| Diary editor: Riya Patel | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | |||
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| Bureau Spectacular | After the Party | New Designers | |
| Architecture Foundation, London | RIBA, London | Business Design Centre, London | |
| Until 25 August 2012 | Until 5 October 2012 | 27-30 June 2012 & 4-7 July 2012 | |
Jimenez Lai of experimental Chicago-based collective Bureau Spectacular will be creating (and living in) a bespoke installation at the Architecture Foundation this month. Hefner/Beuys House is the third in Lai's series of "super-furniture" or "materialised comics", used to explore storytelling in architecture. The latest piece references the live art of Joseph Beuys and the extrovert persona of Hugh Hefner, looking at themes of private space, voyeurism and exhibitionism. | Olympic-themed exhibitions are everywhere this month, celebrating everything from prosthetics to poster design. For a different spin on the theme, the RIBA is exploring the legacy of celebratory structures and buildings, to mark the extensive construction programme London has undergone in preparation. The exhibition will examine the impact of iconic structures like the Atomium (pictured) built for the 1958 Universal Exhibition in Brussels, alongside London’s new Olympic monuments.
| This two part event brings together over 3,500 recent UK design graduates under one roof. The first part focuses on applied art such as ceramics, jewellery, and textiles, while the second introduces innovative product, furniture, and spatial designs. As well as a wealth of budding creatives, the event attracts curators, buyers and the design-savvy public too. This year, Arts Thread will give visitors year round online access to the graduates’ portfolios.
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| Britain Creates 2012 | Century of the Child | Tate Tanks Opening | |
| V&A Museum, London | MoMA, New York | Tate Modern, London | |
| 6-29 July 2012 | 29 July 2012 – 30 September 2012 | Until 7 October 2012 | |
Fashion and Art Collusion – part of the London 2012 Festival – partners top British talent from the fields of art and fashion in an exhibition of cutting edge couture at London’s V&A this month. Organisers at the British Fashion Council must have had a fun job dreaming up matches like Gavin Turk and Hussein Chalayan; Giles Deacon and Jeremy Deller; Matthew Williamson and Matt Collishaw; and Mary Katrantzou and Mark Titchner – we just hope the resulting outfits will be as extraordinary as the characters involved. | Twentieth-century design for children – which we explored in Icon 098 – is the subject of a major survey at MoMA this month. Its starting point is the book Century of the Child by Swedish social theorist Ellen Key, who in 1900 urged society to focus on the wellbeing of children through design and progressive thinking. Toys, games, clothes, furniture, school buildings and books are all examined through the philosophies and visions of their modernist architects and designers. www.moma.org | Tate Modern opens two major exhibition spaces this month, as the project to transform the former power station’s enormous oil tanks comes to completion. The tanks, which measure over 30m across by 7m high, are the world’s first galleries to be dedicated to live art and performance. The East Tank will showcase a commission by Sung Hwan Kim while the South Tank will host a rolling series of performance-orientated “focus projects” alongside talks, live events and films. www.z33.be | |
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| The Machine | Fifty Years of Urban Walls | Design Parade | |
| C-mine, Genk | Istanbul Modern. Istanbul | Villa Noailles, Hyéres | |
| Until 7 October 2012 | Until 23 September 2012 | Until 30 September 2012 | |
| At Ventura Lambrate in Milan, designers Thomas Maincent, Thomas Vailly and Joong Han Lee gave us a taste of this upcoming exhibition on the future of production. Maincent debuted SpiderFarm (pictured) an experimental bio-factory for Madagascan silk spiders that could weave the material on an industrial scale while Vailly looked at the potential of human hair as a raw material. The full exhibition, in the former industrial city of Genk until early October, will include works by FormaFantasma and Mischer Traxler. www.z33.be | “Walls are the mirrors of society,” says Turkish artist Burhan Dogançay, who has spent half a century examining his subject matter in urban contexts all over the world. Dogançay’s fascination with urban walls lies in their social, political and personal messages, focusing on the graffiti, slogans and posters that adorn them. See his collection of over 30,000 photographs in a retrospective at the Istanbul Modern this month, along with many of Dogançay’s works on canvas. www.istanbulmodern.org | The annual Design Parade festival will again be held in Villa Noailles on the Côte d’Azur. The festival aims to connect young designers to established professionals and provide a forum for exchange. Along with a group show of ten shortlisted designers competing for the Grand Prix, the festival features a lecture series, an open studio, and another eight exhibitions, including one by François Azambourg, head of jury for the contest. www.villanoailles-hyeres.com | |
