My lovely cousin Ying is a student at Beijing Normal University and was chosen to be a volunteer for the upcoming games. Since we won’t be there in August, she was kind enough to give me a sneak preview of the interior of the Bird’s Nest during the Good Luck Beijing 2008 China Athletics Open. [...]
Justin Guariglia’s new book, Planet Shanghai, follows the topological archive format that has become quite popular with attempts to address visual culture in Asia. He offers dozens of images of bike visors, nylon socks, outdoor pajamas, street vendors, food stalls, owners with their dogs, rubble and high rises. His eye for composition and uniform presentation [...]
Only a few days after posting about Shane Waltener’s food art, I spotted another piece by the artist Stefano Cagol. Unlike Waltener, Cagol’s sweets contain rat poison and are not intended for human consumption. According to his artists’ statement, he “faces socio-political themes through the idea of collective identity, underlining in this way the continue [...]
Andre is hosting the 20th (!) Salon at his apartment this week and it looks like it will be an interesting one, with a Hollywood writer/director as the guest lecturer.
This week Thursday, May 29th, 9pm.
Join Sam Auster, a Writer/Producer/Director from Los Angeles California for a shocking confessional, a lurid tell-all and a harrowing journey [...]
I’m happy to hear that Christoph Keller’s KIOSK project, a traveling exhibition of nearly 6,000 publications by about 400 independent publishers, will soon have a permanent home in Berlin! Christoph has been developing and exhibiting the archive internationally for 8 years, but the increasing cost and logistic difficulty of moving around 2.5 tons of books [...]
Shane Waltener, one of the artists from our book By Hand, is involved in the GNAM - Gastronomia nell’arte moderna (Gastronomy in Modern Art) project. Funded by the European Union, the aim of the project is to “promote inter-cultural dialogue through trans-national circulation of art works and cultural products.” Translation, art will bring us together! [...]
My most recent fascination has become the eastern region of Mitte from Alexander Platz to Strausberer Platz, between Moll Strasse and the Spree. This quarter is composed primarily of prefab, Modernist plattenbau, except for the Socialist Neo Classical buildings that line the imposing Karl-Marx-Allee. The entire 2km stretch of Karl-Marx-Allee (known as Stalinallee until [...]
At least we had one night to hang out with Raina when she came to visit from Amsterdam. We had dinner at Hasir and then met Pash at Crackers, for a night of secret disco dancing. I guess this is a monthly spinoff of the ever-popular Cookies night. The party hadn’t really gotten started when [...]
Adverlab’s Ilya Vedrashko offers an enlightening look at early examples of in-game marketing. Coke-centric Space Invaders, Kool-Aid Man vs. the Thristies and J&J’s Tooth Protector are a few of my favorites. You can download the entire chapter from his thesis paper here.
All photos from AP
When I spoke to my mom this afternoon, she was tearful and distressed by the earthquake in Sichuan and the thousands of innocent people who have died. Even though we don’t have family there, she believes “We are all Chinese and we feel their suffering as strongly as if they were related [...]