exhibition travel tips and stories. Vacations ideas, cruises spa and resorts

Displayed on bubble-shaped stands, Galeria Melissa’s hip, gaudily-colored prime sellers—plastic shoes made in collaboration with design stars like Karim Rashid—look like art objects from outer space. The shop aims to be Sao Paulo’s “go to” place for cutting edge styles and ideas. Housed in a space created by Muti Randolph, the architect behind the electronic music temple D-Edge’s retro-futuristic beat box design, Galeria Melissa updates itself every three months by renewing the prints and graphics on its walls, a jungle of striking tints and bold shapes.

Paula Rego Museum, is located just outside the Portuguese capital by the beaches of Cascais. The museum includes paintings and drawings by Portugal’s most acclaimed living artist. The museum is named after Paula Rego, who was born in Lisbon but has been living between Cascais and London since the 1970s. In the British capital she married artist Victor Willing and was appointed the first associate artist of England’s National Gallery. She’s also considered one of the best living painters in Britain, and her works can be seen in several museums around the world, from the British Museum in London to the MoMA in New York.

In Lisbon, you can see a couple of her art examples at the Berardo Museum and at the Modern Art Centre of the Gulbenkian Foundation, as well as in the Chiado Museum’s current exhibition “Modern Art in Portugal – From Amadeo to Paula Rego.” In the past, there have been retrospective exhibitions of her work in Madrid’s Reina Sofia Museum, Porto’s Serralves Museum, and at the Tate Britain.

Nowadays there is a permanent home for much of her art, with the upcoming museum housed in a brand-new building designed by the renowned architect Eduardo Souto Moura. It features two conical towers that bring to mind the famous gigantic chimneys of Sintra’s National Palace, while inside it will show a total of 121 works by the artist. The 750 square meters of space will also include an area for temporary exhibitions, a cafeteria, a bookshop, and an auditorium.

The Palast der Republik — the former of East German parliament building  has left a gaping hole on Schlossplatz, a square on eastern Berlin’s main thoroughfare, Unter den Linden. Just near by is the blue-and-white prefab building that’s taken up residence for a two-year stint. Since it opened in late October, the Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin (or Temporary Art Hall Berlin) has a purpose of showcasing locally based artists. Currently included on the outside of the container-like structure is “Clouds” by Gerwald Rockenschaub, an Austrian artist. The outer facade of the Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin Gallery has two abstract white clouds on a bright blue background and the cubic formations that refer to the design’s digital origin and remind us, in their universal legibility, of computer icons. Gerwald Rockenschaub project’s temporal nature and the principle of transience is the foundation for creating something new.

The Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center is one of the first institutions in the United States dedicated to exhibiting contemporary art. The CAC was founded in in 1939 as the Modern Art Society by three visionary local women. First, the CAC has been an admired leader in the international art world.

Today the CAC is a non-collecting institution that focuses on new developments in painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, performance art and new media. The center showcasing contemporary art and artists relevant to diverse audience, and developing programming that examines and reflects the importance of the art.

Its current architectural redesign was directed by Zaha Hadid – a london architect known for her innovative structures. As they describe it, “From the street, the CAC’s jutting concrete reliefs trace the outlines of the galleries inside. Once inside, visitors can’t get lost: The floor is slightly tilted, and following its enforced flow around the lobby leads you to a floating stairway to the mezzanine.” CAC is a must see. If you visit Cincinnati be sure to stop by.

I present you a fantastic structure located in Spain, the Espacio de las Artes at Santa Cruz, Tenerife. The building has urban beauty and generates a triangular plaza. Along the facade, over 1,200 openings in 720 different shapes filter the natural light to the inside, while generating an amazing view during night.

The structure features a public library, a contemporary art museum, the Photography Centre of the Tenerife Island, a store, a cafe/restaurant and several public use spaces for the community.

During the grand opening,  this building will change the image of Tenerife, and along with the Calatrava auditorium will turn the city into a cultural focus.

Photographs by Iwan Baan:

The Artfarm is located near Salt Point in upstate New York (1.5h drive from the City). The client is an art collector and owner of Chambers Fine Art, a well known gallery located in New York City and Beijing and which is specialized in contemporary Chinese art.

The building is designed as a gallery for a professional art collection.  The three volumes are put on a solid concrete slabs, which follow the existing grade on the site. The different levels are connected through a continues cascading ramp in the middle axis.

The annual “Holiday Train Show,’’ in New York City makes you feel a little like an alien visitor just coming ashore; everything familiar is skewed and strange in the fragrant, humid air.

A train passing by The Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.

This train is made from willow, canella berries, pine bark and walnut shells. The train  runs under the Washington Arch.

Foreground, from left: Saks Fifth Avenue, Rockefeller Center, including the G.E. Building, Radio City Music Hall and the Flatiron Building.

Father and daughter,  from Pennsylvania, watched a train on the Brooklyn Bridge. The Manhattan Bridge was made of oak, hickory and elm, with willow branches, while the Brooklyn Bridge, whose neo-Gothic arches are lined with sugar-pine-cone scales.

Old New York townhouses.

Visitors watched a train on the Manhattan Bridge. While looking at this exhibition you will understand that trains became objects of play, subjects for romance. That may be why they seem so comfortable weaving around this show’s botanical urban world.

The Guggenheim Museum, NY is a romantic comedy museum in six levels. There are jokes to get, videos to watch, shoes to kick off, colored lights to see, recorded sounds to hear and yes the bed, which is a part of hotel room exhibition by the German artist Carsten Holler.

The picture displays ”Pierre Huyghe’s Opening” (2008). The 10 participants – Angela Bulloch, Maurizio Cattelan, Liam Gillick, Douglas Gordon, Pierre Huyghe, Jorge Pardo, Philippe Parreno, Rirkrit Tiravanija, along with Ms. Gonzalez-Foerster and Mr. Höller — have exhibited and sometimes collaborated together.

The larger aim of the museum is to create an experience of community in a time when everything- technology stress, shopping couspires against human connection.

The museum enterance is spectacular with fabilous white-on-white movie marquee of neon and fluoresent lights hanging  from white lighted chains.

Inside you may see a sclupture by Mr. Cattelan which is a large full-color version of Pinocchio floating face down in an elliptical pool.

The opening salvo is ”Are We Evil” with a period rather than the comfort of a question mark.

” The Red Kimona”, directed by Walter Lang in 1925 is in an area customized with beanbig chairs and functioning espresso bar.

If you don’t join in, you may find yourself reflecting on the way art creates freedom, by overcoming, sooner or later, the opposition it first meets.

This glass salon has the functionality of a reading room and exhibition space in the Lounge Founders of the National Library in Chile. The salon is surrounded by silkscreen chosen by the Library.

The silkscreen has two sides of the element, with text that enable its reading on both sides, which gives a more ambiguous character as a fabric.

The glass salon is divided into two areas, exhibition space and reading space. This generates into the visitor a better predisposition before accessing the study area.

The project is fantastic because maintains the morphology of the living room in the Library. Also is cultural and gives to the students cosy, warm place with great lighting atmosphere, where to spend their studies and researches.

Seoul is being named the World Design Capital 2010 and these days host a three-week-long-event at their Jamsil Olympic Stadium. The event sought to encompass all areas of design, including architecture, industrial design, fashion/textile design, graphic design and more.

The competition categories include Earth (environment), Water (communication in flow), Wind (experience in media city scape) and Fire (objects in urban culture).

Jeong-Hwa Choi’s work covers the entire stadium in recycled bottles and materials.

The City of Seoul is also well known for extraordinary achievements such as legendary rapid growth in economy back in 70’s that is often compared to ”The Miracle of the Han River” as well as the great success in hosting 1988 Olympic Games Seoul which become even more famous during the recent 10 years for world leading advances in IT industry, now has the vision to become the design city of the world.

 Culinary design is also included in the exhibitions (AVING Korea took more photos here).

These vegetables were delicately carved and placed together to create a unique composition.

SDO is a design culture festival for people from every place. This event is hoped to stimulate the economy by emphasizing design’s importance and its utilization by the city.

Here are some interesting facts:

• Number of objects: 1,763,360
• Total weight: 75,680 kilograms
• Workers needed to install: 3,638
• Number of Trucks: 488
• Days to install: 40
• 4 Elements represented: fire, water, air, earth

If you are going to visit the Chanel Pavilion in Central Park, you may be think it’s bloody unbelievable. The Pavilion is designed to display artworks inspired by Chanel’s chain-strap handbag.

A year ago such a dubious undertaking might have seemed indulgent, but today it looks delusional.

It is not just the economic turmoil, the pavilion sets out to drape an aura of refinement over a cynical marketing gimmick.

The Pavilion was first shown in Hong Kong and Tokyo. It will be on view in New York through Nov. 9. Chanel is paying a $400,000 fee to rent space in the park. This is the video project by the Japanese artist Tabaimo.

Opening the Pavilion in Central Park is a great democratic experiment, an immense social mixing place. The Chanel project reminds us how far we have traveled from those ideals by removing the boundary between the civic relm and corporate interests.

Kunsthulle LPL is a temporary installation for a major new venue  for contemporary art in Liverpool. The rooftop building is experimental place for lectures, performances, films and events. The space consist the old factory, an existing staircase, the rooftop and extending out over the public facade of the building.

The structure is made by PVC curtain and the translucent skin has two layers: an outer white layer which protect the space from the weather conditions and inner red layer which isolate the noise.

The curtain responds to the  environment and to the particular event, performance or exhibition. Its translucent skin acts as a beacon that links art centre to the city, offering a space for talks anddiscussion with astonishing views to the river Mersey and Liverpool.

Liverpool is a city which combines a large-scale World Heritage Site, a variety of renovations and old-school buildings. It’s a wonderful mix.

The London Frieze Art Fair was full with richly stocked booths, exhibitions, opening parties and other festivities.

The fair itself, with 152 participants continues its quest to meet all art needs. At front rows are the art dealers and their booths, which presented an enormous range of products and anti-product, including an art performance or three.

Visitors to the fair, can sit around ”Sirkus”, a dark noisy, utterly conincing rendition of an Icelandic bar.

At Francesca Kaufman visitors enter through a small door by Dutch artist van der Stokker. Framed in a cartoonish wall, the drawings proclaims the slogan ” No Reason, No Goals” !

The Miwaukee Art Museum has opened its doors in 1888, but the eye-catching structure, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and opened in 2001, has become a symbol of modern Milaukee.

With its moveable wings the Miwaukee Art Museum looks like a large white bird landing on Lake Michigan or the tail of a white whale emerging from the water.

The museum is home to 25,000 works of art. Its permanent holdings contain an important collection of old Masters and 19th-century artwork.

As well as the best collection of German Expressionism, folk and Haitian art, American decorative art and post-1960 American art.

The  Museum Liaunig is sited over step-sided ground, high up in the mountain in Austria. Only a small side of the museum structure is visible. The museum’s main body slices through a densely-wooded embankment, provided a spectacular view over the river.

The museum entrance zone is situated toward the nearby historical castle owned by the museum’s patron. The structure of the museum offers the possibility to organize a variety of exhibitions, parties and cocktails by virtue of flexible screens and lighting arrangements.

The museum main hall is 160 metre long, fully daylight exhibition hall, with protected terraces at each end. As well as the hall is organized with mobile exhibition panels. Coool place!

The high cost of external envelope is avoided by sinking the majority of the building below ground. Rather than removing the soil, excavated ground is used to remodel the site.

Set into the hill, the museum benefits from the temperature environment. Roof light substitutes artificial light as much as possible.