Spot Challenge Pit Stop #3: Hong Kong

17 January 2012
by Art Rubynstein

Hong Kong is perhaps the most exotic stop on our journey, and yet this A.I like city is not as intimidating as it seems. You see, thanks to the most awesome elevated escalator pedestrian city on Earth, we managed to do everything on our priority list in less than 45 minutes this morning. That included a super bullet train from the airport that connected to Mandarin Oriental that in turn connected to Gagosian that’s also connected to every luxury mall imaginable including Lane Crawford. Then, we decided to do much more.

But first back to Gagosian…Since White Cube isn’t opening until later this year (Jay Jopling is a wise man, 2012 is a year of the Water Dragon, which basically translates to a lot of cash!), Gagosian is still primarily the only big player in town aside from the Art Fair rush every May. The quiet, 7th floor Pedder Street location (across Vuitton’s biggest store on the planet) has been in business for less than a year and things look promising in Hong Kong (it won’t officially play by China’s rules until 2047!). Our favorite piece during the Asian leg of the tour was the square “Controlled Substance Key Painting” (1993-1994) complete with lovely typography and numerology. Though after New York’s spectacular, the shows are visibly smaller.

Viva La Venice: Early Pavilion Gems!

02 June 2011
by Art Rubynstein

Now that you got to here in Venice, there’s a lot to see. There’re pavilions (Barbies in Switzerland! Hot Dogs in Austria! Weird Typing Machine in Spain!), random A-listers (Anna Wintour, Salma Hayek, Naomi Campbell), lots of fashion fetes (Gucci, Missoni, and Prada among others), and oh yea…lots of art. Our Venice photographer, Mariya Chekmarova is capturing some of Venice’s most crucial happenings. Here’re some highlights from the Italians, Chinese, and more.