Baku Magazine - Issue 17

art. culture. wild. a conde nast publication AUTUMN 2015

TRUE COLOURS get back to nature this fall

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CHRISTOPHER KANE LONDON V PARIS V BERLIN WILDERNESS ESCAPES

uk/international

P58 Kane and Able

P72 The Land that Time Forgot

P88 Image Maker

P104 Random Access P94 The Stuff of Life

Memories

P120 Walk on the Wild Side

Editor’s letter

ALAN GELATI.

utumn is a time of changing colours, changing mood, and sometimes of refection and poignancy as another year draws to a close. But it can also be a time of intense activity and joy, as we rush to fnish all our projects because the winter holidays, weather, or a new year compel us to change gear. In this, perhaps, humans are not so different from other mammals, furiously gathering food for their winter hibernation before the snows set in.

The snow does set in, in my country; up in the mountains autumn is both spectacular and sudden, the temperature plunging from its summer highs, the canopy changing colour almost overnight, the ground turning damp and icy. And I hope you can feel the heightened energy levels of autumn refected in this issue. We have an evocative fashion shoot in the ancient village of Lahic; an in-depth investigation of how Western institutions are becoming far broader in the type of art they celebrate; and the most beautiful feature on creating some of the greatest food in Azerbaijan.

There is much more, as well. Celebrated British illustrator James Dawe gives us his contemporary take on the ancient sites of Gobustan (as well as Baku itself); we highlight through spectacular photography how you can visit some of the world’s wildest places; and, still on the conservation theme, how people are increasingly trying to preserve plant as well as animal species.

Plenty to settle down with, then, as the chill air takes hold. See you in winter.

Leyla Aliyeva Editor-in-Chief

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Contents SKETCHES UNBRIDLED BEAUTY

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112

THE WRITING ON THE WALL

CULTURE FIX

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120

WALK ON THE WILD SIDE

OBJETS D’ART

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129

BAKU EYE

MAPPED OUT

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THE LIFE AQUATIC

The magnifcent Azerbaijani horses that refuse to be tamed.

Autumn’s dates for your diary, including art, food, music and classic cars – plus a treat for chocolate lovers.

The just-got-to-have-it items on our wishlist this season.

Your guide to the world’s wetlands – some of the most precious and beautiful places on Earth.

ON THE RADAR

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THE REFLEX

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GREEN FINGERS

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TELLING TALES

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Rising star Daniel Steegmann Mangrané brings the rainforest to the gallery wall.

The larger-than-life eighties are having a fashion moment, making minimalism look so last season.

While everyone loves a giant panda, endangered plants are too easily ignored. What are scientists to do?

Artist Lita Cabellut is like a novelist in paint as she brings darkness and light to her series of portraits.

CANVAS

Middle Eastern art is restored to the West’s cultural canon.

Breathtaking wilderness scenes as seen through the lens of Michael Poliza.

Baku’s cultural barometer of cutting-edge trends on the international art scene.

Dive in for an exploration of the conceptual – and actual – solutions to mankind’s quest to live on water.

CATALOGUE

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COME TOGETHER

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THE BUZZ

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PROFILE

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MY ART

Fair-trade fashion is coming to a boutique near you, thanks to a global initiative supporting female artisans.

Drinking and dining in Baku gets a Central and South American twist courtesy of two hot, new openings.

JW Marriott Absheron hotel general manager Martin Kleinmann chats to us about why he loves living in Baku.

It’s a bug’s life for edgy jewellery designer Delfna Delettrez.

KANE AND ABLE

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DESTINATION

LONDON V PARIS V BERLIN

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THE ARTIST

THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT

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HISTORY LESSON

IMAGE MAKER

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THE ILLUSTRATOR

THE STUFF OF LIFE

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MOVERS AND SHAKERS

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ENDANGERED SPECIES NO. 2

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TABULA RASA

Fashion designer Christopher Kane credits his family – and his breakfast – for keeping him ahead of the pack.

Three art capitals battle for the European crown.

Timeless style to take you through this autumn.

Belgian painter Luc Tuymans is much in demand for his imagery of contemporary life.

Dough is central to some of Azerbaijan’s most delicious dishes.

RANDOM ACCESS MEMORIES

A vivid pictorial account of illustrator James Dawe’s recent travels around Azerbaijan.

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Discover the rich culture and heritage of Ganja, one of the oldest cities in the Caucasus.

Azerbaijani painter Afet Baghirova on dreaming big.

Qala Reserve, the museum that has everything.

A delicate rendering of creatures large and small.

This autumn’s names and events to note.

The precarious past and secure future of the goitered gazelle.

French chef Laurent André at Paris Bistro, Baku.

COVER. Photographed by CRAIG SALMON. Styled by SORAYA DAYANI. Jacket, skirt and scarf by ISSEY MIYAKE. Hat by Y’S.

ART. CULTURE. WILD.

A CONDE NAST PUBLICATION autumn 2015

Editor-in-Chief Editor-in-Chief, Condé Nast Creative Director

Leyla Aliyeva Darius Sanai

Daren Ellis

Managing Editor

Maria Webster

Associate Editor

Laura Archer

Acting Chief Sub-Editor Editorial Assistant Editor-at-Large

Contributing Editors

Picture Editor Designer Sub-Editor Production Controller

Deputy Editor, Russian Baku Magazine Director, Freud Communications Director, Media Land LLC in Baku/Advertising

Co-ordination in Baku

Deputy Managing Director President, Condé Nast International

Andrew Lindesay Francesca Peak Simon de Pury

Maryam Eisler Jarrett Gregory Dylan Jones Emin Mammadov Hervé Mikaeloff Harriet Quick Kenny Schachter Nick Hall Arijana Zeric Julie Alpine Emma Storey

Tamilla Akhmedova Hannah Pawlby Khayyam Abdinov +994 50 286 8661; info@medialand.az Matanet Bagieva

Albert Read Nicholas Coleridge

BAKU magazine has taken all reasonable eforts to trace the copyright owners of all works and images and obtain permissions for the works and images reproduced in this magazine. In the event that any of the untraceable copyright owners come forward after publication, BAKU magazine will endeavour to rectify the position accordingly.

BAKU magazine is distributed globally by COMAG Specialist, Tavistock Works, Tavistock Road, West Drayton, Middlesex, UB7 7QX; tel +44 1895 433800. © 2015 The Condé Nast Publications Ltd, Vogue House, Hanover Square, London W1S 1JU, United Kingdom; tel +44 20 7499 9080; fax +44 20 7493 1469.

Colour origination by CLX Europe Media Solutions Ltd. Printed by Pureprint Group. All rights reserved.

Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited.

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Contributors

FRANCESCA GAVIN

JAMES DAWE

SHIVA BALAGHI

JULIA PELZER

ZOE DARE HALL

CRAIG SALMON

is a writer, curator and editor who specializes in the visual arts. She divides her time between London and Berlin.

What’s your favourite font? For work, Arial. To look at, anything by M/M. Autumn: log cabin in Vermont or beach in Fiji? Neither. Greek beach or cabin in Finland.

If you could have a special power, what would it be? The ability to inspire happiness wherever I went.

What do you find most striking about Luc Tuymans’s art (p88)? Its lucidity – some of the paintings you almost feel you could see through.

is a Hamburg-based illustrator. Her work has appeared in Vogue and the Sunday Telegraph.

What’s your favourite font? I prefer the spontaneous yet individual expression of a handwritten note on a napkin.

Autumn: log cabin in Vermont or beach in Fiji? Defnitely the cabin. As I was a vampire in my former life I rather fee the sun.

If you could have a special power, what would it be? I’d love to read people’s minds.

That would be interesting, yet horrifying, too.

Did you find Christopher Kane’s fashion inspiring to illustrate (p58)? Absolutely. He has such a clear vision of what he’s doing.

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is a London-based artist and illustrator whose clients include the New York Times, Nike, The British Fashion Council and Wired.

What’s your favourite font? Zeppelin.

Autumn: log cabin in Vermont or beach in Fiji? Coming from a coldish country, I’d go for the beach and turquoise sea in Fiji.

If you could have a special power, what would it be? Time travel would be the ultimate.

What did you make of Gobustan (p104)?

Clambering through the huge tumbling rocks in the blistering heat to see where the prehistoric people lived and made their carvings was mind-blowing.

writes about luxury property for The Sunday Times, Financial Times and the Daily Telegraph.

What’s your favourite font?

I always go for Times New Roman.

Autumn: log cabin in Vermont or beach in Fiji? Beach in Fiji.

If you could have a special power, what would it be? The ability never to age!

Would you ever consider living in a floating home (p138)? Yes, the idea of a very contemporary foating home could appeal – but more in terms of some idyllic spot on the Thames rather than a futuristic, selfgoverning, ocean-based city.

is a curator specializing in Middle Eastern art and a visiting scholar at Brown University.

What’s your favourite font? For writing, Cambria. For presentations, American Typewriter – in red.

Autumn: log cabin in Vermont or beach in Fiji? No contest. Beach in Fiji, 100 per cent.

If you could have a special power, what would it be? To be fuent in every language.

Do you collect any Middle Eastern art yourself (p112)? Through the years I’ve accumulated a small collection; I’ve recently added pieces by Hadieh Shafe, Sara Issakharian and Ujin Lee.

is a Nashville-born, New York City-based fashion and portrait photographer.

What’s your favourite font? The Memphis font.

Autumn: log cabin in Vermont or beach in Fiji? Log cabin in Vermont.

If you could have a special power, what would it be? It would be to stay 40 and healthy forever.

How did you find shooting in the Azerbaijani village of Lahic (p72)? I really enjoyed shooting there. The people were incredibly welcoming and the village was very inspiring.

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Photograph by EMIL KHALILOV

( Sketches

In the remote Neftchala region on the shores of the Caspian in southeastern Azerbaijan, an old lighthouse provides a landmark for those who have lost their way in the reeds of the Kura Delta. It also keeps watch over the roaming herds of wild horses which call this area home.

Further inland, the village of Mikailly also offers a good vantage point from which to glimpse these magnificent creatures. Rather than a true ‘wild’ breed, these are horses that were originally set free or escaped from their owners, becoming feral and thriving long after the species had died out in other parts of the world. Well nourished and with long manes, some twisted into distinctive dreadlocks, these noble animals make a captivating sight as they thunder through this lonely landscape.

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Unbridled Beauty

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WHERE IT’S AT THIS SEASON

THE BIG PICTURE 12–15 NOVEMBER PARIS PHOTO

Where Grand Palais, Paris What The world’s leading art fair just for photography returns to the beautiful Grand Palais, featuring displays from international art galleries as well as talks and debates. There’s even an award dedicated to the photobook and its importance in art and culture. Whether you’re a collector, practitioner or simply an admirer of photography, it’s the highlight of your year. parisphoto.com 33 Baku.

12–15 NOVEMBER CONTEMPORARY ISTANBUL

Where Istanbul What To commemorate its 10th anniversary, an outdoor media project will launch in the districts of Istanbul, aiming to provide a new perspective on local art. Visitors can also expect new media-related game and design labs, along with digital-focussed galleries. contemporaryistanbul.com

19–27 NOVEMBER EAST AFRICAN SAFARI RALLY

Where Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania What The brutal bi-annual rally sees souped-up classic cars race through dust and dirt for eight long days. Spectators set up stands along the course to watch the cars whizz by. eastafricansafarirally.com

UNTIL 9 JANUARY THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER

Where Istria, Croatia What One of the world’s most coveted foodstuffs is celebrated with demonstrations, auctions, tastings – and a huge omelette made with 2,000 eggs and 10kg of truffles. Grab a fork and join the queue. istria-gourmet.com

Where Yarat Contemporary Art Centre, Baku What This show features digital work and installations by international artists who ask the same question of technology: does it limit or liberate us? They also explore the blurred line between reality and dreams. yarat.az

6–8 NOVEMBER FUN FUN FUN FEST

Where Austin, Texas What Alternative arts festival that combines indie music stars, such as Future Islands and MSTRKRFT, with stand-up comedy, rap battles, and even twerking lessons. funfunfunfest.com

Where Amsterdam What Art fans and artists alike flock to this event, coinciding with the RijksakademieOPEN to create an art-lover’s paradise in the middle of the capital. The four-day programme encompasses over 90 exhibitions and displays, painting a detailed picture of the Dutch and international art scenes. amsterdamart.com

28 OCTOBER–1 NOVEMBER SALON MONDIAL DU CHOCOLAT Where Porte de Versailles, Paris What Willy Wonka, eat your heart out: this annual event gathers together the world’s finest chocolatiers, pastry makers and confectioners. Highlights include a chocolate couture fashion show and the World Chocolate Masters final. salonduchocolat.fr

4–11 NOVEMBER RIO DE JANEIRO INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM FESTIVAL Where Rio de Janeiro, Brazil What The short film is celebrated in this, the festival’s 25th edition, with its highest number of entries and largest events programme yet. curtacinema.com.br 34 Baku.

26–29 NOVEMBER AMSTERDAM ART WEEKEND

UNTIL 3 JANUARY MAKING PLACE: THE ARCHITECTURE OF DAVID ADJAYE

Where Art Institute of Chicago What His careful consideration of the interaction between a building and its surroundings has made David Adjaye one of the hottest rising stars in architecture. A must-see showcase. artic.edu

COURTESY SIMONE ROSENBAUER AND THE LAURENCE MILLER GALLERY. KARL THOMAS/JAI/GONZALO FUENTES/REUTERS/CORBIS. MCKLEIN PHOTOGRAPHY. REAGAN HACKLEMAN. COURTESY PARKER ITO AND CHÂTEAU SHATTO. COURTESY SLEWE GALLERY, AMSTERDAM. VIEW PICTURES/ALAMY.

UNTIL 6 NOVEMBER FESTIVAL OF TRUFFLES

COMPILED BY FRANCESCA PEAK AND LAURA ARCHER.

A city is nothing without its people, as demonstrated by the 100 portraits featured in London Burning: Portraits from a Creative City. Londoners from the worlds of media, food and art (including artists Gilbert & George, above) reveal their inspirations, proving the capital’s reputation as one of the world’s leading creative hubs. thamesandhudson.com

Return of the MAC

How Does Your Garden Grow?

When Rihanna took to the red carpet at this year’s Met Gala, her opinion-dividing yellow dress hit headlines and propelled designer Guo Pei – China’s most loved haute couturier – to international fame. Less divisive but no less eye-catching is her 16-piece collection for MAC. Eyeliners, lipsticks, glosses and eyeshadows come in poppy colours, chosen by Pei for their joyful natures, and wrapped in bespoke packaging. maccosmetics.com

The work of Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf is colourfully brought to life in this limited-edition collection of Jane Carr cashmere scarves (above and below), each of which features a print of Oudolf’s flowering meadow at Hauser & Wirth’s bucolic Somerset outpost. hauserwirthsomerset.com

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London Calling

Art + Fashion = Cool The Italian designer Ilaria Nistri has brought Berlin-based artist Andreas Nicolas Fischer on board for her futuristic autumn/ winter collection, creating clothes inspired by code, data and mathematical formulae. The result is a range of T-shirts, dresses and trousers in metallic shades with geometric embossed shapes. The ultimate in geek chic. ilarianistri.com 37 Baku.

A Step in the Right Direction Fans of cult Japanese artist Takashi Murakami can now realistically own a piece of his work – for their feet. The range from Vault by Vans includes slider shoes, T-shirts and skateboards printed with Murakami’s distinctive multi-coloured motifs, featuring his signature cartoon-like skulls and smiling flowers. vans.com

Prim and Proper The work of Italian architect Carlo Scarpa is the inspiration behind Prim designer Michelle Elie’s latest collection, which features cuffs, earrings and chunky rings. We love this hand-carved wooden handbag, reminiscent of the facade of the Scarpa-designed Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice.

The bag’s beautiful shape is a design triumph in itself. michelleelie.com

Picasso Baby Roksanda Ilincic declared the Cubist movement to be the inspiration for her resort 2016 collection, delivering a brilliantly vibrant range led by contrasting blocked colours on organza skirts, loose-fitting trousers and alpaca wool dresses. roksanda.com

Weave Your Magic

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Rough Diamond This beautiful coffee table book tells the story of how Laurence Graff built his illustrious jewellery house from a lowly start as an apprentice in London’s Hatton Gardens, featuring fascinating anecdotes about some of the world’s most legendary stones, Hollywood stars and Graff’s famous art collection. graffdiamonds.com

© GRAFF, RIZZOLI NEW YORK, 2015.

It’s not often you can step all over art, but thanks to the collaboration between contemporary carpet designer Christopher Farr and British artist (and president of the Royal Academy of Arts) Christopher Le Brun, you can do exactly that in the comfort of your own home. This handwoven rug depicts one of Le Brun’s paintings and was unveiled at Frieze in a limited edition of just three. christopherfarr.com

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Water Worlds

Despite their name, wetlands are no damp squib – they’re critical to the wellbeing of the planet’s ecosystems.

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Illustration by JANINE REWELL 1 Polar Bear Provincial Park, Canada Accessible only by air, this frozen wetland is not for the faint of heart. Polar bears roam here and visitors should take extra supplies, just in case. ontarioparks.com

4 Foulness Island, UK A remote area next to the North Sea, Foulness is a salt marsh wetland and bird sanctuary (the alarmingly rare hen harrier lives here). It is in fact owned by the Ministry of Defence, but is open to visitors. foulness.org.uk

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7 Gyzyl-Agach State Reserve, Azerbaijan On the Caspian shore, this is the larger of Azerbaijan’s two wetland reserves and is home to 248 species of birds, many of which are in the country’s Red Book of endangered fauna. eco.gov.az

2 Sian Ka’an, Mexico 5 This Unesco World Heritage site features 23 Mayan ruins as well as an unparalleled range of wildlife in its tropical forests, mangroves and marshes. Luxury tourist resorts help to fund the ongoing conservation. whc.unesco.org

Matsalu National Park, Estonia One of the most important wetland bird areas in Europe, Matsalu is a stopping-off point for millions of migratory birds. Every year nearby Lihula plays host to the Matsalu International Nature Film Festival. keskkonnaamet.ee

8 Banc d’Arguin, Mauritania These vast mudflats are of world importance due to the immense number of shorebirds that come here to winter and to breed.

Meanwhile, offshore, there are endangered monk seals and humpback dolphins. pnba.mr

3 Complejo de humedales del 6 Abanico del río Pastaza, Peru Tourism has left this huge alluvial fan untouched, with local tribes living as they have done for centuries. More than 15 species of the IUCN’s Red List are found here. rsis.ramsar.org

Danube Delta, Romania Europe’s best-preserved delta plays host to migrating birds from as far afield as China and Africa.

Stay on a ‘boatel’ and let a guide from one of the delta’s 28 villages show you the impressive range of flora and fauna. ddbra.ro

9 Okavango Delta, Botswana Seasonal flooding sees animals flock to the Unesco World Heritage-listed delta in huge numbers before the waters retreat, leaving behind ghostly white islands – salt mounds too saline for any life. okavangodelta.com

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WORDS BY FRANCESCA PEAK.

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10 Tubli Bay, Bahrain 13 Sundarbans Forest, Bangladesh Although now a shadow of its While the best-known resident former self – land reclamation here is the Bengal tiger, it has reduced it from 25sq km shares the delta – the largest in the 1960s to 11sq km – the mangrove forest in the world – bay’s mangroves and mudflats with other rarities such as flying are an important stopover for foxes and fishing cats. migratory birds. rsis.ramsar.org sunderbans-national-park.com

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11 Upper Dvuobje, Russia 14 Lake Biwa, Japan Comprising an extensive Just outside Kyoto, and confluence of tributaries of the known in literature as the River Ob, this network of lakes, ‘Little Grebe Lake’, this is one marshes and islands creates a of the world’s 20 oldest lakes and unique habitat that is one of the Japan’s largest. Now protected, it richest waterbird sites in the even has its own ‘Lake Biwa Day’. world. rsis.ramsar.org pref.shiga.lg.jp 12 Dalai Lake National Nature 15 Reserve, Inner Mongolia Though the lake is protected, such recognition has not stopped it from shrinking – and rapidly, too. Mining and climate change are lowering the water level despite efforts to halt it. dalailake.com

Kakadu National Park, Australia Given that it’s the size of Slovenia, it’s no wonder this reserve has 1,700 plant species and a huge array of threatened fauna – despite the unlikely presence of one of the world’s most productive uranium mines. parksaustralia.gov.au 41 Baku.

Portrait by ANA ROVATI

orn just after the end of the Spanish dictatorship, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané grew up in Barcelona during a period of new creative freedom and social change. His family was at the heart of the left-wing intellectual community. “From eight to 13 I wanted to be a biologist, a passion that has never left me, and I was already at that time obsessed with the Amazon rainforest,” Steegmann recalls.

In the end, he decided to study art, and, inspired by the artists, ecology and history of Brazil, Steegmann travelled there and ended up staying for over 10 years. He now lives and works in Rio de Janeiro.

His inclusion in the 2015 New Museum triennial in New York has been instrumental in gaining him attention from curators and collectors around the world – the Museum of Modern Art in Rio is exhibiting his work this autumn (until 1 November). Much like the influences that have shaped his biography, his videos, sculptures and installations are infused with his palpable curiosity, and chart the relationships between anthropology, biology, architecture and art. To embrace this range, he shifts seamlessly between various processes and media: “I like to play with rhythms… after doing something really demanding with lots of people involved – to just be alone at the studio and make watercolour wall-drawings.”

His restrained yet imaginative works bring art into dialogue with the natural world. It is a perspective that is becoming increasingly germane today.

( on the RAdAR

Brazil-based Daniel Steegmann Mangrané’s early fascination with biology sowed the seeds for a thriving career as an artist, says Jarrett Gregory.

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Natural Selection

Daniel Steegmann Mangrané in his studio in Rio de Janeiro.

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Jarrett Gregory is an associate curator at LACMA in Los Angeles.

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VICTOR VIRGILE/GAMMA-RAPHO/GETTY.

Sketches

his season, no puffs, bibs, flounces, pleats, ruffles, bows, battings, scallops, laces, darts or shirrs on the bias were too extreme.” So wrote Tom Wolfe in his classic 1987 novel The Bonfire of the Vanities, about the fashions of the era as observed by his anti-hero Sherman McCoy. The eighties, a decade that comes in for much ridicule for precisely these details, is nonetheless firmly back in fashion this autumn and winter.

The trend arguably started with JW Anderson.

The 31-year-old designer is increasingly one who watches fashion’s direction and punches different co-ordinates into the GPS – in this case, steering us away from the vogue for all things seventies and moving us on a decade.

Soundtracked by The Human League, his autumn/winter 2015 collection, presented earlier this year in London, featured ruched boots, Lurex blouses and shoulder pads. Cork wedges, natural hair and boho blouses suddenly looked a bit limp, while any burgeoning nineties revival felt positively downbeat. The eighties formula of high-octane glamour, hard edges and glossy surfaces was a thrill.

References came thick and fast throughout many of this season’s collections. “Fashion’s decade dance continues,” says Ken Downing, fashion director at Neiman Marcus. “Excessive embellishments and adornment speak to the opulence of the eighties, and bold colours and aggressive prints add a New Wave point of view. The past redefines fashion’s future.”

Indeed. Balmain, with 29-yearold Olivier Rousteing at the helm, was a vision of eighties glamour: lush brights, boldas-brass jewellery, ruched cocktail dresses and – perhaps the ultimate eighties nod – 10-denier tights with stilettos.

Missoni had a Flashdance (1983)

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We just wanna have fun this season, as fashion, film and music return us to the 1980s in all that decade’s big-haired, big-shouldered glory, says Lauren Cochrane.

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The Reflex

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Takes on the eighties in the a/w 2015 shows at Paris Fashion Week, with (previous page) Balmain, (1) Saint Laurent, (2) Atelier Versace, and (4) Chanel; at Milan Fashion Week, with (3) Missoni and (8) Fausto Puglisi; and at London Fashion Week with (5) JW Anderson. 6. Michael Douglas in Wall Street (1987).

7. Susanne Bartsch at Le Clic in New York, 1986. 9. Bananarama in 1983. 10. A Christian Lacroix evening dress for his a/w 1989 haute couture collection.

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feel, with leggings and oversized tailoring, fused with a palette inspired by eighties interior design movement Memphis. Saint Laurent under Hedi Slimane, meanwhile, had the requisite rock take, recalling Madonna circa ‘Borderline’: ripped-up prom dresses, polka dots, punkish knits and peroxide. The sense of spectacle in fashion was back, too. See Versace’s glossy set and, for couture, Chanel’s casino. Ostentatious wealth, worthy of Gordon Gekko’s ‘greed is good’ Wall Street (1987) catchphrase, is fashionable again.

The trend isn’t restricted to your wardrobe. The influence of the decade is in everything from Taylor Swift’s album 1989 to the reopening of London’s Groucho Club, that most eighties of hangouts. Following 2013’s The Wolf of Wall Street, more narratives of that era are emerging. Cindy Crawford is working on a television series telling the story of supermodels, Grace Jones’s autobiography, 46 Baku.

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I’ll Never Write My Memoirs, was published in September, while New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) is currently showing an exhibition telling the story of eighties club legend Susanne Bartsch through clothes.

CNN launches its new series The Eighties in 2016 (Tom Hanks is a producer), with each episode highlighting notable people and events from the decade. Classic cars from the era are also big news at auction. Yuppie icons like the Ferrari Testarossa and Porsche Turbos of the time, until recently derided as flashy, are selling for record prices. Even big hair is making a comeback, thanks to starlets like Sky Ferreira and Gigi Hadid, who wear it with make-up worthy of a Robert Palmer video girl.

The hedonistic glamour that the eighties did so well – all champagne and proper cocktail dresses by designers such as Christian Lacroix, Gianni Versace or Azzedine Alaïa – draws the season’s collections together. Dressing up for a night on the town feels right after five years in which tasteful minimalist daywear has dominated. “We were looking at the early eighties, and countries where people were maybe not free to express themselves. The reaction was to put things together,” said JW Anderson of his collection. “It was built around party girls.”

Fausto Puglisi had a spin on the theme: “My collection is all about eccentric punks in a rococo palazzo in Venice,” he says. “For me, those years were about breaking the rules and making a statement.” In Puglisi’s hot-colour palette, bejewelled biker jackets and animal prints, we can definitely do that. By contrast, at Topshop Unique, late-eighties London was in the frame, with fresh-

VICTOR VIRGILE/GAMMA-RAPHO/PASCAL LE SEGRETAIN/ VENTURELLI/ ANTONIO DE MORAES BARROS FILHO/ STEVE JENNINGS/WIREIMAGE/ GARETH CATTERMOLE/JACOPO RAULE/PIERRE GUILLAUD/

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AFP/EBET ROBERTS/REDFERNS/ROSE HARTMAN/GETTY. PHOTOS 12/ALAMY. MAGIC CAR PICS/REX SHUTTERSTOCK. ENVISION/CORBIS.

“FASHION WAS MOVED ALL OVER THE PLACE BY MUSIC. ONE MINUTE WE WANTED TO LOOK LIKE SADE IN ALAÏA, THE NEXT IT WAS BANANARAMA.” faced art student types with bouncy hair, flushed cheeks and a penchant for tight leather pants. It was partly based on creative director Kate Phelan’s own memories of Central Saint Martins. “In Soho at that time there was a feeling that things were happening, a reason to get dressed up again with bar culture,” she recalls. “Everyone was a dandy even if they didn’t look like one.”

The eighties will be remembered as a period of prosperity and the confidence that comes with that.

Whether power dressing in an Armani suit or displaying the body beautiful in Alaïa, your clothes were bold statements of intent, and status symbols to boot. It’s a long way from the discreet luxury we are used to, such as a plain Céline sweater or Common Projects logo-less trainers. “It’s excess,” says Valerie Steele, the director of the museum at FIT. “Big pouf skirts, big sleeves, big, loose Japanese anti-fashion… [New designers] are reviving ideas about proportion and panache.”

In 2015, with parts of the world coming out of the recent recession, a bit of excess is permissible again.

Puglisi certainly sees parallels between the eighties and where his generation of designers want to take fashion today. “Being successful was still all right then and that is

why it’s relevant,” he says. “The millennial generation values work and success.”

If the ostentation of the decade has come with connotations of bad taste, it is being reassessed with the more obscure elements of the era coming to the fore.

“When looking at that period I think there is a stigma attached to it [but] some genius fashion came out of that era,” says Anderson. “Some.”

Iain R. Webb, who edited cult style magazine Blitz from 1981 to 1987, says that, in reality, it was “a huge period of experimentation. But that’s not the way it’s viewed now. Look closer and it’s not just shoulder pads and panstick make-up.”

Phelan agrees. “I think we get carried away with the Working Girl references,” she says.

“Fashion was moved by music in the eighties but we were all over the place. One minute we wanted to look like Sade in Alaïa, the next it was Bananarama.”

It’s this experimentation with identities, often in the clubs of London and New York, that moves the eighties references on from Dynasty and yuppies. The spirit of do-it-yourself inspires a generation of designers who live in a more corporate fashion world, where creativity and commerce are much closer bedfellows. “There was a lot of individualism and freedom [then], which appeals in an era of big corporations and fast fashion,” says Steele. And there may be another, and perhaps simpler, appeal. “The eighties were celebratory and that is what people are yearning for now, when everything is dark or ironic,” says Webb. “Sometimes you just want to say, ‘I like that because it’s fabulous’.”

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80s Feel: Back to the Future in 5 Steps The look: men

It’s time to shave the hipster beard and cultivate Freddie Mercury’s teethtickling mo. And from now on, a mullet is the only hairstyle you’ll be rocking. Think Kiefer Sutherland in The Lost Boys rather than Billy Ray Cyrus. You still have some standards.

The look: women

Leg-warmers! Ruffles!

Feathers! This is no time to hold back – the eighties were all about excess so release your inner magpie and go heavy on the glitter.

Balmain is your go-to label here. Those striped Lurex flares?

The pleated leather mini dress? We die.

The car

A Ferrari Testarossa Monospecchio, with its single wing mirror, launched (infamously) at the Lido nightclub in Paris in 1984. In red or white. Add a chest medallion and a blonde Olivia NewtonJohn lookalike for extra authenticity.

The drink

Make mine a large piña colada, and serve in a pineapple with neon straws and umbrellas. Generally, the more obscenely coloured the drink, the better, like one of those swimming-poolblue cocktails (whose ingredients remain a mystery to this day).

The tunes

Forget the eighties schmaltz and head for the Beastie Boys (left) or channel that Straight Outta Compton vibe (very 2015) with N.W.A’s radical debut.

It’ll sound a lot cooler blasting out of your Testarossa than, um, Fleetwood Mac or Hall and Oates.

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Sketches

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Green Fingers

CHRIS MCCOOEY/REX SHUTTERSTOCK.

Illustrations by CHARLOTTE DAY hat does a giant panda taste like? Leng Zhizhong from China would be the man to ask. Leng was convicted for killing and eating one in 1983, which he dished up to his wife garnished with turnips.

Apparently the flavour was disgusting so he fed the rest to his pigs, and to his sister.

Society puts a high value on the life of such animals.

Hypothetically, though, would mankind really be worse off if Ailuropoda melanoleuca died out? We like pandas because they’re cute. And because we funnel our collective guilt at the state of the planet through them.

Zoos do a roaring trade pulling in crowds to gawp at lions and elephants, with the unspoken hook being that we should see them now before they are all wiped out by poachers and dentists from Minnesota.

But what value does society put on thousands of plant species that are left to wither and die? Plants that provide food and medicine for millions are wiped out by deforestation, pollution, the introduction of alien species and the building of new dams, farms, roads, shopping malls and housing projects. Can we make the public love a vulnerable flower the way we love a polar bear cub? Can we make plants sexy?

Several organizations are trying.

The Kyoto Botanical Garden in Japan – founded in 1924, and perhaps better known as one of the best places to observe the cherry blossom trees in springtime – opened a new greenhouse this year within its 240,000sq m. Its aim is to educate visitors on efforts to preserve rare and endangered species of plants, such as Asarum pellucidum, a type of wild ginger that taxonomists believe has fewer than 100 examples remaining in rural Japan. It’s also hoped the new greenhouse will

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Cute critters and noble beasts capture the public’s imagination when it comes to conservation. But what about plants? The crisis in the equally endangered but decidedly less sexy science of biodiversity means biologists are working harder than ever to make us care, says Will Hide.

Top: Kyoto Botanical Garden, Japan. Left: botanical illustrations of endangered plant species including Snowdonia hawkweed (Hieracium snowdoniense), poke-me-boy (Acacia anegadensis) and wild ginger (Asarum pellucidum).

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act as a centre for research collaborations with the aim of reintroducing plants that are already extinct in the wild back to their former native habitats.

“We want visitors to understand the rarity of endangered plants and how they are influenced significantly by changes in their environment,” the director of the garden, Junichi Nagasawa, told the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.

The scale of the task at hand is underlined by findings from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). It publishes a Red List of endangered plants, just as it does for animals, and says there

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“THE POSITIVE NEWS IS THAT, WITH TECHNOLOGY AND KNOWLEDGE, WE CAN SAVE 99 PER CENT OF PLANTS. THE NEGATIVE NEWS? WE DON’T.” is an ongoing biodiversity crisis, with current species extinction rates for both flora and fauna being between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than they would be if humans didn’t share the planet with them.

Kyoto’s goal is echoed by botanical gardens across the world, many of which are engaged in documenting the shrinking habitats of endangered species and trying to highlight their destruction, as well as collecting vulnerable plants for seed banks.

“Plants are way more useful to us than animals,” says Carlos Magdalena, the tropical plant and waterlily expert at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in London. He grew up in Galicia, and learned botany from parents who ran a garden centre. He rolls his eyes when I remind him of the nickname given to him by a Spanish journalist, the ‘Plant Messiah’, not least because of his long hair and beard. “I think of my mother and the film Life of Brian [1979]. She would say I’m not the Messiah, I’m just a very naughty boy.”

Switching subjects to more pertinent matters, he becomes 50 Baku.

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1, 3 & 4. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 2. Dr Brett Summerell. 5.

Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan. 6. Cherry blossom in Kyoto. 7. The endangered golf ball cacti (Echinomastus mariposensis) and Virgin Island wire wist (Metastelma anegadense).

“I have a friend who said he would eat the last panda in return for saving half of all insects and plants. I know it sounds crazy but it’s true. To me, a Snowdonia hawkweed is as remarkable as a panda.”

(The last known Snowdonia hawkweed was believed to have been nibbled into extinction by a sheep in 1953, before miraculously reappearing on a Welsh mountainside three decades later.)

“The positive news is that there is nearly always something we can do, with technology and knowledge. We can save 99 per cent of plants. The negative news is that although we can do that, we don’t. Countries have to agree with each other and we need funding.

We have the potential to stop extinction, but it is happening on a daily basis.”

Similar sentiments are voiced by Dr Brett Summerell, the deputy executive director of science and conservation at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney, Australia.

Summerell talks of a recent fungal pathogen (myrtle rust) that jumped the Pacific from Brazil and which is specific to eucalypts and plants in that family. If eucalypts are affected, koalas will be, too, as eucalyptus leaves form the main part of their diet. Ten years down the line the results will be seen in terms of diminished animal and invertebrate numbers.

But what’s the way forward?

“Education for children is critical,” says Summerell. “Teaching them about sustainability at home, about sensible use of water and power, recycling and having an understanding of the diversity and the connected webs between plants, animals and ourselves. We need to inject a sense that plants are worth saving.”

Whether we achieve that goal remains to be seen. But at least steps are being taken to try to alleviate our environmental impact, even if the likes of the golf ball cactus, found in the Querétaro Mountains in Mexico, and the poke-me-boy tree from the British Virgin Islands don’t have the same moviestar good looks as a fluffy, cuddly panda.

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MIKE BOOTH/IMAGEBROKER/ALAMY. JAIME PLAZA. LEON NEAL/AFP/NICK HARVEY/GETTY. SIMONE COTTRELL. THANKS TO THEARTOFTRAVEL.NET.

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animated when talking about the state of the earth’s flora. “There are many areas in which we have yet to discover new plants, especially in places like Australia, Indonesia and South America, but on the other hand, of half a million plant species on the planet, perhaps one third are in danger.

“Rhinos are important, but rhinos need plants to eat, and when we try and replace fossil fuels, we turn to plants. We need to keep reminding people how necessary plants are. Big animals get the attention but the smallest plants need just as much notice.

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From a gypsy childhood and a surprise adoption to running away to pursue her career, artist Lita Cabellut’s story has both light and dark at its heart, says Nancy Durrant.

Sketches

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Telling Tales Photography by VALENTINA VOS

here are some people for whom the term ‘live wire’ seems to have been specially coined. The Spanish-Catalan artist Lita Cabellut is one of them. Meeting her at her home in The Hague, where she has lived since arriving in 1981 at the age of 19, almost penniless and without a word of English, let alone Dutch, you are taken aback by her energy. A tiny, black-haired dynamo of 54, she talks with passion, humour, and an almost unnerving focus.

We sit in the courtyard – the inside of her home, which used to be a factory, resembles a turn-of-the-century Italian villa.

Visitors, her long-time friend and assistant Christina tells me, are astonished when they walk through the door. Cabellut’s studio assistant, Alain, and her youngest son, Luciano, bring us ornate china cups of fresh coffee, almond biscuits and fat grapes, and sit companionably by as if it’s a family party.

Which, in a way, it is. It’s clear that Cabellut inspires great affection and loyalty from those around her – everyone chips in once or twice, to elucidate the stories and ideas that come tumbling out of her mouth, or to help when she occasionally forgets an English word.

Cabellut’s work, mostly painting but also film-making and photography, is as dramatic as her person. “For me, painting

Lita Cabellut at her studio in The Hague, the city she has called home since 1981.

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is a terrible act of violence,” she says, discussing her most recent series, Impulse, on display in October at Opera Gallery in London. “Whoosh, shwoop,” she continues, waving her arms, “I really paint like, ‘hwargh!’” You can see it. Her vast canvases are a combination of meticulously rendered portraits and what looks like an attack with spatters of paint.

They close in on the faces and figures to the point that they are almost uncomfortable in their intimacy. “Do you think they are too aggressive?” she asks me, as

“PAINTING IS A TERRIBLE ACT OF VIOLENCE. I REALLY PAINT LIKE ‘HWARGH!’” YOU CAN SEE IT. we look at the Impulse portraits – young, beautiful women who look out of the canvas with an unmistakable challenge. I shrug, and tell her I think women should be aggressive. She beams.

Though she has been working as an artist since graduating from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in the Netherlands in the early 1980s, it is only in the last five or so years that Cabellut’s work has achieved worldwide renown, with successful exhibitions in Dubai, 54 Baku.

Paris, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Seoul and her birthplace of Barcelona. She works in series, saying that for her, each set of paintings makes up a fixed narrative. She describes herself several times as “a storyteller” – these tales, told through her work, are about anything from the relationship between beauty and violence to the way that the West views Asia, or explorations of historical figures. The most recent series comprises 16 works, “I stop the moment the story is finished,” she says. “When I don’t have the next page, I don’t have the next painting. But with [the series on] Frida Kahlo, I couldn’t stop!”

Cabellut’s artistic inspirations are clear – her compositions announce their debt to Velázquez, Rembrandt and Goya.

How those inspirations came into Cabellut’s life, however, is another astonishing story.

Born into what she describes as a “gypsy” family and abandoned by her mother, who worked as a prostitute, Cabellut grew up on the streets of Barcelona. She had little education, and certainly no exposure to art, though it is, she thinks, inherent. “In the orphanage I made up plays and stories, so art was always very close to me but in another way.”

She recalls being fascinated by

1. Impulse 8 (2015) from the Impulse series by Lita Cabellut.

2 & 4. The artist’s painting studio at her home in The Hague, with further works from her Impulse series. 3, 5 & 6. The artist at home.

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oil-slicked puddles in the street.

“I would be with a stick, moving it, and the colours would change. I spent hours like that.”

Then, in a bizarre twist, Cabellut was suddenly adopted, aged 12, by a wealthy family from a village outside Barcelona. She still has no idea why they did it, though Luciano thinks that some enormous secret has died with those who could have shed light on the story. The adoptive mother, Paquita, was 58 at the time; her husband – of whom Cabellut never even saw a picture – already dead. “I asked her, and she just said, you are the third child that I never had,” says Cabellut – her son, born the same year as Cabellut, had died at birth.

Paquita opened up a new world for her adoptive daughter.

“One day, she said, ‘We are going to Madrid this weekend

COURTESY OPERA GALLERY.

“AN ARTIST TRIES TO UNDERSTAND THINGS THAT DO NOT HAVE EASY ANSWERS.” and you will go with me to the Museo del Prado’,” Cabellut recalls. “I remember going in – and my life changed completely.”

The first thing Cabellut saw was The Three Graces by Rubens.

“Now I don’t like it at all but then, I was like [gasp]! And I said to her, ‘I am going to do this’.”

“So then, for all my vacations, I was in the Museo del Prado.

Now it’s been renovated but before, I knew exactly where everything was. Where you could smoke a cigarette… it was beautiful.”

It was arranged that Cabellut would take art classes with a local painter. She laughs at the memory. “You can imagine, he was 80 years old, his cigarette was like a crustacean, I think it was a permanent part of his lip.” Though the old man struggled with this headstrong rebel (she recalls stealthily inhaling the turpentine when he went out to buy something), they evidently managed. “From once a week, it became two, three times a week. And then when I was 18 I said to my family, ‘I want to go to art school’. And they said, ‘No. Art school is for hippies’.” They wanted her, she says, still incredulous, to become a lawyer.

She didn’t. At 19, having saved all her money, she bought a one-way ticket to the Netherlands. “I have, I think,

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three moments when I was deeply happy, and one of them was in the aeroplane,” she says.

“I said, ‘This is my life and I’m going to live now how I want to live’.” For a child who had never felt a sense of belonging, it was a profound shift.

“When I was adopted, I didn’t have a choice,” she explains. “Of course I was very happy that it happened, but at 19 it was very clear for me: you have the chance to choose your own life, and this chance I’m going to take.”

The extremes of her past go some way to explaining the dichotomy of darkness and light in Cabellut’s work. There is, she agrees, an inescapable undercurrent of melancholy.

“An artist tries to understand things that do not have easy answers,” she says. “You want to see under the world, what is hiding there. The process to these things sometimes is painful. You realize we put so

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much value on things that are not even good for human beings. So when you are aware of this, the melancholy and the darkness must be there.

Ignorance brings happiness.”

And yet there is joy, too. She is a person of the present, Cabellut says, and a believer in people.

Humanity in its many forms, its virtues and its flaws, fills her canvases. “The ideas [for my work] come from now: watching the movies, the television, hearing the street, the people.

“To reach the things that you want,” she continues, “you will have some damage. That is part of the deal, because you are alive. If you are at the end of your story and you don’t have bruises, I will say, ‘what have you been doing? You missed life!’”

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‘Lita Cabellut: Impulse’ is at Opera Gallery, London from 13 to 31 October. operagallery.com 55 Baku.

Autumn Issue

JAMES DAWE. RICHARD HAUGHTON.

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Thought I told you to meet me?

A long way from I5 Raise a bolleke to the king!

Mila 23, end of the road 100% agave azul There’s pearls in them oysters

ight now Christopher Kane, the multi-awardwinning British fashion designer, has a thing about grapefruit. A waitress delivers a whole one to our table on the terrace of Shoreditch House and sends Kane into peals of laughter. He was expecting segments. “Grapefruit is so good for you. It makes you feel fuller and helps with insomnia,” he says. Kane is not just excited by grapefruit but also by Elle Macpherson’s powdered green superfoods that he sprinkles over everything.

To run a creative business, 33-year-old Kane needs good energy and the past 18 months have been demanding professionally as well as emotionally. He lost his mother just before his autumn/winter show in March, and last year 58 Baku.

He dresses America’s First Lady and the A-list but thanks to his huge energy, quick humour and strong family values, the British designer Christopher Kane remains firmly a man of the people.

Words by HARRIET QUICK Illustrations by JULIA PELZER

Professor Louise Wilson, his beloved tutor at Central Saint Martins, passed away.

He also opened his first store in Mount Street in London’s Mayfair – a serene, marbleclad space designed by architect John Pawson that is the perfect antidote to Kane’s fiery designs. The luxurious store is the first fruit of the 2013 deal that brought the brand into the stable of Kering, François Pinault’s luxury goods conglomerate.

The brand is soon to launch a line of sneakers, with flattering shapes in leather and lace, as well as an e-commerce site that has taken numerous iterations and headaches to get right. As Kane points out, as a consumer you assume everything in digital just ‘happens’. “If only!” he says. That’s on top of the day job – designing men’s and women’s catwalk collections, the resort and pre lines and accessories with the verve, wit and vivacity that he has become known for. “Oh, gawd! How to describe Christopher Kane?

I don’t know,” says the designer in his laconic Scottish style.

“It is just stuff! Just kidding.

What was the word someone used recently? Iconoclast? I’m no angel slayer! I’m a Catholic but I do push the boundaries.

I’m disruptive and I like to challenge perceptions,” he says.

Kane’s knack is for making head-turning fashion, whether it is worn on the streets of east London or in White House reception rooms. In June he dressed Michelle Obama for a visit to 10 Downing Street.

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passion for acid colours, and his fondness for seasonal motifs (rope patterns, wavy-cut PVC pockets and necklines, safetybuckle belts, gobstopper crystal buttons and giant zips have all featured) delivers clothes with a cult-like punch. The First Lady might favour a fit-andflare dress while at the other end of the scale, FKA Twigs, the much-lauded dancer and musician, and actor Robert Pattinson’s fiancée, can wow at the Met Gala wearing Kane’s romantic Lovers Lace dress that was a standout of his autumn/ winter 2015 show. “FKA Twigs has a unique sensibility and dresses well without having a stylist. She’s just got ‘it’,” says Kane. “The lace was not designed to provoke or be pornographic. It came about from a life drawing class that we did as a team. There were these beautiful drawings of figures embracing, touching, or just about to, and I wanted to turn them into silhouettes,” he adds.

The striking motifs were made in delicate lace and intricately pieced together by specialist technicians at a lace factory in

“I never got to meet her but we worked with her stylist,” he explains. “She sent some pictures of what she liked and it was about what we could do in a short space of time.

Michelle Obama has an athletic, toned body so we wanted to emphasize that but in a subtle way with the floral embroidery.

Apparently she is so nice and you can tell that from her pictures, with her smile and sense of ease – and you would need those in her situation.”

While Kane himself may struggle to describe his aesthetic, the fruits of his labour and that of his creative director, 38-year-old sibling Tammy, and the rest of the team can be seen in 150 stockists across the world. It is also reflected in the love his customers have for him, Alexa Chung, Emma Watson and Samantha Cameron included.

“Christopher’s signature style is one that is cool and wearable; he understands perfectly how to balance high and low,” says Natalie Kingham, womenswear buying director at Matchesfashion.com.

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“WHAT WAS THE WORD SOMEONE USED RECENTLY? ICONOCLAST? I’M NO ANGEL SLAYER! I’M A CATHOLIC BUT I DO PUSH THE BOUNDARIES. I’M DISRUPTIVE AND I LIKE TO CHALLENGE PERCEPTIONS.” “For autumn/winter 2015 he paved the way for a new way of dressing with clashing Lurex and lamé that felt rich and luxurious and was a real shift from the 1970s trend that has been around lately. My favourite runway show was his Frankenstein-inspired collection with the sugar-pink, transparent coat, skirt and dress with black vinyl tape.” She adds, “I also think his graduate collection will go down in history as being iconic – he still uses the crystal ring pulls from those dresses on his bags today.”

Women look savvy, sexy and a little bit perverse in his designs. His love of ladylike tropes such as lace and chiffon, twinsets and pleat skirts, his 60 Baku.

Switzerland. “They are brilliant at what they do and they want everything to succeed,” says Kane, who has access to all manner of specialists now his brand is part of the Kering group. He is currently having samples of the Lovers Lace dress framed.

These head-turning designs are part of Kane’s genius. He fuses the delicate with the raw, the romantic with the banal, to create electrifying work.

“His pieces are incredibly special. He manages a balance of nostalgia, wit, femininity and form which is completely unique,” explains Francesca Burns, stylist and Vogue contributor. “I am lucky enough to have pieces from every

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DAVE J HOGAN/MIKE MARSLAND/WIREIMAGE/IAN GAVAN/ TIM P. WHITBY/GETTY. REX SHUTTERSTOCK.

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Champions of Christopher Kane’s designs (1) Saoirse Ronan and (2) Alexa Chung.

3. Kane in his studio in London. Christopher Kane shows at London Fashion Week, with (4) s/s 2014, (5) s/s 2011, (6) a/w 2015, and (7) a/w 2011.

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single one of Christopher’s collections. You feel amazing when you wear his clothes and they’re always complimented.”

The motif of autumn/winter 2015 is the 1980s-tinged lightning bolt that darts across silk cocktail dresses. He and Tammy do this with such conviction that the Kane ‘mark’ is irreducible. “We go up and down like yo-yos. We are like Siamese cats and we can be evil but we love each other,” says Kane of the sibling dynamic.

While Christopher is the big ideas man, Tammy, a textiles graduate, knows how to turn those ideas into commercial clothes. “Before a collection, Tammy and I really get our heads down – we just know when something’s right, we get that gut feeling. If anything looks remotely similar to anything else, we cut it up! You need to do your own thing,” says Kane. In a fashion world replete with history, references and images, it’s hard to magnify a point of view but essential to do so. We invest in designer fashion because of its vision; luxury materials and great workmanship remain a given.

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Perhaps it was the hours that the young Kane spent poring over fashion magazines (he was obsessed with Versace’s Mediterranean sizzle) and watching his older sisters getting dressed to go out, and even the moody grey skies of his native Motherwell in Scotland, that helped consolidate his vision. His father worked as a draughtsman and his mother raised the family of five children. “My mum and me and Tammy, we were close.

All my siblings are older so often it would be us three in the house,” he recalls. Largerthan-life characters, childhood memories and obsessions still feed his imagination. “My ma was really tough, resilient but 62 Baku.

“EVERY SEASON, WE PREDICT THE FUTURE WITH THE COLLECTIONS AND THAT’S HARD ENOUGH BUT YOU HAVE TO JUST DO IT. IT’S TOUGH BEING CREATIVE EVERY DAY.”

a softie underneath and I think a lot of Scottish women are like that. She would always say, ‘What’s for you won’t go past you’ and she’s so right,” says Kane about the gift of talent.

I met Kane for the first time while he was preparing for his MA show at Central Saint Martins and while I was scouting for new talent to feature in a portfolio for British Vogue. Kane was working on a series of stretch-lace bandage dresses that were fastened with rings and giant safety pins. His idol, Donatella Versace, had donated fabrics.

Each exquisitely detailed dress ingeniously raised body-con, rock-tart garb into something goddess-like. That Kane looked like a young Jim Morrison made the whole package very impressive.

Right from the beginning, Kane attracted support. Louise Wilson was behind him, as was a whole swathe of the British fashion industry including casting director Russell Marsh, who pulled in bold-faced models for his first show at London Fashion Week in 2006.

His collection of fluoro bandage dresses, shown against the bucolic background of London’s Holland Park, created a deluge of attention. “A Star is Born”, announced the headlines.

In fashion, however, there is a long way to go between ‘arriving’ and staking your claim on the design world in a meaningful way.

Over the years Chris and Tammy have built the business with sheer hard graft and determination. Within that time Kane has established his style lexicon that encompasses saucy chiffon and lace skirts and slips, psychedelic embellishments, spins on twinsets, biker jackets, kinetic cocktail dresses, elegant tailoring and now snazzy handbags (fastened with safety belt-style buckles) and shoes.

He has also benefitted from working on Versace’s diffusion range, Versus, as creative director (2009–12), a move that gave him an international name and global platform.

“Working with young, talented people and seeing them grow and develop as I have seen Christopher do over these years, is one of the most rewarding parts of my work.

I wish him all the best for the development of his own line.

He will always have my total support,” said Donatella fondly at the time of his departure.

His insatiable eye absorbs everything. The stickers and graffiti he once saw in a photograph of a teenager’s bedroom might prove a starting point for a laser-cut holographic print; origami folds might inspire a cut; or clerical vestments a silhouette. The look and colours of 1960s kitchen-sink dramas, figures from his own upbringing, rodeo girls, cricket uniforms, erotic botanical drawings and dinosaurs have all come into play in his collections. He is also an arch social observer.

As we sit by the rooftop pool at Shoreditch House, a swimmer in giant goggles holding a cherubic baby in a printed waterproof diaper gets the once-over.

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He and Tammy are passionate consumers of fashion and know what it’s like to itch and yearn to wear something. “I like things, then pretend not to like them but secretly I love them and think ‘screw this!’ I buy two of everything – maybe it’s a Scottish thing – one is for smart and one for everyday wear,” he says. “I love Prada menswear – the fit is so good – Saint Laurent and Gucci. I like being seduced right from the beginning. But the sparkle can dull when you see too much of one thing and you want to move on to the new. I’m a victim of that as well,” says Kane of the mania of desire.

His wardrobe and lifestyle as well as his business have benefited from the 51 per cent stake Kering took in his brand in 2013.

“When we met with François Pinault, it felt so good and organic and we felt safe. He is direct and realistic, which is uncommon in a high-powered position such as his,” Kane

reflects. “It was the right point for investment otherwise we would not be here today. We were stretched and were not being creative anymore and I was tired. We wanted to go with the best partner and Kering has a great relationship with other UK brands that I really respect – Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen, for example. It has helped me concentrate on what I’m good at doing. Pinault respects creativity and sees it as the core because that’s what makes you stand out,” says Kane.

CEO Sarah Crook, who joined from Stella McCartney in 2014, and Kane’s other sister, Sandra (an HR professional), are new additions to the expanding team. His three-year-old niece Bonnie is also a regular in the studio. “She’ll tell the girls to walk when we are doing fittings,” laughs Kane.

There are lots of feisty debates among the Kane siblings and also a lot of fun.

Kane knows how to ‘rip it up’ a bit. “Every season, we predict the future with the collections and that’s hard enough but you have to just do it. It’s tough

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LUKE MACGREGOR/REUTERS/CORBIS. RABBANI AND SOLIMENE PHOTOGRAPHY/JEFF J MITCHELL/ DAVID M. BENETT/GETTY.

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1. Samantha Cameron at a reception for London Fashion Week 2011 wearing a Christopher Kane skirt. 2. Kane’s Lovers Lace dress worn by FKA Twigs at the Met Gala, New York, 2015. 3. Michelle Obama visiting Downing Street, London in a Christopher Kane dress. 4. (from left) Christopher Kane, Nefer Suvio and Nick Rhodes at the Serpentine Gallery summer party, London, 2015.

5. Jo Sykes, Sarah and Gordon Brown, Christopher Bailey, Harold Tillman and Christopher Kane at a reception celebrating 25 years of British fashion in Downing Street, 2009. 6. Stella Suge, Natalie Massenet and Christopher Kane in London, 2014.

being creative every day when the computer says ‘no’ – you become a brat,” says Kane, tapping his brain. “You can’t force it and then all of a sudden – ping! ping! You get it.”

What we might get for the new season could be a red and blue velvet-collared city coat, a lightning-bolt lace sheath or a divine heartbeat red-lace column dress from the resort collection. “Being in love and also being heartbroken this year made me think about where the heart symbol is from.” Wearing one’s heart on one’s sleeve this season (as opposed to in an Instagram feed) is a very Kane way of creating passion. And isn’t that the point of fashion?

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They form the holy trinity of art-rich European capitals, but which wins top spot on the cultural city break wishlist? Kate Neave flies the flag for London, Shirine Saad champions Paris, while William Cook makes the case for Berlin.

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V Paris V Berlin

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PAWEL LIBERA/STEVE LORILLERE/@BY FELDMAN_1/THOMAS SAMSON/AFP/GETTY. LIONEL DERIMAIS/FABRIZIO BENSCH/REUTERS/CORBIS. STEPHANE GAUTIER/SAGAPHOTO.COM/ALAMY.

IN THREE WORDS: Star-charged superpower.

THE SCOOP

The London art market bubble is not about to burst anytime soon. With no one single scene, London is a schizophrenic frenzy of activity fuelled by gutsy new talent and international interest. This season London is feeling feminist. Galleries are uncovering a whole new landscape of overlooked female talent – check out Katherine Bernhardt at Carl Freedman and Rachel Rose at The Serpentine. The hyperactive art scene already has an infectious buzz but it gets an extra shot in the arm as the international art crowd flocks in for Frieze.

Those in the know won’t miss satellite fair 1:54 for their fix of global perspectives (it’s a shame that another fair, The Immigrants, has been postponed) but the highlight will be the annual evening of performances at the David Roberts Art Foundation.

London

By KATE NEAVE

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All eyes are on Damien Hirst’s new 3,500sq m gallery and its inaugural exhibition of the trippy, abstract paintings of John Hoyland – an artist who, despite Hirst’s admiration, one curator told me, “no-one had heard of until this year”.

Alex Farquharson takes up his new post as director of Tate Britain, but will he be able to hit the refresh button on their plummeting visitor numbers? Is the major money power still exclusively male? Mention Samara Scott, Jesse Darling and Heather Phillipson – three talented young London names all bringing it for the girls.

LUKE MACGREGOR/REUTERS/CORBIS. CANADA GALLERY, NEW YORK AND CARL FREEDMAN GALLERY, LONDON. COURTESY RACHEL ROSE AND PILAR CORRIAS GALLERY. COURTESY JACK BELL GALLERY. © THE JOHN HOYLAND ESTATE. PRUDENCE CUMING ASSOCIATES. ALEX HIDALGO/COURTESY DAVID ROBERTS ART FOUNDATION. COURTESY THE SUNDAY PAINTER. COURTESY HEATHER PHILLIPSON AND RUTH CLARK. COURTESY JESSE DARLING. LUCY A. SAMES.

Previous spread: 1. The Houses of Parliament and the London Eye. 2. Musée Picasso, Paris. 3. Frieze Art Fair, London, 2014. 4. The Paris skyline. 5. Paris’s 13th arrondissement.

6. The largest remaining part of the former Berlin Wall. 7. Berlin’s landmark Television Tower.

This spread: 1. Donuts, Poptarts and a Cigarette (2015) by Katherine Bernhardt. 2. Still from Palisades in Palisades (2014) by Rachel Rose.

3. Untitled (Mask) (2013) by Gonçalo Mabunda at the 1:54 fair. 4. Damien Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery.

5. Gender Baby (2014)

by Planningtorock at the David Roberts Art Foundation. 6. Scando 2.10.80 (1980) by John Hoyland. 7. Hanami (2014) by Thomas Demand at the Frieze Art Fair, London, 2014. 8. Installation view of Harvest (2014)

by Samara Scott at The Sunday Painter.

9. Installation view of Heather Phillipson’s exhibition ‘sub-fusc love-feast’ at Dundee Contemporary Arts, 2014. 10. Enclave independent art space in Deptford. 11. Alan Kane at DKUK. 12. Bust (2014)

by Jesse Darling.

HOT HANGOUTS

Get your fix of fizz at one of the giddy whirlwind of parties at new galleries gracing Mayfair this season. But you’re more likely to see the freshest faces at one of Peckham’s gutsy new spots. Recent addition to the scene DKUK is showing Jack Strange at its hair saloncum-gallery space, so you can get a cut and blow-dry with your contemporary art.

The super-adventurous will head to Deptford to check out the trailblazers at eight experimental independent spaces at incubator Enclave.

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Paris

IN THREE WORDS: Glamorous, edgy, buzzing.

THE SCOOP

By SHIRINE SAAD

After decades spent in the shadows of London and New York, Paris’s art scene is booming with mega collectors opening up their collections, a slew of new influential curators, museums (including the Fondation Louis Vuitton and renovated Musée Picasso) and plenty of underground venues (check out bohemian Belleville for street art as well as alternative spaces like the Comptoir Général and artist-run spaces). The lucky few are already primped for the FIAC fair’s star-studded Yellow Ball and VIP exhibition openings in October, while more adventurous art insiders head to OFFICIELLE, the fair’s independent outpost at Les Docks on the River Seine.

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CONVERSATION STARTERS

Among scandalous topics are the major lawsuit facing Beaux Arts Magazine’s Nicolas Bourriaud, who is being expelled from the company. Yvon Lambert’s influential gallery closed a few months ago, ending an era for amateurs of avant-garde art; members of his team have opened a new gallery, Until Then, in the periphery of St Ouen. The next awaited museum opening is not actually in Paris, but in Arles, where the enigmatic art patron Maja Hoffman has hired Frank Gehry to erect a cultural utopia in an industrial building: the Luma Foundation. Parisian art insiders have booked their flights for Lebanese mogul Tony Salamé’s art foundation opening party near Beirut in October, built by star architect David Adjaye. As for the new luminaries of the art scene, they include Guillaume Bresson, Camille Henrot and Latifa Echakhch.

FOC KAN/WIREIMAGE/GIUSEPPE CACACE/FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP/FREDERIC STEVENS/BERTRAND RINDOFF PETROFF/BARBARA ZANON/GETTY. MICHAEL JACOBS/PATRICK FORGET/SAGAPHOTO.COM/ALAMY. TOM CRAIG/DEMOTIX/TUUL & BRUNO MORANDI/MARKUS LANGE/ROBERT HARDING WORLD IMAGERY/STEPHANE GRANGIER/CORBIS. G. R. HADDAD. KRISTEN PELOU. THOMAS MILLET.

HOT HANGOUTS

For bubbles and gossip sessions, artsy crowds head to Les Docks’ Wanderlust (owned by the Silencio team), a massive venue perfect for sunset drinks and sunrise dancing to techno and minimalist beats. Not too far away is the chic Nüba, where, in the spirit of sister club Le Baron, the door policy is tight and the crowd is posh.

New hip hotels for lounging and imbibing include Hôtel Bachaumont, Edgar and Le Grand Pigalle. There, and in the new boho areas further out of town, fashion, art and money mingle joyously. Now, let the speculating begin.

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1. Frank Gehry’s Fondation Louis Vuitton. 2. Musée Picasso. 3. Fantôme (2011)

by Latifa Echakhch.

4. Alternative space Le Comptoir Général. 5. Les Docks on the River Seine.

6. Nicolas Bourriaud. 7. The Belleville quarter. 8. Yvon Lambert. 9. Tony Salamé.

10. Halloween 2012 at Le Baron club. 11. Nüba. 12.

Camille Henrot wins the Silver Lion at the 55th Venice Biennale, 2013.

13. Visitors view a work

by Guillaume Bresson at FIAC, Paris. 14. Wanderlust.

15. Edgar. 16. Hôtel Bachaumont. 17. Boutique hotel Le Grand Pigalle.

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IN THREE WORDS: Grungy, spooky, experimental.

THE SCOOP

When the Berlin Wall came tumbling down in 1989, Europeans worried that Berlin would become the centre of a new military superstate. Instead, it’s become an entirely demilitarized, dynamic centre of the arts. What happened? How did this war-torn metropolis become Germany’s cultural capital? Some say it started with Christo’s wrapping of the Reichstag in 1995, but it goes back much further than that.

Flattened by the RAF and the Red Army, Berlin’s bombed-out buildings made great ad-hoc galleries, and the postwar division of the city meant Berlin ended up with twice as many official arts spaces, too. The legacy is a city with two competing artistic traditions – communist and capitalist. Since reunification, it’s that clash of cultures which has made Berlin unique, attracting artists of all kinds (David Bowie and Iggy Pop famously shared a flat here in the late 1970s). Crucially, Berlin is cheap. Artists can afford to live and work in the heart of town. As Berlin’s former mayor Klaus Wowereit once put it, Berlin is ‘poor but sexy’. It’s that thrift store chic which makes the German capital such a creative place.

Names to drop include Franz Ackermann, a colourful abstract painter who has a studio here, and Thomas Demand, who creates strange artificial versions of familiar urban landscapes. For figurative painting, check out Daniel Richter; if photography’s your thing, Wolfgang Tillmans.

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Berlin

By WILLIAM COOK

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Berlin’s favourite foreigner, British architect Sir David Chipperfield is rebuilding Museum Island, a gigantic jumble of state museums in the middle of the River Spree, including the new James Simon Galerie. It’ll be Europe’s most spectacular exhibition space. Berliners are less keen on rebuilding the Stadtschloss, the royal palace demolished by the East Germans after the Second World War. Tell your Berlin pals you’d far rather they rebuilt the Palace of Culture, a trash-aesthetic landmark torn down by the West Germans after reunification. Few Berliners miss the bad old days, but ‘Ostalgie’ (nostalgia for East German bric-abrac) endures. The flea market on Bernauer Strasse is a great hunting ground for communist curios.

IAIN MASTERTON/URBANMYTH/EDEN BREITZ/ALAMY. WOLFGANG KUMM/AFP/CARSTEN KOALL/OSKAR POSS/ULLSTEIN BILD/GETTY. HOLGER HOLLEMANN/EPA/IAIN MASTERTON/INCAMERASTOC/CORBIS. MICHAEL DANNER/ LAIF/CAMERA PRESS. © STIFTUNG PREUßISCHER KULTURBESITZ/IMAGING ATELIER. COURTESY DAVID CHIPPERFIELD ARCHITECTS. RANDY HARRIS/REDUX/EYEVINE. COURTESY KW INSTITUTE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART.

1. Thousands crowd to see the wrapped Reichstag building in 1995, the work of artist Christo. 2. Daniel Richter poses in front of his work Strangers of Comfort (2011) in Hanover. 3. The Berlin Wall Memorial. 4. Cafe in artsy Kreuzberg. 5. A sculpture in the ‘Body Pressure’ exhibition at Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof Art Museum.

6. Wolfgang Tillmans.

7. A rendering of the James Simon Galerie.

8. Construction of the new Stadtschloss Berlin. 9. Mauer Park flea market. 10. Hinrich Baller apartments in Schöneberg. 11. Part of East Side Gallery’s outdoor monument to reunification.

12. ‘Fire and Forget: On Violence’ exhibition at the KW Institute.

13. Michelberger Hotel.

HOT HANGOUTS

Now East Berlin is full of tourists, hip Berliners are moving west. Old eastern hotspots like Prenzlauer Berg are out. Western districts like Schöneberg are back in. Today, the hippest part of town is Kreuzberg - a dead end before the Wall came down, now a lively enclave in the heart of the reunited city. It’s scruffy and chaotic, but that’s just the way Berliners like it. The best gallery is the Hamburger Bahnhof, a modern art museum in an old train station. The best outdoor site is the East Side Gallery – a paradise for graffiti artists, located on the biggest surviving section of the Berlin Wall. To check the city’s creative pulse, head for Michelberger. Housed in an old factory, this hotel, bar and restaurant is a buzzy rendezvous for up-and-coming artists of every kind. KunstWerke (aka KW), Berlin’s leading contemporary art space, is the best starting point for a tour around the eclectic pop-up galleries of Mitte.

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The past comes alive amid the stone streets, crooked houses and mountain woods of the ancient Azerbaijani village of Lahic.

Photography by CRAIG SALMON Styling by SORAYA DAYANI

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Previous spread. Sweaters and trousers by Rosetta Getty, socks by Maria La Rosa, shoes by CĂŠline This page. Dress by Peter Pilotto Opposite. Sweater and skirt by Victoria Beckham, socks by Maria La Rosa, shoes by Kenzo, headpiece by Lola Hats

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This page. Sweater and trousers by Joseph, socks by Maria La Rosa, sandals by Joseph Opposite. Jacket and trousers by Stella McCartney, shoes by Veronique Branquinho, headpiece by Eugenia Kim

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Previous spread. Cape, dress and shoes by Veronique Branquinho Opposite. Jacket and dress by Kenzo, hat by Y’s This page. Jacket, dress and boots by Y’s, socks by Maria La Rosa, hat by Lola Hats

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Previous spread. Dress, blouse, shoes and jewellery by Céline, socks by Maria La Rosa Opposite. Jacket and dress by Kenzo, socks by Falke, shoes by Kenzo This page. Jacket, skirt and blouse by Veronique Branquinho, socks by Falke, boots by Y’s

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This page. Coat and dress by Fendi, hat by Eugenia Kim Opposite. Cape by Burberry Prorsum, top and skirt by Dries Van Noten, hat by Lola Hats Hair Richard Scorer at Premier Hair and Make-up Make-up Karina Constantine at CLM using MAC Cosmetics Model Athena Wilson at Premier Model Management Casting Ben Grimes Fashion assistant Brittany Berger Photographer’s assistant Joseph Borduin Creative director Daren Ellis Producer Maria Webster

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O

nce upon a time painting was dead. It is hard to believe in the current fervour for the medium that it was seen as passé mere decades ago. Then Luc Tuymans came along with work that helped to reinvent the position of painting.

He made pigment hot.

Tuymans, 57, is one of the most celebrated painters of his time. The Belgian artist, who lives in Antwerp, has exhibited at the Venice Biennale and Documenta; he has shown at the world’s most renowned museums including the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, New York’s MoMA, Centre Pompidou in Paris and Tate Modern in London. His work regularly sells for seven-fgure sums at auction. He’s one of the big guns of contemporary art today.

He certainly looks the part, sitting in a modernist chair, chain-smoking in a private room at David Zwirner’s space in London, where I meet him.

His all-black outft contrasts against the milky blue of his eyes, which exude a sense of sharp intelligence and perhaps even a touch of confrontation.

Tuymans, who has written books on artists and curated exhibitions alongside his own work, knows his subject.

He is currently working on four exhibitions – a solo show at David Zwirner in New York entitled ‘Le Mépris’ [Contempt], an exhibition at the University of Edinburgh at the Talbot Rice Gallery, ‘Birds of a Feather’ (“partially about the idea of the Scottish Enlightenment”), an exhibition he is curating on Belgian abstraction at Parasol Unit in London in September and his major retrospective in Doha. Tuymans is a busy man.

Tuymans’s paintings are not always straightforward.

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Belgian painter Luc Tuymans is no stranger to controversy, but it’s his creative fearlessness that makes him and his work so radical and in demand.

Words by FRANCESCA GAVIN Photography by ALEX SALINAS

In exhibitions they are presented as an amalgam of associations and analogies, history and contemporaneity.

His work often draws upon found imagery and plays with ideas of translation and transformation. The results feel like comments on how images are formed, on the meaning of authenticity or how reality is remembered. Though he works with photographic images, flm is a strong infuence. “I come from a television generation,” Tuymans tells me. “There has been a long-standing fascination much more with the moving image or the flmed image than, let’s say, the photographic image. Ultimately it has to do with light and things that are ungraspable.”

There is a strong political strain to his work – his 2001 Belgium Pavilion at the Venice Biennale examined the country’s colonial history. Yet things are off-key. Whether it is the Holocaust or Isis or the far right, Tuymans’s take on these subjects comes with results outside expectation. As he puts it, “I don’t believe that artists and art can be truly political.”

Instead he sees the results as a form of commentary, a shadow, a translation of things through time. “If you look at all the shows I did about the Jesuits, or even the shows about the magic of Walt Disney theme parks, there has always been this interest in the theme of power. How power is constructed but also depicted,” he notes.

This is an artist highly aware of the effect of images. “I said very early on in my career that my entire work is based upon the idea of violence or the history of violence. But that can be different things – that can be from the gruesome element

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of mutilation, which is physical, to psychological violence. I’m very well aware of the impact of confrontational things… often confrontation actually has more of an impact than the idea of, let’s say, paradise, or the idea of happiness.” Violence is here but we are instead looking at the aftermath. It isn’t dark or bloody; the work is more insidious, subtler. “It’s a little bit like the Fritz Lang technique in M [1931], where you see a balloon and it is banging against the telegraph pole and you hear the crying and a little kid has died,” Tuymans explains, giving his approach a film context.

He works fast – most of his paintings are made in a day, though Tuymans emphasizes the “long, long, tedious period” of preparation, research, drawing and maquettes, “when all the imagery is assembled and analyzed” before the painting itself begins. The speed of the actual painting process has been something that has developed over time.

“It has to do with my short Previous spread: (left) Der Diagnostiche Blick V (1992) by Luc Tuymans, and the artist photographed

by Alex Salinas. This page: (main picture) Tuymans’s Antwerp office; (from left) Intolerance (1993) and The Shore (2014) by Tuymans. Opposite: (bottom left) Dad’s Heat (2013), and (right) Tuymans at work in his studio in Antwerp.

attention span – but also it is important for the intentionality in the work. Not to lose yourself in painting details, you really have to force yourself to that moment, which is quite harrowing in a sense. It is quite nervous. It is a build-up towards that one day. It is not like I paint every day, that’s not a possibility.”

He always paints away from anyone else and there is a sense of intimacy in the work – sometimes reflected in a smaller scale, though the works have grown bigger as his studio has over time. “I don’t project the image, but I draw it with a pencil in wet paint and that’s how the form actually grows.

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“EVERY IMAGE HAS A HISTORY OF ITS OWN. I COULD DO SOMETHING VERY SMALL BUT THE CONSEQUENCES CAN BE BIG, OR IT COULD BE THE OTHER WAY ROUND.”

PRIVATE COLLECTION. COURTESY DAVID ZWIRNER.

so that every canvas I eventually put onto a stretcher is different in size.”

His colour palette is quite recognizable with its swathes of greys and muted tones.

“It is quite inherent to the region I come from, we have mostly grey skies. But there is a luminescence in that grey sky which is particular. And I’m a big believer in tonality in terms of creating depth as reality within painting. This also means that it is very diffcult for a viewer to actually retain as a memory, which makes it all the more powerful,” he considers. “That is why the paintings will have to sort of resonate within somebody’s head. That makes it interesting because that gives you the idea of a deconstructive image much more than a static image.”

This isn’t, however, history painting with a capital H. “The idea of genre is still valid, but it’s totally inappropriate,” he says. “I think history painting in a clearly formulated way is something that goes much more back to the 19th century. Things can have a historical or political background at a moment in time but the idea of it being a genre is deluded and invalid. It can be anything, basically. Every image has a history of its own. I could do something very small but the consequences can be very big, or it could be the other way around.”

Some of Tuymans’s subjects are small, even domestic. One painting was of his father’s radiator. “Interiors are interesting because they are interiors. They also have an element of order. A very old painting that I made in 1986 called Hotel Room came out of the fascination that when you’re in a hotel room you can [trash] the hotel room. But whenever you leave, the order will be restored so that there is this

“YOU NEED DISTANCE. WHAT IS IMPORTANT IS THE AMOUNT OF SPACE BETWEEN THE VIEWER AND THE TWODIMENSIONAL WORK ON THE WALL – THAT IS WHERE THE EMOTIONS LIE.”

This page: (top right) Disenchantment (1990); (main image) Tuymans with a photograph of his painting Teacups (2012).

Opposite, clockwise from top left: the artist photographed by Alex Salinas; Hotel Room (1987); and the artist in his studio with his paintings Teacups and Die Nacht (2012).

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animosity, this anonymous element to it.”

There is something emotional in the works but where Tuymans himself sits within his work is hard to discern. “I’ve always made a big distinction between what I am and what the work is – they’re two different entities. There is also a sort of element of distancing yourself, which I think is important just in order to create the work,” the artist explains. “When I started out, the paintings were very existential. There was a sort of torturous element that finally led me to stop painting.

I felt suffocated and so worked with film instead for a while.”

This two-year break in the early 1980s allowed him to, as he has put it, “come back through this lens”. He explains: “You need distance. What is important is the amount of space that is between the viewer and the actual two-dimensional work on the wall – that’s where the emotions lie.”

Tuymans’s success has not been without glitches. He is currently embroiled in a legal case over one of his paintings, which referenced a photograph of a Flemish nationalist politician. The photographer, Katrijn Van Giel, accused him of plagiarism and, controversially, the Belgian court ruled in her favour; the case is currently being appealed. The ruling undermines the entire history of appropriation in art. Tuymans, like Richard Prince and Barbara Kruger before him, is not the first artist to be taken to court for alleged misuse of images, the

PRIVATE COLLECTION. COURTESY DAVID ZWIRNER.

technique of appropriation having formed the basis of contemporary art since the late 1970s. Indeed, photographs have been used as references since their invention.

“It is ridiculous because not only is it a different medium, this is the world we live in,” Tuymans states with passion. “There is going to be a retrial because the lawyers made a mistake, legally. But it goes further than that. The photographer is married to one of Belgium’s media tycoons, so it is not about the money.” The subject for Tuymans’s piece is the far-right politician, Jean-Marie Dedecker, which in itself raised eyebrows. “The politician had some airplay because of this,” he notes ironically. “There was a show that supported me with about 150 artists making works derived from the same image. He came to the opening and stayed for fve hours. He found it fantastic, of course.

“I have been quite outspoken in my disgust for Flemish nationalism, so this could easily be a political game,” he adds.

“We’re going to fght and win. There has been a global reaction to the case – I’m talking about 1.5 million entries on the web – so it is clear that it has shocked people.”

Away from the distractions of the courtroom, this autumn also sees Tuymans doing what he does best, with the largest ever exhibition of his work. His show, entitled ‘Intolerance’, at the QM Gallery Al Riwaq in Doha, Qatar, opens in October and will run until the end of January 2016.

It includes more than 150 works, with works on paper and maquettes as well as wall paintings and a new body of work.

In conjunction with the exhibition, he is making a public installation that is taking two years to create. “I’m going to make three mosaics the size of two football felds in front of the new Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, which will be located between the Museum of Islamic Art and the Museum of Heritage.” He has designed a mosaic before – a 1,600sq m piece created for MAS museum in Antwerp, based on his painting Dead Skull (2002) – which has an unexpected and arresting impact upon the location, especially when seen from an upper foor of the museum.

Despite riding the crest of a wave, Tuymans remains detached and in control yet he is a man whose passion for art and creation continues to thrive. “I like painting, my happiest moments are when I am in the studio painting,” he says quite dryly.

Tuymans brightens when his phone rings – it’s his wife – and his time is up.

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orning rain had varnished the mountainous region of Qax in northwest Azerbaijan. The green banks of the Qaracay River shone with a glossy veneer and the sharp smell of grass permeated the air. The gentle sun had heated the hills to a pleasant 24°C, and in the tiny villages that dot the valleys shepherds headed out to tend to their flocks. In Sarabash, a village only made reachable by road in the 1970s, mist hung in the trees and horses grazed among dozens of blue painted beehives. In the midst of this bucolic scene, a table had been set for us to try a rustic breakfast prepared by the villagers.

Rounds of firm and springy bread arrived first, complemented by tennis-ballsized scoops of homemade kizil (a type of berry) jam and farm fresh eggs. It was all so simple yet we knew immediately that we’d reached a special place.

Locals declared confidently that the rain that morning meant only one thing – “the end of summer” – but for the carloads of families who had just arrived at the hotels and guesthouses further down the valley, this didn’t matter a bit.

The late summertime rain was a welcome relief. The southern plains had sweltered for months 94 Baku.

Whether intricately shaped as parcels for meat or herb fillings, or as the bed on which sauces are served, dough is at the core of Azerbaijan’s food culture.

Photography by RICHARD HAUGHTON Styling by TOM WOLFE Words by CAROLINE EDEN

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and temperatures of 40–50°C had become typical. For these lowlanders, only the mountains offered a cooling respite.

Climate aside, there is another very good reason why the region of Qax is an everpopular getaway destination: the food. Currently celebrating its Year of Cuisine, this region is known for its hearty doughbased dishes.

To explore some of the typical – and more unusual – dough specialities we travelled on from Sarabash to the village of Ilisu, a short 10-mile drive from the small city of Qax. At the intersection of two steep valleys, Ilisu was once the capital of a sultanate that lasted from the 16th to the 19th centuries. Little of that period remains today, but the wooden box-windows of traditional houses evoke the bygone era.

Set back from the Qaracay River, the newly built Senger Qala Restaurant is one man’s vision of a fantasy castle built

TABLES BUILT INTO THE CLIFF SIDE OFFER VIEWS OF THE PEAGREEN COLOURED MOUNTAINSIDES THAT STRETCH SKYWARDS ABOVE THE RIVER. within fortifed stone walls. It has already become the star attraction of Ilisu, bringing in guests not only from Azerbaijan but also neighbouring Georgia and Russia.

The restaurant is vast, and is an indoors-outdoors affair. A few tables have been positioned high above, built into the cliff side on raised platforms, affording views of the peagreen coloured mountainsides that stretch skywards above the river. At ground level there is a tiki-style bar complete with life-size fgures dressed in fower garlands. But it is the cavernous room that acts as the 96 Baku.

Previous spread: Sarabash in northwest Azerbaijan and a herb-filled gyurz being made by hand. This spread, from far left: a street in Sarabash; qutabs with sumac; a herb-filled qutab being made; gyurz with a minced-beef filling, and then being cooked; right: gyurz with adjika, a hot spicy paste; and below: beef-filled gyurz sprinkled with herbs and butter.

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main indoors restaurant that is the show-stopper. Made to look like a giant cave, it is scattered with autumnal coloured rugs, heavy wooden furniture, gold samovars and stuffed woodland creatures. The spotlights have been made to look like stars and the whole scene suggests Tolkien’s Middle Earth.

In the orderly kitchen, a team of cooks works under the direction of Bayram Bayramov, a slim, softly spoken chef with clear, icy-blue eyes who grew up just an hour away from here.

In preparation for the different dough dishes, spring water, salt and flour stand ready on a large, square fourlegged wooden stand. Machira, a spirited and formidable cook who specializes in dough, quickly mixes the ingredients and kneads with her hands until the dough is malleable.

First she works on a batch of dumpling-like gyurz (in Qax they drop the ‘a’ from the more

IN PREPARATION FOR THE DIFFERENT DOUGH DISHES, SPRING WATER, SALT AND FLOUR STAND READY ON A SQUARE FOUR-LEGGED WOODEN STAND. commonly heard ‘gyurza’). On a good day – and with a little help from her team – Machira tells me that she can “easily make three or even four thousand gyurz”.

Her hands move fast as she places alycha (green plum), onion, salt and minced beef into each gyurz. The other ingredient that Machira sometimes uses is more unusual – air-dried veal. This meat will have been hung on a rack outside in the cold mountain air through the winter, then rehydrated and cooked. Machira also makes some vegetable gyurz that are simply loaded with dill, parsley and spring onion – “the holy trinity of flavours,” we joke.

After a lot of stirring to avoid the gyurz sticking, she carefully hooks them out of the pan using a huge slotted spoon.

They are immediately sprinkled with lemony sumac but not gatykh (like sour cream) as is used elsewhere in Azerbaijan.

Instead, they are served with a small bowl of garlic-laced water and another of cider vinegar.

Making it the Baku way: (far left, top) cutting diamond-shaped dough for khinkal; (main picture) the eight types of rolling pins used in the kitchen at Nakhchivan Restaurant, Baku; and (this page, from top) making gyurz with the braid along the edge of the dough. Far left, bottom: a plate of wintery areshta topped with cheese in Qax.

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Next comes surhullu.

Machira is a surhullu maestro, someone who is adept at the fne art of preparing these delicacies. It is all done by hand. Machira uses the sides of her palms, like a mini rolling pin, to make little pasta boats one at a time. Her fngers deftly roll up the edges so that they look like tiny canoes.

The pasta is boiled and then placed in a bowl, covered with beef stock and the cooked meat (in this case rehydrated veal intestines – not for the faint-hearted) is placed on top.

Cherry-red kizil berries add a splash of colour. This is proper mountain food – nourishing, wholesome and healthy.

Meanwhile, lunchtime diners arrive at the restaurant. Spring water is poured from clay vessels and plates of salad, gyurz and surhullu are served.

THEN, WITHOUT A PAUSE, HE MAKES A PLATE OF CHEESE ARESHTA. IT IS KNOWN LOCALLY AS A ‘FEEL-GOOD’ DISH, SOUL FOOD FOR MOUNTAINDWELLERS. On the tables are bottles of locally produced bright green tarragon soda called Tarkhun.

In the kitchen, chef Bayramov works on khinkal (small sheets of dough) with chicken and minced beef.

Flames lick above him as he fries the onion and flls the dumplings with the meat.

Then, without a pause, he makes a plate of cheese areshta, which looks a bit like tagliatelle. It is known locally as a ‘feel-good’ dish – soul food for mountain-dwellers.

An experienced chef who has worked in Georgia and Siberia, Bayramov tells me that his next dish is one of his fnest creations: a cheese roulade served with mountain honey.

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Top from far left: the different stages in making areshta in Baku.

Below: a finished dish of areshta topped with veal and herbs.

Opposite, bottom: scenery around the small village of Lekit near Qax. This page, bottom: cutting tiny pieces of dough to be filled with a dab of mince for dushbara; and a bowl of dushbara complete with chicken broth.

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A few minutes later, the plate is before me. Inside the light and fluffy rolled pancake is hot molten cheese.

It is chewy, creamy and tangy, and Bayramov tells me a bit more about it. “It is called motal cheese and it is the most expensive cheese in Azerbaijan,” he says. The softly pungent flavour comes from the fact that the cheese is kept inside goat’s hide, as seen in markets in Baku.

The local honey, slightly medicinal tasting, cuts through the fatty taste, adding a necessary sweetness.

The last dish is khinkal, made with cornflour. It is a simple, vegetarian dish and is called ‘qizqala’ locally. First, Bayramov mixes the cornflour with water and a pinch of salt, then the patties are dropped into boiling water while in another pan eggs and onions are scrambled together. A large plate is then liberally brushed with butter and the discs are laid down with the eggs and onions on top.

Simple and wholesome, this is the sort of food that sees mountain people through the cold winters.

Elsewhere in the surrounding hills, more casual picnics are taking place. Day beds and tables have been set up under shady canopies where tea is served from makeshift cafes.

By ribbon-like waterfalls that run off lime-coloured mossy hills, walkers stop to drink the fresh water that Qax is famous for. At night, in the impenetrable woods, wolves can be heard howling.

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The landscape, with its hidden caves and snake-like stretches of water, has a magical air that makes it hard to leave, but we do and soon we are back in busy Baku, where it is still high summer. We visit Nakhchivan, a smartly designed restaurant on Parliament Avenue, where they serve similar dishes to the ones we’ve enjoyed in Qax. Differences, though, are immediately apparent, such as the stainless steel kitchen and its high-tech gadgetry instead of the rustic tools of Senger Qala. The vast array of rolling pins on the table show that they will do the hard work, rather than hands.

The chefs show us some of their favourite dough-based creations. First, they roll out a basic dough using a long, thin rolling pin with a tapered end that sends puffs of flour into the air. This light, almost gauzy dough is then cut into strips to make areshta and folded to make qutabs filled with

pumpkin, herbs, barbaris (a type of spice) and minced beef. Below the workstations lie sheets of paper-thin dried lavash bread. Dough, in one shape or another, is everywhere.

Next, they move on to one of their signature dishes, dushbara. This is so labour intensive that two chefs work on it at the same time. First, they make dozens of postage-stamp sized pieces of dough and then fll them with the tiniest dab of mince. Then, when there are 60–70 wonton-like parcels, they are sealed up, very briefy boiled and dropped into a bowl of simmering chicken broth to make a satisfying soup.

Lunch at Nakhchivan suggests summer in a way that only light, airy qutabs, fresh areshta and bowls of salad can. However, as we sit down to eat, my thoughts return to Qax. There is something special about that place and the dough dishes created up there. Maybe it’s the remote mountain setting or the cold spring water, or perhaps it’s the simplicity of the cooking. Whatever it is, it is a winning and unforgettable formula.

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Opposite, from top: Chef Bayramov’s roulade with motal cheese; a pot with veal intestines for the surhullu; khinkal with chicken. This page, from top: the three stages of making surhullu, from making the dough to cutting the rolls and creating the boat-shaped parcels; a rack of air-dried veal; surhullu decorated with kizil berries.

Producer: Maria Webster.

Special thanks to Senger Qala, Qax and Nakhchivan Restaurant, Baku.

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From the Caspian Sea to the ancient rocks of Gobustan to the bright modernity of Baku's newest landmarks, artist and illustrator James Dawe recalls every detail of his recent trip to Azerbaijan.

104 Baku.

en build too many walls and not enough bridges.” These words by the physicist Sir Isaac Newton were the inspiration behind a recent exhibition of Iranian and Arab art at Kunst (Zeug) Haus in Rapperswil near Zurich this summer.

The Swiss show was one of a dozen important exhibitions of contemporary Middle Eastern art on view in museums across Europe and North America this year, marking a crumbling of walls all across the art world.

From Porto to Paris, from London to Los Angeles, museums are collecting and exhibiting modern and contemporary Middle Eastern art. Never before has this art been in such focus at an institutional level. Increasingly, the cartography of Western museums is expanding to encompass a more global art history.

Traditionally, art of the region has been relegated to the Islamic arts departments, while museums’ modern art departments remained oriented towards the West. In the 1960s Alfred H. Barr Jr., the influential first director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), acquired several works of Middle Eastern art.

But they weren’t included in the hanging of the museum’s permanent collection, which helped shape the canon on modern art. For decades, this art remained in storage. I call it a ‘closeted modernism’: the art remained marginalized, only passively acknowledged as part of a larger modern art movement.

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Western museums and galleries are finally taking contemporary Middle Eastern art seriously as curators bring it out of storage and give it its rightful place in the story of art today.

Shiva Balaghi investigates this momentous change to the history of art.

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Today, Middle Eastern art is regularly integrated into MoMA’s curatorial programme.

For example, as part of the exhibition ‘Scenes for a New Heritage: Contemporary Art from the Collection’ (until 10 April 2016), photographs by Lebanese artist Rabih Mroué are on display. The blurred colour photographs are ethereal portraits that question the role images, instantly spread by social media, play as sources of information during political crises.

MoMA’s director, Glenn Lowry, trained as an Islamic art historian and, attuned to the art of the region, has helped initiate curatorial and research projects focused on the Middle East. MoMA’s Project 101 often includes small but revelatory exhibitions by artists including Akram Zaatari and Slavs and Tatars. This summer MoMA’s PS1 showed Wael Shawky’s Cabaret Crusades (2010–15), an epic video trilogy accompanied by a series of esoteric puppets displayed in vitrines, thereby complicating standard Western narratives of the Crusades.

Currently on display at MoMA (until 31 January) is the first US museum survey

of Walid Raad, a leading Lebanese artist.

Though Raad has lived for three decades in the US, his art is more often exhibited in Europe. The opportunity to see an artist’s work in a comprehensive manner gives “a sense of how certain gestures, forms and concepts fundamentally shape their practice,” says Raad himself.

“Walid Raad is among the most important artists working today,” Lowry asserts. “His practice challenges conventional notions of history and the way in which ideas are framed, constructed and disseminated.”

This retrospective at MoMA, Lowry adds, “reflects a belief that it is time for American audiences to see the full range of his work and our ongoing interest in the region”.

The growing integration of Middle Eastern art in MoMA’s curatorial programmes is reflected more broadly in American and European museums. How did this shift come about? An important impetus came from the classroom as a few university professors expanded the curriculum to include courses on modern and contemporary art of the Middle East.

Books and scholarly articles followed, often spurring related curatorial projects.

In 1997 Catherine David curated Documenta X, presenting a complex visual narrative of the ‘age of globalization’. David followed this with a long-term project, Contemporary Arab Representations, that included a series of exhibitions from Berlin to Venice. Nada Shabout’s groundbreaking book Modern Arab Art appeared in 2007, and he has curated a series of exhibitions from Texas to Doha.

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PREVIOUS SPREAD: PHOTO BY MIGUEL VETERANO, CAPITAL D STUDIO © BARJEEL ART FOUNDATION. COURTESY AGA KHAN MUSEUM.

FOR DECADES, THIS ART REMAINED IN STORAGE. I CALL IT A ‘CLOSETED MODERNISM’: THE ART REMAINED MARGINALIZED. 1.

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Previous spread: Suspended Together – (Standing Dove, Eating Dove) (2012)

by Manal al-Dowayan.

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©2015 RABIH MROUÉ, COURTESY SFEIR-SEMLER GALLERY AND MOMA. KARIM JAAFAR/AFP/JANE SWEENEY/GETTY. COURTESY WAEL SHAWKY AND SFEIR-SEMLER GALLERY, BEIRUT/HAMBURG AND MOMA. AGF SRL/ALAMY. MEHMET OZCAN. COURTESY OF ORYX FOUNDATION. © 2015 WALID RAAD.

Reviewing a 2002 exhibition of Iranian art at NYU’s Grey Gallery, art critic Holland Cotter wrote in the New York Times: “Until just a few years ago, ‘modern art’ and ‘contemporary art’ meant ‘Western art’, at least in this part of the world.”

Cotter posited “globe-trotting biennials” and the internet as helping to bring about a change of perspective.

The mapping of the art world has become more complex.

Commerce and politics created new networks of global flows that found expression in the arts. The internet provided new platforms for artistic exchange.

Galleries, biennials and art fairs became more inclusive, often spotlighting non-Western art. Shoring themselves up against the vicissitudes of the Western art market, auction houses began to invest in emerging art markets such as the Middle East. By 2008 Christie’s and Sotheby’s were holding regular auctions in Dubai and Doha. In response to turmoil in the region, more artists emigrated, working in studios in Paris, New York and London, where they became better known to curators and art writers. This diaspora also included important collectors who have taken an active role in supporting museums as they extend the geographic scope of their collections.

Even as they work to further integrate this art into their collections, museums take different approaches to nomenclature. In 2003 the Metropolitan Museum of Art closed its Islamic Art Galleries and undertook a long-term renovation. The refurbished galleries were opened in 2011 with a new name – the Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Later South Asia. Some museums such as London’s Tate Modern have created curatorial positions in Middle Eastern art. Other museums collect contemporary art as part of their Islamic departments, a

1. The Fall of a Hair: Blow Ups (detail) (2012) by Rabih Mroué. 2. Mathaf in Doha, Qatar. 3. The Heydar Aliyev Centre, Baku. 4. A render of the Louvre museum to be built on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi.

5. A still from Cabaret Crusades: The Path to Cairo (2012) by Wael Shawky. 6. Marionette from Cabaret Crusades: The Secrets of Karbalaa (2012) by Wael Shawky.

7 & 8. Istanbul Museum of Modern Art. 9.

Witness from Baghdad 3 (2008) by Halim Al Karim on display at Kunst (Zeug) Haus, Rapperswil, Switzerland.

10. Hostage: The Bachar Tapes (English version) (2001) by Walid Raad at MoMA, New York.

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proclivity that some scholars and artists wrestle with given the term traditionally used for art of an earlier period doesn’t seem well suited to describe the contemporary. Some museums work within a national scope, presenting shows of Arab or Iranian art. Still other museums focus on collecting particular artists, eschewing broader categorizations. Questions of terminology and categorization remain in flux as interest in this region grows.

These developments in the West coincided with a growing

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With the vicissitudes of conflict in the region, London has become home to many Middle Eastern artists. Mona Hatoum was on vacation in the city when the Lebanese Civil War broke out. She stayed in Britain, studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and was shortlisted for the Turner Prize. In 1994 she had a small exhibition of her work at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Some two decades later, in the summer of 2015, the Pompidou mounted a major retrospective featuring 110 of her works.

Hatoum, in a breathtaking intervention, created a largescale map of the world by placing glass marbles on the concrete floors of the museum.

Massive windows with views of the Paris cityscape form a backdrop to the chimeric work that shifts ever so slightly as viewers walk past. The work is a masterpiece of contemporary art and encapsulates Hatoum’s piercing ability to convey the contradictions and fragilities that globalization entails. She does so with a sense of irony and an insistence on extending our aesthetic sensibilities. In 2016 Hatoum’s retrospective travels to Tate Modern (4 May – 21 August) and eventually on to Helsinki’s Kiasma.

In Porto, Moroccan artist Yto Barrada undertook a different kind of intervention. Suzanne Cotter, director of the Serralves Museum, invited Barrada to inaugurate a programme in which artists present their work in the museum’s art deco

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COURTESY MONA HATOUM. HERVÉ VÉRONÈSE/CENTRE POMPIDOU 2015. © NABIL NAHAS/COURTESY THE BRITISH MUSEUM. KAVEH KAZEMI/GETTY. ANDRI POL. © PARVIZ TANAVOLI/TATE PHOTOGRAPHY. COURTESY WHITECHAPEL GALLERY.

investment in cultural infrastructure in the region itself. Istanbul Modern, a beautiful glass-and-concrete museum on the shores of the Bosphorus, was inaugurated in 2004.

Doha’s Mathaf, dedicated to modern Arab art, opened in 2010. In the UAE, major museums including the Louvre and the Guggenheim are building local branches.

Further north, Baku established a gleaming Zaha Hadid-designed museum, the Heydar Aliyev Centre, which features an international curatorial programme.

Iwona Blazwick, director of London’s Whitechapel Gallery, thinks that Western curatorial interest is fuelled in part by local cultural dynamics: “Within the region important cultural festivals, ranging from the legendary Shiraz/Persepolis festival in the 1970s to today’s influential contemporary projects such as the Sharjah Biennial, or journals such as Bidoun, raise awareness of local practitioners and debates.”

Blazwick herself has taken a keen interest in Middle Eastern art, travelling to Beirut, Cairo, Tehran and Dubai. There are no less than three exhibitions of Iranian and Arab art on Whitechapel’s schedule for 2015 to 2016. Curator Omar Kholeif has organized the UK’s first solo exhibition of Palestinian artist Emily Jacir (until 3 January). The show includes Material for a film (2004–), a large-scale, immersive installation that won the Golden Lion at the 2007 Venice Biennale. Whitechapel is also mounting a collections display, featuring works by Arab artists from the Sharjah-based Barjeel Art Foundation (until 6 December).

Whitechapel is particularly attentive to archival displays. It has just shown a brilliant assemblage of posters, photographs and documents relating to the Shiraz Festival of Arts, an annual celebration of performance art held in Iran from 1967 to 1977. Its curator, Vali Mahlouji, specializes in deeply researched exhibitions that fill gaps in the history of non-Western art. The recent flurry of Middle Eastern art shows in Western museums, according to Mahlouji, “reflects the new world of cross-pollination, dialogue and interchange”.

This cross-pollination is traced in a current major exhibition, ‘The World Goes Pop’ at Tate Modern (until 24 January). Pop art emerged within and against the ebullient post-war consumerism of the West. But it resonated globally, finding local expression in the Middle East as well, such as in the bright assembled sculptures of Parviz Tanavoli, featured in the show. “Parviz has a fantastic Pop sensibility that comes from mixing together what he encountered in the American art scene with everyday objects and vibrant colours he discovers in Tehran’s bazaars,” explains Maryam Eisler, who serves on Tate’s Middle East and North Africa Acquisitions Committee.

Elsewhere in London, the British Museum has been steadily incorporating Middle Eastern art into its permanent collection over the past decade, focusing primarily on works on paper. This autumn, curator Venetia Porter organized a show of modern Arab art in which she highlighted some real gems including books by Lebanese modernist pioneer Shafiq Abboud and the innovative Iraqi artist Sadik Kwaish Alfraji.

“THE RECENT FLURRY OF MIDDLE EASTERN ART SHOWS IN WESTERN MUSEUMS REFLECTS THE NEW WORLD OF CROSS-POLLINATION, DIALOGUE AND INTERCHANGE.”

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FILIPE BRAGA. © EMILY JACIR. DAVID HEALD. COURTESY OF MEEM GALLERY BARJEEL ART FOUNDATION, SHARJAH. COURTESY OF STOCKHAUSEN FOUNDATION FOR MUSIC, KÜRTEN. IAIN MASTERTON/INCAMERASTOCK/CORBIS..

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1. Map (2015) by Mona Hatoum at the Centre Pompidou, Paris. 2. Study for the Yale Chemistry Building mural by Nabil Nahas on display at the British Museum, London. 3. Parviz Tanavoli in front of his sculpture The Wall (Oh Persepolis) (1975).

4. Mona Hatoum. 5. The Poet and the Beloved of the King (1964–66) by Parviz Tanavoli on display at Tate Modern, London. Works

by Middle Eastern artists shown at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, with (6) a poster for Festival of Arts at Shiraz/Persepolis in 1973; (8) Material for a film (2004)

by Emily Jacir; (9) ‘La Ana Illa Ana’ (There Is No ‘I’ But ‘I’) (1983) by Kamal Boullata; and (10) a photograph of a performance of Mantra

by Karlheinz Stockhausen at Stockhausen Panorama, Saray-e Moshir, in 1972.

7. Installation shot of Yto Barrada’s exhibition ‘Salon Marocain’, at the Fundação De Serralves, Porto, Portugal.

11. Installation shot of Cyprus (2015) by Rayyane Tabet at the Sharjah Biennial, 2015.

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“THE THEMES THESE MIDDLE EASTERN ARTISTS PORTRAY, SUCH AS DISPLACEMENT AND MIGRATION, RESONATE WITH PEOPLE ALL OVER THE WORLD.”

1. Offered Eyes (Women of Allah) (1993) by Shirin Neshat, included in the exhibition ‘Shirin Neshat: Facing History’ at the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC. 2. Monir Farmanfarmaian at the Guggenheim, New York. 3. Shirin Neshat.

4. The Aga Khan Museum

1. villa. Barrada created a Salon Marocain adorned with her own colour photographs and crafted fossils made in the Atlas Mountains for a growing tourist market. The salon, which closed in September, was an artistic reflection on colonialism, modernism and dispossession.

This follows on from a hugely popular Serralves exhibition of Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian’s art in the autumn of 2014. Curated by Cotter, ‘Infinite Possibility’ juxtaposed Farmanfarmaian’s 118 Baku.

iconic mosaic mirrored sculptures with her line drawings. The exhibition travelled to New York’s Guggenheim Museum in the spring of 2015, making Farmanfarmaian, at the age of 92, the first Iranian artist and one of the few female artists to have had a solo exhibition at the Guggenheim.

It was an auspicious moment, with three concurrent monographic exhibitions of Iranian art in US museums.

Parviz Tanavoli, considered the father of modern Iranian sculpture, received his first US museum show in nearly four decades. The 2015 edition of the regular Februaryto-June exhibition at the Davis Museum at Wellesley College featured 180 works spanning six decades of the artist’s career. A ‘Heech Garden’ formed the centrepiece, with over a dozen of Tanavoli’s sculptures in the form of the Persian word ‘heech’ or ‘nothingness’.

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in Toronto. 5. Volleyball (2013) by Khaled Jarrar.

6. Handala (2011) by Dia al-Azzawi. 7. The Iranian painter Farideh Lashai.

8. Untitled #8 (2011) from the series ‘Lost in Wonderland’ by Amir Mousavi. 9. Tehran 2006 (2006) by Mitra Tabrizian.

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COURTESY HIRSHHORN MUSEUM AND SCULPTURE GARDEN. TODD HEISLER/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX/EYEVINE. CEM OZDEL/ANADOLU AGENCY/MARTA IWANEK/TORONTO STAR GETTY. NICCOLÒ CORRADINI, CAPITAL D STUDIO © BARJEEL ART FOUNDATION/COURTESY THE AGA KHAN MUSEUM. BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/GETTY. © KHALED JARRAR; GALLERIE POLARIS, PARIS; AND GALLERY ONE, RAMALLAH. © AMIR MOUSAVI. © MUSEUM ASSOCIATES/LACMA.

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At the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum last year, ‘Shirin Neshat: Facing History’ featured photographs, video installations, and studio materials. “I am so proud, as a woman artist, to be taking up so much space at the Hirshhorn,” Neshat told viewers at the opening. In doing so, she became the first Middle Eastern artist – and one of only a few women – to have had a solo exhibition at the museum. “Shirin is one of the most important voices of that generation of image makers,” says Melissa Ho, who co-curated the exhibition with Melissa Chiu. The show came on the heels of another major exhibition of Neshat’s work, ‘The Home of My Eyes’, held at Baku’s Yarat Contemporary Art Space earlier this year.

Chiu, who recently took over as director of the Hirshhorn, says the exhibition was “just the beginning of building a programme and collection that tells a global art history”.

This global turn is also reflected at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), where since 2006 curator Linda Komaroff has been extending the Islamic collection into the contemporary period. Komaroff has organized two sequential exhibitions highlighting these acquisitions. The first, ‘Islamic Art Now’ is on view until 3 January. Between the Motion/ And the Act/Falls the Shadow (2012) is a two-channel video projection by Iranian artist

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Farideh Lashai. Clips carefully selected from dozens of Iranian films made before the revolution reflect a common thread in popular cinema, where innocence is swept up in the nightlife of southern Tehran’s seamy cabarets.

LACMA’s next exhibition of contemporary Islamic art opens in January 2016 and will feature Faig Ahmed, a leading artist from Azerbaijan.

Recently, I spoke to Sultan Sooud al-Qassemi in Toronto, where he attended an opening at the Aga Khan Museum. ‘Home Ground’ (until 3 January) is an exhibition of works from al-Qassemi’s collection housed at the Barjeel Art Foundation, which has played a key role in raising awareness of contemporary Middle Eastern art. “The themes these Middle Eastern artists portray, such as displacement and migration, resonate with people all over the world,” he says of the growing interest in art of the region being shown by Western museums.

The current wave of museum exhibitions dedicated to Middle Eastern art is a measure of how much the boundaries of the art world have expanded in recent decades. A communal effort by artists, scholars, curators, gallerists and patrons has sustained this move towards a more global art history.

No longer ‘closeted’, Middle Eastern art is now firmly in the spotlight and looks set to remain that way.

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Where: Hudson Bay, Manitoba, Canada.

What to see: Polar bears, wolves, arctic foxes, moose, beluga whales.

Need to know: Visit in summer to snorkel with thousands of beluga whales, who come here to give birth.

Where to stay: Seal River Heritage Lodge, churchillwild.com

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PHOTO © 2015 MICHAEL POLIZA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. WWW.MICHAELPOLIZA.COM.

For nearly two decades photographer Michael Poliza has travelled to the world’s remotest areas. His latest book, featured on these pages, shows how to create the ultimate wilderness escape amid these astonishing landscapes.

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Where: Danakil Depression, Ethiopia.

What to see: Red lava lakes, green sulphur springs, pillars of potassium, camel trains – and a few intrepid bird species.

Need to know: At 110m below sea level, temperatures can reach 64ËšC. Best pack the sunscreen.

Where to stay: Gheralta Lodge, gheraltalodgetigrai.com

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123 Baku.

PHOTO © 2015 MICHAEL POLIZA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. WWW.MICHAELPOLIZA.COM.

Where: Lake Turkana, Kenya.

What to see: Wild camels, ostriches, famingos and many bird species.

Need to know: Did man take his frst steps in Kenya? Important fossilized evidence of early humans found here suggests so.

Where to stay: Desert Rose Lodge, desertrosekenya.com

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125 Baku.

PHOTO © 2015 MICHAEL POLIZA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. WWW.MICHAELPOLIZA.COM.

Where: Tongariro National Park, New Zealand.

What to see: Active volcanoes, hissing springs, emerald lakes, various bird species (including the kiwi).

Need to know: This bleakly beautiful landscape was used to represent Mordor in the flms of The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–03), the desolate home of the Dark Lord Sauron.

Where to stay: Huka Lodge, hukalodge.co.nz

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PHOTO © 2015 MICHAEL POLIZA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. WWW.MICHAELPOLIZA.COM.

The World’s Most Magical Wilderness Escapes

by Michael Poliza Published by teNeues © 2015 teneues.com

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22-25 octobER 2015 grand palais & hors les murs, paris 3DUWHQDLUH RIÀ FLHO

2IÀ FLDO VSRQVRU

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THE GLOBAL CULTURAL BAROMETER ILLUSTRATIONS BY MITCH BLUNT

Cultural MRI

CULTURAL MRI Guangzhou’s no longer Goat Town.

MEME Have wedding dress, will travel.

ART AGONY UNCLE Collect with confidence.

ARS LONGA A man’s home is his gallery.

SCI-ART Your data matters.

Mighty trade fairs are being joined by a surprising new arts scene in southern China, says Ed Peters.

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hina’s gritty, sprawling manufacturing hub Guangzhou is better known for making an art out of work than for works of art. It’s long been the prime gateway to the outside world for the country, hosts the country’s biggest trade fair, and notches up a GDP of around $250bn, outstripping many small countries.

Yet rather as Ontario launched a Shakespeare Festival on the strength of little more than a town that happened to be named Stratford, so Guangzhou has ploughed a determined if lonely furrow through the art world. Hong Kong, just to the southeast, may grab the limelight for its annual staging of Art Basel, and Shanghai and Beijing might boast more trophy projects, but Canton – as it used

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to be called – applies the same sort of dedication to the arts as it does to all of its industries, and with a similar measure of success.

“Guangzhou has always had a laidback, grass-roots feeling that may not be attractive to commercial galleries and big institutions, but it’s good for artists, especially young artists, to live in and develop,” says Anthony Yung, who helps run Observation Society, a not-for-profit art space based in a former hair salon in one of the city’s workaday residential quarters.

“My impression is that in recent years, curators and galleries are paying more attention to artists from southern China, as they really represent a fresh energy compared to the heavily commercialized scene found in Beijing.”

Guangzhou adopted a new tack in the early years of the 21st century, when plans for a new city centre in Tianhe district were drawn up. Pride of place was devoted to Zaha Hadid’s $200m ‘double pebble’ opera house, which opened with a performance of Turandot directed by Shahar Stroh. If Puccini went over the heads of some of the audience, the overriding message did not: ‘Ahoy there, Sydney, Covent Garden, New York Met – we’re coming onboard.’

Away from centre stage, arts initiatives blossomed and flourished around the city. One of the best known, Vitamin Creative Space – a long-term fixture on the international art scene with its innovative and influential stands at Art Basel,

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Scores of respected artists have exhibited here, including Pak Sheung Chuen, Liu HanChih and Zhou Tao, while the Scandinavian artist Olafur Eliasson put together a project exploring the Asian concepts of gardens, which differ markedly from their Western counterparts.

While Vitamin is a commercial venture, Observation Society, started by Hu Xiangqian, Lin Aojie, Cai Hui and Anthony Yung, is more an affair of the heart. “We simply wanted to start something new, something casual enough to mobilize artists to experiment, and as we live in Guangzhou, we can really appreciate the artistic concepts and attitude being generated here,” says Yung.

“Since the beginning, our methodology has been to

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collaborate with artists to make solo projects. Our aim is to experiment, to the largest possible extent, with what an artist wants to express in his or her art. We are usually in discussion with an artist for months or even years before the project is realized.”

Without a doubt, the Guangzhou Triennial is the biggest event in the city’s arts calendar. Starting in December, and running through to April 2016, it is now in its fifth edition and will be held in conjunction with the first Asia Biennale.

“Guangzhou played a crucial role in the historic Silk Road, and continues to do so in the current Asian economy, and the [joint show] will examine the concept of ‘Asia Time’,” says curator Henk Slager. “It will focus on a local understanding of Asian time, the ultimate goal being to recalibrate the current world time from an Asian perspective.”

Guangzhou used to be nicknamed ‘Goat Town’ when it was still quite rough around the edges. Given the billowing winds of change blowing through, ‘Art City’ would be a much better moniker nowadays.

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1. Conceptual artist Chen Shaoxiong. 2 & 3.

Anthony Yung and the Observation Society art space which he co-founded. 4. Jiahe open-air market. 5 & 10.

Busy shopping streets, including Shangxiajiu Street, in Guangzhou.

6. The Zaha Hadiddesigned Guangzhou Opera House. 7.

Xiaozhou Village, in the city’s south. 8.

Exhibition space and bar Loft 345. 9. ‘Open ego’ (2015) by Olafur Eliasson at Vitamin Creative Space. 11. The Guangdong Museum of Art’s Sculpture Garden.

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SEAN PAVONE/IAN TROWER/ALAMY. FABRIZIO GIRALDI/LUZ PHOTO/FORBES CONRAD/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX/EYEVINE. CHINA PHOTOS/VIEW PICTURES/ LEISA TYLER/LIGHTROCK/GETTY. LUO XIANGLIN/CHEN SHENGMING/© OLAFUR ELIASSON/COURTESY VITAMIN CREATIVE SPACE.

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Art Basel Hong Kong and Frieze London – like many arts venues on the mainland, is semi-concealed in a faded department store. Rents are cheaper in such locales, and they’re below government snoopers’ radar.

. Meme Nothing says romance like an orchestrated photo shoot in front of some of the world’s leading landmarks. Or so the latest eastern Asian craze suggests, reports Sally Howard.

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t’s six o’clock on a summer evening in the City of London and the streets bustle with homeward-bound office workers heading for Tube stations and tourists on the hunt for fish-and-chip dinners.

Heedless of the hubbub, Liao Wei-ting and Sung Chia-Ti recline on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral, gazing into each other’s eyes. Wei-ting, a 31-yearold technology manager from Taiwan, wears the full whitewedding get-up: jewel-studded veil, white satin slippers and a flowing train that calls to mind the wedding dress of that famous bride, Lady Diana Spencer, who mounted these steps 34 years ago, almost to the day.

Chia-Ti, 34, and also a tech professional, clutches a bunch of peach roses on his suited knee and puckers lip-glossed lips to Wei-ting’s cheek.

“Smile guys… Big smile for London Town!” says photographer Ray Wu as his shutter – click! – captures the extravagant scene.

Pre-wedding photography is taking the Chinese and Taiwanese middle classes by storm, as rising incomes fuel a fetish for the trappings of the Hollywood-style Western wedding. The market in overseas travel to seek out exotic backdrops for these staged wedding shoots is proving a surprise fillip for destinations such as Santorini, Venice, Provence and the

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far the most requested spot – at the southern end of Tower Bridge. Sometimes Wu and his brides and grooms – who pay around $2,000 for a day’s photoshoot including make-up artistry and wedding dress hire – travel out of London to shoot in the lavender fields of Sussex or the Lake District (they rarely stick around for the hiking, he adds). After all, this is a tourist group who have come from the generation of the selfie stick, for whom a destination’s historical and natural appeal is of lesser importance than how good it looks on camera, with them in front of it.

Asia, host to 90 per cent of China’s outbound tourism, has been hip to the romance tourism segment for over a decade. Taipei tourist board guide Alex Lin explains that in the mid-2000s Taiwan set its sights on romance tourism from mainland China. Inspired by the American Pop artist Robert Indiana’s graphic and sculptural renderings of his

love benches bear the legends ‘love’ or ‘forever’ and a rainbowpainted bridge is festooned with twinkling illuminated hearts.

“China is the most important market for Taiwan,” says Lin. “And what do Chinese couples on vacation want to do? They want to take romantic selfies to upload to [Chinese social networks] WeChat and Weibo.”

Travel blogger Amily Chen records Asia’s proliferating love sculptures on her blog Amily Memory, which she illustrates with posed shots of herself, her fiancé Jimmy and her Japanese-breed dog Newie.

“More and more attractions are built with romantic elements,” Amily says. “Locals and tourists go there to propose, for Western Valentine’s Day, Qixi festival [Chinese Valentine’s Day] and Japanese White Valentine’s Day [when men traditionally give chocolates to women]. Or they go just to snap [a picture]. Any excuse, actually!”

Could it be that Europe’s

2. historical districts of Paris and London, all considered romantic by young East Asians.

Wu, 39, and born in China, drifted into pre-wedding photography after studying for a biomaterials degree at a London university. Ten years on, business is booming. This summer Wu’s JR Studios in east London will shoot 100 east Asian soon-to-be-weds in front of St Paul’s, Big Ben and – by

work Love from the mid-1960s – the artwork spelling out the word in bold colours and with a lopsided O that’s been parodied in countless forms ever since – Taiwan installed romantic artworks at hundreds of locations across the island country’s cities and Central Mountain Range. The pièce de résistance is Chengmei Riverside Park in the capital Taipei, a 3km ‘romance route’ where

traditional cities of love are missing a trick? After all, both Florence and Paris seem disinclined to indulge lovers’ whims, having stripped the historical Ponte Vecchio and Pont des Arts of the ‘love padlocks’ placed there by visiting sweethearts. Wu also reports an increase in restrictions from London boroughs on where and when he can pose his subjects. Outbound Chinese

1. A couple pose in front of Robert Indiana’s ‘Love’ sculpture in Taiwan.

2. Liao Wei-ting and Sung Chia-Ti being photographed outside St Paul’s Cathedral, London. 3. Beijing’s Tiananmen Gate as a backdrop.

tourism specialist Massimo Ceccarelli believes destinations that fail to “roll out the red carpet” to the east Asian tourist sector will squander their slice of a multi-billion dollar pie. He points to Switzerland, which is upgrading its hotel cisterns to cater to Chinese tourists’ prodigious hot water consumption. Ceccarelli sees romance tourism as a key growth segment for the Chinese tourist market, alongside wine and food tourism and skiing and golf holidays, although he suspects that the love tourists’ motivation isn’t purely soppy.

“It’s chiefly about status,” he says. “Chinese couples are travelling for these shoots because they have to show something to others, friends and enemies both, that says ‘Look, I have made it! I have joined the rising middle class!’”

There’s a long night ahead for Wei-ting and Chia-Ti. After St Paul’s, it’s on to Big Ben, then the Gothic edifice of the Houses of Parliament before a night

JR STUDIO. FENG LI/GETTY.

3. shoot in front of the Tower of London, with the backdrop of the riverside lights reflected in the ink-black Thames.

The resulting photos will take pride of place at the couple’s wedding in two months’ time, in a lavish exhibition that will greet their guests at the wedding venue.

Pastiche or not, this embrace of the Western-style white wedding represents an intergenerational shift in east Asian culture. Wei-ting and Chia-Ti’s mothers and grandmothers wed in the red traditionally considered auspicious to the Han Chinese.

So what do their families think of the fact they’ve travelled 6,000 miles at a cost of thousands of dollars to pose in white against the photographic backdrop of London’s famous sights?

Wei-ting giggles decorously behind her laced glove as Wu poses her with a rose against one cheek. “Our families don’t know,” she says. “Shhhh, don’t tell anyone! This is a top-secret surprise!”

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133 Baku. Eye.

. Art Agony Uncle Confused about art? Kenny Schachter is pleased to help out.

I found myself self drawn to the moderns rather than the t aries at Basel this year. ear. I e ear ven felt a bit guilty contemporaries even about it. Should I worry about this? Lance, e, V e Vienna e learning, grasshopper. Art is best experienc You are experienced er the long term, an involvement built upon the slow s over cumulated knowledge and history. But you y burn of accumulated ays follow your intuition and eyes. F should always Follow your es, but not without the company of your mind. heart, yes, esearch, which is easier today than ever e Do your research, before es of Artnet.com and other similar price pric with the likes ools, and you will collect happily ever after. aft research tools, s so much good video art being made these days, these da There’s ou collect it and show it? Do y but how do you you need your wY York own cinema? Brett, New wr That’s a greatt question and one I have wrestled with ears. The first few DVDs I c often over the years. collected t-effective way of building a multiI lost – not a very cost-effective ollection. But the more pressing concern c media collection. is the e of the relevant technologies, more mor so than fleeting nature w and where to display such works. I used tto have a how vision of some giant house in LA kitted out with crazy videos playing randomly in dedicated rooms replete with efreshments and seating. But really anyone with the will refreshments and inclination and a TV set is in the perfect position to let the camera (or flat fla screens) roll. Video ideo art should be left looping rather than become bec tail party art, only cocktail to be flicked on upon the arrival of company: not very environmentally conscious but a sure-fire way to attain more enjoyment and satisfaction from your collection.

Getting to grips with contemporary art seems o depend so much on understanding the context cont to depend it happens in. Who should I speak to about this? this Artists? self? Fr F eddie,, Hong K eddie Kong ong Gallerists? Myself?

Freddie, ary art is more a reflection of society at a Contemporary ory than necessarily strictly s given point in history defined by xt in which it unfolds. Art is its o the context own context in conte in which it was made and of itself. Of course,, the context or a portion of the c will always account for content, for what sical manifestation manif can art be but a physical of humanity, e itself. Speak to t any and every a vital expression of life ou can, whether art-int person you art-interested or not, for the only thing more satisfying than looking at art is speaking about it, especially with the naysayers in some instances.

But, ultimately, trust thyself first and foremost.

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Email your art dilemmas to dearkenny@condenast.co.uk

Art gets personal – control an installation from your smartphone, taste the Tate’s artwork, or help restore the Sistine Chapel via an app.

Drone photography – from migrating wildebeest to a crowded Times Square, it’s time to bring the camera back down to earth.

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. Ars Longa As he charts the rise of ‘luxury’ bachelorpad design, Dylan Jones, British GQ’s editor-in-chief, warns that, when buying art, it pays to be original.

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‘THAT LUCKY OLD SUN’, THE SIGNED LIMITED EDITION PORTFOLIO BY BRIAN WILSON AND SIR PETER BLAKE FROM WWW.GENESIS-PUBLICATIONS.COM. HORACIO VILLALOBOX/CORBIS. TERRY O’NEILL/GETTY.

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1. From the portfolio ‘That Lucky Old Sun’ (2009) by Peter Blake. 2. The ‘Juicy Salif’ lemon squeezer (1990) by Philippe Starck. 3. American actress Faye Dunaway photographed by Terry O’Neill on the morning following her Best Actress Oscar win in 1977.

any years ago I used to edit a men’s magazine called Arena. Launched in 1986, it was designed to reflect the growing appetite among young men for all things tasteful. So while the magazine was essentially a vehicle for beautiful fashion photography, coupled with esoteric/hard-hitting/amusing articles, its intention was also – and very much deliberately – to be an arbiter of taste.

We were surrounded by a taste explosion, as lifestyle was suddenly becoming something of a genre in itself, almost a life choice. All of a sudden the word ‘designer’ became everyone’s favourite prefix – used in conjunction with everything from cars, double-barrelled suits and supermodels to personal organizers, kitchen fittings and vegetables. These days that prefix is now ‘luxury’, but back then the term ‘designer’ was applied to everything from your matt-black TV tech tower to your snazzy Paul Smith tie.

As far as men are concerned, nowhere has there been such advancement in luxury consumption as interior design, an area we feel much more comfortable with than we would have done back in the eighties, when all this stuff started. Then, 20 years ago, the only things your big, fat, fancy bachelor pad contained were a Tizio lamp, that matt-black tech tower and a king-size bed. And, to show you were at least a little bit domesticated, a Dualit toaster and a Philippe Starck lemon juicer.

These days the sky’s the limit, especially if there’s a New York-style atrium in your entrance hall. Today men treat their apartments like they once treated their cars: they clean them, care for them, decorate them and get them valeted on a regular basis. We throw Paul Smith rugs all over our floors, cover our walls with limitededition Jamie Reid prints and recline on reproduction Eames chairs. There is a gigantic Sonos speaker hub near the Smeg range cooker, while our living rooms have floor-to-ceiling tinted windows and are full of Italian white plastic floor lamps.

Of course, this gentrification has simply made us more attractive to women, as consumer emancipation has made men a little more housetrained than we were before.

The latest thing that we have had to start worrying about is how our homes reflect the art we buy as well as the clothes we wear. Although I like to look at this problem in a roundabout way, because I think the art you buy should not just determine how your home looks, it should actually decorate it, too.

A former colleague once commissioned an artist to make a wall sculpture for his new loft in Manhattan. This particular loft was an odd shape as it had been used to store theatrical props, and so had an unusual wall shape. Thinking that the artist was perhaps more commercially minded than he actually was, he invited him round to the apartment to look at the space, and asked him to fill it. These

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days artists would look upon the request as a challenge – and another commission – but this one simply turned on his heels and fled, apparently outraged that he was being asked to design something by numbers.

My house doesn’t determine what art I buy, but its shape and size has a large bearing on what eventually turns up on the walls.

By turns, the art on my walls has given my house a character it wouldn’t have had if I had been more cavalier and less considered about what I buy.

Some years ago the British Pop artist Peter Blake produced a

series of prints to accompany a Brian Wilson album (That Lucky Old Sun, 2009). The images are beautiful, iconic and in keeping with the work of both men. And I have them all framed and hung on my wall. Some might think this unspeakably naff, and might prefer to keep them in their box until it’s time to sell them, but I’d prefer to get my enjoyment out of them now rather than later.

There are some who obsess about the provenance of their collection and treat their homes as though they were galleries.

Most of my friends are far more catholic – and far more idiosyncratic – in the way they approach art. For instance, one has a framed Andy Warhol shopping bag sitting next to a large Terry O’Neill print of Faye Dunaway the morning after she got her Academy Award for Network (1977), which in turn sits next to prominent work by Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst.

He has spent tens of thousands of pounds on the stuff on his walls, as well as spending

3. practically nothing. It’s the juxtaposition that makes his home so interesting, giving it a genuine sense of character.

He is an architect, quite a successful one, and he has spent his life being in attritional meetings with clients. Which is just as well, because not all of his dining companions have such an enthusiastic view of his art collection. Once, a few years ago at one of his legendary dinner parties, one of his guests – a rather rotund fashion journalist who over the years had apparently earned the soubriquet Captain Haddock – started poking around his house.

On his return to the dinner table, he said, in a rather loud voice, “Oh my, I just love your collection. It’s very brave of you to show prints instead of originals. I mean, anyone would think you’re a student!”

Captain Haddock has yet to be invited back, although my architect friend still has one of the best collections in London.

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. Science x Art Big Brother may be watching, but MexicanCanadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer has used modern data-gathering technologies to arresting effect, explains Michael Brooks.

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f you talk to people in the fundamental physics community, they will tell you something extremely strange, and somewhat disturbing. Their considerations of the universe, the way it works and our observations about objects such as black holes, have led them to the conclusion that everything is ultimately made of information.

Even stranger, this information is held at the edge of the universe, and what we think of as our everyday experience of reality is a ‘projection’, rather like a film projected on to a cinema screen.

When most people hear about this, they assume it is wrong – how can you and I be nothing more than projected information? Ironically, the installation artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, whose work highlights the modern trend of reducing people to

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information points, is doing a great deal to provide convincing support for the physicists’ outlandish notion.

Lozano-Hemmer is fascinated by the science of biometrics and our ability to reduce human beings to markers of their individuality. His latest work is Level of Confidence (2015), which uses biometric face-recognition technology to commemorate a mass kidnapping of students in Mexico. Visitors’ faces are scanned, and compared to the disappeared. The installation tells you which of the kidnapped students you most resemble, providing a ‘level of confidence’ for the match.

It is always low, in a neverending, always-failing use of a technology usually used to identify people who are threats, rather than victims.

Lozano-Hemmer’s 2010 work Pulse Index, which is currently installed at the ZKM Centre for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany (until May 2016), reduces visitors to biometric data by taking their fingerprints and heartbeat and using them in an ever-changing piece of visual art. The fingerprints are displayed on a huge screen, with each print starting off as dominant and gradually getting smaller as new visitors participate in the performance.

Eventually, your fingerprint disappears from the artwork –

you are no more. The heartbeat augments the display, causing the images to repeatedly intensify then fade in time with the latest participant’s own pulse.

These kinds of technologies are now ubiquitous in everyday life. By displaying the prints, Lozano-Hemmer is bringing this practice of compressing, cataloguing and recording our individuality back to where it sits uncomfortably with us – at the front of our minds.

The information that delineates our individuality is paradoxically both precious and disposable: we are uncomfortable that it can be gathered, in the same way that people were suspicious about the capturing of their image at the beginning of the photographic age; we are equally relieved when told it will be deleted from commercial or government records. And yet deletion brings discomfort. We want to remain relevant long after we no longer exist; we want our soul, our essence to live on.

Information is a slippery concept to us, in the same way that energy was just a couple of hundred years ago. Though non-specialists struggle with definitions, everyone knows what we mean by energy in its various forms today, and it even provides the foundation for many of our financial and industrial institutions.

Information – especially about human beings – will have the same status and public understanding by the end of this century. Whether it concerns genetics or biometrics, internet browsing or shopping habits, your data matters, but, perhaps, only while you are still with us.

And nothing is more disturbing to us than that. The only comfort about your inevitable disappearance comes from the physicists: they will happily declare that you, and your information, were never really here in the first place.

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KATE RUSSEL. ANTIMODULAR RESEARCH. PETER MALLET.

‘Pulse Index’ (2010) by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer on show at (1) ‘TimeLapse’ (2012) at Site Santa Fe, New Mexico, and at (2) Manchester Art Gallery, UK (2010).

3. ‘Level of Confidence’ (2015) at FOFA Gallery, Montreal, Canada.

12.15 NOV 2015 GRAND PALAIS

n years to come – but not nearly as many as you might think – we could be living in floating cities shaped like lily pads in the middle of the ocean.

When we want to build a house, we’ll buy plots of water, not land. And when we move home, we’ll do just that – transfer our floating property from one location to another.

The apocalyptic vision of a world that sees us, quite literally, all at sea has long provided food for thought for architects and film-makers.

Aquapolis – a floating city – was the centrepiece of 1975’s expo in Okinawa, Japan, showing how humans could live harmoniously with the ocean.

Fast-forward 20 years and Kevin Costner was battling his way through the most expensive film in history at the time, Waterworld, set in a future where sea levels have risen hundreds of metres, leaving surviving humans scattered across the oceans in floating habitats made from scrap metal.

And the lily pad? That’s the idea of Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut, who has designed a self-sufficient floating city or ‘ecopolis’, for those he calls “climate refugees”.

But the concept of floating cities is far from science fiction.

There’s Venice in peril from its regular acqua alta (high water) as well as rising sea levels – a problem that it’s hoped will soon be solved when its long overdue, €5.4bn floodgates are put into place. And all over the globe, there are small floating 138 Baku.

As the world’s population swells and its habitable landmass shrinks, a visionary new breed of architects and tech entrepreneurs are drawing up plans for foating cities that will dramatically alter coastlines and bodies of water from London to Dubai.

Words by ZOE DARE HALL

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communities whose daily life is based entirely on water, from Ko Panyi in Thailand – a fishing village built on stilts with a football pitch on rafts – to Santa Cruz del Islote off the coast of Colombia, the world’s most densely populated island with a population of 1,200 crammed onto just over onetenth of a square kilometre.

The Uros people of Peru inhabit islands made from reeds on Lake Titicaca, and in Halong Bay in Vietnam the sea provides the only flat surface to build on amid a landscape of cliffs that drop vertically to the water.

These communities show it’s possible to live on water. But many, such as the inhabitants of Tuvalu in the Pacific Ocean, also live at the mercy of the elements – rising sea levels and tsunamis – that threaten to wipe them off the map. Little wonder that the exhibition at the Tuvalu Pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennale, entitled ‘Crossing the Tide’, features a flooded space over which visitors must walk on partially submerged footbridges.

What’s needed are new

1 and previous spread: Architectural renderings of floating private islands in the Amillarah islands development by Dutch Docklands in a lagoon of the Maldives. 2. Kevin Costner in Waterworld (1995). 3. Acqua alta (high water) flooding the Piazza in Venice, with Saint Mark’s Basilica in the background.

4. A rendering of Baca Architects’ design for a residential, hotel and conference complex for the Eiland Veur Lent project in Nijmegen in the Netherlands. 5. The floating fishing village of Ko Panyi in Phang Nga Bay, Thailand.

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ways to make water-based living safe, sustainable and self-sufficient – and that’s the focus of a growing number of architects, engineers, marine biologists and technological entrepreneurs, who believe aquatic architecture is the way forward for a planet with diminishing land and massive population growth.

It’s little surprise that many such visionaries are from the Netherlands, where 60 per cent of people live below sea level and almost everything floats, from prisons, offices and conference centres to complete water communities such as Waterbuurt in Amsterdam, the first development of its kind in the world with 75 two- to three-storey modern homes set on concrete tubs, interconnected by floating 140 Baku.

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ALLSTAR. COURTESY BACA ARCHITECTS. ECO IMAGES/GETTY. TUUL AND BRUNO MORANDI/CORBIS.

3. pavements. To anchor them, they are secured to the lakebed by steel poles.

“Floating technology might not be the answer to every problem, but water-based urbanism is set to transform communities around the world,” says Jasper Mulder of Dutch Docklands, who says the Dutch expertise in floating architecture comes from “hundreds of years of experience in the battle against water in the Netherlands”.

He has teamed up with “the best Dutch maritime companies” to form Dutch Watervalley, a venture that seeks to push the boundaries of water-based floating technology in Holland. They also work closely with the leading water architect Koen Olthuis, founder of Waterstudio, whose philosophy is to “let water in and make friends with it”.

His current projects include The Citadel in Naaldwijk, the world’s first floating apartment complex, which sits on low-lying land that, after completion, will be flooded to allow The Citadel to float.

Dutch Docklands are also looking further afield to the Maldives, where they are building the floating Amillarah islands, which cost from $10m

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4. for a 930sq m private island with a 465sq m villa, available through Christie’s International Real Estate.

A further 33 such floating structures will take shape in Dubai as part of The World Islands, the multi-billion dollar development of private man-made islands, and Dutch Docklands also plan to take the idea to Miami, “as a showcase model to cities and local governments in the US on how floating technology can change their approach to fighting rising sea levels,” says Mulder.

The Amillarah islands cater to the growing demands of the super-rich for private islands “which offer privacy, intimacy and freedom,” says Mulder. But their wealthy owners will also sleep soundly at night safe in the knowledge that they are flood-resilient, too. “They are completely self-supporting floating islands. They float permanently on the water and can be placed in any location in the world,” adds Mulder, who is working with the Ocean Futures Society – founded by Jacques Cousteau’s son, Jean-Michel – to build artificial reefs below the islands to minimize the environmental impact.

The product may be highend luxury, but the purpose is 141 Baku.

purely practical. “The Maldives, one of the lowest-lying countries in the world, has been devastated by rising sea levels.

Climate change is threatening its citizens, structures, culture and way of life,” says Mulder.

“In a joint venture with the Maldivian government, we have designed floating projects that will serve to bolster the country’s economy – which is largely dependent on tourism – and achieve the support necessary to spread the floating philosophy even further.”

Floating cities have the potential to make us rethink everything from property to citizenship. “Water is real estate” is the mantra of the Vancouver-based company International Marine Floatation Systems, who have been building floating homes on concrete bases for 30 years.

It’s also the thinking in Delft in Holland, where plots of water,

1. Design by Neil Worrall for an Aquacity, winner of The Next Big Thing competition.

2. Floating houses at the IJburg development, Amsterdam, designed

by Marlies Rohmer Architects. 3. A fisherman at his floating home near Cat Ba Island in Halong Bay, Vietnam.

4. The Floating Pavilion, an experiment in sustainable architecture, in Rotterdam. 5 & 6. The low-lying and crowded island Santa Cruz del Islote, Colombia.

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2. called The Waterlots, went on sale in 2010 and have sold out.

Buyers have built their own freestanding floating house with a jetty connected to the land.

Expanding on to water through floating construction is the start of the “blue revolution”, according to Rutger de Graaf, founder of DeltaSync, who designed the Floating Pavilion in Rotterdam, “a city that has made floating urban development one of the cornerstones of its climate adaptation strategy,” he says.

As he sees it, climate change is just one reason for building floating homes. “The biggest issue we face globally is land shortage due to rapid urbanization,” says de Graaf.

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“Every day more than 150,000 people move to cities – and 90 per cent of the world’s major cities are on the coast. By 2050 the world will need to produce twice as much food as today and that will require much more land. Most of the urban development takes place in coastal areas that are vulnerable to flooding. Floating cities are a solution to both land shortage and sealevel rise due to climate change.”

There are other benefits to the construction of floating houses. They can be built off-site, which makes it cheaper, higher quality and – because it can be done on a large scale – more sustainable and innovative. Building on water also means you can separate the value of the building and the location. The house can be sold independently of its water plot and moved or adapted, which means greater flexibility and less need for demolition.

This is floating architecture on a small scale. But given that water covers 70 per cent of the planet, and the growing global population is putting ever more strain on available land, building on the oceans could be seen as the logical next step.

Creating sustainable, self-sufficient floating communities is “humanity’s next frontier”, according to The Seasteading Institute, a California-based think tank set up by Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel and Patri Friedman, grandson of Nobel Prizewinning economist Milton Friedman.

They say we could seriously expect to see the world’s first floating city – or ‘seastead’ – by 2020. They don’t know where yet – though they are scouting for locations and cite the Gulf of Fonseca, which is bordered by Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador, as the ideal setting. The funding isn’t in place yet either, but the cost seems reasonable: $167m for the first floating city, built on 11 solar-powered concrete platforms, with homes, offices and hotels. Their vision is for such cities

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ROOS ALDERSHOFF FOTOGRAFIE. JERRY REDFERN/LIGHTROCKET/GETTY. LUCA ZANETTI/LAIF/CAMERA PRESS.

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CREATING SUSTAINABLE, SELF-SUFFICIENT FLOATING COMMUNITIES IS “HUMANITY’S NEXT FRONTIER”. WE COULD SERIOUSLY EXPECT TO SEE THE WORLD’S FIRST FLOATING CITY BY 2020. to have a host nation but to be largely politically autonomous.

De Graaf shares their view.

“Floating cities offer huge opportunities for increased democracy and self-governance, even if they are located within the jurisdiction of nations or city governments,” he says.

“In floating cities, you can design your own house and arrange your own water and energy supply. This makes you more independent from the large utility companies and the central government. Innovations in web-based information and communications technology in floating cities potentially enable more direct decision making and more citizen involvement than our traditional parliamentary system.”

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This kind of self-governing floating city also makes for a society that has the best chance of flourishing, thinks Neil Worrall, a director at property company Jones Lang LaSalle in London, who won a recent international competition, The Next Big Thing, which invited new inspiration for urban redevelopment. His idea was for sustainable Aquacities – carbon-positive, earthquake- and tsunami-proof cities of almost 1,300sq km, each to be built at least 12 nautical miles (22.3km) offshore – far enough to resist the economic influence of the landmass nearest to them.

“I would want them all to have an equal structure and equal financial systems and benefits, so an Aquacity off the coast of Bangladesh would have the same chance as one built off the coast of San Francisco,” says Worrall.

“Perhaps not allowing real estate ownership is the answer.

If everyone rents that would prevent big companies going in and buying up a load of apartments and selling them on to make money. It needs to be a

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place for people rather than a place for organizations.”

While some are focusing on aquatic architecture as a way of easing the problems of the global population explosion and the increasing shortage of land, others – such as London-based Baca Architects – are thinking more about the weather and, specifically, flooding.

“The old solutions of building dykes and levies won’t last. We must treat water as an asset but respect it,” says Richard Coutts, Baca’s director, who designs flood-proof homes that either repel water or let it in, depending on how much of it there is. His design for a floating peninsula in Nijmegen in the Netherlands won the Future Projects Award for Regeneration and Masterplanning at the 2014 MIPIM property show in Cannes.

In Marlow on the River Thames, where the flood waters can potentially rise more than one storey, Coutts has designed Britain’s first amphibious house, which lifts from its dock as the water level rises.

“Its landscape is designed to

1. The Tuvalu Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale, 2015. 2. The Funafuti atoll, Tuvalu.

3. ‘Oasis of the Sea’

by Emerson Stepp, which was the Best Picture Winner of the Seasteading Institute’s design competition, 2009. 4. Floating island on Lake Titicaca, on the border between Peru and Bolivia.

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DDP/CAMERA PRESS. AWAKENING/THE ASAHI SHIMBUN/GETTY. COURTESY THE SEASTEADING INSTITUTE.

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food. The only moving part in the building is the water. It’s the Archimedes principle: the mass of the building is less than that of the water, so buoyancy is suffcient to lift a 240-tonne house,” says Coutts, whose food-resistant homes typically cost between fve and 20 per cent more than a conventional new-build.

Coutts is designing another house on a private island in the Thames whose ground foor is encased in waterproof concrete. And he is involved in designing the UK’s frst foating village – inspired by the recent development of IJburg, Amsterdam on artifcial islands – in East London’s Royal Docks, with 50 homes, a market square, events space and restaurants set on concrete piles.

Tellingly, the bible for new architects in the UK, the Metric Handbook: Planning and Design Data, has just added a new chapter and it’s all about food-aware design. “It shows architects how to design foating architecture from a single house to a city with a billion inhabitants,” says Coutts, who co-wrote the chapter.

“We know water can represent a threat.

Our ancestors knew that certain sites fooded – that’s why they named them things such as Lower Field Farm or Brook Street. By consulting our historical maps and using modern computer modelling and climate data, we can know where the water wants to go,” says Coutts. “It can all be predetermined and planned.”

Perhaps those foating city visionaries of decades ago weren’t simply immersed in science fction after all. They saw exactly what was coming.

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London

Regent’s Park 14–17 October 2015 Preview 13 October Tickets at friezelondon.com

SHOPPING:

Come Together

Who says fashion is frivolous? Female artisans from developing countries are able to sell their products to an international clientele thanks to a unique global partnership.

A Fair Price for Fashion

From top: sugar-cane bag handmade in Colombia; ankudu wood bangles from India; silk scarves (inside bangles) from Cambodia; striped hat from Colombia; traditional Azerbaijani kelagayi silk headscarf.

Can a handbag change the world? Maybe not in headlinemaking terms, but it could be the difference between a life of poverty and a life of stability for one woman in Guatemala. Or India. Or Ethiopia. Global Goods Partners (GGP) was founded 10 years ago to enable women in some of the world’s poorest regions to sell their beautiful handcrafted products – from hats and handbags to jewellery, scarves and belts – to customers all around the world. Fair trade and non-profit, GGP helps these women raise themselves and their families out of poverty, while customers can enjoy a guilt-free fashion fix. Selected products from the range (pictured) are now available to buy at Baku Cafe or you can shop online at globalgoodspartners.org.

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THE BUZZ :

Latin Spirits

Locals are living la vida loca in Baku, thanks to two hot new openings that take their inspiration from Central and South America and give it a cool sophistication.

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WORDS BY LAURA ARCHER. EMIL KHALILOV.

Maya & La Vida

Let’s be frank: wherever you are in the world, Mexican restaurants are not usually the height of sophistication.

Think sombrero-wearing waiters wielding sticky trays of margaritas, a forlorn assortment of cacti and varying shades of terracotta, lime green and sunshine yellow. Fun, yes, absolutely, but not exactly a restful, soothing dining experience.

But what if you could have both? All of the conviviality but with a touch a class?

Enter Maya, the new restaurant next to Yarat’s Contemporary Art Space on the western shore of Baku bay. The cuisine is authentically Mexican but the decor doesn’t venture beyond the ‘neutrals’ page of the paint chart, aiming instead for tasteful restraint – all mocha leather banquettes, pale woods and stone floors.

OK, there are a few sacks of coffee strewn around for poetic effect, but there’s definitely not a poncho in sight. Instead, the design takes its cue from the building’s former life as a boat workshop during the Soviet era, hence the spanners, hammers and saws hanging from the walls like some kind of industrial art.

Upstairs, things get a little looser. La Vida is where the party’s at, with a vast range of top-shelf, premium tequilas.

A nightly live band supplies Latino beats to fire up the well-heeled crowd, which often spills out onto the buzzy terrace overlooking the bay.

And yes, that is a hammerhead shark circling above the bar – a reminder, perhaps, not to get in too deep. After all, as American comedian George Carlin put it so memorably, “One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor”.

1, 2 & 4. Maya Mexican Restaurant and Bar. 3 & 5. La Vida Tequila Bar.

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PROFILE:

Family Man

Having worked worldwide, Martin Kleinmann, general manager of the JW Marriott Absheron hotel, feels right at home in Baku, as Abbie Vora finds out. Portrait by NATAVAN VAHABOVA When Kleinmann is not at work, he is…

Being sporty. I try to do some sport on my days off, such as tennis at the Bulvar Tennis Club or a round of golf at the National Azerbaijan Golf Club in Guba.

Cycling. It’s a small city, so cycling around it is easy, which is something my family hasn’t been able to do for ages. We love to ride along the Boulevard.

ooking back at all the places I’ve lived, Baku has been the easiest in which to settle,” says Martin Kleinmann, as he sips his cappuccino in a booth at Zest, the bright, modern restaurant off the lobby of the JW Marriott Absheron hotel. He has been the general manager here since early 2014.

Hailing from Germany, Kleinmann started at the bottom, in the laundry at Stuttgart’s InterContinental. “Now I work at one of the really special Marriott hotels,” he says of the property, which is a flagship of Marriott’s exclusive ‘JW’ range. “Its interior 150 Baku.

design excites people. Of course, you need to have good service and good food, but it’s not your usual hotel.”

Kleinmann, 44, his wife and their two young sons travel everywhere as a family, so it says a lot that they feel so at home in Baku. “It’s a small and close community here, and there are so many exciting things happening,” Kleinmann says. “Lots of global brands are arriving – we now have BuddhaBar, El Portalón, Mari Vanna – and there’s so much infrastructure since the European Games. It’s all done brilliantly, and to such a high standard.”

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Sleeping. I always have one day a week when I sleep for longer, usually Saturdays. The kids go to Korean school in the morning, and Daddy can have a lie-in.

Going to the beach. Baku has long, hot summers and fantastic beaches. It’s an easy 30-minute drive to Amburan Beach Club, where we’ll spend a whole day.

ELNUR/SHUTTERSTOCK. WOLFGANG KAEHLER/LIGHTROCKET/GEORGE DOYLE/GETTY. EDDIE GERALD/ALAMY.

Taking family road trips.

Sometimes we just go for a drive out of town. My sons love the mud volcanoes and the natural fires at Yanar Dag.

MY ART:

Adventures in Wonderland

Rome-based jewellery designer and heir to the Fendi fashion house Delfna Delettrez has a taste for the bizarrely beautiful, says Lauren Cochrane. Portrait by MARK COCKSEDGE What does your art collection consist of?

For me it’s less about fne art and more about memorabilia, from the creepy to the more organic. I have been collecting metal animals for about seven years and bought them in the oddest places – even private houses. I got an incredible spider from a house in Havana.

I keep them all together in a sort of metallic cosmos in my house in Paris. There are only about 20 – they have to attract me a lot to be part of that collection.

How would you describe your taste?

Art and design have to come together for me to really love something. Like Marc Quinn’s Iceberg marble tables – there’s the coldness of the marble, the strength of the stone. They’re beautiful but functional. My own pieces often have two lives, they can be useful to the wearer in a variety of ways.

Which art movements have inspired your designs?

At the start of my career, I was very infuenced by surrealism.

I loved Magritte paintings, the way Dalí made something static seem like it was moving, the different perspectives of de Chirico and the constant wonders of Hieronymus Bosch.

How did you discover art?

My mother took us to galleries when we were small and made us very sensitive to art, and to beauty in general. I also lived in Rome, which is like an open-air museum. I grew up surrounded by art – Lucio Fontana and Alberto Burri next to Roman antiquities. My parents taught me not to be afraid of that mix.

I live in an old factory so there’s lots of space but I don’t like big pieces. I tend to hide unexpected things in dark corners, like surprises.

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Clockwise from top: Delfna Delettrez in her Mount Street store in London’s Mayfair; a display in the store; La grand guerre (1964) by René Magritte; L’amore del mondo (1960) by Giorgio de Chirico.

MARK COCKSEDGE. PRIVATE COLLECTION/CORBIS. PRIVATE COLLECTION/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES.

©ADAGP, PARIS AND DACS, LONDON 2015.

How do you fnd new pieces?

They choose me, almost. I have been collecting C. Jeré without even knowing it. I found one piece in Miami, another in Paris and another in Rome. Only the last one had a name on but I looked it up and realized the other two were by him, too.

DESTINATION: Where is it?

With its wide, tree-lined streets, imposing buildings, tranquil parks, piazzas and ornate lampposts, Ganja is your archetypal grand European city.

Except, that is, for the Ladas bumbling along the roads and the misty outline of the nearby Caucasus mountains. Located in northwest Azerbaijan, some five hours’ drive from Baku, Ganja is about as far from Paris, Vienna or Berlin as you can get before you’re out of Europe altogether. And if you look closer, you’ll see that its handsome appearance is neither western nor eastern, but rather a patchwork of different influences, from its time as part of the early Azerbaijani states in the medieval period to the Russian occupation in the 19th century (when it was renamed Elisabethpol).

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Ganja

Azerbaijan’s former capital Ganja has long been prized as a strategic hub amid the mountains and lakes of the Caucasus, as Laura Archer discovers.

What’s it like?

Once briefly the country’s capital, today Ganja is the second-largest city in Azerbaijan and an important hub for industries as diverse as metals, silk and wine. The busy commercial centre is lively but unremarkable; it is in the city’s squares, parks and backstreets that Ganja’s unique character makes itself known. Take, for instance, the bottle house – a two-storey dwelling made from tens of thousands of glass bottles. Mosaic tiles and pebbles set into the walls depict portraits of the owner’s family, including his brother who died during the Second World War, and to whose memory the house is dedicated.

The city’s most famous memorial, however, is the tomb of Nizami Ganjavi, the 12th-century poet renowned throughout the Orient, who was born in Ganja. The 17thcentury Shah Abbas mosque is also worth seeking out, with its distinctive red-brick minarets.

Further afield, a 10-minute drive

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1, 4 & 7. The exterior and interior of the tomb of the poet Nizami Ganjavi. 2. The bottle house. 3 & 6. The Shah Abbas mosque with its minarets. 5. The statue of Heydar Aliyev in Ganja’s main square.

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takes you into the vine-clad foothills of the mountains, where women sell flowers and bread by the roadside as it winds ever upwards. The region is famous for Mount Kapaz, the distinctive craggy mountain whose glacial meltwater feeds Lake Göygöl, known as ‘the blue lake’ for its crystal clarity. Closed to the public for many years, this spectacular area has just opened up to visitors, although access is still tightly controlled in order to preserve its pristine state.

Despite its historical importance, Ganja is a city which is very much in the here and now. This year it hosted two record-breaking flash mobs in its main square – one of 10,000 people to commemorate what would have been President Heydar Aliyev’s 92nd birthday, and another of 6,000 people to celebrate the inaugural European Games – a demonstration of Ganja’s youthful exuberance that has been cemented by it winning the bid to be European Youth Capital 2016. See? We told you the spirit of the city was to be found in its squares.

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THE ARTIST: ’ve always dreamed of being an artist. Since early childhood I was drawing, painting and writing poems but nobody ever took me seriously. So at 16 I entered the law faculty at Baku State University, graduating in 2005 and completing my master’s in 2008. But while working as a legal adviser I met artists who were so encouraging; they made me feel that I was one of them, and I realized that I was. So from that moment my life divided into two – me as a lawyer and me as an artist. I continued this way for several years, until a year ago, at the age of 29, when I decided to give up my legal career.

My art has changed over the years. I started drawing fgures in a primitive style with pastels on paper. Then I fell in love with oils and my art started to move towards hyperrealism. I have exhibited in Azerbaijan and the UAE and my work is in private collections in the USA, Russia, Turkey and the UK. People have always fascinated me. I only draw and paint people, and through them try to show different aspects of life. Even if there is no fgure visible in the image, you can still feel their presence, as if they had just left.

I get my inspiration from everything that surrounds me, from the books I read and the people I know. I’ve been interested in Eastern miniatures, especially Persian, Azerbaijani and Mughal ones, since I was a child but I’ve recently begun to research this style at a deeper level. I have been greatly inspired by the ancient miniatures which illustrate Nizami Ganjavi’s Khamsa and the Ma‘arif of Baha al-Din Walad’s The Drowned Book.

Creativity in art is all about yourself, the artist. First you feel the creative impulse, this magic and inexplicable feeling that all artists talk of – it really does exist. But then it’s all about the hard work – you have to animate your ideas in the right way. For me, my new miniature series is a kind of meditation; I go deep within myself and see my being through the different prisms I’m researching. This is something I’ll be concentrating on in the coming months. We will see where it leads me.

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Running from the Law

Azerbaijani painter Afet Baghirova had already embarked on a legal career when her desire to be a full-time artist became too strong to resist. Photography by NATAVAN VAHABOVA Clockwise from far left: Afet Baghirova in her studio; and her paintings Woon Choo (2012); Unknown Floating Object (2012); and Lucy’s Happiness (2012).

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HISTORY LESSON:

Time Travel

Where is this place?

The Qala Reserve is near the tip of the Absheron peninsula, very close to the Caspian. It’s a 45-minute drive from the centre of Baku, so perfect for a day-trip out of the city.

And what will I see when I get there?

The reserve is home to the Qala Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum, an interesting place to go to if you want to know about Azerbaijan’s ancient and not-so-ancient history. The region’s past goes back a very, very long way – all the way to Neolithic times in fact – and the museum attempts to bring 158 Baku.

this right up to the early 20th century. So, there’s a lot to see.

Such as?

The museum complex itself, which opened in 2008, has multiple buildings and institutions to take in the sheer range of exhibits: there’s the Qala Information Centre, the Ethno-Ecological Centre and the Qala Antiques Museum, as well as a caravanserai-style restaurant. The museum, for example, has case after case of metalwork items such as ewers and samovars, and there are scores of pottery shards dating from the 13th to the 18th centuries on show. There are even old horse-drawn carriages, and one of the most modern items on display – apart from the live camels and goats – is a rather forlorn-looking, early 20th-century example.

Anything to see outside?

Yes, it’s an open-air museum, too, with displays of ancient rock carvings and pots that have been found all over the Absheron peninsula. There’s a lot of reconstruction going on, from recreations of dwellings

and workshops from various eras to an entire fortress and tower with a spectacular spiral staircase, which is a popular tourist attraction, judging by the reviews. Altogether, there are well over 200 monuments in the area, including mosques, baths, tombs, tumuli – the list goes on.

It sounds a bit like the British Museum and the Alhambra all rolled into one.

Indeed. And it’s not all old around here – the reserve is not that far from the very modern Heydar Aliyev International Airport, which is highly appropriate seeing as this area’s been a transport hub for thousands of years.

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ILLUSTRATION BY TOBY MELVILLE-BROWN.

The Absheron peninsula has been at the heart of Azerbaijan’s history for millennia.

To tell such a long and complex story is not easy, but Qala Reserve may have cracked it.

THE ILLUSTRATOR :

Creatures

By Leyla Aliyeva

Back Issues

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WHO, WHAT, WHERE:

1 Newport Street Gallery, London, by Damien Hirst So is the enfant terrible of art a curator now?

Damien Hirst curated many groundbreaking shows by those who became known as the Young British Artists, before he – or they – came to fame (and vast fortune). Now he has his own gallery (above) in which to play.

As a super-proactive artist, for better or worse, this will in no way affect his prodigious output as he manages to out-Saatchi Saatchi at his own game. Kudos to the star of art stars.

Movers and Shakers

2 The Broad, Los Angeles Home to the private collection of philanthropist Eli Broad, was LA’s hotly anticipated museum worth the wait?

It was more than worth it, simply to be able to peek at the encyclopaedic collection. If you look up any of the artists on show, it’s the signature works in Broad’s collection that more often than not you will come face to face with in the flesh. The Diller Scofidio + Renfro building (above) is pretty special, too.

3 The Turner Prize, Glasgow Who will be crowned winner on 7 December? Does anyone care?

The Turner shortlist is short on visual stimulation. There are the architectural construction works of Assemble (above); the dry, political conceptual works

by Bonnie Camplin; the operatic sound installation by Janice Kerbel; and the ready-made consumer critiques by Nicole Wermers. Call me a prude but it would be nice to see something a little easier on the eyes, like paint on canvas.

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New galleries, new directors, new faces. Don’t get left behind this autumn as the art world shifts up a gear. Kenny Schachter presents your guide to the season’s hot topics.

Art Basel Miami Beach Noah Horowitz steps up to the plate as the fair’s new director.

Can we expect a radical shift?

I can’t see anything affecting the fair in Miami (3–6 December) all too much, be it Noah (below) or anyone else. This iteration of the Basel franchise has a momentum all its own, driven as much by the manic, frenetic party scene as the art within the big circus. Here come Miley, Kanye, Jay Z and Beyoncé bouncing into town, yet again.

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Sotheby’s and Artsy’s auction app Created for an online-only sale of contemporary art (in late October), will new technology bring the hammer down on auctions as we know them?

So much lip service has been paid to how the internet and art-selling websites will change the paradigm of how art is bought, sold and experienced. Surprisingly, I’ve yet to experience a single digital doodad that has had the slightest impact on how art is really consumed, other than the transparency of online pricing sites. Instagram, by default, is really the closest we’ve had to a fundamental shift in the tectonic plates of the glacially slowmoving art market’s adoption of new technology. That won’t change anytime soon.

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6 Inigo Philbrick, London Who? Oh do keep up.

Fresh from running Modern Collections on Mount Street, Inigo Philbrick now has his own name above the door. His new gallery on Davies Street (above) made a splash with its spectacular opening show this summer, featuring Mike Kelley and Sterling Ruby, and we can expect the high quality to continue. Shockingly, this American art dealer has yet to hit 30 years of age. Surely a talent that will be moving and shaking not just now but for decades to come.

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ENDANGERED NO. 2 :

Goitered Gazelle

The near-sacred status of this gazelle in Azerbaijan means that its threatened population is now being carefully protected. Illustration by MARGAUX CARPENTIER

Found: The goitered gazelle (Gazella subgutturosa) – which receives its common name due to a swelling of the larynx, resembling a goitre, of the male during mating season – once ranged widely from the Arabian Peninsula across the Middle East and Asia all the way to Mongolia, China and Pakistan.

Numbers fell dramatically in the first half of the 20th century but today one of the largest concentrations is in Shirvan National Park in Azerbaijan. The plants of their semidesert habitat supply them with enough moisture, while gazelles in Shirvan also drink brackish water from Chala Lake and elsewhere.

Under threat because: Like many other endangered species, the goitered gazelle has suffered as a result of habitat loss due to economic development. The spread of agriculture and overgrazing by growing numbers of livestock has led to competition for food, and it suffers from poaching as well. These threats have led to this graceful creature being classified as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List.

Outlook: While protected in all the countries it inhabits, erratic enforcement of this legislation means the goitered gazelle may increasingly rely on reserves such as Shirvan for safe refuge. In Azerbaijan it numbered barely 200 in the 1960s, but now the population there is estimated by the IUCN to be around 4,000.

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Tabula Rasa LAURENT ANDRÉ

grew up in my family’s hotel at a ski station near Lyon in France. At weekends I used to help with the breakfast and was always in the kitchen trying everything. I learned cooking and got a job at Alain Chapel’s three Michelin-starred restaurant in Lyon – he was a great teacher.

One day I bought a book by Alain Ducasse and thought, this is what I want to do, so I went to Monaco to meet him. I told him I was chef de partie and he said: “OK, you come in at number three now.” Straight back to the bottom! For three months, I was cleaning the parsley but eventually I was working with Ducasse and I did so for 18 years. I opened restaurants for him in London, Hong Kong and Paris. He taught me everything.

At my restaurant in Le Royal Monceau, Paris, I have put the relationship with the guest frst. It felt good to win my frst Michelin star, of course, but my big motivation is the customer.

We wanted to bring a bit of Paris to Baku so we teamed up with [local restaurant] Paris Bistro to recreate some of my signature dishes. Back home, if I want something [for the restaurant], I can get it. I didn’t know if I could do that here, but I can and it’s a big surprise.

Baku is a beautiful city and it’s still a baby – everything is so new. It has real potential.

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KALPESH LATHIGRA.

leroyalmonceau.com

Laurent André at Paris Bistro in Baku and some of his dishes for Le Royal Monceau, Paris.

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