FOOD

Vegan meats are invading fast food, but McDonald’s is on the sidelines for now

Content Courtesy of: cnbc.com

Written by: Robert Ferris

Vegan burgers suddenly seem to be everywhere.

Several fast food chains are expressing various degrees of interest in plant-based burgers, chicken sandwiches and sausage from new purveyors such as Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat.

The trend is a response to growing consumer interest in alternatives to animal-based meats, which has surged in recent years. Americans want more and more protein, and they want it from a variety of sources.

These new plant based-based products are engineered to more closely resemble animal meat, which many in the industry say is key to attracting buyers.

But a few chains are either not buying in, or are barely dipping a toe in the waters. Perhaps the most notable is McDonald’s, one of the world’s largest and perhaps most famous fast food empires.

McDonald’s Germany recently said it will roll out plant-based options in that country, but top executives in the U.S. have said they are concerned about the effect adding a new menu item will have on the speed of service. CEO Steve Easterbrook also said he wonders how sustainable the buzz over plant-based burgers and other foods will be.

Plant-based eggs land their first major fast food deal

Content Courtesy of: cnbc.com

Written by: Amelia Lucas

KEY POINTS:

* Tim Hortons is testing JUST Egg at locations in Canada, marking the first fast-food deal for the plant-based egg.

* The Canadian coffee chain started offering Beyond Meat sausages and burgers at its stores earlier this year.

* Sales of plant-based eggs reached $6 million in the year ending April 2019, according to data from the Plant Based Foods Association.

Plant-based eggs have landed their first big fast-food deal, following in the footsteps of the plant-based burger trend.

Canadian coffee chain Tim Hortons is testing JUST Egg at locations in its home market.

“Canada is one of the most requested markets for JUST and we’re excited to be able to offer our product at select Tim Hortons locations for this market test,” JUST spokesman Andrew Noyes said in a statement.

Tim Hortons, which is owned by Restaurant Brands International, made a leap into the world of vegan substitutes earlier this year when it started offering Beyond Meat’s imitation sausage on three breakfast sandwiches. It recently added the Beyond Burger — its first burger — to its menu as well.

“We are always listening to our guests and testing a wide variety of potential products in select restaurants across the country,” Tim Hortons spokeswoman Jane Almeida said in a statement. “As you know, we recently introduced our Beyond Meat breakfast sandwiches and Beyond Burger. As we continue to test and get feedback, we will consider expanding plant-based options into other menu items.”

Sales of plant-based eggs reached $6 million in the year ending April 2019, according to data from the Plant Based Foods Association.

To imitate the look, taste and texture of eggs, JUST, formerly known as Hampton Creek, uses mung bean protein, turmeric and other vegan ingredients.

JUST has already inked deals with restaurants like Bareburger and Gregory’s Coffee. Consumers can also find JUST Egg in grocery stores like Safeway and Whole Foods. The company said that it is partnering with major egg companies to collaborate on manufacturing and distribution.

Burger King’s plant-based Impossible Whopper is launching nationwide this month

Content Courtesy of: cnbc.com

Written by: Amelia Lucas

KEY POINTS:

* Burger King is launching the Impossible Whopper in its U.S. stores, starting Aug. 8.

* The plant-based burger will only be available for a limited time.

* Burger King’s North American head, Chris Finazzo, said the Impossible Whopper is drawing a different kind of customer to its stores.

Burger King is bringing its vegan Impossible Whopper nationwide, starting Aug. 8.

The nation’s second-largest burger chain began testing the plant-based burger from Impossible Foods at locations in St. Louis in April. Those Burger King locations saw traffic outperform national averages by 18.5% that month, according to a report from inMarket inSights.

Chris Finazzo, president of Burger King North America, declined to share any specific numbers about foot traffic or sales in an interview.

Since April, Burger King has brought the Impossible Whopper to six more markets. Jose Cil, CEO of Burger King’s parent company, Restaurant Brands International, said in late May that the chain will roll it out nationwide to its 7,200 U.S. locations.

McDonald’s, the largest burger chain in the U.S., has yet to offer a plant-based burger in its home market. CEO Steve Easterbrook has said that the chain is waiting to learn more about how the vegan item can drive foot traffic.

The Impossible Whopper has been bringing in new customers to the chain, Finazzo said. Burger King restaurants testing the burger have been drawing people who usually shop at Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and Panera Bread, he said.

The popularity of alternatives that taste and look like meat has largely been driven by flexitarians, people who are trying to reduce their meat intake — a fact that surprised and impressed Finazzo when Burger King started thinking about adding a plant-based burger a year ago.

According to data from the NPD Group, 95% of plant-based burger buyers have bought a beef burger within the last year. Thanks to chains such as Burger King, White Castle and Bareburger, servings of plant-based burgers at fast-food chains are up 10% in the year ending in May, the NPD Group found.

As part of its plan to promote the burger, Burger King will offer a limited-time taste test box through its mobile app and delivery partner DoorDash. For $7, customers can receive a Whopper made with beef and an Impossible Whopper.

“I think one of the insights we had during the entire process is that it really does taste like beef,” Finazzo said.

He added that some people in Burger King’s office have been unwittingly served the Impossible Whopper instead of its beefy counterpart.

A similar version of that story played out in Brooklyn in June. Eater reported that a Burger King location had been advertising that it sells the Impossible Whopper on GrubHub’s Seamless delivery platform and then sending a Whopper that contained beef. Burger King said in a statement at the time that the product error was “due to a technology error.”

“It was an unfortunate glitch that’s been rectified but is not expected to be a problem for the national launch,” Finazzo said.

The Impossible Whopper will only be available for a limited time, which Finazzo said is typical for new products.

On Wednesday, Impossible announced a manufacturing deal with OSI Group, a large meat supplier that also makes patties for fast-food chains, as demand soars. The company is also planning to bring its Impossible Burger to grocery stores in September.

The vegan meat craze has helped shares of Greggs surge 77% so far this year

Content Courtesy of: cnbc.com

Written by: David Reid

KEY POINTS:

* A vegan sausage roll just fired the UK’s biggest bakery chain to a huge profit rise.

* Greggs PLC said the first half of 2019 was an “exceptional trading performance. ”

* The sausage roll is a hugely popular savory pastry snack in Britain.

A vegan sausage roll from a Greggs Plc sandwich chain outlet sits in a bag in this arranged photograph in London, U.K.

The success of a vegan sausage roll (a British savory pastry snack) has helped a U.K. bakery chain report a huge rise in profit and reward investors with a share dividend.

In interim results published Tuesday, Greggs described its “exceptional trading performance” in the first half of 2019 as having been helped by its best-selling vegan sausage roll.

The bakery created a social media storm at the beginning of the year when it said it was introducing a meat substitute-filled pastry roll which would use a fermented protein instead of traditional sausage meat.

It led to a debate on social media over whether the vegan product could, or should, be called a sausage roll — an outcome described as “a master class in public relations” by the marketing industry magazine PR Week.

A critical tweet from the TV presenter Piers Morgan only served to spark more interest.

According to Greggs data, the vegan-friendly snack is higher in protein than the meat version, has 2 grams less fat but contains 0.3 grams more salt.

The firm said Tuesday more traditional bakery items also sold well in the first half of 2019, alongside growth in Fairtrade-certified coffee, breakfast items and other new hot food options.

Britain’s biggest bakery brand announced a 58% rise in underlying profit for the first half of 2019. During the same period the company recorded sales of £546 million ($664 million).

Investors in the firm received a 35 pence special dividend on top of an 11.9 pence ordinary pay out.

Greggs has opened 54 new shops and closed 23 across the U.K. so far in 2019. Its number of outlets across the U.K. is currently just below 2,000.

“We have continued to make strategic progress with our programmes of investment in infrastructure to support future growth and in developing the products and channels to market that will help achieve our ambition to be the customers’ favourite for food-on-the-go,” said Chief Executive Roger Whiteside.

Its share price has risen more than 77% year-to date, although the stock price slipped more than 5% Tuesday morning.

Blue Apron surges as much as 53% after adding Beyond Meat to meal kits in a bid to revive orders

Content Courtesy of: cnbc.com

Written by: Amelia Lucas

KEY POINTS:

* Blue Apron says it will add Beyond Meat products to its meal kits next month.

* Blue Apron split its stock last month to avoid being delisted on the New York Stock Exchange, while Beyond’s stock has soared since its May IPO.

* The meat kit provider has turned to partnerships as it has struggled to find a loyal subscriber base.

Beyond Meat plant-based burger patties.

Shares of Blue Apron surged Tuesday after the meal kit provider said it will add Beyond Meat products to its menus in mid-August in its latest bid to get consumers to order its meals.

Blue Apron’s stock, which has a market value of $153.4 million, soared as much as 53% during afternoon trading. Shares finished the session trading at $10.38, up 35% from Monday’s close. Last month, the struggling company completed a reverse stock split in order to keep its stock price above $1 and avoid being delisted on the New York Stock Exchange.

The company has struggled to grow a loyal subscriber base and turned to partnerships with brick-and-mortar grocery stores and WW, formerly known as Weight Watchers, to revive its business. The addition of Beyond products follows the lead of restaurant chains like Carl’s Jr. and T.G.I. Friday’s. And while its WW partnership appeals to dieters looking for a convenient way to eat healthy, plant-based burgers have received mixed reviews from nutritionists.

Beyond’s meatless imitations of ground beef, sausage and other meat products are designed to appeal to people looking to reduce their meat intake. These so-called flexitarians are expected to help propel the global market for meat substitutes to $18.7 billion in sales by 2023, according to Euromonitor data.

Beyond Meat’s stock, which has surged 582% since its May initial public offering, was up 2% in afternoon trading.

WATCH: How the Beyond Meat burger is taking on the multibillion-dollar beef industry

ART

Carlos Cruz-Diez, Op Art Pioneer Whose Work Challenged Perception, Is Dead at 95

Content Courtesy of: artnews.com

Written by: Maximilíano Durón

Carlos Cruz-Diez.

Carlos Cruz-Diez, the revered Venezuelan-born artist whose multilayered, eye-popping works challenged conventional notions of perception, color, and light, helping to define what became known as Kinetic Art and Op Art, died in Paris on Saturday at the age of 95. The news was confirmed in a post on his official website.

Cruz-Diez rose to international prominence in 1965 when he had work in the foundational exhibition “The Responsive Eye,” curated by William Seitz at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The exhibition created a media frenzy at the time, as general-interest publications marveled at the dizzying and perspective-challenging effects of the abstract art on view.

The exhibition mostly included American and European artists, including Julian Stanczak, Victor Vasarely, Josef Albers, Larry Bell, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Irwin, Agnes Martin, Bridget Riley, and Frank Stella, among many other well-known names. Cruz-Diez, whose 1964 Physichromie Number 116, made of plastic strips painted with tempera on cardboard, was his only work in the show, was among a small contingent of Latin American artists who had relocated to France and Germany included in the show.

Many art critics at the time disparaged the exhibition. Writing in ARTnews, Thomas B. Hess deemed it a “a mishmash” that “lumps together at least six totally different kinds of painting and sculpture.” Hess especially took issue with the “Hard-Core Op—shapes that provoke strong, often violent, ‘retinal’ illusions, such as after-images, sensations of motion, of blinking, pinging, popping, glowing. . . . Like the T.V. viewer, the Op audience passively participates, conditioned into giving up critical faculties, or at least suspending disbelief. Peripatetic zombies. The threshold of interest is very low; almost anything can be amusing.”

Carlos Cruz-Diez, Physichromie 216, 1966, Cardboard and aluminum modules with wood strip frame.

As the longtime editor of ARTnews from 1949 to 1972, Hess is perhaps most closely identified with his fierce support of Abstract Expressionism and the New York School. In the same ARTnews interview, Cruz-Diez said he and his lifelong friend from Caracas and fellow Op artist Jesús Rafael Soto dismissed the supposed superiority of Abstract Expressionism, seeing it as a dead end that was merely “painting as if you were playing the drums, like letting off steam.”

Carlos Cruz-Diez was born in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1923. He studied at the city’s Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Aplicadas from 1940 to 1945, where he met Soto and the artist Alejandro Otero. Together the trio would form “the holy trinity” of postwar Venezuelan art, as curator Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro said in 2010.

Carlos Cruz-Diez, Physichromie 888, 1974, aluminum, silkscreen, and stainless steel.

After graduating from art school, Cruz-Diez first worked as an illustrator for various magazines and newspapers, and in 1946 became a creative director at the Venezuelan branch of the storied advertising agency McCann-Erickson. The following year, he traveled to New York for an advertising training course, and had his first solo show, of gouache drawings, in Caracas. In 1955, he moved to Barcelona for a year and a half, and during that time he visited Paris, where Soto had already relocated, and saw the landmark exhibition of Op Art at the Galerie Denise René during his visit.

“I didn’t know Soto was doing his own Kinetic work, or even that there was such a thing as Kineticism, until I arrived in Paris in 1955 and saw the exhibit at Denise René,” Cruz-Diez said in the 2010 interview. “That opened my eyes. Painting in Paris in those days was dead. I saw a huge room of paintings at the Salon de Mai and thought these must all have been painted by the same artist. They all looked the same. Abstraction had become the academy.”

Cruz-Diez returned to Caracas and began searching for a way to move art forward, away from such academic ideas, and in 1959, he had his breakthrough when he sketched a red line and a green line askew on a black background. Cruz-Diez had arrived at an optical illusion where somehow “a yellow that’s not there [appeared],” Pérez-Barreiro said. “And that’s the kernel of everything that follows.”

Installation view of “Carlos Cruz-Diez: Autonomía del Color,” 2017, at Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, Houston.

Cruz-Diez moved to Paris the following year, in 1960, where he lived until his death. There he began to develop his rigorously conceived work, which was firmly grounded in his own version of theory of color and light. It was work that moved as the viewer moved, that shifted as she shifted—where what appeared was, in fact, not there.

He first created his works by adhering colored strips of plastic to cardboard, at small scale. In 1973, for archival purposes, he switched permanently to working with aluminum and as time went on, his work became more ambitious and grander in scale—whole walls could be become a place to experience how interactions of light and color were experienced in the eyes of viewer.

Just as Cruz-Diez’s work sought to challenge the ways in which a two-dimensional work could become three-dimensional, his work eventually leapt off the wall and into sculptures, installation, and immersive environments, what he called “Chromosaturations,” in which neon lights are projected into a space as a way to produce saturated hues in their purest form.

In an email, New York dealer Leon Tovar, who has shown work by Cruz-Diez for several years, wrote, “In his approach to color and his desire to release color from the confines of form, he infused it with a poetry that allowed us to see the world with new eyes. Cruz-Diez’s artwork wasn’t limited to any gallery, to any museum, or even to art history—it gave us lessons to use in our everyday lives. As one of the last of the pioneering kinetic and optical artists, such a breakthrough is part of his enduring legacy.”

Carlos Cruz-Diez, Physichromie Panam 309, 2018, Chromography on aluminum.

In 1967, Cruz-Diez won the international painting prize at the 9th Bienal de São Paulo, and in 1970, the artist represented Venezuela at the Venice Biennale. A 2008 exhibition at the Americas Society in New York, titled “(In)formed by Color,” brought him renewed prominence. A career retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, curated by Mari Carmen Ramírez, that brought together 150 of his works followed in 2011.

“Carlos Cruz-Diez’s life was consumed with his passion for color and for communicating a novel chromatic experience to the world at-large,” Ramírez wrote in an email to ARTnews. “If there is an artist who came close to realizing his Utopian vision it was indeed Carlos. Despite the complex scientific and aesthetic theory that supported his production, his work was easily accessible to anyone who cared to experience it.”

While Cruz-Diez was lionized in Latin America and particularly Venezuela, he was less well known for most of his career in the United States and Europe, where Op Art became a marginal movement in the years after the 1965 MoMA exhibition. In 2016 exhibition, though, El Museo del Barrio staged an essential exhibition, “The Illusive Eye,” that handily rebutted the criticism of Hess and others, centering Latin American artists as being at the forefront of Op and Kinetic Art, as it simultaneously made the case that they are essential parts of 20th-century art history.

However, Cruz-Diez, ever the radical, would no doubt reject having his work merely consigned to history, and one can see his influence on many younger generations of artists, from Ad Minoliti to Sarah Sze to Tauba Auerbach, and many others. And his art, it has to be remembered, was about rejecting any notion of static identity or image. As he once put it: “There is a yellow here and a red there, but they are permanently in the process of becoming. They are never fixed. This work is not happening in the past. It is forever in the present.”

Ai Weiwei Wins Court Case Against Volkswagen In Denmark

Content Courtesy of: artlyst.com

In 2017, SMC a Volkswagen dealership in Copenhagen shot a photo of a new Volkswagen Polo parked in front of an installation by the Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei. The photograph was subsequently used to promote a new model of the Polo car on its website and inhouse magazine.

The artist was furious and sued for damages. The case reached court this week and SMC has now been ordered to pay 1.5 million Danish kroner for the unlawful use of the work and an additional 250,000 for non-financial damages. In response, Mr Ai had accused VW’s CEO Herbert Diess of turning a blind eye to human rights abuses in China, where the company is expanding production. “Volkswagen’s conduct towards my artwork is a small reflection of a global lack of respect for the rights of individuals today”.

“In our globalised era, corporations often operate with impunity, answering only to their shareholders,” – Ai Weiwei

The artwork (used as a backdrop) is titled “Soleil Levant”. It displays 3,500 life jackets collected from refugees who had arrived on the Greek island of Lesbos between 2015 and 2016. The lifejackets were displayed in the windows of the Charlottenborg art gallery to illustrate how desperate the migration crisis has grown.

The court agreed that the misuse of concept and imagery could be detrimental to the artist’s reputation and a “clear contradiction of the considerations and thoughts behind the work.”

Charlottenborg Art Gallery Copenhagen 

“The infringing material was circulated to over 200,000 people, giving the false impression that I had authorised Volkswagen to use my artwork in its ad for the new Polo,” he said.

Ai Weiwei was born in 1957 in Beijing and now lives and works in Berlin. He attended Beijing Film Academy and later, on moving to New York (1983–1993), continued his studies at the Parsons School of Design.

A global citizen, artist and thinker, Ai Weiwei moves between modes of production and investigation, subject to the direction and outcome of his research, whether into the Chinese earthquake of 2008 (for works such as Straight, 2008-12 and Remembering, 2009) or the worldwide plight of refugees and forced migrants (for Law of the Journey and his feature-length documentary, Human Flow, both 2017). From early iconoclastic positions in regards to authority and history, which included Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn and a series of middle-finger salutes to sites of power, Study of Perspective (both 1995).

Ai’s production expanded to encompass architecture, public art and performance. Beyond concerns of form or protest, Ai now measures our existence in relation to economic, political, natural and social forces, uniting craftsmanship with conceptual creativity. Universal symbols of humanity and community, such as bicycles, flowers and trees, as well as the perennial problems of borders and conflicts are given renewed potency though installations, sculptures, films and photographs, while Ai continues to speak out publicly on issues he believes important. He is one of the leading cultural figures of his generation and serves as an example of free expression both in China and internationally.

TECH

The digital reconstructions bringing Roman ruins to life

Content Courtesy of: apollo-magazine.com

Written by: Matthew Nicholls

A visualisation of what visitors to the Ara Pacis Museum see via their AR headsets.

Reconstructions have long been used to bring Rome’s ancient ruins back to life. The drawings of Dupérac and Piranesi, and physical models made for Grand Tourists, were joined in the 20th century by the little books still sold at kiosks in the city, in which painted reconstructions on acetate pages are laid over photos of each site’s current state. Digital technology provides new ways of accomplishing this centuries-old task, restoring broken walls, fragmentary marble remains, patched mosaics and faded frescoes with vivid approximations of their original appearance. These novel approaches rest, ideally, on familiar scholarly foundations, but the medium is new: digital models created by a computer can bathe sites with light and add motion, visual effects and sound to the static images found in guidebooks and display panels.

In Rome, a growing number of sites deploy digital reconstructions for visitors, in three different ways. High-resolution projectors mounted inside archaeological spaces supplement the standing remains with pixel-precise light shows, outlining features of interest and restoring, in non-invasive fashion, the missing elements of mosaics and frescoes. Virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) reconstructions use headsets to immerse a viewer in a 3D model of a space; a pair of screens provides a stereoscopic sense of 3D, and motion sensors track and update the view. VR shuts out the world outside the headset; in AR the same technology depicts reconstructed elements – the missing parts of a building, say – overlaid on a real-time image captured by the device’s outward-facing camera. (You can try AR apps on your smartphone; Ikea makes one, for instance, to show you how a new piece of furniture would look in your living room.)

I recently spent a weekend in Rome visiting a selection of these newly displayed sites, some of them only recently (re)opened to the public. The sites using digital projection offer the most straightforward experience. Naturally this works in spaces with low ambient light, generally indoors. The best of these displays are superb, both spectacular and informative. On the Palatine hill the so-called Houses of Augustus and Livia, parts of a first-century BC palace complex, are among a range of sites now open to visitors. Here projectors (with audio commentary) beam reconstructions on to fragmentary floor patterns and plaster ceiling vaults, complete and recolour the splendid frescoes and restored details recorded by earlier explorers but now faded from view. At Santa Maria Antiqua, a sixth-century church inserted into a cavernous imperial hall on the edge of the Forum, a light show cleverly picks out the many layers in a palimpsest wall of fresco, illuminating a complex sequence of overpainting that would be nearly impossible to decipher without assistance. In the basement of the 16th-century Palazzo Valentini, rippling light ‘refills’ the marble bathtub of a late imperial-era residence, restoring illumination and colour to what is now a dark underground world. Visitors who don’t want to book a ticket to one of these sites can pop into the basement of the upmarket department store Rinascente, where a similar projected light show outlines different construction phases in a stretch of aqueduct from the first century BC.

The Ara Pacis Augustae (Augustus’s Altar of Peace) in the Ara Pacis Museum in Rome.

At most of these sites audio commentary accompanies the light show. This and the fact that the visitor can only look at what’s lit up create the downside to this technology: a visit becomes a son-et-lumière show, with groups sent round on a fixed itinerary and items that are not part of the preset narration left literally in the dark. In some sites there’s no time to explore at leisure, dwell on an object or space, or check what your guidebook says. It’s reasonable not to let visitors roam unchecked through fragile spaces, which only a few people can enter at once, but more traditional interpretation boards in the queueing areas would give more context.

Other sites use VR or AR delivered via headsets. Eager crowds at the recently opened Circus Maximus excavations follow a route through the ruins with stops for VR and AR reconstruction views of the ancient chariot-racing stadium. This is a large outdoor area, so visitors have room to set their own pace, and the use of large-scale architectural reconstruction works well to supplement the relatively scant ruins and fixed interpretation boards. At the Ara Pacis, one of the finest surviving monuments of Roman art, AR headsets restore impressive colour to the now-white marble altar. The headset screen’s pixelated image is no substitute for inspecting the object itself at close range, though: I kept wanting to take off the device for a better look.

Most remarkable of all are the remains of Nero’s two palaces, the Domus Transitoria on the Palatine hill and the Domus Aurea (‘Golden House’) near the Colosseum. Both of these structures were buried under later imperial building projects to erase Nero’s legacy, accidentally preserving them but also driving massive concrete foundation piers through their rooms and sealing them off forever from light and air. Both have been closed to visitors for years, so just entering them is rather a thrill (and requires booking into obligatory guided visits). Here, immersive digital reconstruction can really come into its own, taking impressive but fragmentary and confusing spaces and restoring them to something like the palaces Nero knew. The short VR element at each comes towards the end of the visit; visitors sit to don the headset, and the narrated display then removes later walls, restores fragmentary decoration, plumbs virtual water back into the fountains, and floods the spaces with light. The viewer stays seated throughout, and can look around, but the point of view in these reconstructions gently moves, rising to look at ceiling vaults, or travelling to see how a room once communicated with a garden terrace outside. The experience is undoubtedly spectacular, many times more vivid than a picture or text explanation. The sense of spatial depth and motion in VR adds a great deal to the viewer’s comprehension of these spaces. But sitting in the dark, looking at headset screens rather than the actual remains, won’t appeal to everyone.

As this technology matures, the practical challenges involved in making it work reliably for large numbers will be resolved and sites will discover the best ways of adding to a visitor’s experience of a place without intruding on it. Headsets are fun but isolating, and a bit of a nuisance to use. I would put my money on more use of projection on to the surfaces of monuments, and AR delivered to visitors’ ever-more-capable smartphones, rather than devices they have to sign out from a ticket desk. But the idea of using rich, immersive digital reconstructions to enhance the presentation of a site and help people understand something of its original appearance and meaning is here to stay.

CULTURE

Bass Museum of Art Will Present Digital Exhibition on Instagram, With Funding from Knight Foundation

Content Courtesy of: artnews.com

Written by: Claire Selvin

Over the past few years, Instagram has become a potent tool for dealers and artists offering artworks for sale. Now a museum is using the app as an exhibition site.

Tomorrow, the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach will open a show of digital art, titled “Joyous Dystopia,” with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Prototype Fund, on a dedicated Instagram account, @TheBassSquared. New and existing works by artists Bob Bicknell-Knight, Jeremy Couillard, Keren Cytter, Elliot Dodd, Anaïs Duplan, Rosie McGinn, Eva Papamargariti, and Scott Reeder will included in the show.

Jeremy Couillard, Self Portrait As a Dingus (still from video work), 2019.

“Joyous Dystopia” is curated by David Gryn, who founded Daata Editions, an online platform that commissions and exhibits digital and new media works. Each week of the exhibition will focus on a different artist, and their pieces will be archived on Daata Editions at the end of the show’s run.

Gryn, who has previously worked as a curator of the film and sound program at Art Basel in Miami Beach, told ARTnews that the exhibition includes “artists who make a twist on their daily or regular use of Instagram, or their artworks make commentary on our daily lives or daily use of social media in some way.”

He added that the the project represents “another way of getting people to connect with those artists.”

Depending on the nature and length of their works, artists in the exhibition will also make use of the social media platform’s extra features, with videos longer than one minute posted to Instagram TV.

According to Bass curator Leilani Lynch, “Joyous Dystopia” is a test run for future digital initiatives by the museum, though there are not yet concrete plans for what they will entail. She said that the exhibition on Instagram is the result of conversations about the ways in which “technology be used to enhance a museum experience, what it can do, and what we need it to do, without creating something that could be seen as unnecessary.”

“We came full circle and ended on something that is actually quite simple but at the end of the day is about engaging our audiences in a way that is native to them, through their phones,” Lynch said in a phone interview. She added that the shape of future digital endeavors depend on how people interact with the prototype.

“We’ll see how it goes,” she said. “It’s been a privilege to experiment in this way.”

FASHION

Kim Kardashian Responds to Backlash Over Kimono Shapewear by Changing the Name

Content Courtesy of: wmagazine.com

Written by: Marissa G. Muller

After much backlash over claims of cultural appropriation, Kim Kardashian is officially making changes to her Kimono shapewear brand. In a series of tweets, Kardashian revealed that she will no longer use the name Kimono, which she has trademarked under Kimono Intimates, Inc., Kimono Body, and Kimono World, because she has been "listening, learning, and growing" from all of the feedback.

"Being an entrepreneur and my own boss has been one of the most rewarding challenges I’ve been blessed with in my life," Kardashian began on Twitter. "What’s made it possible for me after all of these years has been the direct line of communication with my fans and the public. I am always listening, learning, and growing—I so appreciate the passion and varied perspectives that people bring to me. When I announced the name of my shapewear line, I did so with the best intentions in mind."

She then added that, despite the offensive implications of the brand name, the philosophy behind it is one that embraces all cultures and sizes—which is why she will be adjusting the name to reflect that. "My brands and products are built with inclusivity and diversity at their core and after careful thought and consideration, I will be launching my Solutionwear brand under a new name," she tweeted. "I will be in touch soon. Thank you for your understanding and support always."

Kardashian didn't mention whether or not she saw the open letter that Kyoto's mayor, Daisaku Kadokawa, penned about how insensitive the Kimono brand and trademarks are to some—but she seemingly did read through some of the myriad online comments and headlines that circulated about the cultural implications of naming her brand Kimono.

To Kardashian's point about diversity, the website for her now-unnamed shapewear brand holds a similar sentiment. It describes the company as "a new, solution focused approach to shape enhancing underwear," "fueled by her passion to create truly considered and highly technical solutions for every body." That includes creating the shapewear in more nine different skin shades and sizes from XXS to 4X. Kardashian has yet to reveal when her shapewear company will be officially launching, so expect more updates soon.

How to Use Nuuly, URBN's New Clothing Rental Subscription Service

Content Courtesy of: marieclaire.com

Written by: Rachel Epstein

If you, like me, have a borderline unhealthy obsession with shopping at Anthropologie, Free People, and Urban Outfitters, try not to freak out: As of today, July 30, URBN—the parent company of said brands—has officially launched a subscription clothing rental service called Nuuly, which will feature the company's "big three," hundreds of other labels like AGOLDE and Paige, as well as up-and-coming designers.

When Rent the Runway was born a decade ago, nobody knew how popular clothing rental services would become. URBN did its homework and found that its customers were increasingly interested in using subscription services, but hadn't necessarily utilized it on the apparel side yet. While RTR carriers designer labels at a variety of price points, Nuuly is focused on an assortment of brands for its customer's everyday needs, whether that's heading to a work event, a wedding, or brunch with friends.

So, how does Nuuly work, exactly? You can choose up to six pieces to rent for only $88 per month and have them delivered straight to your home with Nuuly's free two-day shipping. And, no, it doesn't matter how much the pieces retail for on their own. So, basically, you can get incredible use out of a $300 vintage dress for less than half the price (along with five other items!). At the end of the month, you return the pieces in the reusable plastic- and hanger-free zipper bag that was designed to create as little waste as possible.

With regards to inclusivity, Nuuly will work with Anthro to include the brand's extended sizing, which launched in March, and expand on its assortment with additional brands on the site. You also have the option to purchase the pieces if you end up loving them.

Since the site is brand new, there could be a long waitlist. In the meantime, you can browse through some of our favorite items, below.

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