Only-apartments' blog

ONLY BE AMSTERDAMMER

ONLY BE BUDAPESTER

ONLY BE VENETIAN

ONLY BE BARCELONIAN

ONLY BE BERLINER

ONLY BE VALENCIAN

ONLY BE ISTANBULITE

ONLY BE FLORENTINE

ONLY BE LISBOETA

ONLY BE LONDONER

ONLY BE NEW YORKER

ONLY BE MADRILENIAN

ONLY BE MALAGUEÑO

ONLY BE MILANESE

ONLY BE PARISIAN

ONLY BE PORTUENSE

ONLY BE PRAGUER

ONLY BE ROMAN

ONLY BE SEVILLIAN

ONLY BE PROXIMAMENTE

ONLY BE ATHENIAN

ONLY BE COMING SOON

Last posts

The splendor of the Romanesque masterpieces in Madrid

Mónica Boixeda Madrilenian, Only-Be

Definitely, the twenty-first century seems to be changing appreciably the chances of appreciating art, regardless of our ability to move geographically or in the spot in the world where we reside. On one hand, the brand new Art of Google Project enables to explore museums around the world, -it’s intriguing indeed the absence of institutions like the Louvre, the Pompidou and the Prado museum- and view hundreds of artworks through a zoom with a stunning resolution similar to that with which art restorers work (it offers, using a tool by Spanish company Madpixel that photographs each frame synchronized to the nearest millimeter, an image of 14,000 million pixels, a thousand times more detail than detail provided by a normal camera) and create and share on the network our own collection of masterworks. On the other hand, the phenomenon being favored by the economic crisis, it is increasingly common for major museums around the world to take advantage of the time period during which their buildings are being renovated to host tours of their most representative works, getting big change and economic benefits offering in turn the possibility to show them, sometimes even thousands of miles away. This is the case of the National Museum of Catalan Art (MNAC) which, in exchange for 900,000 euros and a commitment to fund a research program that includes the digitization of the museum funds, has used its prestigious Romanesque rooms are temporarily closed to move the parts normally exposed to the elegant mansion where the Fundation Mapfre showroom has at Paseo de Recoletos, number 23 in Madrid until May 15. This is an... read more

Paradise Lost in Istanbul

Mónica Boixeda Istanbulite, Only-Be

On the 23rd of March, Istanbul opens with “Paradise Lost,” a brilliant new exhibition centred around the notion of the innocence and purity of nature in the context of contemporary art. The work of 19 artists will form the examination of the conflict between nature and today´s technological society. A key element of the show is the idea of an ancestral nostalgia for “paradise lost” in the face of culture, industry and technology. The investigation into the concept of nature makes Romanticism as its starting point, placing special emphasis on the artistic point of view; and how it is effected by the artifices of todays culture, and the current postmodernism. With this in mind, some of the questions which the show asks are about whether natural innocence still exists in this day and age, or whether the notion is a purely romantic one. Unsurprisingly, there is also reflection upon the ecological future of the planet – and whether we have arrived at a point of no return in terms of the destruction of nature. And even if some form of natural innocence still exists – will the growing dichotomy between the natural and the technological eventually render it unrecognisable? This is an interesting project which has collaborated with some of today´s most exciting contemporary artists, such as Belgian Francis Alys, acclaimed video-artist Pipilotti Rist, Kiki Smith Bill Viola, Pae White, Ulrike Ottinger, Armin Linke, and Guy Maddin. More information about this fantastic work: http://www.istanbulmodern.org/en/f_index.html Heloise Battista This exhibition is on until 24th of July. The best option would be to rent apartments in Istanbul, and head down to... read more