Hasta La Ideas

Creative triple threat Triple Canopy—the online magazine, workspace, and platform for editorial and curatorial activities—is gearing up to move into a new home at 155 Freeman Street in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood. Come September, the nonprofit will be joined by Light Industry (a hub for film and electronic art) and The Public School (an open-source, curriculum-free classroom). A Kickstarter campaign is underway to raise cash for the first year of programming in the new, 1,500-square-foot space, which will “will act as a cinema, classroom, publication studio, and venue for performances, readings, workshops, and whatever else we happen to be cooking up in a given week,” according to Triple Canopy. Now in its final days, the project has already surpassed its $20,000 goal—incentive artworks by the likes of R. H. Quaytman and Paul Chan helped to push it over the top—but you have through July 10 to chip in and help them get a headstart on year two (they’ve signed a five-year lease, after all). Plus, a pledge of $50 will get you a “limited-time digital-download project” by none other than Cory Arcangel, who will e-mail it to you personally.

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A view of the Essling Bar and a suite at the renovated La Maison Champs Elysées, the first hotel project for Maison Martin Margiela. Below, a hall paneled in aluminum sheets leads to the garden and upper floors. (Photos: Maison Martin Margiela)

Maison Martin Margiela will kick off couture week with a July 4 presentation at La Maison Champs Elysées, the Paris hotel that has just received a stunning makeover by the fashion house. Designed in 1864 by architect Jules Pellechet for the Duchess of Rivoli, Princess D’Essling (grand mistress of fashion maven Empress Eugenie‘s household), the Haussmannian house was completed in 1866. Nearly 150 years (and a few owners and a modern addition) later, Maison Martin Margiela won a competition to redesign the historical part of the 57-room hotel. Team Margiela worked with landscape painters and lighting engineers to deploy materials ranging from wool and paper to Ductal concrete and “gypsum from the Urals” in a new restaurant, smoking room, bar, and reception area, along with 17 jaw-dropping hotel suites. One is papered in black-and-white photographs of the sumptuous salon below, while another drapes everything in Margiela’s signature white cotton covers. Museum fanatics can book the “Closet of Rarities” suite, where the coal black walls and black-stained oak parquet floors are offset by a cabinet of curiosities. “Maison Martin Margiela has created a dramatic world where reality and make-believe seem to blend,” noted the house in a statement. “The decor is like a succession of stage sets where references are mixed so as to create an unusual atmosphere where past and present jostle harmoniously.”

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What do a Florida state park, a young dandy tap dancing in the rain, and two lovestruck bunnies have in common? All can now be seen on televisions at The Standards in New York, Miami, and Los Angeles as part of the 2011 StandART in-room video art series, which launched this week. Curated by the sharp-eyed folks at nonprofit Creative Time, the public art project includes Terence Koh‘s “Rabbit Holy Days,” a new work conceived and commissioned for the program. The six-minute video, originally shot in 16mm under Koh’s direction by filmmaker Jake Yuzna, follows the love story of two bunnies navigating the corridors, rooms, and public spaces of The Standard, New York. Also on view are videos by Slater Bradley (“The Abandonments”), Kalup Linzy (“Labisha’s Bonus Track and Sit Down Child”), Allison Schulnik (“Forest”), Andrew Cross (“Prelude from The Solo”), Naomi Fisher (“Myakka”), and Estefanía Peñafiel Loaiza (“Sans Titre Paysaye”). Here’s tiny pieces of all seven films, in a video collage featuring the percussive wizardry of drummer Carl Palmer, who stars in Cross’ work.

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Oh, art. Oh, James Franco. Every time we think we’re done rolling our eyes at you, there you go again. This week marked the launch of the Museum of Non-Visible Art, or the MONA, created by Praxis, the collaborative art team also knows as Brainard and Delia Carey, with a little help from the aforementioned actor-turned-artist. The museum is exactly as it sounds, a space for “non-visible art,” or as they put it, “an extravaganza of imagination.” And, of course, they’ve launched a Kickstarter project to help fund the project, asking to raise $5,000 to create the museum. An included video features both the artists, along with Franco, all simply speaking to the camera in a maddeningly over-exposed setting (art!). Thus far, they’ve raised $11,466. Though when taken apart, they’ve raised one $10,000 donation (wherein the donor will receive the conceptual piece “Fresh Air” which “is like buying an endless tank of oxygen”) and a batch of much smaller amounts making up the remaining $1,466 (at the $25 level, you get a copy of Mr. Franco’s film, Red Leaves, an “imagined short film” by the actor, “based on William Faukner’s short story” of the same name). All donors at higher levels are warned: “When you contribute to this Kickstarter project, you are not buying a visible piece of art! You will not receive a painting or a film or a photograph in your mailbox. What you will receive is something even more fascinating: The opportunity to collaborate in an act of artistic creation.” Fortunately, if you decide to contribute, ArtInfo has learned that the group already has picked up a permanent home for the MONA: “the unrealized downtown Guggenheim.” Unfortunately, we regret to inform you that the MONA already exists in that location because we just now put it there in our brains. Double unfortunate: it’s now being attacked by vampires and dragons.

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You’ve worn her clothes, you’ve eaten off her dishes, and if you’ve been lucky enough to fall ill in Cleveland, you’ve even gotten the chance to sport one of her hospital gowns. But with so much Diane von Furtsenberg to go around, one question remains: what about the children?! That, of course, is immediately followed by another question: won’t someone please think of the children?! Sure, we adults can consume as much von Furstenberg as our wallets will allow (well, except for we men, but just go with it — we’re trying really hard to cleverly segue here), but the poor, innocent darlings haven’t been allowed to experience her work…until now (segue complete). Gap has announced its latest partnership with a fashion icon, this time with von Furstenberg, who will be designing for the retail giant’s GapKids and babyGap lines (just like Stella McCartney did back in 2009). The collection is set to be released in March of next year, giving the presently childless ample time to conceive and deliver a baby in order to get in on this action. Here’s a bit from the announcement:

“We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to build on Gap’s successful past collaborations and develop this collection with Diane, a true American fashion icon and inspiration to women around the world,” said Art Peck, President of Gap brand, North America. “I’m also looking forward to offering our customers an exciting collection that applies her signature approach to print, optimistic color and femininity, mixed with our expertise in great quality premium children’s clothing at accessible prices.”

Diane von Furstenberg comments, “As a proud mother and grandmother I am so excited to create a capsule collection for children with the superstar retailer, Gap.”

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