FAT abreviated form of Fashion:Taste:Architecture, is an architecture studio founded in 90s in London. Its portfolio of works ranges in the fields of art, interior design, curation, urban design and architecture.
The unusual works by FAT, are influenced by everyday objects/shapes/aestheticsm that lies beneath pop-culture. Their colorful works carry out easily recongizable shapes as main elements in a playful way. The manipulation of scale, bold colors and cutout features all create a cartoonlike feeling, a dollhouse effect for adults/the serious people. Simple and fun in a sophisticated way, FAT’s spatial, architectural interventions succeed putting an interesting smile on everyday person’s face.
In conclusion through its body of works, FAT puts together a controversial collage of playfulness, colors, boldness, simplicity, surreality and artful references. The studio’s confident designs that speak strongly for themselves are a contemporary interpretation of the traditional. Images via fashionarchitecturetaste.com
24/25th of january, during Paris haute couture week, Paris’s historic Palais D'iéna housed Prada’s “24h museum”. The historic space that transformed to a “nonexistent” museum, a baroque festival for 24 hours launched on the eve of 24th with a private party.
The pop-up museum supported by Prada, designed by Francesco Vezzoli with AMO (Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas’s creative thinking studio) was an haute couture experience that merged gallery space, discotheque, art, fashion and icons/celebs.
AMO’s spatial interventions that included a grand staircase, giant columns and a caged hall with pink neon tubes were pieces of this contemporary collage that fused various exhibition spaces and various times.
Artworks by Vezzoli were the artist’s interpretations of classical sculptures making reference to contemporary divas. Colorless bodies of 18th century sculptures complimented with faces of ‘Elizabeth Taylor’s were designed to illuminate elucidating the eternal power of feminity. As Vezzoli refers to them, his 13 “disco sculptures” were placed on white marble plinths in the steel caged hall.
According to Vezzoli, 24h museum was a parody of a baroque feast, and the special artworks will remain as ruins of a lost moment. The meaning of museum as a space that preserves art in relation to specific time period has been questioned with this unique museum project. Ephemerality, the power of the moment has been strongly emphasized with Prada’s transient museum that stayed open only for one day.
Jason de Caires Taylor is an English sculptor, and the curator of the World’s first Underwater Museum. As an explorer who has chosen the bottom of the ocean to place his eco-sculptures, he creates unique personal experiences augmented with the multi-dimensional perception enhanced by water.
With his installations that take form of artificial coral reefs over time, Taylor aims to draw attention away from the natural reefs that need space to rehabilitate. Appreciating the marine life in an exceptional way, his magical addition to the underwater world provides not only space for endangered species to hold on to but also hope that his form of art can be beneficial for the marine ecosystem.
Taylor’s concrete sculptures are made with carefully selected, eco-friendly materials before they are positioned on the ocean floor. Working with marine biologists, he designs a specific form of marine life that he wants to construct.
His early work that includes of Vicissitudes, Grace Reef, The Lost Correspondent and The Unstill Life are located in the world’s first public underwater sculpture park in Molinere Bay, Grenada, West Indies, which was commissioned in 2006. His most recent project, the worlds largest underwater sculpture museum, MUSA, founded in 2010, off the coast of Cancun, include works Hombre en llamas (Man on Fire), La Jardinera de la Esperanza (The Gardener of Hope), El Colecionista de los Sueños (The Dream Collector) and La Evolución Silenciosa (The Silent Evolution).
The majority of his work consists of human figures positioned beneath the ocean emphasizing the symbiotic relationship that occurs between man and nature. His figures, doomed to change organically as part of the ecosystem, shows how human interaction with nature can be sustainable.
Another recurring theme of his works is sense of loss. Recording some of the lost moments eroded away under the pace of technology, Taylor’s work creates nostalgia and conveys hope.
The exceptional visual seascape created by Taylor will be offering a never-ending experience. The unpredictability that the evolution of his sculpted moments gives is a narrative beauty that is waiting to be discovered. Images via underwatersculpture.com
Inspired by his childhood, Paris born artist Jean-François Fourtou takes us back to our childhood minds; to the memories we have shelved away. Fourtou had been creating animal sculptures for over 15 years before he started experimenting with the feeling of home and the idea of protection with his spatial installations in his family owned 10 hector land just outside Marrakesh, Morocco.
His work that constantly plays with scale and proportion acts as a reminder of our childhood sensations. His spatial experimentations recreate a child’s perception of the external world offering room for the childhood passion that has faded away. All his sculptural work conceptualizes illusion of the lost time that was ticking once upon a time. Fourtou models the feeling of protection that is desired to be imaginative as a child so beautifully in his work.
His "Maison du Géant" (Giant’s house) is a narrative experimentation where he tried to create the spirit of the room he occupied at his grandmother’s house in a village in Saint Émillion near Bordeaux. Doubling the scale of the actual space, Fourtou positions himself as a 5-6 year old child he once was. He has also created the same house in ¾ scale for his daughter and a miniature dollhouse version in 1/5 scale. His “Tombée du Ciel” (Fallen from the Sky) where everything is upside down is a model of his grandfather’s home as if it has fallen from heaven.
Fourtou’s work has reminded me of “Le Petit Prince” (The Little Prince) novella written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. What differentiates adults from children is the presence of childhood passion and perspective, which in reality is not limited by age. The “wonder lens” Fourtou hands us takes us back in time above time, giving a second chance to bring those memorable forgotten sensations felt once upon a time.
"I was thinking about a woman as an object of desire. We go to such lengths to adorn ourselves that we almost become our clothes or are taken over by them. This is a collection about excess - an exploration of ideals of beauty at their most extreme.” Sarah Burton (1)
Clothes are a woman’s second skin. Phenomenal is the only way one can look and probably feel in this skin as presented in Alexander McQueen’s latest collection. The 2012 Spring/Summer Collection is “all about the Gaia the wonder of nature, the sea” as Sarah Burton says. The aquatic themed fashion show is a parade of mysteriously laced faces, corseted woman silhouettes, extravagant craftsmanship of cutting, beading and adorning with mother of pearls, seashells and bones.
The fantasia creatively directed by Sarah Burton is her 3rd collection since her boss and the founder of the company, Alexander McQueen passed away in 2010. Arguably, Sarah Burton has created excessive skins that keep secrets from another world in this collection. Mythological inspirations derived from magnificence of the underworld, are portrayed in the artisan and the technical excellence of the pieces.
The mind-blowing craftsmanship is a beauty for the romantic mind. Highly sophisticated narrative pieces are echoed in the radiance of the calming presentation that almost sings to the ear where the heavy feel of lightness provokes the imagination.
British photographer Tim Walker’s pictures have appeared on pages of Vogue for the last decade. His pre-college work experience at the Conde-Nast library in London, where he worked on the Cecil Beaton archive became the reason of his fascination with photography. His truly inspiring work that takes its ingredients from fashion, the costumes, the make up, the set design, the background have become one-of-a-kind fantasy settings.
Following his graduation in 1994, he moved to New York City where he worked with Richard Avedon. Ever since he shot his very first fashion narrative for Vogue at the age of 25, he has continued to photograph for the American, British and Italian editions.
Tim walker sees himself as a “daydreamer” who creates fantasies, spaces unaffected by time. The extravagant staging and sense of romanticism are the elements that characterize the magical theatricality of his pictures.
The escapism offered through Walker’s lens of nostalgia is the surprising consequence of his elaborated imagery. His use of nostalgia in his photographs connects the viewer to the present world in a bizarre way.
The success of his story telling is captured in the feel of history in his fictive creations. His imperfect spaces almost offer a room the viewers’ imagination of what could have happened before and the ambiguity of the past becomes a fragile question to answer.
The untidy, unclean, catastrophic splendor of his pictures gives a hint to the viewer that he can look for his own non-existent nostalgia, a reminiscent from his inspiring childhood. Yet the beauty of his pictures lies in the only reality of being undiscoverable by others. Observing Tim Walker’s pictures feels like taking a faraway stare to the unreal world, where Walker’s imagination breathes in the glitter of his tales.
His geographically “location-less” spaces are weirdly too beautiful and perhaps too romantic to be part of. One enjoys gazing through his photographs that portray a sense of hope that the world on the other side, the reality can be more beautiful than what is illustrated. It is the spirit of his flamboyant lands lost in time that triggers an unknown feeling of something in people making him only the unique photographer of our real-time.
“IRIS A Journey Through the World of Cinema” is the latest production by Montreal based Cirque du Soleil. IRIS a show about the evolution of the art of cinema, directed and chareographed by Philippe Decouflé is designed for the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. The name refers to the iris of the human eye as well as camera diaphragms. Just like the nature of its name, IRIS enables a colorful vision to the history of moviemaking.
There might not be a better way to escape time than watching the dancers in the most colorful, extravagant costumes perform to the music composed by Danny Elfman. The costuming in IRIS is authentic creation dramatized with detail. Whether it is the performer in black and white stripes with a spinning tutu that functions as a vintage French animation device or the 19th century invention the hybride camera-head performer, the dancers in costumes are almost mistaken for the beautifully constructed props.
Iris is a celebration of cinematic perception, a detailed design of fantasy offered through the lens of the camera. It is a circus of hypnotizing acrobacy, eccentric props, incredibly creative costumes, beautiful live music and thrilling play of shadows and light. Every single second of the production is meticulously narrated by creative minds to introduce a wonderland where surreal theatricality of the space is a magical remedy for everyday life. IRIS is a sensational, mesmerizing visual pleasure, an exceptional work of art.
Officially premiered in August 25, 2011, the show will take place 11 months of the year giving a break for a month for the Academy Awards. The $120,000,000 production is scheduled to run for 10 years.
