Archive for the 'art + media' Category

Wolfgang Tillmans at the Stedelijk CS

WolfgangTillmans-Work01

© Wolfgang Tillmans

The latest exhibition in the temporary location for the Stedelijk Museum CS will be a show curated by Wolfgang Tillmans (b. 1968) which includes his own work situated amongst other artists. The show is entitled, Presence of Mind, and will run through June 20th - September 30th, 2008. While previous works will be included, the show will also include the museum’s recent acquisition, an installation by Tillmans titled, Stedelijk Room.
Continue reading ‘Wolfgang Tillmans at the Stedelijk CS’

perceptive pixel

you like your new multitouch-pad?
check this out:

pixel.jpg

also check Jeff Han’s presentation @ TED two years ago:

well be standing at drawingboards again!
Thanks for the link Alex!

Get A Flag!

picture-4.png

June 11th the first Museum entirely dedicated to Graphic Design will be opened by our Queen Beatrix in Breda.
For the opening my friend Teun Castelein will make his graphic statement out of concieved content from 250 participants. Everybody is welcome to design its own flag and mail it to flag@graphicdesignmuseum.com. All designs will be printed on unique flags and put against the building. The result will be an explosion of information. A colourful art piece at the old baroque building of the supermodern Graphic Design Museum.
Really a piece of art that makes people think about modern visual communication, about the position of musea in the contemporary image-culture and the fact that everybody is a designer/ image-maker nowadays.
Continue reading ‘Get A Flag!’

Parlez-vous Francais? Don’t miss Métropolitains.

I recently discovered a radio program that is broadcast by Radio France Culture every Wednesday from 10 to 11 am. Called Métropolitains, this show existed since 1999 and is hosted by the architectural critic François Chaslin. Métropolitans is a program about architecture and the city. With a smooth voice, François Chaslin and his guests talks about several subjects from landscape architecture to design, lighting, scenography, exhibitions, the city and - of course - its buildings. For example the show of February 27 was entirely dedicated to the British architect Richard Rogers, who is presently presenting a monographic show at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Also have a look at the 5th of March show, which was dedicated to the philosopher and architect Wittgenstein. Celine Poisson, specialist of the Wittgenstein house and professor of design at the Université du Québec à Montréal, was guest of the show. On the 20th of February the roles were reversed: various architects and historians challenged François Chaslin on issues regarding the actual status of architecture.

You can download Podcasts and archives of the show at the Métropolitains site.

Questions & Flowers - a Retrospective by Fischli & Weiss

Pigs

Peter Fischli / David Weiss: “Objects From the Raft”, 1982; Source: unknown

This sunday i went to see the exhibition of swiss artist duo Fischli & Weiss in Milan,Italy, organized by the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi. Get the first impression by a video on youtube. It runs until the 16th of march, but afterwards it will move to Hamburg (18. April until 31. August in the Deichtorhallen Hamburg). The exhibition space is the beautiful Palazzo Litta, the perfect frame for their work. They are dealing with a wide range of means: multimedia installations, photography and sculptures.Their most famous piece of work is the movie titled “Der Lauf der Dinge” (How things go), from 1987, at the documenta 8. Their basic principle is to pick up objects and situations of daily life and transforming them into a new context. What do they exactly aim at? Do they try to find answers on the philosophical and theoretical questions of life is their irony and also tremendous humour a notion to cheer up in a complex world?
One extract of a Super 8 movie shows Fischli & Weiss, dressed as a bear and a rat, strolling through Hollywood, questioning life.The bears’ comment ( in “the least resistance”): ” I hate this chaos in the world. Nothing works. Everything is hopeless and sad.” Continue reading ‘Questions & Flowers - a Retrospective by Fischli & Weiss’

Stasi Spaces @ FOAM, Amsterdam

FOAM-Stasi-01

© Daniel and Geo Fuchs; Source: FOAM

Amsterdam’s finest photography museum, FOAM Fotografiemuseum, has what should be an excellent exhibition opening on the 14th March. The new exhibit by Daniel & Geo Fuchs: STASI – Secret Rooms runs until the 4th June 2008, and documents the interior spaces used by the East German Stasi.
Continue reading ‘Stasi Spaces @ FOAM, Amsterdam’

Mole’s View

madrid from below

Advertisement clip for Madrid’s metro. Via my favourite daily blog and source of beauty, monoscope.

Touw & Barayazarra Art Opening at the Duende

Duende Presents

Exhibition Poster

Dutch artist Liesbeth Touw and Spanish artist Zigor Barayazarra will exhibit their recent work at the Duende artist-run studios in Rotterdam. Both artists have been working at the studio in the artist’s residency program. The exhibition opening runs between 19.00 and 22.00, Thursday the 20 December at the Duende studios (map).

Mies Rediscovered

Mies Flickr Grid

Mies van der Rohe Contemporary Photography (via kosmograd)

My journey as a teacher to Syria is also a journey back to the architectural roots of modernism. The students here are innocent when it comes to history, so It was back to school for myself: I reverted to study Mies & Corbusier again, in order to pass on the knowledge. This is why I was excited by this find:

At auction house Jeschke, Hauff & Auvermann in Berlin, on November 13th 2007 is an auction of 123 photographs from the prewar ouevre of Mies van der Rohe. Now my understanding is that Mies was notoriously restrictrive about images of his work being distributed and published, so these are a real find. But their provenance is debatable, and their origins unknown.

Read on on Kosmograd.

Kosmograd tediously collected the auction’s images in a flickr-set. Among them pictures of the original (!) Barcelona Pavillion, The Weissenhof Siedlung and Haus Tugendhat. Thank you.

Zumthor in Cologne: The Art Museum of the Metropolitan Bishop

p1010072.JPG

Facade of the Kolumba museum, photo: Claudia Strahl

The swiss architect Peter Zumthor built an art museum around the wreckage of the parish church St.Kolumba. commissioned by Cardinal Meisner (lately in the news with his comment of “Entartete Kunst” on Gerhard Richter’s design for the window Koelner Dom) , the won competition in 1997 was finally realized 10 years later.The museum is an archaic castle for religious art of 2000 years sycamore culture as well for modern installations.

Kolumba consists of several periods in architecture history: starting with the late Gothic church St.Kolumba, the chapel “Madonna in den Trümmern” ( “Madonna in ruins” ) was buillt in 1950. Interestingly enough, the architect of this little chapel, Gottfried Böhm, made now the very controversial discussed design for the Zentralmoschee Köln Cologne Mosque Project. Continuing 1973-1976 with the archaeological excavation, finalized by Zumthor’s new design.

Continue reading ‘Zumthor in Cologne: The Art Museum of the Metropolitan Bishop’

Taryn Simon - USA’s secret places

Storage of atomic waste

Storage of atomic waste: 1936 capsules are standing in a water bassin, the radioctive glow is overcoming the thick steel walls

The New York photographer Taryn Simon shows the unknown and furtive of American society. At first glance with an incredible beauty it turns to a prickling scariness when understanding the content. Her first popular piece of art is about the Body Farm: a forensic institution in Tennessee which analyzes the decay of human bodies for the purpose of criminal research. One of her picture shows a dead body lying in scrub, hidden in the darkness. The boy is still wearing sneakers with legs which look burnt. With this series she provoked a lot of protest and the institute is now strongly observed.

She attempts to access the most secret rooms, landscapes, laboratories, dumps or archives in America. Simon succeeded even to enter the Nuclear Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility in Hanford (Washington) which preserves 1936 steel capsules of atomic waste with 120 million Curie of radioactivity in total. The cold glow of the rays is overpowering even within the steel capsules, which are several meters thick. There is probably no other place in America which is more polluted. As Simon writes, the core of the project is the “total detachment of expert knowledge and official publicity.”

Publiek: Take a piss here!

Monica Bonvicini-site

Don’t Miss A Sec, Monica Bonvicini (Photo: Darrel Ronald)

Sculpture International Rotterdam has just opened this years public art installations, Publiek, showing the work of Ugo Rondinone (CH), Monica Bonvicini (IT/DE) and Germaine Kruip (NL). The work is clustered around Rotterdam’s historic City Hall along the Coolsingel, and activates the city on multiple scales, from the interior space of the recently closed Postkantoor, to the rooftop signage of the Generale Bank, to the doorstep of the City Hall. The outdoor exhibition will be open daily, and is on display until the 18th November, 2007. Above and below Monica’s amazing piece Don’t Miss A Sec, a public toilet made entirely of one-way mirrored glass, causing its user a disconcerting feeling of exhibitionsm or inverse voyeurism.

Continue reading ‘Publiek: Take a piss here!’

Art @ Duende - Last Minute Notice

Vicky Falconer

© Vicky Falconer

The Duende (new website) artist-run studio in Rotterdam is one of the city’s finest initiatives. This Saturday, 22nd September, at 17.00 is a vernissage for recent artists working in the studios. Miren Arenzana (ES), Vicky Falconer - personal site (UK) and Saskia Schuler are the three artists presenting their work.

Building without Building

We Love To Build 4

We Love To Build™ (collage: Paul Hollingworth, 2007)

UK based Designer Paul Hollingworth has created a beautiful Flickr-Set of surreal photo collages. His photoshopped visions are architecture with a graphic designer’s approach, never meant to be built (not unlike most architect’s projects). Click on the images to see a higher resolution version of them.

Continue reading ‘Building without Building’

Upcoming Events

abstract water photoworks 2007

abstract water (Philipp Geist, photoworks 2007)

The august break is over, and we’re back at drinking beers in galleries and openings instead of plain bars. We’ll rewire our cultural neurons starting tomorrow at the lecture at the NAI of José Oubrerie about his work with le Corbusier:

The architect José Oubrerie (72) worked for Le Corbusier from 1957 to 1965. In this lecture he will talk about his cooperation with Le Corbusier and in particular about one of his last works, the building of the church of ‘Saint Pierre’ in Firminy, France. This was a long-term project that was only brought to a final conclusion, under Oubrerie’s supervision, last year. “We never stopped fighting for the project,” José Oubrerie comments. “We came back to the work again and again, like an actor who must bring the same freshness to a play even at the 200th performance.”

This Saturday (1st Sep.) you’ll find us at the opening of Riverine, a media installation of my friend Philipp (aka Videogeist - check his website and beautiful work on flickr) from Berlin. The event is hosted by club 11 in Amsterdam, DJ Schege from Tied&Tickled Trio takes care of the music.

In his video-room installation ‘RIVERINE ZONES CONNECTED’, multimedia artist Philipp Geist displays video recordings and video stills from national and international rivers. Using underwater video cameras Geist has filmed the world beneath the surface. It is an attempt to get in touch with our immediate reality; an artistic examination about the ubiquitous element of water. Geist manages to show a part of our reality that is usually hidden from us.

The weekend after the Wereld van Witte de With festival starts featuring heroes as a theme.

Festival De Wereld van Witte de With is traditionally set in the second weekend of September: from Friday the 7th till Sunday the 9th of September 2007. For three days this arts-festival will show you the present art along the Witte de Withstraat and the Museumpark quarter during the opening of the cultural season.
Again you can watch and enjoy fine arts, theatre, photography, film, music, literature, dance, fashion, debate and performances. The festival offers a platform to art-institutions, city-dressers, art-galleries, artists and fashion initiatives to show their work in a different way to their new and existing audience.
In short, the festival is an unique interdisciplinary mixture of art forms, lifestyles and subcultures. Be surprised on the boundaries or similarities of the different disciplines.

And we’re already looking forward to the skyscraper weekend on the 20th to 22nd of September. Learn more about it and the upcoming artpark and the last days of Follydock in our Dysturb Calendar Section!

Random internet clippings

MVRDV Boijmans Extension

Boijmans van Beuningen Archive Extension (MVRDV)

Rotterdam’s top museum Boijmans van Beuningen gets a archive extension by MVRDV. I especially like the cross-section.

MVRDV Boijmans Extension

Boijmans van Beuningen Archive - Section (MVRDV)

Last week we pointed you to emerging architects and cities to go to, this week archinect interviewed offices about what they value in job applications. Useful. The shift to digital applications is remarkable, but it was about time.

Worth a visit is the recently launched site of REX, with a nice virtual tour through the Museum Plaza Project.

The former employer/partner of Prince-Ramus, Rem Koolhaas, will present the “Al Manakh” publication together with Ole Bouman at Rotterdam’s Nai on 10th of september at 8pm. Details in our calendar. If you can’t attend, you can as well watch your idol doing acrobatic stunts.

The Holcim Foundation started accepting entries for their sustainable construction awards. From their site:

The Holcim Awards competition is now open for entries and will close on February 29, 2008. The competition celebrates innovative, future-oriented and tangible sustainable construction projects from around the globe and provides prize money of USD 2 million per three-year competition cycle.

The Holcim Awards (main category) competition is open to projects at an advanced stage of design with a high probability of execution. To be eligible for entry, the project must not have commenced execution prior to June 1, 2007.

In addition, a “Next Generation” category is open for project visions at a conceptual level, early stage of design or with a low probability of execution. To be eligible for entry, the project author(s) must be less than 35 years of age at February 29, 2008. Please note there is no global phase of the competition for entrants in the “Next Generation” category.

Marcel Kronenburg, Tongue-in-Cheek Artist

Inflatable Tongue

Inflatable Tongue (Marcel Kronenburg, 2004)

Be it a children’s playground, a flaming roundabout or the scaled up, upside-down toy-train tunnel in a park and former tip-site in Rotterdam: Kronenburg’s ironic public art hits our nerve.

Continue reading ‘Marcel Kronenburg, Tongue-in-Cheek Artist’

documenta interview marathon

mini-marathon.jpg

german architecture & theory magazine arch+ put the first three videos or their interview marathon at the documenta online.

yes, its the same format as the serpentine gallery event and yes, its also Koolhaas and Obrist who are interviewing.
The first online videos are with Marie-Luise Scherer, former ‘der spiegel’ reporter (on journalism and writing), Karl Schloegel, historian (on bottom-up europe) and Thomas Schütte, sculptor (on his archi-scultures, life as an artist and many things more).

Unfortunately the interviews are almost completely in german. I didn’t know RK speaks such good german…

Looking forward for many more to come. The complete list should include:

Thomas Bayrle (*1937, Künstler, Frankfurt/Main)
Gottfried Böhm (*1920, Architekt, Köln)
Hannes Böhringer (*1948, Philosoph, Berlin/Braunschweig) Continue reading ‘documenta interview marathon’