This week in Art & Design we bring you photographs of the 2005 Mass Games of North Korea, some dressed up beaded skulls from Our Exquisite Corpse, and a roll of photographs of some of the worlds most amazing home libraries.
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1) North Korea Mass Games via Designboom.com
The North Korean Mass Games are a form of performing arts or gymnastics in which large numbers of performers take part in a highly regimented performance that emphasizes group dynamics rather than individual prowess. The effect of displaying huge images is achieved by having a large number of performers, each dressed in a particular color or holding a sheet of colored cardboard above their head. Because of the vast scale of the performance, often with tens of thousands of performers, mass games are performed in stadiums, often accompanied by a background of card-turners occupying the seats on the side opposite the spectators. Rapid change of images is achieved by exchanging one card for another in a swift and synchronized movement.
The photographs shown below were taken German film director and photographer Werner Kranwetvogel who was in attendance at the festival in 2005. The photos were also published into a book known as “A Night in Pyongyang”.
2) Beaded Skulls by Our Exquisite Corpse via mymodernmet.com
These beaded skulls are a product by the company Our Exquisite Corpse who is headed up by Catherine Martin. They have released 16 life-like skulls who were worked on by the Huichol people of the Sierra Madre mountains in Western Mexico. Each one has been handcrafted and inspiration for the designs comes from their religious beliefs. Each piece exhibits symbolic patterns to represent their Sun God, ancestor spirits and the four principle deities – Deer, Corn, Peyote, and the Eagle. The limited edition skulls were exclusively sold at LN-CC, but are now currently sold out.
3) Amazing Home Libraries via architecturaldigest.com
The good people over at Architectural Digest have put together a stunning slideshow of the worlds best home libraries. With words by Kate Jerde you can view the complete slideshow HERE.
It “makes vague reference to the classical Ionic order,” Katherine Newman says of the library in a postmodern Toronto house she designed with architectural designer/builder Peter Cebulak. The room’s finely carved capitals are complemented by a great number of noteworthy antiques, among them a circa 1790 satinwood worktable.
Photo: Tony Soluri
Designer Stephen Shadley and actress Diane Keaton, who has a passion for restoring old California homes, turned the double-height entrance hall of her Spanish Colonial Revival house in Beverly Hills into an entrance library, filling it with pots and other artifacts as well as books devoted to the visual arts. “The library sets the mood,” explains Shadley. “It’s a distillation of everything that goes on in the house.”
Photo: Scott Frances
In a 17,500-square-foot penthouse overlooking the port of Monte Carlo, Martin Kemp, head designer at Candy & Candy, produced an opulent yet inviting library in a once-cavernous space. Kemp chose the vast numbers of antiquarian and modern books for the room, which he confessed was “no chore, because I love books.”
Photo: Andrew Twort
Architect David Ling renovated an Upper East Side apartment for a bibliophile neurosurgeon and incorporated a rare-book library—which Ling described as “the centerpiece of the design”—to the mix. Medical books, some dating to the 15th century, line the modern shelves. The sitting area features a Mies van der Rohe Barcelona table surrounded by a Le Corbusier love seat and sling-back chairs.
Photo: Durston Saylor
For a house on Harbour Island in the Bahamas, Lea Ciavarra and Anne Marie Lubrano, of Lubrano Ciavarra Architects, utilized Bahamian colonial-era details and natural materials. The central gathering place is the soaring two-story library, a cube measuring 24 feet in all directions. As in most other portions of the house, the room is lined with dense, termite-resistant South American ipê wood.
Photo: Steven Brooke