ARSCRONICA (February 12, 2023) – The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is set to host a retrospective of Catalan artist Joan Miró that will display dozens of works made during his stay in Paris between 1920 and 1945.The temporary exhibition “Joan Miró. Absolute reality. Paris, 1920-1945” will open on Friday until May 28.
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents Joan Miró. Absolute Reality. Paris, 1920–1945, an exhibition that explores the career between the years 1920 and 1945 of one of the most outstanding artists of the 20th century. The start of this fundamental period in Miró’s oeuvre is marked by the date of his first trip to Paris, a key city in his life and work, and it closes with the year when Miró, after producing his Constellations (1940–41) and then hardly painting at all for some years, created a great series of works on white backgrounds that consolidated his language of signs floating on ambiguous grounds.
In the 25 years of activity covered by the exhibition, there is a constant flow of new ideas ranging from his initial magic realism to his language of constellated signs. In this development, it becomes clear that prehistoric art, including rock paintings, petroglyphs, and statuettes, held a special interest for Miró, a fascination confirmed by his notebooks, where he proposes returning to the dawn of art in order to retrieve its original spiritual sense.
The Local Project (February 10, 2023) – A living work of art, La Scala by Richards & Spence is an architects’ own home that can be considered as a sequence of discovery and revelation. Located in Brisbane, the home is a contemporary monolithic structure of concrete, stone and greenery.
Video timeline: 00:00 – Introduction to the Iconic Monolithic Home 00:39 – The Inner-City Location 01:00 – Designing with Entertaining in Mind 01:35 – A Long Term Plan 01:52 – The Key to Planning 02:27 – A Walkthrough of the Home 02:53 – The Double Height Volume 04:00 – Spatial Contrast and Emotive Responses 04:44 – Blurring the Lines of Inside and Outside 05:32 – Materials for the Long Term 05:51 – Swaying from the City’s Nostalgia 06:08 – Building for a Hot Climate 06:33 – A Contrast to the Concrete 06:49 – The Project’s Biggest Success
Considering the life of the home and how it may look in 50 to 100 years, the architects have imagined a ruin-like appearance finished with raw materials and green life that blur the lines between liveable spaces. Designed as both a sanctuary for its owners and a place to entertain, the home’s layout unfolds from the ground up like a living work of art. Starting the home tour from the garage and lower ground, guests enter into a moody portico that offers privacy to the other levels upon arrival.
Moving on to the lower ground bedroom, the unique design showcases the owners’ desire to create an iconic residence that takes advantage of the homes location on the side of a hill. In the main bedroom, the architects employ reeded glass at the bottom of the double-height windows to add a playful reflection of light that turns the modern bedroom into a living work of art. Up on the middle floor, a guest bedroom and bathroom have been installed along with a spare bathroom for parties. However, in addition to the rooms, the middle level also holds a unique hallway with low height ceilings that terminates in a dark timber enclosure, suggesting a cave-like experience.
Lit only by a window that looks down into the lower bedroom, the enclosed hallway focuses upon spatial variety and the sequence of contrast throughout the home’s architecture. Comparing high and low, light and dark, rough and smooth, the architects have introduced materials and design choices that evoke an emotive response. Past the middle floor, the large room that holds the entertaining spaces, as well as the central courtyard, is filled with natural light and introduces plant life into the home, turning it into a living work of art. Filled with lush greenery, the middle courtyard is designed to let the plants grow without constraint. Ivy grows inside and out and blurs the lines between spaces, while the Zoysia grass has been chosen for its self-undulation.
With large single pours of concrete, the home appears as a living work of art that has been carved out of a single piece of material. Contrasting against the concrete and stone is brass and timber, which help to heighten the experience within and turns the masterpiece home into a living work of art. Holding and manipulating light, La Scala offers different experiences throughout the day, while the shared spaces bring a new level of social living for its owners and their guests.
FRANCE 24 (February 8, 2023) – Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum has brought together 28 of Dutch master Johannes Vermeer’s luminous masterpieces from around the world, in the largest-ever exhibition of the 17th century artist’s works.
JOHANNES VERMEER
Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) lived and worked in Delft. His work is best known for his tranquil, introverted indoor scenes, his unprecedented use of bright, colorful light and his convincing illusionism.
In contrast to Rembrandt, Vermeer left a remarkably small oeuvre with about 35 paintings. As his paintings generally considered the most prized treasures of every museum collection, Vermeer paintings are rarely lent out.
BIGGEST EVER VERMEER SHOW TO TAKE PLACE AT THE RIJKSMUSEUM IN 2023—AND IT WILL INCLUDE THE GIRL WITH THE PEARL EARRING
The Art Newspaper
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The exhibition will include masterpieces such as The Girl with a Pearl Earring (Mauritshuis, The Hague), The Geographer (Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main), Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid (The National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin) and Woman Holding a Balance (The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC).
Works never before shown to the public in the Netherlands will include the newly restored Girl Reading a Letter at the Open Window from the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden.
Retromobile Officie, PARIS — Once a year, the city of Paris sets aside its hatred of cars and welcomes enthusiasts from around the world to the Retromobile show. First held as a small gathering in 1976, Retromobile has become one of the largest classic-car-only events on the planet. There’s something there for everyone, whether you’re looking to buy a classic Ferrari, a model of one, an ignition coil for a Fiat 126, or just about anything in between.
Retromobile takes place in the heart of the French capital, in the same venue as the Paris auto show, and its massive size attracts big-name vendors and exhibitors. It’s one of the few events that draws major manufacturers. Renault traveled to the 2023 edition to celebrate 30 years of the original Twingo, the Italian side of Stellantis showcased what its Heritage Hub’s restoration team is capable of, and the French side of the group displayed several classics from its collection, including a Citroën SM-based prototype built by Michelin to test tires.
FRANCE 24 English (February 7, 2023) – Glaciers are increasingly threatened by climate change. The French Alps are home to more than 4,000 of these fascinating natural monuments, of which 80 to 90 percent are set to disappear by 2100 due to global warming.
Among the most emblematic glaciers is the Mer de Glace, or Sea of Ice, which retreats a little more each year, under the watchful eye of tourists. Meanwhile, the Bossons glacier reveals aircraft debris that was thought to be lost forever. FRANCE 24 went to meet some of the guardians of the glaciers.
Chad Gerber (February 6, 2023) – The Arctic Circle: a place so far from our reality, yet so close to our dreams. Fellow filmmaker, Jaxon Roberts, and I spent 10 days exploring the north of Scandinavian countries: Norway, Sweden and Finland. Met with freezing blizzards, magical wildlife, and untouched landscapes as far as the eye can see – it’s safe to say it was a life -changing experience.
CBS Sunday Morning (February 5, 2023) – A new exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art provides a window into Edward Hopper (1882-1967) and his view of urban life. “Edward Hopper’s New York” features about 200 works that capture a changing and changeless city, and illuminate the inner lives of city dwellers. Correspondent Serena Altschul reports.
ArchiPro – This unique beach house was thoughtfully inspired by Medlands Beach where it is situated on Aotea (Great Barrier Island).
The long curving shoreline is punctuated by a large, weathered rock to its centre. This informed the architectural composition with a low, long, horizontal form complemented by a taller, denser, two-level element to the centre. It is a confident design with a direct relationship to site and context.
This metaphorical design response flowed through to the materials, with textured, “sandy” plaster and light-coloured timber for the interior walls, textured bronze fixtures (cast in sand) and vertical cedar cladding, mimicking the bullrush reeds in the adjacent wetland.
Insider Business (February 4, 2023) – Handmade bespoke dress shoes take months to make. Shoemakers transform rough measurements of a customer’s feet into a one-of-a-kind shoe. One pair can cost over £5,000.
London has been a hub for shoemaking for centuries, and while the industry has shrunk over time, an increase in demand from Japan and the US has helped to reignite interest in this craft. So, why would someone buy bespoke dress shoes? And what makes them so expensive?
DW Travel – Discover Teyuna! It’s older than Machu Picchu and not quite as famous. Known in Spanish as Ciudad Perdida or the “Lost City,” it is located deep in the jungles of northern Colombia. You need weather-proof clothing and sturdy shoes for the four-day trek to the archeological site.
Our reporter Joel Dullroy is making the adventurous journey to the Lost City. Join him on his trip! Background: The ruins of Teyuna were once settled by the indigenous Tairona people. Their descendants still live today in the Wika and Kogi tribes in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious
Retromobile Officie, PARIS — Once a year, the city of Paris sets aside its 
Boomers Daily 