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      Hugo McCloud’s artworks use plastic bags instead of paint

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      New York artist Hugo McCloud has created a series of artworks that contain no paint or glue, only thousands of small plastic pieces cut from single-use bags and melted together to form a motif.The series, called Burdened, is on view at Sean Kelly Gallery in Hudson Yards, New York until 27 February and spans 31 original pieces created by McCloud while quarantining in his Mexico studio.

      Together shows women carrying goods across the border of Ceuta, a Spanish autonomous city in Morocco
      To create the collages, which mainly depict scenes of labour, McCloud first traces them onto a wood panel before filling them in with the multicoloured plastic scraps.
      These are individually cut from plastic bags and layered on top of each other, much like individual brush strokes, before being fused together with an iron.

      Burdened is on show at Sean Kelly Gallery

      “Due to the nature of the material and its thinness, you can always see underneath, so one colour applied on top of another creates a third colour,” McCloud told Dezeen.
      “There has to be a lot of forethought and planning before starting. The plastic is fused onto the panel with an iron, there is no removal or covering up, you must know what you’re trying to achieve. With paint, there is more freedom for chance and emotions. I do miss some of that but working with the plastic is very meditative, with an understood direction.”

      Several of the artworks show refugees crossing the Mediterranean Sea from Libya
      The bags come from recycling yards and waste management companies, or else the artist picks them up off the street himself or reuses ones that were given to him while shopping.
      Often, their branding remains visible in the final art piece, acting as a reminder of the material’s former life and reinforcing its familiarity.

      Each piece is a collage of hundreds or thousands of small plastic shreds
      Based on photographs found on the internet, the collages depict the movement of people and goods around the world, from workers transporting wares on their backs and bikes to refugees attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea by boat.
      In this way, the Burdened series is not just a commentary on the environmental impact of single-use plastic but also an exploration of how this ubiquitous material transcends class and geography.

      Sweet Sneak Studio’s photo series puts focus on microplastics in the food chain

      “Traveling in India, I saw multi-colour plastic sacks everywhere and started to understand their downcycle, from the companies that purchased and used them to distribute their products, down to the trash pickers in Dharavi slums,” the artist explained.
      “The idea that these plastic bags would always be around – never biodegrade – interested me, and made me curious about the hands and lives of the many people they would pass through.”

      With all your Might is one of several pieces that show goods being transported by labourers
      The exhibition also includes a mini-series of collages showing flower arrangements, which McCloud made to offer the show’s visitors and himself a moment of respite from the dispiriting news cycles and monotony of lockdown.
      McCloud, who has a background in industrial design, is known for creating “paintings” from unusual, often three-dimensional materials like bitumen or aluminium sheeting.

      The exhibition features 31 artworks
      To mark New York City’s ban on plastic bags, local artist Robin Frohardt created a grocery store installation last March that was stocked with produce like tomatoes and berries, all formed from discarded single-use carriers he had collected from the city’s streets.
      Dutch food design studio Sweet Sneak has previously explored pollution and its environmental impact through a photo series, in which common foods and drinks such as beer and sushi were topped with styrofoam bubbles and wrapped in plastic bags.
      Installation view photographs are by Jason Wyche.
      Burdened is on view at Sean Kelly Gallery until 27 February 2021. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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      Penthouse of SOM-designed tower transformed into collectible design gallery

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      Seminal furniture designs by Brazilian modernists sit alongside contemporary art in a shoppable exhibition within the 40th-floor penthouse of a recently-opened San Francisco residential tower by architecture firm SOM.Travelling French-Lebanese gallery Gabriel & Guillaume has decorated the interior of the penthouse of the new Fifteen Fifty building in bright colours and patterns, and furnished it with a mix of new and mid-century pieces, all of which are for sale as part of the showcase.

      Top: An open living space is at the centre of the penthouse. Above: The apartment’s office features a sofa by Carlo Hauner and Martin Eisler
      The exhibition, which will run through summer 2021, is a collaboration between the gallery, the building’s developers Related California and branding agency FrenchCalifornia, which specialises in creating exhibitions within model apartments.
      The team was tasked with decorating the three-bedroom, three-bathroom penthouse – with interior architecture designed by Los Angeles firm Marmol Radziner – to create a scheme that is “livable and approachable”.
      “We always work to conceptualise and execute spaces that help visitors see that collectible design can be attainable and fun, so this project came very naturally to us,” FrenchCalifornia told Dezeen.

      The master bedroom features almond green walls and a hand-knotted wool and silk rug by Marguerite le Maire

      Pieces on show hail from Italy, France and Brazil, dating from the 1940s to present day.
      They sit alongside a contemporary art collection curated by gallerist Jessica Silverman, which includes works by American sculptor Davina Semo, multi-media artist Julian Hoeber, painter and photographer Ian Wallace, Israeli artist Amikam Toren and Berlin-based Claudia Wieser.

      A Jacaranda wood and marble dining table by Sergio Rodrigues sits in the dining room area alongside dining chairs by Martin Szekely
      Vivid paint colours such as the deep blue in the open kitchen, almond green in the bedroom and 1980s-style graphic green wallpaper in the office were chosen to reflect the spirit of the city while complementing the furniture and helping to define the different rooms.
      Describing their style as “eclectic”, Gabriel & Guillaume pulled together a diverse selection of furniture from different countries and eras.
      Pieces designed in the 1980s by French designer Martin Szekely sit alongside work by Brazilian modernists such as Martin Eisler and Carlo Hauner, who founded illustrious furniture brand Forma, and Jorge Zalszupin.

      The living space opens up into a dining room
      Contemporary furniture pieces include designs by Beirut-based Ranya Sarakbi and Niko Koronis, who is known for his work with resin. Rugs by Iwan Maktabi and textile designer Marguerite Le Maire, as well as pieces by ceramicist Maloles Antignac were chosen to complement the furniture.
      “When we buy pieces, we don’t think of how they will go together,” Nancy Gabriel and Guillaume Excoffier of Gabriel & Guillaume told Dezeen. “Most great pieces usually go together if proportions work – and when one piece looks uneasy with another one, just add a third one.”

      10 homes that double up as galleries or artists’ workspaces

      In the past decade, an increasing number of galleries and art shows have moved their showcases from traditional gallery spaces to domestic settings.
      “Buyers, designers and decorators alike prefer to see pieces in situ and visualise a piece in a lived-in space, and the model residence is obviously the perfect platform to do this,” said FrenchCalifornia.

      The living room features ballet slipper pink walls
      “With retail moving fast online, when you want to actually bring people to an exhibition, you need to offer them an experience,” Gabriel & Guillaume added.
      “The coldness of a white cube does not do that. In comparison, getting into a home is always a more special moment. While you can see the pieces, you can also discover the way they go together and the curation of the space. The homely format definitely has more soul.”

      Tall windows in the bathroom offer views of the city beyond
      This sentiment is echoed by the founders of Nomad, a travelling art fair founded in 2017 that showcases collectible design in exclusive villas and apartments.
      Speaking about the fair’s residential context, Nomad co-founder Nicolas Bellavance-Lecompte told Dezeen: “What is good is that you can relate on a domestic scale with the objects. Most design collectors don’t buy for their storage for investment, they buy pieces to live with them. So to have them in a domestic environment is definitely perfect because you can relate to them.”
      Photography by Douglas Friedman.

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      Friedman Benda showcases furniture pieces with a story to tell

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      A mirror-cum-observatory and a lockdown lounge chair with an integrated bar feature in an exhibition at New York’s Friedman Benda gallery that explores the value of design objects beyond just their practical use.The show, titled Split Personality, was curated by Alice Stori Liechtenstein and features furniture and homewares from 17 different designers.
      Each piece was chosen because it has a symbolic value beyond what meets the eye, exploring topics from immigration to biodiversity loss through different materials and production methods.

      Top image: Split Personality is on view at Friedman Benda until 6 February. Above: Toomas Toomepuu contributed to the show

      The exhibition focuses on the stories the objects have to tell, Liechtenstein told Dezeen, using chairs as an example.
      “There are thousands of chairs and the most comfortable chair has already been invented and reinvented 100 times,” she said.
      “So a lot of the time, what we want when we’re looking for a chair is not just something to sit on. But what makes an object particularly interesting are the stories it is able to tell once you have the time to discover them.”
      In this way, Liechtenstein explains, the exhibition rejects the strict Bauhausian ideal of form over function. “We’re over it,” she said. “I see the message as a form of function.”

      Limited grasses table by Mischer’Traxler
      Several of the projects on show are the culmination of extensive research projects, among them a coffee table from Viennese duo Mischer’Traxler. Protruding from its gridded frame are brass effigies of a near-extinct grass species known as agropyron cristatum, of which only around 200 specimens remain in Austria.

      Tour of design exhibition at historic Austrian castle with curator Alice Stori Liechtenstein as part of VDF

      “They are only making five editions of this table because on each table there are 40 brass stems. So it’s a way of representing the number of plants that really exist in nature,” Liechtenstein explained.
      “I think this kind of exercise is very useful because a lot of the time, we don’t realise what a number means until we see it visualised.”

      Christien Meindertsma grew the flax for this rug herself
      Disillusioned with the fact that she couldn’t trace a piece of linen yarn back to the flax field where it originated, Dutch designer Christien Meindertsma decided to acquire a piece of land and grow the crop herself.
      From her yield she created a chair and a series of textiles, including a shaggy rug on show at the gallery.
      “For her, it’s not just about one rug,” said the curator. “The real design project is about making sure that she knows where the material is coming from, that it’s treated properly, that there are no damages to the environment.”

      Commonplace Studio’s Observatorium Mirror shows images of space
      A more abstract exploration of our relationship to nature is the Observatorium Mirror by Commonplace Studio – an obsidian screen in which Liechtenstein says you can see yourself “just well enough to put lipstick on”.
      Simultaneously, the mirror also shows NASA images of far-flung galaxies that visitors can zoom in and out of using a focus pin.
      “We’re so used to seeing ourselves in the mirror and the mirror is all about you. Whereas in this instance, you’re really confronting yourself with the immensity of the universe and reflecting on the larger world,” added the curator.

      Arnaud Eubelen’s designs make use of abandoned building materials
      Other designs subvert function in a literal way by repurposing objects for new uses, with Belgian designer Arnaud Eubelen assembling a light and side table from discarded building materials.

      Jonathan Trayte turns the American landscape into fantastical furniture

      Similarly, Eindhoven-based Ismaël Rifaï made a bench by taping blankets and plastic bottles to an iron trolley frame, inspired by the inventive ways that goods are transported across the border in the Spanish autonomous city of Ceuta in Morocco.

      Ismaël Rifaï’s bench uses rugs as upholstery
      A small room off the main exhibition space is covered from floor to ceiling with checkered, plastic mesh bags, as is the furniture within it, creating the claustrophobic impression of stepping inside one of the bags themselves.
      The installation by South African photographer Nobukho Nqaba is based on her Umaskhenkethe photo series and explores how these bags have come to act as emblems of migration, known by different names around the world – such as Ghana Must Go bags in Nigeria.

      Nobukho Nqaba created her installation especially for the exhibition
      “They are always associated with immigrants and the people who use them are seen as homeless. And at the same time, the bags are a symbol of home because their home, most of the time, is carried in these bags,” said Liechtenstein.
      “Although Nobukho is not a classic furniture designer, I think she really has a sense for what the symbology of an object can be.”

      Jonathan Trayte’s Kula Sour was another commission
      Several pieces were commissioned especially for the exhibition, including a lounge chair by British designer Jonathan Trayte that can help to create a sense of escapism for its user during lockdown.
      It features a built-in lamp, a bar with an icebox and a side table on which to prop a laptop, creating a kind of island onto itself that allows the user to pretend they’re somewhere more exotic.

      Wieki Somers also contributed to the show
      Also taking part in the exhibition are Wieki Somers, Rich Aybar, Thomas Ballouhey, Emma Fague, Fernando Laposse, Chris Schanck, Brynjar Sigurðarson, Katie Stout, Soft Baroque and Toomas Toomepuu.
      Split Personality is on view at Friedman Benda Gallery in New York until 6 February 2021. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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      Five standout pieces at the Ron Arad 69 exhibition

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      A Brexit-themed chair and a crumpled bin are some of the pieces to feature in an exhibition at Newlands House gallery that showcases 40 years of work by Israeli designer Ron Arad.The exhibition is titled Ron Arad 69, in honour of the designer’s 69th birthday in 2020, and showcases 50 standout pieces from his extensive oeuvre.
      Some of the pieces date back to the 1980s, when Arad established his eponymous studio, while others are from the 90s and 2000s – as well as a select few works that were released as recently as last year.

      “For me, business is always a necessary evil” says Ron Arad

      They are all displayed amongst the grounds and historic rooms of Newlands House, a 700-square-metre gallery in West Sussex which occupies a heritage-listed Georgian townhouse and its adjoining coach house.
      It is headed up by creative director Simon De Pury, who says it was an obvious choice to create a show around Arad’s work.
      “Ron Arad is a giant in his field,” Pury told Dezeen.”He has developed his uniquely personal language; while he has been copied by many, his work remains strong and timeless.”
      The pieces in the exhibition have not been arranged in chronological order, but simply placed where Pury felt they looked best in the gallery.
      “It’s not a retrospective, it’s a sampling of works that I personally love from Ron’s career,” Pury explained.
      “I greatly look forward to seeing the contrast between the 19th-century architecture of the gallery and the resolutely 21st-century feel of Arad’s dazzling and bold works,” he continued.
      “I hope visitors will enjoy experiencing the beauty, elegance and also the sense of humour of his amazing work in the intimate setting of a house that helps the viewer imagine what it would be like to live with it.”
      Read on to get a glimpse of five works that feature in the exhibition:

      Now What, 2020
      More colloquially known as the Brexit Chair, Now What is haphazardly plastered with clippings of newspapers that were released on Friday 31 January 2020 – the day that Britain left the European Union.
      Now What’s rounded seat and Mickey Mouse-shaped backrest riffs off the curvaceous form of Arad’s Big Easy chair, which was designed back in 1988.

      Where Are My Glasses?, 2018
      These ombre-effect coloured vases were originally launched during the 2018 edition of Milan Design Week.
      To create them, Ron Arad asked experts working at Italian glassware brand Venini to blow glass through metal-frame spectacles – the spectacles act almost like a taut belt, which forces the vase to bulge outwards at the sides.

      Photo by Gary Morrisroe
      Blame The Tools, 2013
      Arad’s Blame The Tools sculpture is shaped to resemble a life-sized Fiat 500 car. Crafted from stainless-steel sheets and rods, the gridded sculpture is so heavy that it had to be hoisted by a crane into Newlands House’s front garden.
      “I like to imagine how this car would look if it stayed here and we let nature do its work, eventually you’d have vegetation growing through it,” said Pury.

      Crash Bin, 2006
      Danish retailer Vipp asked Ron Arad to customise one of its bins for a charity auction 15 years ago.
      Instead of making aesthetic changes, the designer crushed the product from the top down, making deep dents in its silver-metal exterior. Arad’s signature appears just above the bin’s foot pedal.

      The Rover Chair, 1981
      Found objects were used to form The Rover chair, which is the first piece of furniture to be designed by Arad.
      The chair’s worn leather seat was taken from a Rover P6 car, while its tubular steel frame is made from Kee Klamps that were once part of a milking stall for farm animals.
      Photography is courtesy of Elizabeth Zeschin unless stated otherwise.
      Ron Arad 69 is at Newlands House, UK, from 19 September 2020 until 7 March 2021, but the gallery is currently closed due to Covid-19. For more architecture and design events, visit Dezeen Events Guide.

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      V&A curator picks five highlights from Bags: Inside Out exhibition

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      The 19th-century equivalent of an activist’s slogan tote and a portmanteau made from repurposed fire hoses feature in this roundup of V&A curator Lucia Savi’s favourite pieces from the Bags: Inside Out exhibition.On show at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum until September of next year, the exhibition traces the evolution of bags from the 16th century to the present day.
      Over three distinct sections and nearly 300 exhibits, it explores the different functions that these carriers can serve, the ways they can communicate status and identity as well as the craftsmanship that goes into their making.
      Along the way, designs by luxury fashion houses rub shoulders with personal items belonging to historical figures such as Winston Churchill and artefacts sourced everywhere from Pakistan to Burma.

      “If you think about it, bags are everywhere. Men, women, children – everybody wears them and uses them on an everyday basis,” Savi told Dezeen.
      “We can’t even pinpoint when the first bag in history was made or used because it’s such a functional object that was useful for so many reasons – to travel from A to B, to transport personal belongings.”
      “But they can also be status symbols and carry meaning or memories. In the fashion business today, bags are often the biggest revenue drivers,” she continued. “The exhibition sets out to investigate what makes this object so special, so coveted and so multi-layered.”
      According to Savi, a key factor in this is the fact that bags allow their wearer to present themselves to the world while simultaneously revealing who they really are on the inside.

      Freitag’s Sweat-Yourself-Shop is a tiny factory for making bags

      “I think this is at the core of what bags are – they’re functional, they have meaning but they’re very private. We carry our most personal belongings in our bags and not everybody wants to open theirs and show off the contents,” she said.
      “At the same time, we carry them physically on the body, we’re commuting, were travelling. So there are these dichotomies between inside and outside, private and public.”
      This is evidenced by the millions of view racked up by “What’s in my bag” videos on YouTube and translated into the design of the exhibition itself, which is courtesy of London architecture practice Studio Mutt.

      V&A East “will speak to the local population” says Gus Casely-Hayford

      The ground floor of the V&A’s Gallery 40 is transformed to resemble the inside of a bag, with fabric partitions acting like the lining and dividing the space into small, intimate “pockets”. Here, the exhibits are displayed largely on their own, cracked open to reveal their vulnerable insides, while on the upstairs mezzanine the bags are showcased on mannequins, to suggest their public, outward-facing role.
      Bags: Inside Out opened its door earlier this month after being delayed twice due to coronavirus lockdowns and only a few days before Tier 3 restrictions were once again imposed on London.
      As a result, the museum is currently closed, so we have enlisted Savi to share her personal highlights from the show below:

      Jane Birkin’s Birkin bag by Hermès, 1984
      “This is the very first Birkin bag that was ever made. The story goes that Jane Birkin was on a plane from Paris to London in the 80s and was complaining to the man next to her that she couldn’t find a leather bag she liked. It turns out she was talking to the CEO of Hermès, so they start drawing some ideas on one of those paper [sickness] bags.
      “Now, the Birkin is the most recognised and coveted handbag of our time. It’s not easy to get hold of one, because of the price but also because you can’t just walk into a shop and buy one. They fetch crazy prices at auctions and a report found that the value of a Birkin is actually more stable and better-performing than gold.
      “The primary function of a bag throughout history was to carry valuables and in this case, the bag became a valuable object in itself. This is, of course, because of the craftsmanship and the quality – it takes many hours for a Birkin to be made and it’s all done by one artisan. But it’s also because of the exclusivity and the celebrity association, which together created the phenomenon of ‘it-bags’.”

      Anti-slavery workbag by Samuel Lines and the Female Society for Birmingham, 1828
      “This bag was made by women from the Female Society for Birmingham as part of their campaign to abolish slavery in the British Empire. Printed on the bag is a powerful image of an enslaved woman who is breastfeeding while a man is telling her to go back to work.
      “This piece was showcased very much on the body, for everybody to see what these women were advocating for. It was used to carry pamphlets and campaign materials, which they sold alongside the bags to raise money. But also, because it’s a work bag, it was used to carry tools and little items that were used for sewing, so there’s really a double function there.
      “What’s interesting about this bag is that we just have the silk part but we don’t have the metal frame and the handles. So it really shows you how these bags were made by this group of women. Not many of them have survived but they exemplify an important function of bags, both historically and today, as a way of showcasing our beliefs.”

      Daln by Kazuyo Sejima for Prada, 2019
      “Bags offer fertile soil for experimenting with new ideas and for collaborations between designers, artists and more recently architects. They’re quite sculptural objects with a large surface area, so they’re almost like a blank canvas.
      “This collaboration is part of a collection called Prada Invites, where the brand recruited four female architects to reinvent its iconic nylon bag. Prada is a historic fashion house that started in 1913 as a leather luggage maker. But when Miuccia Prada took the helm of the company in the 80s, she introduced this very new material that you normally wouldn’t associate with luxury and redefined it.”
      “Kazuyo Sejima’s interpretation of the bag really gives the freedom to the wearer to reinvent the bag every time – you can un-zip some parts, make it longer or shorter. And you can add all these colourful, detachable pouches and pockets with soft shapes that contrast with the black, square body of the bag.”

      Weekend bag by Elvis and Kresse, 2019
      “More and more, we’re seeing brands try to work with materials that are not exploiting the natural world and not creating too much waste. But this brand, Elvis and Kresse, has been doing it for years and decades.
      “They saw that fire hoses, once they reached the end of their life, were just ending up in landfill. So they started to produce accessories out of them, using the material almost as if it was leather and fabricating the bags using similar machinery.
      “First, the hose gets washed and then it’s cut in half. It has two surfaces, a smooth and a dimpled one, and they combine these to create the designs. The lining is made out of parachute silk or old auction banners and everything from the packaging to the labels is made from rescued materials.”

      Iside Toothpaste bag by Bethan Laura Wood for Valextra, 2018
      “Normally, Valextra’s bags are quite severe. They’re very simple, very structured bags, but with the intervention of British designer Bethan Laura Wood on the handles and the addition of this sinuous, toothpaste-like hardware, the bag almost becomes a completely different object.
      “She was inspired by the linework of [Scottish artist] Eduardo Paolozzi and the piping along the side of the Valextra bag, where the leathers is inked to finish the seams. And I really enjoyed the idea of playing with that line and the fact that she intervenes on the hardware but not on the leather, which is a very interesting way of thinking about bags.
      “Working with a designer who normally maybe doesn’t work on leather or hardware and has never worked on bags, I think it does bring a completely different perspective. It challenges the makers and it creates almost like wearable pieces of art.”
      Bags: Inside Out is on show at the V&A in London until 12 September 2021. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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      Anupama Kundoo's handmade architecture features in Louisiana Museum exhibition

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      A major exhibition at the Louisiana Museum in Denmark shines a spotlight on Anupama Kundoo, an Indian architect with an unique knowledge of traditional materials and craft traditions.Anupama Kundoo – Taking Time offers an insight into the ideas driving Kundoo’s “slow architecture” approach, which she has applied to both housing and community infrastructure.

      The first room, The Architecture of Time, is dedicated to archive material
      Favouring hand-made elements over mass-produced components, her work centres around ongoing, intensive research into sustainable practices and materials.
      This is revealed here through the inclusion of Kundoo’s architectural archive, which not only contains a number of intricate models but also various construction tools and material samples.

      Architectural models reveal the design of Kundoo’s own home, Wall House

      Exhibition highlights include a full-scale mockup of Kundoo’s affordable housing concept, Full Fill Home, which debuted at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2016.
      There are also detailed models of Kundoo’s own home, Wall House, a building that champions regional building traditions like achakal bricks and terracotta roofing systems.

      Wall House was built with local traditions like achakal bricks and terracotta roofing
      Anupama Kundoo – Taking Time is the latest instalment in a series of exhibitions titled The Architect’s Studio, curated by Kjeld Kjeldsen and Mette Marie Kallehauge. In each, the aim has been to reveal the process behind the buildings.

      Ten key projects by Indian architect Anupama Kundoo

      “Kundoo tries to return qualitative time to the production of architecture – by human work and human hand, which naturally takes longer than machines but involves a far better sense of materials, detail, space and the building’s relationship to the site,” said the curators.
      “Looking at Kundoo’s buildings, it is impossible not to sense that they are unique works, the epitome of site-specific architecture.”

      There is a full-scale mockup of Kundoo’s affordable housing concept, Full Fill Home
      The exhibition consists of two parts. The first room, called The Architecture of Time, is dedicated to archive material. Here, 13 building models are displayed alongside an assortment of artefacts.
      There are three tables of materials: one featuring a mix of natural stones and wood, one covered in earth (both rammed and fired), and one exploring cement and concrete.
      Also in this room is a model of the Volontariat Homes for Homeless Children, a cluster of dome-shaped housing units made from handmade mud bricks, and Hut Petite Ferme, the first house Kundoo designed for herself.

      Other featured projects include the domed Volontariat Homes for Homeless Children
      The second room, titled Co-creation, hones in on Auroville – the city where Kundoo has been based for the majority of her career, and where many of her buildings are located.
      Here, the focus is on Kundoo’s largest project to date – the 240,000-square-metre housing development, Lines of Goodwill. A large model, along with 1:1 scale material samples, reveals Kundoo’s strategies for environmentally sensitive homes that connect residents to nature.

      The Co-creation room reveals Kundoo’s masterplan for Lines of Goodwill in Auroville
      This is the fourth exhibition that the Louisiana has hosted as part of The Architect’s Studio series, following retrospectives of Chinese architect Wang Shu, Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena and Mexican architect Tatiana Bilbao.
      “Of course, the whole exhibition series is to do with different cultures,” Kjeldsen previously told Dezeen.
      Anupama Kundoo – Taking Time opened on 8 October and continues until 31 January at the Louisiana Museum. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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      Pablo Chiereghin violently destroys and rebuilds furniture for Riot Design exhibition

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      Italian visual artist Pablo Chiereghin has created a series of furniture pieces from the remains of items he destroyed “using a riot aesthetic” for an exhibition at Vienna’s Kunstforum.Named Riot Design, the exhibition consists of a series of reconstructed pieces of furniture and everyday items displayed alongside videos showing Chiereghin destroying the original items.
      “Riot Design is a process through consumerism, violence appeal, design and the market,” explained Chiereghin.
      “Un-personal everyday objects are destroyed and transformed using a riot aesthetic and then brought back to functionality through an invasive restoration,” he told Dezeen.

      The Riot Design exhibition is at Vienna’s Kunstforum.

      Each of the items, chosen for their normality, was destroyed on-site within the gallery, which is in the former vault of the bank that houses the Kunstforum.
      They were then reassembled using construction materials that are usually hidden within items to draw attention to the rebuilding.

      Riot Design consists of destroyed and rebuilt furniture
      “The act of destruction is part of the artwork, violence models and deconstructs the object, leaving left-over pieces which are then to be recomposed in a unique object,” Chiereghin said.
      “The exhibition is conceived as a whole installation which combines objects and videos, changing rhythm through rough sounds and flirty objects, between construction materials and pink moulded plastic.”

      The items were chosen for their normality
      Chiereghin destroyed the items while wearing a helmet or balaclava to make a visual connection to the act of rioting.
      “The combination of the objects and the riot tools was influenced by the destruction result I wanted to obtain and by visual references to the history of riots,” said Chiereghin.
      “The idea of applying violence to things is common, either in everyday life or in the art,” he continued. “Nevertheless, I was for a long time fascinated by the power of exercising violence and the appeal that violence has on human beings.”

      The furniture was destroyed within the exhibition space
      “With the passing of the time I realised I wanted to excerpt the idea of riot and its violence from a context and use it as a cultural, ready-made tool of design,” continued Chiereghin.
      “Destruction activates multilayer connections: damage, hedonistic liberation, loss of value and reaction against status quo.”

      Videos show the items being destroyed
      The exhibition was created after Chiereghin watched lots of footage of riots, including those at the WTO in Seattle in 1999 and the Genova G8 Summit in 2001. The artist also focused on anti-austerity riots in Greece between 2010-2015, along with the recent riots in Hong Kong and USA.

      “As a predominantly white profession, we recognise that we have contributed to this pain”

      He accepts that the subject matter and the title of the exhibition may prove controversial, but hopes that it challenges visitors to ask questions.

      Pablo Chiereghin violently destroyed the pieces
      “If somebody finds it inappropriate, contradictory or speculative they are right,” he said.
      “The project offers a multilayer approach, which goes from entertainment to speculative design and consumerism critics,” he continued.
      “Visitors have possibilities to stay on the level they want but I think I would be happy if some visitors go home with questions.”
      Riot Design is on at the Kunstforumin in Vienna from 15 October to 22 November 2020. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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      About Time: Fashion and Duration exhibition at The Met celebrates 150 years of fashion

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      Set designer Es Devlin has created two clock-like gallery spaces for the latest fashion exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, which compares design over 150 years.The Met’s Costume Institute opens About Time: Fashion and Duration at the museum’s Fifth Avenue location on 29 October –  the original planned opening in May 2020 was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
      Featured fashion dates back 150 years to 1870 to coincide with The Met’s 150th anniversary. Rather than presenting designs chronologically, the exhibition mixes up the timeline in order to compare the cyclical nature of fashion across the years.

      Above image: the all-bacl Clock One gallery space. Top image: the mirrored Clock Two gallery space

      “About Time: Fashion and Duration considers the ephemeral nature of fashion, employing flashbacks and fast-forwards to reveal how it can be both linear and cyclical,” said The Met director Max Hollein.
      “The result is a show that presents a nuanced continuum of fashion over the museum’s 150-year history.”
      Devlin, who has created stage sets for musicians The Weekend and Katy Perry, worked with The Met’s Design Department to create a time-travelling-themed exhibition.

      White markings or light divide galleries into 60 “minutes”
      It is located in two galleries in the museum’s Iris and B Gerald Cantor Exhibition Hall that are in a circular formation like a clock. Called Clock One and Clock Two, they have different material finishes. The former is nearly all black, and the latter is covered in mirrors.
      White markings on the floor or thin white lights punctuate both spaces, resembling the marks on a clock face.
      These marks split the galleries into 60 segments or “minutes”. Each minute showcases two garments – one that follows time chronologically and another from a different time period to showcase similarities or differences in form.

      One of the spaces is covered in mirrors
      Examples include an 1870s black silk faille princess-line dress paired with a 1990s Alexander McQueen skirt and a mid-1890s silk satin dress with puffed sleeves contrasted by 2004 Comme des Garçons ensemble.
      “Fashion is indelibly connected to time,” said Andrew Bolton, the Wendy Yu curator in charge of The Costume Institute.
      “It not only reflects and represents the spirit of the times, but it also changes and develops with the times, serving as an especially sensitive and accurate timepiece.”

      It is located in two galleries in the museum’s Iris and B Gerald Cantor Exhibition Hall
      There are 125 fashions in the exhibition with a number sourced from The Costume Insitute’s collection. It includes work from well-known contemporary and historic designers and brands like Virgil Abloh, Azzedine Alaïa, Jonathan Anderson, Iris van Herpen, Karl Lagerfeld and Vivienne Westwood.
      First announced last year, The Met’s About Time exhibition is based on French 20th-century philosopher Henri Bergson’s idea of time as la durée, or duration – something which can be measured through images but never perceived as a whole.

      The Met celebrates “resurgence of camp” in new exhibition Camp: Notes on Fashion

      The Met closed its main building on Fifth Avenue, as well as its Met Breuer and Met Cloisters locations, in early March in response to the emergence of outbreaks of coronavirus in New York City.
      In lieu of the spring opening, the museum created a virtual version of About Time: Fashion and Duration on Youtube.

      Garments include this spring/summer 2020 haute couture by Viktor + Rolf
      The annual Costume Institute Benefit, also known as the Met Gala, was due to take place in May 2020 to coincide with the original opening of the exhibition. It was also cancelled due to the pandemic.
      The Met’s Costume Institute organises a spring exhibition every year. Last year’s exhibition Camp: Notes on Fashion celebrated the “resurgence of camp”, while the 2018 showcase Heavenly Bodies was themed on religion.
      Others have included a retrospective of Comme des Garcons founder Rei Kawakubo, a study of handcraft and machine production and an exploration of China.

      About Time will run from 29 October 2020 to 7 February 2021. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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