Archinect - News

MAD completes ‘flying saucer-shaped’ installation for China’s Guangdong Nanhai Land Art Festival

2024-12-17T11:22:00-05:00

MAD Architects has unveiled The Never Hut, an interactive installation at the Guangdong Nanhai Land Art Festival 2024 in Yanqiao Village, Foshan City, China. Set in a village with over 600 years of history, the installation reimagines a former elementary school playground into a community space for rest and connection.

Image credit: Zhu Yumeng

Inspired by Yanqiao Village’s Qing Dynasty architecture, river systems, and its iconic banyan tree, The Never Hut features a flying saucer-shaped structure supported by three tentacle-like forms crafted from local fishing nets. The design responds to environmental elements, swaying subtly with the breeze to create a dynamic relationship between movement and stillness.

Image credit: Zhu Yumeng

The installation’s bright, colorful eaves provide a shaded, circular space, encouraging interaction among villagers and visitors. The scheme’s playful aesthetic contrasts with the historic surroundings, establ...

Olafur Eliasson's inaugural Shinan Art Island Project installation opens in South Korea

2024-12-11T13:05:00-05:00

Olafur Eliasson has shared photos of the new Breathing earth sphere immersive installation project in Shinan County, South Korea. The installation is the first to be created for the larger Shinan Art Island Project on the UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site listed archipelago that will bring different artists and designers together to create a special destination experience under the banner '1 Island, 1 Museum.'

Photo: courtesy of Kyungsub Shin

Visitors will first arrive at the domed space on top of Docho Island via a tree-line approach that takes them to a contemplative resting place framed by a single Hackberry tree.

Photo: courtesy of Kyungsub Shin

From there, the installation is accessed from an entry point embedded within the hillside and leading to the inside of a spherical subterranean space lined in lava stone and a tri-color palette of tiles that offer the illusion of three-dimensionality and physical impression of "tumbling through space."

Photo: courtesy of Kyungsub Shin

As ...

Iván Argote's viral new High Line plinth commission speaks to our impermanence as a species

2024-08-02T18:34:00-04:00

New York's High Line just debuted what promises to be a viral new public art installation from Iván Argote. From October on, the fourth High Line Plinth commission winner will present Dinosaur, a 16-foot hyperrealist pigeon sculpture made from cast aluminum. Argote says his work is a metacommentary on the impermanence of the human species.

Iván Argote, Dinosaur, Rendering courtesy of the artist

The bird itself was manufactured in Mexico and must make a pit stop in New Jersey on its migration journey before being installed on its five-foot plinth overlooking Tenth Avenue, a perch from which it will peer into the city until September of 2026. Pigeons, of course, are synonymous with New York City. One criticism might be that a dove would be more appropriate for a high-profile commission in the global media capital, given the many current conflicts ongoing across the world.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by The High Line (@highlinenyc)

An armchair for each month of the year: Architect Adorján Portik's unique furniture concept 'Halfway to the Infinite'

2024-08-01T20:51:00-04:00

Berlin-based architect and designer Adorján Portik has shared with us the first details of his new ‘Halfway to the Infinite’ furniture series, a set of twelve armchairs he will create for each month of the year.

The project, now about halfway completed, is targeted at students and fellow artists and seeks to stimulate a sense of discovery and creative inspiration in those who interact with it.

November. Image courtesy Adorjan Portik

November (detail). Image courtesy Adorjan Portik

Embedded within each chair emerges the naturalism that comes with each change of the seasons. November’s design evokes barren forests while, contrastingly, June’s is bedecked with a canvas ship’s sail meant to embody maritime activity and summer leisure.

July. Image courtesy Adorjan Portik

July (detail). Image courtesy Adorjan Portik

Architects will be particularly fond of the March chair, whose seat is a facsimile of an unrolled spool of plotter paper. Portik’s materials range from stainless steel wire mesh ...

Olalekan Jeyifous' reconstituted 'Unmonument' comes to Brooklyn with the Black Reconstruction Collective

2024-07-30T13:01:00-04:00

Next week, Brooklyn’s Weeksville Heritage Center begins the first of a new imaginative public art installations series from the Black Reconstruction Collective. There, the industrial ‘Unmonument’ will take center stage starting August 8 as the instigator of several other small site activations surrounding it. The aim is to challenge the conventional notions of what the collective says are the most frequently perpetuated ‘myths’ about power, permanence, and the collective experience of the societies that construct them.

As a memorial to the many liberated Black diasporic communities across the country, such as Weeksville, the installation highlights an important narrative within Black history and is augmented by programming from the multidisciplinary oral tradition incubator Black Discourse.

The Crown Heights rendition, reconfigured by Olalekan Jeyifous, precedes Sekou Cooke's Syracuse contribution in September; another from Felecia Davis in Bellefonte, PA, in December; and, next ye...

MAD's bubble installation revitalizes a historic house in the Japanese countryside

2024-07-23T20:01:00-04:00

MAD Architects has unveiled a captivating installation that resembles a bubble being gently blown from a traditional wooden structure.

Called the “Ephemeral Bubble,” the project was created for the 2024 Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, an outdoor art exhibition held every three years in Japan’s Niigata Prefecture. The biomorphic design seeks to open a dialogue with the Japanese countryside, the architects say.

Image: Zhu Yumeng

The installation connects to a century-old house in Murono Village known as the China House Huayuan, which has been a hub for Chinese-Japanese cultural exchange. The bubble adds a temporary, flexible space that mimics the lightness and translucence of air.

Image: Zhu Yumeng

The interior of the bubble is expansive and undefined. The reflection of the surrounding greenery and colors within creates an atmosphere of soft light, which is suitable for performances, ceremonies, gatherings, and other events.

Image: Zhu Yumeng

As noted by the architects: “The Ephemeral Bu...

A skateable testament to physics and form takes over the Centre Pompidou

2024-07-23T12:57:00-04:00

This summer, outside of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the museum’s famous forecourt area will be the site of a timely skatepark activation by local artist Raphaël Zarka.

His new Cycloïde Piazza installation is meant to connect young Parisian skate enthusiasts and forms a key part of the Cultural Olympiad preceding this year's games, as presented by Centre Pompidou curator Jean-Max Colard.

Image courtesy Raphaël Zarka

Harkening to the experimentations of Galileo and other astronomers and mathematicians as its primary reference, the centerpiece skateable "sculpture" was designed in unison with the architect Jean-Benoît Vétillard to carry several references to France's rich art history and architectural culture.

Image copyright Fred Mortagne

A polychromatic color palette quotes Le Corbusier's "Clavier de couleurs" keyboard cards from 1931. Constructivism and the works of painters such as Lyubov Popova also hold weight over the installation's presentation, helping it to serve as an "urb...

Artist Mary Miss gains injunction against Des Moines Art Center's planned land art removal

2024-05-06T11:41:00-04:00

The lawsuit filed by artist Mary Miss in federal court in Iowa last month has gained a preliminary injunction over the alleged breach of contract stemming from the Des Moines Art Center’s planned removal of her outdoor sculpture piece Greenwood Pond: Double Site (1996). The news was shared by The Cultural Landscape Foundation last week following the announcement of her legal challenge in April. Miss had been attempting to stop museum officials from removing the piece from its grounds over maintenance concerns and said she was thankful to the court for issuing a temporary restraining order, which, she added, “opens the door to the consultations about the future of the site that were denied me.”

The 19-page ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa says the piece is, in fact, a “work of recognized stature” pursuant to the 1990 Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA). Miss and her team now plan on defending its status further in order to establish a definition for ...

FreelandBuck's new Washington Metro art installation invites viewers to an engrossing play on perspective

2024-04-23T13:24:00-04:00

FreelandBuck has released images of a recent art installation for the Washington Metro Area Transit Agency (WMATA) in Washington, D.C. Staged as an optical illusion, their new piece titled ‘Tunnel Vision’ works by projecting an image of a metro station over three intersecting aluminum cones that are suspended from the ceiling in the lobby of the organization’s new Alexandria, Virginia, offices.

Image courtesy FreelandBuck and WMATA

The sculpture's grid pattern and convex geometry center a 3D image of an iconic coffered station designed by Harry Weese in the viewer’s vision field, creating the effect of watching a metro train approach while standing on the platform. The firm says, "The piece suggests both realism and familiarity, inciting curiosity for passersby to come take a closer look."

Image courtesy FreelandBuck and WMATA

Brennan Buck, the firm's principal and co-founder, told the Washingtonian magazine recently, "We thought it was just a real...

SO – IL creates 3D knit textile passage for Bruges Triennial 2024

2024-04-22T11:39:00-04:00

SO – IL has completed a passage of 3D knit textiles as part of the 2024 Bruges Triennial in Belgium.

Titled 'Common Thread,' the passage is inspired by the medieval city’s lace-making tradition, using an innovative woven fabric to create what the team calls an “intricate spatial experience in a wave-like tunnel.”

Image credit: Iwan Baan

The installation is set within a passageway that connects the secluded courtyard of a 19th-century monastery with the wider city. In collaboration with a team from TU Delft, the team explored how Common Thread could marry the tradition of the bobbin lace with modern technologies and new geometric possibilities.

Image credit: Iwan Baan

The resulting fabric is knit in varying ratios, with individual threads combining and diverging in ever-changing patterns. The installation’s form and structural framework were further guided by computational simulations and material samples.

Image credit: Iwan Baan

Image cre...

Coachella debuts 2024 art installations, its ‘largest immersive and architectural works yet’

2024-04-16T11:43:00-04:00

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival has completed work on the 2024 edition of its on-site art program. The acclaimed event is taking place across two weekends: April 12–14 and 19–21.

The three artistic works are described by the festival as "redefining the boundaries of large-scale art, inviting festival-goers to engage with visionary works that ask viewers to question their definition of self, explore the boundaries between reality and imagination & take part in creating a new future together."

"Monarchs: A House in Six Parts" by HANNAH. Image credit: Lance Gerber

"Monarchs: A House in Six Parts" by HANNAH explores the fusion of 3D printing with traditional craftsmanship, comprising a series of pavilions that “invite interaction and contemplation.” A collaboration between Cornell University professors Leslie Lok and Sasa Zivkovic, the piece reimagines architectural design through the lens of digital fabri...

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama debuts 'Purple Hibiscus' at the Barbican, a reference to the site's material history

2024-04-12T16:33:00-04:00

The Barbican has debuted a new large-scale public art installation from Ghanaian-born artist Ibrahim Mahama.

His site-specific piece Purple Hibiscus, named in reference to the 2003 novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, is installed on the facade of the Barbican’s central Lakeside Terrace. It uses approximately 21,500 square feet of fuschia-hued cloth that contrasts dramatically with the rough concrete exterior and overcast London sky.

Installation view, 'Ibrahim Mahama: Purple Hibiscus.' Image: © Dion Barrett / Barbican Centre

Mahama created the piece in collaboration with artisans from his Red Clay Studio and Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art in the city of Tamale, Ghana. It references the site's past history as the epicenter of the "rag trade" in Central London before World War II. Together, both the piece and architecture serve as a metaphor for the "power of labor."

Installation view, 'Ibrahim Mahama: Purple Hibiscus.' Image: © Dion Barrett / Barbican Centre

The artist describes...

Artist Mary Miss files suit to stop demolition of outdoor installation at Des Moines Art Center

2024-04-09T17:42:00-04:00

Artist Mary Miss has filed a lawsuit in an ongoing dispute over the planned demolition of her outdoor installation Greenwood Pond: Double Site (1996) at the Des Moines Art Center in Iowa.

A district court subsequently decided to issue a temporary restraining order against the institution’s plans, which were to be enacted on April 8th of this year.

Greenwood Pond-Double Site, Des Moines, IA, 1996. Photo © Mary Miss courtesy The Cultural Landscape Foundation

Miss, who is considered a leading figure of the Land Art movement, filed the legal challenge after The Cultural Landscape Foundation divulged the Art Center’s “secret plans” to deconstruct and remove the installation from its grounds over the deterioration of its materials and presumed adversity of potential repairs.

Greenwood Pond-Double Site, Des Moines, IA, Dec. 2023. Courtesy The Cultural Landscape Foundation

Miss is alleging a breach of contract as part of the suit, citing a 1994 agreement and seeking damages through a readi...

VolvoxLabs opens internship combining digital fabrication, media, and immersive environments

2024-02-14T17:58:00-05:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for a Graphics/Multimedia Editor at The New York Times, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for a Physical Design + Fabrication Internship at VolvoxLabs.

The role, based in Brooklyn, NY, calls for an individual who is “passionate about technology-embedded installations, digital fabrication techniques, parametric design, and exploring new technologies in fabrication.” Among the qualifications sought after in internship applicants are basic digital fabrication knowledge and shop skills, alongside knowledge of 3D modeling software.

TETRA / KINETIC SCULPTURE by VolvoxLabs

Why the role interests us

The open role at VolvoxLabs offers us the opportunity to explore the work of a studio grounded in the intersection between digital and physical space. With a team spanning artists and technologists, the studio has built a portfolio of contemporary art installations and immersive environ...

Coachella announces lineup for 2024 installation designers

2024-01-17T11:44:00-05:00

The art and design lineup has been announced for the 2024 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. The acclaimed event is set to take place across two weekends: April 12–14 and 19–21.

Besides major musical acts, this year’s festival will include installations by HANNAH, Morag Myerscough, Nebbia, Do LaB, NEWSUBSTANCE, Robert Bose, and Raices Cultura.

While HANNAH describes its work as “inherently derived from materiality, digital construction protocols, robotic routines, new technologies, odd construction techniques, and bottom-up design logics,” Morag Myerscough summarizes her mantra as “make happy those who are near and those who are far will come.” Nebbia Works is “fundamentally driven by a curiosity of all the idiosyncrasies, contradictions and undefined boundaries of our world,” while NEWSUBSTANCE, Do LaB, Robert Bose, and Raices Cultura are returning to the festival where they constructed installations in 2023.

Previously featured Coachella installations

Photo by Lance Gerber,...

Refik Anadol creates ‘world first’ AI model trained on data from nature instead of humans

2024-01-15T11:35:00-05:00

Refik Anadol Studio has announced the creation of the “world’s first open-source generative AI model dedicated to nature.” Titled 'Large Nature Model,' the model is trained “solely on nature’s inherent intelligence” as opposed to the conventional approach to AI large language model training, which consists of human-generated data such as art and text.

To train the model, Anadol’s studio used open-access information from institutions including the Smithsonian Institution and London’s Natural History Museum alongside various other universities, museums, foundations, government entities, and libraries. The studio is also visiting 16 rainforest locations around the world, deploying data collection technologies such as LiDAR, photogrammetry, and the capturing of ambisonic audio and high-resolution visuals of diverse ecosystems to further train the model.

“Our vision for the Large Nature Model goes beyond being a repository or a creative research initiative,” said Refik Anadol about the m...

Janet Echelman completes rippling sculpture in Riyadh informed by earthquake and tsunami data

2024-01-12T13:52:00-05:00

Janet Echelman has completed a sculpture in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as part of the artist’s Earthtime series.

Named Earthtime 1.26 Riyadh, and installed in the city’s Wadi Namar in December 2023 for the Noor Riyadh light art festival, the sculpture “celebrates the interconnection of sky and earth, flexibility and strength, humans and our physical world, bridging opposites with bold colors and soft curves,” according to the artist.

Image credit: Janet Echelman

Image credit: Ahmed Hasan

The sculpture is composed of knotted fibers, and designed so that as a single knot moves in the wind, the location of every other knot in the sculpture’s surface is changed in what the artist describes as “an ever-unfolding dance of human-made creation with the forces of nature beyond our control.” The custom-engineered fibers are fifteen times stronger than steel by weight and were knotted and spliced with the help of centuries-old craft techniques.

Image credit: Janet Echelman

Image credit: Janet Echelma...

Acclaimed artist Doug Aitken is hiring a Studio Director in California

2024-01-03T15:35:00-05:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for a Project Manager at Food Architects DPC, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for a Studio Director at Doug Aitken Workshop.

The role, based in Venice, CA, calls for an individual to “take on the day-to-day running” of Aitken’s dynamic and tight-knit studio. The ideal candidate will have experience in the art world and knowledge of contemporary art, as well as being a “responsible, intelligent, creative problem solver who is excited to grow with the studio.”

Related on Archinect: Saint Laurent taps Doug Aitken to help present its SS22 line in Venice. Image courtesy Saint Laurent.

Why the role interests us

The open role at Doug Aitken Workshop allows us to profile the work of one of the most prominent multidisciplinary artists in the United States. Born in California in 1968, Aitken has established a reputation for immersive, experiential works of art that explore themes of...

London’s Battersea Power Station hosts giant Christmas tree animation by artist David Hockney

2023-12-06T13:10:00-05:00

The world-renowned artist David Hockney has lit up London’s iconic Battersea Power Station with a giant installation resembling two Christmas trees. Titled ‘Bigger Christmas Trees’ and set on the station’s two north-facing 328-foot-tall chimneys, the animation will be on display from December 1st until Christmas Day, December 25th.

“Battersea Power Station is such a beautiful building, I wanted to decorate it in a way that I hoped would bring joy and hope to Londoners,” said Hockney about the scheme.

Image credit: Apple

The 10-minute animation was designed by Hockney on an iPad using a digital pencil; an appropriate method given that Battersea Power Station currently houses Apple’s UK headquarters.

In June, we reported on the opening of Foster + Partners’ Apple Store within the station, marking the company’s 40th store in the United Kingdom. Late last year, meanwhile, we covered a review of the newly completed WilkinsonEyre interior spaces in the station alongside a Frank Gehry-desig...

Refik Anadol previews new AI data sculpture installation for Las Vegas Sphere

2023-08-31T17:54:00-04:00

A new AI Data Sculpture installation from Refik Anadol has been unveiled ahead of its public premiere tomorrow, September 1st, at the newly-complete Sphere entertainment venue in Las Vegas.

The sculpture utilizes the structure’s Exosphere, a digital canvas covering that can be programmed to display content thanks to its world-leading array of 1.2 million different LED ‘pucks’ which are spaced 8 inches apart to form an almost 580,000-square-foot display.

Anadol says: “It’s so exciting to be given such an architectural and engineering marvel as a canvas. This opportunity aligns perfectly with our studio’s long-term mission of embedding media arts into architecture to create living architectural pieces that are in constant interaction with their environments.”

Rendering courtesy Refik Anadol Studio

The latest in his Machine Hallucinations series will offer viewers a meditative and elaborate multisensory experience based on accumulated local atmospheric data that are consolidated and th...

See photos from Harlem Grown and Jerome Haferd / BRANDT : HAFERD's newly-opened 'Sankofa' installation

2023-07-24T17:53:00-04:00

New York-based artists collective Harlem Grown, in collaboration with Jerome Haferd of BRANDT : HAFERD, has shared photos of the new ‘Sankofa’ installation in Harlem’s historic Marcus Garvey Park just months after the announcement of a two-year community-led commission aimed at creating an artistic public gathering space for residents of the area.

Image courtesy Anna Dave

The installation is part of the Mellon Foundation’s Culture, Creativity, & Care Initiative focused on Marcus Garvey Park and the cultural traditions of the community that it serves.

Image courtesy Anna Dave

Harlem Grown shares: "The project involved planning and collaboration with local artists and makers across various artistic styles and media. Despite its bespoke appearance, the installation is based on a modular system and uses sturdy, reusable materials that can be reconfigured for a number of future uses or sites."

Image courtesy Anna Dave

The design of the circular 32-foot canopied struc...

Photos of MAD Architects' artistic nexus, The City of Time

2023-06-28T17:15:00-04:00

MAD Architects has shared new images of its recently completed temporary The City of Time installation for the Aranya Theater Festival in China.

The project, which ran from June 12th to June 25th in the seaside resort community, brought together 300 artists and 131 group works under one maze-like design that dissolved after standing on the beach for a period of 300 hours.

Image courtesy Aranya Theater Festival

Using verse and meter, the firm described its intentions for the installation as follows:

The City of Time,
Dissolves after 300 hours.
Revolving around an axis perpendicular to the sea,
It offers a spiritual roost for creators.

In real cities,
The need for functionality suffocates spiritual spaces.
Building a fanciful city by the sea,
Allows the substance of theatre and art,
To breathe natural life into this space.

Taking flight and transcending reality,
It is a place dedicated to time, human behavior, and nature,
Inspiring contemplation on our relationships with ourselves and the wor...

Harlem Grown and BRANDT : HAFERD's 'Sankofa' will take over Marcus Garvey Park this summer

2023-06-13T18:47:00-04:00

A new public art installation will kick off the Mellon Foundation-funded Culture, Creativity, & Care Initiative in Harlem this summer with an engaging reflection of the history of Marcus Garvey Park and the cultural craft traditions of the various communities which surround it.

Friday, June 16th, will mark the grand opening of “Sankofa,” a circular 32-foot structure that serves as an art gallery and public gathering space for residents of the neighborhood who will meet underneath its mesh fabric canopy’s complex composition print.

Image courtesy Harlem Grown and Jerome Haferd

The project was initiated by the Black-led artists collective Harlem Grown and Jerome Haferd of BRANDT : HAFERD. The design team describes:

“‘Sankofa’ is the first outdoor hub to be unveiled as part of the initiative. ‘Sankofa’ derives from the Akan African folklore, symbolizing remembrance of things forgotten, and means ‘in order to know our future we must look to...

Three playful installations by Snarkitecture: Your Next Employer?

2023-06-12T13:49:00-04:00

Following last week’s visit to Los Angeles-based Johnston Marklee, we are moving our Meet Your Next Employer series to New York this week to explore the work of Snarkitecture.

The firm operates along an ethos of “not art, not architecture,” with a methodology that challenges conventional approaches to materials and structures. Over recent years, our editorial has reported on several creative outputs from the team, who “thrive on opportunities to create unexpected moments that invite exploration, play, and reflection.”

Over on Archinect Jobs, the firm is currently hiring an intern to join their New York office for three months.

For candidates interested in applying for the position, or anybody interested in learning more about the studio, we have rounded up three projects by Snarkitecture that demonstrate their design approach.

BEACH, National Building Museum, Washington D.C.

In 2015, Snarkitecture captured headlines with their BEACH installation in Washington D.C.’s National Buildin...

Janet Echelman’s 229-foot-long floating Current installation debuts in Columbus, Ohio

2023-06-07T18:38:00-04:00

Artist Janet Echelman’s soft-fiber Current installation premiered over the weekend in Columbus, Ohio, adding the city to a list of others to have showcased her experiments with site-specific sculptures and computational design since 2009.

Stretching to a total of 126 feet at its zenith, the 229-foot-long sculpture is made from 78 miles of twine strewn into more than 550,000 individual knots and cast from the facades of buildings located at the intersection of Gay and High Streets.

Echelman says she “absorbed” herself in Columbus’ local history for the creation of the commission, which has seen antecedents installed in Oslo, Santiago, New York, and other major metropolises on three continents so far.

She describes further: “I witnessed exceptional cooperation to achiev...

David Adjaye previews his Asaase III earthwork installation for COUNTERPUBLIC in St. Louis

2023-06-02T13:51:00-04:00

It’s very significant. In terms of personal meaning, I have approached it as a kind of meditation and reflection on the idea of deep time—planetary and galaxy time that is beyond the human timeline. Asaase III is, in a way, a representation of how I imagine an ideal city—a city that is in symbiosis with the Earth, acknowledging it and honoring it in a very deep way, but also absolutely transforming it and creating new features.

The new (permanent) addition to the Griot Museum of Black History is Adjaye’s second foray into rammed earth sculpture, following a 2021 installation at the Gagosian Gallery in New York. COUNTERPUBLIC curator Allison Glenn says the commission was born of her desire to connect the museum to the history of land use and the story of architecture in the community — in addition to Adjaye’s previous U.S. museum designs.

Adjaye says he was motivated to use materials as a means of invoking historical reference in light and also breaking us from our lost sense of place in universal spacetime, adding his concern that "Artifice has taken over our sense of reverence for the Earth."

The three-month COUNTERPUBLIC exhibition is on view in St. Louis until July 15th.

Coachella debuts 2023 art installations as festival opens to the public

2023-04-19T11:31:00-04:00

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival has debuted four anchoring art installations as part of its 2023 program. According to the organizers, the newly-commissioned sculptures by Kumkum Fernando, Vincent Leroy, Güvenç Özel, and Maggie West seek to bring “color, light, and alternate perspectives to the charged atmosphere” and act as “fresh, colorful, and architecture beacons that transform the iconic Coachella landscape and various times of day and night.”

The Messengers by Kumkum Fernando. Image credit: Lance Gerber, courtesy of Coachella

Kumkum Fernando’s The Messengers comprises three monolithic figures that appear as giant robots or action figures when viewed from afar. The Sri Lankan artist drew inspiration from the vivid colors of South Asian art and architecture, particularly Tibetan and Hindu temples, as well as folk tales of gods and demons. The resulting figures, standing between 65 and...

The Met announces Nairy Baghramian for its Fall 2023 Facade Commission

2023-04-11T13:57:00-04:00

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced Iranian-born German artist Nairy Baghramian as the next participant in its Fall 2023 Facade Commission series.

Baghramian follows Carol Bove, Wangechi Mutu, and last year’s Hew Locke for the fourth installment of the series, which first began in 2019 under the auspices of museum Director Max Hollein.

The museum says: “These projects are the latest in The Met’s series of contemporary commissions in which the Museum invites artists to create new works of art, establishing a dialogue between the artist's practice, The Met collection, the physical Museum, and The Met's audiences.”

Baghramian, also the winner of the 2022 Nasher Prize, will install four abstract polychromatic sculptures as part of the commission. Working in the blank niches left behind after Richard Hunt Morris was unable to complete his work on the museum in 1902, the sculptures are said to have components that evoke images of flotsam and will be titled Scratching the Back.

R...

Artist Janet Echelman will transform downtown Columbus this summer with a 229-foot-long floating sculpture

2023-04-07T17:41:00-04:00

Sculptor Janet Echelman will transform the skyline of Columbus, Ohio with a newly-announced commission set to debut this June.

Her soft fiber piece, titled Current, expands on past experiments with architecture and computational design and will stretch to 126 feet at its pinnacle. The 229-foot-long sculpture is made from 78 miles of twine strewn into more than 550,000 individual knots and cast from the facades of buildings located at the intersection of Gay and High Streets.

Image courtesy Studio Echelman

Echelman says she “drew inspiration from the evolution of downtown Columbus and its role throughout history as a place of innovation and light.” Her latest commission will be the first permanent piece to be suspended over street level, following temporary installations in Munich, Santiago, New York, and two other continents.

“When I approach a new project, I start by diving into the history of the place,” Echelman said. "I became absorbed in Columbus’ historical narrative and quickl...

MAD's Ma Yansong occupies abandoned Chinese market with colorful, reflective art installation

2023-03-20T10:59:00-04:00

Architect and MAD founder Ma Yansong has completed an art installation set within an abandoned market in China’s Guangdong province. Titled 'Timeless Beacon,' the project sees the three-story structure wrapped in reflective film and topped with a colorful cloth covering.

Image credit: Lu Yu

Located in the village of Taiping Xu, the installation occupies the former Taiping market, the village’s largest abandoned building. Once a bustling trading fair for fishermen, businesspeople, and villagers, dating back to the late Ming Dynasty, the market became abandoned in the 1980s as a younger generation moved from the village towards larger cities and online commerce lessened the need for physical marketplaces.

Image credit: Tian Fangfang

“I see many plants growing towards the sun from the gaps of the abandoned building,” explained Ma Yansong in a statement. “We hope to create a sense of vitality and rebirth from the ruins so that people can feel new energy and perception from the old structu...

Archinect - News

MAD completes ‘flying saucer-shaped’ installation for China’s Guangdong Nanhai Land Art Festival

Olafur Eliasson's inaugural Shinan Art Island Project installation opens in South Korea

Iván Argote's viral new High Line plinth commission speaks to our impermanence as a species

An armchair for each month of the year: Architect Adorján Portik's unique furniture concept 'Halfway to the Infinite'

Olalekan Jeyifous' reconstituted 'Unmonument' comes to Brooklyn with the Black Reconstruction Collective

MAD's bubble installation revitalizes a historic house in the Japanese countryside

A skateable testament to physics and form takes over the Centre Pompidou

Artist Mary Miss gains injunction against Des Moines Art Center's planned land art removal

FreelandBuck's new Washington Metro art installation invites viewers to an engrossing play on perspective

SO – IL creates 3D knit textile passage for Bruges Triennial 2024

Coachella debuts 2024 art installations, its ‘largest immersive and architectural works yet’

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama debuts 'Purple Hibiscus' at the Barbican, a reference to the site's material history

Artist Mary Miss files suit to stop demolition of outdoor installation at Des Moines Art Center

VolvoxLabs opens internship combining digital fabrication, media, and immersive environments

Coachella announces lineup for 2024 installation designers

Refik Anadol creates ‘world first’ AI model trained on data from nature instead of humans

Janet Echelman completes rippling sculpture in Riyadh informed by earthquake and tsunami data

Acclaimed artist Doug Aitken is hiring a Studio Director in California

London’s Battersea Power Station hosts giant Christmas tree animation by artist David Hockney

Refik Anadol previews new AI data sculpture installation for Las Vegas Sphere

See photos from Harlem Grown and Jerome Haferd / BRANDT : HAFERD's newly-opened 'Sankofa' installation

Photos of MAD Architects' artistic nexus, The City of Time

Harlem Grown and BRANDT : HAFERD's 'Sankofa' will take over Marcus Garvey Park this summer

Three playful installations by Snarkitecture: Your Next Employer?

Janet Echelman’s 229-foot-long floating Current installation debuts in Columbus, Ohio

David Adjaye previews his Asaase III earthwork installation for COUNTERPUBLIC in St. Louis

Coachella debuts 2023 art installations as festival opens to the public

The Met announces Nairy Baghramian for its Fall 2023 Facade Commission

Artist Janet Echelman​ will transform downtown Columbus this summer with a 229-foot-long floating sculpture

MAD's Ma Yansong occupies abandoned Chinese market with colorful, reflective art installation

Artist Janet Echelman will transform downtown Columbus this summer with a 229-foot-long floating sculpture