DAILY JOURNAL

FUTURE SOUNDS // I got the opportunity to watch FKA twigs perform at Heaven in London last night. 

Working her way through future classics, such as "Weak Spot"and "Hide", as well as less-familiar songs from her forthcoming debut album LP1 (released on the 12th August), she held the audience completely captive with a brooding and completely hypnotising set. I urge you to watch her live if you get the chance. 

BOTANY LOVE // The Plant

I first wrote about the The Plant (formerly The Plant Journal) on the Stylesight Lifestyle & Culture blog in 2012.

This bi-annual publication is the stunning project of Barcelona-based designers Carol Montpart and Isabel Merino. It features the work of emerging and established, global artists from disciplines including photography, design, illustration and music, who share an affection and appreciation for all things botanical. 

For the sixth issue, the team has gone truly global to explore the diverse terrain of the Mexico City region, the maze-like labyrinth of Versailles’ gardens and Ghana’s coconut palms. In addition, Montpart and Merino have enlisted the help of long-time collaborator and photographer Daisuke Hamada to shoot the cover story, which celebrates the delicate beauty of sakura cherry blossom trees in her native country, Japan.

With the sun shining brightly down on London today, there was no better excuse than to grab myself a copy, sit underneath the cooling shade of the giant pampas grass in my back garden and leaf through the pages of this bloomin’ beautiful journal…

Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs.

WAVY WOOD // “The New Ambidextrous Universe” by Tauba Auerbach at the ICA, London

One of my favourite contemporary artists, New York-based Tauba Auerbach is exploring the contrasting concepts of symmetry and asymmetry in a new solo exhibition at the ICA in London, entitled "The New Ambidextrous Universe".

Comprising seven pieces in total, including spiralling glass creations to a steel sculpture and photography, the show takes over the ICA’s smaller Lower Gallery space.

While I’ve not yet had the chance to view the exhibition first hand (instead drooling over press images via It’s Nice That and Wallpaper*) I am already completely enamoured by the wooden floor sculptures sitting at opposite ends of the room, that seem to undulate before my eyes if I stare at them long enough through my laptop screen. Resembling pools of rippling water, the sculptures were actually rearranged once inside the exhibition space by Auerbach, explain Wallpaper*, in an attempt to make them appear as though “slightly asymmetrical mirror images of each other”. 

I’m so excited to see these works up-close.

Love this, via The Poundshop. Where You Going? Design Adventures in Southeast Asia.

"In April 2011, graphic designers Jamie Winder and Iain Hector left London to travel across Southeast Asia, meeting with fellow creatives at each point of their journey.

Featuring thoughts and creative output from the design communities of Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Singapore — via the hugely unpopular Railay Design Festival — 'Where You Going? Design Adventures in Southeast Asia' invites you to follow their journey and presents 14 interviews and 20 showcases (along with photographs, infographics and historical creative facts) in a consummately designed journal."

Photographer Nan Goldin speaks candidly with Observer and The Guardian writer Sean O'Hagan about a troubled and traumatic past, teenage angst, and new work.

"Her ideas infuse all new work that deals with close family members, friends or ideas of community. She gave legitimacy to an approach that has crudely been adopted and understood as "snapshot style" or "diaristic". I would go as far as to say her work has come to represent an entire style." - Curator Susan Bright.

American Cool exhibition at Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington until September 7th, 2014

"What do we mean when we say someone is cool? To be cool means to exude the aura of something new and uncontainable. Cool is the opposite of innocence or virtue. Someone cool has a charismatic edge and a dark side."

Food for Thought: Roots and Bulbs opens in London

After nearly two and a half glorious weeks travelling through the Southern States of America (New Mexico, Texas and New Orleans, no less!), living off a diet of mostly tallboy beers, submarine-resembling muffuletta sandwiches and succulent barbequed pork, my slightly fatigued body and over-worked liver have been somewhat relieved to discover that Sarah Cadji’s long-awaited juice bar, Roots and Bulbs has finally opened its doors to the public.

Situated at 5 Thayer Street, in London's bustling Marylebone area, Roots and Bulbs originally started as a “healthy living” blog in 2009 while Cadji was working in the finance sector. Amassing a huge following in just a couple of years, Cadji decided to leave her city job behind and pursue a career in well-being and nutrition, first enrolling on a course at the renowned Integrative Institute in New York.

At Roots and Bulbs, Cadji only strictly employs the cold-pressed method for juicing - a method that enables live enzymes and vitamins from the whole of the fruit (including the flesh, skin and the pulp) to be captured. Stylesight subscribers can learn more about cold pressing in my recent Food for Thought report, Cold Pressed Juices, in which we feature Roots and Bulbs, as well as a number of other up-and-coming cold pressed juice bars located in New York, Amsterdam, Tokyo and Hong Kong.

Read more about Roots and Bulbs, and salivate over a delicious menu featuring homemade almond milk, protein-heavy green juices and hearty breakfast smoothies, via the website.

Surreal Sets: Kenzo collaborates with David Lynch for A/W14

After seasons of *what feels like* rather austere catwalk production (Rick Owens' brilliantly powerful and provocative "step dance" presentation for S/S14, aside), designers and fashion houses are finally "upping the ante" and this season we've seen some real spectacles in terms of catwalk staging - in particular Karl Lagerfeld's gargantuan-sized retro supermarket inside the Grand Palais, for Chanel during Paris fashion week.

Another show to catch my eye was Kenzo's Fall/Winter 2014 presentation, which saw creative directors of the brand Humberto Leon and Carol Lim, enlist the help of surreal director and musician (among other things) to design the set AND collaborate on a suitably Lynchian-inspired collection, entitled"Mysterioso".

These absolutely DREAMY America-scapes by Kevin Trageser are getting me excited for the road-trip ahead. Just posted on anothermag.com. See more from Trageser's body of work here.

Chief curator of the 2013 Lisbon Architecture Triennale, Beatrice Galilee has recently been appointed as curator of design and architecture at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The new role, commencing early this spring, comes as part of the Met’s programming expansion, which will see the museum take up residence in a Marcel Breuer-designed building on Madison Avenue, “currently occupied by the Whitney Museum,” explains Dezeen.

View the above slideshow of images - and an accompanying interview, in which Galilee discusses her work as curator for the 2013 Lisbon Architecture Triennale - via Nowness.

I'll be in Marfa, Texas in little over two weeks. Woah.

If you haven't seen Larry Clark's Marfa Girl yet I urge you to watch it soon. Check out the trailer above, and read my post on the Stylesight blog from 2012.

Director and forefather of the documentary film aesthetic, Larry Clark returns to our screens with Marfa Girl, a new feature film streaming exclusively online now.

De Natura Fossilium by Studio Formafantasma at Gallery Libby Sellers, Milan

I’m a big fan of Italian-born designers Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin of Studio Formafantasma - having recently come back from a trip to Sicily, I was delighted to stumble across their new project (due to be unveiled during Milan Design Week in April and Miart 2014), which draws inspiration from the volcanic, Mount Etna region of the island.

Entitled De Natura Fossilium, their work comments on the sustainable value of traditional craft practices (a recurrent theme in their work), exploring the ways local artisans traditionally fashioned objects from Mount Etna’s abundant lava supply. However, according to Andrea and Simone, “this time-honoured craft has effectively been rendered worthless as now only inexpensive souvenirs are produced.”

In an attempt to revive this “lost” tradition and explore the potential of natural lava as a practical and beautiful material for design applications, Formafantasma will present a new furniture collection at Miart 2014 (28th - 30th March) made entirely from lava, including a table, shelves and a range of textiles. To accompany the presentation, documentary photographs by Luisa Zanzani will illustrate the entire production process.

Institute of Contemporary Arts at Dover Street Market

As part of its “Off-Site” series, the ICA has taken over six floors of iconic retail destination, Dover Street Market.

From 1950 until 1968, 17-18 Dover Street - where Dover Street Market is currently situated - was the ICA's respective home, and (less widely known to some) the birthplace of “Pop Art and Brutalist Architecture,” explain the ICA.

The takeover coincides with the Tate Modern and the ICA's joint retrospectives of late pop artist and cultural commentator, Richard Hamilton (see yesterday's post), and references the artist’s graphical and collage-like aesthetic, as well as some of his seminal works, throughout the six-storey space.