Culture
The Bold and Surreal Houses of Freddy Mamani Silvestre
Freddy Mamani Silvestre, the self-taught Bolivian architect has transformed city of El Alto with his “neo-Andean” and “psychedelic altiplano” architecture. The bold colours and shapes are inspired by the indigenous Aymara culture and pre-Inka architecture.
Photography: Peter Granser
Photography: Peter Granser
Photography: Peter Granser
Walter De Maria
Any good work of art should have at least ten meanings.
—Walter De Maria
Walter De Maria was one of the leading protagonists of the 1960s and 1970s American art scene and a key figure of the Earthworks movement. He worked in genres such as Land art, Conceptual Art and Minimal art. He studied music and performed as a percussionist in jazz and as a drummer for the rock group The Primitives, which later evolved into The Velvet Underground. Perhaps best known for large-scale outdoor works that often involved simple ideas rendered in grand ways: his Earth Room in New York City, and The Lightning Field in New Mexico are two well known examples.
Walter De Maria, The New York Earth Room, 1977. Via Dia Art Foundation ©Walter De Maria
Walter De Maria, The New York Earth Room, 1977 Installation View. Via Surround ©Walter De Maria
Walter De Maria, The New York Earth Room, 1977. Via Gagosian ©Walter De Maria
Walter De Maria, The Lighting Field, 1977, Photo by John Cliett Via Gagosian ©Walter De Maria
Walter De Maria, Lightning Field, 1977, Photo by John Cliett ©Walter De Maria
Walter De Maria, Beds of Spikes, 1968–1969, Via Kunstmuseum Basel ©Walter De Maria
Walter De Maria, Original spike from the first Bed of Spikes, 1968 ©Walter De Maria
Walter De Maria, The 2000 Sculpture, 1992. Via LACMA ©Walter De Maria
Walter De Maria, The 2000 Sculpture, 1992, Details ©Walter De Maria
Walter de Maria, The Broken Kilometer, 1979 Via Dia Art Foundation ©Walter De Maria
Walter De Maria, One Mile Long Drawing, 1968, De Maria drew two parallel lines of chalk across the floor of the Mojave desert. Eeach stretched a mile. @ Walter De Maria
Walter De Maria, Art by Telephone, 1967. @ Walter De Maria
Walter De Maria, Time/Timeless/No Time, 2004, in situ at the Chichu Art Museum. Photo by Schneckenhausmann @ Walter De Maria
Walter De Maria, Truth/Beauty Series, 1993-2016, Via Gagosian
Walter De Maria, Truth/Beauty Series, 1993-2016, Detail Via Gagosian
Architecture of Density – Michael Wolf
German photographer Michael Wolf captured in his series”Architecture of Density“, images that acutely acknowledge the landscape’s overwhelming concentration of soaring buildings and skyscrapers in Hong Kong. Having lived there for several years, Wolf began to document Hong Kong’s extreme development and complex urban dynamics, and how these factors play into the relationships between public and private space, anonymity and individuality, in one of the most densely populated cities on the planet.
all images copyright michael wolf
Musée Yves Saint Laurent
A new museum dedicated to the work and life of the legendary French couturier Yves Saint Laurent has opened in Marrakech. Designed by Studio KO, the 4,000-square-metre building sits a short distance away from Jardin Majorelle, the home acquired by Sanit Laurent and Pierre Bergé in 1980.
Image © studio KO
Timothy Leary’s Hitchcock Estate
The Hitchcock Estate in Millbrook, New York is a historic mansion and surrounding grounds. The 64-room Bavarian baroque mansion was built in the early 20th century by German-born gas magnate Charles F. Dieterich and eventually sold to the Hitchcock family in 1963. The siblings Billy Hitchcock and Peggy Hitchcock who have both tried LSD would open the doors of their estate to Timothy Leary and the Psychedelic Movement.
In September of 1963, Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert and Ralph Metzner (their colleague at Harvard) moved into the Hitchcock Estate, along with thirty or so of their followers. There Leary established what he called the League for Spiritual Discovery.
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1967. © Getty Images
During Leary’s residence at the mansion (1963–1968) the culture and ambiance there evolved from scholarly research into psychedelics to a more party-oriented atmosphere, exacerbated by an increasing stream of visitors and guests included R. D. Laing, Allen Ginsberg and Charles Mingus. Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters visited in their bus Further.
The mansion was the target of drug raids. In April 1966, a squad of police investigators headed by G. Gordon Lilly, later to achieve notoriety and a criminal conviction in the Watergate affair, arrested Leary and three other people at mansion for possession of marijuana. Leary and his group were evicted in 1968; Leary moved to California.
Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen – Byker
Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen is a Finnish photographer who has worked in Britain since the 1960s. From 1969, Konttinen lived in Byker, a working class community in the east side of Newcastle upon Tyne. For over seven years, Konttinen photographed the residents of this area of terraced houses until her own house was demolished.
