Clubbers and night cats in Beijing not only shake their booties to the hottest beats at the new ChinaDoll club, they are also surrounded by work from some of China's best contemporary artists. Founded by award-winning Chinese actress/producer Ai Wan and club designer Wu Ying, ChinaDoll was conceived and designed via their studio E.P.I.C. Design where the original club first opened in Beijing at the end of 2006.
Relocated now to the main strip in Sanlitun, the new club is prominently located on the top floor of the '3.3' plaza building. The good news for party-goers is that this venue is three times bigger, comprising a lounge, dancefloor and eight VIP rooms. With their motto The Art of Play', the interior of ChinaDoll takes art out of the gallery and into the club. The overall theme of the interior revolves around 'The Kiss' with passion and sensuality taking centre stage.
The work of six contemporary chinese artists is integrated into the interior, custom made installations and furniture, depicting for example sexy female forms, Chinese dolls or modern Chinese love lives. A glossy backdrop of lightboxes adorned with abstracted fashion photography references the brush strokes and vivid colours of chinese water colours. When illuminated, it creates an electric atmosphere making ChinaDoll a lolly shop for the eyes and an amusement park for the senses. - Jeanne Tan
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Norihiko Dan — born in 1956 in the Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan — is the designer of the beautiful Munetsugu Hall, completed in 2007 in Naka Ward, Nagoya, Japan. It is a privately-funded concert hall that continues the age-old but almost-dead tradition of wealthy arts patrons initiating and financing the creation of art spaces. Fluid, white wall shapes are the distinctive feature of Munetsugu Hall’s main performance space. The walls bring to mind artistic sweep marks left by a gigantic builder who in his boredom doodled in his mortar tray with a massive trowel and then let the shapes solidify.
Norihiko Dan has won several architecture awards in Japan and Taiwan including the Distinguished Architect Award of the Japanese Institute of Architecture and the ARCADIA Award Gold Medal in 2007. His work has been part of exhibitions in Japan, Taiwan, USA, Canada, Germany, Austria, Italy and the UK. In addition to being a respected architect and educator, Norihiko Dan is also an architecture historian and writes novels and screenplays.
Munetsugu Hall’s generous benefactor is Tokuji Munetsugu who with his wife Naomi made a fortune in the restaurants business. Their company Ichibanya Co. Ltd. (based in Aichi, Japan) operates more than 1,000 curry and pasta restaurants under the names Curry House CoCo Ichibanya and Pasta de Coco. Munetsugu spent two billion yen to build the 310-seat concert hall. He has also set up a nonprofit organization to support welfare, sports and arts activities. - Tuija Seipell
Hailing from the world's most isolated major city - Perth, Australia - it's as if Tame Impala have been sheltered from prevailing musical trends, instead forging their own unique mix of Cream, the Kinks and Kyuss. The three piece - who look like they have a combined age of 35 - make music from the 70s. With their lashings of fuzzed out guitars and hypnotic psych-grooves, Tame Impala could spell the end for spiky guitars and haircuts and usher in a psych-rock revival. By Dave Ruby Howe & Nick Christie
To get people connected with the San Francisco Zoo, BBDO West in SF created a multi-media campaign called "Critter Quest". People
stand in front of a series of local bus shelters and postings at the
zoo, which are playfully adorned with everything from horns to
butterfly wings and oversized ears. The copy suggests having a friend
take a picture of you in front of the bus shelter/postings, and then
instructs you to load on the OurSFZoo website.
If you’re creative enough, your image might end up in a print ad for
the San Fran Zoo’s attempt to reconnect with locals and visitors.
Thousands have submitted photos so far – we’re interested in seeing how
creative people will get. - Andrew J Wiener
Joining together two modern musical madmen like Beck and Danger Mouse seems almost dangerous, like it could easily descend into a battle of two outrageous imaginations. Instead, ‘Modern Guilt’ comes off like a sonic peanut butter and jelly sandwich, where the different elements meld together so simply and naturally that it defies the incomprehensible bent of their partnership. Beck and his music have always belonged in the sixties and Danger Mouse’s captures this in a twisted dream state. You only need to taste 'Modern Guilt' once before you’re stuck in its kaleidoscopic rapture. - Matt Shea
If all the world is a stage, then Naomi Campbell is the actress,
director and producer. Not one to shy away from limelight, this iconic
supermodel has (despite some misbehaviour) proved she has stood the
test of time with this inspired shoot by Mario Sorrenti for V Magazine.
Progressive design – cutting-edge art – political undertones – socially significant statements on the state of humanity – not exactly what comes to mind in a city like Beijing, but about 45 minutes from the centre of town (ie Tiananmen Square), the Bauhaus-inspired, Soviet-funded former electronics factory complex is transforming into the 798 / Dashanzi Art District. And it is no wonder Nike recently chose the 798 District to open its own gallery: Nike 100 – a retrospective of sorts showcasing 100 Nike innovations from the past fifty years.
A billboard-sized shuffling wall rotates athletic silhouette images across the façade of the building. Upon entry, 100 Apple iTouches welcome visitors, while swooshes and familiar colours pierce through from the gallery space. The dynamic façade feature shuffles across the ceiling of the gallery, and iconic orange shoebox forms are highly stacked along the length before opening up to a massive demonstration space.
Pulling out from the orange boxes as well as in small alcoves along the sides, Nike has chosen ‘100 artifacts from the Battle Against Drag’ – items inspired by Nike’s co-founder and legendary athletics coach Bill Bowerman’s desire to accomplish more with less. Case-in-point – Number 006: sample pieces of 1967 track surfaces with the consistency of gravel evolving to Number 008: the surface of Bowerman’s waffle iron that inspire changing the surface of the sole of running shoes to provide traction on new urethane track surfaces; resulting in Number 009: Tiger track shoe with Waffle Outsole, which helped produce 44 All Americans, 19 Olympians and 12 American record holders under Bowerman’s watch as a coach.
And where would Nike be without its world-class athletes? Various artifacts pay homage to basketball player, Michael Jordan and his Air Jordan shoes. Each component of sprinter Michael Johnson’s ‘Gold Shoe 1’ has been dissected and analysed, and footage of Johnson in motion blaze across display walls.
Anyone planning on being in Beijing this August, or ever, don’t leave without spending at least a half a day wandering around 798 – and once there, learn a little more about Nike and how it’s earned its place in our world at the Nike 100 Gallery. Just do it. - Andrew J Wiener
What’s an hourglass? Oh yes, it’s an ancient time piece, flowing fine sand quietly marking time in a perfectly balanced glass. Or, as everyone should know by now, it is the main prop at Never Stand Still. It was the kick-off party to start the countdown for BMW’s European launch of the latest model of BMW 7 series, slated to take place this fall. The car, displayed in the world’s largest hourglass in the Red Square, has not received much coverage but as soon as the construction of the hourglass marvel began four months ago, online buzz about it has been consistent. The 12-meter-high glass contraption was the centerpiece of the party thrown to 400 invited guests and celebrities. At the start of the build-up, more than 180,000 silvery balls concealed the car that was gradually revealed as the balls fell to the lower level. Moscow is a strong and growing market for BMW, and what better place to strut its latest but the historic location against the backdrop of the Kremlin, St. Basil’s Cathedral and G.U.M. – all veterans of many a communist-era motorized military parade. By Tuija Seipell
Hercules And Love Affair, the musical odyssey of DJ Andy Butler and the likes of Antony Hegarty from Antony & The Johnsons, are the current stars of the dance scene. Their sound is so sleek and shiny that it makes you want to don your rollerskates and glide right back to the 70s.
Only, this is disco for the modern era. More underground than the pointless retro homages that clog up club playlists every weekend, there is something irresistibly dark and alluring hidden between the synths, trumpets and smooth vocals. Music critics are fawning over the album and the fashionistas are becoming wise to their ways too (Chanel used ‘You Belong’ in a Fall/Winter fashion show).
Tracks like ‘Blind’ and ‘Hercules Theme’ are so fresh they leave you aching to strut your stuff. Only in a really cool John Travolta disco way.
So, as Hercules And Love Affair finally starts to get the recognition it deserves, The Cool Hunter pays tribute to the label/production house DFA Records www.dfarecords.com/ behind what could be the album of 2008 by looking back over their best musical creations.
Although it’s little more than Talking Heads fighting Television over a synthesizer, this soundtracked a million teenage parties and had drunken scenesters admiring New Yorkers who had a penchant for jerky riffs and cowbells, rather than skinny jeans and Converse.
James Murphy has a vocal style so unique it needs to be heard to be fully understood. Imagine a bear with a cold singing in the shower and you’re halfway there. Here, he simultaneously scares off the neighbours while inviting in for an impromptu rave.
This dirty track is so sleazy it has ‘4am at some grotty indie disco, staring at some god awful concoction of a drink you’ve ordered and wondering whether that person with the angel wings and eyeliner is actually a man’ written all over it.
Not big but certainly clever, this is the sound of pre Nu Rave dance, when crisp yet clunky beats belonged to the streets rather than the High Street. By Rob Facey
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The houses we
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