ES EN
Aerial Abstraction

Arts - 18.05.2020

Aerial Abstraction Tom Hegen

After an intensive process of research on the concept of Anthropocene, the Munich-based photographer Tom Hegen has flown over different regions to document the human impact on the Earth’s natural landscapes.  The shine of the colors, the geometries of the landscapes, and the almost tactile textures make the images of Tom Hegen (Königsbrunn, 1991) look like impressive abstract paintings, when they are actually objective documents of reality. Through aerial images the photographer and designer shows the human impact on Earth, searching for artificially transformed territories and inviting the observer to discover the world from a different perspective, placing them face to face with the dimension of their interventions and making them aware of their responsibility in the preservation of our planet.  ‘The Salt Series’ is an abstract collection of images that explore human intervention in the production of salt. The presence of microorganisms and salinity change the color of the ponds. ‘The River Veins Series’ reflects the patterns left when the glaciers melt on black volcanic sand in Iceland, and ‘The Iceberg Series II’ captures the shapes of Ilulissat Icefjord in Greenland.  ‘The Quarry Series’ and ‘The Marble Series’ both show the various  methods developed for mining and processing of the raw materials needed in the construction of growing cities and infrastructure. 
Liminal Encounters

Arts - 26.03.2020

Liminal Encounters

Panoramah

A collective exhibition exploring ways of inhabiting liminal or transitional spaces through design. Panoramah! is a Portuguese company that specializes in minimalist systems of glass frames for large picture windows. Its pavilion at Calle Albasanz 79 in Madrid, designed by Estudio Herreros, hosts the exhibition 'Liminal Encounters,' in which Miguel Leiro, Fabien Cappello, Piovenefabi, Selina Feduchi, MAIO, Teresa Fernández-Pello, Tornasol Studio, Claudia Paredes, and Objects of Common Interest have taken part. The show, which has also been part of Meyrit Design Festival last February, begins with a definition of liminal space – "waiting or transition spaces between a point in space-time and the next" – and presents ways of inhabiting from the logic of architectue and design. It explores the limit concept through the manner in which Panoramah! uses materials: aluminum frames and glass pieces shaped to take on a variety of geometries. The result is a framing of the duality between interior and exterior, public and private, fragility and durability. a – Piovenefabi Cut two circles of 1200 mm diameter from an aluminum foil of 1200 x 2500 mm, thickness 4 mm. The discard will be residual. Divide the ­rest circle in two equal semi-circles. Connect the endpoints of the semi-circle diameter to obtain two equal cones, whose transversal section is an equilateral triangle. Divide the second circle in two portions, respecting the ratio ¾ – ¼. Connect the vertices again to obtain two different cones, whose transversal sections form two isosceles triangles. Lamp 40, 60, and 75 are a family of ground lamps, which generate from the same original circle. Together, they can colonize a space. b – MAIO ah!38 excels as an exterior opening system comprising a balanced combination of thermal and acoustic behavior, suited to all climates. It offers great flexibility in the modular composition of openings, including opening corner solutions, pocket sliding configurations, curved layouts, tilted spans and retractable mosquito nets. The alternatives come in a wide range of formats such as sliding, sash, pivot and tilt-turn units. ah!38 also includes a variety of add-ons, finishes and it can be completely automated. It is a system that allows double glazed surface areas of up to 19m2, or triple glazed of up to 6m2. Both options use 20mm vertical cross sections. c - Teresa Fernández-Pello Exercise of formal experimentation which takes as a base the plan view drawing of the birail Panoramah! ah38! Cross section, reproduced on the surface, sectioned, and folded to result in volume. Completed after the drawing in negative, which extends the surface of use and protects from the existing corners of the original form, the volume turns into a functional form as a combination of center tables. d - Objects of Common Interest A rounded building corner stripped of its context to its absolute essence – a curved glass element. Once separating the inside and the outside, now alone, freestanding, a mere partition. The in and out is now the front and back of a concave mirror and a convex lens. A constructive element becomes an artifact of itself, changing from visible to invisible, from normal to paranormal, as one sways around it. e - Tornasol Studio This center table is the result of the practice of reproducing amber fragments with the fewest elements possible, solely utilizing glass planes and seeking the qualities of the fossil through the use of color and organic geometries. Its sinuous form references the malleable, liquid state of glass that upon cooling solidi­fies akin to this semiprecious stone, representing its organic character through interior cavities and irregularities. f - Selina Feduchi (todo to do) If we were conscious of the fabrication process of the numerous objects with which we have a quotidian relationship and the impact that these have on the environment, we would likely change our way of consuming them. A clear example is aluminum. It is extracted from the mineral bauxite, a reddish colored rock which through transformation fi­rst becomes alumina and then metallic aluminum. Large arti­ficial lakes are created during this process, full of the indissoluble residue of the treatment of bauxite. These red lakes are highly contaminating and corrosive. The “Alumina” tables reference said problematic situation, reconsidering the use that we give to these types of materials. The shape of the tables is the same as that of the surface of one of the largest arti­ficial lakes in Spain, just as its reddish color references the tone of bauxite. g - Claudia Paredes This aluminum armchair with alusion inlays is inspired by the Prada Foundation and reflects its architecture in a series of seats. In addition to changing the use of the material and its shape and function, the intention is to create an exercise in exploring how the height of the seat affects the way it is enjoyed. There are associated states or relations between the physical posture that the seat itself forces you to take and its elevation from the ground. h - Miguel Leiro 3, a sacred number, can be interpreted as a means by which we construct both concepts and objects. The articulation of this room divider will utilize this principle both as a way for proposing new methods of interpreting the material possibilities of aluminum, as well as for generating new ways of understanding the effect that this typology can have on a space. i - Fabien Cappello “Fence” is a prototype of a modular divisor system, composed of the repetition of an aluminum rail for an existing window, connected by a connecting piece designed for the project. The system permits the creation of circular spaces, that while they define a space, they also dialogue with the exterior through the emptiness created by the vertical repetition of the rails. The open structure proposes that the design could be continued with different potential accessories, illumination, acoustic panels, etc. The design presents endless spatial possibilities to be utilized in open, public, and semi-public spaces.
Cortijo Boquera Morilla

Arts - 05.03.2020

Cortijo Boquera Morilla

Álvaro Carrillo

Renovation of a farmhouse in Níjar by the Málaga architect Álvaro Carrillo, with the photographic collaboration of the artist Ernesto Artillo. This house in Níjar is part of a late 19th-century farmhouse that has been subdivided and modified over time to accommodate members of one same family. The client inherited a series of rooms in a ruinous state, autonomous and uninhabitable, originally meant for animals and farming needs: a haystack, a dovecot, a henhouse, a granary, and a couple of barnyards.For the innovation Álvaro Carrillo proposed a sequence of rooms following two superimposed strategies: work with existing elements, assigning a greater role to distinctive stone objects and manipulating loadbearing walls so that new openings with timeless shapes would be created; and making new light separations to address domestic needs. The result is a continuos space at various levels where massive old walls are fused with new elements. The notion of discovering spaces with movement is accentuated by the placing of stone panels of different shapes and compositions on the uninterrupted cement floor, an intervention carried out with the artist Ernesto Artillo, author, too, of the photographty project ‘Space and Pleasure.’The house is organized to the rhythm of the seasons. During the warm months, its heart is the courtyard, designed as a open-air room and featuring a pool and an arcade, an ideal spot for getting together; in winter, precisely when the house becomes an introspective experience, life gravitates around the highest room, where we find the fireplace and the dwelling’s only window, strategically set close to the floor in order to frame the nearby La Granatilla volcano. Daylight, which changes as the year progresses, enters the home through lanterns on the new roof, maintaining the massive construction as is and reinforcing privacy inside.The juxtaposition of spaces, the volume of air, the careful arrangement of apertures, and the practically invisible incorporation of energy control technology – including increased insulation of the thick stone walls so that they become energy reserves – all contribute to comfort. The fusion of vernacular and contemporary manifests architecture’s commitment to address climate challenges.Text: Juan Antonio Sánchez Muñoz, Vincent Morales Garoffolo (Kauh Arquitectura).
Olafur Eliasson: In Real Life

Arts - 27.12.2019

Olafur Eliasson: In Real Life

A True Sensory Experience

The exhibition ‘Olafur Eliasson: In Real Life’, will be on view atthe Tate Modern in London until 5 January, and at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao from 14 February to 21 June of 2020. After flooding the Turbine Hall with the rays of a virtual sun that attracted crowds in 2003, Olafur Eliasson (Copenhagen, 1967) has returned to the Tate Modern 16 years later with a retrospective exhibition that gathers 40 pieces designed since 1990. ‘In Real Life’ invites us to explore the three issues that have guided the interests and creative process of the Danish artist: the concern for ecology, the research in the field of geometry, and the exploration of human perception, in an attempt to grasp how we sense and shape the world around us. After works like Beauty or The Weather Project, which explore different atmospheric conditions, Little Sun is an initiative that goes beyond the field of art to take light to places without access to the power grid. By cancelling polychromy with monofrequency lamps, Eliasson proposes a phenomenological experience that calls the philosophical relationship between perception and reality into question. The Ice Watch series provides a tangible testimony of the imminent Arctic thaw by placing twelve large ice blocks cast off from the Greenland ice sheet and leaving them to melt in public places.
Calder Stories

Arts - 19.11.2019

Calder Stories

Centro Botín Exhibition

Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, designed by Renzo Piano, and organized in collaboration with the Calder Foundation in New York, the exhibition ‘Calder Stories’ throws light on fascinating but heretofore little known stories about the celebrated American artist. The methodology of the unrealized in the history of art is something that Obrist has pursued for almost thirty years now. Unfortunately it is no longer possible to ask the artist about this, but the curator has gathered information about Calder projects forgotten, directly or indirectly censored, misunderstood, repressed, lost, or impossible to execute… Some of Calder’s most famous works were fruits of collaboration with leading architects, choreographers, and composers of his time, but their backstories have to date gone largely unexamined. Most of these projects were carried out, but some were not. ‘Calder Stories’ initiates an exploration of what the artist left behind, adding nuances and complexities to our knowledge of someone considered a fundamental pillar of 20th-century art.

Arts - 21.10.2019

TOTEMY

Alicja Biala and Iwo Borkowicz

The artist Alicja Biala and architect Iwo Borkowicz have inaugurated TOTEMY in Poznan (Poland), a series of giant sculptures expressing the current state of the environmental crisis.  Located in the heart of Poznan (Poland) and each standing 9 meters, they all visualize something about the relationship between humanity and nature. Their shapes, colors, and textures correspond with different statistics, in such a way that they offer an immersive architectural experience through vibrant direct confrontation on a daily basis. With as much precision as possible they try to reflect data provided by environmental studies. Local carpenters, politicians, students, activists, and other community members helped in the project, raising the columns artisanally.  The sculptures are under MVRDV’s Baltyk building, in a public space instead of in museums or galleries. In this way, they have a larger audience.  The pieces each have a QR code explaining their seemingly merely abstract forms. One of them, for example, gives information about deforestation through its two large volumes, one of these representing the size of the world’s annual loss of forests and the other depicting the size of Poland.  
New Seven Lamps of Artisan Beauty

Arts - 23.09.2019

New Seven Lamps of Artisan Beauty

Izaskun Chinchilla architects

Taking from Ruskinkian Arts & Crafts, Izaskun Chinchilla’s New Seven Lamps of Artisanal Beauty present the new conception of craftsmanship: “it has gone from being appreciated for individual attributes, such as those that could be associated with a person, to being esteemed for collective ones.” The design of the exhibition ‘The New Seven Lamps of Artisanal Beauty’ takes from the fundamental book of Arts  &Crafts England: The Seven Lamps of Architecture, by John Ruskin. Published in 1849, it is a reflection on the crafts and their applications in the architectural context.In the exhibition, seven lamps are each presided by two words. The first of every pair is one of the seven used by Ruskin: sacrifice, truth, power, beauty, life, memory, and obedience. Its partner is a more contemporary concept that replaces or gives nuance to his positions: sustainability, transparency, equity, culture, ecology, identity, and innovation.The contrasts illustrate the curatorial idea of the show: the crafts are now appreciated for their collective, rather than for their individual, attributes.
The Potemkin Village

Arts - 27.08.2019

The Potemkin Village

Gregor Sailer

For two years Sailer photographed about twenty ‘Potemkin villages’ in countries like the United States, Sweden, or France, exploring the features that define these simulated towns that are only facades. The work of the Austrian photographer and designer Gregor Sailer (Schwaz, 1980) has reflected an interest in architecture from the beginning of his career. Between 2015 and 2017 he completed ‘The Potemkin Village’ series, a research on this concept inspired in the Russian myth according to which marshal Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin built fake settlements to conceal the ruinous state of the newly annexed Crimea from the Russian Empress Catherine the Great. The result is a showcase of counterfeit architecture that includes vehicle test cities or combat training centers. The chromatic uniformity and the geometric balance of the photographs in ‘The Potemkin Village’ series together create an oneiric atmosphere that underscores the ambiguity between reality and appearance.In his projects, the Austrian photographer Gregor Sailer documents unusual places like Tiefort City, where more than 500 buildings recreate an Iraqi city that US troops use as combat training ground.
A Colorful Makeover of Architecture

Arts - 20.05.2019

A Colorful Makeover of Architecture

Paul Eis

“A Colorful Makeover of Architecture” is a project where Paul Eis gives color and life to buildings he has photographed since 2015. Paul Eis is a young German, born in 1998, who studies architecture at the University of Arts and Industrial Design in Linz, Austria. He began this project coloring monotonous socialist housing estates of East Berlin, and now, in both his website and his Instagram account, we can find numerous colorized images of dull buildings located in the different places he has traveled to.Paul reflects on the monotony of our gray cities. Most of the buildings around us, whether historical or contemporary, are built in gray or white, and are cold and unwelcoming at first sight, so he sets out to give them new life and new allure.For the artist, the problem is not the whiteness itself, white being the color of many exemplary works of architecture, but rather the fact that in most of today’s ‘standard’ cases, color is not even considered an option. The point of this series of images is not to urge architects to build in bright colors, but to spark reflection on the huge difference that a bit of color can do for a seeminly plain building. 
The Translucence of Time

Arts - 15.04.2019

The Translucence of Time

Jonathan Lipkin

Jonathan Lipkin is a photographer who reflects on time, infinity, and perception. 'Translucence of Time,' his latest work, is currently on view in New York. “The ocean calls to me. These photographs are my response.” ‘The Translucence of Time’ is the outcome of a seven-year project in which Jonathan Lipkin has tried to respond to the ocean he grew up by, listening to its changing and unstoppable rhythm. He tries to respond not to its outward appearance, but to its emotional resonance. This is complicated to capture in photographs, so the project involved a process of adapting to the technology it required. ‘Translucence of Time’ is the first chapter of a whole series that reflects on our relationship with nature.Lipkin at first only came up with static images, in the traditional manner of taking them, but photos of this kind do not represent the passage of time, just moments that do not last more than a few seconds. Because his aim was to capture the ocean’s changes, movements, and waves, he needed a technique that encompassed more time. What he finally did was keep the camera shutter open longer. The results were not traditionally sharp images, but they suggest the fleeting nature of the sea.
Hunky-dunky

Arts - 21.01.2019

Hunky-dunky 3D Illustration

In recent years, the artists of the studio Hunky-dunky have seen their works featured in art and design magazines all over the world. After several years of working separately for international clients, 3D artist Yonito Tanu and art director Jessica Chapiness have together set up the studio Hunky-dunky, based in Spain, and created colorful 3D illustrations for companies such as Maxibon, Cruzcampo, Burger King or Bankia.Among their projects is ‘This Isn’t Paris,’ the result of a commission they received from the town hall of quiet Llombai, which wanted a book cover for its annual festival that expressed the joy of a small and timeless village rich in nature, traditions, and people. These festivals are held in summer and no resident misses it. Age does not matter and it’s a must to dance umtil daylight on the main square.  Other interesting images are those of the ‘Summer Diary’ project, which proposes reminiscing on the highlights of summer through a graphic diary because, in the words of Tanu and Chapiness: “Summer may be over, but its hot fun memories will last forever”