Designer Arthur Rottier of Netherlands-based furniture company PCS will present a chaise longue called AR1 at the IMM Cologne furniture fair this month.

The furniture is made from EPS and polyether foam, with a solid coating on the white base and leather-like coating on the coloured cushions.

IMM Cologne takes place 19-25 January.

Here's some text from Rottier:

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[ AR1 ] is a fresh translation of the classic chaise longue. Base for the design were ergonomic measurements and contemporary manufacturing techniques.

The body position allows active participation in conversation, but would not block a little nap either. The extreme durability of the materials allows for heavy duty in- and outdoor use, domestic as well as professional.

[ AR1 ] comes in five colors contrasting the white base; but color wishes can be fullfilled. Kid's version available.

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The Wonder Room at Selfridges department store in London is hosting an exhibition of new work by Dutch designer Eric Klarenbeek.

The exhibition will feature new and recent work including the Floating Light Project and the results of his recent experiments with contact lens jewellery.

The Lucid Dream (shown here) is an illuminating hand-blown glass bubble which features an LED with an intended lifespan of 50,000 hours. Watch a video of the Lucid Dream project here.

The exhibition will continue until October.

The following is from Eric Klarenbeek:

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Lucid Dream

By combining Led-lights with the ability of glass to transmit light by internal
reflection, the light source disappears and the entire surface of the bubble
glows as a soap bubble. Capturing a moment in a flood of energy.

Handblown glass, led lights
Life expectancy: 50.000 hours
Power consumption: 6 Watts

At a glass atelier in Zaandam (Vrij Glas), I got the opportunity to experiment and study the behaviour of light through glass and to experience the fascinating material itself. By fusing new technology and crafts, possibilities which in former days seemed to be impossible can now be realized. As the world of durability grows, led-light becomes more and more bright and efficient as well as smaller in scale. Due to there extreme long life expectancy, the socket will become needless. This gives us new insights in light-design and the opportunity to implement light in our surrounding in a more natural and organic way. By combining LED’s with the internal reflection of glass, the object starts to behave more like a prism. Instead of absorbing the light, such as with traditional lamp-shades, Lucid Dream spreads it light by reflection, which makes it even more efficient.

Work Survey

Work Survey is a movie which describes the process and work method of Dutch designer Eric Klarenbeek. Featured projects in this movie are; Lucid Dream (illuminating glass bubbles), The Floating Light Project, preparation of soap bubble solution and bubbles.

Director, Co-Director: Eric Klarenbeek, Efrem Stein.
Performers: Efrem Stein, Marta Navaridas, Annette Welling, Jonna Ollikainen
Filmed at the Hembrugterrein, Zaandam.

The Eye Jewellery Project

Intrigued by artificial objects that are always with us and almost becomes part of us.
Fusing the real and the unreal, blurring the transition between what we are and how we
optimise or improve our being.

Model: Kelly Peelen
Material: Contact lens, medical wire, crystals
Size: 14x33 mm
With thanks to: FCL lenses and Biosensors
Additional: Can be ordered in your preferred dioptre.
Year of concept: 2003
Product: 2008

A contact lens becomes jewellery, such as spectacles ever became a representation of our identity. Our fear for imperfectness makes us modify our surrounding and being, striving for virtual perfection. Not being someone we should be, but someone we could be. Aesthetics are more and more based on Photoshop’s capabilities and slightly becomes the norm for plastic surgery, instead of nature. Eye jewellery shows our scientific capabilities while showing the beauty of imperfection.

The Floating Light Project, featured in the 'Work-Survey' movie

A lamp heats its surrounding volume of air, to gain the ability of floating.

Out of my interest for blowing bubbles - obsessed by the weightless fragility and the influence of heat out of our lungs which can make a bubble float - I started experimenting with heating volumes out of lightweight materials. Experiencing that I could use lighting as an alternative heat source.

Searching a balance in weight, volume and light source, which led to the Floating Light Project; a quest for lighting with the ability of floating on its own heat.

This project started with the idea to show the inefficiency of ordinary lamps. Eventually people want to have them in their interior, wanting to spoil energy. This didn’t sound like a good idea to me, so from that moment I started developing energy-saving types. Not being able to float, but creating big volumes, as light diffusers. It’s part of the Moooi collection (www.moooi.com). Recently I developed a LED-light RGB color variable version.

The inscriptions on the lamp are technical specifications like weight, volume, diameter etc, showing its process and progress.

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Shanghai Riddle, an exhibition of new work by Dutch designer Maarten Baas, will open at Contrasts Gallery in Shanghai next month.

The show will present work produced by Baas while on the gallery's residency programme in China, as well as new pieces from Baas' existing collections.

The exhibition runs from August 15 to September 4.

Here's some info from Contrasts Gallery:

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CONTRASTS GALLERY PRESENTS THE SHANGHAI RIDDLE
THE FIRST SOLO EXHIBITION OF THE WORK OF DUTCH DESIGNER MAARTEN BAAS IN CHINA
AUGUST 15 – September 4, 2008

No. 133 Middle Sichuan Road, 5/F / Shanghai, China 200002
Vernissage: August 15, 2008 / 6pm-8pm

SHANGHAI - Contrasts Gallery will present The Shanghai Riddle, Dutch designer Maarten Baas’ first solo exhibition in China from August 11 – 30, 2008 (TBC). Featuring works inspired by the designer’s experiences in China, the exhibition will include the latest iterations of his Sculpt, “Hey, chair, be a bookshelf!” and Smoke series, as well as new versions of his carved wood interpretations of plastic furniture. The exhibition will be on view at Contrasts’ Sichuan Road gallery (No. 133 Middle Sichuan Road, 5/F) and will open with a vernissage on August 15, 2008, from 6pm – 8pm.

While participating in Contrasts’ residency program, which brings Western artists to China to study local artistic and cultural practices, Baas became fascinated with traditional Chinese woodcarving; this exhibition is dominated by the results of this interest. His work pushes the boundaries of this time-honored Chinese craft, while also revealing the designer’s playful imagination.

“Shanghai is a city full of contradictions: old/new, high-tech/low-tech, tradition/revolution, fake/real, cheap/expensive, original/copy, etc. Together, all these contradictions seem to form a big and interesting paradox, the complexity of which you can't exactly define. What you can feel is the atmosphere, the energy coming from it, a kind of chemical reaction to what's happening. This was what encouraged me to develop the exhibition ‘The Shanghai Riddle,’ also full of paradoxes and experiments, inspired by a city in which everything seems possible.”

The intersection of traditional craft and China’s contemporary culture of mass production are addressed with Baas’ wood carved furniture. Pieces like Plastic Chair In Wood, which reproduces a basic plastic lawn chair in luxurious hand-carved elm, reference the contrast between disposable, mass-produced goods and treasured, handcrafted objects. Baas’ Transformation installation plays with traditional Chinese furniture forms; handcrafted elm and camphor wood furniture look like they are melting into a wooden pool.

Baas’ original “Hey, chair…” series consists of found furniture and other objects assembled to form sculptures that act as multi-functional bookshelves. Baas made a unique piece from this series especially for Contrasts Gallery. The piece is made up of various objects, handpicked by Baas from the streets of Shanghai during his visits, and finished with traditional Chinese red lacquer.

Chinese Objects Object is based on the “Hey, chair…” series. Baas made an assemblage of different kinds of wooden Chinese objects, which was then carved out of solid wood by local Chinese craftsmen.

The lighthearted, purposefully imperfect Sculpt series, which Baas began in his Netherlands studio in 2007, has evolved in China with the addition of two new works. The concept behind the series is to capture the spontaneity and roughness of a sketch in a fully realized, life-sized object. The Sculpt concept, which was initially applied to furniture, has expanded to include two musical instruments: a typical Chinese “pipa” and a western piano. Baas hopes the instruments can be played during the exhibition.

Mutation is a surreal carved wood installation, derived from Odds & Ends, Baas’ first collaboration with Contrasts Gallery. In Mutation, everyday objects seem to have mysteriously mutated—a comb is rendered useless when it sprouts a second row of extra teeth that point every which way, wooden clothes hangers appear to be cloning themselves by growing out of each other and chairs protect themselves with spiky clothespin armor.

New additions to the designer’s celebrated Smoke series will also be on view. The series, which began as Baas’ graduation project at Design Academy Eindhoven, consists of pieces of wooden furniture that have been set alight. The remained charcoaled pieces are preserved in a clear epoxy.

Baas’ collaboration with Contrasts Gallery began in 2006 with Odds & Ends, a collection of miscellaneous carved wood objects for the exhibition Contrasts & Contradictions Chapter 1: CROSSOVERS // beyond art & design. Designers were asked to create non-functional objects, while artists were asked to create functional works using traditional Chinese art and craft techniques. Baas’ organic piece featured ordinary objects like an apple core, a clothes hanger and a violin, all painstakingly hand carved.

About Contrasts Gallery

Contrasts Gallery is aptly named because its philosophy is to celebrate and exaggerate differences. Founded in Hong Kong in 1992, the Gallery from inception set itself the task of exploring the relationships between art, architecture, and design by fusing individual creative talents without prejudice. As the first art gallery in Asia (outside Japan and Korea) to exhibit the international avant-garde, the Gallery shows artworks from cutting-edge artists and commissions pieces from designers worldwide. The Gallery’s mission is to show artists who explore Western and Eastern influences on art by creating a new aesthetic that defines the dynamic changes of today.

About Maarten Baas

Maarten Baas was born in 1978 in Arnsberg, Germany, but grew up in the Netherlands. His graduation project at the Design Academy Eindhoven introduced his Smoke series, which resulted in commissions from Moooi and Moss Gallery. His work has been exhibited at the Groninger, Stedelijk, Victoria & Albert museums and Design Museum London. He has also participated in numerous international design fairs, including the Salone del Mobile, Design Miami/ and the International Contemporary Furniture Fair. Maarten Baas lives and works in Waalre, near Eindhoven, in the Southern region of the Netherlands, where he produces his handmade furniture and is continually developing new concepts and designs.

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An exhibition of work by fashion designers Viktor & Rolf is on show at the Barbican Art Gallery in London.

The show includes a six-metre high dolls' house designed by Siebe Tettero, filled with 54 porcelain dolls wearing miniature versions of all the outfits on display in the gallery.

Throughout the exhibition outfits are displayed on life-size porcelain dolls.

The retrospective exhibition spans the last fifteen years of the Dutch designers' work and continues until 21 September.

Photographs by Lyndon Douglas, courtesy of Barbican Art Gallery.

The following information is from the Barbican Art Gallery:

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This summer Barbican Art Gallery showcases the work of Dutch fashion designers Viktor & Rolf. This is the first time in the United Kingdom that an exhibition has been devoted to this highly influential duo. Over the past 15 years Viktor & Rolf have taken the fashion world by storm with their particular blend of cool irony and surreal beauty.

The House of Viktor & Rolf presents each of the designer’s signature pieces from 1992 to now, shown in a specially commissioned and characteristically theatrical installation that dominates the entire Gallery.

Highlights include pieces from Atomic Bomb, 1998–99, featuring dramatic mushroom cloud-like cushioned necklines and Russian Doll, 1999–2000, in which a single model was painstakingly dressed by Viktor & Rolf until she was gasping under 70 kilogrammes of exquisite haute couture. For the collection Bells, 2000-2001, models emerged from a smoke-filled space in clothes embroidered with hundreds of brass bells, so they were heard before they could be seen.

Drawing on the Dutch tradition of silver plating a baby’s first shoe as a keepsake, the climax of Viktor & Rolf’s Autumn/Winter collection of 2006–07, was a strapless wedding dress with a wide petticoated knee length skirt, silver plated, including even the bride’s bouquet.

The House of Viktor & Rolf Shop
Be sure not to miss The House of Viktor & Rolf shop. As well as selling the book that accompanies the exhibition, a specially commissioned silk scarf by the designers, limited edition versions of their famous perfumes and exhibition postcards, Viktor & Rolf have also selected a unique range of designer objects, books and curiosities that have inspired them.

Fashion Late–Every Thursday until 10pm
Throughout the exhibition, Barbican Art Gallery is open every Thursday evening until 10pm. Join us for late night themed evenings with a BIG difference. Enjoy fashion fun and games, performances, discussions, master classes, workshops and Off the Peg talks by leading fashion commentators.

Meet a friend at The House of Viktor & Rolf bar where you can enjoy a specially mixed cocktail.

The first Thursday of every month offers that extra bit of interactive fashion excitement. Part of Time Out First Thursdays.

The House of Viktor & Rolf events programme is presented by Barbican Art Gallery in partnership with Premsela, Dutch Platform for Design and Fashion.

Publication
A 256 page hardback book, the most comprehensive on the work of Viktor & Rolf to date, including 400 fashion photographers, catwalk images and exclusive illustrations and polaroids, is available at a special exhibition price of £32.95 (RRP £35).

Text by Caroline Evans and Susannah Frankel. Designed by FUEL. Published by Merrell in association with Barbican Art Gallery.

Buy this and other architecture and design books on the Dezeenbooks store (in association with amazon.co.uk)

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