Découverte de Jaume Plensa, un sculpteur contemporain catalan. Internationalement reconnu, ses créations ne laissent pas indifférent et sont présentes dans divers endroits dans le monde. Plus de ses sculptures en photographies dans la suite de l’article.
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Dans le même esprit que son travail 3D Painting on Glass, voici une sélection des oeuvres les plus impressionnantes par l’artiste anglais David Spriggs. Il parvient à faire rentrer les spectateurs dans son univers jouant à merveille avec la peinture, le verre et les éléments.
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Clouds of mist erupt from the base of two trees in this London water feature designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando.
The trees sit in a raised granite-edged pool in front of the Connaught Hotel in Mayfair.
Atomisers hidden at the base of the trees create clouds of water vapour for fifteen seconds every fifteen minutes.
Glass lenses below the surface of the water contain fibre optics that illuminate the basin by night.
The feature, which forms part of a wider project to upgrade the surrounding streets, was delivered in collaboration with UK architects Blair Associates.
More stories about landscape architecture on Dezeen »
Photography is by Adrian Brookes.
Here are some more details from developer Grosvenor:
Mount Street unveiling marks completion of first phase of street improvement
Grosvenor is celebrating the end of the first phase of the property company’s £10million programme to improve key streets across its London estate in Mayfair and Belgravia. The ambitious project is being undertaken in partnership with Westminster City Council.
‘Silence’, a new water feature designed by the Japanese architect philosopher Tadao Ando, will be unveiled at the event. The feature was jointly commissioned by Grosvenor and the Connaught hotel. The street improvements are based on the understanding that the space between buildings is as important as the buildings themselves. Ever-increasing traffic volume, and a mass of unnecessary signage and other ‘clutter’, have diminished the quality of London’s streets. The works aim to enhance the experience for all those who live, work and visit, particularly pedestrians. Unnecessary signage has been removed and pavements upgraded and extended, with two new pedestrian areas introduced to the street. The completion of the works on Mount Street follows a similar scheme on Elizabeth Street in Belgravia.
Commenting ahead of the Mount Street event Peter Vernon, Chief Executive, Grosvenor Britain & Ireland, said: “With over 300 years experience of managing and developing property in Mayfair and Belgravia we recognise that places are about more than buildings. The appearance of streets, and the public space around buildings, is fundamental to the long-term success of the London neighbourhoods we manage. “Large-scale works like these require a long-term outlook but we can already see the results. This is only the first phase of our programme, plans for the next wave of projects are already well underway.”
The improvements to Mount Street and Elizabeth Street were delivered through an innovative funding arrangement. Westminster City Council invested the funds need to pay for the work with Grosvenor, a long-standing property owner in the area, delivering the improvements. After five years from completion of the works Grosvenor will make a refund to Westminster equivalent to the project cost.
Cllr Colin Barrow, Leader of Westminster City Council, said: “We are delighted with the works which will bring huge improvements to this historic part of the capital. Our innovative finance agreement means significant enhancements to local streets, roads and open spaces, with the council’s initial investment being reimbursed by the land owners, who will also benefit from a boost in the value of the area in the long term. It is particularly poignant that the fountain outside the Connaught Hotel bears a memorial to Sir Simon Milton, who as Leader of the council did so much to pioneer the joint working between the private and public sector that has brought such improvements to the city.”
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| Tsunami Memorial by Carmody Groarke | Chimecco by Mark Nixon | Spontaneous City by London Fieldworks |
A look back at MoMA’s 1968 landmark show on our changing relationship to technology
At the time of the MoMA‘s 1968 seminal exhibition, “The Machine,” modern technology was at a point of critical transition between the mechanical age and the rise of electronic development. The Machine stands as the first exhibition entirely focused on and in recognition of the mechanical influence on the Western World. Through the artists central to the Futurist, Dada and Surrealist movements the exhibition illustrated the attitude of their time toward technology.
The metal book cover serves as a symbol of the mechanization of the modern world and makes it one of the more interesting book designs you’ll enjoy having on your library. The exhibition catalogue offers an in depth look at the 100+ included artists, chronologically ordered from the fifteenth to the twentieth century. The catalogue ventures from early mechanical depictions by Leonardo Da Vinci to the inventive diagram drawings of Suprematist Francis Picabia nearly four hundred years later. Each piece is accompanied by extensive black and white imagery and a collection of informative text and comments on technology by the artists themselves. From this the viewer learns of the Furtists’ aesthetic admiration of the machine and the Surrealist’s decisive opposition to machines as enemies of nature.
As the introduction poignantly states, “We take the machine’s usefulness for granted: yesterday’s new invention, no matter how amazing, quickly becomes the commonplace of today.” Some forty years later this noteworthy aside seems even more relevant today.
From Eadweard Muybridge’s historical photographic studies of motion to the groundbreaking sculptures and projection installations by Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Whitman’s Experiments in Art and Technology (EAT), the catalog details the revolutionary group who reshaped the new technology of their time with art’s individualism and freedom.
Seen by many as the last great exhibition of its period, The Machine continues to inspire. Look to Amazon or any number of other auction sites to snap up a vintage copy for yourself.
This 28 metre-high steel sculpture of the Jaguar E-Type car was designed by Gerry Judah for the Goodwood Festival of Speed, which took place in Sussex, UK, last weekend.
Made from half a kilometre of steel tubing with a diameter of 1.2 metres, the sculpture weighs over 175 tonnes and shows the car balanced on its front bumper.
The iconic Jaguar E-Type was first unveiled fifty years ago at the Geneva Motor Show.
See our interview with Jaguar’s design director Ian Callum on Dezeen Screen »
More car sculptures by Gerry Judah on Dezeen »
Photographs are by David Barbour.
Here’s some more information from Gerry Judah:
Jaguar E-Type Sculpture – Goodwood Festival of Speed 2011
Very few cars in history have matched the allure of the Jaguar E-Type. The sensational Malcolm Sayer design, 150 mph performance and race-winning heritage gave it a unique combination of beauty, speed and credibility. The E-Type was an overnight sensation when it was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in 1961. Despite changing fashions and the passage of time, our fascination with the E-Type is as strong today as it was 50 years ago, and those swooping curves are still as breathtaking as they were when Enzo Ferrari described it as “the most beautiful car ever made.”
Constructed using half a kilometre of 1200mm diameter steel tube, this sculpture by Gerry Judah stands 28 metres tall and weighs over 175 tonnes – the equivalent to 135 E-types! A striking tribute to a true motoring icon.
Concept, design and production: Gerry Judah
Structural Engineering: Capita Symonds
Fabrication and Installation: Littlehampton Welding
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| Alfa Romeo Sculpture by Gerry Judah | Audi Centenary Sculpture by Gerry Judah | Land Rover Sculpture by Gerry Judah |
Mark Nixon of London studio CZWG has turned a bridge in Aarhus, Denmark, into a musical instrument by hanging metal pipes from the underside.
Varying in length, the 600 gold-anodized aluminium pipes move freely in the breeze, sounding like a traditional wind chime when they collide.
People on the bridge can touch interactive nodes on its surface to activate the chimes in a controlled order, playing the instrument.
Named Chimecco, the sculpture forms part of this year’s Sculpture by the Sea exhibition, which takes place entirely outdoors.
More projects in Denmark on Dezeen »
Here is some more information from Nixon:
Chimecco, an interactive instrument
Sculpture by the Sea, Aarhus Denmark
Mark Nixon’s kinetic sculpture ‘Chimecco’ has been realised as part of the exhibition ‘Sculpture by the Sea’ in Aarhus, Denmark: one of the most popular outdoor sculpture exhibitions in the world – which last year drew crowds of over 500,000 people.
Mark’s design for a large interactive wind chime was selected as one of the winners of an open competition from over 350 submissions.
Mark has spent the last month in Aarhus helping to construct the piece together with a team of assistants.
The piece is constructed from 600 50mm diameter gold anodized aluminium pipes ranging in length from 120 mm up to 3750mm.
These pipes are attached to the underside of a bridge and with a series of interactive nodes on the top surface that allow for people to “play” the instrument.
The design is based on three conceptual ideas.
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| Garden of 10,000 Bridges by West 8 | Slightly Windy by José Ferrufino | Trees for Lycée Germaine Tillon by Matali Crasset |
Avec l’utilisation de plusieurs centaines de feuilles, l’artiste australienne Kylie Stillman conçoit et imagine ses oeuvres directement sur des livres dont le rendu est splendide. Avec des créations diverses, une sélection de son travail est à découvrir dans la suite de l’article.
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Three designers experiment with polyurethane foam to create new, unexpected forms
by Jack Shaw
While the idea of elevating industrial materials to the level of high design isn’t new, recent creative experiments with polyurethane foam have yielded work that feels undeniably fresh. Widely used in the furniture production process, polyurethane foam rarely constitutes a visible part of the final product. The material’s amorphous nature and near instantaneous conversion from a liquid to a solid not only lend to its commercial application as insulation and interior support, but have also made it a favorite plaything for conceptual designers. These projects have yielded work of unconventionally beautiful and rare intellectual appeal.
Berlin based product designer Jerszy Seymour has developed a career-spanning relationship with the polyurethane foam material. He has created an entire visual language of drips and goo, which he calls Scum. From lamps to a ‘house in a box’ kit Seymour has used the foam for projects of every scale. Seymour’s work has a humble honesty and a quality of being almost undesigned. His New Order Chair for Vitra Edition uses the foam to reconstruct a plastic garden chair into a design that is both experimental and elegant.
Like Seymour, Massimiliano Adami’s work often incorporates found objects. In his Fossili Moderni series polyurethane foam is used to suspend common plastic containers and toys (of both children and adults) before being sliced into a desired form. The resulting magma of 21st century refuse is a surprising reinterpretation of everyday objects. There is a thoughtfulness to this immortalization of the everyday object, considering it could take up to 1000 years for the average PET bottle to degrade in a landfill questioning mass design and its consumption seems entirely appropriate.
The Swell Vase, by Brooklyn designer Chen Chen, achieves its alien appearance by incorporating the contradiction between pressure and constraint into the production process. Made by injecting the expanding polyurethane foam into a net bag the tension between the two materials dictates the vase’s ultimate form. The work is made far more interesting by the idea of removing the designer’s control, and elevating the role of materials in the design process.
Jerszy Seymour has worked with such companies as Magis, Vitra, Kreo, Moulinex, SFR and IDEE. Massimiliano Adami has created designs for Cappellini, Meritalia, and Fendi. Adami and Chen Chen both currently have work on display at Moss in SoHo, New York City.
Images of New Order Chair by Hans-Jörg Walter, all others by Juan Garcia Mosqueda.
Following our previous story about a labia-like staircase, these images by French photographer Stefan Tuchila illustrate the womb-like orbs created by artist Anish Kapoor in the Grand Palais, Paris.
Formed of three 35 metre-high interconnected balloons, the Leviathan sculpture has a dark purple skin and a translucent red interior.
From inside, the silhouette of the palace ceiling is visible through the bulbous red rubber.
The sculpture was designed for the fourth Monumenta exhibition, which closes imminently.
See our earlier story on the ArcelorMittal Orbit by Anish Kapoor »
See more images of this project on the photographer’s website.
The following information is from the press release:
MONUMENTA 2011
Anish Kapoor at the Grand Palais
Leviathan from 11th May to 23rd June 2011
Each year MONUMENTA invites an internationally-renowned artist to turn their vision to the vast Nave of Paris’ Grand Palais and to create a new artwork especially for this space. MONUMENTA is an artistic interaction on an unparalleled scale, filling 13,500m2 and a height of 35m.
The first three MONUMENTA exhibitions were hugely successful, drawing in 150,000 visitors over five weeks. In 2007, the first challenge was met by German artist Anselm Kiefer, who resides in France, followed by American artist Richard Serra in 2008 and French artist Christian Boltanski in 2010.
For its fourth incarnation, the French Ministry for Culture and Communication has invited Anish Kapoor, one of his generation’s greatest artists, to produce a new work for the Nave’s monumental space, from 11th May to 23rd June 2011.
Thirty years after his first exhibition in Paris, MONUMENTA marks Anish Kapoor’s return to the French capital. He is considered as one of the most important sculptors of our time. His work has profoundly enlarged the scope of contemporary sculpture, as much by his mastery of monumental scale as by the colourful sensuality and apparent simplicity emanating from his works. All this contributes to the fascination they hold for the public at large, as demonstrated, for example, by the popular success of Cloud Gate in Chicago.
Born in Bombay in 1954, he has lived in London since the 1970s. His work rapidly gained international recognition and has been awarded numerous prizes, including the famous Turner Prize, which he won in 1991. His career has been the subject of a number of solo exhibitions at the world’s most prestigious museums, including the Louvre, the Royal Academy, Tate Modern, etc. Recently, he has been commissioned to design the key landmark for the forthcoming Olympic Games in London: a 116-metre-high sculpture entitled « Orbit ».
The artist describes the work he is creating for MONUMENTA as follows: “A single object, a single form, a single colour.” “My ambition”, he adds, “is to create a space within a space that responds to the height and luminosity of the Nave at the Grand Palais.
Visitors will be invited to walk inside the work, to immerse themselves in colour, and it will, I hope, be a contemplative and poetic experience.”
Designed using the most advanced technologies, the work will not merely speak to us visually, but will lead the visitor on a journey of total sensorial and mental discovery.
A technical, poetic challenge unparalleled in the history of sculpture, this work questions what we think we know about art, our body, our most intimate experiences and our origins.
Spectacular and profound, it responds to what the artist considers to be the crux of his work: namely, “To manage, through strictly physical means, to offer a completely new emotional and philosophical experience.”
The awe-inspiring strength of Anish Kapoor’s work is a fertile ground that favours the democratization of the access to contemporary art.
Through this series and subsequent exhibitions, the French Ministry for Culture and Communication hopes to appeal to the widest possible audiences.
To exceed the visitor’s expectations, artistic educators, whose knowledge and teaching abilities multiply the possibilities to access and understand the artwork, will be on hand throughout the exhibition to talk to visitors, widening their understanding of contemporary art at no extra cost.
School groups will have their own special programme developed in collaboration with the French Ministry for National Education.
Multidisciplinary and fun, the programme is designed for young visitors, ranging from nursery school to high school, one highlight being dance workshops in partnership with the Théâtre National de Chaillot.
There will be learning activities on the internet, making it possible to link the artist’s work to school programmes.
Themed cross-generational tours will also create a link with Anish Kapoor’s creation.
In addition, tours for the disabled will be available, in order to facilitate access to today’s heritage.
Finally, throughout the exhibition, an events programme will propose a dialogue between word, music, dance and Anish Kapoor’s work and the creations it shelters, in order to uncover new aspects of his creation.
Jean de Loisy is curator of Monumenta 2011. Independent exhibition curator, he has held among other positions that of creation inspector for the French Ministry for Culture and Communication, Cartier Foundation curator and curator at the Georges Pompidou Centre. He has directed and co-directed a variety of art centres in France. He has organized numerous solo artist exhibitions and memorable exhibitions such as “La Beauté” in Avignon in 2000, or “Traces du sacré” in 2008 at the Pompidou Centre. He has been working for 30 years with Anish Kapoor, for whom he organized numerous exhibitions including the 2009 retrospective at London’s Royal Academy of Arts.
The MONUMENTA admission price is 5 Euros, with concessions 2.50 Euros. The cultural programme (free with admission) proposes concerts, performances, readings and ‘encounters’ in connection with Anish Kapoor’s artwork. A bi-lingual highly documented website will help visitors to prepare their visit.
A fully illustrated album, co-published by the CNAP and the Rmn-GP publishing services, Paris 2011, and monograph, co-published by Flammarion and the CNAP, will be published in connection with this event.
Organised by the French Ministry for Culture and Communication, the exhibition is co-produced by the Centre national des arts plastiques (CNAP) and the Etablissement public de la Réunion des musées nationaux et du Grand Palais des Champs-Elysées (Rmn-GP).
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| Queens Museum of Art by Elliot White | Metropol Parasol by J. Mayer H. | Nissan Y150 Dream Front by Torafu Architects |
Anish Kapoor inflates a massive womb-like sculpture in Paris
The challenge of the annual art exhibit known as Monumenta is primarily a question of volume. Works created for the site-specific show must grapple with the 13,500 square-meter nave of the Grand Palais and the shimmering glass roof (the biggest in Europe), originally built for a late-1800s world’s fair in Paris. Every year the French Ministry for Culture invites a key figure of the artistic scene to fill the space; the three previous editions featured German artist Anselm Kiefer in 2007, followed by American artist Richard Serra the next year and (skipping a year) French artist Christian Boltanski in 2010.
The choice of Anish Kapoor, who’s also been commissioned to design a 116-meter-high sculpture titled “The ArcelorMittal Orbit” for the forthcoming Olympic Games in London, speaks to the 1991 Turner Prize winner’s mastery of monumental scale (seen in Chicago with his successful “Cloud Gate”) but also to his use of color as a basic material. Indian-born but living in London, Kapoor’s multicultural references show in his choice to make his Monumenta installation decidedly non-Western by asking viewers to literally enter the artwork rather than just look at it.
The spectacular piece consists of a huge cruciform balloon laying on the ground, almost as high and wide as the space itself. Describing his piece of work as a fiction, Kapoor explains he tried to give the idea of a presence while it’s nothing but air. He adds that the presence comes from the connection that the color as a medium makes with the eyes and senses of the visitors. To engineer the effect—to create a form that’s both light and enormous—was a technological feat to conceive and achieve, from the computerizing calculation of the flatness of its bottom and the size of each two-millimeter wide strip of material to the construction part itself.
While from the outside the piece looks like an aubergine-red ballon with neck-like forms, the inside is a bright red tunnel with holes; the aim of the artist is about experiencing two simultaneous but reversed realities.
Entering the balloon leads the visitor on a journey of sensorial discovery, an impression of what entering a womb must be like. Awash in natural light from the glassy roof, the thin red walls are lined with the shadows of the building’s iron structure. Of the many otherworldly qualities of the work, the immersive experience changes as the light shifts throughout the day and from one day to another, creating varying hues of red as well as shapes of shadows.
Monumenta 2011 runs through 23 June 2011, leaving plenty of time for you to jump over to Paris and experience this fantastic exhibition. Photographs from top: EMOC/Patrick Tourneboeuf, Isabelle Doal, Didier Plowy, Isabelle Doal.
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