Goodbye Dubai

I hardly arrived and then I left, and all I saw was the highway between the Emirates Towers hotel and the Madinat Arena hotel on the beach, and everybody says thats all there is to see. Abandoned Foia Gras station


Scary Elevator Ride, Emirates Towersa building advertisers love, looks so much smaller in reality

In Dubai, when people want to have a good time they go to the lobbies of luxury hotels and hang out at the cafes, which sounds like going on vacation in a supermarket but anyway. Still, there's something intriguing about Dubai, and I'd definitely go back. At the Dubai Global Art Forum conference I was on the same panel with the lovely Ben Langlands & Nikki Bell who showed me their fantastic book on Osama bin Laden's house, a documentary + printed blog + virtual house they made a couple of years ago, definitely worth checking out.

First Impessions: Dubai

Travel channel is back it seems, but this time not so pretty: Dubai looks like an endless construction site where they are building Disneyland mixed with Las Vegas. Actually more precise would be to describe it as an American suburb with a Muslim touch. Whatever, it all too manicured and everybody works for somebody and nobody is there just because they want to be, and maybe thats because there's no there there. The conference is taking place right on the beach, and it is kind to weird and slick and poetic and somehow freshly abandoned. Looking through the palm trees you can see beach chairs whose rooms probably cost €1500 a night, gazing towards the sunset factories.

Brazil Wrap Up

Sometimes I feel like a travel channel, all pretty pictures of weird places.. but I always take tons of photos, and not everything fits under categories etc etc, anyway here's some more things I liked over there
a weird water tower
the soft landscape at the end of Ipanema

Valentine Moreno having a transcendental moment
inside the Anish Kapoor humidity twister random urban detailthe carnival storage from far away
housing
mega housing
the biggest squat in Sao Paolo
weird housing
the edge of the Atlantic Rainforest

the blue mirrors they seem to like so much
and I like even more
fantastical brutalist water tower
and stadium that looks like a Virilio Bunker in Rio

Mulher Mulheres almost ready

The installation for Mulher Mulheres is almost ready,

and already I'm on the way to Dubai. Here's some pics..Angelo PlessasVito AcconciFabiana de Barros

Sylvie Fleuryand the fantastic Charlemagne Palestine

Parko Ibirapuera

Another total masterpiece, the Ibirapuera Park in Sao Paulo, designed by Oscar Niemeyer.
A sprawling roof streched like a membrane across the many cultural buildins allows you to walk from one to the other in shade, and covered when it rains.


Angelo is always one step ahead

Some Facades in Copacabana

and further down, in Ipanema

Last night in Rio de Janeiro

Ipanema is super busy all day long

the crowd hangs around the beach even when the sun goes down

they use huge fluorescent floodlights

to keep using the beach

even when it's pitch blackafter Leblon, the favela with the best view twinkles in the night