Damián Ortega: Taken apart & reassembled

Mexican artist Damián Ortega, formerly a political cartoonist, has a fascinating curiosity with taking everyday items apart and reassembling them, bringing attention to the dynamics of the world we live in.

The works are extremely beautiful and they remind me of one of my favorite artists, Claire Morgan. Using a wide range of mediums from sculpture, installation, videography to photography, he exhibits a quietness that is really poetic.

Cosmic thing, 2002

False Movement (Stability and Economic Growth), 1999 ( Photo credits: John Kennard)

I think his roots of being a political cartoonist really shows here.  On the surface, it seems everything is growing but on the contrary, the growth is unstable and falsely represented with the non-existent increase.

120 Days, 2002

Autoconstruction, Bridges and Dams: Extension, 1997

Selection from Belo Horizonte Project, 2004

Part of The Independent installation.

Makes me look at my surroundings with much more curiosity.

Blessed New Year everyone!

X Alex

(Images from ICA and Barbican)

A-Maison-ing LV

I know you might be scrunching your eyebrows and wondering what kind of title this is, but ignoring my poor attempt at an attention grabbing title and focusing on the content might be much more appropriate.

I am quite sure by now you know LV is the abbreviation for Louis Vuitton and given the huge funds they have available for their marketing, it should come as no surprise that their visual merchandising is spectacularly good at drawing attention to their products.

Reading this article from WGSN’s blog , I am actually excitedly wishing that I could actually fly to London just to see this beauty of a gem. I know you might be grumbling that this is not ‘new’ news but this is what I just found out. Better late then never!

The Louis Vuitton revolving bag bar. The shelves move and turn 360 degrees to capture the viewers curiosity and interest.

The 3-storey building housed on London’s New Bond Street was specially designed to reach out to a wider group of customers, using uniquely British products including British artworks.

Art installation in store.

If you are interested, you can check out what people wore to the opening in May this year and a video of the revolving bag bar (which I think is absolutely genius!) here.

Now try to argue that this is not art.

X Alex

(Images and source from WGSN blog and dailymail)

Chanel mobile art museum set in Paris

Alright, so this is one of those days where I can’t find anything to write about. Initially I had planned to write about Anna Nicole Ziesche’s non-bifurcated diary but found no supporting images.(* Shout out to artists and designers…)

Just wanted to share about the Mobile Art museum that was thought up by Karl Lagerfeld and Zara Hadid. The building designed by Hadid is used to display artworks inspired by Chanel’s classic 2.55 handbag. Established contemporary artists include Daniel Buren, Sylvie Fleury, Yoko Ono, Wim Delvoye and many more.

Designed by Iraqi-born British architect, Zaha Hadid. (See her design concept here.)

The Mobile Art museum stopped it’s world tour when the economy was facing a downturn in 2008. How wonderful it is that they had set the Museum to be in Paris.

The new location is set as Chanel donates the Art Museum Pavilion to the Arab World Institute located in Paris.

 

Some of the previous art installations:

Giant Chanel 2.55 by Sylvie Fleury.

Tabiamo’s video installation At the Bottom

X Alex

(Sources and images from Zaha Hadid’s blog, Chanel news, wwd, theage and artinfo.
Last image credit to Francois Lacour)