Category Archives: Culture

Infographics: “The New Normal” Post Covid-19

The new normal?


Statista LogoIt is impossible to ignore the ongoing impact the Covid-19 pandemic is having on our lives. This month our infographic shows how some aspects of daily life have changed as a result. The widespread closure of schools, for example, is thought to have affected up to 1.38 billion learners as of late March. Meanwhile, the sudden shift to remote working is one such change expected to have long-lasting effects. Following the pandemic, 68% of Germans have stated they would like to work remotely more often.

Our designer Raphael Hammer has created an isometric-style illustration, with each topic area allocated its own quarter of the infographic. Each topic is then afforded its own principle colour and corresponding design details. The almost monochrome effect of the illustrations allows them to perfectly complement the data presented. Especially effective, are the subtle movements which bring the entire graphic to life.

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Arts & Culture: David Hockney’s “Lockdown Sunrise” And Other Masterpiece Dawns (Video)

David Hockney created a glorious depiction of a sunrise on his iPad in April and emailed it from his lockdown in Normandy to the Guardian’s art critic Jonathan Jones. He has made pictures from nature every day through this bitter spring as his artistic stand against despair – and what is more hopeful than the sun coming up? Jones describes how the picture reminded him of all the sunrises shut away inside the National Gallery, in London. From Bellini to Monet, Titian to Turner, a private view of some of the greatest masters’ sunrises

Food & Travel: “Bangkok’s Fresh Food Markets” (NYT)

From the New York Times (June 1, 2020):

Finding Euphoria in Bangkok's Food Scene - New York Times June 1 2020The aromas here are rich and pungent — smoked, cured, dried and fresh seafood, along with many forms of meat, both raw and cooked. The awnings over the stalls create a shadowy atmosphere that’s punctuated by thin streaks of dancing light.

Finding Euphoria in Bangkok's Food Scene - New York Photographs and Text by Louise PalmbergTimes June 1 2020
Photographs and Text by Louise Palmberg

Early this year, in search of inspiration beyond the food scene in New York (and not yet locked down by the spread of Covid-19), I spent two weeks visiting and documenting life among the fresh markets and street vendors in and around Bangkok.

It made for an unlikely itinerary since tourists in Thailand often spend only a day or two in the capital before heading south toward the country’s many islands.

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Medical History: “The Facemask Through The Centuries (CBS Video)

 

Originating during the Black Death of the Middle Ages, face coverings to protect against the transmission of disease are not just medical requirements; they’re now a fashion statement. Mark Phillips talks with medical historian Mark Honigsbaum (“The Pandemic Century”) about the purpose and style of facemasks.

Travel & Culture: Greek Island Of Hydra In 1960’s – “A Theatre For Dreamers” By Novelist Polly Samson

From The Guardian (May 23, 2020):

A Theatre For Dreamers - Polly Samson - April 2020I first went to Hydra six years ago, when it was simply a beautiful Greek island and not a place I went to commune with its ghosts. I don’t think I was even aware that it was the island Leonard Cohen had lived on, and knew nothing of Charmian Clift, George Johnston and the bohemian community they fostered.

Bloomsbury Publishers: 1960. The world is dancing on the edge of revolution, and nowhere more so than on the Greek island of Hydra, where a circle of poets, painters and musicians live tangled lives, ruled by the writers Charmian Clift and George Johnston, troubled king and queen of bohemia. Forming within this circle is a triangle: its points the magnetic, destructive writer Axel Jensen, his dazzling wife Marianne Ihlen, and a young Canadian poet named Leonard Cohen.

Into their midst arrives teenage Erica, with little more than a bundle of blank notebooks and her grief for her mother. Settling on the periphery of this circle, she watches, entranced and disquieted, as a paradise unravels.

Burning with the heat and light of Greece, A Theatre for Dreamers is a spellbinding novel about utopian dreams and innocence lost – and the wars waged between men and women on the battlegrounds of genius.

Polly Samson is an English novelist, lyricist and journalist. She is married to musician David Gilmour, and has written the lyrics to many of Gilmour’s works, both as a solo artist and with the group Pink Floyd.

 

Top Photography Books: “Zanzibar” By Aline Coquelle (Assouline)

Zanzibar Travel & Photography Book - Assouline May 2020Off the coast of East Africa in the Indian Ocean sits an archipelago known as Zanzibar. It all started ten million years ago when the island of Pemba separated from mainland Africa and then ten thousand years ago, the island of Unguja followed suit. Thus, begins the legend of Zanzibar.

For centuries, Zanzibar has been the haven and gateway for explorers including Richard Burton and David Livingstone to penetrate the unknown African Continent. Forward to present day, and it is still possible to experience the unique wildlife whether that is by scuba diving off the coast of a private island, infinite lagoons, visiting mangroves or endemic wild forests; getting lost and immersing yourself into the historical labyrinthine streets of Stonetown.

Zanzibar Travel & Photography Book - Assouline May 2020

This cluster of islands is at a crossroads of cultures, featuring Omani architecture, Portuguese and British heritages as well as Swahili rituals.

Photographer Aline Coquelle shares an intimate portrait of a community bursting with life. With original photography, a disappearing, indigenous culture is preserved and celebrated. This volume invites the reader to experience the paradise that is Zanzibar.

With a degree in art history and anthropology, nomadic Parisian photographer Aline Coquelle has always traveled the world—she has lived and worked in Central and South America, Asia, and Africa and has been visiting Zanzibar for over twenty years. She contributes to prestigious international publications, and shoots marketing campaigns for luxury brands. Coquelle often works with silver film in order to keep alive the magic of old-time photography because she believes “transcending tradition is the new modernity” and her gelatin silver prints are sought by collectors worldwide. Her other books with Assouline are Palm Springs Style (2005); The Cartier Polo Games (2006); Polo: The Nomadic Tribe (2009); The Italian Dream: Wine, Heritage, Soul (2016); and Be Extraordinary, The Spirit of Bentley (2017).

Mirella Ricciardi is a renowned photographer and author. Her childhood in Kenya has inspired her work and she has published several volumes of photographs including Vanishing Africa (1971), African Saga (1981), and Vanishing Amazon (1991).

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New Art History Books: “Finding Dora Maar – An Artist, An Address Book, A Life” – Brigitte Benkemoun

Finding Doram MaarIn search of a replacement for his lost Hermès agenda, Brigitte Benkemoun’s husband buys a vintage diary on eBay. When it arrives, she opens it and finds inside private notes dating back to 1951—twenty pages of phone numbers and addresses for Balthus, Brassaï, André Breton, Jean Cocteau, Paul Éluard, Leonor Fini, Jacqueline Lamba, and other artistic luminaries of the European avant-garde.

After realizing that the address book belonged to Dora Maar—Picasso’s famous “Weeping Woman” and a brilliant artist in her own right—Benkemoun embarks on a two-year voyage of discovery to learn more about this provocative, passionate, and enigmatic woman, and the role that each of these figures played in her life.

Longlisted for the prestigious literary award Prix Renaudot, Finding Dora Maar is a fascinating and breathtaking portrait of the artist.

Brigitte Benkemoun is a journalist and writer. She is the author of La petite fille sur la photo (2012) and Albert le Magnifique (2016). Jody Gladding is a poet and translator. She has translated some thirty books from French, including, most recently, Roland Barthes’s Album: Unpublished Correspondence and Texts (2018), Michel Pastoureau’s Yellow: The History of a Color (2019), and Jean Giono’s Occupation Journal (2020).

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Podcast Interviews: Poster House Museum NYC Director Julia Knight

Monocle on DesignWhen New York City’s Poster House museum had to close its doors in early March, director Julia Knight wondered how the institution could support the city.

Today her inspiring solution can be seen across all five boroughs.

Poster House is the first museum in the United States dedicated exclusively to posters.

Through exhibitions, events, and publications, Poster House presents a global view of posters from their earliest appearance in the late 1800s to their present-day use. Poster House takes its mission from the medium, aiming to engage and educate all audiences as we investigate this large-format graphic design and its public impact.

Posters explore:

  • mass communication and persuasion
  • the intersection of art and commerce
  • control of the public domain

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Interviews: XL Recordings CEO Richard Russell – “Liberation Through Hearing” (Podcast)

Monocle on Culture“Monocle On Culture” speaks to Richard Russell, head of XL Recordings about his brand new book and his incredible career producing records for everyone from Damon Albarn to Bobby Womack, his life in New York that kicked everything off and the unusual start of his collaboration with Gil Scott Heron.

For almost 30 years as label boss, producer and talent conductor at XL Recordings, Richard Russell has discovered, shaped and nurtured the artists who have rewritten the musical dictionary of the 21st century, artists like The Prodigy, The White Stripes, Adele, M.I.A., Dizzee Rascal and Giggs. Growing up in north London in thrall to the raw energy of ’80s US hip hop, Russell emerged as one part of rave outfit Kicks Like a Mule in 1991 at a moment when new technology enabled a truly punk aesthetic on the fledgling free party scene. For most of the ’90s identified with breakbeat and hardcore, Russell’s stewardship at the label was always uncompromising and open to radical influences rather than conventional business decisions.

Liberation Through Hearing tells the remarkable story of XL Recordings and their three decades on the front line of innovation in music; the eclectic chorus of artists who came to define the label’s unique aesthetic and Russell’s own story; his highs and lows steering the fortunes of an independent label in a rapidly changing industry, his celebrated work with Bobby Womack and Gil Scot Heron on their late-career masterpieces; and his own development as a musician in Everything Is Recorded.

Always searching for new sounds and new truths, Liberation Through Hearing is a portrait of a man who believes in the spiritual power of music to change reality. It is also the story of a label that refused to be categorised by genre and in the process cut an idiosyncratic groove which was often underground in feel but mainstream in impact.