With only 48 hours in the South Korean capital of Seoul, and 15 major museums to choose from, I gambled on the National Museum of Contemporary Art Korea, with no regrets. Before you enter the building, you’re greeted by an installation that re-interprets a quintessential lotus flower in mod, weatherproof vinyl. This work by Choi Jeong Hwa opens and closes every two minutes.

Inside, we spied a familiar feast: a circular tower of TVs spewing the pop-optical jam of Nam June Paik (an artist also represented in the IMA’s collection).

The two special exhibitions on view included Peppermint Candy, Korean art from the last 20 years, and Megacity Network: Contemporary Korean Architecture, Seoul. Both shows nailed South Korea’s speed-of-light cultural production, considering that the country was ravished by civil war 60 years ago. Read the rest of this entry »

After three weeks in southern South Korea, I can vouch that Korean culture is rich with visual communication, design and promotion. Every city here has a brand, like “Charm Jinju” or “Sparkling Hadong.”

Many restaurant facades bear a cartoon depicting the main dish served, like a perky eel or cute cow.

Even bathroom doors have creative signage.

On the natural side, the mountainous Korean terrain inspires a terraced pattern for landscape architecture.

Ancient designs can pack the biggest wallop. The eaves of Buddhist temples are decorated with exquisite detail and color.

We all need dragons guarding our doors.

I’ve written similar posts in the past. It’s usually when I realize I’m supposed to blog at the last minute, so I scramble for some inspiration and typically end up recapping some of our current projects. Fortunately, The Nugget Factory projects are usually pretty cool.

You may have heard, that we softly launched the new IMA website on Tuesday? Well, we were kind of busy with that recently. But we’ve kept our eyes on a couple of other projects, including a major video documentary. You may recall our first major documentary, on Maya Lin which we debuted on ArtBabble. A pic of Dan on location for that documentary, below.

Senior New Media Producer Dan Dark, on location in Walla Walla

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Since the weather here in Indiana is kinda nasty right now, instead of complaining, I thought it might be a positive exercise to conjure up some images of far away places I’ve traveled.

The truth is, I really haven’t traveled that much in my life. Part of that has to do with the fact that I’m afraid of flying (like really really afraid.) But, for the sake of ArtBabble, I had the amazing opportunity to visit Los Angeles last May. Fellow Nugget Danny and I documented the whole experience with photos and video. On our trip we met a lot of interesting people and dogs and enjoyed the sunshine, the warm weather, and (Danny especially) fresh tacos.

The reason we traveled was to film on location the construction of Andrea Zittel’s project, a large floating island to be installed in the lake of 100 Acres back in Indy. The island was fabricated by Barnacle Bros studio in East L.A. where upon arrival, we were greeted by a cast of characters led by a heavily tattooed man known as Smilee Barnacle. They brought us up to speed on the project and led us around the work shop,  which looked more like a carnival parade storage room than any kind of studio! The interview we did with Smilee turned out to be pretty hilarious:

And here are some pictures I snapped throughout the day. You can find more here.

That's Danny filming Smilee and crew

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Calvin Klein, Patricia Fields (with a little help from the Sex in the City), Sean Jean? Or is it blue jeans, football jerseys, doc martins and baseball caps?  Or maybe still it is vintage coupled with couture, topped off with something you bought at the last DIY fair?

The first weekend of December, Niloo Paydar, Curator of Textile and Fashion Arts and I traveled to New York for the Fashion Institute of Technology’s annual symposium, entitled American Style. The symposium was hosted in conjunction with the exhibition American Beauty, Aesthetics and Innovation in Fashion, on view until April 10, 2010 at the Museum of FIT.

Kleibacker on stage at FIT with his model, photo taken by me

Oh! And there is a catalogue too!!

The conference addressed many facets of what one might deem “American Style.” Professor Van Dyk Lewis spoke about Hip-Hop fashion while Holly George Warren, the former editor for Rolling Stone magazine, gave an insightful lecture on what she affectionately called “Cowboy Couture.” *I am enraptured with Manuel, by the way.  While the last lecture discussing American sub-cultural styles, was presented by David Colman on the phenomenon of Prep revival. And… we all know someone who is doing this, whether it involves popped collars or cardigans, everyone knows someone with just a little bit of Preppy in them. Read the rest of this entry »