Agenda 2010
Rodrigo Almeida
FAT Galerie, Paris, France
Rodrigo Almeida’s work bears the mark of the multicultural inspirations behind his Brazilian origin and we can, therefore, see Portuguese, Brazilian, Indian and Afro-Brazilian influences in his creations. This exhibition, entitled? The poetics of miscegenation? showcases his latest productions, which continue to demonstrate a style made up of a multitude of cultural influences. Created using Almeida’s preferred material of choice, MDF, the pieces are created in sharp contrast to an ultra-smooth approach, favouring instead a rich handcrafted look where designs are assembled intuitively or emotionally.
The State of Things: Design and the 21st Century
Design Museum, Holon, Israel
2010 is the inauguration year of the Design Museum Holon and in this, the opening exhibition, it seems fitting to focus on design that can be seen as culturally significant for the times we live in. Some 100 products are presented, broken into eight distinct categories: New Essentialism, Mutant Remix, Of the Body, Social Anxiety, Beyond the Designer, Super Beauty, Craft Economy and Design Lab. Objects showcased range from ordinary household items such as plastic chairs and printed wallpaper through to technological designs that offer life-saving abilities.
Richard Hutten: 18 Years of Playing
Design Museum, Ghent, Belgium
As its title would suggest, this exhibition celebrates the body of work that Dutch designer Richard Hutten has produced over a career that has spanned nearly two decades The Rotterdam-born designer, who has turned his hand to furniture, products, interior design and exhibitions, has always taken a conceptual approach to his work and while his designs are thought-out down to the smallest detail, many are also linked by their playful and humorous elements.
What Things We Are
La Triennale Design Museum, Milan, Italy
After having answered the question What is Italian Design? through the Seven Obsessions of Italian Design and Series, Off Series, this latest exhibition presents a third interpretation of Italian design. Arranged sequentially, the show focuses on the histories and stories originating from individual objects and the network of relations and connections they form. With a selection of works by masters, artists and young designers the content aims to reveal an alternative definition of the identity and essence of Italian design, which is staged using an installation by Pierre Charpin.
Design by Performance
Z33, Hasselt, Belgium
An unusual slant on the traditional exhibition, which takes as its focus the production process in design rather than a finished object and is therefore less of a static exhibition space and instead one open to action and change. Contributors to the show, which include designers such as Maarten Baas as well as America’s David Bowen, Italy’s Bruno Munari and Studio Glithero from the UK, will demonstrate that the realisation of an object is affected or indeed formed by the situation it is placed in or indeed by the visitor themselves.
From Traditional to Contemporary
Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, Istanbul, Turkey
An exhibition curated by Istanbul Modern’s chief Curator Levent Çalikoglu, which seeks to explore how artists employ history in their construction of modernism, through the work of nine artists: Erol Akyavas, Ismet Dogan, Inci Eviner, Bedri Rahmi Eyüboglu, Selma Gürbüz, Ergin Inan, Balkan Naci Islimyeli, Murat Morova, and Ekrem Yalçindag. Works by the participating artists, from their different periods, take on the exhibition’s theme through a variety of different mediums. Disciplines featured range from video, photography and installation art through to sculpture and painting.
Design Indaba Conference & Expo
Cape Town International Convention Centre, South Africa
Just the mere mention of a cup and a game with two halves gives this edition of the Design Indaba an extra thrill. Becoming an 'event' for local & global creative industries, in its relatively short history the Conference’s initial nine speakers has grown to today’s 40, and the Expo’s wide-ranging perspective on craft, product, industrial, fashion, film, animation, graphic, jewellery and architectural design, among many other disciplines, seeks to maintain the organisation’s original mantra of a ‘benchmark against best-of-class’.
Mexican Modernisms: 1945- 1985
Centre for Fine Arts (BOZAR), Brussels, Belgium
This exhibition shows that there is more to post-war modernist architecture in Mexico than the work of the colourful Luis Barrigán, its most renowned representative. The details and enlarged photographs in show offer a broad overview of architectural production in post-war Mexico. In addition, a number of documentaries and unique contemporary documents help to bring into focus this neglected aspect of Mexican art.
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Stockholm Furniture Fair & Northern Light Fair
Stockholmsmässan, Stockholm, Sweden
Billed as the ‘biggest meeting place for Nordic design’, building work on the fairground means that the Stockholm design fest will give exhibitors and visitors an extra 10,000 sq m of space to play with. A wide survey of furniture, textiles, lighting and other design for both public and private spaces, guest of honour in 2010 is British designer Paul Smith, with Jens Fager designing the Greenhouse hall for selected international design schools and newly-qualified designers.
Art Rotterdam
Cruise Terminal, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
An inviting contemporary art fair, Art Rotterdam not only attracts cutting-edge galleries from the Netherlands and beyond but is also supported by a programme of events & exhibitions that are much more than add-ons. Galleries taking part include Hoet Bekaert (BE), C-Space (CN), Adler (DE) and De Zaal, Gist, Van den Berge, Lumen Travo, Rob de Vries, all from the Netherlands. Among the parallel events will be the illy prize 2010; an exhibition of Carsten Höller at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen; and QUICKSCAN #1, a show of 25 known & unknown photographers at the Dutch Photomuseum.
Mundos Mexicanos. 25 Contemporary Photographers
Centre for Fine Arts (BOZAR), Brussels, Belgium
The respective centenary and bicentenary of Mexico’s Revolution and Independence is being marked in a festival organised by Brussels’ Bozar that more than qualifies for its trans or multidisciplinary tag. Among the Frida Kahlo, Lucha Libra and modernist architecture, Mundos Mexicanos highlights the tradition of contemporary Mexican photography. Featuring Manuel and Lola Álvarez Bravo, Agustín Jiménez, Gabriel Figueroa, Nacho López, and Mariana Yampolsky, it charts the works of photographers from the second half of the last century to the present day.
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Myloud Oord - It would be so nice
Foam_Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Muse sounds like an alluring role and it’s one that Amsterdam fashion journalist and ‘style icon’ Aynouk Tan occupies for young fashion and portrait photographer Mylou Oord. Given that the images featured in this series are the result of over a year-long photographic ‘relationship’ between the two, luckily they are also friends. Mixing up the ‘boundaries between a posed portrait and a more snapshot-like approach’, the show is part of Amsterdam International Fashion Week (27 – 31 January).
Outumuro. Looks. Twenty Years Photographing Fashion
DHUB Montcada, Barcelona, Spain
A total of 231 photographs arranged in six themed sections make up the backbone of this exhibition, which has been devised as a retrospective of fashion pictures by the Spanish photographer Manuel Outumuro and spans the last two decades of his work (1990 – 2010). A journey through both the fashion of the last 20 years and the simple, avant-garde classicism characteristic of Outumuro’s visual language, the images offer a perspective on the passage of time and visually chronicle garments of the era.
IMM Cologne 2010
Koelnmesse (Cologne), Germany
It's barometer time and the international furnishings and interior design trade fair has made reclaiming top German and international brands a main priority. One of the most important developments is the creation of Pure Village, a literal crossroads juxtaposing the established design brands of Hall 11, selected names from Design Post (including Arco, Arper, Desalto, Kvadrat, Linteloo, Matteo Grassi, Montis, Moroso and Nya Nordiska) and the D3 Design Talents section. An invigorated sounding off-programme by Passagen will also provide temporary installations, exhibitions & events at galleries, showrooms, cultural institutions, museums and other locations throughout the city.
Thomas Huyghe
Locuslux Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
Thatcher, Pinochet, Albright: It sounds like a collection of power portr aits, but in this exhibition by Belgian artist Thomas Huyghe there's definitely something missing. These are not depictions designed for above the fireplace of a Members Club, although... Painting the 'public self-portrayal' of such figures to bring into sharp focus the 'power of the manipulated image', they are just one way in which the artist explores private property and ownership. He raises questions that ask 'What is our own?' 'What do we share?' And over what do we have control?' and the results of those investigations find form in 3D models of camera dollies on the ‘board’ of power; installations or light boxes devoid of their advertising messages; anti-social sculptures; and in compositions that are framed by the grotesque.
First Works: Emerging Architectural Experimentation of the 1960s & 70s
Architectural Association Gallery, London, UK
The 1960s and 70s saw new generations of architects begin careers amidst a period of profound social change, new conditions to architecture and the city, and lasting changes to popular and critical forms of culture and its production. This exhibition tells the story of the era and re-assesses the conditions of architecture, featuring a single key early project from the likes of Archigram, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Norman Foster + Richard Rogers, Zaha Hadid, Herzog & de Meuron, Steven Holl, Toyo Ito, Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind, Cedric Price, Aldo Rossi, Alvaro Siza, Bernard Tschumi, Robert Venturi and Paul Virilio + Claude Parent, among others.