5 London Art Fairs you can’t say no to
Have you ever heard of the phenomenon ‘the fear of missing out’? Well then you better get rid of all plans in your agenda and all excuses in the making, as these 5 London Art Fairs are too good to pass on.
When.. October 15-18th
Where.. Old Truman Brewery
Besides bringing 130 emerging talents to the stage and enlightening you with the next big thing in terms of art, the ‘other’ in ‘The Other Art Fair’ stands for more than you can possibly want from a creative event like this. Besides innovative creative workshops for the curious and intrepid amongst us, talks by art experts and past exhibitors, shows, films and installations, there will also be a surprise event that most likely will knock you off your feet.
When? December 4th-6th
Where? Bargehouse at Oxo Tower Wharf
If you are obsessed with graphic design, print and everything illustration based, The London Illustration Fair, which has earned the title of the only London based event dedicated to illustration, will feel like utopia to you. Bringing buyers and artists together in one creative environment, the fair has both an eclectic audience as well as a massive assortment of cutting-edge artworks.
When.. October 14-17th
Where.. The south end of Regent’s Park
With 160 galleries from over 25 countries in the world, it is safe to say Frieze London is the most impressive contemporary art fair in London. Celebrating its 13th anniversary, the fair goes big, presenting contributions by artists such as Asad Raza, Jeremy Herbert, Lutz Bacher and winner of the Frieze Artist Award 2015 Rachel Rose. Organising inspiring talks, interactive installations, underground chambers and the return of the beautiful Sculpture Park, Frieze London is a feast for the senses.
When.. November 8th
Where.. Bloomsbury Holliday Inn
This boutique-style photography fair will astonish you with vintage masterpieces, unusual findings, and an abundance of specialist knowledge. Whether you are there to absorb the nostalgic atmosphere or to browse for photos that complete your collection, London Photography Fair will leave a mark on your memory.
Image via www.widewalls.ch
When.. October 15-18th
Where.. Old Truman Brewery
Celebrating urban culture within contemporary art, Moniker Art Fair brings something unique to the scene and foundations of a matchless experience. Voicing a new generation of street artists and introducing Bitcoin to art fans, it challenges the status quo.
INTERVIEW: Clay Ketter toys with familiarity and what is ‘real’
A search for “gravity” and art that “serves itself”.
Clay Ketter’s work merges art and design, whilst manipulating subjects that may be recognisable to the viewer. His art appears as everything from meticulously designed and constructed monuments to "American vernacular architecture”, to photography “influenced by modern imaging techniques”.
The work of Clay Ketter toes the line between art and design, incorporating learned practices from both disciplines, coming to merge as works of art that have a highly unique voice. With a background in construction and an education in art and design, Ketter’s artistic finger occasionally points towards the design in the art, and the art in the design, which he solidifies to me succinctly: “Design is an answer to a question. It entertains the question or request. Art has more sovereignty. It entertains nothing (in the best case scenario), only itself … In a perfect world, there is no difference (between art and design)”.
Spider Woods, 2010, 180 x 244 cm, Diasec-mounted lightjet print. image Clay Ketter. courtesy Bartha Contemporary, London.
“In a nutshell, I have realized, all too late in the game, that my artworks should not be about it, but be it." Ketter’s development in approach to his work has lead to him exhibiting seemingly larger works, which inhabit the mediums of photography, installation, drawing and many more. Size, therefore, is important in giving the subjects of these works a sense of ‘realness’: “what may seem like a ‘large-scale’ work to a viewer is actually simply 1:1, or ever so slightly smaller (to create an uneasiness or disorientation). I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. At least when it comes to drawings and photographic media, I work more and more in 1:1 scale.” In Ketter’s ‘Valencia Wall’ or ‘Road’ series of photographs, this expanse in size delivers the opportunity to consider the role of the senses in photography: “From a formalistic standpoint, a photograph subjectifies an object, it captures the play of shadow and light in a given situation, thereby implying what you refer to as texture. It becomes a matter of reading, rather than a sensory phenomenon. In a way, the large, as-1:1-as-possible, scale is an attempt to re-objectify the phenomenon represented.” With these approaches to size, comes what Ketter describes as “gravity”.
However, this “gravity” is something that Ketter believes can originate from several sources, not just magnitude: “Sometimes, art is at its best when it dashes expectations. Art is at its best when it is recalcitrant. That being said, I believe that the best design is also recalcitrant." This can be seen in abundance in Ketter’s larger installations. ‘Tomb’ and ‘Homestead’ play with the viewer’s expectations and pre-conceived notions of aesthetic and purpose. This breathes a palpable and yet indescribable energy, which the artist believes “is more the result of small adjustments in the otherwise recognizable."
Tomb, 2009, 520 x 660 x 300 cm, mixed media. image Albin Dahlström, Moderna Museet. courtesy Moderna Museet, Stockholm.
“Both Homestead and Tomb are first and foremost archetypes for an American vernacular architecture – a lowest common denominator for a dwelling within this vernacular. They are based on the dimensions of Thoreau’s cabin at Walden pond, while bearing a style more resonant of Elvis Presley’s birthplace. The adjustments I speak of are simply the removal of doors, windows, vents, stairs – the removal of physical access – perhaps opening up for a more cerebral access, contemplation. What seems, at a distance, cozy, becomes, upon closer examination, stubbornly cold. My Surface Composites or 'kitchen' pieces from the 1990’s are made in the same way. By 'bending' the artwork to the edge of its familiarity, by making it estranged, I hopefully knock the viewer, at least for a moment, out of their comfort zone of recognition. What one thinks one sees, and what one sees, form something new, something sovereign.”
Ketter’s 'bending' of his work can be seen as a logical development from some artistic traditions that sought to place meaning in the ‘absurdity’ of exhibiting common-place objects out of their original context: “The gesture of presenting a ready-made object as an art object has filled its function in art. This revolutionary gesture marked a significant turning point in art-making, and we still enjoy the liberation it unfolded and continues to encourage. However, the ready-made is a one-liner; its greatest value occurs upon the 'ah-ha' reception”. For Ketter, art should be somewhat about 'fabrication', not just in crafting something new, but also “in the literary sense of 'making-up' or telling a story."
Wall V.28, 2003, 179 x 214 cm, Diasec-mounted C-print. image Clay Ketter/Nils Bergendal. courtesy Bartha Contemporary, London.
With this “fabrication” that exists in the “story” of an artwork, a certain amount of sentimentality and reminiscence of the past can be read, which Ketter approaches with “caution”: “As a human being, I am sentimental, and do not try to curb my sentimentality, but as an artist, I find my own sentimentality, as well as the sentimentality of others, to have a clouding effect. One must try to eliminate this cloudiness or fog in order to reach clarity. Clarity is paramount, no matter what media one is using … Nostalgia is the worst of all sentimentalities, in its commonly recognized form– nostalgia concerning the past. I believe there is, however, such a thing as nostalgia concerning the imagined future, and I enjoy entertaining this notion."
Ketter’s inspiring attachment to making “work that insists on being made” sees himself “serving [his] art instead” of the art serving him, his relationship with the making of art becomes “a matter of trust”: “If I can manage to concentrate on the thing that insists on being made, that which becomes clear to me in the moments when I am both awake and a-sleep … then the rest is logistics– work." Most artists will agree that they strive for some sort of freedom in creating their work, whether it be physical and logistical freedom or whether it is freedom from the chains that hold us down mentally, to which Ketter prescribes “a self-emancipation from consistency – freedom, not only from established consensuses surrounding one’s work, but also one's own wretched half-baked dogmas, embracing the freedom to contradict one's self, and enjoying the consequent liberty of this emancipation”.
mahabis and the return of the slipper
mahabis, a brand whose mission to reinvent one of the greatest egalitarian types of footwear has trickled into a formidable brand of redesigning and redefining lifestyle… We interviewed founder Ankur Shah and learn more about the process and story behind.
We’ve all been there, walked out of the house blissfully unaware of the all too comfy slipper cradling each foot and the added disappointment when you, or your overly vigilant neighbour, notices. Assumed with warmth and wellbeing, few shoes have succeeded to rival the slipper. In fact, here is a shoe lacking any new means of contemporary design in a very long time, until now. Brought to you by mahabis, a brand whose mission to reinvent one of the greatest egalitarian types of footwear has trickled into a formidable brand of redesigning and redefining lifestyle, finally inviting us to slow down, to stop and to take pleasure in one of life’s greater comforts and downright necessities that is downtime.
mahabis appreciates that much of our time spent outside profoundly impacts how we enjoy our time inside and uses the slipper to skillfully bridge the two together. In recognising that tradition and modernity can go hand in hand, mahabis asked, why must we stick to tradition when the slipper could be used inside and out? And quite rightly so, for when winter turns to spring and beach days turn to bonfires, we forget that our small toes still need that little bit of extra warmth.
Gone are the days when sipping on your coffee in your slippers could only be encountered in your home, the mahabis shoe allows you to do this anywhere and everywhere and is quickly becoming the must-have, go to form of footwear. In a world that’s become so fast paced it is often easy to neglect life’s simplest means, means that are imperceptibly impacting our daily lives and wellbeing and mahabis does well to challenge that, by way of slipper. They’ve brought the inside out, they’ve invited the outside in and simultaneously combined it with a life of adventure, photography, style and culture, to produce a whole design philosophy that’s ready to take the world by storm and we here at ROOMS love it.
I caught up with mahabis founder Ankur Shah, to find out more.
Hi Ankur, tell me a little about yourself and the initial stages of mahabis.
I started my career as a criminal barrister, then meandered into a technology business which after selling that business left me with some time on my hands. That’s when I discovered this massive, but hidden world of slippers. A multi-billion dollar industry with a brand no one was excited about and a product set that was mundane and boring. I thought, hey, let’s try and change that. I was keen to build a lifestyle brand that encapsulated what life was all about, the downtime after the uptime.
And why slippers?
Slippers are an age-old product. They represent something so important. The idea of switching off. We spend billions on better performance, being faster, losing weight, getting stronger. But what about the things in life that let us tune-in whilst tuning out? Relaxing. Chilling out. I wanted to create a product that represented that, both aesthetically and functionally too. I hope we’re going some way to achieve that.
Briefly speak me through the design process of the mahabis slipper. Did the initial design change a lot?
Yes massively. If you saw the original ones you’d be amazed at how far we’ve come. We had the joy of iterating our designs with some of the best young designers in Europe. We played with 3d printing. Applied age-old manufacturing techniques. Whilst the journey was a roller coaster, it was also incredibly inspiring. We’ve incorporated a range of innovative techniques but have strived for a no-fuss, clean and minimal design. The trademark mahabis silhouette is something we have maintained throughout. For us the art of reduction was a hard fought right.
You are based in London but the shoes seem to adopt a very Scandinavian, minimalist approach. Has Scandinavia always been a source of inspiration along the journey?
It has, our slippers and soles are named after Scandinavian towns and cities. We love the quintessentially minimalist aesthetic that is associated with Scandinavian countries, but also the perception of lifestyle minimalism, that less is more. In every sense.
Who is your target audience?
The bit of you that wants to relax. And what amazed us was how broad the cross-section was that identified with that. We talk a lot about redesigning downtime. And we’ve found that people from all age groups, evenly split across the genders, and people from all around the world really connect with that sentiment.
As much as it is a footwear brand, mahabis seems to adopt a whole lifestyle, which is evident in the brand’s imagery and the assisting online blog that you have (which I love!) Do you like to travel yourself?
Definitely, we’ve been global from day one. Our obsession is with embedding ourselves in as many places as possible, I think we’ve had customers from over 90+ countries so far.
Some of our team are working in Ibiza as we speak! We’ve shifted some of the office there for a week, because we may or may not be working on a summer version…shhh, don’t tell anyone.
Your slippers have been extremely popular, had you expected the company to take off as quickly as it has?
We knew there was a market there - the challenge was executing on our vision - as we knew that if we could connect with people on the sentiments we so strongly believed in then we’d have a chance.
We surpassed the 10,000 pair mark after just a handful of months, putting us ahead of amazing brands like TOMs. We’re really excited about where it goes from here.
And what’s in store for the future? Do you see mahabis sticking to its origins as a footwear brand or expanding?
We’re working on so much fun stuff, we think you’re going to love it! We’ll be sure to keep you updated, but keep a close eye as things are coming really, really soon…
All images via © mahabis
ROOMS 17 | Who decides what you see? Unravelling Perspective
We invite you to embrace the un-embraced, explore the unexplored, in an adventure of perception. Will you unravel yours? NEW ISSUE OUT NOW!
How do you gain clarity in a world of instinctually different perspectives? Of minds fixated in black and white, oblivious to those standing boldly in-between? The greys, the what ifs, the could haves… the creators. This April, ROOMS answer exactly that and invite you to explore the ever-growing path of fresh talent and raw perspectives, bringing to you a carefully selected, impressive host of artists, designers, musicians, filmmakers and world class, working creatives.
Among them, exclusive interviews with former graphic designer and now director Greg Barth, composer and video artist Michael Nyman and the man behind the lens, photographer Luke Wassmann. Delve into the delicate works of Yuko Oda, the perceptive designs of Asa Ashuach and the playful works of Olaf Breuning. And skillfully mastering the art of art making with tea drinking, we speak to Carne Griffiths about his drawing rituals, catch up with the visual charmers of PUTPUT and Luis Vasquez tells his beautiful story of how his music turned into an engrossing passion of survival that saved his life.
We invite you to embrace the un-embraced, explore the unexplored, in an adventure of perception. Will you unravel yours?
Also in this issue, we talk to Addictive TV duo, Bianca Pilet, Daisy Jacobs, George Vasey, Realities United, Tom Hancocks and so much more.
Greg Barth: Icons of the Unpredictable
Greg Barth is a London based award winning artist and director from Geneva, Switzerland, and the cover artist of our brand new issue ROOMS 17, photographed by Alexandra Uhart.
The cover artist of ROOMS 17 uncovered
Greg Barth is a London based award winning artist and director from Geneva, Switzerland, and the cover artist of our brand new issue, ROOMS 17 -- photographed by Alexandra Uhart.
Barth is known for producing work that combines Surrealism, Minimalism and Pop. His work seemed perfect for ROOMS 17’s tagline: ‘Who decides what you see?’ This question combined with Barth’s image creates a cover that approaches both art and politics.
Is the mask an act of censorship or an act of art?
A mask covers a person’s face. Who put the mask there? Is he forced to wear it, or is he willing? Why are his eyes covered up? What doesn’t he want to see? The mask could be obscuring his vision of the outside world, preventing him from seeing something. Or, the mask could be showing him something; inside the mask could be a digital screen or images, which showcases something, new and wondrous to him.
In either case the question still throws up political questions, both about state and about art. Thankfully in most countries, the state cannot control what you watch. This came to the fore when working on this issue of ROOMS, as many in the cultural world where still reeling from incident surrounding the infamous film ‘The Interview’. In art, the question of ‘Who decides what you see?’ is bound up is questions and theories surrounding the artist. Ultimately, when viewing an artwork the viewer’s thoughts return to the artist and why they created the work: ‘what do they want me to see?’ However, I would suggest more emphasis needs to be put on the viewer and what they can add to the work, rather than what they need to see. In this instance the same can be applied to our cultural freedom. I was encouraged when I saw members of the public, including the heads of film industries, critics and cinemagoers protesting and wanting to see the film. In the end we all have to stand up to our cultural freedom. We have a right to choose to look.
Jesc Bunyard interviews Greg Barth in our new issue ROOMS 17, Who decides what you see?
Is it fashion or fruit? The story behind footwear brand Guava
Portuguese footwear line, Guava lends its inspiration from CEO and Creative Director’s, Ines Caleiro’s, passion for architectural shapes - fittingly the name was coined after Caleiro’s favourite fruit.
By Alyss Bowen
Portuguese footwear line, Guava lends its inspiration from CEO and Creative Director’s, Ines Caleiro’s, passion for architectural shapes - fittingly the name was coined after Caleiro’s favourite fruit.
Based in Oslo, Norway, Caleiro started her love affair with shoes whilst attending London College of Fashion, where she was invited to work with Jimmy Choo after winning ‘Best Student Award’. Guava was born in the USA in 2010, when Caleiro’s former boss advised her to turn a shoe-obsession into reality and start a footwear brand – after spotting Caleiro obsessively drawing shoes on every piece of paper available.
Coming from a graphic and product design background, and having extensive experience in creative areas, such as fashion and interiors, served Caleiro well when forming Guava. Driven by the emotions behind vibrant colours and asymmetries; its designs are a ‘fusion of a geometric seduction.’ The statement block heel is not only a piece art-wear for your footwear, but calculated so precisely it would be impossible to take a tumble whilst wearing these urban designs.
Priding themselves on utilising modern technologies, while still holding onto an artesian feel, Guava shoes are a quality product. Each piece is hand crafted by a team of dedicated artisans, whose refined skills enable them to create detailed, delicate shoes that embody an original vision and fresh design concept.
Guava is not only a colourful unique experience with a niche concept; they only use sustainable materials such as; bio leather and rubber made from recycled materials. The Guava team work closely on all aspects of the manufacturing, to ensure they produce a product that is creatively distinctive and environmentally green. As idea that stemmed from a love for fruit, Guava is ultimately for people who want to experiment with contemporary detailed and innovative footwear.