Imagine Peace Tower, Iceland

On Tuesday, Yoko Ono unveiled a monument in memory of John Lennon that she hopes will be a literal beacon of peace for the world. The tower, named "The Imagine Peace Tower" is a beam of light, radiating from a wishing well bearing the words "imagine peace" in 24 languages. The plan is for it to be lit each year between his birthday, Oct. 9, and the anniversary of his death on Dec. 8.

The Imagine Peace Tower is located on Videy Island near Reykjavik, Iceland. Ono said Iceland was chosen "because it was a very eco-friendly country that relied on geothermal energy."

Sponsored by the City of Reykjavik, the Reykjavik Art Museum and Reykjavik Energy, the IMAGINE PEACE TOWER will be surrounded by more than 495,000 PEACE WISHES from people worldwide that the artist has collected since 1981 as part of her interactive Wish Tree exhibits.

The wishes will be stored in capsules and buried surrounding the IMAGINE PEACE TOWER

From Imagine Peace Tower website:

Yoko Ono invites you to join her and thousands of others by sending your PEACE WISHES to the IMAGINE PEACE TOWER for October 9th.


A dream you dream alone is only a dream
A dream you dream together is reality
Yoko Ono

Imagine all the people living life in peace.
John Lennon

To send your wishes:

Email: click here.

Post: IMAGINE PEACE TOWER, P.O. Box 1009, 121 Reykjavik, Iceland.

I hope the IMAGINE PEACE TOWER will give light to the strong wishes of World Peace from all corners of the planet and give encouragement, inspiration and a sense of solidarity in a world now filled with fear and confusion.
Let us come together to realize a peaceful world.

Yoko Ono

Holy shit. Some one cracked Tate Modern & 2007 Sterling Prize

Artist Doris Salcedo just cracked Tate Modern's Turbine Hall's concrete floor, No, really, Shut Up!

This installation by the Colombian artist is called 'Shibboleth' - a fissure that starts as a hairline crack at the top of the ramp near the west entrance of the hall and zigzags 167 metres down to the far end, gradually widening and deepening as it runs, creating smaller and more superficial cracks along the way.

Shibboleth - which comes from the bible, refers to a word that only those your own tribe could pronounce - to proof that you belong. A shibboleth is a test of authenticity, a means to separate friend from foe. The artist used this as the metaphor for racism. Salcedo has said that the crack and the wire mesh refer to the evil of racism, the divide between the black and white halves of humanity that, in time, only gets deeper and wider and will, at the end, bring the whole building down.



Said Salcedo: "It represents borders, the experience of immigrants, the experience of segregation, the experience of racial hatred. It is the experience of a Third World person coming into the heart of Europe. For example, the space which illegal immigrants occupy is a negative space. And so this piece is a negative space."

The museum and artist are choosing to let the process of its creation remain a mystery, yet the exhibit will be closed next year when the crack will be filled in: "There is a crack, there is a line, and eventually there will be a scar and that scar will remain. It will remain as a memory of the work and also as a memorial to the issues Doris touches on."

Holy shit, I could only imagine what it's like to really be there and look at it. I suppose it must be visually stunning.

'Shibboleth' will be on display until 6th April 2008. I need to start saving up.

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2007 Sterling Prize Winner



David Chipperfield won 2007's Sterling Prize for his design for Museum of Modern Literature in Marbach am Neckar, Germany

The official RIBA citation of this award-winning design.

Museum of Modern Literature
Marbach am Neckar, Germany

Architect: David Chipperfield Architects
Client: Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach
Site supervision: Wenzel + Wenzel
Project management: Drees + Sommer
Structural engineer: Ingenieurgruppe Bauen
Services engineer: Jaeger, Mornhinweg + Partner
Ingenieurgesellschaft / Ingenieurbüro Burrer +
Deuring
Contract Value: 11.8m euro
Date of completion: June 2006
Gross internal area: 3,800 sq m

Following re-unification, texts of various well-known German authors which had previously been dispersed to east and west have now been brought together in this new museum. In a suitably commemorative manner the building forms a small Acropolis attached to the National Schiller Museum on a ridge overlooking the valley of the River Neckar. The entrance sequence is brilliant. The visitor crosses an open terrace overlooking the valley, then negotiates a series of shallow steps to enter the generous portal formed in the colonnade, then enters through giant hardwood doors. A staircase descends to the collections with their required diminishing lighting levels. It is at this moment of descent that the building shows its pedigree – a sense of a progression to somewhere beyond, combined with a rich but selective palette of materials and illuminated with subdued top lighting. The route concludes in the permanent collection. Here glass cases containing original manuscripts form a magical flickering landscape. There is a particular theatricality about this space, as though the reflections, refractions and multiple shadows from the small intense lights collectively represent the soul of the German imagination.

There are many things to praise about this building – the architect’s control and discrimination in the choice of materials has by now become a signature but above all it is in the handling of the ‘difficult whole’ that the building excels. The external pre-cast concrete arcading (or is it a screen or even a cage?) forming the entrance pavilion is also applied to the plinth on the east side. This unexpectedly produces a monumental elevation cut into the hillside, which simultaneously democratises the acropolis giving equal status to pavilion and plinth. The same measure and interval of the vertical structure is then to be found forming the soffit to the beams to the galleries inside…. Truly a tour de force.

Since the end of the war Germany has been sensitive to matters concerning the neo-classical in architecture. Had it been submitted a decade or two earlier it would surely have been eliminated for its formal manner. It is encouraging that with time, more even-handed attitudes have prevailed.

BSB '07

Backstreet Boys is also plotting their come back sometimes this year. No, I am not a fan F.Y.I. but I am intrigued by the new promo pic shown above. The guy missing is Kevin something, which left the band sometime last year.

Artist Profile : Norman Tam, (NZ, HK,)

This is going to be an ongoing column about artists that I really liked. The first artist featured is Norman Tam, born in Hong Kong, grew up in New Zealand, his work is as interesting as his bi-cultural background. Currently a final year architecture student in reputable University of Auckland, he finds balance in practicality and his own artistic visions. I am very lucky to befriend the artist himself, and had been doing same studio for 3 years so I am quite familiar with his works. When asked who pulled his artistic trigger, he mentioned Rene something.

I am lucky enough to preview a few digital samples of his latest work. My thoughts on these drawings is that they are mind bogglingly disturbing, brutally honest, his views on reality and the virtual is shown through the simplistic minimalist scrambling drawing style intentionally sketchy, human figures, activities, are all represented in a rather grotesque form - avoiding any unnecessary distractions, is an honest expression on the ugly real life, stripped of all veils and excuses. Words are also used as a stance to convey a certain emotions, every stroke is evident of a certain emotional journey and state of mind at the time. Black on white, the medium used is carefully thought through - like truth versus lies, reality versus imagination, good versus evil, morning and night, sometimes added with a hint of bright red channels sense of anger, morbidness - the outcome drawings is striking both physically and metaphorically.

WARNING: VIEW IMAGES AT YOUR OWN RISK, NSFW


"POWER" - 6'X9', Black on White, 2007 & "ENERGY" - 6'X9', Black on White, 2007

"EMO" - 6'X9' Red on White, 2007 & "EJ Superstar" 6'x9' Black on White, 2007

"Harrow?" - 6'X9' Black on White, 2007 & "Day at the GH" 6'x9' Black on White, 2007

"The Artist" - 6'X9' Black on White, 2007 & "Burst" 6'x9' Red on White, 2007

"Kitchen Top" - 6'X9' Black on White, 2007 & "Penis Pillow" 6'x9' Black and Red on White, 2007

Norman Tam is the Moderator of L5AA Blog and will be posting regularly there.