Archive for January, 2009

Google and the Prado Museum in Madrid have teamed up to allow web browsers to view 14 of the museum’s works in striking detail. For the first time, you can see some details barely visible to the naked eye.

Google Spain director Javier Rodriguez Zapatero said the images now available on the Internet were 1,400 times clearer than what would be rendered with a 10-megapixel camera:

“With Google Earth technology it is possible to enjoy these magnificent works in a way never previously possible, obtaining details impossible to appreciate through firsthand observation.”

Go see it – download Google Earth and search for the Prado Museum (click on the white square when it appears).

See also the IHT coverage

With the aim of attracting a younger demographic, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has unveiled a plan to allow all French youths under 25 and schoolteachers free entry to musuems starting April 4.

Mr. Sarkozy also said that he would lift a partial freeze on state financing for the performing arts, and plans to create a new national history museum in a ‘symbolic’ site, in a bid to reinforce France’s identity.

Honouring the late Stephen Sprouse and his upcoming tribute collection designed by Louis Vuitton creative director Marc Jacobs, the Louis Vuitton store in SoHo, New York has plastered a gargantuan print across their storefront.

This isn’t just your average vending machine. This is Bentleys, Thakoon dresses, and a $250 keychain, to name but a few. Fancy a corner unit in the Mondrian residences for a cool $1,261,500? You’ll find it all here at Mondrian South Beach, Miami.

It really is another world out there..

“…In honour of Met star Renée Fleming, Coty, the world’s largest fragrance company, has created La Voce by Renée Fleming, a limited-edition fragrance that will launch on September 22 to coincide with the Opening Night Gala of the Met’s 125th anniversary season, starring Fleming. La Voce by Renée Fleming retails for $200 (50ml), with a portion of the proceeds donated to the Met.

“Discovering that music and fragrance have harmony and even individual notes in common has taken me on a delightful journey,” Fleming says. “How wonderful then, that Coty is enabling the Metropolitan Opera to benefit, combining luxurious scent and sound.” …”

More details

The Double Club is Carsten Höller’s latest installation which takes the form of a bar, restaurant and nightclub – split in two – designed to create a dialogue between Congolese and western culture

See the video tour from Guardian.co.uk

Reviewed by Frieze here

And reviewed by Wallpaper here

See our August post on the rise of the art restaurant

From Boxer Creative.

Christmas lights have never looked so good..

Over the holidays, the art collective UnitedVisualArtists (UVA) transformed Covent Garden’s Piazza with their ‘constellation’ – an installation of 600 LED tubes. Musical collaborations involved artists from Shlomo to the Modified Toy Orchestra.