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Sunday, 5 June 2011
Friday, 27 May 2011
Thursday, 26 May 2011
Village Bicycle
Idol popped by the opening of Village Bicycle - the latest offering from socialite darling and heiress, Willa Keswick. Star-studded and hip would be an understatement. But, rest assured, we didn’t just go for the free ice cream and a chance to oggle Keswick’s Felder Felder and Mark Fast stock, although that didn’t hurt, earlier this week Idol sat down and chatted with Keswick herself (check the site shortly for the interview – not to be missed, if I say so myself!) and we wanted to see the store in all its Ledbury Road beauty.
Village Bicycle mixes edgy London-cool designers with up-and-coming labels in a Tokyo-meets-New York-by way of Colette and the seminal 60s boutique Granny Takes a Trip environment. Or, so the press release said. Usually one takes these with a pinch of salt. In Village Bicycle’s case, I would argue, this press release was deceptive. I think comparing itself to other boutiques belies what Keswick has done with the space. Yes, Keswick aims for a destination-shop, like Colette, and a sartorial-pushing, yet un-pretentious edge, like Granny Takes a Trip, mixed in with Japanese-style shop fittings and New York exclusive designers, but Village Bicycle has more than this. Pushing young designers next to established labels, branding your own M&M’s and generally being a bit tongue-in-cheek, Keswick has managed to diffuse the stuffy to-expensive-for-you air of her neighbourhood shops while keeping an selective sartorial stance. 
Look out for this shop. Idol expects great things.
Thursday, 19 May 2011
Stag & Dagger Mixtape
This evening brings the likes of Toro Y Moi, CocknBullKid, Entrepreneurs, Star Slinger and Ghostpoet together around various venues in Shoreditch to celebrate such a creative community.
If you still haven't got your tickets then it's all good, there are still a few spare for an amazing £13.50, so grab your skinny jeans and Barbour jacket and get your arse down to Shoreditch for a night of unique artists at equally as unique venues.
The people over at Anorak London have put together a mixtape of some of this year's artists just to get your raring to go tonight, have a listen here whilst you neck a can of Red Stripe before leaving the house
Wednesday, 18 May 2011
Tuesday, 17 May 2011
Forgotten monuments...
The sculptures stand as icons of a lost regime – incongruous with the landscape, striking and post-modern. Since Yugoslavia’s secession, these sublime, Brutalist monuments are spread over Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia and Bosnia.
Designed by Slavic architects Dušan Džamonja , Vojin Bakic , Miodrag Zivkovic, Jordan and Iskra Grabul thepieces attest to a forgotten generation of Slovic architectural experimentation.
Antwerp-based photographer Jan Kempenaers trekked across the Balkans, photographing the surreal Spomeniks. Capturing their melancholic beauty and abandonment, Kempenaers photographs are touching. Provoking T. W. Adorno’s theory ‘to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric’, Kempenaers and Tito’s cultural showcase question whether anything beautiful can come out of something so debilitating and horrific as the Holocaust. Spooky in their silence, subtle in their deliverance, the Spomenik’s and Kempenaers photographs compellingly investigate Adorno’s unstable ground.
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| Credit: Trendland.net |
It’s the 60s. Tito’s in power. Yugoslavia wants to showcase to the world their strength, resilience and Socialist Republic design aesthetic, while commemorating WW2. So, they built ‘Spomenik’. Obviously.
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| Credit: Trendland.net |
Designed by Slavic architects Dušan Džamonja , Vojin Bakic , Miodrag Zivkovic, Jordan and Iskra Grabul thepieces attest to a forgotten generation of Slovic architectural experimentation.
Antwerp-based photographer Jan Kempenaers trekked across the Balkans, photographing the surreal Spomeniks. Capturing their melancholic beauty and abandonment, Kempenaers photographs are touching. Provoking T. W. Adorno’s theory ‘to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric’, Kempenaers and Tito’s cultural showcase question whether anything beautiful can come out of something so debilitating and horrific as the Holocaust. Spooky in their silence, subtle in their deliverance, the Spomenik’s and Kempenaers photographs compellingly investigate Adorno’s unstable ground.
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| Credit: Trendland.net |
‘You’ll see Spomeniks on strategic outcroppings, lofty passes and sweeping plateaus: gigantic sculptures, firmly anchored to the rocks. They are objects of stunning beauty. Their abstract geometric shapes recall macro views of viruses, flower-petal goblets, crystals. They are built of indestructible materials like reinforced concrete, steel and granite. Some are solid, others hollow…. They fit seamlessly into the Sixties-era aesthetics of Barbarella movies, Paco Rabanne dresses and Lava lamps. And yet, every single one of them is a memorial monument to the most atrocious events of the Second World War, marking the sites of bloody battles and sinister concentration camps. … In the 1980s, the monuments still attracted millions of visitors, but a decade later their appeal vanished. They have become submerged in a new age, rendered unintelligible to the current generation…’
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| Credit: Trendland.net |
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| Credit: Trendland.net |
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| Credit: Trendland.net |
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| Credit: Trendland.net |
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| Credit: Trendland.net |
By Lucy Morris
Sunday, 15 May 2011
Origin of the Beginning
Dutch artist Levi van Veluw will be showcasing his greatly anticipated new solo exhibition - entitled 'Origin of the Beginning' - from 21st May to 25th June at the Ron Mandos gallery in Amsterdam.
The exhibition holds three life size rooms that collectively contain over 30,000 wooden blocks, balls and slats. Each piece of wood is carefully cut and glued onto the wall one by one by Levi himself.
Inspiration for this latest exhibition draws directly from Levi's own childhood - specifically his bedroom where he spent many hours between the ages of 8 and 14. The first of the three rooms contains a desk, a table lamp and a bookshelf. In the short film - seen below - the artist is seen burning the edge of the desk. This is a reflection on Levi's childhood obsession with fire.
Each room expresses Levi's attempts as a child to gain control over his life - the repetitive structure, pattern and texture are him gaining control of his surroundings. The dark colour, dim light and emptiness of the rooms also suggest a sense of loneliness and claustrophobia.
The artist himself will be welcoming viewers to the event from 5 to 7pm on 21st May so, if you happen to be in the Dutch capital at the time, make sure you pop along.
By Hannah Newman.
The exhibition holds three life size rooms that collectively contain over 30,000 wooden blocks, balls and slats. Each piece of wood is carefully cut and glued onto the wall one by one by Levi himself.
Inspiration for this latest exhibition draws directly from Levi's own childhood - specifically his bedroom where he spent many hours between the ages of 8 and 14. The first of the three rooms contains a desk, a table lamp and a bookshelf. In the short film - seen below - the artist is seen burning the edge of the desk. This is a reflection on Levi's childhood obsession with fire.
Each room expresses Levi's attempts as a child to gain control over his life - the repetitive structure, pattern and texture are him gaining control of his surroundings. The dark colour, dim light and emptiness of the rooms also suggest a sense of loneliness and claustrophobia.
The artist himself will be welcoming viewers to the event from 5 to 7pm on 21st May so, if you happen to be in the Dutch capital at the time, make sure you pop along.
By Hannah Newman.
Saturday, 14 May 2011
Nixon x Selfridges
Founded just over a decade ago in 1998, Nixon has since being producing headphones, bags, watches, belts etc. all in the name of design and practicality. Ready for work and ready for play their range of watches are trend-sensitive and reliable.
Collaborating with Selfridges, Nixon has a pop-up shop on the store’s first floor, bringing us a selection of premium men’s watches, headphones and accessories. The pop-up shop will also feature videos and music from the Nixon rotating art installation, ‘Nixon Art Mosh’
NIXON, SELFRIDGES, Contemporary Menswear Accessories Dept, 1st Floor, Selfridges 400 Oxford St, London W1H 6HB, 22 April – 22 May, 2011
By Lucy Morris
Parking Ticket?
‘Vroom Vroom’ is sculptor, Lorenzo Quinn, son of late Hollywood star Anthony Quinn, newest piece.
Based on the artist’s first car, a vintage Fiat 500, and encased by a 13ft aluminium hand – modelled on Quinn’s son’s, the piece speaks about freedom, independence and the relationship between father and son.
Quinn says ‘Each and every one of my art works is a little part of me, they are my experiences, thoughts, desires,feelings...Vroom Vroom represents part of my independence, my freedom, my personal growth. This was the first car that I bought with the money I made from my early works. It was hard work, but the purchase was satisfying. I had obtained something I really wanted through my own effort. I did not depend on my parents anymore, I was grown up.
This car has been my talisman. One day a client visiting my studio said "that car is so small, it looks like a toy." This comment made me think: often the only difference between a child and an adult is the price of the toy.
Actually, this car was a toy to me, I worked hard to get it, and once I had it I enjoyed it like a child would. I think that over the years, social pressure makes us lose our innocence and excitement about the little things. We end up forgetting the child within. This sculpture represents the innocence and excitement about the little things that make us happy.’
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| Credit: The Metro |
Based on the artist’s first car, a vintage Fiat 500, and encased by a 13ft aluminium hand – modelled on Quinn’s son’s, the piece speaks about freedom, independence and the relationship between father and son.
Quinn says ‘Each and every one of my art works is a little part of me, they are my experiences, thoughts, desires,feelings...Vroom Vroom represents part of my independence, my freedom, my personal growth. This was the first car that I bought with the money I made from my early works. It was hard work, but the purchase was satisfying. I had obtained something I really wanted through my own effort. I did not depend on my parents anymore, I was grown up.
This car has been my talisman. One day a client visiting my studio said "that car is so small, it looks like a toy." This comment made me think: often the only difference between a child and an adult is the price of the toy.
Actually, this car was a toy to me, I worked hard to get it, and once I had it I enjoyed it like a child would. I think that over the years, social pressure makes us lose our innocence and excitement about the little things. We end up forgetting the child within. This sculpture represents the innocence and excitement about the little things that make us happy.’
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| Credit: The Metro |
Part of the City of Sculpture Festival, Idol says…
Race over to London’s Park Lane to get a peek at it now!By Lucy Morris
Monumental
Giant Horse's Head lands in London's Marble Arch
Sculptor, Nic Fiddian-Green’s 30ft monumental bronze horse-head is creating a buzz in central London. Fiddan-Green, known for his signature Elgin Marbles-inspired horse’s heads sculpture, won this commission 4 years ago, to coincide with Marble Arch’s £2million refurb. Weighing in at 6 tones and only half an inch thick, the head is based on Indian breed of horse, interesting for their unusual, twisted ears – turned in towards the face so as to avoid dessert winds.
Aiming to inspire the public and add intrigue to the landscape, Fiddan-Green has done just that!
By Lucy Morris
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