Category Archives: Kunst
Windows Morph Into Balconies – Really
Dutch Architecture and design studio HofmanDujardin have developed an innovative window that morphs into a balcony at the push of a button.
The award-winning design has progressed beyond the prototype phase and is currently in production with the first models slated for select apartments in Amsterdam.
The balcony was engineered by French manufacturer Kawneer France and consists of durable, all-weather materials. Watch the video.
Graffiti of the Week – Street Art Nr. 204
Rock The Shack – This Is What We Dream About
Rock the Shack takes us to the places we long for. For the first time in the history of humankind, more people live in cities than in the country. Yet, at the same time, more and more city dwellers are yearning for rural farms, mountain cabins, or seaside homes.
These kinds of refuges offer modern men and women a promise of
what urban centers usually cannot provide: quiet, relaxation, being out of reach, getting back to basics, feeling human again.
Rock the Shack is a survey of such contemporary refuges from around the world—from basic to luxury. The book features a compelling range of sparingly to intricately furnished cabins, cottages, second homes, tree houses, transformations, shelters, and cocoons. The look of the included structures from the outside is just as important as the view from inside. What these diverse projects have in common is an exceptional spirit that melds the uniqueness of a geographic location with the individual character of the building’s owner and architect.
The Broad – The World’s Coolest Museum?
Traveling up through the middle of The Broad in the round, glass elevator you can peek inside what’s known as “the vault”— an entire floor storing the Broads’ collection of more than 2,000 paintings, photos and sculptures.
On the top floor of this new Los Angeles landmark, diffused natural light pours in through skylights. There’s work here from Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, Keith Haring, Cindy Sherman and Chris Burden. There’s an entire room for Takashi Murakami.
This is the gift to the world made possible by Eli and Edythe Broad. Forbes estimates Eli Broad is worth $7.4 billion. He made his fortune building suburban tract homes, and also running an insurance company. He and his wife bought their first artwork — a van Gogh drawing — and then quickly switched to collecting contemporary art. He says they liked buying works with social or political meaning. And along the way, they’ve gotten to know the artists personally.
Called The Broad (pronounced brode) and housed in a $140 million, three-story building by Diller, Scofidio and Renfro, it enshrines the collection of some 2,000 works. There are 2 main stars: The building itself and the Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrored Room, a mirror-lined chamber housing a dazzling and seemingly endless LED light display, Just beautiful to put it mildly.
Vogue 100: A Century of Style – National Portrait Gallery
Fashion may be fickle, but the fashion photographer’s lens is also a mirror. ‘Vogue 100: A Century of Style’ is as much a reflection of a hundred years of our history as it is a celebration of the original glossy.
Born in 1916 during WWI, when shipping the US magazine became impossible, British Vogue has always been more than a fashion mag. And this exhibition is so much more than a collection of pretty models in pretty clothes – JG Ballard and Aldous Huxley have both written for Vogue. A pre-fatwa Salmon Rushdie has shared an issue with John Galliano, years before the latter’s fall from grace. Both Queen Elizabeth and her boozy mum have appeared. And, of course, most of the century’s best photographers have shot for its pages.
In this thoughtfully arranged show, at the National Portrait Museum in London it’s the little details that make the difference – from the cocktail style menu of credits in the 1930s room to the wall of seemingly disparate portraits of actress Helena Bonham Carter, milliner Stephen Jones and model Ben Grimes-Viort – united by a colour scheme of feathery pink. A side room shows a series of slides from the ’40s to the ’90s; as though you’re in the cutting room, you watch images go from picture to page.
Graffiti of the Week – Street Art Nr. 202
Car Seat Headrest – Teens of Style – Best Album of The Decade?
Will Toledo: a name (part pseudonym) that you’re unlikely to be familiar with unless you’re from the small town of Leesburg, Virginia, where Toledo has been recording music at a staggering rate for years from the confines of his bedroom. Released via Bandcamp at giveaway prices (mostly decided by the buyers themselves), he’s clocked up a breathtaking 11 albums in the five years or so since he began at the age of 17.
Anyone new to Car Seat Headrest is, quite frankly, in for a jaw-dropping discovery. The quality of Toledo’s songs is gobsmacking; the lyrics are enthralling, the melodies are to die for, the musicianship is raw yet brilliant. OK, Teens Of Style is a compilation, in some ways a best of – although fans would be quick to introduce you to other tracks that are held in even higher esteem – but it serves as a perfect introduction. Toledo is an introvert; it was always the intention to gain a wider audience, but how he will handle the inevitable clamour coming his way is a little concerning. He is, undeniably, a 24-carat genius and Car Seat Headrest are utterly brilliant. The album was released at the end of last year but hurry as the next gem is already around the corner. The first proper studio effort – Teens Of Denial – is due soon and will for sure be off to a flyer too.The first song Vincent shows you what to expect. F****** amazing.
Graffiti Of The Week – Street Art Nr. 201
Laurent Moreau And His Gift To Mankind
A quick leaf through any one of Laurent Moreau’s many filled sketchbooks and you’ll see that he finds inspiration in nature. Laurent enjoys more down-to-earth pleasures, gardening, sitting in fields, and it shows in his work. His images are full of decorative plants and animals drawn by someone who clearly has a passion for them. It is something he says emanates from his youth growing up in the French countryside.
There’s obviously nothing wrong with an artist working digitally, but it’s interesting to see someone who works almost exclusively in traditional materials and still creates something fresh and modern. Laurent prefers to work by hand, whether painting or printing. The experience of working in these materials is important to him, the smells of the ink, the tactility of the paper. It’s an intuitive way of working that really pulls out some beautiful results.
Dans la foret des masques is one of the most beautiful books I have ever seen. Not just for kids but for everyone who is still left with some imagination. A book that can make you happy – very happy. Available in all languages – the German version has just been published.