All posts tagged: Damien Hirst

The new Fondazione Prada tower Milan

The new Fondazione Prada tower_Milan

The new Fondazione Prada tower Milan When in Milan for our annual visit to the Salone di Mobile, it’s always good to spare some time for a quick (or long) visit to the always interesting Fondazione Prada. This year we absolutely wanted to check out the brand new tower designed by OMA.  The ‘tower’ pré-opened the 20th of April 2018 with a real über-VIP evening with all star artists like Damien Hirst, Carsten Höller, Francesco Vezzoli, and Luc Tuymans, DJ Ricardo Villalobos, architects India Mahdavi, David Adjaye, Rem Koolhaas and Alejandro Aravena; curators Paola Antonelli and Deyan Sudjic and gallerists Jay Jopling and Nazanin Yashar and off course hosts Miuccia Prada and husband Patrizio Bertelli. Quite impressive, so how cool was this we were in Milan that exact week? April 21 st 2018 So we went to visit the tower the very FIRST DAY the museum was open. This report is really a first hand view on a brand new star project. The epic inaugural show “Atlas” was conceived by Miuccia Prada with Germano Celant, the veteran Italian curator, and features …

Banksy’s Dismaland, a fabulous stunt art show. PART 2.

Many pieces are sharp critiques on modern amusement. Banksy’s whale jumping trough a ring in a toilet was inspired by Sea World that was ripped apart by the 2013 documentary “Blackfish.” Or Cinderella’s crashed carnage inside her grungy dark castle, surrounded by flashing paparazzi with motorbikes. When you leave the ‘scene’, you can buy your own souvenir photograph for 5 pound. (“Terribly expensive”, as the staff comments without asking.) Another central spot is the Jeffrey Archer Memorial Fire Pit where visitors can warm themselves around a daily burning of the local lord’s books. There is Ben Long’s sculpture of a horse constructed from scaffolding (a piece that was shown in the V&A). I loved Banksy’s model boat pond with overly crowded boats packed with asylum seekers you can operate yourself from the side with a (paying) remote controller. You never know if you will stair a police boat or the refugee boat and that’s the point. Some dead bodies floating in the water could not be more pain full, with little refugee Aylan in mind, …

banksy_dismaland_thesquidstories

Banksy’s Dismaland, a fabulous stunt art show. PART 1

The moment I got the news that Banksy was about to open an entertainment park, (one that is not) near his hometown Bristol, I knew that I wanted to be there. With any means. But as expected, we were not alone. From the first second the website was online, he crashed, due to 6 million hits from all over the world. You would crash for less, no? Our planning began, as we decided to take the car, get on the Eurotunnel, a car-train under the channel, to drive another 3 hours to this weird little coast village, called Weston-Super-Mare. (Very cool name by the way.) The quest for tickets started. (A Banksy show at Bristol city museum in 2009 attracted more than 300,000 visitors over 12 weeks, so we knew it was not going to be easy to get in). One week after the opening week, the site was back on line and the hunt kicked off. 3 hours later, we had 4 most desired tickets for an evening session, and the day after, 4 …

Closing day of Damien Hirst London-a life inspiration day

London. Saturday 8th of October 2012. The last days of the substantial Damien Hirst exhibition we absolutely didn’t want to miss. We waited too long, and before you know, it is closing weekend…. So we booked some (too expensive) Eurostar tickets, and headed for the UK. As for Iman it was his first time in London, he was totally excited, even we only stayed the day.