Previews

The wide choice of SPA-presents – the real New Year’s dreams

New Year’s dreams come true! So say “7krasok”, which has created 7 options for New Year presents for different life situations. A romantic eve for your loving one, the “Silk way” card as a sign of attention for a friend, the anti-stress spa programs for your colleague/ workmate, massage “The energetic cocktail” for a husband/wife, or a precious collection of “Eastern sweets” for a boss and even “Luxury” card for these who have everything. For all “7krasok” guests there is pleasant music and traditional New Year’s super sales up to 50% are prepared for December – the price for 1- hour spa-program starts from 990 roubles.

It’s easy to make presents with the “7krasok” company: you can choose from more then 70 useful spa programs and even more options for a perfect present!

Leading us Astray

“The best way to discover Moscow is on foot,” enthuses author Phoebe Taplin, in her new book, Moscow Walks. With the “new eyes of a foreigner”, Phoebe takes her readers on a journey through Moscow, embracing the new and the old, bringing life to an often dreary landscape.

Her book begins with a lament typical of a new Moscow ex-pat: “When I arrived in January, 2007, I felt like I’d landed on a strange planet…” However, she continues with the fervor of a convert, “Now, it feels like home. I’ve learned to love Moscow—step by step—by walking along almost every path and alleyway and finding, in the process, a city of wonder and beauty.”

Phoebe’s walks through Moscow give the reader plenty of option: to stop for coffee, to navigate with strollers or dogs, to shop for groceries or souvenirs, and to take in as much, or as little history on your walk as they please. Her book is rich with suggestions for kids’ activities, for side trips, and for further exploration. This first volume of what she hopes will be four books published in the upcoming year, is devoted to autumnal walks in and around Moscow, of varying lengths from two to ten kilometres. Volumes II, III, and IV follow the same seasonal format and are scheduled for publication throughout the year.

Written in both Russian and English, the first volume of Phoebe’s “Moscow Walks,” is on sale in Le Pain Quotidien Bakeries throughout Moscow for 350 roubles. Subsequent issues will be on sale there and throughout the city. Phoebe’s walks can also be accessed online at www. phoebetaplin.com or in the archives of the Moscow News.

NIGHT FLIGHT

Every year more than 300 restaurants, bars and clubs open in Moscow. About the same number close. A place that survives five years is respectable, but one with 20 yeas in the industry is a living legend.

Last month, NIGHT FLIGHT celebrated two decades in the business and a history of firsts: The first foreign restaurant project in Russia, the first restaurant to invite a foreign head chef, the first menu designed to European standards, the first restaurant that foreigners recommended in Moscow, and the list goes on.

NIGHT FLIGHT as an idea was born during the Soviet Union when two Swedish business men—one from the tourism industry, one a seasoned club owner—decided to open the first real night club in the USSR. In the beginning of 1991, thanks to the hard work of their Russian partner, they were able to take over the spot on Tverskaya Ulitsa formerly occupied by the bakery Sever. By the time the club opened in October 1991, the team understood that NIGHT FLIGHT would be a hit. After the fall of the Soviet Union, it was clear that everyone was ready for a change. NIGHT FLIGHT catered to Russians’ newly found freedom.

Unlike stars that burn bright and then fade, the energy and warmth of NIGHT FLIGHT’s team and their dedication to their customers have kept the club on Moscow’s cultural map for 20 years.

LINOLEUM in Free Fall

The exhibition “LINOLEUM. Best contemporary animation from around the world” will be held at the State Solyanka Gallery from October 10 to November 6, 2011.

The program included only the best films of the competition 2011. Twenty-five screens arranged in the museum space, will allow viewers to plunge into the fabulous world of modern and attractive animation.

Works for the competition were sent not only by directors from the leading creative animation countries: Russia, UK, Germany, Holland, Canada, Poland, USA, France, Czech Republic and Japan—but also hitherto new countries: Argentina, Iran, Mexico, Chile and Ecuador.

The sheer geographical variety of works submitted for the LINOLEUM contest this year is amazing. The only restriction is the stated theme. As an example, if animators dealt with the “crisis of reason” in 2009 and with “total healing” last year, in 2011 the organizers proposed that the LINOLEUM community to reflect on the theme: “free fall”.

Brodovitch: from Diaghilev to Harper’s Bazaar

The Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture and Harper’s Bazaar open a new exhibition dedicated to the eminent arts director and artist with revolutionary influences in graphic and fashion arts, Alexey Brodovitch (1898-1971). More often than not, Brodovitch is remembered as an almost “exemplary” arts director for a fashion magazine, but we should not forget that it was Brodovitch who actually introduced modern graphic design into the USA in the 1920s from several thriving movements in visual arts and design at that time. Brodovitch was also a teacher for quite a generation of designers who spread the style in numerous American and European media. As for his magazine innovations, he was the first to let so much photography in, so that since then it has become the staple of modern life-style magazines.

Alexey Brodovitch was born in Russia to a well-to-do family but after the defeat of the White Army, in which he served, and the Socialist Revolution, he was forced to leave the country together with his family and future wife, settling in Paris. On the whole, his career was more than successful in France: in 1924 one of his graphics—a poster for an artists’ ball won a prize at a competition and in 1925 he was honoured with medals for his designs, fabrics and jewelry at the epochal International Exhibition of Decorative Arts. Some time earlier he even worked as a scenery decorator in Sergey Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Attending rehearsals, he also painted marvelous back-cloths. In the 1930s, he was invited to work in Philadelphia, and started an advertising department that would some time later become the Philadelphia College of Art. Brodovitch taught his students the basics of European design while also taking numerous illustration assignments. Carmel Snow, the then editor of Harper’s

From October 26 Open: 12:00-21:00 Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture

Bazaar saw one of his works and immediately invited the émigré artist to join the magazine team as an arts director. For almost a quarter of a century, Brodovich managed the artistic side of Harper’s Bazaar. Photography being one of his favorite subjects, Brodovich had an eye for talented photo artists. Thus works by works by Man Ray, Salvador Dali, Bill Brandt, Brassai or Henri Cartier-Bresson were printed at Harper’s Bazaar. In his minimalistic manner he created images that floated on the pages, he created elegance with mere hints—signs of fashionable life—the essence of today’s glamour media and life.

Secret materials: x-raying a Boeing

X-rays are generally associated with medicine, safety systems and scientific research. To British photographer Nick Veasey, X-Rays serve as a tool for creating artistic images. People tend to judge things superficially, both literally and figuratively speaking. “I want to challenge the reflectory perception of the external reality,” says Veasey.

His works do always stand out. He seems to be trying to penetrate into the essence of things. X-rays show inner beauty through opening a different hidden reality. This technique forces people to take another look at the world around them. Ordinary things and complex mechanisms can now be seen from the inside out, and there is no cognitive goal. “Transparent” images of everyday objects, clothes, plants, animals are fascinating. Mostly monochrome these images discover the secret, unveil the hidden and the invisible. The technology of X-Ray images is quite complicated and even dangerous, that’s why it is necessary to use a lead apron and a Geiger counter. Veasey works in his own studio in Kent, in a specially equipped concrete bunker (it guarantees protection from radiation) and a photo lab.

Till November 20 Open: 13:00-20:00, except Monday, Sunday obeda gallery Red October Chocolate Factory, Bolotnaya Naberezhnaya 3b. 4

The photographer describes matter- of-factly the process of creating his works: “I divide large objects into pieces, shoot them with X-rays and then again draw pieces together using Photoshop.” The manipulation is done with one image may take several weeks or even months. For example, it took Nick three months to create his famous X-Ray photo of Boeing 777. The largest size possible for X-Ray is about 35х40 cm. Nick’s Moscow exhibition features works from different series: “People and machines”, “Objects”, “Toys”, “Animals.” Males, females, babies, the world of things—this is what human life is made of, even in X-ray.