Category: ENTERTAINMENT

LONDON :The PAD – Pavilion of Art & Design in London opens with a stunning 4th edition, from 13th to 17th October, in Berkley Square, Mayfair.

Patrick Perrin and Stéphane Custot organise one of the most important fair of the world with 49 galleries and over 2,500 pieces covering Modern Art, Design, Decorative Arts, Photography and Tribal Art.

Some of the most famous galleries of all over the world are participating, coming from London, Milan, Geneva, Barcelona, Brussels, Zurich, Paris, Cologne and New York.

Only few years ago nothing similar was in London, Stéphane Custot explains: “I moved to London from Paris 5 years ago. We had the Pavillon des Art et Design in Paris for 15 years. When I arrived in London I discovered that there were no fairs of Modern Art and Design. Of course Frieze was there. At that time there was also Grosvenor and was a very good antique fair. And there were no fairs in between. So it was very easy for me to think about doing something in London for modern art and design. That’s why Patrick and I created PAD fair 5 years ago. The first 2 years was a design fair only with 20 exhibitors. Last year we enlarged, we have moved to Berkley Square and we included also Modern Art. And I think the combination between modern art and design it fits very well”.

Walking between the stands one can appreciate the atmosphere in a pavilion literally built on the gardens of Berkeley Square: “It’s a great location. It’s between Selby and Christies and it is near Bond Street and all the galleries and between places. So for me it cannot be a better spot. Because we have a lot of people, a lot of exhibitors who wants to join us, even though we could, we won’t enlarge the fair. Because we want to stay at Berkley Square. It’s so fantastic for us”.

The Moët Hennessy- PAD London Prize is a noteworthy moment of the fair every year, sponsoring the donation to the V&A Museum of a young artist piece of Design or Decorative Art. The winner is selected by a prestigious judging panel, chaired by architect and designer Nigel Coates, and comprising of prominent figures of art, fashion, culture, communication and business.

For the year 2010 the winner is the absolutely unmissable ”Drift – Fragile Future Concrete Chandelier” by the Dutch duo Lonneke Gordijn & Ralph Nauta, made with real dandelion seeds, bronze, LED lights and concrete, of which any dandelion seed was attached in itself creating an amazing effect of softness and light.

The Prize for Best Stand goes to “Chahan Gallery” of Chahan Minassian from Paris presenting with his own style an international interior design project, finishing with a selection of vintage pieces of 20th Century.

And the Prize for Best Object is for “Map of China” by Ai Weiwei, on display at the Friedman Benda gallery, from New York, an ironwood piece from dismantled temples of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

At PAD is present also visual art with rarest prints of photography materials, in between notably works of Newton, Cartier- Bresson, Leibovitz, Avedon and Mapplethorpe.

Worth of mention the Galerie Gmurzynska (Zurich) that turned the entire exhibition stand in a piece of art of Zaha Hadid the multi award winner who – the last 11th October – just received the Barclays award “Woman of the year 2010”.

Modern British Art Modern and classic contemporary paintings stars and painting masterpieces are presented.

Many of the galleries have some of the most exceptional works of Modern Art, rarely displayed in the UK and can find them throughout the fair. It is possible to see pieces of arts of famous artists, including Mirò, Klimt, Botero, Matisse, Basquiat, Giò Ponti, Degas, Rodin, Giacometti, Schiele, Balthus, Warhol, Ernst, and Grosz.

And you can be happily surprised to find out that Mitoraj, Braque, Dalì, Picasso, Anish Kapoor, Niki de St. Phalle, Fontana, and even Man Ray the photographer, were also jewellery makers not only painters or sculptors. Those are to be found at the exquisite post-war and contemporary artist- made jewellery galleries.

Design and decorative arts exhibitors comprise prominent contemporary pieces, together with French Art Deco and iconic 20th Century American, in a wide array of international artists, with a solo show of Czech glass master František Vizner, and elegant interiors objects by American designer Tony Duquette.

PAD unveils also brand new furniture by Guy de Rougemont, introducing the latest in interactive and cutting-edge design with fashionable from Zaha Hadid.

Furthermore are staging woodwork furniture by American artists Michael Coffey and Jack Rogers Hopkins.

The prestigious Entwistle Gallery (UK & France) launches the new genre of Tribal Art and Sladmore Gallery (UK) introduces 19th and 20th Century life-size bronzes and animalia.

Alongside Adrian Sassoon, the UK’s most respected dealer in contemporary ceramic, glass and metalwork, Jean- David Botella (France) showcases a selection of sumptuous Art Deco objects.

At the entrance on display works of the Postgraduate Art and Design course of the Royal College of Art. PAD London also affords this interesting project aimed at supporting young design talents. Created by curators Janice Blackburn and Nigel Coates, who have selected twenty pieces to be exhibited and presented for the first time, this project provides the 15% of the profits generated from the sale of these works will go towards to the RCA Student Fine Art Award Fund.

And there is a future for the PAD: “We have a selection committee and we try to invite the best galleries in design and modern art. That’s why this year we have some fantastic people around. It’s even better than the last year actually. Because last year we had a big success we were able to invite other very important colleagues so we are very happy. I can tell you now, next year we have 2 or 3 of the most important galleries, and they want to join us. So there is a future for this fair, no doubt. And there is a future also because it is a small fair. It’s small and beautiful. We keep the size, we don’t want to make it bigger. It is not that, the question is to please the art dealers, to please the colleagues: I am an art dealer myself, organiser but also art dealer that is my main activity. So I want to please my friend”.

 LONDON: Politically thought provoking street artist, known as “Banksy” uses his spray painting as a form of pro-active expression. Whether you consider his work improper vandalism or a refreshingly fascinating medium of response to issues within society, it’s hard not to feel a sense of individual empowerment through the defiant resistance which emulates from his work. Some of the greatest works of genius through time have been published and created under cleverly crafted pseudonyms.

Whether that be for literary purposes like Emily Bronte concealed under the identity of Ellis Bell when she wrote Wuthering Heights or for deeper underlying political and cultural motives like early Indian scholars who deemed it egotistical using one’s name to acquire acclaim and Japanese artists who changed their pseudonyms as their creative style developed. The most recent of these anonymous maestros is the Bristol born street artist Banksy, whose work has been in the public eye for over a decade appearing unheralded on public property all over the world- London, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Melbourne and Israel to name but a few.

Banksy’s art has become an international phenomenon, sparking artistic debates and raising a certain awareness of his non conformist views amongst his audience. His adopted stencil style “guerrilla,” has become a trademark in itself and certainly secured him a critically savvy reputation amid his contemporaries, such as Jeff Aerosol and CES53, who was the first street artist to paint on the side of the Northern European trains.

In 2006, Max Foster coined the term- “The Banksy Effect” saluting Banksy as the first street artist to ameliorate the bad reputation of this hooligan-esque medium of artistry which others have attempted to forge, given that his work now is auctioned at several thousand pounds a piece, becoming a collectible must-have. However it’s usually obvious whether the attempt is a true expression of the street prankster or a feeble pursuit of impersonation. Even Hollywood’s elite; Angelina Jolie and Christina Aguilera are eager to get their hands on an original Banksy.

Aguilera purchased a controversial painting of Queen Victoria portrayed as a lesbian for the rather respectable sum of £25,000 and a quirky synthesis of the classic, iconic portrait of Kate Moss as Marilyn Monroe was auctioned at an impressive £96,000 at Bohams in London. Despite the whopping success of his paintings, Banksy sees no revenue from his efforts. His style encapsulates his hostility towards government surveillance, crime, violence and commercialism which he juxtaposes with symbols of innocence to create visually stimulating and somewhat disturbingly humorous art, challenging the perceptions of the world in which we live. Rather ironically, his art characteristically threatens the high brow, socially acceptable notion of what art really is and what we expect it to be. Mutilating public property and defacing buildings is a criminal offence so perhaps his identity is best left masked behind a veil of creative representation. Banksy’s raw talent is discovered in the most obscure of places, usually regarding the most contaravertial of topics.

This mystery man is not going to let his identity be exposed anytime soon as many of his spectators are a little less amused by his images which echo undercurrents of a poverty of political and social inequality and a little more eager for him to pay his share of detrimental charges.

The need for a new niche of innovative expression is essential for the development and broadening of human consciousness. Banksy addresses this requisite and his urban art is a delightfully fresh reclamation of the peevishly scrawled graffiti we pass everyday without the slightest impulse of stimulation.

For an artist that makes his work look deceptively easy, his identity is one which has proven to be eminently deceptive to decipher.

 work of the mysterious artist after having been ruined  and now protected from glass  

attacking a girl, Rosebery Avenue, London, January 2008

“Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballet Russes 1909-1929” is an impressive exhibition that reveals the importance of Diaghilev as impresario and artistic director of his “total theatre” an amazing combination of dance, music and art. It is an exhibition with more than 300 objects and popular material showed in a chronological order.

At the V&A Museum there is a vast collection of Ballet Russes and Diaghilev. Ballet Russes collaborated with famous choreographer, artists and designers. New music scores were commissioned for nearly half of the Ballets Russes: music was crucial, so it was put around the visitors at the show. The exhibition begins with Diaghilev’s life in St. Petersburg, proceeds to a deconstruction of the ballet through inspiration, choreography, music and creation of the sets, next is the difficult moment during the War and a final gallery about the 1920s a period when he had achieved great status.

This superb exhibition gives to anyone the chance to deepen the knowledge about Sergei Pavlovich “Serge” Dyagilev and the Ballet Russes in an intense manner with more than 300 objects and popular material that gives a global glimpse.

Designs and colours used in Ballet Russes created a new aesthetic in the twentieth century. The exhibition is a chronologically ordered digression on the Ballet Russes, from the origins to Diaghilev’s death in 1929 in Venice, where he’s still nearby buried. Ballet was a declined art across Europe and America at that time but Diaghilev transformed it.

This major retrospective will celebrate Diaghilev enduring influence on 20th–century art and design including objects from the V&A’s own unrivalled collection and from a variety of lenders. Jane Pritchard curator – together with Geoffrey Marsh –explains the reason why this exhibition was opened: “At the V&A Museum we have Britain’s major collection of theatre and performance materials and we have a vast collection of Ballet Russes. We have the largest collection of costumes in the world from Diaghilev’s company. And we also have very expensive collection of designs, drawings and archives. So two thirds of the exhibition comes from our own collection and the rests are loans.

So it seems very appropriate that we should do an exhibition on the Ballet Russes”. The ballet uses the human body to express story and emotions. Then an interesting part of the show analyse the elements of the production of a ballet: inspiration, choreography, music and sets. “In the third gallery which is our central gallery we do much more deconstructing what goes into a ballet. So we’re looking at the ideas, the choreography, the music and the sets. People who come to the V&A tends to have a general interest in the arts, they maybe have not great ideas about dance in particular” Jane Pritchard said. Ballet Russes had five main choreographers Mikhail Fokine, Vaslav Nijinsky, Leonide Massine, Branislava Nijinska and the young George Balanchine. Particularly Nijinsky, on one side his dances reflect the Expressionism art, but also he was Diaghilev lover for many years, followed by Massine. On show the original works of the many artists and designers that collaborated with Diaghilev to create sets, costumes, props and cloths including Leon Bakst, Alexandre Benois, Coco Chanel, Jean Cocteau, Giorgio De Chirico, Natalia Goncharova, Tamara Karsavina, Mikhail Larionov, Serge Lifar, Henri Matisse, Nicholas Roerich, Misia Sert, and Auguste Rodin. Amazing the huge front cloth for Le Train Bleu, an example of the collaborationswith Pablo Picasso, who also married a company dancer Olga Kokholva.

The superb music had a vital role in the Ballet Russes.

New scores were commissioned by Diaghilev mainly from leading Russian and French composer for nearly half of these ballet including Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Debussy, Ravel, De Falla, Respighi, Satie and Poulenc. Specifically created for the show footages of composer and broadcaster Howard Goodall explaining the development of music accompanying the Ballets Russes. It is also possible to see videos about creating a mini- choreography so could understand what choreography is. “Because we also feel that music is crucial has brought to the Ballet Russes how’s the ballets has new music written for that. If you just put music in the background now, people don’t pay attention to it. So we used to put music around us. We acknowledged the British composer, he is also a podcaster, Howard Goodall to make four AVs explain what’s happening and music in that shows is Mussorgsky and Stravinsky and Debussy. How is about to composing of the dance and the importance of the Firebird composed in the 1920” Jane Pritchard said. The exhibition begins with Diaghilev’s life in St.

Petersburg. With an overview of the dance scene the first gallery tells the story of the Ballets Russes up to the outbreak of War in 1914, including a rich array of costumes designed by Bakst. The second gallery will take visitors behind the scenes of the Ballets Russes’ productions their inspiration, choreography, music and creation of the sets.

The exhibition will look at how the Ballets Russes survived during the War having been cut off from their roots in Russia with little access to the cities they performed in before 1914.

The final gallery will present Diaghilev and his company in the 1920s a period when he had achieved great status in European culture. The works of artists, authors and musicians he knew or was associated with will be shown – including manuscripts by Joyce, Proust and Eliot. Diaghilev’s dedication to pushing boundaries and collaborating with the best designers, choreographers and artists of his time left an inspiring legacy.

An interesting bit of trivia is that even a perfume was created by Chyphré dedicated to Diaghilev.

Today the V&A Museum proposes again, in limited edition, “Diaghilev” a fragrance by Roja Dove. The exhibition isn’t an end in itself, there are also other related events like talk and tours, courses and workshops, study day and young people and families.

Internet details: www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/future_exhibs/diaghilev/index.html