A spectacular exhibition currently on view at the CCCB in Barcelona gives an overview of the recent processes of construction and implacable deconstruction that China is undergoing. The contemporary urban design, architecture, landscape and infrastructure of various Chinese cities is analyzed in the light of the country history and culture
Asking for your help in collecting videos, information, links, online essays, artistic experiences, etc about the role of architecture, urbanism and technologies in the conflict Palestine/Israel
Last Summer, curatorial research group Capsula embarked on the first of its Curated Expeditions, a series of research trips that engage with earthly phenomena through artistic investigation.
3 artists were invited to the scientific Zoo in Novosibirsk, the capital of Siberia, in order to collaborate with scientists and other experts and study the impact of a total solar eclipse on animals and human beings
advertising
The first monography is the one of a painter who portrays contemporary life through cables, joysticks, feet and routers. The second book is a delightfully designed bible of a font which was highly popular in the Middle Ages and then got to bear the stigma of being associated with nazi propaganda
PCSO Watch dates from Oct 2007, when the founding member of the Office of Community Sousveillance was fined £30 by a Police Community Support Officer (PCSO), for cycling over the pavement to a cycle stand in Nottingham City Centre
The financial crisis might force the contemporary art world to find alternatives to a money-centered situation which had blown out of proportion, invent new survival strategies and readjust the way we value art
social
What is it that makes art famous and expensive? In his video Kunstmarkt TV Jankowski answers these questions by simulating a telemarketing show. He invited a professional TV-salesman and his attractive assistant to enact a TV-sale with art objects from contemporary stars
The exhibition at the CCCS in Florence features the work of contemporary artists which throws light on the mechanisms of the international art system. The selection explores different points of view, ranging from complete conformity to the prevailing rules of the market, to irony and sarcasm and even to an “anti-market” stance, taken by those anxious to avoid the commercial aspects of the art market entirely
The Transgenic Pheasant Embryology Art and Science Laboratory taught by Adam Zaretsky at the University of Leiden was a hands-on perfomance art wet-lab aimed at stimulating a debate about the use of new biological methods for permanent alteration of genetic inheritance
Women with Fire Masks, a photo taken in 1941 by photographer, reporter and model Lee Miller
The book highlights a current trend in international graphic design: more and more visual designers are staging their compositions as three-dimensional scenarios, in order to turn them into posters, magazine covers, web sites, and animated films
This new Biennial located right inside the area which Rem Koolhaas defines as the ‘hollocore’ was political, bold and intelligent if a little bit too much on the shambles side
A look back at 2008 and best wishes from me and from the (rather unwilling) Caribbean Pirate and Spaghetti Man
Jordi Colomer studies the way in which the modern city influences human behaviour and explores the ubiquity and drawbacks of modernism in the urban environment
One day, Daniel Eatock left his desk, found the car whose alarm had been interrupting his peace every five minutes, and waited for the siren to switch on. When the siren sounded, he started dancing like a madman. He made videos of several of his car alarm dances, never touching the car, only dancing to the sound pollutants
An exhibition in Paris brings together works by teachers and students of the celebrated Dusseldorf School: Bernd and Hiller Becher, Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Axel Hütte, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth and many others
How about talking money for a change? Rhizome, Turbulence and Art Fag City have given us a lot throughout 2008. Now is the time to give a little back
This provocative collection of photography, essays, and maps looks at infrastructure as a way of mapping our place in the city and affecting change through architecture
An uncanny installation currently on view at LABoral uses the strategies of the Electronic Voice Phenomenon, voice and pattern recognition, and face tracking to generate voices, and images from apparently closed, silent and empty spaces and systems
There is No Road consists of a range of artists’ projects that record or evoke a series of actual or imaginary journeys, either through the local landscape of Asturias, or through a comparably remote and mountainous terrain
Recognizing that Israeli colonies and military bases are excruciating instruments of domination, the project assumes that a viable approach to the issue of their appropriation is to be found not only in the professional language of architecture and planning but rather in inaugurating an “arena of speculation” that incorporates varied cultural and political perspectives through the participation of a multiplicity of individuals and organizations. How could the architecture of Israel domination be reused, recycled or re-inhabited by Palestinians?
With his Lolita figures borrowed from manga imagery, Mr. has made a name for himself in the space separating irony from candor. In this ambiguous representation of pubescent amazement, he has combined the feigned innocence of Nabokov’s heroine with another era and another cultural register. What comes to mind are his works that seem inspired from the figure of the young Heidi in her underwear in the Alpine meadows
The Lufttransa bus arrives in Brussels to denounce the practice of deporting refugees and immigrants living illegally in Germany and examine it in the context of the process of European integration
This is the fourth section of a work of seven dedicated to the Chernobyl tragedy and it focuses on Slavutych, a model city purposefully built to host the personnel of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and their families, evacuated from the abandoned city of Pripyat
The exhibition assumes that innovation of the architecture of dwelling can only be based on the interaction between ‘container’ and ‘contained’, that is, between architectural invention and changes in living ideals
Born as a mere advertising tool to sell napkins and toilet rolls, the paper fashion craze took off in the late ’60s. The exhibition is also looking at the way paper is used in fashion of today, showing design, art and publicity objects, filmed fashion shows and recent creations by some of the most innovating fashion designers
Mudam is Luxembourg’s very own and very classy museum of modern and contemporary art. I’ve been following their always exciting and bold programme for a couple of years and was very eager to see it but then you need a rock solid motive to spend a day in Luxembourg. The other day i woke up and decided that MUDAM would be mine
Shoot an Iraqi is equally pertinent reading for those who seek insight into the current conflict in Iraq, and for those fascinated by interactive art technologies and the ever-expanding world of online gaming
Tombstones as a path to re-asses our relationship to communication
Paulistas much chagrined by the pauperism of this year’s São Paulo Biennial pointed me to its Off version. The Parlela is a selection of artists who invite us to reflect on the influence of space in their respective works. Although the selection stretches over several continents, most of the pieces are by Brazilian artists
Cinema Sim is not an exhibition about cinema, but rather about the idea and concept of cinema and how contemporary artists imbue their works with creative and aesthetic principles that hark back to the cinematic language and its means of expression
The latest issues of two of the best magazines you could get your hands on, The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest and Volume, are out and i beg you not to bypass them
Eduardo Srur dressed 16 official statue around the city with orange life jacket in order to remind passers-by of monuments they don’t even see anymore
Domesticated jungle meets contemporary art. If the Xanadu of art existed it would be this place. Or at least something disturbingly similar.
Material Beliefs takes emerging biomedical and cybernetic technology out of labs and into public spaces. Its members use design as a tool for public engagement, a mean to stimulate discussion about the value and impact of these new technologies which blur the boundaries between our bodies and materials
I am going to be miss the broadband during the 20+ hours of a trip to Brazil for the arte.mov festival so, please, do me a favour and broadsurf for me
El Bòlit, a brand new Contemporary Art Center located in Girona (SP), is still waiting for a proper building, but that doesn’t prevent the center to have strong personality, dauntless attitude and a very promising exhibition programme
Robert Kusmirowski’s UHER.C is a classical, archaic sculpture that has gone berserk: it is both the nightmarish and joyous side of machine
The exhibition, currently running at the Swiss Architecture Museum in Basel, explores the little-known architecture of the post-socialist period and the result of unregulated, uncontrolled urban planning in the countries of South Eastern Europe
Call for the presentation of projects where science, technology and art converge into prototypes and installations that use software, hardware and biology