With a gold chip to buy yourself free

Ted Noten

Gallery Rob Koudijs

COLLECT

International Art Fair for Contemporary Objects

A bit more of a craft crowd (can I say slightly older?) at the Saatchi Gallery today. It was rented out for an International collectors fair. Quite a few traditional objects, but then in between you were hit with great creativity, both in terms of humor and handiwork. An entertaining "Af-fair".

I am craving this fabulous female Ted Noten "Gun" with a lipstick burner, pill pocket and a gold chip to buy yourself free!!! How fun (says the "Pacifist").

Katja Prins

The same Gallery showed these fabulous "Inter-Act" necklaces by Katja Prins.

Jasper Dowding

Glass Artists Gallery (Australia)

Incredible glass sculpture bowls and jewelry by Jasper Dowding.

Pippin Drysdale

Joanna bird Pottery UK

Pippin Drysdale here with vessels representing the Australian landscape and culture.

Steffen Dam

Jellyfish Jars

Blown and cast glass

Nora Fok Bracelets

Antonio Spoto

BF Gallery Belgium

Hakutai (A thousand years)

Naoki Takeyama

Enamelled Copper object with silver leaf

Yufuki Gallery (Tokyo)

Encounter

Naoki Takeyama

Enamelled copper object with gold & silver leaf.

Each of these objects are made from a single copper sheet that is pinched and formed by hand. The animated copper bodies are then decorated with numerous coats of glaze, with each coat requiring a separate firing. After glazing, silver or gold leaf is cut out and applied using a bamboo paddle, and fired on through separate firings. Each work takes approx. 1 month to complete, and requires more than 20 individual firings..... Wow, right?

 Kjell Rylander

Gallery Kunst 1, Norway

Adored this one.

Barbara Paganu

The Belgian Gallery, Sofie Lachaert had a gorgeous set up with exciting jewelry.

Carl Richard Suderstrom

"Overskugga"

Blås & Knåda (Sweden)

This artist has made a surprising turn from simple cups and plates to elaborate sculptures.

The Mnemosyne

Michael Eden

The Scottish Gallery

 A box for your memories.....When scanned with a Smartphone barcode reader App, the viewer is connected to a website where stories can be told, memories stored, sounds locked away.

For sure something I have never come across before, how inventive.

Ja-Kyung Shin

Reunion II

Galerie Rosemarie Jager

...Made me think of the school reunion I am missing back in Norway tomorrow...

Rebecca Wilson

Light Spill

Craftscothland

How fun is this lamp, and yes it works.

Mieke de Groot

Gallery Terra

Junko Mori

A silver Organism Twig

Michael Eden

Colorful and happy by Michael Eden,

"I create things inspired by historical objects and contemporary themes to engage the viewer in a narrative"

Michael Eden

Chandelier-eight branches

Celestino Valenti

New Brewery Arts at collect

Don´t be deceived, this one is huge, reaching from ceiling to floor. Desperately seeking a grand room.

Archipel

Alain Mailland

Collection Ateliers dÁrt de France

On the smaller side is this elegant locust tree sculpture.

Out of the House

Katharine Morling

One of the artists picked for the "Project space" Her "house" was built specially for the Collect Fair.

Which of these collectibles would you have picked?

Have a great weekend,

With Love 

Kristin

Desperately Seeking Paradise

Desperately Seeking Paradise II (2010-2011)

©Lisson Gallery

Rashid Rana

Lisson Gallery 

London

It has been a hectic and sad week with the loss of a close friend in New York, it makes you think of how fragile life really is. How quickly your little world can change and how we should not be allowed to complain over trivialities, but still keep doing it. We are human after all with the good and the bad that comes with it, but a reminder of gratitude for what we have, is sometimes of great value.

With an Au Pair arriving yesterday, I have time to delve into the world of Art again and I thought it would be appropriate to mention the great exhibit that is going on at the Lisson Gallery at the moment. 

It is rare that I get to view and write about an artist still living and working in Pakistan. Especially great to show such talent from a Country with such bad reputation after having hid Osama Bin Laden for years. 

Rashid Rana is seen as one of the most promising artists from South Asia today and lives and work in Lahore, Pakistan. 

©Lisson Gallery

Another view from "Desperately Seeking Paradise", a large installation that contains lots of tiny prints on aluminium and stainless steel. Together they become a view of a city, from another view it has a mirror effect and if you go close you see tiny pictures of buildings, streets and rooms.

Language Series 1 (2010-2011)

Lightjet Print (360x270 cm)

©Lisson Gallery

These large inkjet prints looks nearly like a painting from far, but close up you again see the tiny square photos that has been put together like a quilt. These can be bought in smaller editions as well. 

Books 2 (2010-2011)

©Lisson Gallery

A photographic sculpture that resembles layers of blocks but with images of books.

"Rana presents a series of key works in which he redeploys photographic imagery in varied formats including installation, sculpture, and large-scale photographic prints. These works see Rana drawing on techniques such as pixelation to problematise and reconfigure the relationship between part and whole, fragment and meaning."

  - Lisson Gallery

The Lisson Gallery just decided to represent Rashid Rana, so hopefully I will soon get to see more of his work. Not to say they were the first to present him, he has been shown at the Whitechapel (London), Asia Society (NY) Philips Contemporary (Mumbai) and Musee Guimet (Paris) among others.

With Love 

Kristin

Material Gestures

Gerard Richter

Tate Modern 

Cage 1-6 

Finally most of my boxes are unpacked and I am starting to feel that I have a home again. We are waiting for our new sofa though and most of our artwork is still in New York. 

Early this morning I therefore came to think of what Art I wish I could surround myself with, and I came to remember the Gerhard Richter room at the Tate Modern. How I wish I could enfold myself in these large canvases, what fine ambience they give, what composition they portray.

These paintings were inspired and named after the great American composer John Cage (1912-1992), and the complicated, brilliant avant-garde music that he left us.  

"I have nothing to say and I'm saying it"

John Cage

"I don't know what I want I am inconsistent, non-committal, passive, I like the indefinite, 

the boundless, I like continual uncertainty"

Gerhard Richter

These paintings were done in 2006 (lent to the Tate from a private collection). Gerhard Richter moves on, he is in a constant evolution. His art is really indefinite and boundless. I am always excited to see his work. October 2011, the Tate Modern will show a chronological retrospective of Richter's work (he turns 80 this year) and I can't wait to see it.

With Love

Kristin

More Gerhard Richter

Becoming

AI WEIWEI

Bejing Airport

When I came back from Spain last week I was met with a house full of boxes from N.Y... so instead of having time to blog I have spent time trying to make space for living.

One of these boxes contained one of our most valuable possessions; a limited edition "Box-set" of Ai Weiwei photographies that was given us last year. 147 photos from the building of the Foster & Partners Bejing Airport.

Documented photos from the "Becoming" of Bejing airport where his destiny was to be detained a few years later. 3rd of April 2011.

It has been over three weeks now since Ai Weiwei disappeared and the whole Art World is longing for his return. There has been great demonstrations all over the world, the latest one in Hong Kong with the slogan "Who is afraid of Ai Weiwei?" Yes, who? What makes an Artist be such a symbol of fright for the Chinese Government. Why did they pick him as a symbol to frighten others?

Ai Weiwei's favorite slogan is:

"To live your life"

Why is he not allowed?

Maybe, because he strikes a cord with us all, maybe because he represents the people in such an intense and truthful way?

Here are pictures from the Box-set of the building of Bejing Airport. It will give you a sense of his composition and of how he makes the common turn into something incredibly beautiful. Like with his Sunflower seeds he makes the small become powerful, and that is what he is doing for the Chinese people. The many and what the many does still counts, you are important!!!

"I have always admired writing as the highest medium of expression that a person can use. But it has to be related to practice. I can always use writing to better state my understanding of a concept in art and architecture, because it has less limitations and more freedom in written form. I use my blogs to help me to advance my writings, not only on artistic discussions, but also on social and political issues."

       Ai Wei Wei "Becoming" (Ivorypress & Timezone)

To Support the release of Ai Wei Wei:

Change

where is weiwei

With Love

Kristin

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