Hamburg: Jonas Burgert

When you’re traveling, you might have a moment when you have to ask yourself if something is “funny ha-ha” or “funny peculiar.” If you’re traveling through Hamburg this month, stop by at Hamburg’s Produzentengalerie and ask yourself a little variation on that question: is it “grotesque disgusting” or “grotesque uncomfortably bizarre”? Read the rest of this entry »

Inspiring Sushi

The extensive sushi and yashimi menu changes monthly, it has a local and international fan base, and it’s in one of the most exclusive locations in Hamburg – the restaurant at East Hotel, that is.  Europe meets Asia. Crossover. Top-Class. Fusion of Cultures, call it what you will, but in the end there are no words to describe Nigma Sherpa and Tashi Tamatsu’s sushi creations.

That’s why East has just released a book to envision what words can’t say. Sushimania is the first book release from East and features 48 pieces of their sushi-art over 128 pages. More than just a book of sushi, the images come with perceptive wine pairing recommendations, making it a must for any sushi hobbyist.

On the pages that don’t feature the mouth-watering creations, author Lutz Jäkel gives a history of the iron foundry turned Hamburg destination. He’s talked to the creative minds behind the hotel, covering everything from the 2004 conception to plans for the future.  Designed by American star architect Jordan Mozer, the design and concept have already won multiple international awards. If you haven’t been to East yet, well, we just don’t understand why.

You can either pick up Sushimania at the hotel on you next trip to Hamburg, or order it from wine shipper Belvini.  If you order it from the website, a bottle of Sileni Sauvignon Blanc will be included. http://www.belvini.de/index.php/cID/1644/sushimania.html

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Categories: Hamburg, Food

Contributing writer: Alicia Reuter

Hamburg: Pictoplasma is Coming to Town

You might not know what Pictoplasma is, but you’ve surely seen it.  From video to stuffed animals, Pictoplasma is the creation of character related art with a reduction of the character.  You know all those quirky stuffed animals popping up in design stores? Pictoplasma.  Cute and comical blob like characters in animated films? Pictoplasma.  Interactive games with simplified characters? Pictoplasma. Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Riedel: The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog

Kunstverein Hamburg

Artist Michael Riedel has a reputation for replicas, recreations, and facsimiles. From when he first drew international attention for his work in cooperation with Dennis Loesch at Oskar-von-Miller Strasse in Frankfurt, where the two duplicated artworks on view in local institutions, text, images, and even architectural components have all been fair game in the building of Riedel’s language of appropriation.

For an artist known for appropriation, even references to his own previous works can take on the meaning of a facsimile. In his exhibition The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog (the title itself an appropriation of a sentence containing every letter of the alphabet and used to display typefaces), Riedel references his installation at the 2007 Lyon Biennale in which he “doubled” the entrance to Rirkrit Tiravanija’s video program by modifying the entrance to the exhibition with a further entrance. Within this created “space within a space” Riedel presents 10 new works that take their references from the “non-space” of the internet, using material from both a website that features one of his works in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art New York and one that lists art highlights in the next 30 days. Should one still feel as if some element of appropriation were missing from the exhibition, the works produced mirror the forms of constructivism.

In addition to other works on display at the Kunstverein, Riedel’s Filmed Film Trailer, in which around 90 hours of filmed screenings of films are condensed to around 7 minutes, will be shown before all regular screenings at Metropolis Kino (Steindamm 54, 20099 Hamburg) for the duration of the exhibition.

July 10 – August 8, 2010 at Hamburg Kunstverein, Klosterwall 23, 20095 Hamburg

Get your freak on at East Hotel, it’s not a copy of anything.

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Categories: Hamburg, Art

Contributing writer: Melissa Frost

Old Drawers become Design Beauties

I’ve fallen in love.  There I’ve said it.  It’s a rare event, but when it happens, well, you know the symptoms.  Distracted thoughts, expecting to see my amour around every corner, and checking out pictures a little too often on the internet.

The object of my desire?  The gorgeous dressers created by the re-use of old drawers by two different firms in Berlin and Hamburg: Entwurf Direkt and Franziska Wodika’s Schubladen.  Both designers make a similar product, and the results are beautiful.  A classic item renewed by taking old drawers, and mixing and matching them into a new storage possibilities.  It’s more than just  dressers – they make desks, sideboards, kitchen counters, you name it and they’ll do it. Read the rest of this entry »