Freestyle Magazine » Art

May The Best (Wo)Men Win

nele — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 12:39:21 +0000

At the moment Blue & Joy are creating an archive of cool world cup puppets.
Watch them all after the jump.

Life, Blood, Passion

nele — Mon, 31 May 2010 22:56:34 +0000

Earlier this year some images of the spring summer collection of new label Garland Coo captured my attention. Intriguingly dark, tribal and mysterious beauty harmonizing in a contrasting context of archaic, elementary power and refined luxury.

The creative duo of fashion designer Jasmin Isabel Eckerle and artist Marcel Singer picked me up on a corner, still muddy of snow, a few weeks later. Her appearance is diva like; very sharp, very black cloth, on very high heels; perfect make up and hair styling with a 50ies influence. On a first glance he seems to almost drawn in the realm of her shades. In a soft tone with strong southern German accent they accompanied me into the complex world of Garland Coo.

They describe their collection as “as an analogy of their cultural and natural heritage.“ Deep rooted in south German culture their native landscape, the Black Forest, is the origin and endless source of inspiration. The concept of Freigeist and the stylistic icons of Heimat are taken into an actual society, breaking the expected trash, to procure their absolute values such as honesty, reliability and reason.

To call the avant-garde collection a result would ignore the completeness of their profound artistic and social research, which is didactic, surprising and wonderful.

Spiritual studio.

Force of nature. Forest decline after hurricane Lothar in 1999.

Savage sclerosis of fabrics – buried silk to be taken out after.

Hardened fabrics.

Symbol Capricorn.
Furs lent by hunters, not processed.

Symbol Bollen (woollen pompoms), black for married women, red for unmarried women.

Black forrest cake.

I am very intrigued by the next steps of this duo, may their passion to create persist.

Nausea & Happyness – Innen Stadt Außen

nele — Thu, 27 May 2010 12:55:37 +0000

Olafur Elaisson´s first solo exhibition in Berlin `Innen Stadt Außen´ attracted me since it first has been announced. The long lines in front of the Martin Gropius Bau during the last weeks kept me from going earlier.
The artist grew up in Iceland and studied at Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademie. In 1994 he moved to Berlin, since 2006 he teaches at UDK. He explores human perception, inviting us to inspect how our actions influence on so called reality. As curator Daniel Birnbaum explains, “to a certain extent you produce the work, but in turn you as a person are produced by the environments the artist constructs.” It doesn’t seem to be coincidence that we meet at Kottbusser Tor to experience the trip until getting to the exhibition.
Eliasson´s work unites photography, sculpture, installation and film; he makes use of light, shadow, colour, fog and reflexion. The slow construction of this show gets us into a world of mental and physical emotions, stipulating all our senses: compass to the cities pavement passing contorted specula into multicoloured jumping jack projections of us.
A big model of hundreds of pieces made of paper, wood metal and fabric, filming screened on some, a little bird in that cosmos. Preparation to fall into the huge announcement of the “outside”, which is inside, under the day lightened roof. Shivers down the spine.
In between the Kottbusser Tor mirror van filming – a queasy feeling. Another look – nausea.
A view outside the window into a field of whispering grass.
Relieving circulations of white pureness and spectra next to the excitingly attractive dark sister of sparklers and Tesla.
Final climax in a closed space, diving into the tunnel of colours, becoming part of the spectrum, from red into green, from blue to yellow, one step back all white, two steps forward slightly lilac. We jump trough the first parts of the exhibit again and back into the city where other bits and pieces pop up temporary and link everything into the big picture.
Happiness in our hearts and smiling faces.

Until August 9th @ Martin Gropius Bau // Niederkirchnerstraße 7 // 10963 Berlin

Rob Ryan @ Pick Me Up

dai — Mon, 10 May 2010 09:52:59 +0000

This is a 7 day time-lapse of Rob Ryan and his team working on a large piece at his temporary workshop at Somerset House’s Pick Me Up exhibition (where they hold London Fashion week).

Claire Scully

There were several other workshops but the focus was on the graphic artists displaying their work. The fair included the “best up-and-coming international graphic designers and illustrators hand-picked by industry insiders”, as well as a It’s Nice That curated cinema.

Le Gun

Mr Bingo

(p.s. sorry, but if you fancy going along it finished last week.

Bitter Sweet – Noma Bar

dai — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 16:55:18 +0000

Bitter Sweet, is an exhibition of illustrator Noma Bar’s work, at KK Outlet in London.

It is mostly a collection from her recent book Negative Space (Mark Batty Publisher), but instead of just displaying flat illustrations Noma has created 3D wood cuts, screenprints, installation pieces, and light boxes.

It runs until 30 April at KK Outlet, 42 Hoxton Square, London, N1 6PB.

I’m Here by Spike Jonze

dai — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 09:37:34 +0000

“I’m Here” is a robot love story celebrating a life enriched by creativity. The movie is set in contemporary L.A., where life moves at a seemingly regular pace with the exception of a certain amount of robot residents who love among the population. A male robot librarian lives a solitary and methodical life — devoid of creativity, joy and passion – until he meets an adventurous and free spirited female robot.

View the whole film online @ http://www.imheremovie.com/, be quick there’s a limited amount of “seats” every day.

Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop

dai — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 11:49:56 +0000

“The latter half of the 20th century saw the built environment merged with media space, and architecture taking on new roles related to branding, image and consumerism. Augmented reality may recontextualise the functions of consumerism and architecture, and change in the way in which we operate within it.”

A film by Keiichi Matsuda

Accurate Splish Splash

nele — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:51:32 +0000

Niki Pilkington belongs to the group of people I call Free Style. Her point of views are strongly displayed in her way of working and – of course- the results. She is not afraid of new tasks, of the tough process of trial and error but gives fulltime dedication to creative challenges. She is the kind of girl that “shies away from her favourite technique (felt tip drawing) to improve others.” Not without a reason the 23 years young illustrators pieces generated some roll of drums back at FSM headquarters/offices and already has been nominated for several English awards during the past years.

Her unique style is yet diverse. I am a special fan of her Biro drawings, their clean easiness reminds me of day dreaming back in high school but better. Niki adjusts technique to topic and happily leaves her “comfort zone (paper!!) … to improve or develop her illustrations through the way of display.“ Projects like Scale Series and Projections interfere with urban environment. What is eye candy to the spectator is nourishment to the artist. As Niki explains “it’s vital to keep adapting what she does to where she is, because she doesn’t want her work to become stale. She doesn’t want people to visit her website and be like ‘that’s pretty much the same but with a different face’.“

FSM asked Niki to explain her actual favourite project:

“Archetypal Welsh is a series of illustrations, based on Wales and the Welsh language. I’ve recently moved from central London where I was based for nearly four years, back to my studio in a very rural part of North Wales. The move has made me realise the vast diversity between the two places, and it’s inspired me to start playing around with the things I see and hear everyday now. I spent so long illustrating the people I saw in London, so why not do something similar here, but focus it around my own heritage and upbringing? Being a Welsh speaker, it was important to me that I focused on the language itself as well as the people, because it is one that is dying out – so this was my own attempt to try to bring some of it alive for a little while.”

For issue two we commissioned Niki for the drawings of our new contributor section. Watch out for some accurate pencil pieces completed with delightful colour splish splash.
FSM

I Met The Walrus

dai — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:08:00 +0000

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview.
38 years later he made a film about it.
(via Mr Bingo)

TOY Made One

nele — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:29:05 +0000

We want the rare and the unique, we like the stuff that´s difficult to get. Instead of going into a deep psychological analyze of why we want as much infrequency as possible in our lives lets just savour it in the perfect situation: TOY MADE ONE

Toy is an independent business that works collaboratively with a hand picked selection of artists across product, motion, print and screen.
Next Friday Toy celebrates its 1^st year anniversary with an 6 hours lasting exhibition. For the special occasion they brought their favourite, un-shown art of last year from Manchester, UK to Berlins UNDPLUS Collab Room. Accompanied by Special Guest Djs´s “Stop Making Sense” we are definitely not going to miss this one.

The flyer design is a thrill of anticipation for my eyes!

February 26^th, 4-10pm
UNDPLUS Collab Room, Torstr. 66