#thinking hands

[lichtblickpink]

I can’t decide. I love both edits. so I had to post both…..

from x (UHQ)

[studio-helsinki]

Aalto on ‘Play’

In the context of his Experimental House at Muuratsalo, Aalto points out the importance of experimentation and play in his design method, while at the same time emphasizing the sense of responsibility: 

“[I have] a firm conviction and instinctive feeling that in the midst of our laboring, calculating, utilitarian age, we must continue to believe in the crucial significance of play when building a society for human beings, those grown-up children. The same idea, in one form or another, surely lies at the back of every responsible architect’s mind. A one-sided concentration on play, however, would lead us to play with forms, structures and, eventually, the body and soul of other people; that would mean treating play as a jest[...] we must combine serious laboratory work with the mentality of play, or vice versa. Only when the constructive parts of a building, the forms derived from them logically, and our empirical knowledge is colored with what we might seriously call the art of play; only then are we on the right path. Technology and economics must always be combined with a life-enhancing charm. “

- p.76. Juhani Pallasmaa, Thinking Hands

[woweileyimenyishu]

Excerpt from an interview with Bérénice Angremy, Executive Director and Curator of Thinking Hands

LC: I’ve heard that some Chinese artists want to break free into the international art market but some feel that their art will be better understood within China. Do you feel that some artists...

BA: I think it’s completely bullshit. This is really the discourse of people who play with that. It’s also another way of marketing himself or herself. I think the majority of Chinese artists right now are looking for career and money, and they know that the career and the money are really linked to China right now. Before it was linked to foreign countries. That’s it. I think it’s really disgusting to hear this kind of thing.

LC: So wherever the money is will be their target?

BA: This is completely all about money. It doesn’t mean that all these commercial galleries are not dealing with arts, don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. But definitely the money is the leading tool of everything right now. And when artists say “my work will be more understandable in China”... This is the first time I have heard that and I think it’s bullshit. Because they play also with the fact that…

LC: China is where they will make more money at this point?

BA: Yeah, but if you look at Chinese artists who got famous in the 90s and who are now the stars of all the international art market... All these guys, my attitude is not to criticize them or not, it is to analyze the pieces of work that they do and the pieces of work they produce now, and they are all really about the Chinese face. Who wants Chinese face except foreigners? So they did all their marketing and artistic production based on the Chinese face. Collectors at that time knew, “I’m buying Chinese art. This is obvious, this is China.” And now all these artists start to think, “Oh, people will more understand my art in China”? No. And it’s not true. The way collectors are tiered it’s really about investment, exhibition, only few artists, few collectors; they’re all very interested in the investment that it represents. I think it’s not so simple, even the way I am reacting is not so simple, maybe we can analyze from another side, but maybe I'm overreacting because it’s really interesting, amazing.