TO LOOK UP...

things mentioned that I must look up from people that I look up to

[tolookup]

In 1798, Thomas Rule opened an Oyster Bar in Covent Graden. More than 200 yearas later, and spanning the reigns of 9 monarchs, Rules is the oldest restaurant in London.

It specializes in traditional, and affordable, British cuisine: Game, oysters, pies and puddings. The walls are adorned with centuries of history, and hold proof of the literary and entertainment personalities that attended the restaurant in the past.

"It came like magic in a pint bottle; it was not ecstasy but it was comfort."

Little Dorrit. Charles Dickens

Recommended by Elizabeth von Guttman and Alexia Niedzielski

[tolookup]

Socotra, also spelled Soqotra, is a small archipelago of four islands in the Indian Ocean. It is one of the most-isolated landforms on Earth of continental origin and it is considered the jewel of biodiversity in the Arabian Sea. The long geological isolation of the Socotra archipelago and its fierce heat and drought have combined to create a unique and spectacular climate where over 700 species of endemic flora and fauna live.

One of the most striking plants is the dragon's blood , a strange-looking, umbrella-shaped tree. Its red sap was thought to be the dragon's blood of the ancients, sought after as a dye, and today used as paint and varnish.

“Every dreamer knows that it is entirely possible to be homesick for a place you've never been to, perhaps more homesick than for familiar ground.”

Judith Thurman

Recommended by film producer Chris Hanley, who has a penchant for finding the most bizarre locations on the planet earth

[tolookup]

"I try to examine how my surrounding is perceived and remembered. To do this, I listen to a whisper from objects within my surroundings. I attempt and intimate, private dialogue with the world, trying to concretely present the way other things approach me, by using other mediums"

- Beom Kim

Recommended by the Brazilian artist Jac Leirner in a sushi restaurant in Sao Paolo. Jac is so switched on to other artists around her, she always teaches me about art that I've never heard of. They met at the Sharjah Biennial earlier this year....

[tolookup]

One of my top five favourite artists in the world (who I also think is severly underrated) is Cerith Wyn Evans. His work blends the abstract qualities of math and science with a sense of poetic beauty and natural phenomena like light and reflection in a way unparalleled by any other. His work attempts to rupture existing systems of communication, appealing to subtitles and text to create open-ended pieces that transmute in the viewers mind long after their initial encounter.

His longterm studio manager, Pascale Berthier told me about this very special catalogue essay written by Alexander Garcia Düttmann . As often happens with Cerith, he is a longterm friend and collaborator, a philosopher with special interest in aesthetics and art, but also in moral and political philosophy. His research in the past few years has been focused on the philosophical problem of deconstruction.

It’s the concepts of deconstruction, rupture and combined media that brought them together to co-write Abécédaire for Wyn Evan’s artist’s book published by the Serpentine Galleries. I highly recommend this book.

Images Works on Paper V, 2009. For Bergen Kunsthall Gallery, 2011. To Know Him is to Love Him, 2010.

[tolookup]

This image was taken by Mert anc Marcus for Interview magazine in December 2011. Charlotte cited them as two major photographers who gave her a big boost in her career when she was starting out as an assistant to Mary Greenwell. She has worked with them consistently over the years, but I also sense a bit of Antonio Lopez in this iconic image...

[tolookup]

Also, while in Shanghai, we got to get a tour of the collection of Qiao Xubing who has an incredible eye. He shows some of his collection in his massive karaoke palace, which is all done up in Shanghai, Art Deco style for private room rental. Each piece is housed in a glass vitrine, so the art seems to hover inside the walls of the building. This particular painting was not there, however, I learned about the work of Wang Xing Wei, a formalist painter who's humor and storytelling sometime overwhelm his obsession with shapes and colors. There is a great tension between the two. This painting is called Untitled (small old lady on the balcony)

[tolookup]

Also, while wandering a mall in Shanghai, as one is wont to do in the cities of China, I found this great shop called Ziggy Chen. I only now realise that it is all menswear, but I love the desconstructed, hobo look with roots in Shanghai fashion from the 1900s to 1920s. The fabrics were all tough wools and linens and leathers, but all soft and of the highest quality. Bring it to the west and make some for us, women!

[tolookup]

Some more great examples of Kengo Kuma's work 1.) Translucent cabin in Hokkaido 2.) History of Dentistry Museum in Aichi, Japan 3.) Starbucks in Dazaifu, Japan 4.) Bamboo trees with stone and water in Milan, Italy 5.) Bamboo wood installation for Gwangju Design Biennial in South Korea

[tolookup]

I was in Shanghai with my boyfriend, who was there on business. Laura, who works with him and a dear friend of mine happened to bump into another friend of hers, Sally. Laura generously suggested that Sally take me out and show me Shanghai! It is always a bit strange and lonely, especially in winter to wander around a new city aimlessly, so I was grateful for the company, which was exceptionally enjoyable. I was astounded by a building that we drove by, a mirror panelled masterpiece with plants emerging at every strata. (The plants are more lush and grown in than this photo) She told me it was Kengo Kuma, a Japanese architect. Further research reveals that he wanted to convey ”traditional Chinese humanistic spirit with a living nature which is away from the city”. I love how he uses modular units to create organic shapes, or in this case, to actually house organic shapes.

[tolookup]

I love Hans Ulrich Obrist for his utter lack of pretension (despite being one of the most heralded curators of his day in the height of the global contemporary art world), his insatiable curiosity and his unbridled passion for everything interesting. I saw him recently and he was telling me about how he uses Instagram. I have been anti-Instagram because I feel people use it to create a PR version of themselves, it's become a platform for showing of materialism and cliches like hotel rooms, puppies and recent purchases. However, Hans Ulrich restored my faith in the app through his use. He is travelling constantly for work as director of The Serpentine, meeting with artists, architects, thinkers, collectors, museum directors, etc. etc. and so he asks people who he has meetings with to write or draw something on a piece of paper and then he takes a picture! Genius! This one is from the artist Mateo Lopez, who I posted about a week or two ago. (Hans Ulrich also revealed that this way, people can't keep track of where he is and won't be offended if he was in town and didn't ring them up to say hi, even better. It's great when necessity breeds creativity.)

[tolookup]

This film was mentioned in a Mark Bradford catalogue in reference to his sound work he made called Pinocchio is on Fire. I had to look it up and the movie poster and premise is hilarious. "Pinocchio Is on Fire is a mythological character that I created to talk about black culture in South LA at a time of flux and fluidity in the late 1980s when it was changing from an older narrative of family toward a “Boyz in the Hood” hip hop moment. And now the ground is shaking again, hip hop is receding and immigration has changed the landscape. The work is a sound piece using my voice and music. It came very naturally to me." - Mark Bradford in the Art Newspaper

[tolookup]

During this past week in Miami Art Basel, a friend of mine bought some Hiro prints from Pace Gallery. I had never heard of him, so of course, I had to google. The results were fascinating - a cross of formalist compositions, organic shapes and surrealist colours. My favourite is the top photograph of Jerry Hall blowing smoke by the sea. "By the time Yasuhiro Wakabayashi came to New York in 1954, he'd already set his sights on working for either Richard Avedon or Irving Penn. Arriving from Japan, by way of China, "Hiro," as he came to be known, first encountered fashion photography after World War II while working at an American hotel, where he used to wait for visitors to toss their magazines in the garbage so he could get a glimpse at the glossy images. After a few classes at the School of Modern Photography, in 1956, he achieved his dream of assisting Avedon. An introduction to Alexey Brodovitch, the esteemed art director of Harper's Bazaar, soon followed. Seeing the originality of Hiro's colorful, graphic aesthetic, Brodovitch hired him as a staff photographer in 1957, a post he kept for decades. The Getty Museum recently purchased fourteen of the artist's iconic prints, and we spoke with curator Paul Martineau about the acquisition." - NYMag

[tolookup]

Another interesting tidbit from the soon to come Dover Street Market New York - is from architecture duo Arakawa and Gins. Unfortunately Arakawa has passed away, even more relevant as his life's work was about delaying aging and death through architecture. A person's relationship with space should be unsettling rather than comforting and through this experience, we can stay young or cradle tentativeness, ie embrace that which makes you unsure. They speak about how architecture can be used to unsettle people, and being unsettled is a way to avoid aging and death. In the western way of thinking, the concept of home is associated with comfort. Comfort is fraught with anxiety, because we know that comfort is only for a certain amount of time. Elation comes when you erase this interwoven dichotomy. Being comfortable is practicing death.

[tolookup]

London Fieldworks is one of those amalgamations that spans art, architecture, technology and performance. I read about them because they have been commissioned to create a site specific installation in the new Dover Street in New York. Dover Street is one of my favourite stores in the world. This image is of a piece called Spontaneous City in the Tree of Heaven and made up of hundreds of bird boxes. "But when DSMNY invited Gilchrist and his partner, Jo Joelson, to create a site-specific work for one of the three columns that cut through the space, they happily accepted the challenge. The final product touches on everything from outsider art and the Japanese Metabolism movement to “animal building — particularly the way small-brained creatures put structures together.” - T Magazine

[tolookup]

I had a night out on my own, bopping around to the various fashion, pre-holiday evening soirees - a quick stop in store at Hockley where I stroked some neon furs and participated in a debate about whether it was moral to buy a fur if one's boyfriend was anti-fur. This followed by a brisk walk in the chilled London air - Mayfair seems especially crisp this time of year, more collars turned up pertly, the sidewalks brushed clean. We had a drink at Mark's Club - all dressed up for Christmas with shiny packages and trims of furry spruce, like a recent divorcé getting ready for her first date post-marriage. Then, we clip clopped a few doors down to the Tory Burch party at Dartmouth House, I scarfed down a hamburger, admired the cornices and spoke with Tory about step-kids, blogs and Biba in the 70s. I saw Jefferson Hack there, and we ventured out for one last hello, to show support for Dan Macmillan and his new book Zoltar, an in print documentation of all the elastic incarnations of his art/brand/music/lifestyle concoction, only known as, well, Zoltar. The book was heavy and bound in bright purple fabric. Anyways, Jefferson's driver is obsessed with King Krule, as am I. It was a moment to remember on those city streets in between all the chitter chatter.

[tolookup]

To some this may be old news, but I just heard the other day that Tom Ford had commissioned Tadao Ando to build a ranch for him in Santa Fe. Incredible. No one else could pull of the clean lines, crisp & tactile materiality and inject into nature so harmoniously - I say this about both Tom and Ando. I met Tom once and admired his impeccably tended facial hair and luminous skin. He told me I was beautiful (I blushed deeply!!) He is as precise and elegant as what he creates, though I think his approach to living, filmmaking and architecture gives a deeper insight into his philosophy than what he has to make adapted for the mass market of fashion consumers. This ranch reminds me of earthworks from the late 60s by Robert Smithson, James Turrell and Carl Andre which then gave rise to minimalist artists of the 70s, like Donald Judd and Tony Smith. The idea to commission Tadao Ando is genius - I know his work most from Pinault's Punta della Dogana in Venice, as well as other museums and churches he has created, which are all hallowed spaces of spiritual transcendence. His work's apparent outer simplicity is all geared towards having an inner experience. ""The architect does, after all, admit to approaching religious and residential buildings the same way, saying that “dwelling in a house is not only a functional issue, but also a spiritual one.” Ford admitted the importance of nature in his life: “If you spend time on our ranch or in the American West or anywhere in nature, all of a sudden, all the things you worry about all the time fade away. That’s why one of the greatest problems with where we are culturally at this time is that we’ve all lost touch with the earth and that which is really important in the world.”" - AAS Architecture

[tolookup]

A brainstorming lunch with my friend, designer Edeline Lee, revealed a list of old fashion brands that have not yet been snapped up and revamped. One of my favorites from her list was Madame Grès. "Madame Grès nee Germaine Émilie Krebs (1903–1993) was born and raised in the 17th arrondissement in Paris, France. There are many unresolved curiosities surrounding this diminutive five foot tall giant in the fashion world, not least of which is the unconventional evolution of her name, which ultimately became the moniker Madame Grès. Today she is considered the “Designer's Designer” and has been referenced as the “Sphinx of Fashion” and described as “More Garbo than Garbo”. Although she never gained the mass notoriety attributed to her female contemporaries that included: Gabrielle Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli, Jeanne Lanvin, and Madeleine Vionnet, she is today considered to be one of modern histories most significant artists in the field of clothing design and specifically in haute couture." - Wikipedia