All posts filed under: Culture

Saving Banksy

Published by Kate Stockman

I can be short about this one: the Banksy exhibition ‘The Art of Banksy’ (last week still in Amsterdam, now in Antwerp) is a tourist trap. If you are really into Banksy, there are other options. Do not believe the hype that it’s a must-go exhibition, whatever the media or the so called experts try to make you believe. The entire setting is wrong. Brick or ‘arty-farty’ wallpaper to present ‘street-art-for-galleries’, cardboard & fake stencils plus to indispensable spray cans to ‘show’ how Banksy works, hardly any original street work and above all, a ‘street-art-for-the-masses vibe. We visited the expo (helàs!) in Amsterdam and could not get out fast enough. Compare it with eating a cheap pizza in a bad Italian restaurant and thinking that you visited Rome. Got the picture? Don’t get me wrong. I love Banksy and his work. We visited Dismaland (twice), Bristol, Calais & London, to see his work. Because let’s face it, the best place to see a Banksy is still in the street, were it belongs. It’s not easy to find some originals, …

The fabulous Fosbury & Sons workplaces

Published by Kate Stockman

We all know the feeling. A last minute meeting in another town and no place to go. Yes, there are the horrible hotel lobby’s near the highway with expensive parkings, uninspired ‘design’ and bad coffee, or you join the local hipsters in a crowded & noisy coffee bar. Or take the new co-working spots: Nice, sometimes, but closed at 6 pm, no parking and not open for the typical nomad who rarely stays at one place fix. When traveling you do find great places to meet, brainstorm & work. Together with others, in a contemporary setting, with good coffee, healthy food and free wifi. Sometimes you pay for your workstation/meeting room like at Citizen M Hotels (London), and sometimes you work for free plus a drink (like in the lobby of the hip & happening Ace Hotel (Shoreditch London). Why was it so hard to find something inspirational in my region? Till I got a phone call from my friend Maarten Van Gool, a colleague from my advertising past. He had big news: he started together with partner Stijn Geeraerts and  project developer Serge Handcart of …

The Floating Piers by Christo. Image of the day #17

Published by Kate Stockman

I first saw the drawings of this project and when later images of the nearly finished work appeared, you felt it straight away: this project was going to be world news. I’m talking about The Floating Piers, the astonishing temporary art installation of Bulgarian 81 year old artist Christo. The project consist of three saffron paths that link Monte Isola to the mainland, and a smaller island called San Paolo to Monte Isola. The Floating Piers parcours is 16 metres wide and 5.5 kilometres long. Technicaly it is a titan’s work: 100,000 square meters of shimmering yellow fabric, carried by a modular floating dock system of 220,000 high-density polyethylene cubes, undulate with the movement of the waves as The Floating Piers rise just above the surface of the water. © Instagram The Floating Piers Over the next 16 days, 40,000 visitors are expected to walk The Floating Piers. You can walk on the waters of Lakelseo until the 3rd of July. Although the floating piers installation is free and open to the public, the organisation cannot guarantee …