2013 BOOK FAIR IN LEIPZIG
ARTIST OPERATED AUCTION HOUSE



Örnsbergsauktionen is the name of an artist operated auction house for studio produced, independent design and craft. Its creators, Fredrik Paulsen, Simon Klenell and Kristoffer Sundin, were missing a platform for contemporary, unique design in Stockholm so they initiated the first Örnsbergsauktionen during Stockholm Design Week 2012. The idea of the auction is to open up the process between idea and finished product and to reduce the distance between designer and client. Now time has come for the second edition – until February, 8th you can check out and bid on a range of beautiful and somewhat crazy objects, bypassing the commercial demands of mass production!
Sculpture by Sara Lundkvist | Glasses by Silo Studio | Tray by August Sörenson | Necklace by Maria E Harrysson
Images: Viktor Sjödin


100 BEST POSTERS OF THE YEAR



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.



SARAH ILLENBERGER EXIBITION AT VOO STORE



We went out to see Sarah Illenbergers exhibition at voo store in Kreuzberg. Some of the exhibits apparently were done just at the same day but a lot of her work was familiar. Nevertheless it was nice to see some of the originals and the beetroot diamonds, the pomegranate and the blonde apple just made us smile!



PRINTS ARE GREAT. ORIGINALS ARE BETTER.


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.

DESIGN EXHIBITION DMY 2011
PRE-OPENING GESTALTEN SPACE



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.


GREGORY CREWDSON AT STOCKHOLM'S KULTURHUSET


I didn’t see the Gregory Crewdson exhibit in Germany (it’s not so often I visit Baden-Baden…) but when I entered Stockholm’s Kul-turhuset this weekend I was lucky to discover that they had a big Gregory Crewdson show on display. Especially the images in his precisely choreographed and elaborately staged “Beneath the Roses” series were impressive. Additional images from the production process provided an insight into how much planning and orchestration is needed to achieve the final results.


LEIPZIG BOOK FAIR SHOWS BEST BOOK DESIGN
ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE AT C/O FOTOGALERIE



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.


FORMULA_X: EXHIBITION BY AFF ARCHITECTS AT DAZ



Series are appealing to me: You start observing your environment in a new way when you are on to something, you discover patterns and you can collect – objects, photos, texts. So it is not surprising that I enjoyed the exhibition »In love, to:« by AFF Architects at DAZ. It is part of a series with three up-and-coming architect studios telling us about their inspiration, design processes and methodology – their »Formula X«, quite simply. AFF’s formula is influenced by objects and images from their past and present, things they love and like to surround themselves with.


TYPOGRAPHY IN THE 20TH CENTURY IN EUROPE AND THE USA



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.



EGYPTIAN COLLECTION AT NEW MUSEUM
»ALL MOST HEAVEN« ADVENT EVENT
ADVENT AFTERNOON + EXHIBITION
GREGORY CREWDSON & DUANE HANSON AT MUSEUM FRIEDER BURDA




The museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden combines the two american artists Duane Hanson and Gregory Crewdson in the exhibition »Unheimliche Wirklichkeiten«. Each in his own media, they deal with reality in an irritating way: Crewdson creates elaborate sets in which he freezes weird moments of pseudo-reality and Hanson builds hyperrealistic life-sized clothed fiberglass figures. Might be an interesting combination, there is time until the 6th of march 2011 to find out.


»SUNFLOWER SEEDS« BY AI WEIWEI AT TATE MODERN


When we visited Tate Modern in the beginning of this month, the museum’s Turbine Hall was impressive, but empty. Now it is filled, namely with 100 million sunflower seeds. They are part of an installation by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and though they look realistic are they in fact hand-crafted in porcelain. 1600 workers individually sculpted and painted every single seed husk in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen during the last two years. This gets your mental arithmetic going – to make a long calculation short, the production of Ai Weiwei’s piece took about 6 million hours. This is quite a number just as the millions of seeds are a powerful sight. Even on a distance Weiwei’s installation makes me think about what role work plays in our lives, about the „Made in China” phenomena and individualism in a society like China. You are no longer allowed to walk on the seeds (this caused health-damaging dust – here you got something more to think about…), but anyhow I would love to see the installation in real.
Photos: Tate Photography, Johan Wirfält
