Final Days - Austrian Design Visions in Barcelona

Hurry up, the final countdown to see my exhibition on Austrian Design at the renown design center ADI-FAD in Barcelona is ticking. The show "Surprising Ingenuity" presents more than 30 designoriented companies and designers from Austria, including Swarovski, Bene, MAM, KTM and Red Bull as well as EOOS, Cabiljo, formquadrat, spirit design and Kiska. Without wanting to create an artificial "national" design proposition, there is still some common grounds: an obsession with technical challenges (see engines from AVL), a love for materials (special steel from Böhler and glass works by Lobmeyr) and a reduced, yes even minimal formal language, clear and clean esthetics that is charged with humour, double meaning and emotion. The show is still on until Saturday, 30th of April, 2011 at ADI-FAD at Plaza del Angel in the historic city centre of Barcelona. Opening hours: 11 am - 8pm.

VIENNA ART WEEK

Vienna Art Week is in full swing! More than 100 events, amongst others 14 exhibition openings, 8 performances throughout the city, 3 high calibre symposia on e.g. Michalangelo, Architecture and the Public Space and Performance Art, 10 panel discussions touching upon topics such as art criticism, collecting as well as an interview marathon.

Check out the latter one tomorrow Thursday at Vienna Sezession where I am discussing the Art Week topic of "Crossing Limits" with such beautiful minds as Vito Acconci, Trevor Paglen, Minerva Cuevas, Vesna Petresin Robert, JJ Hudson and Gilbert Bretterbauer, starting at 11 am and running on an hourly schedule until 7pm.

For more iformation, check out www.viennaartweek.at

Surprising Ingenuity - Austrian Design in Milan

Again a countdown, 3 days to go for the opening of the exhibition Surprising Ingenuity - Austrian Design presenting a comprehensive survey of recent Austrian furniture and interior design including a dazzling site specific intervention by EOOS, inserting minimalistic mirroed space splitters that elegantly cross the boundaries of art and design, a hilarious sofa landscape built of nearly 2 tons of wheat flour and chocolate icing by Dejana Cabiljo, a living room in which Liquid Loft reanimates iconic Thonet chairs following the question: what is our furniture doing, when we are not in the room. And not to forget a custom built animal farm by Walking Chair that literally "make things and songs". Check out the exhibition with more than 40 designers and manufacturing companies at Via Bugatti 7 in Zona Tortona during the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, everyday from 10 am to 10pm, unless you party with us on Thursday, 15th from 9pm onwards with a DJ line up hosted by Red Bull Music Academy featuring:

Tensnake (Permanent Vacation, Hamburg)

Live: Ad Bourke (Rome)

DJ Marco Passarani (Final Frontier, Rome)

DJ Felix Fuchs (Vienna)

For me personally, this show is a special pleasure as I wanted to make a strong statement about Austrian Design in Milan already years ago while still working for the Austrian Design Foundation. Back then (2003) there was no chance to generate the public support. Now it is happing. More info and press at www.juicypool.com/awo_mailand

A WAY BEYOND FASHION

The countdown begins, only 5 days to go...on Wednesday, the 16th of September 2009, we open the exhibition "A way beyond Fashion" at Apex Art in New York City. Artists and designers such as Acconci Studio, Hussein Chalayan and Lucy Orta explore the boundaries between art and fashion and redefine with their work current issues of technology, identity and ecology in regard to an ever more globalised fashion world.

Check out more information at www.apexart.org and come to our opening party on the 16th from 6 to 8 pm.

ART&IDEA goes blog

Dear ART&IDEA blogreader,

I have to admit that I am a rather analog guy and this blog should serve as an experiment to enter my personal digital age.

My aim is to communicate and share on this blog all the wonderful and amazing things, people and events related to my obsession with arts, design and architecture that I have the pleasure to discover, work and live with.

I look very much forward to reading from you,

best wishes, Robert Punkenhofer