All we do here is INFECT THE CULTURE, yeah baby!  And you punk-goth-alternative-artist types may not want a holiday in the sun, so what instead?

Why not feel something in a new city benefiting from the LUXEUM sector –  plan a BREAK around those kinda institutions where the wealthy drop cash like their jet-trash trail of Insta-architectural porn in the shops, restaurants, and hotels around galleries, and the establishment homes of very very very expensive artworks…as we can only aspire to do, as cultural nomads, here at COLD LIPS (currently homed like blogger’s athlete foot in the rolled towel colony of the South Kensington Club, where they also watch football).

Without these institutions (the LUXEUMS, not the private members’ clubs), cities would fail – like, who went to Bilbao before they hauled in the Richard Serra?  What, you mean there’s an art city in Abu Dhabi with a Louvre, and there is culture, in Hull?  Why else would these burning money pits still exist and thrive?  An office is judged by its lobby, and the artwork inside – so without getting into a conceptual analysis of institutionalised culture perpetuating the consumer prison that enslaves us, and therefore encouraging an endless cycle of war and arms-dealing, perhaps we should all go back to walking routes such as the Santiago De Compostela for our holz, beating ourselves with shells as we go, working in some kinda quasi-organic foodcamp commune, or maybe planning boat trips to Syria –  conscious carbon data, YEAH – but wherever we go, ideally, art is a great equaliser, which is why the charming, passionate, and pinsharp Florian Wupperfield, initially from Munich, began the curation of a longlist for his LEADING CULTURE DESTINATIONS AWARDS 2018.

An all star jury will announce their winners of the billions in this evolving industry  in September.  COLD LIPS will be following with passport in hand… [the longlist runs below].

Florian came up in the electronic scene, working with Kruder and Dorfmeister, being head of various creative projects aside Nick Jones, who sold the Soho House empire for some *some* cash.  “You see what we are doing here?”  Yes – exactly.

It’s all too easy to get jaded by walls filled with corporate social responsibility, tax dodge, feel-good philanthropy where the great are made to feel good, with red carpet openings and flashbulb patronage, and the dimes given for names inscribed in walls of thanks, etch like epitaphs to the dead dreams of the contents of the curatorial visions inside…because for many of us, these places are the beginning of a journey of understanding.  Big galleries are often where aspiration in art is sparked, so these amphitheatres of design become, not only the backbone of income for us as artists as we tout wild ideas that CULTURE IS WAR but by just stepping inside these places, we the filthy mass public (if we can afford the bus fare to half these joints) – it opens us to plinth towers which led us to our off-grid studios of rebellion,  which allow us to bounce amid the croupier-style art openings in estate-agent-esque art galleries, which lead to backstreet biennales and the mega-buck hauls of selling at art fairs – inshallah – praise the Lords of the art dance.  Or we see the LUXEUM sector as a hegemonic demonic pyramid, beneath which, we will stay underground, and never tread the golden path towards some of the most gorgeous and most beautifully designed public palaces in the world.  It’s a choice, you buy the ticket, you take the ride…

Yeah – we’re no suckers for these cathedrals where purchase power of lunches and souvenirs allow us to touch the temples of Zaha Hadid, or remember that YSL was an artist, who may have opened a luxeum in Morrocco, rather than being our favourite lipstick. WE ARE ARTISTS – and because of that affliction, our compulsion demands beauty…

And as long as All can window shop around the world, the intellectual rights of the avant-garde can be accessed.  So long as that is what is homed in these end-point pilgrimages.  Whether refugee backlots should be provided as standard through the benefactors of these shows and spectacles, by an international caring government, who incorporate blockchain fairness into a universal income – yes –  perhaps, but in the meantime, as the five art power players who programme the majority of curations in public institutions in the US continue.  So we can either 1. ) destroy these haciendas below and build our own, 2.) continue to see the poetry of art wherever we look, proclaim our own ends in the streets, and graffiti protests against their temples, or 3.) aspire to a cultural gap year – and use this as our guide, or at least create an aesthetically pleasing bucket list of weekends tasting the ideals of freedom, which will up our game of social capital, and perhaps have our minds opened to new ideas along the way…

HERE IS THE LONGLIST, if any of you readers would like to access the backdoor, and add further images, studio@coldlips.co.uk

Leading Culture Destinations of the Year – Exhibition

Robert Rauschenberg:Among Friends at MOMA (NewYork,USA)
Azzedine Alaia: The Couturier at the Design Museum (London, UK)

Philippe Parreno at Martin Gropius Bau (Berlin, Germany)

Luke Willis Thompson at Kunsthalle Basel (Basel, Switzerland)
Charles I at The Royal Academy (London,UK)

 

 

Leading Culture Destinations of the Year – Architecture

Lascaux IV: The International Centre for Cave Art (Snøhetta) (Montignac, France)
ParacasMuseum (Barclay&Crousse) (Lima,Peru)

YSLMuseum (KOstudio)(Marrakech,Morocco)

Zeitz MOCAA (Heatherwick) (Cape Town, South Africa)
Institute for Contemporary Art (Steven Holl Architects) (Richmond, USA)

V&A Dundee(Dundee,UK)

Leading Culture Destinations of the Year – Restaurant

The Garden Café at Garden Museum (London, UK)
Kafeteria at National Gallery of Denmark (Copenhagen,Denmark) 

Otium at Broad (Los Angeles, USA)
Nerua at Gugg (Bilbao, Spain)
Rochelle Bar and Canteen at ICA (London, UK)
Aura at National Gallery Singapore (Singapore)
Monsieur Bleu at Palais de Tokyo (Paris, France)
Spring at SomersetHouse (London,UK)

 

Leading Culture Destinations of the Year – Shop

Librairie Boutique du Musée National Picasso (Paris, France)

Gallery & Co. at National Gallery Singapore (Singapore)
V&A (London, UK)
Moderna Museet (Stockholm, Sweden)

Bruce Museum (Greenwich, USA)
MUMOK (Vienna, Austria)
Morgan Library and Museum(NewYork, USA)

Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum (Tokyo, Japan)