas W. Lamb and originally called the Academy of Music, it was built in 1927 across the street from the site of an earlier venue of the same name. Opened as a deluxe movie palace by movie mogul William Fox, the Academy operated as a movie theater and concert hall through the early 1970s. In 1985, the Palladium was converted into a nightclub by Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager. Japanese architect Arata Isozaki redesigned the building's interior for the club. When Rubell and Schrager took over a new important chapter started for the Palladium as the heart of the New York art and music scene, exemplified by this wonderful collection. [ Continue reading ]
Copenhagen-based photographer Adam Jeppesen's work challenges the boundaries between documentary and fiction. He is seen as one of the greatest talents in contemporary Danish photography, and we discovered his work during the last Unseen Photo Fair, after which Jeppesen's work by far resonated the most. His photographs inhabit a blurred territory where the real and the fictional become interchangeable. Even if the Danish artist seems to remain faithful to what is in front of his camera, he doesn’t seem to be too concerned about objectivity. The highly impressive work we saw at Unseen was part of the The Flatlands Camp Project. A series of work, recorded on a journey from the Arctic through North and South America to Antarctica. For 487 days Jeppesen travelled in solitude and from this long journey a series of melancholic, evocative landscape pictures have emerged. [ Continue reading ]
Last week the fascinating exhibition called ‘8 artistes & la terre’ has ended at the London-based gallery Erskine, Hall and Coe. The exhibition has been one of the most popular exhibitions to date at the gallery, and was based on the namesake book, which was published by Argile Editions in 2009. All of the eight artists knew each other before they created their work, with Jacqueline Lerat functioning as the lead artist, which resonated in a direct influence in the creation of their individual pieces. Some of the pieces really stood out in our eyes. We love the beautiful and raw sculptures by Claude Champy and Daniel Pontoreau and particularly the dolmen-like work of Bernard Dejonghe. At the same time we are also highly attracted to the the beautiful shape created by Setsuka Nagasawa. [ Continue reading ]
Last night at Fashion Week in Paris, heavyweight Raf Simons, succeeded thoroughly in surprising us and the rest of the world in a way reminding of his early days at the end of the last century. Both the overall aesthetic and the impact of the event, in which Simons collaborated on a label tag-base with American artist Sterling Ruby make the collection destined to be the most talked about of the season. The collection is part Raf Simons' signature immaculate tailored lines and part Sterling Ruby’s infatuation with aberrant psychologies. Presented in a form directly referring to the Punk/DIY patchwork Simons rose to fame with at the end of last century. Coats are collaged with pieces of fabric that seemed in an upward rush, about to fly off their foundation. Items are paint-spattered, bleach-splashed, a shark's ravening maw can be seen, as a grasping hand with shiningly painted nails; "icons of consumption" according to Ruby. From the tailoring to these graphics; the show makes one realize how far ahead he continues to be, and more importantly how much influence Simons has had, and very likely will have, on menswear. [ Continue reading ]
Kristin Victoria Barron, a interior designer who founded the company KRIEST in 2005, recently launched a fascinating collection of classical, material-driven small scale sculptures and lighting inspired by the ‘aether element’, or dream world. Barron was influenced by both mythical archetypes and her own dreams to create the interesting collection. By honing her sculptural craft through mentor Vladimir Rodin, celebrated jeweler and painter whose work for Kieselstein-Cord is in the permanent collections of the Louvre and Metropolitan Museum of Art, Barron was able to create a unique collection of objects that act both functional and is aesthetically appealing. Barron crafted her debut collection in three categories: vessels, objects and lighting. [ Continue reading ]
To celebrate the fact that the first Land Rover Defender was produced 65 years ago, Studio Job was asked to take this 4x4 in hand. In their own way, they have created an ode to the vehicle that makes many of us dream of adventures. Eventually, it has turned out to be more than simply a revised or upgraded vehicle. The result is a sculpture that questions escapism, power relationships and above all Studio Job’s own work. "Designing a car is the same as when, as a designer, you’re sometimes given the chance to redefine a hotel: it’s a higher goal. You don’t get such important commissions every day," says Job Smeets, founder of Studio Job. "On top of that, Defender is an emotionally charged icon. We’ve approached that golden carriage in our own way, maybe not so much from the angle of this one car but rather from the phenomenon of the holy cow in general." [ Continue reading ]