All posts filed under: Art

DesertX Alua_Image of the day #25

Published by Kate Stockman

The Arabic world tries to embrace the international art world by providing them a golden ticket an exclusive venues to install them in the region. After the magnificent satellite Louvre museum in Abu D’Abi (I was lucky to visit it at the day of the opening in 2019), we now had Desert X Alula. You might know the original Desert X, a site-specific, contemporary art exhibition, held in the Coachella Valley in Southern California for the first time organised in February 2017 with more than 200.000 people visiting the art festival.   The idea behind Desert X is to produce international contemporary art exhibitions that activate dessert locations through site-specific and temporary installations by acclaimed international artists that address ecological, cultural, spiritual and other themes The recent Desert X Alula took place in the desert of Alula, an ancient oasis in Saudi Arabia last year and was a cross-cultural dialogue between artists from Saudi Arabia and its surrounding region and artists from previous iterations of Desert X in California, taking its cues from the extraordinary landscape and historical significance of Alula. And, nice to know, it’s free. Hereby my favourite art installation of this …

The Tourist_Image of the day #24

Published by Kate Stockman

This image-of-the-day I shot during a visit at the very strong expo Robotlove during the Dutch Design Week. It catches by attention by it’s beauty, it’s innocence and it’s possibility. The figure is called ‘The Tourist’ and is the work of Dutch artist Margriet van Breevoort. She uses her hyperrealistic sculptures to seduce the viewer to believe in something impossible. The Tourist is the reminiscent of a traveler from a distant world, lost in the here and now. The figure seems to be amazed at the grand and complex world in which we live today. Where does the tourist come from and to what world does she belong? In the light of what is possible today, The Tourist is a reflection of a impending reality. Another work at from the same artist, shown at Robotlove is The Waiting, a humanoid walrus waiting quietly on a bench. The sculpture makes us wonder: what is normal in the world with endless possibilities? Intriguing no? Much more to come on Robotlove and the Dutch Design Week in the next …

The new Fondazione Prada tower Milan

The new Fondazione Prada tower_Milan

Published by Kate Stockman

The new Fondazione Prada tower Milan When in Milan for our annual visit to the Salone di Mobile, it’s always good to spare some time for a quick (or long) visit to the always interesting Fondazione Prada. This year we absolutely wanted to check out the brand new tower designed by OMA.  The ‘tower’ pré-opened the 20th of April 2018 with a real über-VIP evening with all star artists like Damien Hirst, Carsten Höller, Francesco Vezzoli, and Luc Tuymans, DJ Ricardo Villalobos, architects India Mahdavi, David Adjaye, Rem Koolhaas and Alejandro Aravena; curators Paola Antonelli and Deyan Sudjic and gallerists Jay Jopling and Nazanin Yashar and off course hosts Miuccia Prada and husband Patrizio Bertelli. Quite impressive, so how cool was this we were in Milan that exact week? April 21 st 2018 So we went to visit the tower the very FIRST DAY the museum was open. This report is really a first hand view on a brand new star project. The epic inaugural show “Atlas” was conceived by Miuccia Prada with Germano Celant, the veteran Italian curator, and features …

Damien Hirst Pharmacy 2 London

Damien Hirst Pharmacy 2_London

Published by Kate Stockman

I am one of the lucky ones who visited Damien Hirst’s first original Pharmacy in Notting Hill. It blew my mind and what I most remember are the waiters dressed in blood red surgeon aprons, with an open back. Sexy as hell and so was the rest of the restaurant. Hirst wasn’t the super rich artist he is today and  his art was not that famous yet, so frequenting The Pharmacy was cool. The original restaurant was open between 1998-2003, the new one opened two years ago. I was there the week it opened, and remember taking a cab from the city to South London especially to be one of the first to discover it. The Pharmacy 2 is hosted in Damian Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery in Vauxhall, South London and is a real hommage to Hirst’s art installation The Medicine Cabinets series and butterfly Kaleidoscope paintings of 1992. Designed entirely by Hirst, Pharmacy 2 has etched glass windows depicting DNA strands, marble inlayed flooring and a bar of stainless steel and glass vitrine. Pharmacy Damien Hirst Pharmacy 2 is a …