arttravelbug

I have been a fan of the Opera Garnier since I stumbled upon it early into my month in Paris in 2009. I was already blown away by the building when I looked up and first set eyes on Chagall's remarkable ceiling. I gushed at the time , and have since acquired a tremendous print of the ceiling (yet to be framed) and a book or two. Yet, despite learning that construction began in the 1860's, I never really thought about how that Chagall got there. Then, this morning, reading an old copy of a Sunday NY Times left over from a vacation (I buy a copy and read it front to back over a week, and unfinished sections set aside... one of which just surfaced), I had a major ah ha moment: "Among the theater's most famous fixtures are the chandelier and the painted ceiling that surrounds it ~ originally by Jules Eugène Lenepveu, then replaced in 1964 with a new sprawling work by Marc Chagall depicting scenes from operas by Mozart, Wagner and more." Behind the Curtain at...

In honour of the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus school, some interesting resources... For the better part of a century, Walter Gropius’ Bauhaus Dessau has been a mecca for a certain flavor of design lover. People from around the world travel to the modernist building in Weimar, Germany, to pay homage to the school that launched countless design careers. Now, a smaller version of the Dessau is hitting the road in celebration of the Bauhaus’s 100th anniversary this year. A 161-square-foot building-on-wheels designed to look like the iconic workshop wing of the Gropius building - glass facade and sans-serif signage included - will travel to Berlin, Kinshasa, in the Democratic of Congo, and Hong Kong, playing host to workshops and exhibitions that aim to update the Bauhaus’s European-centric teachings for a more global modern age. ... [read more on Curbed] . When architect Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus school in 1919, his utopian manifesto proclaimed that minimalism and a...

Monet and Architecture National Gallery, London To July 28, 2018 La Gare Saint Lazare, Monet “Monet is only an eye” claimed Paul Cézanne, “but my God, what an eye!” "Only an eye? This exhibition reveals the inner soul of Monet. It shows that his love of nature is not mere escapism. It is a craving for human survival in an age of growing industrial inhumanity..." [ read more ]. Museum at Le Havre, Monet "A brilliant colourist, a master of light, the joyous she painter of water lilies; we are all familiar with the painterly style of Claude Monet. But the National Gallery’s latest exhibition introduces us to a different, but equally innovative side of this modern master. The result is simply mesmerising. Dedicated to a select number of Claude Monet paintings of architecture, the exhibition explores the father of Impressionism's lifelong but previously unexplored preoccupation with structure. From the early Normandy paintings of the 1860s to his evocati...

If you are vacationing in or near Tulum, Mexico, you are in for a bit of a retreat, if you like unusual architecture and art. It's called IK LAB. This new gallery creates a unique backdrop for the works it displays, challenging both artists and visitors.  "The space boasts a truly unique character: its walls are curved, its floors undulate, and its massive glass windows and doors are circular, like new moons. Every surface is covered with saplings and vines, sourced sustainably from local jungles, or swaths of smooth faux-concrete whose texture recalls the interior of a shell; living trees and plant life sprout from walls, the ceiling, and the floor. The experience demands mindfulness—you must be barefoot inside, and if you’re not careful, you could lose balance, or worse, trip over a work of art..." [ read more ]. The space was created by Argentinean designer Jorge Eduardo Neira Sterkel, then turned into a gallery by Santiago Rumney Guggenheim. "In ...