Pantone calls Viva Magenta a nuanced crimson tone that offers a balance between warm and cool, drawing inspiration from a very organic source: the cochineal beetle. This insect produces carmine dye, one of the strongest and brightest natural dyes in the world. The psychology of this color is a rebellious softness that’s impossible to ignore, speaking to our desire to take on new challenges while meeting others with compassion.

“As we balance our digital and physical lives, we continue to grow our appreciation for the natural world,” says Pantone. “The Color of the Year 2023 acknowledges our gravitational pull towards natural colors as movements swell around climate change, sustainability, and land protection. Viva Magenta offers us the assurance and motivation we need to weather long-term disruptive events.”

“Three years deep into a pandemic, facing a war, an unstable economy, social unrest, supply chain breakdowns, and mounting climate change, we need to heal. And still, we need to find the motivation to continue. Here, Viva Magenta cloaks us in both power and grace, and sends us out into the world with the verve we’ve yearned for.”

Pantone unveiled Viva Magenta at ARTECHOUSE in Miami Beach alongside its exhibition Magentaverse. Presenting its Color of the Year as an immersive experience for the fourth year in a row, the company projected magenta-hued images captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and other outer space images into an animated LED tunnel. As visitors explored the exhibition, they activated a LIDAR sensor that triggered the visualization of data in real time.

Pantone also used the AI generative tool Midjourney to create a series of promotional images featuring Viva Magenta, and they’re every bit as surreal as you’d expect. That’s a fitting choice, given that Pantone sees Viva Magenta as a color “capable of driving design to create a more positive future.” Of course, the choice of the term “Magentaverse” is no accident, referring directly to the looming prospect of the metaverse in the near future.

If you want to incorporate Viva Magenta into your home this year, use it as a vibrant pop of color in a neutral setting or make it the focal point of the space in large-scale form using a painted accent wall. ArchDaily has a fantastic gallery of architectural projects that have already employed colors in a similar vein, using saturated magenta for furniture, built-in bookshelves, and even entire facades.

To get a sense of just how much Viva Magenta aims to change our collective mood for 2023, look back on the previous Colors of the Year. In 2022, Pantone chose the soothing warm bluish-purple shade Very Peri to help people get through difficult times. The company saw it as representing “courageous creativity.”

Back in early 2021, when the effects of the coronavirus pandemic were perhaps at their most dramatic (thus far, at least), Pantone announced two Colors of the Year: “Ultimate Gray” and “Illuminating” yellow, a contrast of neutral and bright shades meant to symbolize dependability and cheer.

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Goodrich built each piece in her small 8-by-10 foot wood shop in Los Angeles using pre-cut 4’ x 8’ sheets of plywood (no easy feat in such a tight space). She wanted the furniture to be beautiful and interesting, but also affordable for creative types on a budget. To that end, each Sing Thing piece has a little bit of an edge but remains sturdy and practical. The debut collection includes two tables, a dining chair, floor lamp, pendant light, side table, mirror, reading chair, and vase produced in collaboration with ceramacist Becki Chernoff of bX Ceramics.

“Beaming with confidence and joy, Sing Thing’s debut collection ‘The Frunchroom’ is a heartfelt homage to the silhouettes, materials, and character of Adi Goodrich’s most treasured influences from the French L’Esprit Nouveau movement to Lina, the beloved northern Italian woman that taught Goodrich how to live. A tip of the hat to Chicago, the collection’s namesake is a playful reference to the south-side word, ‘frunchroom,’ loosely defined as the front room in someone’s home that houses all of the family’s best moments, most prized possessions, and happiest times.”

Most of Goodrich’s career has been dedicated to large-scale set designs and interiors. She has a keen eye for layering different shapes to create imaginative compositions, and that talent shines through in her furniture designs. Her signature punches of color, circles, arches, and wavy lines intersect with the raw materiality of the wood, which she first fell in love with in her father’s wood shop and associated trips to lumber mills. She says “The Frunchroom” is “an offbeat celebration of anti-capitalist objects that are just as alive as you are.”

Prior to her foray into furniture, Goodrich built a reputation for attention-grabbing scenery as a spatial designer. She studied with the Chicago Imagists at the school of the Art Institute of Chicago and La Sorbonne in Paris, and she’s currently studying interior architecture at UCLA. Goodrich co-founded Los Angeles-based creative studio Sing-Sing with her partner Sean Pecknold, which created an oversized art installation at Instagram’s headquarters and the set design of the Fleet Foxes 2022 tour.

If Goodrich’s reference to Enzo Mari piqued your interest, be sure to check out his famous 1974 book Autoprogettazione. The revolutionary Italian industrial designer and modernist artist combined arts and crafts techniques with the ideals of communism, with a strong personal philosophy that opposed the idea that good design is only for the wealthy.

The book offers instructions for building simple wooden furniture made of the simplest of materials. Mari distributed it for free, and although the book was later formally published, he donated the rights to reproduce the furniture in the book to German charity CUCULA, which supports African refugees. The book can still be found for free online in PDF form.

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California-based Egyptian artist and architect Hassan Ragab uses the AI art-generating program Midjourney to stimulate his own creativity, and his latest project may be his most surreal yet. “A State of Decay” takes the aesthetics of Art Nouveau architecture and warps them into dreamlike shapes and proportions. While parts of the buildings appear to be solid stone, others look like billowing smoke condensing down into solid, weight-supporting masses. Check out an animated version on Ragab’s Instagram.

The results are eerily beautiful. The characteristic sinuous, sculptural lines and asymmetrical shapes of Art Nouveau are amplified and exaggerated, morphing from the feasibly real to the blatantly unreal. The fact that such structures are not physically possible (at least, not yet) is actually part of the point. If we don’t believe something is possible, we don’t even attempt to work toward it and solve problems that could make it possible along the way.

It’s clear that AI isn’t quite up to the task of designing buildings that are safe, practical, and realistic, and there’s no danger of it replacing architects anytime soon. For artists like Ragab, using AI programs like Midjourney is a way to push their own creative ideas to the next level and introduce elements of surprise. They input text prompts into the program — perhaps something like “Art Nouveau buildings partially consisting of smoke” in this case. That’s the extent of their own control over the results. The AI inserts its own perceptions, resulting in ideas that could actually be feasible as a source of inspiration for wildly creative new architectural forms and materials.

Some users who are new to AI programs like Midjourney might find they’re getting results that are too similar to those of others. Ragab recommends that they get more specific and experimental with their prompts. “Using the right prompts is only one part of the process,” he writes on Instagram. “There are thousands of possibilities that the prompt alone won’t generate. You have to have a process for prompt writing, generating variations, and tweaking your process as you go. And of course not to mention the most important factor (your unique idea).”

In previous projects, Ragab has used AI to help envision conceptual green facades inspired by nature, organic Gothic facades resembling the work of artist H.R. Giger, an interplay of glass walls and red feathers, and many more awe-inspiring images.

“The more I work with Midjourney the more I know there is more to it,” Ragab adds. “As creatives we always have the moment where we stop. Sometimes because we need to, but most of the times we can’t go any further because we are bored, tired, or because it’s time consuming. And therein lies the true power when working with AI. It allows you to make that push, to add something to your limits in the same way [the] plane allowed us to fly. It’s another barrier that we are breaking. And although there are doubts and too many unknowns, I think we will carry on and time will reveal itself to us with even crazier scenarios than the ones we already have about the future.”

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The roughly 322 square feet of Zhima Health’s “Beijing Youli” store at the new Universal Beijing Resort posed a significant challenge to WUUX and its founder Wang Yong. That small space was to be the first stop for visitors coming to experience the thrill of movie magic in the Chinese iteration of the Universal Studios theme park.

The designers had to somehow create a space that provided both function and “strong emotional value” for visitors to the park. Taking inspiration from the Hollywood blockbuster Inception, Yong infinitely expanded the small square footage with a series of steel arches and ceiling-mounted staircases that appear to be replicating themselves from multiple points in the room.

“The entire space, thanks to the arches and stair structures, resembles an unfolded accordion which is waking up the folded time and space,” explains the Beijing-based firm.

The design started with five tall mirrored steel arches that run the length of the store and intersect each other at the midpoint of the ceiling. Then three blonde wood “endless ladders” were positioned to look like they were coming out of the walls from above. To achieve this psychedelic look, Wong and his team added full-length mirrors on the back wall and the ceiling. Finally, the rammed earth walls were outfitted with display space for Zhima Health products, which in turn get visually boomeranged throughout the M.C. Escher-like space.

“‘A whole glass on the ceiling and one side of the wall, together with the stretching structures that present a distortion in time and space, seems to have eliminated the boundary of the room and distorted time in a dazzling way,” says Wong of the design. “With light projecting from underneath the ground and structured light belts on the arches, a metaverse is throwing its arms wide open to all customers.”

As the first stop off the subway into the park, the Zhima Health Beijing Youli store fulfills its call to “carry on the essence while pursuing innovations” of the time-honored brands it stocks. The illusion of warped reality provides an ideal realm for social networking and grabbing a refreshing drink before entering the theme park for a day of thrills.

WUUX’s eye-catching store has been hailed as a “disruptive new retail experience” that caters to the “diversified preferences” of China’s youth that also “conforms to resort culture.”

Since being founded in 2015 by Wang Yong, Wuxiang Architecture Design Studio has been involved in everything from interior design and architecture to environmental art design and space art consultation. The firm “pays attention to the sense of temperature in space and is dedicated to the purpose behind things.” The Zhima Health store at Universal Studios Beijing is the latest in a long list of work WUUX has done in commercial real estate, hotels and resorts, high-end clubs, corporate space customization, and retail experience stores.

The post Inception-Inspired Universal Studios Store Appears to Infinitely Unfold on Itself first appeared on Dornob.

For Mustardo, these fleshy ceramics offer a chance to play with ancient forms, infusing them with the characteristics of human bodies. The sculptor’s series “Anthropophorae,” “Toroid,” “Mug,” “Pitcher,” and “Flablet” make objects traditionally seen as hard and solid appear as soft and mutable as unbaked bread dough. Flablets and “Logoliths” are both puns on the clay tablet, “referencing the form and function of those great, antiquated, and often fragmented recording devices to examine certain mechanisms of visual language.” Their forms droop and dimple, looking like you could poke them with your finger and leave a mark.

The Toroid series starts with a torus (donut) shape, bulging and distorting it in a variety of hues and textures. Mustardo first began using toroids to test glazes in his studio, but soon became enamored with the simple form itself. During a residency in Rome, he closely observed Baroque architectural ornamentation of amphorae and krater with ribbed undersides known as “gadrooning.” Applying this technique to the entire shape, he stretches them into gourd-like sculptures, referencing the early days of humanity when actual hollowed-out gourds were used in place of the pottery that would soon be invented and mastered.

The Mug and Pitcher series take shapes we’re all familiar with and make them strange, abstracted, almost like objects that have been dropped deep into the sea to be encrusted with salt and barnacles. Anthropophorae is perhaps the most striking of all, inspired by the Ancient Greek and Roman amphora jar with two handles and a narrow neck. Exaggerating their roundedness and giving them human-like poses suddenly creates a sense of sensuality that didn’t really exist in these objects before.

Much of Mustardo’s work revolves around “broad, reverential notions of the vessel, the body, and language,” as he explains, animating the inanimate and perhaps making them more appealing to self-obsessed humans in the process. The objects are pushed and pulled, concave and convex, humorous and serious. When he covers them in a shimmering PVC coating for them a stippled, warty appearance, they become even more surreal. Some are finished with a contrasting coat of glaze for an eerie glow.

“Attempts are made to continually dissect processes, revisit forms, and reframe themes to agitate evolution and antagonize static thinking,” Mustardo says. “Objects are focused upon as vital witnesses and participants, reflections and poems, animate and imagined.”

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Vaporwave was formed in the early 2010s from a desire to recapture the distinctive style and lo-fi technologies of previous decades like the 80s and 90s. Today, the trend champions cyberpunk spin-offs and electronica excesses of all kinds — and all of these influences have been tastefully worked into Mombá Arquitetura’s FM House.

A mashup of contemporary touches and throwback themes dominates the over 750-square-foot residence, where original features like while tile and granite floors co-exist with bright pops of color and futuristic furniture finds. Sharp angles are tempered by soft walls, and bold colors are given texture by plush textiles.

The kitchen highlights the space’s desire to accommodate both vaporwave and contemporary styles, with its vivid blue cabinetry and bright white tile backsplash. Plant life softens the scene and complements the room’s angular lines perfectly, while geometric shapes abound in every available nook and cranny. A mostly open plan creates the illusion of space in the house, while the middle wall sets a boundary between the kitchen and living area. A tucked away dining space completes the scene, itself hosting a similar mix of contemporary and vintage accents.

A blocky, angular sofa further creates a separation of space between the office and living area for a refined update of the increasingly popular mashup of home and office life making its way into modern living spaces. The couch’s graphic patten immediately draws the eye, and makes the perfect complement to the bold black and white rug on the floor.

The bedroom is another study in contrasts, featuring a muted pink wall as the backdrop for even stronger patterns and bolder colors. Hip light fixtures and a tucked away plant are welcome accents in this cozy space that’s as trendy as it is comfortable.

The perfect embodiment of the nostalgic vaporwave trend, Mombá Arquitetura’s FM House is a study in contrasts. Like the trend itself, it relies heavily on iconoclastic pairings that are full of texture and depth. Bursting with technicolor ferocity and tempered by soft, homey touches, this Brazilian masterpiece is yet another example of the design duo’s penchant for pushing the aesthetic envelope.

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Now, with the newly unveiled Gucci Décor collection, the legendary fashion house is upping the ante even more. The new pieces are being showcased in a campaign called “A Garden of Delights,” itself an homage to the quintessential English garden. Complete with immaculately shaped hedges in the form of tea cups, lamps, and armchairs, the setting blends seamlessly with the actual collection to create a true garden of Earthly delights.

The Alice in Wonderland-like fantasy garden was created by Andy Hillman Studio, while the whole dreamy scene was captured beautifully by visual artist Max Siedentopf. But the real brainchild behind the sumptuous scene was undoubtedly Michele, who has proven yet again that the iconic Italian brand isn’t afraid to push the envelope with their dynamic style choices. Below are just some of the highlights of the sumptuous collection:

These Floral Jacquard Armchairs and their plush fabrics seem to melt right into the romantic backdrop — but the eye is inevitably drawn to the classic silhouette and bright, dual-sided patterns.

Rich textiles and luxe materials make a bold Gucci statement when paired with a verdant green backdrop where the colors pop and the patterns draw the eye with colorful florals and geometric shapes, as seen in this Floral Jacquard Wool Blanket and vibrant cushions.

Set the table for an iconic English teatime with the company’s new floral coffee and tea sets. Here, the Herbarium Coffee Cup and Saucer Set, Coffee Pot, Creamer, and Sugar Bowl are artfully juxtaposed with their topiary counterparts in the background.

Whimsical prints complete with the Gucci logo make these bold accessories pop with vim and vigor that really stand out against the botanical scene. The Animalium Print Mug is particularly nice here; you almost expect the butterfly to fly away into the surrounding landscape.

Shop the Gucci Décor collection here.

The post An English Garden Sets the Scene for the New Gucci Décor Collection first appeared on Dornob.

Now, Masquespacio is stepping even further into the future with their newest offering in Barcelona: a Mango Teen store that’s an iconoclastic invention steeped in both the physical and digital worlds. Brimming with bright, vivid hues and expressive angles, the store echoes the color palettes commonly favored by the firm in past projects. However, in a dramatic departure from the norm, here they’ve decided to take their vision to the next level, creating a real-life/metaverse mashup where multipurpose features reign supreme.

Designed as a way to connect teens with a new “spatial identity,” the firm wanted to create an immersive store that reflected the world many young people find themselves spending increasingly more time in. As Masquespacio’s Ana Hernandez said in a recent statement, being a teen is “…a time when you start to dream big, without taking in mind the limits. [But] above in your dreams, strange things are happening that are out of the box…things that are not real.”

It is this dreamlike aura that defines the new Mango Teen store. Like a trippy multi-layered onion, its real-life layers are peeled back to reveal doorways into the metaverse a la Alice in Wonderland, beginning with the brightly-colored entrance arch, where shoppers make their backlit way into the store, and ending with a dreamy, distorted dressing room experience whose reflective surfaces and Art Deco flair creatively combine the store’s hybrid ethos. According to Masquespacio, these dressing rooms were one of the shop’s most requested features.

The store’s real-world features ground the colorful space in reality while also serving as immersive multipurpose stations. A hotel reception desk doubles as a checkout counter, a swimming pool doubles as an exhibition space, and a washing machine acts as a recycling spot where customers can donate old clothes. The distinctive decor is also meant to mimic the store’s digital/analog combo, with matte surfaces and brightly-lit reflective paneling in beautifully deliberate fashion. Elsewhere, the blending of straight and curving organic lines is a nod to Mango Teen’s inclusive message, meant to evoke an atmosphere of gender neutrality.

Masquespacio has raised the bar even higher on their colorfully creative vision with their new Mango Teen store in Barcelona. Here, reality itself is distorted and reimagined to reflect the ever-growing digital world waiting just behind the (dressing room) curtains.

The post Worlds Collide at Masquespacio’s New Mango Teen Store first appeared on Dornob.

Below are some of the top design trends to keep an eye on in the coming months, all courtesy of Milan Design Week:

Sustainability Stars

As mentioned above, one of the major themes of Design Week this year was sustainability, a trend that’s already been big in the design world for some time now. And just like we’ve seen sustainability emerge as a major concern in both the fashion and architecture spheres, we’re now beginning to see a similar shift in focus in the world of interior design. From the RO Guiltless Plastic initiative showcasing emerging artists who turn “trash into treasure,” to top talents such as Martino Gamper and Dimorestudio focusing on greener production processes and an awareness of longer-lasting and more eco-friendly materials, sustainability was definitely the star of the show this year in Milan.

Taking It Slow

The next big trend is complementary to a focus on sustainability, and it’s a further reflection of the industry’s desire to examine its own habits. Dubbed “slow living” or “slow homes,” it’s an offshoot of the slow living movement. Here too, the focus is on interior design. With an eye toward promoting more eco-conscious consumption, this trend is causing brands to rethink their materials, production processes, and overall lifecycles of the products they release— a less consumption = less waste credo in direct response to an environmentally destructive throwaway society. This year, TAPIS Studio nailed this trend with a lovely rug collection made from recycled biodegradable fibers.

Surrealist Savvy

In recent years, popular interior design trends have emerged that highlight our need to create homes that are not only livable and comfortable, but that promote an escape from reality (think emotional decor and “alternative realities” design trends). While this may be a response to pandemic lockdowns and an increased blending of work/home realities, the desire to escape our reality and disconnect from the outside world is manifesting itself in a number of aesthetics now.

At Milan Design Week, this came in the form of surrealism. Think dream-like, sometimes absurdist objects; bright, vivid, and outside the norm pop culture color palettes; and a riotous, carefree mix of fabrics and patterns — in short, whatever makes you feel good. For inspo, see Alberto Biagetti and Laura Baldassari’s giant, huggable cat dubbed “Pet Therapy,” and CHROMATIK HOUSE’s vivid creations that look more like candy than furniture.

The post These 3 Trends Took Milan Design Week 2022 By Storm first appeared on Dornob.

Oprisco’s career began when he got a job at a photo lab at age 16, where he mastered the stages of printing both film and digital photography. As a lab operator, he got to fine-tune his ability to adjust the colors in thousands of images a day, taking a particular interest in identifying the types of images and poses his customers loved most. This inspired him to pick up a medium format camera called the Kiev 6C in 2009. Medium format photography is captured on wide, square-shaped film with four times the resolution of 35mm images and naturally occurring out-of-focus areas called bokeh. That’s what helps produce the dreamy effect.

Oprisco doesn’t plan his photo series too far ahead, preferring to do whatever inspires him most in the moment. A prevailing theme in his portfolio is simply seeking out beauty in everyday places. Preferring to keep post-production to a minimum, the photographer makes his own real props and uses Photoshop only for minor things like dust, scratches, and color-correction. Every picture is a unique story told through perspective, angles, props, the color palette, and the models’ poses. To get everything just right, he uses notes, sketches, and a whole lot of preparation. It’s worthwhile to wait for everything to align — even the weather — to get the best possible images.

“There is inspiration all around us,” Oprisco told 500px. “Everything that happens in our lives is a unique source of inspiration. There’s no sense in stealing someone else’s. Only the original is a unique creation. Be sure any artist of the 18th century, the 19th century is very jealous of us. We can live anywhere and create anything and show it around the world. Everything is in our hands.”

Many of Oprisco’s photographs are uniquely compelling, but they’ve all gained a little bit of extra fascination this year. The viewer can’t help but wonder whether the scenes and buildings depicted still exist as they look in these otherworldly images. Like all photographs, Oprisco’s work freezes tiny moments in time, infused with a broader sense of the contemporary cultural and social context, even if the photos seem to exist outside of time and place. The Ukrainian national identity is present in the models, the clothing, the settings, and even modern updates on the traditional flower crown known as the vinok.

“Like every Ukrainian, I love freedom,” says Oprisco. “I like the ability to stop time and create my version of reality.”

If you love Oprisco’s work, be sure to keep up with it on Instagram @olegoprisko.

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Consisting of a total of 200 artists from 58 countries, the Biennale was curated by Cecelia Alemani and is itself entitled “The Milk of Dreams.” The title draws its inspiration from the title of a book by surrealist artist Leona Carrington, which Alemani describes as being an exploration of “a magical world where life is constantly re-envisioned through the prism of imagination.”

Upon exploring the exhibition’s many poignant offerings, it’s easy to see why the imaginative curator landed on the theme. An eclectic mix of eye-openers and statement-making pieces, the often surreal and exploratory pieces of the Biennale speak to its global sensibility and penchant for pushing the envelope (and in some cases, dropping jaws with in-your-face, dreamlike artwork).

Below are some of the most standout pieces on display this year, running the gamut from fantastically nightmarish metamorphic mashups to stark depictions of reality that speak to the horrors of war and the power of resilience:

“We Walked The Earth” by Uffe Isolotto

Occupying the entire Danish Pavilion, Isolotto’s piece is emblematic of this year’s Biennale and its surrealist namesake. Depicting a human/horse hybrid lying prone in the center of a stark, messy interior, the piece evokes the dramas of a transhuman world afflicted by the same cycles of life and death, hope and despair, that connect us all.

“Elephant” by Katharina Fritsch

Larger than life and less fantastical than many of its counterparts, German artist Katharina Fritsch opted for size, grandeur, realism, and attention to detail on this piece. But that doesn’t make it any less impactful. Fritsch is also a co-recipient of the Biennale’s Golden Lion Award for lifetime achievement this year.

“Gyre” by Yunchul Kim

Stunning, silver, and described as “a sprawling body of entanglements” by its creator, this standout in the Korean pavilion is pseudo-realistic — a tangled up knot of fantastic proportions that doesn’t rely on animate objects and their relationship to the world, yet somehow evokes a feeling of movement with its twisty form.

“Brick House” by Simone Leigh

Formerly located in NYC’s High Line in 2019, U.S. artist Simone Leigh’s “Brick House” is a majestic bronze sculpture depicting an imposing figure that’s part Black woman, part house, “registering as a vessel, a dwelling, a space of comfort, and as a site of sanctuary…a Black woman’s body as a site of multiplicity,” says Madeline Weisburg. Leigh has also won a Golden Lion for her monumental and momentous sculpture.

“Untitled” by Raphaela Vogel

Vogel’s contribution was a jaw-dropper for sure — a perfect example of the German artist’s experimental repertoire, which often raises eyebrows with its metaphoric, sometimes metaphysical statements. Here, Vogel went for the shock factor, depicting a large, cartoonish model of a penis being pulled by a fleet of white giraffes, complete with explanatory plates describing various diseases and conditions like erectile dysfunction. Cartoonish? Yes. Shocking? Definitely.

“Piazza Ucrainia” by Boris Filonenko, Lizaveta German, and Maria Lanko

In referring to the Venice Biennale this year, Wallpaper recently said, “Stark reminders of a raging war were never far from sight or mind,” and this is most evident in the centerpiece of the Ukrainian pavilion. A piece created by the pavilion’s curators, this stirring sculpture contains a multitude of stacked sandbags to represent the country’s efforts to protect their art from war damage — a reminder that’s both stirring and symbolic. Other notable Ukrainian offerings include “The Fountain of Exhaustion” by artist Pavlo Makov, which only arrived at the exhibition due to the perilous efforts of curator Maria Lanko to transport the piece beginning on the same day Russia began its attack.

“Valeriia” by JR

Statements and reactions to the war in Ukraine were not limited to the country’s own pavilion. French artist JR presented a large photograph of a young Ukrainian refugee in this statement-maker that puts a human face on the tragedies of war. It’s also been featured on the cover of Time and is part of the ongoing exhibition “This is Ukraine: Defending Freedom.”

“Invitation of the Soft Machine and Her Angry Body Parts” by Jakob Lena Knebl and Ashley Hans Scheirl

A curvy, faceless hybrid that’s equal parts sensual and unrecognizably recognizable, “Invitation…” is another potent representation that’s visceral and colorful, perfectly in keeping with exhibition’s central surrealist theme. Located in the Austrian pavilion, the sculpture is perched above the viewer on a plinth, presented as a figure to be worshipped and admired.

The Venice Biennale 2022 runs from April 23rd through November 22nd, 2022 at the Giardini and the Arsenale.

The post This Year’s Venice Biennale is Full of Surrealism — and Stark Reminders first appeared on Dornob.

One of his more recent pieces, “Still in One Piece III” used porcelain facial features to capture his coronavirus lockdown musings. The outlines of two faces shielded by protective masks press against each other, the hyper-realistic noses brushing and lips locked together. While the image is vaguely unnerving, it also portrays our species’ deep for connection and intimacy.

“At the beginning of May [2020], this idea popped up in my mind from nowhere during my meditation. Ideas came up to me like this very often. Many of my pieces were created with ideas popped up during meditation,” Tsang told My Modern Met of the kissing masks piece. “I have a strong feeling that these creative ideas were not originated from me. But I believe there must be a good reason that it came to me. Maybe just because I have the ability to realize these wonderful ideas and show them to the right people. For this reason, I don’t want to interpret it myself. I think everyone who see my works has the right to interpret them in their own way, according to their own feelings.”

Other works open for interpretation include a grimacing face that appears to be having its skin pulled sweatshirt-style over its head by a pair of arms emerging from the skull. Another features fingers from inside a head prying open the face, causing the features to disappear but still look like the person might be screaming. Tsang’s “Remembrance” has one face melting on top of another, while “Love in Progress” shows a pair of hands wringing out a tortured face like a wet towel.

Although his skill with ceramics seems like it must have taken a lifetime to perfect, art and sculpture are actually a second career for Tsang. Having grown up poor, the artist originally focused on trade labor, first as an air conditioning assistant and then a potato chip fryer. He eventually became a police officer, spending 13 years keeping the streets of Hong Kong safe. During that time, he took a clay modeling class and was transformed by its pliable nature. “The clay seemed so friendly to me, it listened to every single word in my mind and did exactly [as] I was expecting,” Tsang said in an interview with Colossal. “Every touch was so soothing. I feel like I was touching human skin. I found peace and joy in it. I’ve felt in love with it ever since.”

Leaving behind his police work, Tsang jumped into a “new life” of “exploring art.” However, his experiences as a cop with the “dark side of the city and humanity” heavily influence his artist creations. “What affected me the most were the fatal cases,” he said in an interview with the Bein Art Gallery. “I saw people being stabbed and killed by gangsters, a 6-year-old girl who was murdered by her maid, an 11-year-old girl who watched her younger brother die under a big tire of a double-decker bus while she was helping her mother to take care of him, and lots of faces of people who lost their lives in fatal car accidents. Today, I would definitely say that my service plays an important role in my creation. At least, I see things differently.”

Tsang updates fans by posting his latest work to his website, Facebook, and Instagram accounts.

The post Johnson Tsang’s Surreal Ceramics Show the Face of Human Struggle first appeared on Dornob.

“Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” is being offered up by the Thomas and Doris Ammann Foundation, a brother-sister collaboration who founded a now-famous fine art gallery in Zurich in 1977. According to Artnet, the siblings bought the painting in the 1980s from publishing magnate S.I. Newhouse, making them only the fourth owners of the piece.

Warhol made the piece in 1964, two years after the actress’ tragic death. Using an original publicity still of Monroe for Henry Hathaway’s 1953 film Niagara, the artist painted her in surreal colors to invent art that is “now more famous than the photograph,” according to Georg Frei, Chairman of the Board for the Thomas and Doris Ammann Foundation. He says the power of the piece lays in its ability to bear witness to her “undiminished visual power.”

“The spectacular portrait isolates the person and the star: Marilyn the woman is gone; the terrible circumstances of her life and death are forgotten. All that remains is the enigmatic smile that links her to another mysterious smile of a distinguished lady, the Mona Lisa.”

Part of the screen print’s fame and its intriguing name come from a madcap incident that occurred in Warhol’s New York City studio the Factory in late 1964. A performance artist named Dorothy Podber waltzed into the space with her Great Dane, Carmen Miranda, and after spotting a stack of four of Warhol’s Marilyn canvases leaning against the wall, she asked if she could shoot them. While the artist assumed she meant she wanted to photograph them, Podber pulled a pistol out of her handbag and fired a bullet at the paintings, hitting Marilyn right between the eyes, according to witnesses. Warhol banned her from the Factory for this “art happening” and repaired the damage, but the four different colored prints were known as the “Shot Marilyns” from then on.

With such an outrageous background, it’s no surprise that the painting is estimated to go for upwards of $200 million when it reaches the auction block during Christie’s Marquee Week in May. A price tag that high would smash multiple records:

• It would be the most money paid at auction for an Andy Warhol piece. The current record is $104.5 million for his “Car Crash (Double Disaster)” in 2013.

• It would be the most expensive 20th-century painting sold at auction. Pablo Picasso’s “Les Femmes d’Alger” (Version O) from 1955 sold for $179.4 million in 2015.

• It would be the largest philanthropic auction since the sale of the Peggy and David Rockefeller collection in 2018.

• It would be the second highest price ever paid for a single painting at auction. The top honor remains with Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi,” which earned over $450 million in 2017.

Christie’s is effusive in their praise of the Shot Sage Blue Marilyn as a cultural landmark, explaining why it deserves a place among other record-breaking artistic masterpieces. “The most significant 20th-century painting to come to auction in a generation, Andy Warhol’s Marilyn is the absolute pinnacle of American Pop and the promise of the American Dream encapsulating optimism, fragility, celebrity, and iconography all at once,” said Alex Rotter, Christie’s Chairman of 20th and 21st Century Art. “The painting transcends the genre of portraiture in America, superseding 20th-century art and culture. … Warhol’s Marilyn is categorically one of the greatest paintings of all time.”

All proceeds of the sale will benefit the Thomas and Doris Ammann foundation, which supports children’s health and education systems.

The post Warhol’s Marilyn Could Soon Be Most Expensive 20th-Century Artwork Ever Sold first appeared on Dornob.

Having already employed his infrared camera skills in places like New York, Peru, and the Alps to create fantastical versions of well-known scenery, Pettigiani recently took a road trip through France, painting the surrounding geography with a watermelon-colored brush everywhere he went.

“Infraland transforms ordinary places into surreal landscapes unbound by human perception and space that renew the spectators’ idea of the world in order to question reality as we see it,” the artist says on his website. “An invitation to further explore knowledge and human relationships with new points of view and new eyes.”

Pettigiani’s rosy images were inspired by the work of photographer Richard Mosse and his famous Kodak Aeorchrome infrared pictures of soldiers from the Democratic Republic of the Congo a decade ago. In those photos, the soldiers’ uniforms and the African grasses behind them were shifted into various shades of red and pink, mutating “the real” into absurdity and making familiar things seem strange.

Using a digital camera and a filter that blocks light wavelengths less than 590 nanometers, Pettigiani creates a similar effect with landscapes. Through that lens, greens are converted to bubblegum and candy-apple hues, producing a fanciful version of real life.

“Infraland is a long-term project started in 2015 that explores the themes of seeing the unseen, driven by a desire to explore familiar places, breaking the doors of perception through a graphic and visual exploration of the territory. These images are shot using a converted full spectrum camera for infrared photography: a fusion of science and creativity that captures the electromagnetic radiation of light…not visible to the human eye,” Pettigiani explains.

His photos of France help viewers “see” an alternate universe where the leaves of a heart-shaped tree in Provence are actually ruby red and the encompassing lavender fields scream out in fuscia notes. Pettigiani’s travels also took him to Sisteron in the French Alps, where he gave the mountainside and trees a crimson makeover. Similarly, his treatment of the coast of Brittany turns the northern beach into a tropical island with wide wine-colored fronds.

Pettigiani’s take on Versailles is truly show-stopping. The contrast of cotton-candy foliage against the blue of the sky and ponds is striking and enchanting all at the same time. Even the palace doors get done up in flamingo-feather pink.

The artist is currently based in Italy, acting as the art director at No Panic, a creative agency he co-founded. After graduating from Turin’s Politecnico in 2014 with a degree in Design and Visual Communication, he started using his photographic skills to delve into the beauty of light’s unobserved wavelengths. His work, including his ongoing “Infraland” project, has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in Paris, Milan, Turin, and New York City.

Pettigiani has posted many of his French infrared photos on his Instagram.

The post Infrared Photos Turn France into a Cotton Candy Wonderland first appeared on Dornob.

GRNDCNTRL is envisioned as a “Shanghai nightlife cultural center” that inspires people to see and be seen, putting on sartorial displays that rival Manhattan’s Studio 54 in its heyday. While the underground aesthetic emphasizes a sense of being hidden and secretive, with DJs tucked into dark corner booths, GRNDCNTRL arranges multiple levels of booths around a large open area. Wenqiang was inspired by the way ancient Greeks built theaters on hillsides so audiences can sit on stone chairs overlooking circular performance areas. From the moment guests walk in, they’re drawn into what feels like an entirely different reality. The visuals are a little surreal, with bright white lines of light cutting across a dark multi-level space.

“Art does not examine known reality, but seeks the truth of ideals,” says Wenqiang. “The entrance reveals an avant-garde, experimental, and immersive ambience, evoking vivid imaginations and taking people to a surreal world full of mysterious light and shadows.The wall decorations adopt a balanced composition, featuring the style of stage setting. A sequence of symmetrical, curved lighting installations draw on the deep, long lane form of local antique Shikumen buildings, with lines and rhythms guiding experiential circulations and extending inward.”

Leather, steel, brass, and jade accents contrast the field of black, which is itself multiplied by mirrors on almost every wall. “In order to balance the non-reflective and reflective black materials, all the stitching and structural closure became the biggest problem,” Wenqiang notes. The strips of LED lighting define the space and blur its edges at the same time, making it unclear which spaces are real and which are mere reflections. A bar lined with beautifully patterned jade and a central column clad in black mirrored stainless steel become visual anchors in the larger performance area, with its nearly 30-foot ceilings. A band of LED screens behind the lifted DJ booth can be raised and lowered to add additional ambiance.

This big hall “features the hip-hop music style with a strong sense of artistry and technology,” while the smaller hall is inspired by house and techno music with immersive lighting and shadows to create “a film-like retro atmosphere.” Lounges with mirrored ceilings visually echo the ever-changing and shifting lighting patterns so guests almost feel like they’re in a video game. The restrooms are a little more grounded, meant to provide a “backstage” respite from the lights and music.

Whether the design inspires clubbers to recreate the exclusive exhibitionist atmosphere of Studio 54 remains to be seen, but it will certainly take them on a journey.

The post TRON Meets Ancient Greece at Shanghai’s GRNDCNTRL Nightclub first appeared on Dornob.

Swiss brand LAUFEN, who manufactures designer bathrooms, teamed up with architects Gabrielle Hächler and Andreas Fuhrimann to create what feels like a fever dream of bizarre bathroom concepts highlighting its products. Each one tries to capture a different mood with graphics, videos, animations, and soundscapes, taking you on a journey through a series of spaces where you may or may not notice LAUFEN’s toilets, sinks, tubs, and other bathroom fixtures making appearances in between all the weirdness.

The URBAN room is described as “a platform of hope and reflection,” featuring industrial machinery, birds, a UFO, and quite a few dystopian elements alongside the brand’s products.

The DESERT room full of cacti, wind turbines, and Joshua trees is a bit more cheerful and relaxing, even with the frog popping out of the toilet at the end.

In the FOREST room, scenes of deer, trees in the night, and a moonlit sky are interspersed with layers of code. Are you on mushrooms? Are you actually hooked up to a machine in a depressing post-apocalyptic environment while your consciousness experiences The Matrix? Who knows. What’s important here is that LAUFEN’s contemporary bathroom pieces actually look really good in this strange space. Maybe you should get some forest-themed wallpaper to go with them.

In the ARTIST room, we see artist Michelle Baumann and the commissioned art pieces she created for this collaboration: bold, graphic shapes in vivid colors splashed across LAUFEN’s fixtures. It’s enough to make you wonder, briefly, why we don’t see items like these available in creative colors and patterns more often. Then we remember resale value.

The point of the LAUFEN Virtual Space isn’t to replicate real-world bathrooms, naturally. It’s a marketing campaign, but it’s fun and arty. In a press release, the company explains that “in midst of the pandemic, online virtual rooms provide a context to products, guided by a meaningful message. Senses such as touch, smell, and personal relations are getting dangerously neglected with disastrous consequences on mental as well as physical health. This forces us to reinvent the ecosystem of communication and relationships through the creation of formats that blur the lines between digital and physical.”

“LAUFEN virtual space is about exploring a dream-like landscape through four different Kartell by LAUFEN sets and nature-infused stories that let one wander and wonder. The space wants to provide an experience of digitally animated, semi-interactive collages. Surreal spaces with a wink and the purposely very tactile feel while being fully immersed in the digital. A journey of process and progress telling a story and carefully taking the products by the hand. Almost like strolling through a LAUFEN booth at a fair designed by architect Gabrielle Hächler and Andreas Fuhrimann.”

Check out the LAUFEN Virtual Space website to get the whole experience, sound and all.

The post LAUFEN Virtual Space Lets You Explore Surreal AR Bathroom Designs first appeared on Dornob.