art. culture. azerbaijan. a conde nast publication SUMMER 2014 ISSUE TWELVE
HOLD
ME!
Anya Hindmarch bags a winner
FLIGHT OF
FANCY Fashion gets exotic
25 Party shoes on!
ART OPENINGS:
+
FRIEZE V FIAC ECO HOMES CHINESE PUNK
P42 Mapped Out
P66 The Midas Touch
P76 Animal Magic
P98 Hills of Plenty
P126 Double Take
P116 Into Africa
速
BRILLIANCE REVEALED BY THE ENCHANTED LOTUS COLLECTION
DEBEERS.AZ
NEFTCHILER 47 BAKU AZERBAIJAN +994 12 493 12 95
LEYLA ALIYEVA, PHOTOGRAPHED BY ALAN GELATI.
Editor’s letter
ummertime brings with it a paradox: more and more people in the world choose to live in cities than ever before, and yet, given a hint of a holiday, they escape, often to the wildest place they can fnd. Whether you’re mooring your boat off an uninhabited rock in Dalmatia or camping in the wilds of Montana, the spirit is the same: you want to escape people to be with nature. Baku, like just a handful of cities around the world, has the good fortune to have a dramatic, permanent communion with nature, in the form of the Caspian Sea, along which my city forms a great arc. You are always aware of it. Perhaps only Cape Town and Rio, among the famed cities across the globe, can also claim such a dramatic natural seascape. Yet we in Baku also feel the call of the real wild in the long, steamy summers. Our wilderness encompasses the mountains of Azerbaijan, with its forests and villages and endangered species – one of which, the Caucasian leopard, we have put in the spotlight recently with the help of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The IUCN and many other conservationists attended an environmental summit, with a focus on the leopard, in Baku in the spring under the auspices of our International Dialogue for Environmental Action (IDEA). Also affliated with this is Adrian Steirn, a wildlife photographer who has been of great support and whom we interview in this issue on page 116. And our fashion shoot has a playfully wild theme, too (page 76). On our regular pages covering contemporary art and fashion, we have an interview with handbag designer Anya Hindmarch (page 66) and with the Whitechapel Gallery’s inspirational director Iwona Blazwick (page 37). Plus, there’s plenty more to entice from the wider world of style and culture, and from Azerbaijan itself. Take this issue to the wildest place you can imagine, and enjoy, while summer lasts.
Leyla Aliyeva Editor-in-Chief
17 Baku.
VALENTINO SIBADON, DOBLE LIENZO C/GALERIA LUCIA DE LA PUENTE.
Summer Issue
** ** **
By the roundabout 7-Eleven in Reno Pass the sumac, Ali Im Deutschen Wald Eastway to the world Twenty-eight below
Contents SKETCHES FRUIT OF THE LOOM
28
CULTURE FIX
31
Play disc jockey with these colourful culinary curiosities.
Our pick of the festivals, fairs and biennials this summer, from Mongolia to Montenegro and all points in-between.
THE CURATOR’S PROGRESS
Tate, Whitechapel…Tate? The unstoppable rise of gallery director Iwona Blazwick.
37
OBJETS D’ART
41
MAPPED OUT
42
ALL THAT GLITTERS
47
CULT & COLLECTABLE
51
Wear it, play it, live it, love it – our edit of the best art and fashion collaborations.
We scan the globe for the 25 most exciting developments in contemporary art spaces.
Baku-born designer Gyunel is earning her fashion stripes with her enviable A-list endorsements.
A selection of some of the most covetable objects on sale at the auction houses in the next few months.
SHOCK AND AWE
54
LIGHT MY FIRE
61
Performance duo Franck Apertet and Annie Vigier step out of line by taking audiences out of their comfort zone.
Can the Burning Man festival survive the influx of Google execs threatening to extinguish its flame?
CANVAS THE MIDAS TOUCH
Fashion world in junk food shocker! Don’t panic, it’s just handbag designer Anya Hindmarch doing her thing – again.
FRIEZE V FIAC
The Paris and London art fairs go head-to-head to woo collectors, curators and gallerists this autumn.
66 72
116
INTO AFRICA
122
CANDY GIRL
126
DOUBLE TAKE
134
BIG EGG HUNT
137
BAKU EYE
146
THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME
Cape Town-based photographer Adrian Steirn has his lens trained on the Caucasian leopard.
French artist Laurence Jenkell is sugar and spice and all things nice.
New reflects old in our illustrator’s mirror images of Baku.
On the Fabergé trail in New York.
Baku’s cultural barometer of cutting-edge trends on the international art scene.
Advances in architecture mean you can now have desirable digs without the guilt, as these elegant eco homes prove.
CATALOGUE
152
PROFILE
155
MY ART
156
DESTINATION: AMBURAN
159
THE BUZZ
160
TOWERING AMBITION
163
MAVEN
164
THE ARTIST
Sam Ioannidis on life at the Four Seasons hotel in Baku.
Flavia Masson shows us her flamboyant collection.
The coast with the most: summer at Amburan beach.
Enter the watery world of Mayak-13, Baku’s new art cafe.
The fifth annual International Art Festival.
We catch up with the crowd at Art Basel Hong Kong.
Intarsia expert Jabrail Guliyev comes out of the woods.
ANIMAL MAGIC
76
166
HISTORY & CULTURE
MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
92
168
THE ILLUSTRATOR
HILLS OF PLENTY
98
171
THE CIRCUIT
MATERIAL MAN
110
176
TABULA RASA
Summer fashion unleashes its wild side.
Is olfactory art the real deal?
Take a culinary tour through the mountainous north-west of Azerbaijan.
Tony Cragg is back in the studio and more fired up than ever.
Small is beautiful in the world of miniature paintings.
Welcome to the jungle.
People, places and parties around the world.
Conservationist Sean Gerrity goes back to nature.
COVER. Photographed by ELENA RENDINA. Styled by MARY FELLOWES. Dress by TODD LYNN. Feather neckpiece by LARA JENSEN.
art. culture. azerbaijan. a conde nast publication SUMMER 2014
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, CONDE NAST ART DIRECTOR MANAGING EDITOR DEPUTY EDITOR/CHIEF SUB-EDITOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Leyla Aliyeva Darius Sanai Daren Ellis Maria Webster Abbie Vora Laura Archer Caroline Davies
EDITOR-AT-LARGE
Simon de Pury
CONTRIBUTING FASHION DIRECTOR
Mary Fellowes
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
PICTURE EDITOR DESIGNERS
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, CONDE NAST INTERNATIONAL
Jarrett Gregory Michael Idov Emin Mammadov Hervé Mikaeloff Kenny Schachter Amelie von Wedel Claire Wrathall Nick Hall Anna Holden Arijana Zeric Frances Seal
Tamilla Akhmedova Hannah Pawlby Khayyam Abdinov +994 50 286 8661; medialand.baku@gmail.com Matanet Bagieva
Albert Read Nicholas Coleridge
BAKU magazine has taken all reasonable efforts 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. © 2014 The Condé Nast Publications Ltd. BAKU magazine is published quarterly by The Condé Nast Publications Ltd, Vogue House, Hanover Square, London W1S 1JU; tel +44 20 7499 9080; fax +44 20 7493 1469. Colour origination by CLX Europe Media Solutions Ltd. Printed by Taylor Bloxham Limited, Leicester. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. 22 Baku.
artbasel.com | facebook.com /artbasel | twitter.com /artbasel
Contributors SALLY HOWARD
ELMAR MUSTAFAzadeh
is a London-based journalist and author. She regularly contributes to The Sunday Times and Forbes. Her book The Kama Sutra Diaries is out now. What animal would you be? A barn swallow: typically British, with a tendency to migrate to Asia in the winter. Kandinsky or Koons? Kandinsky. Summertime: sadness or joy? Joy. Did Franck Apertet and Annie Vigier (p54) expand your horizons on performance art? Yes. I didn’t understand how powerful a tool it is to shock a complacent crowd. Oh, to have been in that polite Parisian audience bombarded by writhing naked bodies!
is a Baku-based photographer. What animal would you be? Margay. It’s rare, fast and cute. Kandinsky or Koons? Kandinsky reminds me of my summer house near Baku. But my little son likes fying rabbit balloons, so maybe he would choose Koons. Summertime: sadness or joy? Beach, palm trees, sun, bikinis, hot sand and cold mojito. So joy, but sadness if you are far away from all this. Which subject was the most fun to shoot this issue? I loved following the artists at the International Art Festival (p160), held at the Maiden Tower in Baku.
PETER ASPDEN
is the arts writer for the Financial Times. He writes a weekly column on culture for the Life and Arts section of the Weekend FT. What animal would you be? Bear. Kandinsky or Koons? Kandinsky. Summertime: sadness or joy? Joy. Since interviewing Tony Cragg (p110), do you have a new-found appreciation of his work? Tony Cragg’s work invites you to engage with the world in a new way. His fuid sculptural forms both refect the world, and live outside it. From one angle they are exquisite natural objects; from another they possess a forbidding, alien quality.
JARRETT GREGORY
24 Baku.
ELENA RENDINA
is an Italian-born fashion photographer, illustrator and set designer. She combines her talents to create the magical world in this issue’s fashion story (p76). What animal would you be? Probably a sloth because I don’t like to be rushed! Kandinsky or Koons? Koons. Michael Jackson and Bubbles – kitsch and shiny. Summertime: sadness or joy? Sleepiness? I get lazy when it’s warm. What is it about nature that inspires you? Colours and details – everything has a perfect shade and perfect shape.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY HOPE LITTLE.
DANNY SANGRA
is an illustrator, flmmaker and photographer. He has worked on projects with Louis Vuitton, Mulberry and Marc by Marc Jacobs. What animal would you be? Black panther. Kandinsky or Koons? Koons. Summertime: sadness or joy? Joy. How did you translate your impressions of Baku through art (p126)? I used a combination of my hands and technology. I wanted to convey the unique skyline in Baku, where every building – whether ornate and ancient or modern and sleek – has an individuality, then combine it with the symmetry and geometry of the beautiful carpets.
is Baku magazine’s new contributing editor and an associate curator of contemporary art at LACMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. What animal would you be? Dolphin. Kandinsky or Koons? Koons. Summertime: sadness or joy? Joy. For someone who hasn’t been to LACMA (p144), what can they expect? Looking at art should not feel laborious; I believe it is both tremendously profound and also the most frivolous and joyful thing humans can do. We try to expose both of those dimensions. When people spend time at the museum I want them to feel inspired about some element of their own world in a new way.
Fruit of the Loom Jewel-coloured translucent discs, resembling vinyl LPs, hang from roadside clotheslines throughout rural Azerbaijan. They’re known as turshu lavash, borrowing part of their name from the similarly shaped fatbread, lavash. Made from sun-dried fruit, including apple, pear and alycha (cherry plum), that has been boiled and pressed, they make sticky, toothsome candies. Plus, locals use them in savoury cooking to add a fruity tang to fesenjan stew, a traditional richly sauced dish. Photograph by RICHARD HAUGHTON
28 Baku.
(
Sketches
(
29 Baku.
Where Moscow What Inspired by Martin Luther King, curator David Elliott has chosen ‘A Time for Dreams’ as the theme for this year’s artists, aged 35 and under. youngart.ru
Where Mongolia What Man meets beast for the third annual land art biennial. Artists are hosted in Mongolian yurts (pictured) and asked to create works inspired by the vast wilderness around them. landartmongolia.com
10–14 SEPTEMBER ART RIO
Where Rio de Janeiro What With the spotlight on Brazil all summer, the fourth edition of its annual art fair should be one of the best yet, with Latin American and international galleries showing off their stars. artrio.art.br
( cultuRe FIx
UNTIL 10 AUGUST INTERNATIONAL BIENNALE FOR YOUNG ART
4–31 AUGUST LAND ART BIENNIAL
(
WHAT’S HOT & WHERE IT’S AT THIS SEASON
2–5 OCTOBER VIENNA FAIR
Where Vienna What An engaging exchange between artists from Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, including Azerbaijan’s Aida Mahmudova (below). viennafair.at
COURTESY JOHN SKOOG. MAGNUM PHOTOS. DEAGOSTINI/GETTY.
24–28 SEPTEMBER BRANCHAGE
Where Jersey What Back after a twoyear break, Branchage has a new format, with two curators - French designer Agnès B and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (above) – to refect its mid-Channel location. branchagefestival.com
26 SEPTEMBER26 OCTOBER RASHAD BABAYEV
Where Museum of Modern Art, Baku What Baku-born artist Babayev’s dramatic largescale canvases are given room to breathe at this solo exhibition in his home city. mim.az
12 MAY–27 JULY HENRI CARTIER– BRESSON Where Heydar Aliyev Centre, Baku What Taken on his strolls around the City of Light, ‘Paris’ is Cartier-Bresson’s photographic record of the French capital. heydaraliyevcenter.az
31 Baku.
( cultuRe FIx
(
8–12 SEPTEMBER UNKNOWN FESTIVAL
15 JULY HAUSER & WIRTH
Where Rovinj, Croatia What If you go down to the woods today, expect roaming performers (right) and sets from London Grammar and Disclosure. Or hop on a boat to a VIPs-only island party. At Unknown festival, anything goes. unknowncroatia.com
Where Bruton, Somerset What The mega-gallery opens its genteel country retreat, Durslade Farm, this summer, offering art fans and collectors an escape from the metropolis with residencies, exhibitions and a rather nice restaurant. hauserwirthsomerset.com
29 AUGUST 2014– 1 SEPTEMBER 2015 SALT
10–17 JULY EXIT AND SEA DANCE FESTIVALS
Where Serbia & Montenegro What Damon Albarn in a feld or Jamiroquai on the coast? This year’s Exit music festival (10-13 July) offers the former in an old fort on the Danube, while sister event Sea Dance brings summer beats to Jaz Beach in Montenegro (15-17 July). exitfest.org
15–31 AUGUST HELSINKI FESTIVAL
Where Helsinki What Punk ballet, the world’s smallest circus, Klint and more at Finland’s premier arts festival. helsinginjuhlaviikot.f
Where Heydar Aliyev Centre, Baku What French Expressionist Buffet’s works come to Baku. heydaraliyevcenter.az
10–14 SEPTEMBER JUNCTION ARTS FESTIVAL
Where Launceston, Tasmania What Expect audience participation aplenty at this live arts festival, now in its fourth year. Compulsory wearing of silly hats likely (above). junctionartsfestival.com
4–8 SEPTEMBER ARS ELECTRONICA
Where Linz, Austria What Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes are the theme of this year’s tech arts festival, as artists, scientists and researchers gather to debate the optimum conditions for stimulating real innovation. aec.at 32 Baku.
30 SEPTEMBER– 11 JANUARY 2015 BERNARD BUFFET
ANDREJ ISAKOVIC/AFP/GETTY. CHRIS CRERAR. MARTIN HIESLMAIR. SASA TKALCAN.
Where Norway What An island is the frst venue for this new travelling art initiative. The year-long programme ranges from freside storytelling to arctic art installations. salted.no
(
Sketches
(
Iwona Blazwick, pictured at Whitechapel Gallery, London.
The Curator’s Progress Iwona Blazwick is the refreshingly down-to-earth director of London’s Whitechapel Gallery, who put the institution on the world contemporary art map. Nancy Durrant fnds out what drives her and whether there’s any truth in rumours that she’s next in line for the top job at Tate. Portrait by Peter Marlow
hen the Greek super-collector Dimitris Daskalopoulos decided he wanted to make contemporary art more accessible to the people of Athens, there were several people he could have called on for advice. Simon Groom, director of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, with whom he recently staged a major exhibition, for example. Or Sir Nicholas Serota, head of Tate, who muscled in on the opening of that show with a speech that left no one in any doubt as to how much he’d like to get his hands on the food magnate’s fabulous collection. Instead, Daskalopoulos approached Iwona Blazwick, director of the Whitechapel Gallery in east London. 37 Baku.
1. The Whitechapel Gallery’s ‘Tree of Life’ facade by Rachel Whiteread. 2. Burak Delier’s ‘Crisis and Control’ (2013). 3. Max Mara Art Prize-winner Corin Sworn’s ‘Lens Prism’ (2010).
“He wants to bring art into the public realm in Greece, a brand new thing,” explains Blazwick today, sitting in the bright and airy Whitechapel Gallery cafe. “We’ve kicked off with a big show called ‘A Thousand Doors’, which is a sort of survey of public art over the past 20 years from around the world, complemented by fve new commissions for Greek artists.” But why did Daskalopoulos call her? “Well, when it’s the beginning of something, where the infrastructure doesn’t exist, then people look to an organization like Whitechapel Gallery,” she says, carefully. “When people admire what we do, they think, let’s bring a little bit of that into our situation.” Though she’d never say so, Blazwick – straw-blonde, preternaturally unlined at 58 and combining a formidable intellect with a refreshing practicality – is a big part of why people are drawn to the Whitechapel. Since becoming director in 2001, artists and collectors alike have been clamouring to work with her. Rachel Whiteread, who created a beautiful new facade for the gallery in 2012, pays tribute
38 Baku.
to Blazwick’s “immense energy, intellectual vigour and humour”. All of which must have been no small feat to keep up as Blazwick’s frst order of business on arrival was to oversee a spectacular £13 million expansion, which doubled the size of the gallery and created one of the most diverse art spaces in London. She is, in fact, no stranger to hard hats – in her previous job 2.
as head of exhibitions and displays at Tate, she was part of the planning team for Tate Modern. You could say she leaves a trail of construction in her wake. One of the most exciting programming strands that she
has initiated at the Whitechapel though, is the one that least requires a fancy new building. Artists’ Film International showcases artists’ flms, videos and animations from around the world, chosen by partners in 15 countries, “from Russia to Serbia, New Zealand to Argentina, and who knows, we might fnd one in Baku!” Blazwick says. The programme picks up on the massive proliferation in flm work in recent years. According to Melissa Gronlund, a lecturer in artists’ flm at the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford, “Artists’ flmmaking is at a historically high point now: it is no longer seen as a marginal practice but as typical as painting or installation.” For Blazwick though, the Whitechapel’s flm programme has a more political urgency. “Film is the medium that artists in non-Western cultures fnd most accessible and most transportable. It’s downloadable, so no one has to give permission; there are no customs offcers, there’s no one to stop it. We have a policy of no censorship, so even if artists can’t show the work in their own home town, the world will fnd a way.” Blazwick’s love affair with art began early. She grew up in Blackheath in south London, the daughter of “young, Utopian” Polish architects (she changed her name from Blaszczyk when she realized she was spending too much time spelling it out, but retains a cherished collection of misaddressed envelopes – ‘Fiona Bloodneck’ is a favourite). Blazwick considered architecture as a profession, but “when it dawned on me how much time was spent on plumbing and building regulations 3.
I decided it was not for me”. Both her parents were keen painters who, having been inspired by their visits to the Festival of Britain in 1951, often took her and her brother to visit the South Bank. “My earliest memories are of going to the Hayward Gallery to see a show of kinetic art,” she says. After studying English literature and fne art at Exeter University she began to practise as an artist, but had “an epiphany”. “I was a receptionist at Petersburg Press in London, which published limited edition prints and books,” she remembers. “They were focusing on the generation who came up in the 1960s, like Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Howard Hodgkin and David Hockney. Every day I would look at this amazing stuff around me and then go home and make my own work. Then after a year, I took a long, hard look at it and realized it
COURTESY GUY MONTAGU-POLLOCK/ARCAID. DOMINIC O’NEILL/ GETTY. COURTESY BURAK DELIER & PILOT GALLERY, ISTANBUL.
1.
VIENNA INtErNAtIoNAl Art FAIr 2 – 5 octobEr 2014 MEssE WIEN, HAll A
Preview & Vernissage Wednesday, 1 October 2014 www.viennafair.at
Merging luxury and decay was the idea behind this backgammon board from Alexandra Llewellyn, who creates intricately crafted games that include semiprecious-stone playing pieces. A tiny detail from a painting by British artist Miranda Donovan, known for her gritty aesthetic, forms the backdrop to this limited edition. alexandralldesign.com
Triple Peaks T Peaks In the fnal instalment of David Lynch trilogy, their eir Da Davi dL Lyn ch trilogy gy, gy y, Kenzo once again looked to the surrealist flmmaker for inspiration, creating prints from imagery in his movies. Lynch L Lyn ch even designed the set and soundtrack for the autumn/ winter 2014 show. w kenzo.com w.
A Bird in the Hand
( OBJETS D’ D’ART
(
Game On
COMPILED BY ABBIE VORA. COURTESY OTHER CRITERIA, HOORSENBUHS, DAMIEN HIRST & SCIENCE (UK), 2014. GETTY.
David Longshaw’s whimsical illustrations always form the basis of his fashion collections. Having started out with Alberta Ferretti, before launching his eponymous label in 2010, the designer also creates a weekly comic strip for Italian Vogue. davidlongshaw.co.uk
Daily Meds Off theRichter The smeared patterns of Gerhard Richter’s abstract appeal paintings give edgy gy a g ppeal to Felder Felder’s autumn/winter 2014 collection. It’s a nod to the fellow German by the fashion label’s founders, ers, twin t sisters Daniela and Annette Felder. r felderfelder.com r. felderf felder elderfelder felder. elder. eldercom
Slipping this gobstopper ring on to your fnger is sure to cure any style ailments. Made of yellow and rose gold, rubies, and white and black diamonds, the Damien Hirst design – featuring his iconic pills – is in collaboration with cult Californian jeweller Hoorsenbuhs whose founder, Robert Keith, is an old friend of the British artist. othercriteria.com 41 Bak Baku. Ba ku. ku.
JUST OPENED OPENING SOON
Newest Spaces We zone in on the most exciting developments in public contemporary art.
8 9 10 11 4
1 2 3
12
Illustration by Andy Gilmore 1 MUSEUM OF MODERN ART San Francisco, 2016. Bigger is better for SFMOMA, which is adding 22,000sq m. 2 BERKELEY ART MUSEUM & PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE California, 2016. BAM/ PFA expands its space with the help of NYC’s High Line architects, Diller Scofdio + Renfro.
6 PEREZ ART MUSEUM MIAMI Miami, December 2013. Jorge M Pérez’s $40m cash donation has transformed the former Miami Art Museum into a major world player.
6 5
7 CIRCUITO CULTURAL PRACA 11 PICASSO MUSEUM DE LIBERDADE Paris, September 2014. Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Controversial, delayed TBC. Three more venues and over-budget museum to be added to Brazil’s fnally reopens. largest cultural circuit.
3 THE BROAD 8 DESIGN MUSEUM Los Angeles, 2015. 12 MUSEUM FOR London, 2015. Much-anticipated opening PHOTOGRAPHY Terence Conran’s of Eli and Edyth Broad’s & VISUAL ARTS temple to modern 2,000-strong collection. Marrakech, 2016. style moves to The world’s largest Kensington. free-standing 4 ASPEN ART MUSEUM photography museum Colorado, August 2014. opened in 2013 in a Japan’s Pritzker Prize9 TATE MODERN temporary building. winning Shigeru Ban London, 2016. Herzog & Its David Chipperfeldcreates Aspen’s new de Meuron design a new designed space will be art space. wing, incorporating the ready in 2016. former power station’s original oil tanks. 5 MUSEO JUMEX Mexico City, November 13 VILLA AJAVON 10 FONDATION 2013. Home to Latin Ouidah, Benin, November LOUIS VUITTON America’s largest 2013. Permanent display Paris, autumn 2014. private contemporary of fnancier Lionel Frank Gehry’s art collection. Zinsou’s modern art remarkable white collection – the frst of glass sails house the its kind on the continent Foundation’s collection. outside South Africa. 42 Baku.
13
7
14 MMK 2 Frankfurt, October 2014. New branch showing highlights from MMK’s famed vast collection. 15 GARAGE GORKY PARK Moscow, 2014. Koolhaasdesigned expansion of Dasha Zhukova’s Russian art complex. 16 KOC CONTEMPORARY Istanbul, 2016. Collection of Turkish dynasty, the Koç family, gets a striking space by Grimshaw Architects.
maPPed out
(
15
16
17
(
14
20
21 22 18 19
23
20 NATIONAL MUSEUM OF MODERN & CONTEMPORARY ART Seoul, November 2013. The MoMA or Tate Modern of South Korea.
24
21 LONG MUSEUM WEST BUND Shanghai, March 2014. Modern Chinese art from 1945 to 2009. 25 17 ART CITY Baku, 2015. New interactive art space.
22 YUZ MUSEUM Shanghai, May 2014. Converted aircraft hangars house billionaire Budi Tek’s collection of large-scale works.
18 TOP SECRET! 23 M+ KOWLOON Hong Kong, 2017. Qatar, TBC. Where will 20th- and 21st-century Sheikha Al-Mayassa display visual culture. her unparalleled collection? 19 SAADIYAT ISLAND Abu Dhabi, 2015–16. Big-hitters Louvre and Guggenheim go East.
24 PINACOTHEQUE DE PARIS Singapore, 2015. France’s famed museum opens in the Lion City.
25 ZEITZ MOCAA Cape Town, 2016. Designed by Thomas Heatherwick, MoCAA will house the private African contemporary art collection of former Puma chairman Jochen Zeitz.
.
43 Baku.
Portrait by Ben Hopper
Sketches (
One name, one mission: to make her eponymous label, Gyunel, a fashion hit. And in less than two years she already has royals and A-list celebrities snapping up her gothmeets-glam designs. Lauren Cochrane talks to the Baku-born designer.
(
All that Glitters
Gyunel, photographed in London earlier this year.
t’s the day of the Baku photo shoot and designer Gyunel Rustamova is fretting ever so slightly. She jokes with the photographer about what face to make for her portrait – “shall I be like a serious MP?” – and wonders aloud if “there’s a school models go to learn how to pose”. As these portraits show, the Baku-born Gyunel (she prefers to go by her frst name only), with her chestnut mane and eyes the size and colour of Cadbury’s chocolate buttons, is actually a very easy subject for a photographer. Wearing all black but for a pair of 10cm-high Charlotte Olympia heels with a jolly under-the-sea pattern, she looks understated and grown-up, but with the lightness of youth – a ftting combination that neatly expresses her personality. Gyunel only launched her eponymous label in February 2013, but she’s anything but the typical wet-behind-the-ears young designer. In fact, the 32-year-old mother of two has already gained the kind of attention that means photo shoots may soon be part of her everyday life. “I don’t feel like we have time to stop,” she says of her schedule, widening those eyes. “I keep calling us a small brand but my mentor told me to up it to medium – we’re growing at full speed.” The autumn/winter 2014 collection, shown in London in February, is the latest bright and shiny thing to fall off the Gyunel production line. With snowdrops hidden under the snow cited as inspiration, it featured beading on tailored jackets like glittering snowfakes, a print of fractured ice inside cropped bikers and various clever sculptural dresses that would bring a sparkle of glamour to the wardrobes of women aged 18 to 80. Add a dramatic showpiece using LED lights on a cape, supermodel Coco Rocha on the catwalk 47 Baku.
mother, an economist by training, did just that. “She would make things to stand out,” the designer recalls. “Once, she did a wedding dress for the daughter of a quite conservative family with very high slits up the sides.” Then there were contraband copies of French Vogue that her grandmother, a GP, would acquire. She also spent time researching at the public library where her other grandmother – who wove silk carpets as a hobby – worked. Fashion had well and truly blipped on young Gyunel’s radar and she wanted more. “I decided when I was 13 that I wanted to live in London,” she says. 2.
1.
Front row at Gyunel’s a/w ’14 London Fashion Week show in February were (1) Olivia Palermo and Leigh Lezark, both in Gyunel designs, and (3) Tanya Burr and Pandemonia. 2, 4–5. Models on the catwalk.
name names but we have had a few royals and Russian ladies as clients,” she says. “That’s why our South Kensington location in London works – it’s convenient for them.” Gyunel takes it all in her stride. See today for example. We’re in deepest, darkest east London in a crumbling industrial building covered in graffti, with portraits of scantily clad green-haired circus performers on the walls. It’s all a long way from the gentility of South Kensington. None of this fazes Gyunel, even when we spot her smart Mini convertible parked on a double yellow and slapped with a parking ticket. “I’m the Mr Bean of driving,” she says, shrugging. This ‘what will be will be’ attitude may be down to a background that has seen the designer come up close and personal with misfortunes that dwarf any parking charges. Born in Baku in 1981, she grew up under Communist rule and later, in the early 1990s, when the Communist regime had collapsed, a young Gyunel and her even younger brother experienced the repercussions of the confict at the time. The designer prefers not to elaborate further, saying these memories are “still hard to talk about”, so she expresses them visually instead. Gargoyles are their most obvious manifestation. A signature device in Gyunel’s designs, the gothic fgures are snow-covered in her latest collection. “My vision is quite dark,” she says. But clothes were a bright spot in her childhood. While designer goods were banned under Communism, there was no law against making your own and Gyunel’s
48 Baku.
“Brogues would be considered men’s shoes.” These trips are not just family time – they’re crucial for work. Gyunel sees the connection to her roots as central to making her label special. “I like the head sculpture of poet Aliagha Vahid in Baku’s Old Town. He has people in his hair. On one side they’re carrying coffns, and on the other they’re going to a wedding. It’s all life in his hair – I love surrealist things like this.”
3.
5.
4.
Such things are all part of making an aesthetic that’s true to its designer. “My memories make the label unique,” she says. “I love minimal style – like Ann Demeulemeester’s – but I don’t design like that. I’m more dramatic – Alexander McQueen is a big inspiration.” She describes Kate Moss as a dream customer because “her style doesn’t look like it’s trying too hard. She dresses for herself.”
MY MEMORIES HELP TO MAKE THE LABEL UNIQUE. I LOVE MINIMAL STYLE BUT I DON’T DESIGN LIKE THAT. MY NATURE IS MORE DRAMATIC. “It took a year to convince my family. I have now lived all over the place – Switzerland, here, Baku…” Gyunel returns to visit family – taking her two boys, aged fve and 10 – about three times a year. “I’m working hard to make sure they don’t have an identity crisis,” she says, only half-joking. “They learn about the culture there, and spend time with family.” Gyunel says her style changes when back home – where Jenny Packham, Temperley and Marchesa are the preferred labels, and glamour the prevailing aesthetic. “I wear heels for a whole week,” she says.
Who can say if she will ever become a name as intrinsically associated with fashion as McQueen or Moss? She, for one, is ready to take the plunge and fnd out. “I don’t get motivated by competing with people – it drowns me,” she says, thoughtfully. “I like to be in a parallel capsule, going forward but in my way.” Quietly determined, and defnitely talented, it’s a safe bet she’ll succeed.
.
JONATHAN HORDLE / REX. DAVID M BENETT / GETTY.
(
Sketches
(
and Olivia Palermo on the front row – both wearing Gyunel designs – and this was a slick operation. “The feedback so far has been amazing,” says Gyunel when we speak in the spring. “We are now stocked at Wolf & Badger in London, and Harvey Nichols in Baku [opening this autumn] has bought the collection. We’re also talking to stores in Turkey and Dubai.” Collaboration offers keep on coming, and the team of fve recently joined diamond company De Grisogono in putting on a dinner party at the Cannes International Film Festival. Then there’s the couture business. “I can’t
SALE ‘Hermès Vintage’ by Artcurial at Hôtel Hermitage, Monaco, 24 July. PADDLE UP! Hermès ‘Kelly’ bag with print of Grace Kelly (2007). Estimate: €60,000–80,000.
Swing Low
SALE ‘Illustration Art Signature Auction’ at Heritage Auctions, New York, 16 October. PADDLE UP! ‘Swingin’ Sweetie’, Brown & Bigelow calendar, by Gil Elvgren (1968). Estimate: $50,000+.
My Hero
COURTESY HERITAGE AUCTIONS. COURTESY ARTCURIAL.
SALE ‘Comics Signature Auctions’ at Heritage Auctions, Dallas, 7–9 August. PADDLE UP! ‘More Fun Comics’ #60 (1940). Estimate: $14,500+.
Round One SALE ‘Sports Collectibles Platinum Night Auction’ at Heritage Auctions, Cleveland, 31 July–1 August. PADDLE UP! Muhammad Ali worn fght gloves from frst Joe Frazier bout (1971). Estimate: $100,000+.
HOTTEST UPCOMING AUCTIONS
( Cult & Collectable
(
Totes Amaze
Sweet Music SALE ‘Musical Instrument Signature Auction’ at Heritage Auctions, Dallas, 18 July. PADDLE UP! Fender Mary Kaye Stratocaster electric guitar (1957). Estimate: $80,000+.
51 Baku.
SALE ‘Decorative Art & Design’ at Sworders Fine Art Auctioneers, Essex, UK, 29 July. PADDLE UP! Danish rosewood and chrome Model 901 desk by Bodil Kjaer (1959). Estimate: £6,000–8,000.
Hot Stuff SALE ‘Vintage Posters’ at Swann, New York, 6 August. PADDLE UP! ‘Kaffee Hag’ by Ludwig Hohlwein (1913). Estimate: $15,000–20,000.
Old Money SALE ‘Coins and Medals’ at Bonhams, Los Angeles, 31 August. PADDLE UP! Series 1873 $10 note from Gold Bank of Stockton. Estimate: $120,000–150,000.
52 Baku.
Flower Power
Deep Blue
SALE ‘20th Century Decorative Arts’ at Bonhams, Los Angeles, 6 October. PADDLE UP! ‘Fallow Deer, Red Stag and Sunfowers’ chandelier by Virgil Marti (2003). Estimate: $6,000–8,000.
SALE ‘Fine & Decorative Arts’ at Heritage Auctions, Dallas, 13-14 September. PADDLE UP! Three-piece sculpted glass vessels from ‘Seaform’ group by Dale Chihuly (1941). Estimate: $4,000+.
COURTESY HERITAGE AUCTIONS. COURTESY BONHAMS. COURTESY SWANN. COURTESY SWORDERS FINE ART AUCTIONEERS.
(
Cult & Collectable
(
Great Dane
ICMI
The Collection
ICMI was founded by the senior management of Inverlochy Castle Hotel, Scotland’s most renowned small luxury hotel, to provide a consulting and management service to the hotel and hospitality industries. The management team has the expertise, experience and structure to assist small to medium size businesses to achieve proftability through sound management and robust innovative marketing. ICMI won Hotel Management Company of the Year in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.
Inverlochy Castle
Highlands
The Atholl
Greywalls and Chez Roux
Edinburgh
near Edinburgh
Telephone: +44 (0)1397 702177 Email: info@inverlochy.co.uk Web: www.inverlochycastlehotel.com
Telephone: +44 (0)8447 360047 Email: info@theatholl.com Web: www.theatholl.com
Telephone: +44 (0)1620 842144 Email: enquiries@greywalls.co.uk Web: www.greywalls.co.uk
Inver Lodge and Chez Roux
Cromlix and Chez Roux
Rocpool Reserve and Chez Roux
Highlands
Perthshire Telephone: +44 (0)1786 822125 Email: enquiries@cromlix.com Web: www.cromlix.com
Telephone: +44 (0)1571 844496 Email: stay@inverlodge.com Web: www.inverlodge.com
Blanefeld House
Turnberry
Telephone: +44 (0)1463 240089 Email: info@rocpool.com Web: www.rocpool.com
Rocpool Reserve Serviced Apartments
Edinburgh
Telephone: +44 (0)1655 615005 Email: info@blanefeldhouse.com Web: www.blanefeldhouse.com
ICMI The Collection
Inverness
Telephone: +44 (0)131 290 2957 Email: apartments@rocpool.com Web: www.rocpoolapartments.com
INVERLOCHY CASTLE HOTEL, Fort William ROCPOOL RESERVE HOTEL, Inverness INVER LODGE HOTEL, Highlands ROCPOOL RESERVE APARTMENTS, Edinburgh
BLANEFIELD HOUSE, Turnberry GREYWALLS, Muirfeld THE ATHOLL, Edinburgh CROMLIX, Perthshire
(
Sketches
( 1.
54 Baku.
Franck Apertet and Annie Vigier. 1. ‘Topologie’ being performed in Paris, May 2012. 2. ‘La Monnaie Vivante’ at Tate Modern, London, in 2008. PORTRAIT: STEEVE BECKOUET. MARTIN ARGYROGLIO. SHEILA BURNETT / ARENAPAL.
am sitting on a fern-shaded cafe terrace in a former convent in Paris’s 10th arrondissement. Beyond the high stone walls is the hubbub of the Gare de l’Est, with its hairdressing trade stores and cheap hotels. Here, however, all is sleepy Parisian chic: young artists recline on sun-loungers dangling Marlboro Reds from their carmine lips; architects nurse vins bio over CAD drawings of their latest innovation in form. It’s a typical haunt for Parisians who are in the know or in the avant-garde. And my companions, 47-year-old choreographer Franck Apertet and his partner Annie Vigier, 46, are, without doubt, both. “Tell me, what is the meaning of performance in today’s society?” says Apertet, raising two thick black eyebrows in inquiry. “Is it to produce entertainment? Is it to present the same old fantasies at the end of a hard working day? Or is it to challenge: to give the spectator something that wasn’t there before; to shake him out of his sleep?” It’s a sombre question. Wrenching spectators from their passivity is the raison d’être of Apertet and Vigier, who work together under the company name Les Gens d’Uterpan (The People of Uterpan, a fctional place). Being a spectator of their work is rarely a comfortable experience. The dancers might stare into your eyes until you blink, they might contort their bodies into impossible angles in front of you, they might even trample your fowerbeds as part of Topologie, a work that involves dancers going rogue in city streets. “We’ve had the police called on us many times,” says Apertet, smiling, “and our
Shock and Awe
Annie Vigier and Franck Apertet have founded their 20-year career on challenging the conventions of performance art. And they’re still having run-ins with the police, inciting audiences to violence and generally being crazy, writes Sally Howard. 2.
dancers have been threatened with physical violence, most recently in Sweden, which surprised us as there everyone is so well-behaved and conforming. As the Swedes say, ‘Lilla landet lagom’ – the land where no one wants to stand out.” Les Gens d’Uterpan have performed across the world, from Tate Modern in London and the Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art to the Ailing Foundation’s Space18 in Shanghai and the Cali Performance Festival in Columbia. Their dancers are contracted locally and interviewed via Skype and video audition, a process that becomes part of the work. For Vigier, the unpredictably different responses their work elicits from country to country and performance to performance, is what keeps the work still fresh 20 years since they began. “What’s interesting is that the codes and conventions we challenge are very different in each culture, at each arts space and for each individual,” Vigier says. “This makes the spectrum of responses endless.” In March 2014 Les Gens d’Uterpan began a residency of live performance and videos in Baku, organized by the local contemporary art foundation Yarat. The live performances they have put on are part of their series X-Events, begun in 2005, in which different performance strategies, or protocols, are based on an X-shaped stage. At the Yay gallery they performed X-Event 2.6 d’après le protocol Le Goût, a performance in which dancers stare silently at one another and the spectators while sitting, standing or lying on the ground as necessary to maintain their unbroken gaze. At Baku Museum Centre they staged X-Event 2.3 d’après le protocol Les Chutes, an aggressive performance in which the dancers push and throw each other out of the performance space until they tumble onto the ground exhausted. When Les Gens d’Uterpan performed Le Goût in South Korea – where a younger person staring directly into 55 Baku.
1.
1-2. A production of ‘Le Goût’ at Yay gallery, Baku, in March 2014. 3. Franck Apertet in the Old Town.
The public’s reaction there to Les Chutes, says Apertet, was one of baffement. “For this we ask our dancers to produce very violent actions that are at the extreme of their physical capability. So the audience is confused. They think: ‘why are the dancers doing that? Is it for money? Is it because the choreographer must be obeyed? Are they doing it for my beneft? If so, they think, I don’t want such violence for me’.” Indeed, these are the thought processes Les Gens d’Uterpan hopes to engender through the piece: a questioning of the nature of the dance form and the audience’s own responsibility in the performance. The carapace of conventions and codes implicit in the act of spectatorship is a recurrent theme in Les Gens d’Uterpan’s work. Apertet sees a kindred soul in David Lynch, the American flm director whose works such as Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet recall earlier flmmaking conventions. Les Gens also admires ‘When Attitudes Become Form’, the exhibition at the Fondazione Prada in Venice in 2013 for which the curators Germano Celant, Thomas Demand and Rem Koolhaas rebuilt an earlier exhibition, the groundbreaking ‘Live in Your Head. When Attitudes Become Form’, curated by Harald Szeemann at the Bern Kunsthalle in 1969. “In this way you clearly see the curator’s hand,” explains Apertet, “and he himself becomes an artist.” But is a perception of the mechanics of art necessarily a good thing, I wonder. Is suspension of disbelief not part of the joy of being absorbed in a flm; is the curator’s guiding hand not part of the pleasure? “In some senses, yes,” says Apertet as he
56 Baku.
3. takes another draught of espresso. “But in others it makes us lazy. The conventions tell us where we will be entertained, and how. And this makes our experience very narrow.” Breaking free of the restrictions of the performance space is the focus of Topologie (frst performed in 2010), the piece that so ruffed the Swedes. The day we meet, Apertet and Vigier are preparing to stage the work in Long Island City in New York as part of DANSE, a French-American festival of performance put on by The Chocolate Factory. In the performance, fve dancers will stride, dance and leap around the streets of Long Island City following a line drawn on a map and responding to the obstacles – physical and human – they encounter en route. At the same time, a soundtrack using the ambient noise surrounding the dancers will be composed in real time and broadcast via web radio. The aim of Topologie, Apertet tells me, is to question the use of public space. “Public space used to be a dimension to express something and to play in and be entertained,” he says. “In most parts of the world, this is no longer the case: street theatre is contained in designated areas, such as Covent Garden in London, and in Paris you have children’s street games that used to be marked out in chalk that are now 2.
painted on the street, as if an authority is saying ‘this is where you play’. In this way, self-expression is faked.” How do Apertet and Vigier think a post-9/11 New York, with its paranoid grip on public space, will react to the chaos of Topologie? “In New York they’re telling us that if the dancer jumps over a private wall the police will come immediately,” says Apertet, laughing. “So we will ask the dancer to push what is accepted a little bit to test the boundaries and hopefully we will stay on the right side of the law; if not, that is all part of it.”
After all, Les Gens d’Uterpan has form when it comes to la gendarmerie. I ask Apertet and Vigier whether they have ever pushed their work, and the authorities’ patience, too far. “Well, our piece Parterre [frst performed in 2009] involves our dancers disrupting a formal art or theatre space, stripping naked and climbing through the crowd,” says Vigier. “When we frst conceived the project we thought we’d perform it at the Centre Pompidou. They say they are the most avantgarde place, so we thought we would test this principle. Of course, they called the police immediately…” The reedy honk of a car horn rises over the terrace wall from rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin as Apertet drains his cup; a hot young artist lights another Marlboro Red from the stub of her last and gesticulates at her companion. What next for the dance world’s archiconoclasts, I wonder. Apertet tells me they are working on
THE CODES AND CONVENTIONS WE CHALLENGE ARE VERY DIFFERENT IN EACH CULTURE, AT EACH ARTS SPACE AND FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL. a spoof show for French radio. It looks at the paternalism of the radio form: “There will be reportage, a documentary and a gymnastic lesson,” Apertet says. “Then we will address our audience and give them instructions. We will see if they obey the authority of the radio.” Then Vigier says, with purpose, “We will continue our work with Les Gens d’Uterpan as long as the challenge is still there.”
.
NATAVAN VAHABOVA.
(
Sketches
(
the eyes of an older person is considered insulting – the response was explosive. When the same piece was staged on the Millennium Bridge in London, onlookers began feeding snacks to the staring dancers from their palms. “In Baku, for Le Goût the spectators were a little bit frozen by the situation,” says Apertet. “There was a Russian television crew there and they became part of the performance – the dancers staring at the presenter, mirroring him, as he tried to report on them. When they understood what was going on, the audience relaxed and started to play a little with the dancers.”
inspiring extraordinary experiences
FOR RESERVATIONS CONTACT: +44 (0)20 7107 8830 OR EMAIL RESERVATIONS@MAYBOURNE.COM MAYBOURNE.COM
Elegant seaside dining.
Amburan Beach, Bilgah, Baku T: (994 12) 404 8210 info@saffron.az
DIANA BAGNOLI/REX CURRY/EYEVINE. JOSH EDELSON/CORBIS.
installations made of plush white carpets, or savour a free breakfast of burritos in the pink-coloured dawn. Every year an intricately designed temple is enjoyed then burned down. And the event culminates in the ritualistic torching of a 15m statue of an oblong-headed wooden man. But, in its 28 years, it has evolved from its wild beginnings. A question I’m often asked is: has Burning Man become too corporate, too commercial, too mainstream? With the proliferation of investment bankers, corporate executives, real estate moguls, hip hop stars, actors and retired fve-star generals attending, many are quick to assume it is ‘over’. This is categorically not the case. It’s true that every year the festival attracts a wider array of people, including many with wealth and cultural infuence – Sergey Brin, Google’s cofounder, and Bob Pittman, creator of MTV, are both regulars. Musicians Puff Daddy and Sting, actress Olivia Wilde, billionaire businessman Elon Musk, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, and socialites such as Stavros Niarchos, Francesca Versace and Lady Victoria Hervey have all been at least once. Bhanu Bhatnagar, a television news producer from India, has been twice, and says his appetite for Burning Man has not yet been satisfed, even though he says that some of his friends have complained about it being too corporate and have stopped going. “I remember a time, about six years ago, when if you mentioned Burning
Sketches
Light my Fire
(
evada’s Black Rock Desert, one of nature’s great blank canvasses, is a cracked dust bowl where few plants or insects can survive. Daytime temperatures soar above 40°C, then plummet to 4°C at night. And yet every August tens of thousands of determined revellers make a pilgrimage there – as they have done since 1986 – for the frenetic eight-day Burning Man festival, often called the greatest party on earth. This is no exaggeration. In the desert, Burners, as everyone who attends is known, construct a temporary anarchist art utopia. They dance all night to electronic music, dress in bizarre costumes or wander about naked. They drive around in cars and buses converted into pop-art fantasies. They can walk through gigantic sculptural
(
Burners at the festival in Nevada in 2003 (bottom) and 2011.
Is Burning Man still cool? With wealthy corporate types now focking to the ‘greatest party on earth’, veteran Burner Daniel Pinchbeck debates whether it’s all over.
61 Baku.
Left to right: Burners on stilts in 2003; the elaborate temple in 2006; and the Burning Man itself in 2010.
is a great equalizer – we’re all dirty together, and happy.” Another veteran Burner Mike Chendorain, a hydrogeologist and civil engineer who lives in London, agrees. “The one thing that remains the same is the harshness and unpredictability of the desert. The festival has evolved; it’s not a theme park with the same rides. But people get out of it what they put in.” I can attest to this. I have been going every year for more than a decade now, and many of the most transcendent, surreal, absurd, spectacular, euphoric, and peculiar moments of my life took place on the Playa (the name Burners use for the desert). In many ways my life as well as my ideas continue to be shaped by it. The cult event has now spread globally. In South Africa each May, AfrikaBurn attracts more than 10,000 people. There are also ‘regional burns’ across the US and Canada. Japan, Australia and the UK, among others, hold yearly mini-festivals modelled on Burning Man. The Nevada event now draws in 65,000 a year and it all began quite by accident, when founder Larry Harvey burned a 5m effgy of a man on Baker Beach in San Francisco. The handful of onlookers
62 Baku.
had such a good time that they made it an annual gathering, supported by local bohemian organizations such as the Cacophony Society, a group of artist pranksters. When the party grew too large for the beach, Harvey moved it to Black Rock Desert. Until 1996 chaos reigned at Burning Man, with no streets and little organization. Burners raced cars in the dust and shot off live ammunition, which resulted in a few deaths. Order had to be imposed, so Harvey and his team designed an urban plan with curved streets laid out in a semicircle, and with the wooden Man in the middle on a central promenade (it always reminds me a bit of the Champs-Elysées in Paris). Interactive themed camps are scattered throughout the pop-up city, based on anything from the seven deadly sins to teahouses, such as the Palenque Norte camp. Some camps are well established, such as the renowned mobile sound camp Janky Barge, providing spectacular music and entertainment year after year; others are new and niche. You can either join a camp as your base for the duration, or pitch your tent solo. As Burning Man continued to grow, Harvey drafted the Ten Principles. These include: Gifting, Radical Self-reliance Radical Self-expression, Civic Responsibility, Leaving No Trace, and Immediacy. Harvey describes these as “guidelines”, rather than rules, to keep the Burning Man culture intact, and ensure that people experience the maximum degree of personal freedom while being responsible – or at least harmless – to the community. Since ticket prices rocketed, the festival feels more elite than it used to. “There are a lot of RVs now,” says Chendorain, who has also DJ’d at Burning
Man several times. “When I frst started going there were hardly any, but now there are whole RV communities that sort of box themselves in. It feels like you can’t even walk into their camps.” The infux of wealthy people is one challenge for the event; after all, Radical Inclusion is also one of the Principles. Some wealthy burners will spend vast sums to build an art car, then not share it. Some camps feel like private clubs. This runs against the original ‘all inclusive’ intention of the festival. But frst-timers don’t seem deterred. London gallerist Susan Young and her husband, Richard, the society and celebrity photographer, made their debut burn in 2012. Susan was exhibiting the work of photographer Ohad Maiman and became intrigued by an image of a couple of bizarrely dressed men by a phone booth in the desert, which, of course, turned out to be Burning Man. She immediately hunted down two tickets. “I am not a festival girl, but I was determined to get to this,” she says. The Youngs opted for a luxury RV, but got into the spirit nonetheless: Susan cycled
THE EXTREME DESERT SETTING FORCES EVERYONE TO BAND TOGETHER. THE DUST IS A GREAT EQUALIZER – WE’RE ALL DIRTY TOGETHER, AND HAPPY. round topless and Richard dyed his beard blue. It was like a Fellini flm, she recalls. They were hooked, and couldn’t wait to go back. Susan says it is not too corporate or mainstream: “it is an exceptional gathering of like-minded free spirits.” This year, the festival changed its status from a for-proft to a not-for-proft entity. Marian Goodell, director of business and communications, says this was to ensure the event’s growth and to “keep encouraging people to create transformative events beyond Burning Man”. They also intend to build a “philosophical centre and production facility where we can host smaller events,” with land purchased on the edge of the Playa. They are, ambitiously, developing a “hundred-year plan” for the future of Burning Man. With this and the wider art and fashion movement spawned by the festival, Burning Man will, I believe, continue to fourish.
.
JOSH HORSLEY/GETTY. NATAN DVIR/EYEVINE. FERNANDO MOLERES/PANOS PICTURES. ADDITIONAL RESEARCH BY NATHALIE BREITSCHWERDT.
(
Sketches
(
Man you’d get a blank look, but that has changed. This is thanks, in part, to social media. So, naturally, the more people hear about it the bigger variety of people go.” Robbie Kowal, a DJ from San Francisco and co-founder of production company SunsetSF, has played at the festival over nine years, and says Burning Man has always attracted a diverse crowd. “Creativity, technology, art and politics have always collided there,” he says. “It’s a key aspect of the Burn experience; personal wealth and background fade in the face of the daily challenges of survival and community. The extreme desert setting forces everyone to band together. The dust
The Excelsior Hotel Baku is a beautiful ďŹ ve-star luxurious hotel in Baku city. It combines tradition and innovation with modern luxury and a touch of antiquity. The hotel is furnished with a melange of classical architecture and contemporary design elements. Being conveniently located near the cosmopolitan downtown area of Baku, the Excelsior Hotel oers easy access to business, shopping and entertainment centres. Heydar Aliyev International Airport is only 20 minutes away fom the hotel.
From washing powder to crisp packets, handbag designer Anya Hindmarch turns everyday objects into fashion gold. How? With tenacity, hard work and a healthy dose of humour. Words by HARRIET QUICK Portrait by ANDREW WOFFINDEN
Anya Hindmarch, pictured in her south London studio. 66 Baku.
he luxury world is fnding the extraordinary in the ordinary and lacing it with wit. At Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld turned his runway into a giant supermarket around which models pushed trolleys while wearing snakeskin sneakers. Jeremy Scott at Moschino transplanted one of the most recognized brand names in the world – McDonald’s – onto quilted bags and iPhone cases, while British handbag designer Anya Hindmarch turned the humble crisp packet into one of this season’s hottest style hits. The fact that the majority of the fashion populace regards junk food as the enemy and worships at the altar of cold-pressed vegetable juice only heightened the irony of this ‘trash luxury’ moment. But it is this collision of the mass market with the elite that is creating a starburst of ideas to reinvigorate our appetite for fashion. “The Crisp Packet bag sums up what I love – clean, funny, modern and beautiful. It ticks every box,” Hindmarch tells me in her offce, tucked away in the eaves of the converted stables of a former brewery in south London where her headquarters are located. “I think the design really refects our brand. It looks so simple but the engineering is very complex and the work was done by a fourth-generation artisanal craftsperson,” she explains. “It is impossible to take a mould from a crisp packet so we had to photograph it and create a 3-D print. It was agony.”
THE
MIDAS TOUCH
67 Baku.
Hindmarch’s imaginative fashion show sets include an 18th-century wooden light theatre (top right), and ‘Counter Culture’, featuring models on a conveyor belt and household brands as high fashion.
70 Baku.
away!” she says, but for now she satisfes her wanderlust with holidays in France, Tangiers and Mustique. The brand now delivers four collections a year. Count in there the double-pocketed, robust Ebury bag; the Albion Hobo style with its fused leather seams; and the Georgiana clutch bag with a gigantic curtain tassel hanging from the zip-pull. Exotic skins, supple suedes, satin, shagreen and nylon twill are all used in Hindmarch designs, ranging from work-smart briefcases to glamorous clutch bags. There is also a bespoke service whereby customers can have personal messages and monograms engraved on leather goods, or favourite photographs positioned into keepsakes like jewellery boxes. Hindmarch’s “dreaming” also fuels the imaginative shows that she stages twice a year at London Fashion Week. What does it take to bring handbags to life on the catwalk? One season, it was an intricate 18th-century revolving light theatre, comprising mini domestic vignettes featuring illustrated cut fgurines. Tasselled bags, baroque fabric clutches and plush velvet designs dangled from the characters’ hands. For autumn/winter 2014, Hindmarch outdid herself with a moving walkway – like a supermarket conveyer belt – stamped
THERE’S ALWAYS ENTERTAINMENT WITH OUR SHOWS. YOU HAVE JUST SEVEN MINUTES TO CONVEY WHAT’S IMPORTANT. BUT FASHION SHOULD MAKE YOU FEEL HAPPY. “We started designing handbags inspired by everyday products but in exotic skins with ridiculously beautiful craftsmanship,” says Hindmarch. “The supermarket idea developed from there. I was thinking about conveyor belts as well. My kids are fascinated by the carousels at airports and I liked this notion of contrafows and different speeds. I thought it would be fun to play with that. “There’s always a level of entertainment in our shows. You have seven minutes or so to demonstrate what’s important,
to communicate who you are and to convey what has been going on in your head for the past six months. But fashion should not be too serious – it should make you smile and feel happy. With a show, you never know if it is going to work until you get there. I was in pieces before that one!” The brand is now sold in 58 stores worldwide. “I do feel British but half the business is outside the UK and has been for a long time,” she explains. “We are an international brand – if you think too national then it is limiting. It’s about a sensibility rather than a nationality. I don’t make adaptations for different markets – it’s about being who you are.” Hindmarch’s passions also extend out into the visual arts in her role as a trustee of both The Royal Academy and the Design Museum in London. “You need to feed your brain and see what people are doing in art, design and architecture,” she says. “I am also on the board of the British Fashion Council and that is fascinating. Having gone through the lessons of building a business I know what those young designers need.” In 2009 she was awarded an MBE in recognition of her contribution to the British fashion industry and in 2012 was named Business Woman of the Year at awards held by Veuve Clicquot and Harper’s Bazaar. Ironically, Hindmarch does not do big-gown dressing up for gala events. Stella McCartney trousers and a shirt or a jacket are her staples for day and she prefers tailoring and trophy coats for evening. “A great coat, a handbag and earrings can go a long way. Shouty style is not my thing,” she says frmly. For Hindmarch, the accessories will always do the talking.
.
DAVID M BENETT/BEN A PRUCHNIE/GETTY. KRIS MITCHELL.
with a giant bar code. The Andy Warhol-esque show, entitled ‘Counter Culture’, was built around a collection of bags featuring the cartoon pin-ups and graphic branding of everyday items such as cereal boxes and candy wrappers. The Kellogg’s Cornfakes cockerel appeared as an intricate leather intarsia pattern on a trusty ivory Ebury bag; Tony the Tiger of Frosties fame featured in brilliant blue and orange leather, while the bold graphics of Daz and Ariel washing powders were transplanted onto clutch bags. Contracts had to be drawn up with each and every brand to guarantee that those household ‘heroes’ were being used in a right and proper way. The show attracted a deluge of pre-orders.
71 Baku.
Words by FARAH NAYERI
very year in October, dealers, curators and collectors converge on London and Paris for parallel art extravaganzas scheduled a week apart. Not everyone goes to both, so Frieze and Fiac each strive to be the destination of choice. For a long time Fiac, founded in 1974, had October all to itself. Then Frieze burst on the scene in 2003, pitching a tent in Regent’s Park and urging dealers to book booths. It was “an unexpected success,” remembers Austrian art dealer Thaddaeus Ropac, who has two galleries in Paris. It actually “changed the art world” with its sole focus on the new, while the Paris fair was a little tired: “Not many people visited Fiac,” recalls collector and patron Anita Zabludowicz. Recently, the two fairs “have changed dramatically,” she notes. Why the shift? “By its nature, Frieze has to reinvent itself on a fairly regular basis,” says Francis Outred, head of post-war and contemporary art at Christie’s Europe. But this “constant obsession with the new” is becoming “slightly passé”. In Paris, Jennifer Flay and her team have refreshed Fiac and started a young satellite fair, making it “the big one to watch over the next few years,” according to Outred. But Flay plays down the rivalry: “We have co-existed very well over the past 10 years. There’s room for more than one fair in this part of the world.” 72 Baku.
WHO GOES? FRIEZE: Billionaires Roman Abramovich, Lakshmi Mittal, and François Pinault are regulars. So are artists Tracey Emin and Grayson Perry; collector-patrons Dasha Zhukova, Maja Hoffmann and Anita Zabludowicz; and designers Miuccia Prada, Giorgio Armani and Valentino Garavani. Gwyneth Paltrow is another Frieze habitué, though her recent “conscious uncoupling” with Chris Martin may be London’s loss. Zabludowicz, who does both fairs, may leave her chequebook at home: “I just spent my yearly budget in Frieze New York, so I will have to be careful.” Rachel Lehmann, co-founder of the Lehmann Maupin gallery in New York and Hong Kong, reports that half of her buyers at Frieze every year are new – indicating a young and diverse clientele.
Frieze
OLI SCARFF/DAVID M. BENETT/BERTRAND RINDOFF PETROFF/ GETTY. ALAN DAVIDSON/THE PICTURE LIBRARY. RICHARD YOUNG/ REX. MARC DOMAGE. COURTESY MICHAEL WERNER GALLERY, MARKISH WILMERSDORF, NEW YORK, LONDON.
F is for fair, for Frieze and for Fiac. But which comes out on top in the battle for autumn’s crop of deeppocketed collectors?
FIAC: Actress Natalie Portman and husband Benjamin Millepied – who will be the new director of dance at Paris Opera Ballet from September – are sure to pop in. So are Pinault and Bernard Arnault; in 2011, they got a sneak preview the night before other VIPs. Last year American fnancier Henry Kravis swung by Fiac, as did an unidentifed Turkish collector who bought a wrecked, $250,000 Ferrari Dino GT4 (a found-art sculpture by Bertrand Lavier). This year, says Ropac, the Guggenheim trustees have emailed to say they’ll be at Fiac (Americans travel in groups and alternate between the fairs). The October opening of the Fondation Louis Vuitton means “everybody is coming to Paris,” according to Ropac. In general, though, Fiac attracts an “older, more Old World” crowd,” says Lehmann, including museum curators who skip Frieze.
Opposite: Frieze attracts the likes of (from left), Roman Abramovich; Giancarlo Giammetti and Valentino Garavani; Tracey Emin; and Lakshmi Mittal with his wife Usha. This page: Fiac attendees include gallerists Yvon Lambert; and Thaddaeus Ropac with Bibi Gritti.
Fiac 73 Baku.
12.
WHAT TO AVOID Whether you’re at Frieze or Fiac, the same advice applies. Stay away from art-heavy booths where “there’s barely any room to breathe and no rhyme or reason to the artists who’ve come together,” adviser Schiff recommends. Ultra-high heels are another no-no. Fiac’s Flay has about 30 pairs of fat black pumps that she picked up for comfort during trips to international art fairs: “I’m a good source if anybody wants to buy black ballerinas in bulk!” Lehmann advises leaving the premises if you get peckish: “Options are much better outside,” she says, and less expensive. Finally, Zabludowicz urges you to be unfriendly: “Avoid smiley, chatty people, or you don’t get to see the art.”
.
9. 10.
11.
9-10, 12 & 14. The scene at Fiac in 2013, where works ranged from Bertrand Lavier’s ‘Dino’, a wrecked Ferrari Dino GT4 (11) to parading animals (15), created by Cledat & Petitpierre for Fiac’s outdoor section, Jardin des Plantes. 13. Victoria Miro gallery at Frieze London.
13.
KEY PARTIES FOR THE UBER-VIPS
FANTASTIC FOUR: FRIEZE
FRIEZE: The annual Christie’s Vanity Fair party will be held in the main King Street building, as will a Christie’s exhibition highlighting those Old Masters that infuence contemporary art. “We try to create a real favour of what we do during Frieze week, because it’s when everybody is here in London,” says Christie’s Outred. At last year’s bash, held in a gigantic former post offce sorting centre, revellers perused the sculptures that collector Charles Saatchi was preparing to sell at auction, including Tracey Emin’s To Meet My Past (2002), a four-poster bed that guards had to stop guests from reclining on. (It sold for £481,875, an Emin record.) Expect champagne to fow again this year at art parties all over town.
1. Seal the deal over Krug 1971 at the Connaught. 2. Drink with the art school kids at Alibi in Dalston, east London. 3. Book the private dining-room at Fera at Claridge’s for your new best friends. 4. See the next generation at Future New Sensations in Bloomsbury.
FIAC: This year’s hot ticket is the Fondation Louis Vuitton opening: everyone will be clamouring for an exclusive preview of Frank Gehry’s spectacular building, which Ropac (who’s had a hard-hat tour) describes as “mindboggling, it’s so beautiful”. More parties are planned at the revamped La Monnaie de Paris, the exhibition wing of France’s offcial Mint, which reopens this autumn with a Paul McCarthy show. There will be private dinners, too; every year Picasso’s grandson Bernard Ruiz-Picasso and his wife, art dealer Almine Rech, host one.
14. 15.
FANTASTIC FOUR: FIAC 1. Toast on the terrace at L’Oiseau Blanc, the rooftop bar at the justopened Peninsula hotel. 2. Sweet talk investors at Dessance in the Marais, Paris’s new dessert-only restaurant. 3. Get a sneak peek of Fondation d’entreprise Galeries Lafayette at its ‘Anticipation’ series of events during FIAC ahead of its 2016 public launch in rue du Plâtre. 4. Worried about fakes? Swot up at the Musée de la Contrefaçon in the 16th, with its displays of forged merchandise.
75 Baku.
Animal This summer take to the wilds in gauzy dresses and cool separates, with a touch of reptilian shimmer. Just add a blazer for a masculine edge. Photography by ELENA RENDINA Styling by MARY FELLOWES 76 Baku.
78 Baku.
PREVIOUS PAGE. Blazer by COSTUME NATIONAL. Feather neckpiece by LARA JENSEN. THIS PAGE. Dress by CHRISTOPHER KANE. Blazer by EMPORIO ARMANI. Sandals by PIERRE HARDY.
79 Baku.
80 Baku.
Top by TODD LYNN. Skirt by ISA ARFEN. Waistcoat by COSTUME NATIONAL. Sandals by PIERRE HARDY. Bracelet and ring by MELANIE GEORGACOPOULOS.
81 Baku.
Blazer by BALENCIAGA. Dress by PHOEBE ENGLISH. Sandals by PIERRE HARDY. Feather neckpiece by LARA JENSEN.
83 Baku.
Blazer (on top) by BLK DNM. Blazer (underneath) by EMILIO DE LA MORENA. Dress and bra by SPORTMAX. Sandals by NICHOLAS KIRKWOOD. Ring by MELANIE GEORGACOPOULOS.
84 Baku.
85 Baku.
THIS PAGE. Dress by CHRISTOPHER KANE. OPPOSITE. Dress by ANTIPODIUM. Bra top by SPORTMAX. Skirt (underneath) by PHOEBE ENGLISH. Bracelet and ring by MELANIE GEORGACOPOULOS.
86 Baku.
xx Baku.
THIS PAGE. Blazer and skirt by CHRISTIAN DIOR. Sandals by NICHOLAS KIRKWOOD. OPPOSITE. Top by SONIA RYKIEL. Skirt by PHOEBE ENGLISH. Blazer by CHANEL. Sandals by BALENCIAGA. Feather neckpiece by LARA JENSEN. Ring by MELANIE GEORGACOPOULOS.
88 Baku.
89 Baku.
Dress by ANTIPODIUM. Blazer by TOM FORD. Bra by ELLE MACPHERSON INTIMATES. Sandals by RUPERT SANDERSON. Hair by LYNDELL MANSFIELD at CLM HAIR & MAKE-UP. Make-up by JENNY COOMBS at STREETERS using MAC. Manicurist LYNDSEY MACINTOSH. Model GWEN LOOS at NEXT MODEL MANAGEMENT, LONDON. Digital technician MATTEO MIANI at DTOUCH. Photographer’s assistants FEDERICO FREDA and GUILLAUME BLONDINAU. Fashion assistant COLINE BACH.
90 Baku.
91 Baku.
Fragrance as art? It may seem like a dubious notion, but as more perfumers work with artists, and vice versa, the centuries-old medium of scent is finally coming into its own. Words by REBECCA ROSE
hat is the smell of danger? What about joy?” muses Odette Toilette, a self-styled ‘purveyor of olfactory adventures’. “The wonderful thing about scent – although its frustration for many – is that you can rarely produce a scent that engenders a particular response. So we need to use smell in conjunction with cues from the other senses, or with semantics. Otherwise we might fall back on those reliable, cross-cultural smells that produce some commonality in response, such as the smell of petrol or freshly cut grass. And that’s a boring place to end up.” Toilette – who’s based in London and works with perfumers and artists on a range of creative projects – delivers this insight to me from inside the rarefed confnes of the Osmothèque in Versailles, the largest scent archive in the world. She invited me to accompany her on a visit earlier this year. This archive aims to protect what it describes as “the most fragile and evanescent of human creations”. The library preserves its 3,000 fragrances – including 400 phials of rare scent – as if they were precious pieces of art. Some date from classical times and the Middle Ages, but most are from the late 19th century until present day. This is a world away from the buzzing beauty halls of department stores. So can scent ever be regarded as a bona fde art form, rather than just a memory trigger or a cosmetic to be archived? One issue is the audience’s struggle to articulate what they are experiencing when exposed to a particular fragrance, which makes it much more tricky to critically appraise. The answer is also made diffcult by the modern association scent has with the world of commerce – an oil painting simply isn’t 92 Baku.
MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
Dutch artists Lernert & Sander, with their scent creation ‘Everything’.
93 Baku.
2.
3.
1–2. Serpentine, by Comme des Garçons, featuring drawings by Tracey Emin. 3. Miss Dior scentinspired art exhibition at the Grand Palais, Paris, 2013. 4. L’Eau d’Issey, the classic 1992 fragrance.
the magazine so readers were able to literally scratch and sniff them while being guided by the perfumers’ explanations of their creative processes in the accompanying texts. “This was designed to be a conversation with the reader to help formulate their response,” explains Toilette. In April this year the Serpentine Galleries in London launched its frst-ever scent to mark the opening of the new Zaha Hadid-designed Serpentine Sackler Gallery. The master perfumers at Japanese fashion label Comme des Garçons created the fragrance and Tracey Emin designed the packaging, which features the artist’s handwriting – “The Grass, the Trees, the Lake, and You” – on the bottle, and a sketch on the box of her new sculpture, The Heart Has Its Reasons, also on display inside the gallery. To refect the Serpentine’s setting in a park in the middle of a city, the perfume’s ingredients comprise “grass, leaves, pollen (galbanum, iris leaf), oxygene (aldehyde, ozone), asphalt (black musks, nutmeg), labdanum and smoked cedar with a little bit of pollution (benzoin, juniper wood, gaïac wood)”. Olfactory art – in which artists collaborate with perfumers to create often breathtaking results – is suffusing established museum spaces such as the Serpentine with unfamiliar sensations. When we walk into an art gallery for the frst time we are accustomed to doing so with our eyes wide open, hoping for a new visual experience. Yet the artists working with scent expand on these expectations. Scent can have a formidable effect on the aesthetic experience, and its mercurial
96 Baku.
nature makes it a much more commanding material than oil or bronze. Artists need to take into consideration the range of response it elicits from its audience; a burst of finty citrus notes can transmit a powerfully masculine scent – or, perhaps, the disconcerting smell of cordite. The high-concept design behind a fragrance is an artistry in its own right, with many perfumers lauded for creating bewitching scents that linger in our memory longer than a painting ever could. One man who has experienced the nuanced application of scent in contemporary art is Viennabased master perfumer Yogesh Kumar. Between 2011 and 2013 he collaborated with artist Ines Lechleitner in her project ‘Imagine Two Rivers: the Search for the Elbe-Yamuna Perfume’, which took place in Hamburg and Delhi with other events and displays in Frankfurt and Berlin. The multipartite work created by Lechleitner included installations with sound recordings, drawings, 4.
photographs and sculpture. Kumar developed the perfume from spectators’ responses in the one-on-one performances entitled Duftstudio 1 in Hamburg and Fragrance Studio 2 in Delhi. He invited them to convey their spontaneous thoughts – personal, religious and political – upon smelling the waters of the two cities’ rivers. These events were accompanied by Kumar’s ambulatory performances during which participants were taken on a tour of Hamburg, punctuated with ‘smelling exercises’. At various points along the route, the group was asked to focus its attention on one of two scents created by Kumar in relation to their present environment and to the second river. The tour concluded with Kumar’s invitation to inhale both scents together while taking in their urban surroundings. “Perfumery is alchemy and a method of communicating without words,” Kumar explains. “You can reveal a lot through a good perfume. To create a composition is a work of art, like a painting or a poem.” Fashion houses have long been a crucible of art and scent, where designers and perfumers collaborate with the intention of creating a fragrance that captures the essence of the atelier. In 2013 LVMH’s art consultant Hervé Mikaeloff worked with Christian Dior to commission 15 contemporary women artists to
PERFUMERY IS ALCHEMY AND A METHOD OF COMMUNICATING WITHOUT WORDS. YOU CAN REVEAL A LOT THROUGH A GOOD PERFUME. TO CREATE ONE IS A WORK OF ART, LIKE A PAINTING OR A POEM. reinterpret its groundbreaking scent from 1947, Miss Dior – named after Christian’s sister, Catherine. Artists who showed at the resulting exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris included the New York-based Iranian flmmaker and photographer Shirin Neshat, American artist Polly Apfelbaum, Egyptian flmmaker Lara Baladi and Chinese painter Liang Yuanwei. They all drew inspiration from this chypre foral scent to create works ranging from cartoons to sculptures. The exhibition signalled a new relationship between art and scent, formalized by one of the leading luxury brands in the world. Little by little, established cultural institutions are paying attention to what is happening in the world of art and olfaction. In 2010 the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam hosted an evening of lectures and debate, entitled Do It, Smell It, on contemporary artists who use scent in their work, including Belgian artist Peter de Cupere whose ‘perfumances’ challenge audiences to respond to art with their nose frst and eyes second. The museum houses several permanent artworks that feature smells, including The Beanery (1965) by Edward Kienholz, a two-thirds life-sized model of the interior of a Los Angeles bar. In 2012 and 2013 the Museum of Arts
HUBERT FANTHOMME/PARIS MATCH/GETTY. ©LERNERT & SANDER/WRONG.TV.
1.
Lernert & Sander; and (below) artwork by Ines Lechleitner, for her project ‘Imagine Two Rivers: the Search for the Elbe-Yamuna Perfume’ (2011–13).
and Design in New York hosted the frst museum exhibition exploring the artistry of perfumery through 12 pivotal fragrances, including the much-loved Jicky by Guerlain (1889) and the modern classic L’Eau d’Issey by Issey Miyake (1992). In ‘The Art of Scent 1889–2012’, curator Chandler Burr chose to display the perfumes in individual white cubes – resonant of contemporary art spaces – and their descriptive plaques used art-historical terminology, such as ‘abstract’ or ‘brutalist’. Unlike other olfactory exhibitions, this one was designed to focus on the vision and ingenuity of perfumers rather than the scented experiments of visual artists. For the contemporary artist, the tension that exists between visual and olfactory response may be part of the appeal. By fusing different sensory reactions the work can become more daring in its scope: a scent-laden environment draws another level of curiosity from its audience. The invisibility of smell lies in contrast to the visual object in front of us – a tempting conceit for the creative mind.
.
97 Baku.
fter returning from Sheki (known then as Nukha), in the north of what is now Azerbaijan, in 1858, Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers, wrote: “I learned the recipe of Azeri kebab, follow it and you will always be thankful to me for this present”. This was praise indeed from a Frenchman in the Escoffer era. (He also recommended using the cleaning rod of a gun as a makeshift skewer, in case you are ever caught short.) Grilled meats form just part of the palette of the cuisine in these mountains between Gabala and Sheki, which is infuenced by the dishes from Persia, to the south, Anatolia, to the west, and the Caucasus Mountains and southern Russia to the north. Slowcooked, fatty lamb is offset with wild herbs – parsley, purple basil and tarragon in particular – crunchy, pickled white cucumbers, and sweet mountain onions or wild asparagus (known as gulanchar). Yogurt is cut with lemon or dill. Sumac, the most versatile spice of the Middle East since Biblical times, is reputed to have fat-busting properties – or so the myth goes. Halva is another regional dish whose origins are lost in the mists of millennia. Sheki has its own particular take on the recipe, passed down through the generations of just a few families in the area, creating a wicked confection of layered pastry, syrup and walnuts or hazelnuts. The delicate saffron-coloured patterns that decorate its surface are drawn with a bird’s feather. Also, to counter the health benefts of all that locally caught fsh and those non-supermarket vegetables (“naturally organic”, as farmers in the region like to say), you can fnish off a meal with bamiya. Taken from the Persian word for okra, this okra-shaped sweetmeat, like many of the other dishes on these pages, shows off the locals’ talent for creative uses of sugar rather artistically.
98 Baku.
Hills of Plenty The mountainous land between Sheki and Gabala in north-west Azerbaijan has inspired literary greats with its drama and cuisine. Take a tour of the plates on offer, and experience a melting pot of ancient Eurasian recipes. Styling by TOM WOLFE Photography by RICHARD HAUGHTON
99 Baku.
Gabala specialities include pip dolma with beech leaves and a yogurt dip called gatykh (previous pages), and (this page, clockwise from top left) a type of fsh called shamayka, usually eaten as a snack with local Xirdalan beer; jars of pickled tomatoes, white cucumbers, zogal (Cornelian cherry) and azgil (a local fruit); vodka made from zogal; and wild trout.
100 Baku.
101 Baku.
102 Baku.
Above, left to right: Gabala’s lamb dish, dasharasy, which is cooked between two heated fat stones, and served with bread fresh from the tandir to soak up all the juices, and a shot or two of zogal vodka. Bottom, left to right: wild herbs, including purple basil, wild melissa and dill; lule kebab made with lamb, wild asparagus and mountain spring onion. 103 Baku.
104 Baku.
Lamb buglama is widely eaten in Gabala and is the dish that many locals crave most when away from home.
Sheki dishes include potato dolma (above), best eaten piping hot, and Sheki piti, a lamb stew with chickpeas, pictured here at three different stages of preparation – it takes eight hours to cook and is usually eaten only at lunchtime, giving diners the afternoon to work (or sleep) off the calorie-rich dish. Below: bamiya are sticky doughnut fngers, named after the okra which they resemble.
106 Baku.
107 Baku.
Opposite page: Sheki’s famous halva, and homemade sugar with walnuts (seen cooking on previous pages), which is best eaten with strong tea from Lankaran, in the south of the country.
Consultant METBEX COUTURE. Producer MARIA WEBSTER. Special thanks to XANLAR RESTAURANT, Gabala; KARVANSARAY RESTAURANT, Sheki; and SHEKI PALACE HOTEL, Sheki. 109 Baku.
MAN
Words by PETER ASPDEN Photography by DANIEL STIER and ELMAR MUSTAFAZADEH
110 Baku.
WALDFRIEDEN SCULPTURE PARK, GERMANY, PHOTOGRAPHY BY DANIEL STIER. HEYDAR ALIYEV CENTRE, BAKU, PHOTOGRAPHY BY ELMAR MUSTAFAZADEH.
MATERIAL
Tony Cragg; and his work on show at the Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku.
Entranced by the relationship between physical materials and their function, former lab technician Tony Cragg became one of the foremost sculptors of the modern era. Now retired from his academic work, he is revelling in a new-found creativity.
T
ony Cragg is an artist who reminds us that we live, in all senses, in a material world. In the British sculptor’s more recent work, elegant, twisted forms radiate with energy and possibility. They pulsate with dynamism, looking like they may take off at any minute. They are both futuristic and primitive. Even his most abstract works make oblique references to the natural world: is that a human profle buried low in that otherwise strangely shaped totem of stainless steel? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Cragg loves nothing more than to tease us with those questions, without providing any direct answer. Towards the end of our interview, he pulls me up even for using the terms ‘abstract’ and ‘fgurative’. “They are stupid words,” he says dismissively. “Meaningless.” His demeanour is serious, but genial. I meet him in his impressively large studio in a quiet district of Wuppertal, a small industrial city in the Rhineland area of Germany. Cragg has lived here for the past 37 years, away from his native country, and far away from the buzzing world of contemporary art, which has improbably become one of the most dominant cultural forces of the new millennium. You won’t fnd Cragg networking in the VIP salon of an art fair, however. He confesses to me that he has only ever been to two art fairs, and the face he pulls indicates that he won’t be visiting any more in a hurry. Cragg moved to Wuppertal, rather than the creative hub of Berlin, in 1977, after marrying a trainee German teacher whose home town it is and who was required to 111 Baku.
spend a year there for her teaching examinations. (That marriage ended; he met his current wife, the artist Tatjana Verhasselt, in 1984.) He began to teach at the nearby Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, a prestigious institution attended by such luminaries as Joseph Beuys and Gerhard Richter. Over the years he rose to become its director in 2009, a post from which he retired only last year. “It was a job I had never thought of doing, but I ended up being the person who knew just a little bit more about the place than the others,” he tells me drily. “It was very exciting, we did a lot in that time. But I also felt that when an artist wakes up at night and he is not thinking about his own work, but about
the Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku until the end of August. “It’s about trying to get people to see what the work is all about,” Cragg says of the exhibition. “I don’t know the audience in Azerbaijan very well, but I have had students from there and I have a vague impression of its cultural developments.” Cragg was born in Liverpool in 1949, and there is still a Merseyside twang in his rapid conversation, which is also littered with German infections. He left school to start work as a laboratory technician in the National Rubber Producers’ Research Association. “I have always had, and continue to have, an interest in science, but I have never been a scientist,” he says.
He quickly found that the drawings he used to make to while away some of the time were interesting him more than his actual job, and in 1969 he decided to go to art school in Cheltenham. “I was very timorous about going to art school,” he says. “I just wanted to learn to draw. I received a very good education in drawing and painting, and then one Monday we were told that we had to make a sculpture. I thought, ‘that sounds terrible’, but I was shown to a broom cupboard full of all these battered materials, I took a bunch of stuff, and started to make something.” In the course of a morning, Cragg found his vocation: “After a very short period of time, by lunchtime in fact, I thought,
4. the economics and personnel of an art school, then it is time to move on. I was beginning to feel quite emotional about getting back to the studio. I felt the need to come back here.” He is revelling in the newfound freedom: a tour of his studio, full of gorgeously shaped forms crafted from wood or cast iron, is evidence of a creative surge. Some of his works, as well as a selection of earlier pieces, are on show at 112 Baku.
“But I felt pretty isolated there; I was 19 and surrounded by elderly academic men.” What the job offered him, he says, was a chance to think about the substances that were all around him. “You realize that there is this amazing relationship between the form of something, and what its role and meaning are. For example, water and sulphuric acid are just two clear liquids in a glass, but each has a very different meaning to us.”
3.
‘wow, this is amazing, every time you bend the material you have a different thought, and feel a different emotion’. That relationship between your responses and form became frighteningly close. I was very impressed by that.” The frst thing he made, he says sheepishly, looked like a boat. The following year, he decided to enrol at Wimbledon School of Art, but spent the intervening summer working in a foundry near Bristol. “I was on the nightshift, and it was very dramatic, a fantastic place, watching all these materials being worked on. There was a real sense of the primordial.” Arriving at college was almost anticlimactic. “I looked in the room and saw 31 students standing behind their easels, and I instantly thought, ‘that is not what I want to do’. I felt much more awake than that.” He duly focused his attention on sculpture. I ask him what his early infuences were. “I was a student, so inevitably there was no great self-consciousness about it. I just had this general preoccupation with material and what it means to us.” He has fond memories of the early 1970s, which he describes as a “great time to be a sculptor. There was this hard-headed, dynamic and brutal kind of discourse about what sculpture was.” There was also political change in the air. “In the early 1970s one took sides. One side was authoritarian and dogmatic; and the other seemed openended and freer and younger in spirit, so I was obviously more attracted to that.” By the time he left Britain, his previously eclectic tastes began
1. Tony Cragg’s sculptures exhibited at the Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku. 2-4. His works in the woodlands at the Waldfrieden Sculpture Park include ‘Early Form St Gallen’ (1997); ‘Declination’ (2004); and ‘Points of View’ (2007).
1. 2.
I LOOKED IN THE ROOM AND SAW 31 STUDENTS STANDING BEHIND THEIR EASELS, AND I INSTANTLY THOUGHT, ‘THAT IS NOT WHAT I WANT TO DO’. I FELT MUCH MORE AWAKE THAN THAT.
to solidify: “I got to feel less sympathetic towards minimalism and conceptualism, they became irksome to me. It was a pretty grim time in Britain, there were a lot of reasons to be dissatisfed with things. You could understand why punk arrived. Everyone was pissed off with the dominance of the post-war generation. They started as revolutionaries and reformists, and all they have done for the last 40 years has been to defend their position.” Accordingly, Cragg’s own work developed a more political edge. In Britain Seen from the North (1981), a giant mosaic of found 113 Baku.
1. Installation view of Tony Cragg at the Heydar Aliyev Centre. 2-5. More Cragg works at the sculpture park: ‘Here Today, Gone Tomorrow’ (2002); ‘Luke’ (2008); ‘It Is, It Isn’t’ (2012); and ‘Mixed Feelings’ (2012).
2. objects, a human fgure – Cragg himself? – looks at a map of Britain tipped on its side. The work, which was bought by the Tate Gallery (as it was called then), was widely regarded as an explicit indictment of the devastating effects of the Thatcher recession. I ask him whether that was a true interpretation, and he is coy. “All art is political,” he says, fnally. “But it doesn’t have to be overtly so. In fact I am 114 Baku.
3. suspicious of art that purports to be political. Making art is a political act because you are doing something no one else is doing.” By this time he had already been living in Germany for a few years. Did he feel like an outsider? “There was this whole thing about Diana [and her marriage to Prince Charles], everyone was totally immersed in the subject. It did seem to me that there
4.
WWALL ART IS POLITICAL BUT I AM SUSPICIOUS OF ART THAT PURPORTS TO BE SO. MAKING ART IS A POLITICAL ACT BECAUSE YOU ARE DOING SOMETHING NO ONE ELSE IS DOING.
were other things one could be talking about. I could never follow that enthusiasm.” Cragg declines to comment on whether the move from Britain to Germany affected his art. It is a question that he is still asked “every week”, he says. “I had the experience of living in France for a while and really enjoyed it. I found out I could learn languages quite quickly. Nowadays people travel so much, but I came from a lower middle-class family and had never been abroad. When I went, I discovered that people had a generally better quality of life than in Britain, which I thought was amazing.” In Wuppertal, he found a cheap studio with lots of space, which would have been far more diffcult in the UK. But, he adds, he would have found “some way of continuing” if he hadn’t left. Cragg’s frst moment in the sun happened in the late 1980s. He was granted a solo show at the Hayward Gallery in 1987, and the following
1. 5.
year he won the Turner Prize and was chosen to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale. Did that level of public recognition make him happy, I ask. He pauses before answering. “That’s a very diffcult question. When you are making a show, all you are concerned with is the making of it, and then there are these couple of days that are a bit of a blur. I suppose if no one was interested it would be disappointing. But I can’t answer that question, I just don’t know. I felt very engaged with my work at that time.” On top of his game? He laughs. “Never that.” The explosion of interest in contemporary art since the turn of the millennium has treated Cragg well – his work is widely collected, and appears in the unlikeliest of contexts. I make a comment on seeing some of his sculptures in Las Vegas, and he looks almost embarrassed. What does he make of contemporary art being the new rock ’n’ roll? “If you mean the fact that the volume of art has expanded immeasurably and become a real feature of social life, I think it’s great. There are aberrations in that, but I am not going to focus on them.” Does he mean the art market? Is it a pernicious infuence? “No, I wouldn’t say that. In the 1970s, when no one bought art, only about 100 people were involved in the art world, and everything cost $1,000. The frst piece I sold was for £50, to Southampton Museum. Things have grown since then, and one can only be thankful. When the base [of collectors] becomes very wide, then inevitably you will have people with very different motivations. Money and sex – you never know what people will do for them. But I don’t want to be moralistic about it. All art is doing is refecting society. And at least it has some positive effects.” I ask about the various contexts that his art is seen in. “How do you think an artist can control that?” he asks me, and then answers his own question. “You can’t. In the end, you become less and less interested in context. I just want to make the work. The feeling I want to have in my life every day is the feeling I had in that broom cupboard in Cheltenham. I don’t want to know where the work goes, when people tell me I just close down. I just want the work to be as good as it is going to get. When it leaves the studio, as soon as it is being packed, I have the feeling it’s already in a state of decay. If I were to follow the stories of what happened next, it would drive me nuts.” We leave the studio, and Cragg drives me a short distance to the Waldfrieden Sculpture Park, a secluded woodland that he took over, via his own non-proft foundation, eight years ago, to create an exhibition space for sculpture. Inside the park there is a fabulous, restored 1940s villa. He takes obvious pride in the venture, clearing away stray branches from the path as we walk around. Back in the studio, while looking at one of his pieces, I summon up the courage to ask if that combination of curves and edges in the middle of a column is actually a human face. “I don’t know whether it is a face,” he says after a little thought. “I didn’t draw it. It was by chance, more or less.” A pause. And then, falteringly: “I suppose it’s chance.”
.
115 Baku.
116 Baku.
INTO AFRICA Australian wildlife photographer Adrian Steirn made his name depicting Africa’s Big Five. Now he’s on the hunt for his most elusive subject yet, the Caucasian leopard.
PORTRAIT: GINKGO AGENCY/GETTY.
Words by LAURA ARCHER Photography by ADRIAN STEIRN
have been travelling to Africa since I was six,” Australianborn photographer and flmmaker Adrian Steirn tells me, as we sit in the middle of an exhibition of his wildlife images at the Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku. A magnifcent lion gazes impassively down at us from one white wall; on another, an elephant looms out of the mist and stars wheel above a lone acacia tree. “From the age of 19 I started going every year and moved to Cape Town permanently in 2008,” he continues, but the rest of his sentence is lost as a teeth-rattling drill starts up somewhere above our heads. We both laugh. “This is going really well,” I shout. “Amazing, hey?” he replies drolly. We try again. I ask him if he has a favourite image in his portfolio and he starts to tell me about his work with Nelson Mandela for his ‘21 Icons’ series of portraits and flms, but it’s impossible to hear him. Without further ado Steirn strides off in search of the errant workman, but the noise is coming from deep within the gleaming white heart of Zaha Hadid’s landmark building so we decamp to the cafe, instead. There, settled amid the fountains and shrubbery, Steirn recounts the pivotal experience of meeting Mandela, South Africa’s frst post-apartheid president and Nobel peace prize winner, for what would turn out to be the last portrait ever taken of him. “It taught me an interesting lesson in appreciating the now,” he muses. “I’m very much one of those people who’s always thinking ‘what’s next, what’s next’. To appreciate the present has been a valuable lesson. You never know at the time the signifcance of what you’re doing.” Steirn’s career to date has certainly seen its fair share of signifcant moments. 117 Baku.
A selection of Steirn’s wondrous images of Africa, and (far right) Desmond Tutu.
Aged 34, he has photographed the former archbishop of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu, dancing with a tutu, and persuaded FW de Klerk, former South African president, to sit, barefoot, in the lotus position. He is photographer-in-residence for World Wildlife Fund South Africa and has been named ‘photographer of the year’ numerous times. In 2011 he made the flm When I Die: Lessons From the Death Zone, documenting the fnal weeks of Philip Gould, a British political strategist who had terminal lung cancer. The haunting image Steirn shot of Gould standing over the plot of land in which he would be buried is on permanent display at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Integral to Steirn’s work is his ability to make you look twice: Mandela in a mirror; Greenpeace director Kumi Naidoo in a lifeboat in a forest; Nobel prize-winning author Nadine Gordimer perched, Alice in Wonderlandstyle, on a stack of giant books. A few days before I meet him, he tells an audience of some of the world’s highest-profle conservationists, gathered at the Heydar
118 Baku.
HWE’RE AWASH WITH IMAGES, THEY BECOME WHITE NOISE. SO TELL A DIFFERENT STORY THAT LETS THE VIEWER EMPATHIZE – FOR ME, THAT’S THE KEY TO CREATING A MEMORABLE CONNECTION.
Aliyev Centre to discuss the future of the Caucasian leopard, that “the narrative behind the photograph is more interesting than the photograph itself”. An oxymoron coming from a photographer, perhaps, but it’s this sense of being part of a larger story that gives Steirn’s work its power. “I could show you the most beautiful, sharp, wonderfully lit image of a lion and feel great about myself as a photographer in a technical sense,” he explains. “But people say ‘that’s a great photo’ and then walk away. They won’t remember it. We’re awash with images, they’re around us constantly, and it all becomes white noise. So tell a different narrative, tell the funny, irreverent story, create a human element that lets the viewer empathize – for me, that’s the key to creating a memorable connection.” This approach has won him plaudits world over, most recently from Azerbaijan, where he was invited by Leyla Aliyeva’s International Dialogue for Environmental Action (IDEA) campaign to join the search for the Caucasian leopard. For the past twoand-a-half years, Steirn and his team have scoured the mountains thought to be home to this elusive, endangered cat. So, have you seen it, I ask. “I’ve never seen the leopard,” Steirn says, shaking his head. “I’ve been very close – we’ve got video trap footage, camera trap footage… I will see the leopard before my time is done.” His drive and determination are clear – attributes he puts down to having a budding career in rugby thwarted by injury at a young age. “I blew my knee out at 21 and had to rationalize the fact that I was never going to make it. I was never going to be a Wallaby,” he says, referring to Australia’s national rugby union 119 Baku.
I’M NOT THE SHY AND RETIRING TYPE, I’M NOT SLIM. I HAVE TO WEAR A SCARF TO MAKE MYSELF LOOK CREATIVE, SO PEOPLE KNOW I’M NOT PART OF THE SECURITY DETAIL! team. “And it was really hard to face the end of something that had defned my life since I was fve. So that focus went into photography.” And if you don’t see the leopard, I ask. “It’ll really eat me up,” he admits. “Finding it will give me a sense of self.” It’s an interesting fash of insecurity behind the bluff exterior, and when pressed he confesses to seeing himself as “a slightly strange and awkward photographer. A lot of photographers sit in the room
120 Baku.
and you don’t even know they’re there. I can’t do that. I’m not the shy and retiring type, I’m not slim,” he says of the rugby player physique that he still maintains. He points at the brightly coloured fabric around his neck: “I have to wear a scarf to make myself look creative, so people know I’m not part of the security detail!” He laughs, clearly feeling most comfortable when cracking a joke. “Humour’s a big thing for me,” he confrms. “People can be too fervent. But the one thing that unites us all is that we all love to laugh. Everything I do comes back to that – not taking yourself too seriously.” He may prefer a light-hearted touch but there’s no disguising the gravity of his subject matter. His next project is to expand the ‘21 Icons’ series into different regions, starting with India. “We say we live in a global society but I defy most people to name 21 incredible men and women living wonderful and positive lives in, say, Iran. Or China. Or Japan. Perhaps at best you could mention two or three,” he says. “But there are incredible stories everywhere. A lot of them will remain untold because they’re not commercial, and that’s how our world works.” But Adrian Steirn is on a mission to bring us those stories through his lens. Just as soon as he’s seen that leopard.
.
More photographs from Steirn’s African archive, including (opposite) the last portrait ever taken of Nelson Mandela.
C’est bon! French artist Laurence Jenkell creates giant candies that look sweet enough to eat, but their witty simplicity belies the complexity of her craft.
t frst glance you might be forgiven for thinking that Laurence Jenkell is the Willy Wonka of the art world. Her obsession with candy is not unlike that of the famous Roald Dahl character. But instead of golden chocolate bars and everlasting gobstoppers, Jenkell creates giant wrapped candy pieces, decorated in bright and bold colours. So realistic are the wrappings that they make children’s eyes pop everywhere they appear in exhibitions around the world. Sadly these sweets are not for eating, but Jenkell does hope they send a positive and happy message to the global community, as Leyla Aliyeva discovered when they met at Jenkell’s studio near Cannes to discuss her current show of ‘fag candies’ in Baku. 122 Baku.
REBECCA MARSHALL. ZAUR MUSTAFAYEV.
Photography by REBECCA MARSHALL
Laurence Jenkell at her studio near Cannes (top left), and her work on display at Baku’s Heydar Aliyev Centre this spring.
Candy GIRL
123 Baku.
lEYLA ALIYEVA. You have an exhibition in Baku (until 31 October) of giant sweets in fag wrappers. Could you tell me why you are inspired by candy and how you make the pieces? Laurence JenkelL. Candy brings back memories from my childhood; I think it does for a lot of people. When I was little my parents would not let me have candy, so I think there’s some deep-seated frustration there. In a way, these giant candies are my revenge! I didn’t go to art school, but about 22 years ago I went to some evening classes to learn how to draw, how to use acrylic and oil and all kinds of materials. I would paint nudes or still-lifes but that was not what I was ultimately interested in. I knew I needed to make something with materials. I decided to try and create art with the candy I kept in my house for my young
xx Baku.
children (who are now nearly 18 and 20). I’d experiment by putting them in the oven and then put the melted pieces on canvas with epoxy resin, covering them with transparent boxes. I realized that Plexiglas, when heated, would melt, and I fought with the material for some time before eventually being able to work it into a twisted candy-wrapper shape. I became very familiar with the material and realized I could do many things with it. The next step was fnding a bigger oven. lA. How do you make the wrappers look so lifelike? lJ. I use canvas covered in resin. Galleries were not too sure of them at frst. I had to fght, but now my pieces are really well received all round the world. I’ve made them in bronze, aluminium, marble, and all sorts of colours. lA. Do you eat candy now? lJ. I do, and I love it, but not as much as I love making it art. lA. I gave it up four years ago. I loved it, though, particularly chocolate. lJ. Exactly, everyone has a personal relationship with candy. Flags have a similar way of connecting people. I love travelling – visiting new countries, getting to know new cultures. The bright colours of fags and their simple designs make perfect candy wrappers, so my enlarged fag candies are a kind of homage to all people everywhere. There is no political statement – just something human and positive. lA. How many countries have you been to? lJ. I’ve done round-the-world trips two or three times, but when you travel for business you don’t see much. My husband always says, “We will go back”, so hopefully we will. lA. Was your trip to Baku in spring your frst visit? lJ. It was my second. I love it there. I particularly enjoy the Old Town. And the city’s modern buildings are just amazing, especially Zaha Hadid’s Heydar Aliyev Centre. There is a lot of emotion in it.
lA. You also create robots in your work. lJ. Again, this is something that stems from my childhood. I found images of robots in a book in my grandfather’s attic. He told me, “One day these robots will exist”. I thought he was crazy, but he was right. I found them fascinating. My work in creating them began with what I call ‘built art’ – based on buildings. I’m very inspired by architecture and the fantastic buildings I’ve seen in cities like Shanghai and Dubai. I make these ‘built art’ pieces, add two arms and it becomes a robot. I’ve even made a candy robot! lA. I think what is very important about artworks is when the artist puts their soul into a piece. If you do it from your heart it will always work. lJ. I agree – that’s true for everything: if you do it with love and passion, you will produce something wonderful. lA. Which artists inspire you? lJ. Picasso was just amazing, as well as Frida Kahlo, Louise
REBECCA MARSHALL. ILGAR JAFAROV.
MY FLAG CANDIES ARE A KIND OF HOMAGE TO PEOPLE EVERYWHERE. THERE IS NO POLITICAL STATEMENT, JUST SOMETHING HUMAN AND POSITIVE.
Bourgeois, Nicki de Saint Phalle and Camille Claudel, who worked with Rodin. I really admire women artists, for the diffculties they have faced. lA. Do you think they still face diffculties today? lJ. Yes. We still have to struggle and fght, but we love it and we make it work. lA. Your work suggests you’re a bright and happy person. Is that the case? lJ. Yes, I’m always very positive. It’s good that you can feel it in my artwork. Whenever I draw I have so many thoughts and emotions in my head. I wake up in the night and feel compelled to draw. I also fnd it hard to relax. I always need to be thinking, drawing… lA. So what’s next? lJ. Abu Dhabi, then Bratislava, then Monaco, then Paris. My DNA sculptures are important works for me – DNA is life itself. The robots I make more for fun, and the buildings because I love architecture. But the candies will be a part of my repertoire forever.
Laurence Jenkell in her studio; with Leyla Aliyeva; and her candy and robot pieces. In spring her flag candies went on display in Baku at the Heydar Aliyev Centre.
.
125 Baku.
DOUBLE
Baku's ancient and modern skyline inspired British photographer and illustrator Danny Sangra to use old and new artistic techniques to capture its unique geometry. The result is a wonderful symmetry. 126 Baku.
xx Baku.
xx Baku.
xx Baku.
xx Baku.
xx Baku.
1. 2.
New York City in spring was the stage for the second ever Fabergé Big Egg Hunt, which saw giant, exquisitely decorated eggs dotted all over the city, including Times Square, Grand Central Station and Dumbo. ‘Baku’ magazine sponsored this nest of six eggs for the event – raising funds for two charities, Elephant Family and Action for Children – featuring the work of artists from around the world. Photography by CHRISTOPHER ERNST
134 Baku.
3.
BIG
1. British artist Marc Quinn’s egg, at the Rockefeller Center, amalgamates two fngerprints – a man and a woman’s – into one seamless design, forming “a monument to love”. 2. ‘Glitch in Reality’, by Faig Ahmed, is “an alteration of conventional structure” in order to “confict with our fragile human logic”. 3. ‘The New Coming’, by American graffti artist Seen, mixes graffti with abstract designs – a new style he’s working on. It’s pictured in Madison Avenue.
EGG HUNT
135 Baku.
1. This ‘Art Deco Jewel’, pictured inside the Loews Regency Hotel in Park Avenue, is by jewellery designer Maria Canale and is a modern take on art deco, with wavy layers of crystals and a tassel-like stand made of silver chains. 2. Rashad Alakbarov’s ‘A Shell for an Egg Shell’ speaks of inner fragility and insecurity, with its metal armour protecting the vulnerable egg within.
1.
2.
3.
3. ‘The Unbreakable Happiness’, by Leyla Aliyeva, photographed at the Time Warner Center, features hand-painted fowers and birds. The red fowers are translucent panels that are illuminated by LEDs inside the egg. 136 Baku.
as Paul McCartney and David Byrne. It has a dynamic and growing mix of architecture, and boasts its very own style found nowhere else in Peru. I love it, and if ever I was to open a restaurant, club or bar in Peru, this is where I would do so. It’s no surprise that Barranco is where the city chose to open its Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC) in June 2013. It is also where you can fnd MATE, independent galleries such as WU, Cecilia Gonzalez and 80m2, and the eponymous space of the formidable and infuential gallerist Lucia de la Puente. “In the 1970s there were only a handful of galleries for new art and none of them institutional,” de la Puente recalls. “Museums gave no support at all to contemporary art. Many artists such as Rodríguez Larraín, Jorge Piqueras and Jorge Eduardo Eielson moved to Paris, which became the centre for Latin American art.” Today, thanks to political stability, economic growth and foreign investment, Peru is reclaiming its identity. “We are rediscovering our roots and making up for lost time,” says Atix Vector, a Peruvian pop and graphic artist. Self-exiled artists have regained trust in their homeland and are now returning, bringing with them a wealth of global infuences. “As a result of the growing interest overseas in our gastronomy, art and fashion, contemporary
5.
But the district that has provided the most inspiration for my work as a chef and restaurateur is Barranco. Ceviche, our restaurant in Soho, London, was 100 per cent inspired by Barranco. Located right by the beach, the neighbourhood has been home to poets, musicians, artists and bohemians for more than a century. The best bars, restaurants, cafes, galleries and clubs are here, and at night the area is buzzing. This is where writers such as Ernest Hemingway and Allen Ginsberg would hang out; today it’s frequented by musicians such 138 Baku. Eye.
Peruvian art has begun to create a stir,” says de la Puente. “Many Peruvian artists are represented now in world-renowned galleries such as Tate Modern and MoMA.” Artists such as Fernando Bryce, Sandra Gamarra, Alfredo Márquez, Teresa Burga, José Carlos Martinat, Rita Ponce de León, Gilda Mantilla and Pancho Guerra García, have all enjoyed international recognition. Street art continues to be at the forefront of Lima’s creative scene. The work of Ricardo Wiesse, whose 10,000sq m ceramic mural has adorned the Vía Expresa since the 1990s, can be seen in the Paseo Saenz Peña in Barranco and in Punta Hermosa. Wander along Calle Cajamarca and Avenida Pedro de Osma in Barranco, Atlantic City, Calle Berlin and Avenida La Paz in Mirafores, and Ancash and Quilca in Lima’s old city centre districts, and you can fnd works by the street artists Ale Wendorf, Jimbo, Jade, Entes & Pésimo, El Decertor, Mucho Art, Seimiek and Elliot Tupac. The last of these is leading the way in the vibrant Peruvian poster art and culture called Chicha, a role that put him on the front cover of Creative Review.
1. 2.
3.
4.
The latest works of graphic, street, grafti and folk artists can also be found in galleries such as Galeria Delbarrio in Chorrillos, Casa Roja and Impakto in Mirafores, where they are getting attention from international buyers. Recently, festivals such as Latir Latino and the Urban Art Festival have established Lima as a centre for street art. “In Lima one can see, hear and touch all kinds of art – from painting, sculpture and performance to electronic art, video and installations,” says Jose Carlos Martinat, a leading conceptual artist. “Artists are not scared of mixing their mediums,” adds Miguel Aguirre Vega, another prominent artist on the scene. But key to the new momentum is the fact that Peruvians across all art forms have found a new pride in themselves and in looking towards their own homeland for inspiration. “The dialogue with what’s happening abroad continues,” artist and curator Eliana Otta explains. “But the sector that’s really growing is the one which is combining our heritage with a dynamic, contemporary culture.”
.
1. Galeria Lucia de la Puente. 2. Plaza de Armas, in the Historic Centre of Lima, on Unesco’s World Heritage list. 3. Galeria del Barrio. 4. Aerial view of Mirafores and its coastal clifs bordering the Pacifc Ocean. 5. MAC (Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Lima). 6. San Isidro, Lima’s fnancial district. 7. Grafti artists at work during a street festival in 2010. 8. Hans Kotter’s ‘Tube’ at PARC 2014, the international art fair in Lima. 9. MALI (Museo de Arte de Lima). 10. ‘y su fel amigo burro (el caballo de un libertador)’ (2012) by Fernando Gutierrez, “Huanchaco”. 11. ‘Violeta Azul’ (2013) by Valentino Sibadon.
JUAN PABLO MURRUGARRA. PAUL KENNEDY/HEMIS/ALAMY. ENRIQUE CASTRO-MENDIVIL/MARIANA BAZO/REUTERS/CORBIS.
I now live in London but was born in Lima and travel there to visit family several times a year. In that time I’ve seen it change profoundly. The city has grown exponentially in recent years to become home to more than 10 million people. It is now a melting pot bringing together African, Chinese, Japanese, Italian and Spanish migrants with the indigenous population, giving Lima a unique blend of ideas, cultures and art forms. “You only have to walk around Lima’s city centre to witness the sensory explosion of diferent cultures – this is rarely found to this extent in other cities in the world,” says artist Pancho Basurco, whose work draws on ancient pre-Columbian art. “Your walk transforms itself into a show full of colour, sounds, textures and smells.” From the edgy port of El Callao to the laid-back vibe of La Herradura beach and the suburbs of La Molina and Chaclacayo, inspiration is everywhere. You just have to stroll through the colonial town centre, through Chinatown, and into Plaza de Armas, one of the world’s most beautiful squares. Visit Mirafores, an upmarket neighbourhood full of independent boutiques, luxury brands and phenomenal restaurants. It is also home to galleries such as the brilliant Galería Revolver.
NAMES TO KNOW 10.
JOSE CARLOS MARTINAT Martinat is a multi-media artist who divides his time between the urban environments of Lima and Mexico City, which are his source of inspiration. FERNANDO GUTIERREZ, “HUANCHACO” This artist cheekily twists contemporary Peruvian popular characters such as superheroes using comic magazine elements alongside painting, photography and video. His work is edgy, powerful and hints at a new type of farcical magical realism.
6. 7.
8. 9.
11.
ELIANA OTTA Her works document moments in time as well as contemporary issues. Society, democracy, arts and culture are at play in her pieces, which include books, paintings and installations. VALENTINO SIBADON Aka Radio, Sibadon is an abstract muralist based in Lima who paints the town to the delight of its citizens. His works are refreshing and uplifting; sometimes minimalistic, other times hectic and complex. Bright primary colours contrast with the surrounding grey urban surfaces.
PLACES TO GO 1. GALERIA LUCIA DE LA PUENTE Located in a beautifully restored mansion, this gallery has an international reputation, and has shown its artists at Art Basel Miami Beach and the Armory in New York. gluciadelapuente.com 2. GALERIA REVOLVER One of Mario Testino’s favourite galleries, Revolver champions young talent with an edge. revolvergaleria.com
PLAZA DE ARMAS LIMA CENTRE
3. MALI, MAC AND MATE MALI takes a chronological approach, showing 3,000 years of Peruvian art under one roof. MAC – which opened in 2013 – is the city’s frst museum dedicated to contemporary art, while MATE houses the world’s largest collection of Mario Testino images as well as promoting works by local artists. mali.pe; maclima.pe; mate.pe
3
SAN ISIDRO MIRAFLORES
2
BARRANCO 4 1
3 5
PACIFIC OCEAN
3
4. GALERIA FORUM A stalwart of the local art scene, Forum celebrates its 35th anniversary this year. galeriaforum.net 5. HOTEL B Hotel B is Lima’s frst art hotel. It houses a collection curated by Lucia de la Puente and there are regular private viewings and events with local artists. hotelb.pe 139 Baku. Eye.
China’s punk music scene was up, then it was down – so where is it now? Billy Pratt explores the Middle Kingdom’s netherworld. 1.
T
he foor is dark, sticky and covered in smashed glass. It’s 2006 and a crowd of students are crammed into D-22, Beijing’s top punk venue. Amidst the overwhelming smell of sweat and fashing lights, Zhang Shouwang, lead singer and guitarist of Carsick Cars steps up to the mic for the climax of the evening, a rendition of their Chinese indie anthem ‘Zhong Nan Hai’ (named after a popular brand of cigarette in China). The distinctive, jangly guitar rif sends a raw energy pulsating down the spines of the audience members. Wild moshing erupts; and one audience member even scrawls, “I love my country, I love my mom and I LOVE Carsick Cars”, on the toilet wall. The opening of D-22 eight years ago marked the start of a
3.
boom in China’s underground music scene. The club, and its record label Maybe Mars, gave an outlet for the increasing number of Beijing punk and indie bands. At the time, D-22 owner Michael Pettis described China as being “ripe” for a cultural explosion of this nature. He thought a “massive 140 Baku. Eye.
generation gap” in China, comparable to that of the US in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as massive social change meant that somewhere in Beijing there had to be some exciting music. With D-22 going down in history as the Chinese equivalent of New York City’s famous CBGB club, he has been proven right. Despite its success, Pettis chose to close the club in 2012 in order to “do something very diferent”. While D-22 was not forced to close, its doing so seems to have marked the end of that surge in underground music. ZO, frontman of D-22 favourite Hedgehog, believes “most good things happened between 2007 and 2009” and that the scene has since become stagnant. With the underground scene at home currently looking lifeless, Carsick Cars have opted to take their new album 3 abroad on a tour of North America and Europe. Their trip highlights a signifcant problem Chinese bands face – it is impossible to be commercially successful in China. Former D-22 booking
manager, Nevin Domer, believes that “it’s just not going to happen”. With punk being intrinsically anti-mainstream music, it is seriously difcult to get noticed in a country where there is only a mainstream. In ZO’s opinion, “People just don’t know this kind of music. Major labels don’t sign bands, just pop singers”. The scene being heavily Beijing-centred doesn’t help. Beyond the capital, live music venues are unwilling to host local bands. With a very small domestic market, Domer believes that bands have to aim for international success. “The real chance is to get attention from overseas,” where this music is commercially viable. It’s now common for prominent Chinese bands to tour beyond China, at least when they are given visas.
Performing abroad also distorts the very nature of the Chinese underground. Whilst Hedgehog have made several foreign tours, ZO believes groups in China should be primarily appealing to a domestic audience: “We think putting indie music in the charts here is more important. In my opinion, I think Chinese bands should write Chinese songs, giving real attitudes and feelings about China right now.” Nevertheless, the scene is making progress beyond China. In January 2014, Carsick Cars performed at the Grand Palais in Paris as a part of the Nuit de Chine event, an ofcial celebration of 50 years of diplomatic relations between France and China. The evening featured a full range of cultural events, from the martial arts of the Shaolin monks to virtuoso performances of the Western classical music repertoire. Not so long ago, a band like Carsick Cars being there would have been inconceivable. Lack of government support and their notoriety for having songs about drugs meant no ofcial Chinese institution would dare touch them. So their eventual inclusion at an event such as the Nuit de Chine was down to the band’s hard-earned cult status, something which demonstrates the strength of the Chinese underground scene – it 2. now has the capacity to produce groups who can be seen just as representative of Chinese culture as the Shaolin monks while still retaining their indie ethos. Despite the lull in the present scene, ZO is optimistic. The infrastructure for a credible independent scene in Beijing is being built up. “More and more kids are getting into rock now. I think that’s what rock’n’roll is about, teen spirits. In Beijing there are more bands and more live music venues.” The generation gap in China is ever widening so the case, or even need for a thriving Chinese underground is apparent. There are few other places for “real teen spirits” to turn to, which is why the scene has a freshness and authenticity sorely lacking in other areas of Chinese life. D-22 laid the ground work for a real underground music scene in China and the Nuit de Chine event showed a willingness to recognize Chinese bands. With these foundations in place, ZO is “waiting for the next creative generation” and, so far, all the signs point to that generation being well worth the wait.
.
1–2. Chinese indie rock band Carsick Cars perform during a taping of the English language talk show ‘Asia Uncut’ in Shanghai, 2009. 3. A punk fan at the Midi Music Festival at Haidian Park in Beijing, 2007. 4. ‘Electric Dress’ (1956) by Tanaka Atsuko. 5. A colonial pocket as remade by Bunny Rogers for her ‘Shades of Berny’ exhibition (2013). 6. ‘Spiderdress’ (2012) by Anouk Wipprecht.
OILAI SHEN/IN PICTURES/CORBIS. CHINA PHOTOS/ GETTY. CARO/ALAMY. COURTESY ANOUK WIPPRECHT.
Heart & Soul
Meme Here you’ll fnd dresses that defend you or illuminate you. Marina Galperina explores the outer limits of wearable art.
F
ashion is much more than a collection of mere trend-chasing styles. It is a nexus of political and aesthetic concepts that is communicated through what we choose to wear. At the outer experimental edge of this web of ideas, wearable technology is working to change and enhance our experience of the physical world. But beyond even this, there are artists who are using fashion and clothes as material to create something entirely new and strange. Here are a few standout projects that have caught our attention.
4.
BLINKING LIKE FIREWORKS
It was 1956 when Japanese avant-garde artist Atsuko Tanaka premiered her iconic Electric Dress, a costume engulfed by a draping mass of large, multicoloured light bulbs. Fellow radical artists in the Gutai group claimed it symbolized the rapid urbanization of post-war Japan. She said she liked how it “blinked like freworks”. But Tanaka, enrobed in light, felt a darkness. She’s said that ficking the switch made her anxious, thinking, “Is this how a death-row inmate would feel?”
too fast or getting too close, they whir into position, ready to strike. She’s wearing Anouk Wipprecht. Vienna-based but working internationally, Dutch designer Wipprecht specializes in technological couture. She has dressed the Black Eyed Peas in android drag for the 2011 Super Bowl halftime show, and adorned the Austrian competitors in the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest in Baku, but her high-tech garments go far beyond simple LED-embedded stage costumes.
THE ALCHEMY OF MATERIALS
Bunny Rogers’s 2013 solo show ‘Shades of Berny’, held at Appendix Project Space in Portland, Oregon introduced the rose-embroidered colonial pocket series. The colonial pocket was an 18th-century accessory fxed around the waist under the dress but outside the petticoat and accessible through a slit in the skirt. Embroidery was a wifely occupation and a young girl’s rite of passage. Rogers flled the pockets with cassette tape recordings of the artist reading from Jerry Spinelli’s 1997 book Wringer, a coming-of-age novel about a boy learning to wring pigeons’ necks and the moral dilemma this puts him in.
5.
ANOUK WIPPRECHT
She’s wearing a little black dress with six robotic spider arms: a tight bodice, baroque shoulder extensions with exposed red electrical wiring, a low sweetheart neckline, and those six spindly arms, gently dancing above the décolletage. If they sense someone approaching
6.
Rogers took the colour of the roses from the soft toy ‘Princess’ Beanie Baby Bear which was hugely popular in the late 1990s. This is an installation about childhood being forced into adulthood – such a weight for a fragile pocket to carry. “Style is a simple way of saying complicated things”, Jean Cocteau said. He understood attire’s potential for symbolic expression. Symbols wearing symbols wearing symbols. Who are you wearing tonight?
.
141 xx Baku. Eye.
Do people in the contemporary art world really know what they’re on about? GQ’s editorin-chief, Dylan Jones, wonders who’s fooling who.
T
his is becoming somewhat tiresome. Seriously tiresome. You fnd yourself at an opening or a gallery dinner or art fair in London, Hong Kong, Miami or New York; or you wander into a conversation at a gallerist’s house or private view in Dubai, Moscow or Beijing, and you’ll hear this season’s topic of choice: “Most people in the contemporary art world know nothing about art.”
1.
To which I say two things: (a) this is not true. And (b), even if it were true, then so what? You only have to have a scant understanding of the co-dependent nature of the art world to know that patronage has always been one of its cornerstones. Maybe the cornerstone. Whether it’s feudal Japan or Renaissance Italy, without patronage many artists would have spent their lives foating about in a cloud of indiference. There is a famous scene in Woody Allen’s flm Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) in which Max von Sydow, playing an intense and rather ‘difcult’ painter called Frederick, is introduced to a rock star – Dusty, played by Daniel Stern – who wants to buy one of Frederick’s pieces “to go with my new house” which “has a lot of big walls”. Frederick immediately loses his temper, claiming that his work “isn’t sold by the yard. I’m not interested in what your interior decorator thinks, OK?” To which the rock star replies, “I can’t commit to anything without consulting her frst. That’s what I have her for, 142 Baku. Eye.
OK?” Frederick is appalled: “This is degrading. You don’t buy paintings to blend in with the sofa.” Dusty says, “It’s not a sofa, it’s an ottoman!” This is a scene that’s played for laughs, with the rock star being painted as a vacuous arriviste with no taste (like I said: a rock star), and the painter being portrayed as an old-fashioned believer in artistic integrity. However, I have lost count of the number of times I’ve been with a gallery owner while they’ve been having remarkably similar conversations. In fact, not so long ago I was in Hong Kong with a friend of mine who introduced me to the owner of a new gallery charged with fnding some work for the recently appointed head of an international bank. “Rusty’s arriving in two weeks’ time and his property consultant is pulling her hair out as he’s having a dinner party the night
2.
he arrives and wants the place fully furnished by then,” said the gallery owner. “So she’s asked me to fnd at least six pieces of mid-century modern, but the dimensions of his apartment are just ridiculous. I’m talking skinny walls here, and a staircase that’s practically vertical!” If the artists concerned had heard the conversations about their work they would have been spinning in their graves. Of course, most people in the art world – in which gossip and equity have long since become one – lead professional lives so fnely tuned to their domain that it is entirely natural for them to operate knowing all there is to know about the market. And there is a lot to keep up with, as today the art world is even more susceptible to the vagaries of taste than the fashion world. What is considered cool and noteworthy (and worth 10 million bucks) at dinner time in Los Angeles can be out of date and considered “oh-sosecondary” by lunchtime in Paris. Dealers buy and sell art in the same way that commodities are bought and sold, and think
little of it. The buying and selling of art isn’t dependent on popularity – like music or flms or books or magazines or newspapers or washing powder – it’s dependent on little more than whim. Take newspaper critics for example, those custodians of taste who still naively think they can shift opinion. Sure, there are maybe half a dozen important writers in the world who can point the money in the right direction, but more often than not art critics simply interpret the worth of what’s on show. And what’s on show is less likely to be in a publicly funded museum and more likely to be in a white box in Mayfair, Midtown or Beijing’s 798 Art Zone. As one gallerist said to me in Milan several months ago: “Most critics think they can take a zero of an artist’s worth, whereas in reality all they can do is sometimes add one. And the great thing is, we never pay
1. Outside the 798 Art Zone in Beijing. 2. The SLS Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida during the Art Basel Miami Beach art fair, 2012. 3. A scene from Woody Allen’s ‘Hannah and Her Sisters’ (1986) with (from left) Barbara Hershey, Max Von Sydow, Daniel Stern and Michael Caine. 4. ‘The Listener’ (2012) by Patricia Piccinini, on show at ‘Project Genesis’. 5. ‘Bioaerosol Microtrapping Bioflm’, self-replicating bioflm coating leaf surfaces, by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg for her project ‘Designing for the Sixth Extinction’ (2013). 6. General view of the ‘Project Genesis’ exhibition.
3.
them a commission! The sad truth is that a lot of writers in the art world can be bought with a free dinner, a trip on a private jet and a little bit of fattery. Actually, strike that – all they need is the fattery!” This is a game that has been played for centuries, and will continue to be so. The same gallerist told me about this wellknown photographer, one of the best known in the world in fact, who had been to a dinner organized by a friend of his from Mumbai. There he met a collector who was moving from India to London and wanted to buy some of his work. After giving this new client a quick tour of his studio, the client told him what he wanted to buy. “It was the easiest $200,000 I’ve made in years,” the photographer said. “This chap said he wanted to buy one of my photos from the 1980s. But I told him that the picture he wanted only came in a set of eight, so if he wanted to buy one, he had to buy all of them. “And you know what he said to me? ‘That’s OK, I’ve got eight houses’.”
.
VALERY HACHE/AFP/AARON DAVIDSON/GETTY. BRIAN HAMILL/THE KOBAL COLLECTION. MARTIN HIESLMAIR. ALEXANDRA DAISY GINSBERG.
Ars Longa
Science and Art Can we reinvent nature? With synthetic biology, maybe we can, and it is artists as well as scientists who are leading the way. Michael Brooks explores the possibilities, and the dangers.
I
n The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck dismisses the possibility of new beginnings after a catastrophe. “This land, this red land, is us,” he writes, “and the food years and the dust years and the drought years are us. We can’t start again.” When such havoc is wrought upon the environment, species can die out. But it seems it may not be as fnal as Steinbeck suggests. As an exhibition running in Linz in Austria demonstrates, the astonishing thing is that humans are now learning how to create the world anew. ‘Project Genesis’, on show at the Ars Electronica Centre, brings together artists and designers under the heading of synthetic biology, a new science that is now coming of age. The basic idea of synthetic biology is to take our emerging knowledge of the genomes within all natural living things and create new forms from this. The chief architect of this branch of biology is the biotech entrepreneur Craig Venter, famous for leading the frst sequencing of the human genome during the 1990s. Venter has already created organisms never before seen on earth, an innovation he sees as a step towards a plethora of benefcial new creatures. We can, for example, re-engineer the genomes of bacteria so that they become factories for useful chemicals. We already do this to produce insulin. Work is under way to create more new organisms, ones that have not arisen naturally, that will, for example, take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turn it into crude oil.
5.
These benign applications are not the end of the story, though. Synthetic biologists are all too aware of the possibilities for abuse, which is why some of them are also harnessing the imaginations of artists. It takes a scientist’s mind to learn how to tinker with nature; it takes an artist to imagine all the possible consequences. ‘Project Genesis’ uses art and design as a window through which these possibilities can be explored. Molecular biologist Manuel Selg, a scientifc adviser at the Centre who helped co-ordinate the exhibition, is under no illusions about the importance of making these scientifc innovations public as early as possible: “This is important in order to implement efective rules. And the time is approaching when regulation will be imperative,” he says.
4.
Prominent among the contributors to the exhibition is the London-based artist, designer and writer Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg. She has spent several years working with synthetic biologists and has investigated many ways in which the science might become useful. Her synthetic rewilding project, ‘Designing for the Sixth Extinction’, for example, explores designs for new forms of life that could replace and even improve on natural organisms that are succumbing to environmental pressures. Ginsberg is also the lead writer on a new book, Synthetic Aesthetics, which explores what designers and artists would do if given the capabilities that science is now realizing. It arose from collaborations between artists, designers and social scientists, and the project’s main outcome may be to blur the boundaries of each of these disciplines. As well as the straightforward question of what is possible, these collaborations also invite discussion of the role of aesthetics in science and design. Both of these felds are sometimes accused of prizing function over form, and in science, ethics must also ft into the equation. It may even be that ethics is the aesthetics of science – but that’s for us all to decide.
.
‘Project Genesis’ is at the Ars Electronica Centre, Linz, until 1 August 2014 (aec.at). ‘Synthetic Aesthetics’ is available from MIT Press.
6.
xx 143 Baku. Baku. Eye Eye . .
Anatomy of a Gallery
2
What’s hot in LA’s cool kid on the block, LACMA.
1 4 5
3
8
6
9
7 LACMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, aims to be the Met and MoMa of the West Coast. With collections that are as exquisite as they are varied, and architecture that polarizes opinion, the campus dominates the museums on Miracle Mile. Jarrett Gregory, associate curator of contemporary art at LACMA, dissects the visitor experience.
Art Agony Uncle Confused about art? Kenny Schachter is pleased to help out. I’ve run out of room in all my homes but I can’t stop buying. My husband thinks it’s gauche to store art. Is it? As a store of wealth, art is akin to gold, bonds and other quasi and traditional fnancial instruments, so there is no reason it shouldn’t be treated as such. Do you hang (all of) your gold and shares on the wall? No, they go into vaults and for safekeeping, as should art in excess of wall space. So store away! What’s your view on solo artists’ booths at art fairs? A sellout? Sellout, or a great way see to see a concentrated hit of a particular artist? Typically at a fair you see booths crammed with stuf set up with a view to the quick sale, so it’s refreshing to see a one-artist booth, plus you get to look at the work more in-depth. More and more people view art through fair attendance alone, for better or worse, so why not give an artist (what could be) the only chance to have their work seen by the who’s who of the art world? I’m a single male and I’m thinking of going to private views for the gallery babes. What’s the etiquette? Meeting girls is meeting girls, whether in high school, university or at Hauser & Wirth. Go get ’em, tiger! Brush up on your postmodern art speak in the meantime if you really want to impress them.
.
Email your art dilemmas to dearkenny@condenast.co.uk 144 Baku. Eye.
1. Pavilion for Japanese Art The only building dedicated to one theme, it’s LACMA’s best-kept secret, the kind of special place that you could take a date to. It’s a peaceful, retro-style jewel box of a building with balconies overlooking a Japanese rock garden. It’s one of the few public buildings maverick architect Bruce Gof designed.
afternoon pick-meup in the Californian sunshine on the patio. Oversized sunglasses essential. Small fufy dog optional.
2. Art of the Americas Building It was something of an experiment to have an artist, Jorge Pardo, install the permanent collection here. He created coloured walls instead of the usual white you fnd in galleries. The works really pop in this vivid setting.
5. Urban Light The ultimate selfe destination, Urban Light by artist Chris Burden (the man who once allowed himself to be shot and nailed for his performances) features 202 vintage cast-iron street lamps from the 1920s and 1930s in LA collected by Burden himself. Installed in 2008, it’s rapidly become an LA icon – tell any cab driver to “take you to the lampposts” and
3. C+M Cofee + Milk is where you enjoy an
4. Ahmanson Building The building that houses the permanent collection, and what’s nice about that is that you can always revisit it to see a favourite piece. People seem to gravitate towards Matisse here.
they’ll know what you mean. There’s even a blog dedicated to photos of girls in front of the lampposts. 6. Ray’s and Stark Bar The bar features a water menu with 30 varieties, catering to any whim – $10 water bottled in a remote French village anyone? How very LA. It’s also a great place to meet, even if you’re not visiting LACMA for the art. 7. The grounds People picnic in the grounds, especially on Friday evenings when we have free jazz and food stands with things like sangria and tacos. The rock, Levitated Mass by Michael Heizer, is particularly spectacular – it’s a 340-ton granite megalith that you can walk under. It’s a luxury for me to take a walk around the
Art salons at home. Show of your art, whether it’s East London Editions or Sigmar Polke abstracts, stacked on your walls in the comfort of chez toi. Add some Prosecco for a perfectly chilled evening.
grounds and look at this rock. It’s what I’d show a visitor who’d never been before. 8. Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM) This is where the temporary exhibitions are shown, so it’s the place to go for whatever’s new and hot, and to see what all of LA is talking about. You may even spot a celebrity or two. 9. Future home of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures Movie types waft in and out constantly as they prepare for this building’s opening. It will have exhibitions on important flmmakers as well as costume shows. It will also incorporate a flm theatre, which will host star-studded flm premieres.
.
Mega-parties at art fairs. Who are all these people?
The Shape of Things To Come Eco no longer means ugly when it comes to architecture. In 2014, and beyond, its foundations lie in beautiful, simple design. Words by ABBIE VORA
146 Baku.
hink sustainable architecture, and what springs to mind? Grassy subterranean dwellings akin to Tolkien’s Middle-earth? A colour palette of sludge greens and rusty browns? Compost? Long hair? Sandals? Or perhaps you imagine glinting solar panels slapped all over roofs and imposing wind turbines in the back garden – expensive ‘green’ technologies, whose effectiveness, depending what part of the world you live in, is somewhat questionable. These fusty stereotypes and notions of ‘eco bling’ are still prevalent, according to some of the world’s leading architects who specialize in the subject. But what they also say is that there has been a fundamental shift in the past 20 years, and the majority of people – their clients, and potential clients – are now full of enthusiasm for sustainable design or at the very least express an awareness of its relevance. So what is sustainable architecture in 2014? It’s simple: “All architecture, really,” says Paul Archer, director of the London-based studio Paul Archer Design. “Architecture that’s sustainable was once distinct from other forms, but the agenda has shifted; the distinction has faded. Sustainable architecture is almost a redundant term now. It basically comes down to good design.” Lisa Wameling of the Berlin practice BCO Architekten agrees. “Designing a building is just not possible without thinking about sustainability,” she says. “It’s a part of the process now – you couldn’t do one without the other.” Besides the obvious benefts of energy effciency, an important eco factor for BCO is longevity, the way buildings age: their durability, the beautiful patina
HELEN FICKLING. WILL PRYCE. WERNER HUTHMACHER.
Opposite page: Green Orchard by Paul Archer Design. This page: (left) the team at BCO Architekten, and (below) their apartment block in Linienstrasse, Berlin.
that materials acquire, a lively yet timeless design and spaces that can be easily adapted by future inhabitants. Wameling loves Berlin’s old industrial buildings because they’ve survived hundreds of years intact and their cavernous interiors allow for continuous change. Archer and BCO have both recently completed zero-carbon residences with vastly different aesthetics, but neither have compromised on style. This recalls another outdated notion – that eco means ugly. Why should it, when the most common materials for modern eco homes are wood and glass? Archer’s Green Orchard house in Gloucestershire is shrouded in superinsulated panels that are clad in polished aluminium, refecting the sky and the lush countryside and making the house almost disappear into the landscape. This is another key part of today’s eco credentials – to be in harmony, visually and otherwise, with your surroundings. The panels slide open, to connect the interior with the garden and allow a fow of fresh air. “In theory energy-effcient buildings have to be orientated south, and when you look at most passive house designs [today’s most energy-effcient concept] they tend to be an insulated box with lots of glass on the south facade,” explains Archer. “The idea with Green Orchard was to challenge that, because it’s not always suitable – for this house we had to make the most of the views over the Severn Estuary. The sliding thermal panels mean the building can adapt to the weather to suit the occupants.” Adaptability is a key feature of the BCO-designed zero-carbon apartment block, which includes a gallery, in central Berlin, located right between the bohemian Prenzlauer Berg area and upmarket Mitte. At the core of the building, much like Green Orchard, are the services – the bathrooms, the kitchens – “stuff you can’t move around”, explains Wameling, a partner at BCO. This also allows maximum use of natural light and heat in the main living areas. “The fve individual apartments feature lofts around this technical core, with sliding walls so that the residents can divide up the space to ft their lifestyle,” she says. “Making a space fexible gives it longer life. And we use mostly natural materials – such as wood – so they age well.” Its exterior is a block colour of chic grey, to ft in with the existing neighbourhood, and looks slightly unusual for its non-uniform windows 147 Baku.
– some large and box-like, resembling picture frames, and some a lot smaller, all placed seemingly haphazardly, but actually positioned to allow the sun to enter each apartment in the right way. Clever and striking design is certainly a common feature among the most beautiful eco homes, but showiness is not part of the new criteria. While a house like Green Orchard is a spectacular building, it’s also subtle. A very different kind of dwelling is Dutch Mountain, the frst project by the young Amsterdam offce Denieuwegeneratie. Besides being uber-stylish, the partially subterranean family abode blends seamlessly with its hilly environment among hayfelds and woods, being virtually hidden from view by the artifcial hill into which it’s embedded. “Sustainability
148 Baku.
should be about adding something to the world that is in balance, that doesn’t disturb things; well, it will probably disturb, but we must make sure it’s in a good way,” says Thomas Dieben, one of the three dynamic founders of the practice, who spent some of his formative years training under French luminary Jean Nouvel. “When we started with this project we wanted to save the world! But architects are not God. You have to decide what your target is: are we trying to solve the global CO2 issue with this project? No. But it should not leave a CO2 footprint in the area and visually it should be sympathetic to its habitat.” The design follows the fundamentals “in an extreme way”, says Dieben: closed off completely on the north side, with natural insulation from the hill, and wide open on the south side with expanses of thermal glass. The sun pours in through these windows and its warmth is stored, long after sundown, in the concrete fooring. While Dieben was initially against using concrete, for its industrial production and inability to be recycled, its benefts – strength and heat retention, not to mention its minimalist beauty, among other complex considerations – outweighed the alternatives.
WHEN WE STARTED WITH THIS PROJECT WE WANTED TO SAVE THE WORLD! BUT ARCHITECTS ARE NOT GOD. YOU HAVE TO DECIDE WHAT YOUR TARGET IS.
JOHN LEWIS MARSHALL. JOHN DONAT. RAY MAIN. DAVID BUTLER.
This page: Dutch Mountain designed by Denieuwegeneratie.
And the hills, he says, are a funny thing, as the Netherlands is notoriously fat. When it came to gaining planning permission Denieuwegeneratie hit opposition to their artifcial hill, being accused of disturbing a naturally undulating landscape. “Turns out, after a bit of investigating, that the hills in the area are all artifcial,” he says, with a wry smile, “created centuries ago by grand homeowners who wanted a pretty view.” Meredith Bowles, director of Mole Architects in Cambridge, whose frst eco house, The Black House, built in 2002, won the RIBA Manser Medal (awarded annually to the best new house designed by an architect in the UK), uses a wonderful analogy as the basis of his designs. “When I grew up we had a dog who would lie around sleeping all day,” he begins. “We’d always know where in the house to fnd the dog, because it would be sleeping wherever the sun was coming in. And being aware of that, as the dog was, and as humans instinctively are, is the frst step to living sustainably.” He says the most enjoyable way to approach it is simply to think about how we can live harmoniously with the planet, rather than thinking it means we have to stop doing what we really want to do. “Everyone can relate to the pleasure of sitting in the sun on a cooler day and, conversely, being in a cave in a hot place – think natural ways to temper the environment to make it more pleasant.” Bowles’s practice also recently won the Ideal Home of the Year in the Blue Ribbon Awards for a contemporary eco farmhouse in Suffolk called Stackyard. Its airtight design accounts for high-energy effciency and its boxy shape was inspired by classical village rectories, typical of the area.
Being sensitive to your environment is pushed to extremes in places such as Australia, where nature manifests itself with vigour. Take, for example, the work of Melbourne-based architect Sean Godsell. His designs, while striking, blend in with the rich earthy tones of the southeast of the country, and are veiled in protective shutters made from strips of recycled timber or perforated oxidized steel, which gives a handsome rusted effect. Godsell clearly takes inspiration from traditional Japanese housing, with darker inner rooms, such as bedrooms, and lighter outer rooms, such as enclosed verandahs,
Two houses by Mole Architects of Cambridge: (top) The Black House, Cambridgeshire, and (above) Stackyard House, in Suffolk, with (inset) architect Meredith Bowles. 149 Baku.
which work beautifully and naturally with the climate. He also incorporates rainwater harvesting, and uses indigenous plants in his landscaping for an alluring overall effect. “I don’t like buildings that look like they’re trying too hard to be ‘green’,” he says. “The evolution of the sunscreen has been a particularly successful element for me, because it takes a simple passive device – shading – and turns it into the main visual element.” Responding to nature is a recurring theme, and one that the Parisian practice DjuricTardio also prioritizes – that is, the natural habitat of Paris and its suburbs. “If you’re in rupture with your direct environment, you provoke radical reaction,” says Caroline Djuric. Working in such dense urban areas, Djuric’s main design principles include giving all occupants of a house direct access to green space, or an outside area, such as a balcony. And using space intelligently: “you always have to be conscious that space is a limited gift,” she explains.
I DON’T LIKE BUILDINGS THAT LOOK LIKE THEY’RE TRYING TOO HARD TO BE ‘GREEN’. THE SUNSCREEN HAS BECOME MY MAIN VISUAL ELEMENT.
150 Baku.
Of note is the practice’s two-storey house in Antony, south Paris, a prefabricated timber structure (assembled in just two weeks) with a peaked roof, to mimic its neighbours. This roof, however, is an open frame, a sunny roof terrace ft for multiple uses – a fruit and vegetable garden, perhaps, or entertaining area. This versatility continues inside, with sliding walls to divide up the levels depending on the day’s activities or the seasons. In summer the house can be opened up, and in winter closed off. “Instead of automatically putting solar panels on the roof or the walls, we will think about where we put the windows; how to gain free energy during the winter,” says Mirco Tardio. “We don’t reject technology, but we favour natural ventilation, for instance, and autonomy – by which I mean you don’t have to depend on technology to lower demands on energy.” In line with this philosophy of autonomy, Djuric-Tardio has just won the 2014 EDF Low Carbon Architecture Competition for a project of 15 houses spread over four suburban plots in Gennevilliers, not far from Paris. It’s a well-thought-out system in which the densely packed group of homes produce and stock renewable energy. Government backing of sustainable projects is a mixed bag. It seems the sentiment is there, but the reality may be something else. In the UK plans for all new homes to be zero-carbon by 2016 are way off, according to Paul Archer, who says it will take another two decades at least: “I don’t think we’re even close to working out the right way to build our next generation of houses.” Fellow Briton Meredith Bowles is similarly dubious of the target, attributing it
EARL CARTER. CLEMENT GUILLAUME.
Homes in Victoria, Australia, by architect Sean Godsell: (top) Glenburn House, Glenburn, (below left) Edward Street House, Brunswick, (below right) Tanderra House, and (bottom) Peninsula House, Mornington Peninsula. Inset: Sean Godsell.
AND THE WINNERS ARE…
The Djuric-Tardio-designed house in Antony, south Paris, with (below) the architects Caroline Djuric and Mirco Tardio.
Azerbaijan’s International Dialogue for Environmental Action (IDEA) recently held an eco house contest for architecture students. These are the top designs.
to expensive renewable energy sources – “Germany has a thriving renewables industry and so does Denmark. We don’t. So we buy everything in.” Thomas Dieben sees a similar situation in the Netherlands: “It’s not yet cheaper to produce your own energy.” In Paris, meanwhile, obligatory ‘green certifcations’ are pointing in the right direction, but, says Tardio, they’re all about incorporating technologies, rather than allowing for “intelligence in other ways, not only in engineering. Architects in France really need to be involved politically and socially with the politicians who write these regulations, in order to soften the rules.” In Germany, however, as Lisa Wameling says, those at the top have shown their support for several years through better mortgage deals for sustainable projects, which “works well to a certain extent” but is fairly infexible with its rules in allowing for smart individual designs. And in Australia new houses are required to meet particular energy standards. It’s a complex subject, but, as these architects all agree, it’s a positive and stylish outlook – preferably one through southfacing thermal-glass walls.
.
1ST Taniverdiyev Xayal, from Sumgait, on Azerbaijan’s north coast, is the winner of IDEA’s eco house contest. The budding architect combined ancient building traditions with modern engineering for his project, gleaning energy from solar panels and gas from cattle waste.
2ND Uzeyirli Zakariyya, from Baku, designed his ultimate eco house with a green roof system to collect rainwater. He also positioned the house to allow for maximum energy effciency, taking into account Baku’s natural resources of strong winds and plenty of sunshine.
3RD Ali Mammadov, also from Baku, designed a spacious residence using eco-friendly materials and a facade of refective glass to defect harsh rays. An internal atrium circulates fresh air and encourages hot air to escape through a roof window, while subterranean tanks harvest rainwater. 151 Baku.
W
e can’t have you carrying that.” Sam Ioannidis, the general manager of Four Seasons Hotel Baku whisks the water glass from me and leads me to the mahogany enclave of Bentley’s Whiskey Bar, gracefully accommodating my request to talk somewhere quieter so my dictaphone can catch his soft Canadian tones. “I know, I speak quietly,” he says. Greek-born Ioannidis’s family emigrated from the Peloponnese to London, Ontario, when he was six. He grew up hobby farming and went on to study hospitality management at the University of Toronto. Since then, he has worked for Four Seasons all over the world. Four Seasons Baku opened in 2012 and continues the hotelier’s commitment to the high end of the market. When I comment on the luxurious surroundings, Ioannidis says, “‘Luxury’ has many meanings. It is touch, it is scent… it is also bespoke. A luxurious experience means not being left waiting or wanting. Guests might ask for a Bentley for the day, or a brand new mattress with each visit. Nothing surprises me anymore.” It’s also not surprising that his clientele includes politicians, celebrities, government offcials and CEOs. “Baku’s becoming well known now. Its interesting history and new architecture, as well as the oil industry of course, intrigues people and gives them a reason to come.” Ioannidis describes the French Beaux-Arts-style hotel as having a “rich residential feel” and an “understated elegance”. Each Four Seasons is different: “this hotel is designed so people feel as welcome as they do in their own homes.” The hotel is also Ioannidis’s home, including all the services, so he “gets to see what guests see”. To relax, he heads out for evening walks around the city: “It has a very different ambience when it’s all lit up at night.” How has he found Baku? “I didn’t know what Azerbaijan would be like,” he says, “but I received a wonderful warm welcome. People here want to share their culture, and I’m here to be a part of that.”
.
152 Baku.
Luxury Wanderer
PORTRAIT: NATAVAN VAHABOVA. ALAMY. EYEVINE.
PROFILE : The
Zafferano restaurant at Four Seasons Baku.
Four Seasons veteran Sam Ioannidis has worked all over the world, and now he brings his expertise to the group’s hotel in Baku, with its challenges and pleasures. VISITING THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART.
It’s full of local pieces in very different styles, painted in oil or watercolour, or sculpted in metal or stone. The Jean Nouvel-designed building is itself a work of art, as well.
JOGGING ON THE BOULEVARD.
When he’s not in the hotel, he is …
I run down to National Flag Square when the weather’s good, and then back to the Four Seasons. It’s about 5km there and back. You can probably hear my gasping all the way!
EATING BREAKFAST AT SEHRLI TƏENDIR.
Just inside the main gates of the Old Town, this tea house makes wonderful lavash on the sides of a clay oven built right into the foor. I take guests there and they always love it.
SHOPPING IN FOUNTAIN SQUARE.
Not only can you shop among some of the big European brand names such as Zara and Mango, but you can also take a well-earned break on one of the benches, which is great for people watching.
WANDERING AROUND THE OLD TOWN.
It’s like a little maze! Every time I go there, I fnd something new and interesting. Last time I visited, I discovered the Museum of Miniature Books. It opened in 2002 and it’s the only one in the world.
153 Baku.
UK EDITION
PRINT AND DIGITAL ISSUES ON SALE NOW H FEAST ON OLD-SCHOOL PROVENCE H H THE WILDEST ROAD TRIP IN SOUTH AFRICA H H BEACH LIFE ON MENORCA H H THE BEST HEALTH RETREATS ON IBIZA H H GREAT BRITISH HOUSES TO RENT H
Subscribe now at www.magazineboutique.co.uk
MY ART : Affairs What was the first work you bought? I interned at a gallery when I was 17. I spent all my wages on a work done entirely with a Bic pen by Victor Rodriguez as it made me think of Hamlet. My mother was horrifed!
of the Heart
Flavia Masson – New Yorker, comedy writer and fashion consultant – has a taste for the theatrical. Portrait by MARIO TORRES
Is there a theme to your collection, or any pattern in what you acquire? Not really, but I feel everything needs to have a personal connection. If you are going to spend time with artworks, they have to be meaningful to you and refect who you are. It’s like an ongoing love affair. I studied at drama school, so I tend to be drawn to pieces with wit and theatricality.
INTERVIEW BY MARY FELLOWES.
What are your most cherished pieces? Well, art runs in my family’s blood – both my father and brother are painters – so it would be the pieces with family connections, such as the photograph of (Italian flm director) Visconti. He was a member of our extended family and I adore his flms. The print of Marlene Dietrich was a birthday present from my father. One of my favourite flms is The Boys in the Band (1970) – the main character has this same print on his kitchen wall. And I have an ink drawing of a vaudeville show by Bernard Lamotte (1903–83) that I love, especially the monkeys and top hats. I got it when I was in college in Boston. I found out much later he had actually been a friend of my grandfather. Where do you go in New York City to be visually inspired? I sometimes buy from Phillips, and I love Metro Pictures gallery. And the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well – its European decorative arts section takes me right back to a point in history when people’s lives were so different, so ornate. What’s on your wish list for your collection? I dream of owning European Renaissance portraits. I love the pearls in women’s hair and the extreme fashion of the time. Maybe one day I will have a wall flled with 15thcentury miniatures!
.
155 Baku.
DESTINATION:
Shore Thing Summery scenes at Amburan Beach Club, including the spectacular pool, a dance party and volleyball game on the beach, and mini-golf.
WHERE IS IT?
On the opposite side of the Absheron Peninsula from Baku, a short 30-minute drive from the capital, lies Amburan Beach Club. Located on an inviting stretch of the Caspian coast, it is the weekend destination of choice for a cool city crowd looking for respite from the blazing summer heat, when temperatures soar to 45C.
WHAT’S IT LIKE?
A white-pillared walkway winds through manicured gardens down to the palm-fringed shore, where the Caspian glints enticingly beyond the parasols. There’s a distinct Ibiza vibe, with blissed-out beats playing softly, billowing white curtains and amber and turquoise accents – think Ralph Lauren Home with an Azerbaijani twist. The Beach Club opens its doors from mid-May until mid-September.
CASPIAN SEA
AMBURAN AZERBAIJAN
156 Baku.
BAKU
Life’s a beach for the hot young things of Baku, who swap the urban bustle for the coastal chic of Amburan every summer, says Laura Archer. WHAT TO DO?
Do? Why would you want to do anything? A day here requires nothing more taxing than raising a cocktail glass to your lips, or signalling to the waiter to bring another delicious club sandwich to your lounger. If you’re determined to be active then there’s mini-golf and beach volleyball, but dancing is about as energetic as most guests get. Amburan is known for its music: DJs play regularly – Sean Paul hosted the opening party for the 2014 season – there are hip-hop parties on the beach and Café del Mar evenings in the Bianco Bar. The pool area is cleverly zoned with music on one side only, so you can position yourself according to whether you want to rave or laze. Little ones can be kept amused by the menagerie in the petting zoo – new this year – or let off steam in the Penguin Kids Club. There are also comedy shows and flm screenings under the stars.
EAT
Leading off from the wowfactor pool are three distinct spaces: the main restaurant, specializing in local cuisine; the Lemon Bar, serving simple grilled fare; and Bianco Bar, a chic, grown-up space right on the beach, offering everything from daiquiris to Dom Pérignon. Club guests can also dine next-door at Evde, part of the acclaimed restaurant group that owns Chinar, Sahil, Tosca and Pasifco.
STAY
The Jumeirah Bilgah Beach Hotel is situated on the next headland, with its own stretch of beach and a waterpark. If you prefer being more independent, rent one of the palatial villas from Bilgah Estates that line the coast. Or stay in Baku itself and shuttle back and forth from city to coast, enjoying the best of both worlds just as the locals do.
ELMAR MUSTAFAZADEH.
.
157 Baku.
THE BUZZ: Dive In
ELMAR MUSTAFAZADEH.
Come on in, the water’s lovely. With its organic cuisine and lighthouse-themed interior, Baku’s frst art cafe, Mayak-13, is as wonderful as it is weird.
A mermaid rises from the deep blue depths, sea creatures lurk in dark corners and ship’s rigging hangs from the ceiling. Welcome to Mayak-13, Baku’s frst art cafe, whose nautical-inspired interior is the vision of Altai Sadiqzadeh, a local artist who designed the city’s Museum of Modern Art. Mayak-13 – ‘mayak’ meaning lighthouse – hosts an eclectic collection of painting, sculpture and mixed-media installations themed around the ocean – recalling the Caspian Sea a moment’s walk away from the cafe’s location in Baku’s Old Town. Even the salt and pepper mills are miniature lighthouses. It’s certainly an unusual setting in which to dine – it’s hard to focus on the plate when there’s so much to look at on the walls. But the menu delivers with dishes such as lamb steak with baked pumpkin, chestnut and carrot soup, and plenty of salads. It’s all locally sourced, organic and as light as the breeze off the Caspian on a summer’s day.
.
159 Baku.
THE FESTIVAL : Towering
I
n the shadow of Azerbaijan’s oldest building, a Panama hat barrels along the dusty stone pathway. A woman in a pink candy-striped sundress shrieks with laughter as the fabric suddenly billows up around her head, while nearby a man dabs frantically at a pool of water spreading from an upended pot. Baku’s famous wind is making itself felt among the international artists who have assembled at the base of the Maiden Tower for the ffth International Art Festival, transforming the normally sleepy Old Town into a makeshift studio for three days. Dotted around are plain white models of the Maiden Tower and statues of gazelles – one of the ‘Caucasian Big Five’, to tie in with this year’s conservation theme – waiting to be transformed by paint, paper, glass and stone. “The purpose of the festival is to increase international awareness of the Maiden Tower,” says Emin Mammadov, the festival’s curator, as we wander through the square where the artists are setting out their brushes. “We want to make it one of the iconic buildings of the world.” The 28 artists, from 26 countries as diverse as Senegal and Slovenia, China and Canada, are invited to interpret the tower’s history creatively, combining Azerbaijani cultural traditions with those from their homeland. Hunkered down over piles of glass tiles, a cigarette between her lips, Edwige Aplogan from Benin, West Africa, is beginning a mosaic on her Maiden Tower inspired by her religion – “Voodoo!” she tells me, gleefully. The central male and female fgures in her design – the goddess Mahu and her servant Legba – recall the father and daughter from one of the legends surrounding the Maiden Tower’s name. “This is my way of bringing our religion to Baku,” she says. Also using mosaic is Saimir Strati, a Guinness World Record-holding artist from Albania, who is covering a black gazelle in shining metallic squares. “I am using gold to show the audience that the gazelle is as important as gold,” he explains of his interpretation of the endangered animal. Diagne Chanel of Senegal, meanwhile, is telling a chilling human story. For the past 20 years her work has catalogued the violent deaths of young black people. She is pasting their photographs and words on to her Maiden Tower – the declaration of innocence made by Troy Davis before he was executed in 2011 for the alleged murder of a police offcer, and the haunting phrase, “Bye bye baby, bye bye”, the last words spoken by 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955 before he was murdered in a racist attack. 160 Baku.
Ambition
A bird’s-eye-view 3-D illustration of the Maiden Tower and the Old Town (main image). The artists taking part include (bottom, left to right), Diagne Chanel, Saimir Strati, Sarah Knill-Jones, and (left) Barbara Carmichael.
Part-art, part-documentary, it’s powerful stuff. “It’s a homage,” Chanel confrms. Just across the square, Australian artist Barbara Carmichael is attracting a lot of attention with her design, inspired by the windows of the Sheki Khan’s Palace in north Azerbaijan, but with an Antipodean twist. She is painting “windows on different worlds”. Through one pane you can see the Fire Temple outside of Baku; through another, the lighthouse at Byron Bay. “Their tower, my tower,” she says, pointing to each. Throughout the festival, the artists work in the public gaze. “It’s almost like performance art,” says Sarah Knill-Jones from Britain, who is painting a gazelle in delicate pastel shades. “All of your missteps and rethinks are played out in public. People are constantly stopping and giving you their opinion.” Carmichael agrees: “One woman told me, ‘That’s far too red’.” She laughs. This “live” element is precisely what makes the event so interesting – the opportunity to witness the creative process frst-hand, and even infuence it. Chanel is inviting everyone who passes to write the signature phrase, “Bye bye baby” on her Maiden Tower, and by the end of the second day its surface is almost completely covered in handwriting. She passes the pen to me and I add my scrawl alongside the rest. The interactivity of this artwork, the coming together of different nationalities to write the last words of a murdered black American teenager, is its great strength. On the fnal day there is an air of quiet concentration as the artists hurry to fnish. In an unexpected twist, Knill-Jones’s pastel gazelle is now almost half-white. “A lot of my work is about paint itself and the relationship we have with the painted
Artists from all over the world congregated in Baku’s Old Town for three days of public creativity. Laura Archer reports from the city’s International Art Festival.
image,” she explains. “I had about three different ideas for this and it’s really about how you feel on the day, how you react to the space, and the materials themselves.” She presses the gazelle’s fank and the multiple layers of still-wet paint fex like bubblegum beneath her fnger. “Baku itself is full of layers yet to be discovered,” she says thoughtfully. “It has a very rich history and sometimes you don’t know from the side of a building what’s going on behind it. You have to be curious.” At the festival’s close, all the models are moved to the Art Garden restaurant – now
no longer models, in fact, but artworks. For the frst time they can be assessed together and the scale of creativity is evident: there are delicate fowers, dramatic seascapes, lace, feathers and wool. “It’s fnished, it’s fnished!” says Chanel, beaming. And indeed the relief in the room is palpable. “It was an extraordinary experience,” refects Strati. “It has made me happy to see the artists’ dedication to display their own culture in a new, foreign city.” Many now have plans to collaborate together in future. Could we have a new artists’ collective on our hands?
.
161 Baku.
MAVEN:
King Kong
Blogger The Wanderlister checks out the clientele at Art Basel Hong Kong. HAROLD LI
ANGIE CHEN
Merchandiser and buyer, Singapore What do you have your eye on? I’d like to buy more sculptural pieces. I’m looking at galleries like David Zwirner in New York, plus a couple in London. Who is everyone talking about at the fair? I think Pearl Lam Galleries are hot right now and so are Chinese artists. Do you collect one style of art or many? I collect different styles together. What does your collection say about you? That I am a woman of many characters. Asian art is… Up and coming.
MICHAEL LEUNG
PR and branding consultant, Hong Kong What do you have your eye on? The paper-cut works of the consistently underrated Wu Jian’an. Do you collect one style of art or many? Many. What does your art collection say about you? That I was not held enough as a child. Asian art is… A cat emerging from a tunnel of gold barbed wire. What is exciting about Art Basel Hong Kong? The fact that it’s starting to feel like a truly serious, globally competitive art fair. And the attractive attendees.
THE WANDERLISTER IS JJ ACUNA. WANDERLISTER.COM.
Designer, Hong Kong What do you have your eye on? I have a small apartment in Hong Kong, so I want to buy something relatively small and inspiring. Who is everyone talking about at the fair? I came here to see Vitamin Creative Space in Guangzhou and Beijing. Do you collect one style of art or many? I defnitely collect many styles of art. I like variety, many textures, mediums, sculpture, 2-D… What does your art collection say about you? My art collection would probably be displayed on the street. I’m not sure it would exist on a wall or in a convention centre. I’d like it to be accessible to the public. Asian art is… Political.
SASHA DENNING
Buyer for Callixto, Hong Kong What do you have your eye on? I would buy something by Jung Lee, a Korean artist who does neon light installations of text in natural landscapes. I’ve been looking at her work for the past two years and there are two pieces here that I really like. Who is everyone talking about at the fair? Everyone seems to like [Canadian photographer] Edward Burtynsky. Do you collect one style of art or many? Many kinds of art. But generally anything that is colourful. What does your art collection say about you? That I’m colourful. Asian art is… Big in scale. What is exciting about Art Basel Hong Kong? I like to see a mix of people, a mix of artists, a mix of galleries – you know, it’s an event in Hong Kong.
163 Baku.
THE ARTIST : Against Jabrail Guliyev in Baku with some of his intarsia artworks and supplies of wood chips. Below: ‘Landscape’ (2012).
M
y frst memory of art is when I was 10. That was the age I started to take art classes at a centre known as The House of Pioneers. Despite the fact that I went on to study at Azim Azimzadeh Art College and fnally Azerbaijan State University of Culture and Arts, it wasn’t until I graduated from university that I realized I had potential as an artist. Today my primary studio is in my home village of Binagadi. I have another in the House of Artists in Baku, but I paint mostly in the village. I’m trained in fne art and sculpture but I’ve always been drawn to woodwork. I’ve used the technique known as intarsia for about 15 years now. It is a way 164 Baku.
the Grain
With a love for the myriad colours and grains of rare woods, Jabrail Guliyev composes his intricate mosaics in celebration of all of nature.
NATAVAN VAHABOVA.
‘Self-portrait’ (2009). of inlaying wood of different types and colours. I track down the materials myself, using wood chips from rare trees in Azerbaijan, Russia, Asia, Africa and Canada. I’m always searching for the right colours in the wood – to paint over the natural God-given colouring would be a sin! Although it’s diffcult to put my fnger on exactly why I love the medium, I think it probably comes from my love for nature – it is one of my key inspirations. I fnd my creativity in the beauty of my surroundings, the colours, the textures and the shapes. When I work with wood I feel I am totally connected with nature.
.
‘Salty Lake in Masazyr’ (2011). 165 Baku.
HISTORY LESSON :
T
Small but Mighty
The ancient art of painting miniatures proves size doesn’t matter when it comes to making a big impression, says Caroline Davies.
ell me more. Miniatures are often in books, to illustrate text – mostly poetry and philosophy – but they are artworks in their own right, too. Creating them requires great skill and one book can take up to 25 years to fnish. That’s quite a commitment. Indeed, but in the 16th-century Safavid Empire – when its capital, Tabriz, became a centre for art and culture – creating a miniature book was a sacred act. Techniques vary but one version still used today starts with rubbing the paper smooth with a seashell. The artist then sketches a drawing, covers it in a pale wash then slowly builds up the tone. Details are added using a fne squirrel-hair brush, which can take hours or even days depending on how intricate the detail. Indian miniatures
Modern miniatures by Elchin Mukhtar Elkhan (left), Naila Sultan (above) and Arif Huseynov (below). often use a stencil, traditionally made from stretched deerskin pricked with pin holes. Gold leaf is very common and is carefully applied at the end. All that work surely deserves to be seen – why put it in a book? It’s much more exclusive. Art in a book is for your eyes only, and maybe a couple of people you want to impress. And artists could be much freer in what they drew knowing that this was a private art form not a public one. Where are miniatures from? The art has an ancient and interconnected history so disentangling the overlaps to determine in which country it 166 Baku.
frst appeared is complex. From India to China, all the different schools took inspiration from one another. Central and western Asia was one of the most infuential regions in the world of old miniatures. How old are we talking? Miniatures date back to the 13th century, but the golden age for Azerbaijan was 1530–1540 when the painting school of Tabriz was at its peak under Sultan Muhammad. Who was he? A court artist at the Shah’s palace. Most consider the works he created to be unsurpassed in their beauty. In fact, his infuence can be seen in a lot of European fne art,
particularly Christian religious prints. The practices that were taught in the school are thought still to live on around the world. Who are the artists working in this feld today? Pakistani artist Imran Qureshi was named Deutsche Bank’s Artist of the Year 2013 for his contemporary interpretations of the style. Azerbaijani artist Naila Sultan, who has shown at the 53rd Venice Biennale, creates psychedelic miniatures in neons, while Elchin Mukhtar Elkhan uses graphics in his work. Arif Huseynov’s more traditional pieces, often book illustrations, have also won admirers.
.
THE ILLUSTRATOR : By Leyla Aliyeva
168 Baku.
Wildlife
169 Baku.
Reza Hazare.
Faiq Ahmed & Roberto Lopardo. Sandra Eu, Carolyn Lu & Rose Hoffman.
Arianne Levene & Farid Rasulov. v v.
Art Dubai
Azer Garibov. v v.
Yarat throws a Novruz party with the art crowd in the UAE.
Alina Gilmanova.
Abdulnasser Gharem & guest.
Now in its eighth year, Art Dubai attracts a throng of VIPs who tour the region in search of a Middle Eastern Damien Hirst. While they were in the city many attended the soirĂŠe hosted by Yarat art organization, from Baku, in celebration of Novruz Bayram, Azerbaijani New Year, at Madinat Jumeirah. The drinks fowed and guests boogied the night away with music and entertainment provided by DJ Pancho, drummer Natiq Shirinov and traditional dancers.
Nazrin Mammadova, Aida Mahmudova & Darius Sanai.
173 Baku.
176 Baku.
was invited to Baku by Leyla Aliyeva’s International Dialogue for Environmental Action (IDEA) campaign. They are just beginning some fascinating conservation projects in Azerbaijan, and are interested in doing it in a holistic and comprehensive way. Our project in Montana, USA, has that as its basis as well – we’re working on every aspect of conservation: the habitat, the species and the people in the vicinity of the wildlife. I will admit I am quite surprised by what I have found here in Baku. It is a beautiful city, with intriguing buildings, very nice people, gorgeous gardens, fresh air coming off the Caspian Sea and sights just about everywhere you turn. It reminds me of Buenos Aires; it has that kind of feel. You can tell people like to spend time together. This city really has a lot to offer. I also loved visiting Gabala, a beautiful mountainous region around 200km north-
west of Baku. I wanted to stay up there, just walking around. I think Azerbaijan is sitting on a goldmine with regards to future potential tourism. If they can succeed in bringing conservation into their society, making the preservation and celebration of nature a defning characteristic of Azerbaijani society, they will attract people from all over the world, just like in Kenya and Tanzania, for example. In fact, I think Azerbaijan has the potential to be the most impressive conservation example anywhere in the region.
.
Sean Gerrity is president of the American Prairie Reserve, the USA’s largest wildlife complex.
INTERVIEW BY LAURA ARCHER. RICHARD HAUGHTON. ELMAR MUSTAFAZADEH.
Tabula Rasa
SEAN GERRITY
Sean Gerrity (below), photographed in the mountains of northwestern Azerbaijan.
Dior Boutique Nefchiler 105, Baku – 994 12 437 62 02