Her work has become symbolic of a media-driven society since the 1980s. With a retrospective of her early small-scale pieces, Barbara Kruger lands to London and her “paste ups” – and so is titled the exhibition – are currently on show at the London branch of the Sprüth Magers Gallery.
Summing together technique and imagery from the Futurists, the Dada and the Pop movement, Kruger has created a bold and effective body of work that combines black and white photography (rarely colour) with resonant, advert-like slogans. Images such as the pin puncturing a finger with the writing “Thinking of you” or the motto “I shop therefore I am”. Kruger’s experience as a magazine editorial designer is evident both in the choice of subjects and in the approach to the image and the typographic element. The result is a direct message to the viewer (the consumer) who is often entranced by the contrast between the words-layer and the image-layer in the paste up. However, the “advertisement” aspect is kept separated from the art work by the artist herself: “Although my art work was heavily informed by my design work on a formal and visual level, as regards meaning and content the two practices parted ways”.
Barbara Kruger, born in Newark in 1945, studied with Diane Arbus at the prestigious Parson’s School of Design in New York. From her first 1980 solo show at PS1 in New York, to the Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement at the 2005 Venice Biennale, her work has been consistently exhibited over the past thirty years: the Moderna Museet in Stockholm and the Palazzo delle Papesse in Siena, the Tate in London and the Whitney in New York, and numerous solo shows, especially with the influent Mary Boone Gallery. Her work has remained direct and sharp, analysing the way in which we relate with language and the stimulation  of the viewer’s (consumer’s) mind through bold imagery.
Barbara Kruger, Paste up, Sprüth Magers Gallery London, until 23 January 2010
Image credits: Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Money can buy you love), 1985, Courtesy of the artist and Sprüth Magers London

A white Mexican beach at dusk, a pink, milky sky reflecting in the calm sea. A bonfire to be started. The Norwegian duet sitting on a low wall, one facing us and playing his guitar in a swimsuit, the other turned toward the sky. A palm tree discretely keeps them company.
Despite the sense of peaceful creativity and relaxed atmosphere conveyed by the cover of their third album, the Kings of Convenience have realised a record which is enveloping and at the same time wistful. The melodies are recognisable, familiar. With this album they have confirmed their style, quoting their own second record in different ways (the chessboard on the Mexican beach on the cover, as if transported from the interior depicted on the pervious cover just to resume the game; Riot on an empty street, which was the title of the second album, is now the title of one of the new tracks). On the other hand, Eirik and Erlend had fun switching roles, alternating the lead and the chorus, fusing their voices despite their differences. This fusion effect is further enhanced by the resonating quality of the whole record. This is due to the fact that, as Kings of Convenience explain: “Many of these songs were created or arranged during soundchecks in big, empty concert halls during our scattered touring of the last five years”. The echo of a guitar string, a voice in the distance.
After five years from the success of Riot on an empty street, the duet, sometimes indicated as the natural heirs of Simon & Garfunkel, have not lost their folk sound, nor their love for oxymorons. If their journey started with the assertion that Quiet is the new loud and continued with a riot missing its crowd, now their songs talk about Peacetime resistance, Freedom and its owner, the recurrent riot. All pervaded by a delicate sense of melancholy, the pleasure of being sad – briefly – remembering a battle that was not fought (the empty street), remembering a message that has not arrived to its destination, a game of chess that seems to be never-ending, the contemplation of a Mexican beach at dusk.
Kings of Convenience, Declation of dependence, out now

As colourful as Emilio Pucci, but in a geometric kaleidoscopic dimension, Missoni is a style. Vibrant and inventive, it is immediately recognisable, especially for its intricate knitwear patterns. Husband and wife Ottavio and Rosita Missoni have created a brand that is today celebrated with an exhibition at the Estorick Collection in London. The intimate museum in the borough of Islington, hosting the precious collection of art lovers Eric and Salomé Estorick, is a gem in the effervescent London cultural scene and is well-known for the quality of its small but refined exhibitions.
Celebrations of style-makers and couturiers are nothing new. Recent examples include the Giorgio Armani exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum or the Vivienne Westwood show at the V&A in London. However, the Missoni exhibition focuses on the creative process behind the actual cloth-making. Curated by Luca Missoni and by Fondazione Ottavio e Rosita Missoni, Daring to be different will include drawings from the family’s art collection of Italian art – works by Tancredi, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini – a perfect combination given the setting of the Estorick Collection. Alongside these artists, whose geometric approach to painting certainly is reflected in the Missoni patterns, works in tempera by Sonia Delaunay are on display, as they are a special source of inspiration for Rosita Missoni.
The exhibition includes two video installations by the Turkish artist Ali Kazma, centred around the creative process and the work of a major brand and suitably titled Casa di moda (Fashion house), while composer Pietro Pirelli has conceived a sound installation, Sinfonia tessile (Textile symphony), recording the sound of the Missoni knitting laboratory.
Very personal on the curatorial side, this exhibition celebrates a brand that has managed to create a unique recognisable style in which the artistic and the artisanal aspects are coexisting, as in the best tradition of the “made in Italy” concept. Celebration of a colourful style that was defined “ingenious” already in 1969 by Diana Vreeland, legendary Editor at Vogue who added: “Who said there are only colours, there are shades too!”.
Workshop Missoni: Daring to be different
Until 20 September 2009
Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art
39a Canonbury Square, London
www.estorickcollection.com

In 2008 a group of young students from Tel Aviv University decided to take the initiative and organize a conference on the Middle Eastern conflict. Fifty students and young professionals from all over the world participated in a five-day series of seminars, simulations, field tours and lectures.
This year the same group of students decided to repeat the experience given the new challenges in the region and the world politics. This initiative is important both because of the quality of professors and expert that will guide participants into a better understanding of the strategic and political game that is being played in the Middle East and for the internationality of the participants. In fact as in last year conference people from Lebanon and Afghanistan attended the entire week, this year people from South Korea, Pakistan and Indonesia have already subscribed to the summer conference.
The quality of the program is what makes this conference an unbiased and serious event for whoever desire to improve his or her negotiation skills, learn the complex diplomacy behind the Middle East states’ behavior and meet people with the same interests and enthusiasm from all different part of the world. The fact that participants come from the Middle East itself, Asia and the Western World makes it clear that the program is appealing and gives the opportunity to learn how to deal with different cultures and how to come to an agreement with partners, no matter how difficult it can be.
MESC2 will take place between August 2nd and August 6th, for more information can be found at MESC2’s website: www.mesc-tlv.com. Applications’ deadline for this year is July 7th, 2009.

The Future Foods exhibit at London’s Science Museum lays out the facts on GM foods: a debate which could be a bit of a mouthful for any layman, especially younger audiences. With colourful panels spelling out the pros and cons of GM crops and interactive multimedia displays illuminating scientific processes, Future Foods pitches a serious issue to the younger generation. At least five kids could be seen seeming to actually enjoy the process of education for minutes at a time. Can the Science Museum really have cracked it?
Raph and Rob, the two figureheads of the exhibit’s “pro” and  “no” GM camps, advocate the opposing arguments around rising global food prices, lower water requirements, fewer fertilizers and more desirable product qualities. Like it or not, however, GM will be part of our future with 8% of cultivated lands in the USA, Argentina, Canada, Brazil and South Africa already covered by them. Many people’s futures in the developing world may hinge on GM, as global resource deprivation and the need for climate-change resistant plants become ever more pressing. But should we tamper with the sweetness of a tomato or the resistance of a potato to blight? Might these luxuries wipe out native plants and obstruct the course of evolution? If the exhibit doesn’t answer all these questions, more info is available at www.danacentre.org.uk, which provides a discussion forum and a webcast of the centre’s public debate on GM.
The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) sponsors Future Foods, which is free to the public and runs until the 31st May. The exhibit will sweeten the bitter pill of education for the non-academic teenager and possibly guide the careers of the brilliant scientists of the future, so children of all ages and opinions shouldn’t miss this addition to a day out in London.
London Science Museum
Until 31st May 2009
www.danacentre.org.uk

Tate Modern, London
Bank holiday weekend (22-25 may 2009)
As part of the partnership between UBS bank and the Tate Modern Gallery, a successful programme running for over three years, Londoners should get ready for a bank holiday treat: a four-day event involving music, films and performances at the Tate Modern. The DIY slogan, this year’s theme, is inspired by the Arte Povera movement, named after the definition of the art critic Germano Celant and merging art with everyday life using simple materials. All events will be free and will take place during the day. Michelangelo Pistoletto, master of the Arte Povera movement and author of the renowned Venous of the rags, will execute his performance Newspaper Sphere on Saturday 23rd. Jannis Kounellis, the Greek-born member of the Arte Povera movement, has included in the programme a music performance inspired by Bach’s St John’s Passion, the music piece that Kounellis painted in his 1971 work Untitled. Visionary works by the composer Luigi Nono will also be performed, while Luigi Ontani and Paola Pivi are among the other artists involved in the DIY weekend. And, on Saturday night, a special screening of Federico Fellini’s 1963 masterpiece 8 ½ is scheduled in the Starr Auditorium.
For further info: www.tate.org.uk