Each summer the Russian state honors 25,000 “gifted” children aged between eleven and sixteen at an activity camp in Orlionok, on the Eastern coast of Black Sea. Girlie cult mixes with the Soviet tradition of Komsomol – exuberant beach games and party-jinks… Read More >
Aue is the German word for floodplain. It is also an anagram of the French word for water, eau, which becomes evident when trying to find oneʻs way through Documenta 13ʻs greenest venue, the Karlsaue park. What had in fact a symmetrical, baroque layout was later turned into the sort of landscape garden that blurs the boundaries between nature and garden, a solemn retreat of meandering paths and wild meadows.
I’m grasping my umbrella, jumping over ponds of mud. It has been raining, on and off, for weeks. The paths have become creeks and the river Fulda that flanks the Karlsaue resembles a sidearm of the Mekong. Stepping into a clearing, I face a tall and ghostly white sculpture with the face of a monster More—
On the Eightieth Birthday of Dieter Rams, 20 May 2012: For me Dieter Rams is one of the masters of the twentieth century. He has undoubtedly written design history. The products that he designed for the electronic goods manufacturer, Braun, in the 1960s were genuinely groundbreaking and of a consistent minimalistic beauty the likes of which I have never again witnessed—
