In response to the recent economic climate, this past Christmas, the city of Lisbon decided it needed to spread holiday cheer on a budget. So Lisbon City Hall, along with the Museum of Design and Fashion, invited 25 artists, architects, and designers to submit light sculpture plans to mark the holiday. Ultimately, seven temporary concepts were selected for installation, including one especially eye-catching intervention: LIKE Architects‘ very beautiful, very clever Frozen Trees.

Using an unexpectedly common material–Ikea’s “Rationell Variera” plastic bag dispenser by K Hagberg/M Hagberg–LIKE Architects transformed Lisbon’s Rossi square into an interactive, ephemeral holiday experience. Thirty 3.6 meter-tall cylinders of varying diameters were composed from multiple dispensers and a white monochromatic LED system. They were then placed throughout the square, redefining the public space for visitors. As Diogo Aguiar, one half of the duo behind LIKE Architects explains, the studio saw this as “an opportunity to take from the shelves things that are right before our eyes and to look at them in a less obvious way–to subvert their logic with a sense of humor.”

Further, he notes, “It is great to see people approaching the Frozen Trees, peeking and suddenly realizing the installation is made of objects they could find in their own pantries. . . They leave the place with a smile on their faces. . . [And] at a time of crisis, we need a creative Christmas, a Christmas where a lot can be done by using very few and where creativity is essential to surprise others and to put a smile on people’s faces.”

And partner Teresa Otto observes, “The purpose of doing these exercises, registered in photos and in the memory of those who have seen them, is precisely to be part of the history of that place. . . That’s a story, a story that is part of the city’s history, the city’s architecture history.”

Check out the gallery and short video by Dinis&Gustavo below. And for more information, visit likearchitects.com.

Frozen Trees from dinis&gustavo on Vimeo.

CREDITS:
Authors: LIKEarchitects © (likearchitects.com) / Diogo Aguiar (diogoaguiar.com) + Teresa Otto (teresaotto.com)
Client: Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, MUDE – Museu do Design e da Moda
Construction: OutrosMercadus ©
Photography: FG+SG Fotografia de arquitectura | Architecture photography & Dinis Sottomayor

Dimensions:
10 prisms with 3,60 m high with pentagonal base (16 cm side);
10 prisms with 3,60 m high with decagonal base (16 cm side);
10 prisms with 3,60 m high with pentadecagonal base (16 cm side);

Materials:
2400 plastic bags dispensers ”Rationell Variera”
2500 meters of metallic tubular (square section) – 10X10X1.5mm
100 meters of metallic tubular (square section) – 25X25X2mm
330 linear meters of 12-volt white LED tape
45 12-volt car batteries
10 battery chargers
4800 self-drilling screws 3.5x16mm;

All images courtesy of LIKEarchitects.
H/T Domus.

Daniel Arsham navigates in a space where architecture and art merge, often playing upon existing structures to create unexpected yet organic sculptures. And his latest exhibition, “The Fall, The Ball, and The Wall,” showcases the Brooklyn-based artist’s diverse, innovative practice and his ongoing interest in challenging expectations of accepted reality.

Arsham presents three bodies of work for the new show–his first solo exhibition in L.A.: His structural interventions continue to defy the notion of architectural rigidity, causing walls to drip and corners to meet in knots. These are accompanied by a new series of work on canvas that depicts realistic buildings neighbored by text that rises tall as skyscrapers, spelling out words such as “oops” and “okay.” And finally, the show features a large-scale, hanging mass of tinted spheres–based on the pixels of a hyper-magnified photo of a cloud formation–from the set of Merce Cunningham’s final performances.

The exhibition is on view January 20 through February 16, 2012 at OHWOW.

Studio DRIFT‘s latest commission is the stunning FLYLIGHT, an interactive light installation inspired by the seemingly random patterns of a flock of birds. Spanning two floors of a private residence in Moscow, the graceful, whimsical FLYLIGHT consists of over 200 glass tubes which light up and respond to the viewer. It was designed by Studio DRIFT designers Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta, and produced in coordination with Philosophy of Design.

Check out a FLYLIGHT image gallery below, and the enchanting FLYLIGHT in action here:

All images courtesy of Studio DRIFT. For more information, visit www.designdrift.nl

Belgian artist Arne Quinze‘s latest project, “My Safe Secret Garden,” takes residence at South Beach Miami’s Setai hotel this week during the Art Basel Miami Beach festivities. Quinze is known for confronting his audiences with dramatic, large-scale installations and both large and small sculptures–often from various types of wood painted in electric, fluorescent colors–that explore themes of social interaction, communication, and urbanism.

Quinze’s newest installation symbolizes the artist’s mind and thoughts through a “safe garden,” which securely fences him off from his surroundings. The enclosed area represents the parts of himself that cannot be touched by strangers; by sharing his personal domain with others, however, he ends that separation. Quinze hopes the piece will stimulate reflection on the concept of boundaries and encourage personal insight.

“My Safe Garden” is part of Quinze’s ongoing series, “My Home My House My Stilthouse,” which consists of imposingly tall wooden structures that stand atop small, fragile legs, appearing as though they might collapse at any moment–inspired by man’s own equilibrium. According to Quinze, “I regard my work as a study about how I experience life and how people in general experience their lives.”

“My Safe Secret Garden” follows Quinze’s innovative July-October 2011 “Rock Strangers” project at New York’s Statue of Liberty: a 200-foot tall digital sculpture that rested on Lady Liberty’s flame, visible through a custom-built augmented reality app for your smartphone. Adding an alien element to the city, Quinze sought to redefine the social space and questioned man’s reaction to unusual objects in one’s daily space.

The “My Safe Secret Garden” exhibition is presented by Reiner Opoku, Wolfgang Roth and Guy Pieters. For more information, visit arnequinze.tv, and feel free to check out my 2009 interview with the artist for Clear Magazine here.

*Images courtesy of Arne Quinze.

Artist Miru Kim, known for taking breathtaking nude self-portraits among the world’s urban icons and ruins, is making a splash at this year’s Art Basel Miami Beach fair with a live performance piece during which she’ll spend 104 hours living with pigs. Earlier this year, Kim debuted her newest photography series, The Pig That Therefore I Am, at New York’s Doosan Gallery. In Miami, she’s recreating the piece for not just the art fair’s attendants, but the entire world as well, with a live-streaming video of the performance.

The head-turning series juxtaposes the NYC-based artist’s nude body with those of about 300 pigs. According to Kim, the work explores the spaces and similarities between man and animal and the power of touch in our understanding of the world. In describing the piece, she wishes to offer herself up as an artist, to “see, hear and feel through art, music and poetry. I put my flayed skin on display in the form of a photo.”

The live stream, which runs through Sunday night, is accessible here: www.mirukim.com and http://68.166.116.18:86/broadcamauto.html?src=1&speed=1

A sampling of her work is below. For more info on Miru Kim, check out her website, or my interviews with her for Coolhunting.com and Clear Magazine.

After the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster in northeastern Japan on March 11, power supplies, land lines, mobile phone networks and Internet access went down, making it incredibly difficult to contact family and friends. The Japanese postal service, however, was up and running again quickly. In many cases, in fact, the first news that loved ones were safe was shared by postcard.

Inspired by role of postcards–and the idea that art and culture are vital in celebrating life and nurturing determination to move forward–the Japan Society presents Postcards From Japan, a miniature exhibition of original postcard-size works of art created by 22 artists from Japan in response to the devastation. The results (see slideshow below) are poignant works that give insight into the power and resilience of the human spirit.

The show’s curators, husband and wife Hironori Katagiri and Kate Thomson, were working in their sculpture studio in Iwate when the earthquake hit. While they anxiously awaited news of loved ones on the coast, Takuya Okada, another artist who shares their studio, received a postcard from his parents saying they were alive and well. Inspired by the uplifting effect of this postcard on the whole household, they’ve since volunteered on a series of exhibitions and special projects to support recovery in Tohoku through the arts. As the couple explains, “Many arts and cultural projects in Tohoku have been canceled or cut back as funds are diverted to the relief effort. We feel that the arts and culture are in fact vital to the recovery, helping to boost morale and stimulate hope for the future and enthusiasm to rebuild.”

The traveling exhibit is on view now through November 27th at the Japan Society Gallery in New York.

Postcards from Japan
The Japan Society Gallery
333 East 47th Street between First and Second Avenues
New York, NY
www.japansociety.org

For My Quiet of Gold, Nina Gorfer and Sarah Cooper’s new exhibition at Gestalten Space in Berlin, the artistic duo traveled to rural areas of Kyrgyzstan to collect stories from local inhabitants. The pair then interpreted these often romantic and melancholy tales as carefully choreographed motifs, which were then digitally finessed. The resulting, multi-layered collages are rooted in both contemporary photography and eighteenth and nineteenth century painting.

The Gothenborg-based pair began collaborating in 2006, and also work together as directors, authors, researchers, and editorial and commercial photographers under the name SEEK.

My Quiet of Gold
at Gestalten Space, Berlin
Now through November 27th, 2011

Now showing at Magnan Metz: For his first US show, Colombian artist Miler Lagos presents HOME, a pair of projects reflecting on the delicate balance between nature and culture, and the immaterial and material qualities that make up a “home.”

Igloo, a playful-looking 9-foot domed sculpture in the front gallery space, is composed of layers of books from a defunct US Navy base library. The outer white shell consists of the books’ paper pages, while the inside reveals colorful bindings from a selection of foreign language dictionaries, medical reference series, geographical studies, and psychology volumes, all laid like bricks in a cylindrical shape. To Lagos, the igloo is both a shelter to protect its inhabitants from nature and a space where knowledge is passed down from one generation to the next. At the same time, it is a fragile structure, vulnerable as man himself.

Water House, the exhibit’s second, similarly whimsical piece, is a video playing on looped projection. Inspired by Lagos’s time in Manhattan, and specifically the water towers that dot the city’s skyline, Water House reverses the concept of the water tank: rather than a structure that holds water in, Lagos’s video follows a structure designed to keep water out, making it a refuge for human life.

HOME is on display through October 15th at Chelsea’s Magnan Metz Gallery.
521 West 26th Street, New York, NY 10001

Now showing at the Brazilian Museum of Sculpture: “USAnatomy,” an exhibition of sixty dramatic works by famed American photographer Steven Klein. Curated by fashion producer Chico Lowndes, the exhibit launches today with a cocktail event and opens tomorrow to the public. The show celebrates Klein’s talent for turning contemporary fashion photography and celebrity portraiture on its head, with lyrical, sexually-charged, often conceptual images that demand a second-look. “USAnatomy” features thirty large-scale works and thirty Polaroids from Klein’s extensive oeuvre (slideshow below).

The exhibition is part of the annual IGUATEMI Photo Series, which presents photography as an art form of contemporary cultural expression, educating the public on trends in contemporary photography.

Brazilian Museum of Sculpture (MuBE)
August 11th-August 28th
Av. Europa, 218, Jardim Europa, (Tel: 11.3081-8611).
Open Monday to Sunday from 10 am to 7 pm.
Admission is free to the public

Amy Eckert, Double Sunset. Courtesy of the artist and Jen Bekman Gallery.

Now Showing: Dawn Till Dusk at the Jen Bekman Gallery.

Progressing through the course of a day, the latest group exhibition at New York’s Jen Bekman Gallery explores our impressions of time. Flowing from day to night, the show brings together a diverse set of photographs, paintings, and works on paper by twenty-six established and emerging artists, including Sally Mann, Ed Ruscha, Alex Soth, Michael Lundgren, Todd Hido, Letha Wilson, and Amy Eckert. Curated by Jeffrey Teuton, Dawn Till Dusk encompasses a broad range of artistic approaches-from clearly contrasting light and shadows to more subtle changes in palette and tone-to signify the unyielding passage of time.

Dawn Till Dusk: A Group Show
On view now through July 30, 2011 at:

Jen Bekman Gallery
6 Spring Street
New York, New York 10012