When Virgin America announced last week a new in-flight feature that helps passengers buy and send drinks to anyone in the cabin, the world cringed at the sleazy possibilities. I’m not so offended by the fact that Richard Branson and Co. were so upfront about their passengers becoming bedfellows upon arriving at the terminal. After all how exciting is it to have a sexy stranger help you with your luggage and share a cab?
The thing is: there are enough resources for single people wanting to meet. And we red-blooded humans have a knack at finding ways of getting laid.
I am more a fan of Virgin Atlantic’s short-lived in-flight art gallery that was introduced earlier this year. In February, first class passengers traveling from London to New York had the chance to view British artist Ben Eine’s iconic typography and purchase the works duty-free for upwards of £15,000. Think of it as SkyMall reimagined as a boutique storefront for the artsy in-crowd.
Virgin Atlantic’s ‘Gallery in the Air’ will continue to partner with different artists although a second collaboration has yet to be announced.
When the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art first announced plans to double in size in April 2009, the city shuttered at the thought of metal shards gashing up the downtown landscape. Well, urban planning traditionalists can breath for now – and soon in the museum’s new rooftop plaza. What is set to become the largest building dedicated to modern art in the country, will also blend nicely with the existing Mario Botta design.
In 2011, SFMOMA gave the first visual tease of what the 235,000-square-foot expansion is set to look like, and earlier this year more official renderings surfaced. The plan is to extend the existing building from Howard north to Minna with an open-air 18-foot-wide “pedestrian promenade,” a street-level gallery enclosed in glass on three sides and an elevated public plaza 195-feet above the ground.
Although the block-long project may sound drastic, the photos reveal the modest approach taken by Swedish firm Snøhetta, selected last year to design the new wing. Fortunately, Snøhetta knows better than to create a blocky, anchor-like eye soar in the city. If there’s one thing San Francisco residents are passionate about, it’s their skyline. Snøhetta is also the design firm behind the National September 11 Memorial Museum Pavilion at the World Trade Center site.
“We’re trying to minimize the mass of the building as much as possible. Every facade of the addition has to relate to the urban condition in a unique way,” Craig Dykers, principal architect at Snøhetta, told the San Francisco Chronicle.
This is not just a size complex for the SFMOMA. The museum is in serious need of exhibition floor space ever since acquiring Gap founder Don Fisher’s massive collection, which he loaned to the museum for the next 100 years.
Never ones to “Trump” their neighbors, the museum is also paying for the relocation of Fire House 1 on Howard to make way for the promenade. The replacement fire station will be a “state-of-the-art facility that will enhance emergency response time,” according to a press release. It will be constructed nearby on Folsom at a cost of $10 million, the museum’s gift to the city.
Perhaps the most controversial thing about the expansion is the addition of a new entrance on the east side that will align with the promenade and the new Transbay Transit Center being built two blocks away.
“Offering the public a choice when they approach a building is more powerful than saying, ‘Here is the (one) door,’” Dykers said.
But visitors will have to wait a couple of years before being confronted with that choice. The SFMOMA will close for expansion this summer and will re-open in 2016.
Although he lacks the feel for aesthetic of Kyle Thompson, photographer Brian Oldham manages to take self-portraits that are more captivating that just fleshy body glow. Oldham’s photos are more realistic but still have magical touches and ingenious visions that I’m certain will keep getting more intricate and concise as he continues to grow as an art photographer.
Erik Johansson, photographer and retoucher from Sweden now living in Berlin, knows how to make an incredible photograph into a totally surreal illusion.
“I don’t capture moments, I capture ideas,” he writes in his artist statement. “To me photography is just a way to collect material to realize the ideas in my mind.”
The photographer has worked with Google and Microsoft and has been invited to give a TED talk on how to make the impossible happen. He’s given us a glimpse of his photoshop magic in this behind the scenes video for how he made the Cut & Fold image (above). Fifteen hours of post-production hours later.
The music is by Justice – New Lands (Falcon remix).
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a photographer’s work that really takes me somewhere new. Kyle Thompson’s photos are dark, whimsical, with a touch of realist magic, that prevent them from being too macabre. His subjects include cigarette-smoking princes, preppy wanderers, drowning poets and beautiful boys of urban fantasy.
Thompson’s use of props, colors and lighting in his photographs is very refined, to the point that they work as visual motifs — proving that he has developed a consistent (and impressive) aesthetic.
Check out some of my favorite Kyle Thompson pics. Which one is your favorite?
I am more a fan of Virgin Atlantic’s short-lived in-flight art gallery that was introduced earlier this year. In February, first class passengers traveling from London to New York had the chance to view British artist Ben Eine’s iconic typography and purchase the works duty-free for upwards of £15,000. Think of it as SkyMall reimagined as a boutique storefront for the artsy in-crowd.
