by Vivianne Lapointe “We’re Revolting,” a new pop-up installation at Creatures of Comfort, is LA-based blogger Su Wu’s golden opportunity to translate her popular website, I’m Revolting, into something concrete. Earlier this summer, Wu was commissioned by Creatures of Comfort owner Jade Lai to collaborate with a selection of her…
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by Vivianne Lapointe The art, film and tech worlds will collide in Silicon Valley tomorrow night, 19 October, in celebration of Gallery For The People’s Fall pop-up, an exhibition benefitting the Palo Alto International Film Festival (PAIFF) and featuring contemporary artists Sage Vaughn, Deedee Cheriel and Curtis Kulig. Co-founded in…
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An Olympian pop-up supper club opens in London
The Olympics opening ceremonies are nearly upon London, and as the city makes its final preparations to host the world for the games, many creative projects are popping up around town to celebrate the event. Taking the international spirit of the Olympics to heart—by way of the belly— the pop-up restaurant Global Feast has opened in Stratford Town Hall near Olympic Park with an astonishing 20-night lineup of exceptional cuisine from across the world.
Global Feast is a collaboration between architect Alex Haw of
Atmos and celebrated underground supper club chef
Kerstin Rodgers, AKA MsMarmiteLover. Together they have curated a delicious culinary adventure that showcases the best of supper club culture. Top supper club chefs from across London and further afield have been selected to host one night each, with their menus celebrating the delicacies of their chosen part of the world.
Global Feast also marks the realization of Haw’s long-held ambition to seat people at the tallest table in the world. He describes his Worldscape design as a “voluptuous, CNC-carved landscape, a vast, 3D model of world terrain, seating 80 people on its ocean contours to dine off its coastlines, illuminated by its cities, enshadowed by its mountains.”
“Our culinary journey starts, like our species, in Africa—on the Western tip of Senegal, opening alongside the first Olympic event (football),” says Haw about what diners have in store. “Traveling east, we land at home on the opening night of the Olympic ceremony, with fireworks visible from our courtyard, to celebrate the best of host nation Britain. We continue east through Europe and onwards past Asia, from old world tonew, to end our entire journey the night after the last Olympic event by passing on the baton to Rio de Janeiro—with a climactic fiesta of Brazilian Carnival.”
Global Feast kicks off 25 July in London, and traveling gourmands can choose to attend for both the opening and closing ceremonies of the games, or any night in between.
Caitlin Mociun invites shoppers to her new store to dig through wares in a constantly changing installation
To properly experience Brooklyn-based designer Caitlin Mociun’s new Williamsburg store is to take a moment to explore each of the unusual clusters of objects that adorn the display tables, window sills and floor areas. Mociun wants you to peer into the ceramic bowls, to reach under the tables and display cases, and to lift up the vintage Moroccan rugs.
“In a retail store, you’re supposed to act like a grown up, and there’s a certain way that one behaves in a retail environment, and it’s not like having people reach under a piece of furniture and crouch on the ground and maybe dig through things,” says Mociun, who is best known for her elegant jewelry lines and Bauhaus-inspired clothing and textiles. “I’m hoping to give people an experience that is more fun, and have them discover something in a different way.”
Mociun also hopes her eclectic arrangements encourage customers to consider different uses for the objects in her store.”It’s about getting people to see functional pieces as art objects, to not just be like, ‘Oh, this is a cup,'” she says. “It’s like, ‘This is a cup, but you can also put it on a table and it also can be this beautiful thing that acts as a piece of art.'”
Included in Mociun’s unique collection of products are colorful coasters by Chen Chen and Kai Williams; bulbous stitched baskets and bags by Doug Johnston; assorted ceramic pieces by Blue Eagle Pottery, Eric Bonnin and Shino Takeda; knotted rope bracelets and necklaces by Wing Yau; leather Baggu bags, pouches, and keychains in black and neon; geometric jewelry by Samma; soap by Saipua; and a variety of beautiful objects by Iacoli and McAllister. The store’s centerpiece is, certainly, Mociun’s delicate rings, necklaces and bracelets, featured in two glass display cases.
Mociun began to see opening a retail store as a possibility after running her own pop-up shop in downtown Brooklyn in May 2011. The shop, which opened this past March, is located on the corner of brand new building on Wythe Avenue, a burgeoning shopping destination for design lovers, with Baggu Summer Shop and Pilgrim Surf + Supply just around the corner. “It’s just a really nice Brooklyn community of stores that actually support each other instead of compete with each other,” Mociun says.
Mociun, who receives new merchandise every week, continues to tweak the store’s product lines. She plans to streamline the ceramic collections the store carries, add some jewelry lines, and introduce a line of shoes. As the store’s products change, Mociun also plans to adjust the store’s layout, moving the modular furniture around in an effort to give customers a new shopping experience. “I kind of think of the whole space as an installation,” she says.
Mociun is open Wednesday through Sunday from noon to 8pm.
Our interview with the owner of Prague’s newest experimental retail and experiential gallery space
by Perrin Drumm
Yasmin Keshmiri Hejduk opened Gallery by Minty Concept Club in Prague less than a year ago and already it’s become the city’s go-to destination as an experiential retail and gallery. “Gallery is a space where people meet, browse through new magazines and enjoy a more social setting to find goodies within the heart of Prague,” Hejduk says. “Gallery combines the cool aesthetic of Scandinavian design with friendly charm, creating a modern vibe and opportunity to discover a new world.” She is kept busy moving a constant rotation of clothes and accessories through the front of the shop while planning the next big pop-up event in the back, but after a well-earned vacation she sat down to tell us the story behind Minty.
I met my husband in 2002 in Prague when I came over to shoot a commercial. Having worked in the film industry for years in London and then running a Production Company in Prague gave me a real taste for creative activities. Though I’m a producer, I still felt that it was a creative job—you certainly have to be creative with money!
After having my two sons, I wanted to branch out in a different way and decided to set up Minty Concept Club as a creative studio/experiential agency. Minty became big in Prague due to the number of pop-up projects we executed and we soon got a reputation as a company that brings a real creative edge to commercial projects. It was a natural progression to find a space that can give us the opportunity to continue.
The goal of Gallery was to bring lifestyle and trend-inspired projects to Prague while collaborating with young designers and artists. We really try to promote the people we have collaborated with. For example, we worked with Veronika Jirouskova on our set direction, Lenka Mikova, who designed the Gallery furniture and Veronika Vlkova for graphics and the murals on the walls. Hopefully, through these creative yet commercial projects, they can build a good portfolio for the future and we are proud to be part of that success.
Absolutely. Gallery is all about creating an atmosphere within which we sell what we love, and the space almost acts as a mood board for Minty’s creative activities. The layout is perfect for what we’re about. The front is a more commercial shop with jewelry, one-off designer collections, magazines and emotive objects. The middle is a reading room and the back is an empty white space for exhibitions and instillations. I think the reason we’re receiving such positive feedback is because we’re more than a shop or a gallery. Gallery is based in Prague, but I think a space like this sits very well in any cosmopolitan city that has a thirst for beauty and inspiration.
We are just off of Old Town Square and Parizska, and as much as we welcome passers-by we do not rely on the tourist trade. There’s always something happening and Gallery is becoming a sort of creative hang out. This is very important to the function of Gallery as our visitors are contemporary, fashion conscious and open minded individuals who add a very unique vibe to the neighborhood.
The space changes all the time. It all depends on the timing of our own projects, collaborations or exhibitions, which can last a few days to a month. We try to keep things different and fresh from merchandising and swapping the space around. The spaces have had dramatic changes from the Rocka Billy Tattoo Parlour for Zoe and Morgan, to a Black Forest designed by Igor Hosnedl. Even in between projects there’s something new to see, a new brand we’re launching or new collection arrivals. Some people even come in just to hear what music we are playing!
“Melt Your Cold Cold Heart” was a collaboration with design duo Rozbijim Se and Photographer Ladislav Babusak. We produced 14 limited edition Valentine’s chocolate photo packaged keepsakes. Within the project we created a glass instillation which had tasting stations with crystal water glasses. And finally in the back we created a black box with only a photograph lit, where the visitors sampled the chocolate in a more intense setting. It was a very fragile and personal experience that really enhanced the chocolate’s unique taste and the individual’s bond to the setting.
We have lots of lovely exhibitions planned. We’re working with one of our favorite photographers, Bet Orten, and the indie music band, Please the Trees. Gallery has many possibilities. We love to continue to work with chocolate and branch out into coffee. I would like to say there is a really great coffee shop in the centre of Prague but sadly so far there’s not. There are many lovely spaces like Sucr Kava Limonada or Cafe Louvre, but the coffee quality is falling behind other cities, so you can imagine what’s next on Minty’s agenda!
The publisher’s secret shop in NYC
by Perrin Drumm
In 1985, Luke Ives Pontifall was your average high school overachiever—the kind of guy whose regular classes weren’t enough to keep him busy, so he sought more stimulating after-school activities. Born out of tedium Thornwillow Press is a small publisher that produces finely crafted, handmade, limited-edition books. What began in Pontifall’s parents’ proverbial basement now thrives in Newburgh, NY, a town just across the Hudson from Beacon, home of the Dia.
Down the street from George Washington’s Revolutionary War headquarters in Newburgh, a host of master craftsmen and engravers create custom monograms, ciphers, calling cards, bookplates, logos and coats of arms. Letterpress printers work on 24 antique and modern printing presses—the oldest press dating back to the 1800s—and the bindery still uses historic binding equipment.
Thornwillow is classic every sense of the word, from their approach to the collections they print. Their latest release is “Andrew Jackson: The Hero”, a selection of documents compiled by Wendell Garret, whom you might have seen appraising furniture on “Antiques Roadshow”. Thornwillow publishes plenty of presidential paraphernalia, like Barack Obama’s inaugural address, as well as poetry by James Merrill and short fiction by John Updike. They’ve also produced a $2,495 edition of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and a $13,000 alphabet of William Wegman’s dogs.
New Yorkers don’t have to travel out to Newburgh to browse their titles—they have a location tucked away at the St. Regis Hotel in Manhattan. The Thornwillow outpost blends in with the other reading rooms, and many regulars have been known to pass by several times on their way to get the famous Bloody Marys at the King Cole bar before discovering the offerings within. The Library Gallery at the St. Regis is a cozy 20′ x 20′ room open 24 hours a day. A librarian is available Tuesday – Saturdays and by appointment, but you can drop in any time, night or day, and browse luxe volumes like Fabrice Herrault’s $1,450 “New York City Portfolio” or the $685 copy of “Cinderella”, until you find something you like. Also for sale is a selection of box stationery, books, letter and paper desk accessories and one-of-a-kind antiques in the Cabinet of Curiosities.
The Library Gallery at the St. Regis
2 East 55th Street
New York, NY 10022
Caffeine-driven collaboration at A Startup Store
As demand for high-quality coffee gains force, the myriad varietals and methods for roasting and brewing come to light with a range that can be intimidating for the average connoisseur.
Aiming to marry the sophistication of coffee drinking with the accessibility it needs to reach its growing audience, A Startup Store will host Coffee Common for its first public event in the U.S., 19-22 January 2012.
In the spirit of its core value of collaboration—between farmers and growers, roasters and baristas—Coffee Common will team up with the story-based retail concept shop in Chelsea before its official opening in February. For three days, and for only $5 a pop, the event will bring together key vendors to demonstrate novel methods in creating the perfect brew, showcasing how to use the best equipment. Besides the demos and informative, direct Q&A opportunities with baristas, attendees will come away hopped up on some of the world’s finest brews being served throughout.
The two parties came together when Startup Store founder Rachel Schectman saw “COMMON: Collaboration is the new Competition” in action at TED and “fell in love.” She says, “Our retail experience is about bringing content, community and commerce to life through rotating story based exhibitions, it was a perfect match before we emerge from beta.”
They’re bringing together representatives from places like Joe, RBC and Cafe Grumpy, as well as champion baristas Ben Kaminsky from Ritual Coffee in San Francisco, Anthony Benda from Cafe Myriade in Montreal, Trevor Corlett from Madcap Coffee in Michigan and more. Plus, the board is made up of National and World Barista Champions and Judges, and for the event, Coffee Common has partnered with Breville on appliance giveaways. For those who can’t make it to NYC, A Startup Store will be broadcasting the event in various Google+ hangouts.
Tickets are available for $5 online or at the door. For full event hours, visit Coffee Common online.
A fragrance-focused pop-up museum that engages all five senses
Comprising a series of multifaceted and interactive sensory experiences that go beyond just the act and perception of sniffing perfume, the Sensorium is the world’s first scent museum of its kind. Starting with the history and science of perfume—dating as far back as 2000 BC—the multimedia pop-up, a collaboration between Sephora and one of the world’s largest fragrance companies, Firmenich, goes on to present fragrance as a composition of emotional alchemy: the complex interaction of impressions conveyed by various ingredients and how they blend together.
In order to give an enhanced context to what’s typically regarded as one of our more abstract senses, the creative studio Neverstop and The D4D collaborated on an installation that relied on architects, designers, technologists and writers, as well as a team of master perfumers from Firmenich. The result is an ingenious and thrilling experience that heightens one’s perception of scent by its interaction with sight, sound, as well as an individual’s memories and emotions.
In addition to a momentary stop in a scent-deprivation chamber and a fragrance “flight bar,” visitors also pass through “First Scent,” an audio-visual set-up that coordinates with custom fragrances redolent of early-morning breakfasts, salty beach air and freshly-cut blades of grass—scents that are distinct and recognizable on their own, but often fraught with one’s associations to specific moments and memories.
“Lucid dreams,” Sensorium’s piece de resistance, explores the physical act of smelling. Images projected on a wall morph according to an individual’s particular sniff (audibly measured by sniff-registering flower sculptures), and how it changes according to the scent.
Sensorium runs through 27 November 2011 at 414 West 14th Street in New York. For tickets and hours, check out the Sensorium site at Sephora.
Lazarides and Pret A Diner collaborate to create an underground feast for the senses
As a follow-up to the extraordinary Hell’s Half Acre, Steve Lazarides and his merry band of radical street artists have teamed up with KP Kofler’s Pret A Diner dining experience to create The Minotaur. Set once again in the dark depths of London’s Old Vic Tunnels the space has been transformed into an atmospheric feast for the senses for London Art Week.
After singeing eyeballs with the impromptu rendition of Dante’s Inferno at Hell’s Half Acre last year, this time the creative inspiration comes from another classical myth—that of Theseus’ quest to kill the Minotaur in the maze, with the help of Ariadne and her ball of twine. This dark tale of bravery and hubris is interpreted in many ways by different artists throughout the suitably-labyrinthine underground space.
Unnerving from the start, the exhibition begins with an entrance that uses light and shadow spooky effect as Lucy McLauchlan‘s trash collage sculptures and Zak Ové‘s black magic voodoo creatures throw monstrous shapes on the walls. Soon enough, we discover Atma’s crucified form of the Minotaur suspended from the ceiling, illuminated by candles, while the discordant soundtrack to a slow-motion film of bull-fighting sequences plays nearby.
As we progress through the space, other versions of monsters emerge from the shadowy arches—in one corner is Jonathan Yeo‘s leonine portrait of high-society plastic surgery queen, Jocelyn Wildenstein, while in another, Rupert Murdoch looks down from on high, chipped out of a wall in Vhils‘s trademark graffiti style.
Commentary on contemporary culture as “beast” also comes in the form of Antony Micallef’s works of genetic perfection. Highly-idealized, airbrushed images of women looking eerily like blow-up dolls seem to represent the daily modern sacrifice of fair maidens manipulated in our media maze.
Other work was more overtly repellent, like David Falconer’s enormous ball of rats, entertainingly titled “Vermin Death Star,” on view on the way to the show’s highlight, a beautifully-hypnotizing video installation by Doug Foster. He has recast the form of last year’s Heretic’s Gate as a smoking swirl of reflected and mirrored forms, out of which gleaming eyes and horns fleetingly emerge, then disappear into a silvery mist.
At the center of all the visual drama is the Pret A Diner space which, in the evening, turns into a bacchanalian feast of high gastronomy. Interior designer Nora Von Nordenskjold has created a space that, in her words, recalls “ancient civilizations and forgotten worlds. How it would be to feast with the gods in exile.” This decadent underground tavern is dripping with candle wax, vine leaves and grapes, illuminated only by flickering candles and Pret a Diner co-founder Olivia Steele’s neon writing sculptures.
Four star chefs have been invited to create rotating menus to amuse the revelers’ palates: Portuguese Londoner Nuno Mendes, Sushi sensei Ollysan, Germany-based Spaniard Juan Amador and Michelin-starred Matthias Schmidt. This deliciously-indulgent experience has the sinister undertones of being one’s last meal before being sacrificed to the Minotaur, yet remains entirely enjoyable. One fellow guest we overheard probably put it best when describing the whole experience as something akin to a terrifying carnival ride you want to go on again and again.
London’s one-night-only art exhibit and pop-up dinner dedicated to all things hamburger
One of the few meat menu items that even tempts health nuts and vegetarians, burgers are not just a ubiquitous dish but in recent years have been taken to new culinary heights. Burgerac, a burger detective on the creative blog of the same name that’s dedicated to the sandwich itself, as well as burger-inspired art and design, sniffs out the best of these around London and NYC. To celebrate the beloved beefy treat, Burgerac tapped a slew of talented artists and food critic Daniel Young for a one-night-only burger bonanza and exhibition, called Burgermat.
While Young’s BurgerMonday events are a staple for London gastronomes, as Burgerac’s NYC correspondent (known as Colonel Mustard), I can attest to the level of extra energy put into the upcoming. Burgerace’s founder has selected 24 illustrators to each manifest their original work in the form of a paper placemat, on which BurgerMonday attendees will dine. At the end of the three-course meal, you can keep your ketchup-laden placemat or turn it in for a personalized Burgermat to take home.
The artist lineup includes Crispin Finn, South African vegetarian Richard Hart, Rob Flowers, James Joyce, The Lazy Oaf’s Gemma Shiel, Jon Boam (who also designed the Burgerac logo) and many more. Combined with chef Fred Smith’s cooking up a bold bacon cheeseburger and fries on the flat-top griddle, the night promises to enrapture the 64 lucky guests in full burger bliss.
Those hoping to join the fun should act quickly—Young’s previous four BurgerMonday events have sold out within hours of going on sale. Tickets will be available the morning of Monday 13 June 2011 and are £40, which gets you the print, burger and plenty of wine and beer. To keep in the loop, follow the Burgermat Twitter feed. Those who can’t make the show can try to snag their favorite giclée print of the Burgermat works through Print-Process.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
