ZOOM

From glamour to man

“I am a producer of material things and I am ashamed”, Philippe Starck declared last March in the weekly German magazine Die Zeit. “Everything I designed was unnecessary. I will leave designing within the next two years. I want to do something else, find a new way of expressing myself. In the future I will no longer be a designer”. A year has passed since that declaration but it seems that Philippe Starck has no intention of retiring. Eccentric, glamorous, provocative, Starck is one of the most famous and highly paid designers in the world. Full Story

ZOOM

Perhaps the best Sirloin in the city

The atmosphere is one of dark wood, satin and engraved glass, paintings from the Hudson School and various Americans. But when the maitre finally condescends a professional glance your way just to say, yes you’ve booked, but you’ll have to wait at least half an hour at the bar, you immediately recognize the intense look in his dark eyes, the couldn’t care less smile, the improbably pitch black hair, slicked back and covered with gel of someone who at least has one Italian relation in his blood. And how could it be otherwise: we are talking about Sparks Steakhouse. Full Story

ZOOM

Against pasta

At the end of August 1930 Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, leader of Italian Futurism, published the “Manifesto of futurist cooking” in the Gazzetta del Popolo di Torino. The same manifesto, in January of the following year appeared in France in the magazine “Comoedia”, ready to feed the culinary fantasies of half of Europe. These were the years in which the Fascist regime had already decided to ban the use of those foreign words that were the essence of “esterofilia” and so Marinetti seemed to be winking at the dictator’s orders. Full Story

Venetian Itinerary

An American heart beats in the Fenice Theater

The Fenice Theater in Venice already as far back as 1 November 1789, when a contest was published for its construction in which were invited to compete “national and foreign architects to propose the form of a theater… the most satisfying to the eye and the ear of the spectators”, showed its strong inclination to interact abroad and also with the countries on the other side of the Ocean.
With time this tendency has strengthened, widening the geographical origins of the artists, industrialists or simple frequenters of one of the most beautiful theaters in the world. In particular, after the second world war Venice found itself in the role of a great tourist center and so on the prestigious worlds stage. Full Story

Cultural and Artistic Paths

The prestige that is reborn from the past

In the background of over two kilometers of steel in which the Manhattan Bridge connects Brooklyn to the east bank of the island of Manhattan, up at Canal Street, there is an area of development which in the 1970’s has had the picturesque name of Dumbo, fruit of the imagination of the artists that moved Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass in search of large spaces where they could create.
Today Dumbo is home to lofts, offices, galleries and art workshops, but the streets and buildings reveal a prestigious industrial past. The importance of Dumbo has not passed unobserved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission − the agency created in 1965 following the discussed demolition of Pennsylvania Station with the objective of safeguarding sites and buildings of historical, cultural and architectural interest in the city of New York, the ‘landmarks’ − which has officially recognized the historic value of the area bordering John, York, Main and Bridge Street, putting it under protection. Full Story

2009 - February/March

Dacia and the others

A day on the cusp of the winter. A place chosen Full Story

Cultural and Artistic Paths

Photograph with the brain

Niccolò Morgan Gandolfi is a 25 year old photographer, born in the United States and raised in Bologna. At 19 he attended the “Bauer” photography school in Milan. Today he lives and snaps in Venice, where he is studying Visual Art.

When did you start to take photos and study?
“When I was 12 years old, and then when I finished Liceo Artistico in Bologna I started at the “R.Bauer” school in Milan, where I studied for a Diploma in fashion photography. Today I’m studying Visual Art in Venice, after having worked as a photographer for several magazines. I went back to studying because I needed to speak and compare myself with people of my own age. Full Story

Cultural and Artistic Paths

Bellini at the Frick Collection

I can remember at least two Bellini’s in the Frick Collection in New York. I’m talking about, naturally, Giovanni Bellini (Venice 1435 - 1516). One is the severe portrait of the Doge Giovanni Mocenigo, the other an impressive “Estasi di San Francesco” (1480 circa). It’s this last one that I want to highlight for at least three reasons. The first is to visit this collection because, being a former private residence, it is one of the most pleasant and welcoming. Full Story

Cultural and Artistic Paths

Babylonian Style

How can you explain the appearance of an Asian soldier on an ancient Egyptian stone? Through the strong network of cultural and political relationships that were established, from the Second Millennium before Christ, between the sovereigns, the diplomats and the middle eastern artists.
This is the subject shown by the exhibition “Beyond Babylon: Art and International Exchange in the Second Millennium B.C.” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, that draws from the rich fund of artifacts coming from the area, many of which resulting from recent finds (in particular from the site at Quatna in Syria) exhibited for the first time in public. Full Story

Cultural and Artistic Paths

When New York exploded into color

Like a short lived star, Abstract Expressionism shone for only a few decades in the panorama of modern art, but it did so with such an intense light to become in only a few years a major artistic phenomena. Although we mustn’t forget that many of the protagonists of abstract expressionism were Europeans fleeing from the war or persecution, the movement that developed in New York in the 1940’s, was the first with its radical roots in America. Full Story