Founded in 2000 by Mr. & Mrs. Smeets both graduates of the Design Academy Eindhoven now based in Antwerp and the Netherlands. They redefine the decorative arts for the contemporary age. Their collaboration has created highly expressive, mainly one-off or limited edition works, from the outset.

Often cast in bronze or, later, crafted from laser-cut marquetry, the physical potential and malleability of the materials they use is pushed to the hilt. Their approach is more in keeping with that of traditional guilds than anything industrial. For Studio Job, creation is pre-eminent over definition. Smeets describes it thus: “Unlike most, we are probably not coming from Modernism. Studio Job’s contribution is that we have rediscovered a lost path. Consciously and carefully, we are positioning decorative arts in the twenty-first century. Is that design? Whatever. Is that art? Whatever, really.” - from www.moooi.com

By the end of the 1920s René Magritte had established his signature approach to painting, developing a realistic style that he used not to reinforce, but to undermine the viewer’s acceptance of what is real. He continued to paint seriously until the end of his life in 1967, his reputation expanding in tandem with the increasing visibility and popularity of Surrealism in the United States. During the post‐war period, Magritte often revisited and reinterpreted themes from earlier paintings, creating variations on his already established iconography. At the same time, he continued to develop new imagery that became some of his most recognizable motifs. These include subjects like the bowler‐hatted man in Golconda, and the landscape in which daylight and evening coincide in The Dominion of Light, 1954, one of over twenty variations he made on the theme starting in 1949.

Curated by Menil Director Josef Helfenstein and Assistant Curator Clare Elliott, Memories of a Voyage: The Late Work of René Magritte brings together approximately 12‐15 works dating from 1941–1967. Oil paintings will be shown alongside seldom‐seen preparatory drawings. The exhibition will also showcase gouaches‐ a medium Magritte relied on more and more heavily during this period, as well as a pair of rare painted bottles, only about 25 of which are known to be extant.

The artworks featured in “Memories of a Voyage: The Late Work of René Magritte” are drawn primarily from the Menil Collection’s deep holdings of the artist’s work, which are rivaled only by those of the Musée Magritte in Brussels. The exhibition is presented simultaneously with Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary: 1926–1938 a project focused on the formative years of Magritte’s career. Visitors will therefore have a rare opportunity to experience the full scope of the artist’s career.

This exhibition is generously supported by Frost Bank; Skadden, Arps; and the City of Houston. - From www.menil.org

Tabanlioglu Architects develop innovative, yet efficient and economically 
viable design alternatives, considering the uniqueness of the place and 
the individuality of requirements.  

The practice focuses on the matters of building in global terms; 
yet for the achievement of best design quality the architects evaluate 
the expressions of each country, region and zone, distinctively.

Every location offers special conveniences or engenders challenges that 
require specific solutions. Identifying the impact of the building on the 
local landscape and present values is as important as the architectural 
design of the building, in accordance with the needs, as well as new 
technologies in the changing world. 

We advocate transparent spaces being an extension of public zones 
in the urban context, aiming to motivate an interactive, lively social mood; 
our architectural attitude aspire new social routines towards a more extrovert 
urban lifestyle. We trust the transitivity and synergy born out of architecture 
will encourage the environmental transformation.

Visionary thinking and innovative approaches need collaboration with 
other engineering and planning disciplines. We also believe that 
architects must cooperate in a spirit of global alliance and commit to 
sustainable patterns of production, to contribute to global 
progress by means of the man-made environment. - from http://www.tabanlioglu.com

75 WATT

“A labourer over the course of an 8-hour day can sustain an average output of about 75 watts”

(Marks’ Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers)

A product is designed especially to be made in China. The object’s only function is to choreograph a dance performed by the labourers manufacturing it.

The work seeks to explore the nature of mass-manufacturing products on various scales; from the geo-political context of hyper-fragmented labour to the bio-political condition of the human body on the assembly line. Engineering logic has reduced the factory labourer to a man-machine, through scientific management of every single movement. By shifting the purpose of the labourer’s actions from the efficient production of objects to the performance of choreographed acts, mechanical movement is reinterpreted into dance. What is the value of this artefact that only exists to support the performance of its own creation? And as the product dictates the movement, does it become the subject, rendering the worker the object?

The assembly/dance took place in Zhongshan, China between 10-19 March 2013 and resulted in 40 objects and a film documenting the choreography of their assembly. - FROM WWW.COHENVANBALEN.COM