Photos from the opening of the show 'the flexible and the furious!' 30.6.2012

Live streaming from the opening of the show 'the flexible and the furious!'

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Radar is back with a new architecture exhibition: the flexible and the furious

On Saturday the 30th of June 2012 Radar Architecture & Art will start the exhibition entitled ''the flexible and the furious!'', showing seven projects of the group Radar Architecture in various places in the world. The central theme of the exhibition is the flexibility and adaptability of architecture to different situations imposed by a furious society in constant acceleration. We cordially invite you to the opening of the show at 18:00 in the Eerste Rozendwarsstraat 17hs. The opening hours of the exhibition are Friday and Saturday from 13:00 to 18:00 and on appointment.

An ever-changing world

In the last three and a half years, Radar Group has been participating in international architecture competitions parallel to organizing art exhibitions. Radar found itself thus directly involved in issues such as 'reuse' 'sustainability' 'flexibility' or 'adaptability', which in the last years have become part of everyday vocabulary. The unstable socio-economic conditions that characterize the current decade force people more and more to an adaptability to situations of daily life and work. The same adaptability is therefore required from structures that accommodate the events of the social and private life of people. The main engine of these changes is likely to be found in the dizzying increase of the exchange of information, in which Internet has played and plays a key role. Art and Architecture have been affected by these developments, especially in recent years characterized by a global economic crisis.

A flexible architecture

After a series of projects Radar Group has decided to present the results of that work taking the opportunity to do an analysis of the main guidelines underlying the projects. This study revealed some points in common, like an invisible wire stretched between the conscious and unconscious that binds all projects. The most important aspects that unite the seven projects are in fact flexibility and adaptability. By flexibility is meant the ability of architecture to meet different requirements of users that in the present day change with a remarkable rapidity. By adaptability is meant a kind of 'external flexibility' that allows a concept or architectural strategy to be applied with minor changes to different places or urbanistic contexts. The exhibition 'the flexible and the furious!' shows projects in several places (from Warsaw to Venice, from Amsterdam to Austin, from Rome to Oslo) and of different typologies (from a SPA in a skyscraper to temporary pavilions for art exhibitions, from an adventure playground to a family house) and analyses how and to what extent the key concepts of flexibility and adaptability are present in them.

Press release by Marco Radar

Exhibition "Now We Are Gone" by Chidi Onwuka

On Saturday September 10th at 16:00 the gallery RADAR Architecture & Art will start the exhibition 'Now We Are Gone showing works by the English photographer Chidi Onwuka. We cordially invite you to the opening of the show in the Rozengracht 77A.

Theme

The series of photos exhibited shows the interiors of two buildings in Amsterdam, that were about to be demolished: the former Post CS Gebouw and the Wibauthuis building on Wibautstraat. In this superb series, the photographer concentrates his attention on the remains of the buildings; capturing what the current conformity tends to forget or hide.

Unconventionality often leads to surprising results: in 1632 Rembrandt portrayed in his painting "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp" in a completely new way until then, a professor who dissected a corpse in front of his students. Similarly Chidi Onwuka, referring to the buildings in question, speaks of a "wounded animal" that is about to die, and it is this particular “wound” that fascinates him.

The city as a whole is composed of a variety of buildings where the human activities take place. They are put onto a scale of importance where at the top we find the monument, par excellence untouchable and beautifully displayed, and at the bottom the buildings to be demolished, hidden behind anonymous scaffolding. And it is exactly on the latter subject that Chidi Onwuka wants to point his finger: on what is hidden and considered embarrassing by the common sense, trying to find the beauty that lies in the unusual.

The artist

Chidi Onwuka is an English born Nigerian, brought up in Oxford. He graduated in Architecture and studied Film Theory & Criticism. In 1989 he moved to Amsterdam were he now works and lives. The photographer has worked as an architect in Dutch studios (OMA, Neutelings Riedijk, West 8) and then as an interactive designer, art director and programmer.

Ocassionally he writes about architecture and urbanism. His true love in life though is to observe the world around him and in photography he has found the perfect outlet in which to express himself.

Group exhibition 'summer on a solitary beach'

This summer Radar would like to invite you to a group exhibition of the artists that exhibited in the gallery in the last 6 month and one guest artist.

The artist represented will be :

Laser 3.14 (graffiti art)

Nisja (paintings)

Marcel Ozymantra (paintings)

Immo Jalass (digital paintings)

Steven Smith (photography )

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Ikko To

The gallery is open every Friday and Saturday from 13:00 to 17:00. Come to visit us at the Rozengracht 77A.

collage by Marco Radar

photo of Laser 3.14 by Lisa Elsenburg

Radar in The Guardian

Radar is featured in the The Guardian in "10 of the best independent galleries in Amsterdam"!
Have a look!
www.guardian.co.uk

Cosy summer party on Friday 1st of July 'Paintings: a musical comment'

 Marcel Ozymantra: The Veil, oil on canvas, 35 x 30,  2010

Radar would like to invite you to a special event on Friday the 1st of July: Paintings: a musical comment. The composer Vera van der Bie has written a musical comment to some paintings of the exhibition  Street | Spirit.
You are welcome from 20:00 for a short presentation, music and some drinks.