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Rapid Design
China’s phenomenal rise in
the art world – from both an
artist as well as a collector
perspective – has often had the
unlikely result of leaving out
the country’s many designers.
London’s Victoria & Albert
Museum’s China Design Now
exhibition seeks to rectify this,
with a far-ranging showcase
of the country’s creative talent,
stretching from Olympic
architectural landmarks such
as Zhu Pei’s Digital Beijing to
a boutique hotel on the Great
Wall of China. A good attempt
at making sense of a country’s
growing political and economical
might through the more
creative aspects of its culture,
this is one exhibition we’re defi -
nitely making time for on our
next London shopping trip.
China Design Now
Until 13 th July 2008
☞ Victoria & Albert Museum,
London
www.vam.ac.uk/
chinadesignnow
Urban Alternative.
London's East End is home to
more galleries and artists per
square mile than anywhere else
on the planet, which explains
The Streets' exhibition launched
by Bulgarian artist Nedko
Solakov in conjunction with
Whitechapel Gallery. Set in and
around the area's Wentworth
Street' which stretches from the
city's financial district to Brick
Lane' it showcases a year-long
series of artists' commissions.
From German artist Bernd
Krauss's 7shopsaweek installations
to art collective Canal's
performances and screenings,
the exhibition promises to bring
an eclectic and colorful body of
work to the East's streets.
The Streets
From 22 nd May
until 13 th July 2008
☞ Whitechapel Gallery, London
www.whitechapel.org
Short Escape @ Beursschouwburg on 29th May 2008
Monthly showcase of short-fi lms which make it their mission to discover
unheard of movies and bring them to a cinema-loving public.
© Chen_Shaohua
© Whitechapel
The Next Few Weeks’ Agenda Fillers the diary
© Patti Smith
© Angelos
France,
Royal Storytelling
Paris’s Fondation Cartier puts
on one of its fi nest exhibitions
to date, with a very personal
exhibition of famed American
musician and artist Patti Smith.
Smith’s life is fi lled with stories
and anecdotes of New York’s
underground scene – such as
moving into the Big Apple’s
infamous Chelsea Hotel with a
certain Robert Mapplethorpe,
thus fi rmly fi xing her on the
scene’s regular circuit - acting
as the perfect backdrop for her
many creations. Essentially
working within the remits of
Polaroid photography, collageartwork,
drawing and poetry,
Smith’ work captures a certain
vibrancy of a past period fi lled
with rebellious feelings and
raging creativity. All hail the
godmother of punk.
Land 250
Until 22 nd June 2008
☞ Fondation Cartier, Paris
www.fondation.cartier.com
A Belgian in Paris
Following on from the success
of The Louvre’s Contrepoint
series, the museum continues in
its quest to favor contemporary
artists, and living ones more
specifi cally. This spring, the
French cultural institution gives
carte blanche to Belgian contemporary
art’s enfant terrible
Jan Fabre. A prodigious student
of the country’s early 1980’s
Flemish artistic wave, Fabre
draws, plasticizes, sculpts,
installs and shocks. For his free
reign at Paris’ Louvre, he revisits
its many rooms dedicated
to paintings of the Northern
schools, making abstract parallels
between his work and that
of ancient masters. A refreshing
take on the museum’s wellknown
collection.
Angel of Metamorphosis
Until 7 th July 2008
☞ Louvre, Paris
www.louvre.fr
THE THIRD WORD — 19