Lehmann Maupin Gallery Opening in Hong Kong

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In efforts to tap into the lucrative Asian art market, international galleries are flocking to Hong Kong. New York’s Lehmann Maupin Gallery is the latest arrival to the city, with a new address in one of the city’s most iconic buildings. Located in Central, the neo-classical Pedder building dates back to 1923, and is the last surviving pre-war building in the area. Pritzker-prize winning architect Rem Koolhaas and his firm OMA were charged with the gallery’s renovation.

The inaugural solo exhibition, which runs from March 14 through May 11, spotlights Lee Bul, one of Asia’s leading female artists who has gained international fame through her mastery of diverse media. While the Korean artist is widely known for her inventive sculptures, the exhibition will also showcase a variety of her drawings and sketches.

Of her creative process, Lee Bul has said, “I start to sketch or just write about my ideas and put them up all over my wall in my studio, and everyday I watch this grow into a map of ideas until one day I think, ‘Maybe I can make this more concrete and specific.’” Several of Lee’s new sculptures, crafted by hand from polyurethane, will also be on display.

A second show, “Writings without Borders”, is scheduled for May, to coincide with the first edition of Art Basel in Hong Kong. The exhibit will compare different ways Eastern and Western artists use writing and language in their work.

In Conversation With Digital Designers

The UK is renowned for its fashion derring-do but attempts to embrace digital technologies still fall painfully short. Last night’s In Conversation with Crane.tv at Soho House focused on the revolutionary promise and ethical implications of wearable tech. We were joined by an audience that flowed out of the doors to hear panellists Nancy Tilbury and Benjamin Males, the pioneering co-directors of fashion laboratory Studio XO, being interviewed by Crane.tv’s Horacio Silva.  Among the topics of discussion was everything from dazzling LED-lighted stage gear worn by attention-seeking musicians to the computational fibres and digital skins that we will be able to paint onto our bodies. It may sound like something out of “Minority Report,” but as Tilbury asked of one skeptical audience member, “We have smart pockets with smart phones, why not smart clothes?”

Fashion POP

For London Fashion Week A/W13 we have sought out 8 of London’s most loved fashion figures to ask them some probing questions.

Want to know who would have his own cleaning company if he wasn’t in fashion, who would be a farmers wife and why its all about the moolah? Then look no further.

Releasing one a day throughout LFW the fashion POP’s feature Anna Trevelyan, Kit Neale, Peter Jensen, Phoebe English, Charlie Casely-Hayford, Stephen Jones, Alex Box and Lou Stoppard.

1/5: What Would you do if you didn’t work in fashion?

2/5: What is the biggest challenge facing young designers today?

3/5: What was your first fashion show?

4/5: What do you think about fashion films?

5/5: When was the last time you felt moved by something cultural?

Meow Exhibition

With mice kept at bay, the recent Meow Exhibition at Tokyo’s Design Festa Gallery purred with feline-themed artwork. (“Anything Cat related welcome!” was the gallery’s rallying cry to artists.)

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Design Festa Gallery — an offshoot to the biannual global art and design extravaganza, Design Festa, held at Tokyo Big Sight — is tucked away in a quirky alleyway in the city’s storied Harajuku district.

Since its inception, DFG has become the unofficial embassy for the freestyle art scene in Japan. With rates as little as 4 quid per day for its 21 exhibition spaces and 50+ smaller square wall spaces, just about anyone can show and sell pieces, so long as the work is original.

The Meow Exhibition featured thousands of works from over 60 local and international artists. To paraphrase one tart observer, that’s lot of pussy!

In Conversation With Young Moderns

Gary Card taking pictures of the audience

 

One part TED talk, three parts social club, last night’s In Conversation With Crane.tv at Soho House focused on the creative challenges and opportunities facing young moderns in London. Joining us were three of the city’s most influential young creatives: Gary Card, a set designer, illustrator and all-round polymath who has been named everything from “one to watch” to “the geek who stole Christmas.” (When asked what he thought of the latter tag he offered, “I’ll take that.”); Ingvar Helgason, one half of Ostwald Helgason, arguably the hottest fashion label to come out of London in a decade; and Konrad Wyrebek, an emerging force to be reckoned with on the UK art scene. Hosting the evening was our new editor in chief Horacio Silva, a New York Times alumnus who is a new transplant to London. While the jury was hung on a few points, one thing  was unanimous: if you’re after the big bucks, you need to be looking Stateside.

 

Gary Card taking pictures of the audience

 

Sculpture At Work

We first met British sculptor Nick Hornby back in April when we visited him at his church-like studio (watch below). Described by ES Magazine as “The New Gormley”, Hornby has teamed up with painter friend Sinta Tantra for his latest project, ‘Sculpture At Work’. The exhibition sees an ambitious fusion of sculptor and art, applying Tantra’s colour to Hornby’s complex combinations of architecture and the sculptures of past masters.  Not to miss.

Works from the series can be seen at SCULPTURE AT WORK : NICK HORNBY & SINTA TANTRA, in the lobby of One Canada Square at Canary Wharf, from Jan 14 – Mar 15, 2013.

 

The Modern British Man

Men’s wear moves by evolution not revolution. But if last season’s arrival of the first devoted men’s fashion week in London proved anything it was the importance of the risk-taking young British man to the fashion industry at large. In anticipation of this coming week’s London Collections: Men AW13 we talk to some of London’s most celebrated young designers, Katie Eary and Agi & Sam. Capturing the spirit of their idealised modern man is pro BMX rider Kenzo de Witte who rides around North London in this short film wearing pieces from their collections.

We also interview Joe and Charlie Caseley-Hayford, Lou Dalton, Marc Hare and design collective Fashion East to create a comprehensive overview of what’s in store for Men’s fashion.

Du Goudron et des Plumes by Compagnie MPTA / Mathurin Bolze

A recent performance degree left me, admittedly, with a disposition towards seeing anything that boasts an imaginative set and experimental approach. So I was immediately taken by the image of Du Goudron et des Plumes, a “darkly thrilling, inventive and exhilarating circus performance”. I needed no more convincing.

And there it was: the platform, gloriously lit, relentlessly moving, where all the action took place – on, under, around, swinging from side to side, tipping precariously at an angle. Cunningly compiled, this intriguing/uncertain world introduced us to five protagonists whose very existence was unexplained… Are they survivors of a shipwreck you ask yourself? Strangers forced together, estranged and exiled from the rest of humanity maybe? Whatever their reason for being, there is no doubt though that your mind follows them out to sea, with their emotions as stormy as the phantasmal waves the ship rides upon.

Over an introductory series of acrobatics, tumbling, wire-walking and a clever double act (where one actor standing on the platform is mirrored by his upside-down equivalent clinging onto the bars beneath him by his toes), you understand that though relationships are evidently fraught, the development of friendship and trust are necessary in achieving stability and coherence out of the escalating chaos.

Physically outstanding and engrossing to witness – episodes of drama, comedy, danger and moments of sheer beauty are skilfully combined with the (unusual and ingenious) set, lighting and music. The tension reaches breaking point as a graceful series of shadow puppetry turns sour, an ugly transformation from a soft sense of confusing distortion (playing with size and perspective) to a prolonged act of violent destructive aggression (the literal tearing down of the delicate paper screen).

As an experience, you find yourself drifting between the lull of following these agile bodies magically at ease as they maneuver within this topsy-turvy world, to levels of uncomfort at watching their awkward social interactions. The feeling of unease continues to build until the tempestuous sea reaches an explosive peak of anger destroying the set before your eyes.

A production by Mathurin Bolze (also one of the performers), he is one of today’s most original and brilliant young circus creators who in the past has worked with the infamous Archaos contemporary circus group (amongst many others) and was awarded France’s prestigious ‘Prix du Cirque’ in 2009.

Text by Carmen Ho

 

Nebula 12 – The Weather Forecasting Lamp

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Nebula 12, the latest invention from Swiss design studio Micasa LAB, may finally be able to answer Travis’s long-standing question: ‘why does it always rain on me?’.

Gathering meteorlogical data via the Internet, the ingenious lamp translates this data into atmospheric conditions indoors by combining liquid nitrogen and hot water to create a billowing cloud of steam, which is kept in circulation around the lamp by vacuum suction.

 

A Tale Of Two Cities

‘Neighbourhood’ is a wonderful short film by Vera Danilina and Saskia Kretzschmann, capturing visual similarities in two very different cities. Metropolis New York  (USA) meets the provincial Dessau (GER) in this beautifully shot piece.