No wonder Junya Ishigami started with architecture firm SANAA. His architectural projects have a similar organic character you will probably recognized if you’ve read my previous blog post on Grace Farms, CT. Fondation Cartier pour l’ Art Contemporain currently offers an exquisite exhibition of Junya Ishigami’ s preparatory models, which are all works of art in their own right. If you are fascinated by new architecture or simply curious, rush to the exhibition to check it out. All models capture Junya Ishigami’s incessant quest to push back the limits of what is possible to build and how to build it. Yet what strikes me the most is how visually unique each architectural solution appears, as if Ishigami’s style was constantly reinventing itself, feeding off Nature’s infinite plurality of forms and shapes. Let me highlight a few projects to give you a flavor of what is displayed at the Cartier Foundation but if you can, go and check it out for yourself before September 9, 2018.
It’s hard to imagine a world where Claude Monet would need “rehabilitation”. His Impressionist masterpieces are ubiquitous around the world. Nevertheless, his art was somewhat neglected shortly after his death in 1926: the art world then riding a Modern Art wagon of Cubism, Futurism and Suprematism, where lines reigned supreme. Monet’s loose brushstrokes and impressionist blur was as rejected as the neoclassical style he himself fought against. Yet his last works (and the very last above) bear the seeds of another path: the Path to Abstraction, specifically Abstract Expressionism and the New York School. This is the object of a focused exhibition, currently showing at the Musée de l’Orangerie, on until August 20. Due his cataract affliction, Monet’s palette became much heightened in his late years. Dark vivid red and purple, acid yellows and greens, all overwhelmed his compositions, leaving us with a singularly different vision of his much loved Giverny, seen distorted by his cataract eyes. Yet what is also striking at the end of his life is the compositional change: a narrower focus on water reflections covers most of the expanse of any canvas, until the horizon line already raised up and up, fully disappears. I found the […]
His trench coat is thrown on a rudimentary bed surrounded by small shelves filled with plaster figurines; an unfinished bust seats in the central pedestal, looking in the distance. He could be back any moment. “He” is Alberto Giacometti, and the space I am taking you to is his atelier in Paris. It might get crowded when he comes back: the space is tiny (only 23m² / less than 250 square feet) but this was where Giacometti felt comfortable. He never moved to a larger space when success came. In a sense, this is no surprise as you look at his stretched thin sculptures. For maybe, from the small confine of his atelier, he stood a chance to recreate the essence of a person using his sculpture, but also countless drawings of the same repeated motifs, as well as paintings of incredible complexity of line. Searching for truth, Giacometti tirelessly fashioned the heads and bodies of his sculptures, constantly reworking, repeating, reusing the same models who sometimes posed on a kitchen chair (see below) for more than 100 hours in the case of Isaku Yanaihara. His permanent fear of failure made him remove – each time more and more of the […]
Visiting the Heavenly Bodies exhibition straight from a red-eye flight was equivalent to waking up in art and fashion heaven. And I got blessed being the first one in, meaning my pictures are relatively crowd-free compared to what you can see elsewhere. So seek the limelight, walk the red carpet, your eyes might even see some angels! Spanning both the Metropolitan Museum of Art on 5th Avenue and their Cloisters location perched on the highest point of Manhattan, Heavenly Bodies is truly a visual tour-de-force. Let’s face it, if I tell you “come with me to the museum, there is this fantastic exhibition on medieval art at the Met”, I can already hear a thousand excuses. And I am with you: despite having come to appreciate how rich this art can be during my Art History studies, I would not put Medieval or Renaissance art on my walls. But what about if Byzantine art comes with this little Dolce & Gabana number? With Heavenly Bodies, there are many mutually reinforcing forces at play, and they all compel the viewers to look and learn from this cleverly orchestrated dialogue between past, present and future. Perhaps finding mannequins wearing haute couture gowns […]
Honoured to travel with the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, I had the opportunity to lunch and look into Nick Cave’s eyes last week. What struck me besides an incredible kindness, was the intensity of those eyes. They translate his double vision of the world perfectly: how intensely he sees and feels the divides plaguing our society and how resolute he is to shake this, with a dance and many Soundsuits.
Nestled in New Canaan, Connecticut, Grace Farms is a bucolic place where art meets architecture in a natural setting of green meadows.
Time we don’t have and don’t take. Time we can’t get back and most crucially time we can never acquire…I knew nothing of Valeska Soares and her art but how apt that her works poetically speak of time and memories. Since I saw her exhibition at Phoenix Art Museum, her pieces have lingered on my mind so much that I am in no danger to ever forget her name. And her world might just bring you a welcome dose of mindfulness as we all get ready for a bit of summer madness…before it’s time to face school supplies again.
It comes as no surprise that Iris van Herpen interned with a fashion genius like Alexander McQueen. What is more surprising is that, Iris, age 36, a young Dutch designer who has been making fashion for the past 10 years, is already the subject of an exhibition/ retrospective at the Phoenix Art Museum. I use the word retrospective here due the sheer magnitude of her body of work and the unique creative mind she brings to each and every one of the dresses she conceives and creates. Fully at the intersection between couture, sculpture, science and technology lies…the art of her fashion!