Mostly, I am not a big fan of VICE Magazine, but the Vice TV productions sometimes are very recommendable. Berlin Fashion Week started today, but you might be interested in how the same event is celebrated in cities that don’t get as much attention as Paris, Milano or New York. In the series Fashion Week Internationale, journalist and ex model Charlet Duboc travels to e.g. Seoul, Jamaica, Tel Aviv and Nigeria and digs deeper into the countries’ culture, ideals of beauty and societal challenges. Find all episodes here or just search on Youtube.

It is on the day one year ago that I wrote about the book fair in Leipzig and also this year I saw a bunch of inspiring books there – content-wise as well as regarding the design and production.  I spent hours admiring the nominees and winners of the yearly award »Best Book Design From All Over The World« and the presentations of the students of different German book art study programmes, find some impressions in the pictures. Another highlight was the Korean Pavillon – every single book here could have won the best book award, in my opinion!
I concluded my weekend in Leipzig with a visit to »It’s a book, it’s a stage, it’s a public space«,  a meeting of small independent publishers, where I met friends who presented their cool project »Publishing as (part time) practice«. Check it out here, I heard they will come to Berlin with it, soon.

We love you too.

Thank you for the wonderful show at Volksbühne in Berlin yesterday night … all we are saying is give peace a chance!

Images top to bottom:
– 1969, Yoko Ono  | Clay Perry
– Yoko Ono und John Lennon – Bed-In for Peace, 1969. Hilton Hotel, Amsterdam, 25.-31. März 1969
– Unknown
– Yoko Ono, thewire.co.uk
– War is over | imago

The team behind German typography and graphic design magazine Slanted discovered the amazing power of Cuban poster art and is planning on a special issue to give the Cuban artists an international voice. With 320 pages this Slanted issue will have an impressive coverage and exhibitions in Berlin, Leipzig and Paris will give deeper insights into Cuban design.
To make all these great plans reality, Slanted is dependent on the support of all you design enthusiasts out there: Via crowdfunding you can support the project by ordering copies in advance or buying hand-pressed prints signed by the artists. You can find the latest info on the project’s Facebook page.

When American publishing house Condé Nast opens its archives in New York, Paris, London and Milan for the first time you can be sure to see some of the world’s finest fashion photography! To be honest we even expected a more daring selection but nevertheless some real treasures could be found. Especially seeing the classic compositions of photography’s old masters such as Edward Steichen was truly amazing. In many images you see that fashion photography reflects the respective era, society and zeitgeist and does not just tell us about timeless beauty, as the exhibition’s title might suggest.

Like father, like son. Drew Tyndell, an artist working in Atlanta, Georgia, started out with graffiti, but his latest series of work clearly shows that growing up with an architect father has influenced him. Using different sized pieces of wood, Drew creates studies of beach and cabin homes. Impressive how the colours and structures add depth and a third dimension to the artworks. Check here for more variations!

What started out already in 1966 as a competition for the best posters in the GDR has become a dear recurring event: The exhibition »Die 100 besten Plakate des Jahres« (100 Best Posters of the Year) is once more on display at Kulturforum at Potsdamer Platz. 53 posters from Germany, 45 from Switzerland and 2 from Austria were awarded for their outstanding design, whereof 23 of the prize-winning entries are posters designed by students.
We were great fans of the posters by the following designers: Paula Troxler for a Moby Dick theater play, Valeria Gordeew for a masked ball at Udk Berlin, Markwald & Neusitzer for an exhibition of islandic artist erró, Björn-Christian Schiebe for the Museum of Natural Sciences.
Have a look at all winning posters here or check other dates of the travelling exhibition.

As sad as this sounds, as beautiful is the work of artist Nick Georgiou. And here‘s what he says about it: “My art is inspired by the death of the printed word. Books and newspapers are becoming artifacts of the 21st century. As a society we’re shifting away from print consumption and heading straight towards full digital lives. My sculptures are products of their environment —both literally and figuratively. As often as I can, I use local newspapers to add authenticity, and the form the sculpture takes is a reflection of the personal connection I feel to that particular city.”

Under this motto, the online art show »Buy Some Damn Art« every week brings a new hand-picked selection of independent original art directly to buyers. The initiator of the site, Kate Singleton, wants to offer art at affordable prices for a new generation of art buyers. Since the beginning of November, each Tuesday at noon a new show launches featuring six originals for sale from $200 to $500.

This week it is Rachel Sitkin’s turn. Her landscape paintings quite unexpectedly show surface coal and copper mines in West Virginia and Arizona.

On New Year’s Eve 1956, Czech illustrator Zdeněk Miler stumbled over a molehill in the woods west of Prague. This incident gave him the idea for an animated cartoon character that has become a dear companion of our childhood days: The Little Mole. Since the Fifties, the little creature appeared in more than 40 books and 50 cartoon episodes, uttering not much more than an emotional oh-oh or a welcoming ahoi, but always cheerful and eager to help his friends. Zdeněk Miler died yesterday, aged 90.

All images by Zdenek Miler
Photo of Zdenek Miler taken from www.felsofokon.hu

Thanks to everybody who joined to celebrate the release of Π#2 at voo store. And a special thanks to the wonderful Almdudlerdern for yodeling along!

Photos: Christian Smirnow

Lying in bed with an unseasonal flu has its good sides, too: The last two days I browsed through the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog of the U.S. Library of Congress. It contains an unbelievable amount of digitized images and offers you an insight into U.S. history in a very direct way. It includes everything you might think of, just go ahead entering some keywords into the search field and you’ll get hooked! I was amazed by the photographic footage of the encounter between settlers and Native Americans in the 19th century, Civil War photos and the oil rush in the early 20th century.

Of course, the well-known images by Walker Evans for the Farm Security Administration are included, depicting life in rural America between 1935 and 1944. But until today, I had not seen the color series from this huge collection of 175,000 images.

Another tip for your next flu is the Picture Library of the Royal Geographic Society. These pictures will take you on a journey round the world in the footsteps of famous explorers and travellers.

Pics: Library of Congress, FSA/OWI Collection

The next flyer we did for TGA is announcing the show of allrounder and power woman Polina Lapkovskaja and her partner – come and see on thursday, 28th july 2011 at Bethanien!

A little potpourri of things we saw last week during Fashion Week in Berlin. We complemented Reality Studio’s presentation on Alte Schönhauser Straße with a closer look at the collection in Arne Eberle’s Collect Showroom. After some more stops we congratulated Alfhild Sarah Külper on her grand graduation at Central Saint Martins, which made Lady Gaga instantly order one of her 3D-dresses. On Saturday our Fashion Week excursion was rounded off with a Œ Magazine get-together at ninety-five gallery on Torstraße.
As lovers of printed matter we like to take along the publications accompanying Fashion Week, first of all DERZEIT fashion week Berlin daily.

This was long overdue: Berlin-based publishing house Gestalten finally opened a shop/exhibition space! But the waiting was worth the while: Situated in Sophie-Gips-Höfe in Mitte, »Gestalten Space« spreads over more than 300 square metres and offers all the great books by Gestalten, covering everything relevant in the international design scene. Besides, you can buy selected products by designers & artists who have been previously published by Gestalten. The gallery space is inaugerated with the exhibition »Cutters Edges« displaying contemporary collages by 50 international artists.

Together with more than 30 photographers, stylists, hair & make-up artists and models we were part of a fun project during the last weeks. We took care of the visual concept and layout of »Œ Magazine«, which is a new fashion magazine that focuses on Berlin’s fashion scene. The magazine is non-commercial and is in parts financed by crowdfunding. Check out the project’s campaign video here on WeFund and if you like it, feel free to support a good cause!

Contributing photographers: Amos Fricke, Dirk Merten, Lars Borges, Christoph Schemel, Andreas Lux, Jochen Arndt, Rachel de Joode, Clément Martz

Contributing stylists: Christian Stemmler, Christof Post, Rainer Metz, Åsa Lundström, Brenda Barr, Antje Gohlke, MAVEN, Julian Zigerli

Contributing hair & make-up artists: Alexander Soltermann, Henriette Höft, Manuela Kopp, Miriam Jochims

Funny electricity, serially numbered doors and beautiful floors: we´ll miss all that when c/o Fotogalerie has to move out of Postfuhramt and the place gets transformed into another shopping mall! Until the 27th of March you have the chance to see their last exhibition there, a Robert Mapplethorpe Retrospective.

The exhibition »Welt aus Schrift« (translated as “World as Words”) at Kulturforum on Potsdamer Platz takes you on a journey through the development of typography during the 20th century. Posters, books, magazines, invitations, stationery, restaurant menues, shop signs… there are so many places where typography becomes a part of our every day life. Here more than 600 of such examples are on display which outstandingly represent the style of their time and revolutionary turning points. A lot of interesting details are to be explored and inspiring styles to be found and it is amazing that many designs still feel very modern. For all of you that cannot come to Berlin until the 16th of January, there is a catalogue which includes almost all exhibits as well as some deepening essays.

Thank you everyone for spending a cosy sunday afternoon with us!