Lauren Arena

When it comes to retail therapy, Australian businesswomen and entrepreneur Karine Bulger knows a thing or two. She recently founded LA Experience, an Melbourne-based boutique travel consultancy that offers shopaholics a personal shopping tour of the City of Angels.

Lunch Magazine recently sat down with Karine to talk about the inspiration behind her bespoke touring business and how to get the Hollywood experience.

Expert shopper… Karine Bulger

What motivated you to start the business?

I used to live in Los Angeles and my husband is American. We met in LA and lived in Santa Monica for a number of years and through living there I just absolutely fell in love with the city. It’s a spectacular city if you know where to go.

So part of the idea was sparked from a desire to introduce people to the LA that I love and, in terms of shopping, how much cheaper everything is – that’s just the reality. I travel there once a year to visit relatives and stock up on things like school shoes for my kids and everyday items and friends back home would be amazed by the quality and the prices. I was having so many social conversations about shopping in LA that I started organising trips on an ADHOC basis. Then I realised there might be an opportunity to share this experience even further.

Spectacular… Montage Beverly Hills

What are some of the highlights of your signature Inside LA tour?

The hotel we stay at, the Montage Beverly Hills, is a spectacular property. It’s up there with the best in the world when you consider the nature of the service and the facilities – the spa is the best I’ve ever experienced and there are six brand new, beautiful Mercedes available for guests to use at any time – It’s an amazing experience and second to none.

The shopping days are jammed packed with stylist appointments and shopping along Rodeo Drive and The Grove, but the nights are a lot of fun too.

On Saturday evening, as part of the experience, we all have our hair and make-up done and set out to the very exclusive Tower Bar on Sunset Boulevard for the real Hollywood experience and a bit of celeb-spotting – Johnny Depp and Jennifer Aniston have tables reserved there – and then its on to SkyBar, where we sip cocktails poolside and soak up the scene. There are girls in bikinis and high heels and it’s great to just sit back and absorb it all.

How do you customise the shopping experience for each shopper?

When people register for a tour there is a consultancy session where I ask questions about what the client is hoping to achieve and the kind of items they are hoping to purchase.

I collect data in order to direct each client towards the experience they’re after and note down style preferences and measurements so when we arrive at places like Macy’s and Nordstrom there are individual racks of clothes already pulled for each shopper.

We have individual stylist appointments set-up with the key department stores as well as with brands like BCBG and Joe’s Jeans, where there is a rack of jeans hand-picked for each client when they arrive. It’s very much a VIP service.

How do you accommodate for individual requests when touring with big groups?

I come from 20 years of event and group management experience where I would coordinate conferences of up to 5,000 delegates, so the operations of the whole experience are very simple and all the locations are relatively close so it’s easy for me to navigate and for everyone to get around.

All the tours are highly organised but offer great flexibility. We’re not rigid and we’re more than happy to adjust our plans for individual demands.

What is your key client demographic?

It’s largely females but I’m certainly hoping we have some men coming along – I have a man attending our first shopping tour later this month. My demographic is early 30’s to mid 60’s and I’ve also made a conscience effort to make the tours accessible for women with children, where mothers can escape for five days and see the trip as a nice reward. I’ve found most women just want to get away with their mum or sister or daughter and just have fun.

Are there any other tour ideas in the works?

All tours are based on the Insider LA itinerary, but with additional influences, like sports – because a lot of women want to travel with their partner and this gives men different options like going to an NBA or ice-hockey game – or I also have a tour scheduled in 2014 focused on the Grammy awards.

I have three more tours scheduled this year and seven planned for next year. I hope to streamline the tours in 2015 by skewing my business towards the market – listening to feedback and offering something that people actually want.

LA Experience is currently offering a Mother’s Day Bonus where bookings of up to three people will each receive a $300 shopping voucher and bookings of four people or more receive a $400 shopping voucher. This offer is valid for those who book by 20 May 2013.

www.laexperience.com

One of my favourite things about luxury hotels is the seemingly endless supply of designer toiletries – soaps, gels, lotions and shampoo – all in a conveniently compact, travel-friendly size.

Thinking sustainably… Pismo Lighthouse Suites

In fact, over the years I’ve amassed quite a collection in my own bathroom at home. But it seems not everyone has the same affiliation to mini bars of soap as I do and a California-based boutique hotel group has thought up a way to recycle its used toiletries.

With oceanfront hotels along Pismo Beach and nestled in the heart of Paso Robles wine country, Martin Resorts had sustainability in mind when they recently teamed up with Clean the World Foundation to collect used soap, shampoos, conditioners and lotions to help fight the global spread of preventable diseases.

To date, over two and half kilograms of used toiletries have been collected from five Martin properties and recycled into 22,614 new bars of soap to be distributed to impoverished communities throughout the United States and across the globe.

Waste not want not… recycled soap

“Knowing we should find a way to recycle our used soap products is a common discussion in the hotel industry, but having a partner to work with to convert our goods to soap and deliver them worldwide gives us the missing piece,” says Margaret Johnson, Chief Operating Officer of Martin Resorts.

Clean the World Foundation is the largest global recycler of hotel amenities and in just three years of operation has distributed more than 11 million bars of soap to children and families in more than 55 countries worldwide.

Each day 9,000 children around the world die from diseases such as acute respiratory illness and diarrheal diseases that can be prevented by washing with bar soap.

“Our hotel partners are the driving forces behind our global hygiene revolution,” says Shawn Seipler, CEO at Clean the World.

“By making a commitment to sustainable, socially responsible programs in the hospitality industry, hotel groups are using the leftover resources of soaps and bottled amenities to help save lives.”

www.martinresorts.com

Sitting in the low-ceilinged loft of a smoky bar in Yangjiang – China’s answer to Sheffield – Zheng Guogu has just learned the English for ‘piss artist’ and likes it so much he says it three times over.

Piss artists… the Yangjiang Group

With the kind of arresting rawness that you only get when foreigners or very young children swear, Zheng relishes the fact he has no idea what he’s really saying and lets out one more emphatic ‘piss artist’ just for good measure.

Zheng and his collaborators in the Yangjiang Group, Sun Qinglin and Chen Zaiyan,use Chinese calligraphy and alcohol to occupy exactly this space – the unconscious mind seething up through the cleft created when you know vaguely what it is you’re trying to say, but you’re so bladdered on the local Zhujiang Beer you can barely hold an ink brush.

“When we first started working together we used to drink and then by accident we found things that we’d written that we couldn’t remember doing at the time,” says Zheng, who first began working with the other two 10 years ago.

The power and clarity of these calligraphic works impressed them so much that drinking became a pre-condition for their Jackson Pollock-like art jams, sometimes binge drinking for up to three days at a time.

“When you’re in this mental situation you don’t remember what you’ve done,” says Zheng. “It’s exactly this distance and unfamiliarity between your state of mind and what you are doing that draws you to a higher state of art.”

Often taking preposterous news stories for inspiration, the calligraphy is so sloppy the viewer is forced to read the label to find out what the work is referring to.

The results are hilarious and disturbing at the same time.

Hilarious and disturbing… drunken calligraphy

One piece entitled “The Morning After: Masterpieces Written While Drunk, No. 1: ‘I Need a New Kidney to Kill Bin Laden’” references American would-be assassin and dialysis patient Gary Brook Faulkner who launched a private mission to kill Osama bin Laden; the dribbles and spatters of the drunken calligraphy highly suggestive of madness.

Another “Bloodwritten Letter on Imprisonment with the Opposite Sex” uses calligraphy to retell the shocking news story of a 16-year-old girl who, in 1996, was imprisoned for a week with two dozen male suspects who sexually abused her. Zheng writes the text over an unrelated photograph of what appear to be binge-drinking revellers.

The group is unusual in China in that they’ve never left their hometown for the art centers of Shanghai or Beijing. Yangjiang is an unprepossessing coastal industrial town in the southern province of Guangdong famous for producing one-in-ten of the knives in American households.

Staying at home means the money from their growing international reputation (they say there’s little interest in their work in China) goes further.

In the past couple of years, they’ve built a sprawling studio in urban Yangjiang in the shape of an iceberg and in the countryside a complex of interconnected exhibition spaces, rooms and gardens that ranges over several acres and is inspired by the video game “Age of Empires”.

Zheng says there’s little in the way of planning or design in the studio or the complex, the various rooms are created depending on discussions with the builders on the day, and there’s nothing in the way of official planning permission for the buildings.

Urban iceberg… Yangjiang Group studio

He says he even once made an exhibit of the receipts for the bribes he had to pay to various authorities to get his architectural projects through. Kickbacks in China are often demanded through semi-official means, for instance overly rigorous fire safety requirements and the like.

“Oh yes, a lot of people complained,” Zheng says matter-of-factly about his own flat, a warren of connecting chambers built on two presumably illegally constructed floors on the top of a central Yangjiang apartment block. In China, obstacles such as bent-out-of-shape neighbours are usually simply a matter of compensation.

While the group is not overtly political, and they say the authorities take no interest in what they are doing, their works are radical and directly challenge the complex position of calligraphy in China where it is regarded as something of a sacred art.

Chen Zaiyan, who studied calligraphy at university, says simplified characters – a system introduced under Mao Zedong which drastically reduced the number of strokes and characters in a bid to lift literacy – is still unable to take complete hold in the country even after more than 50 years.

He says there’s a gravitational pull towards traditional script because the characters carry a deeper cultural sense, which he says comes shimmering out of the characters “like a mirage”.

“Most calligraphers habitually tend to write in traditional script,” says Chen. “I think in 20 years or more China will return to traditional script.”

Their calligraphy and installations not only keenly identify where the written language is debased, but where it is most vital.

Their Presidential Decree of the People’s Republic of China No. 74 takes the dead language of a screed of bureaucratic text outlining the minimum aesthetic requirements for the modern Chinese city and breathes life into it by blowing it up to 30 metres high and slapping it on the side of a glass tower in Shenzhen.

Meanwhile, their installation Last Day, Last Struggle gives a new context to the kind of bold and direct messages you can see on any market stall in China – “I’m bankrupt and suicidal. Everything must go” says one sign, “I’m old, I’m poor and my wife has left me” reads another.

“In China you can’t just go on the street and protest,” says Zheng. “In many ways, these people are using their shops and these signs to demonstrate.”

As for China’s many calligraphy associations and academies, Zheng says the Yangjiang Group has yet to receive any formal approaches.

“From these groups,” he says with a deadpan and faraway expression, “We have had very little interest”.

Hotel art is so often synonymous with mass-produced prints, thoughtlessly arranged in carbon-copied rooms. But there a few emerging boutique properties that are celebrating artistic expression and embracing local and international artists.

Contemporary… THE THIEF

Ranging from the seriously impressive collections of big name artists such as Andy Warhol and Antony Gormley in THE THIEF hotel in Oslo, to carefully curated exhibitions of local African artists at the Tribe Hotel in Nairobi, some of the world’s most exciting art can now be found in hotels.

These collections have grown from each hotelier’s passion for art. Whether it be cutting edge digital art technology like at QT in Sydney or experiential, tactile arts as in Rovinj’s Hotel Lone, this tangible excitement has the ability to inspire a global renaissance.

Art ecstasy in Oslo

World-class curator and former director of Norway’s National Museum of Art Sune Nordgren is the man behind THE THIEF’s stellar art collection. Newly opened in January this year, the hotel’s 119 rooms feature handpicked original artworks by contemporary masters alongside thought-provoking video installation and cutting edge graphic design. ‘Art on demand’ is available in every room via interactive TV, while themed maps such as Oslo Escape Routes take guests on a curated tour around the city. The hotel also features prominent works on loan from its neighbour, the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art.

Tactile art in Rovinj

In-room gallery… Park Hotel Tokyo

Perched along Croatia’s Adriatic coast, the Hotel Lone combines innovative design with functionality to present something distinctly expressive. It is the hotel’s attention to detail which is truly astonishing – every surface, furniture piece, light fitting, even the staff uniforms designed by Croatian fashion studio I-GLE, have been individually commissioned to fit the hotel’s creative concept.

From rich textured wall hangings to decorated murals and living installations, the entire hotel is touchy-feely (read on before making any assumptions) and encourages guests to play with materials, to use their senses and become part of the creative process – unlike the traditional museum ethos.

Sumo delights in Tokyo

Located in the culturally exciting area Shiodome in Tokyo, Park Hotel Tokyo features ART Colours, a quarterly exhibition project that allows guests and Japanese residents to enjoy the beauty of the four seasons. A selection of artworks and video installations by Japanese artists are chosen for every exhibition and displayed in the hotel’s atrium.

The hotel also recently launched an Artist in Hotel project where Japanese artists are invited to create Japanese ink paintings directly on the walls of the rooms, turning hotel rooms into art galleries. The Artist Room Sumo is the first, where guests share the room with lively images of sumo wrestlers.

A dazzler down under

Theatrical… QT Sydney

Right in the heart of Sydney, QT Sydney stands proud within the historic Gowings department store and heritage-listed State Theatre.

Behind its doors, the old world charm is retained with new technology, distinctive art mediums and pioneering artists. Its eclectic and quirky artifacts from around the world are put together in a whimsical fashion alongside cutting edge graphics and an imposing LED wall of intriguing digital art. Hotel guests will experience art as a theatrical performance as new expressions are crafted from old attitudes.

Inspiring tribal art in Nairobi

Tribe Hotel’s treasure trove of art pieces is curated by Faranak Ehsani and is home to some of the finest tribal art to be found anywhere in the world. Artefacts from South Africa to Cameroon and Ivory Coast in the West, through to Kenya and Rwanda in the East fill the lobbies, rooms, restaurants and lounges. Guests might even find themselves sitting on an art piece, dressed as a stool, chair or bench somewhere in the hotel.

The hotel also offers a 50 feet high atrium with tiers of galleries for events and exhibitions, making it a cultural axis to engage locals and international guests. 

www.designhotels.com

Retail therapy embraces a similar logic, namely that impulse buying can curb feelings of sadness and despair and bring on a sense of frivolity and delight – and I, for one, am a firm believer.

Shopping heaven… Rodeo Drive

So too, it seems, is Karine Bulger, the Founder and Director of LA Experience, an Australian-based boutique travel consultancy offering shopaholics a personal shopping tour of the City of Angels.

The service offers a luxury “insider’s tour” of Los Angeles, exploring the glamour of its infamous retail district.

Bulger, an Australian native who lived in LA for several years and leads the tour as a shopping concierge, says finding designer deals is her business.

“I remember my first shopping exploration through LA’s diverse retail scene – I couldn’t believe the extraordinary choice and savings as I unearthed one great find after another. I knew other Australians would want to share my LA Experience, and hence the business was born,” says Bulger.

Bespoke shopping itineraries are tailored to suit all budgets, with unique experiences and deals the average traveller would otherwise not have access to.

Exploring brands like Coach, Kate Spade, Burberry and Barneys NY, each day includes a different shopping experience and all travel dates are planned to coincide with US retail holiday sales.

Along with five-star accommodation in Beverly Hills, the tour also schedules exclusive appointments with the iconic stores of Rodeo Drive, including personal stylists from Stylehaus, BCBG Max Azria and Macy’s.

Bulger’s launch trip will take place in May 2013.

www.laexperience.com

When I meet Ben Quilty he looks and smells exactly as I imagined. He’s dressed in a flannelette shirt, jeans and sneakers, with scruffy hair and a beard that’s fiercely thick. He smells of oil paint and I can see it still jammed under his fingernails. Sitting in a leafy courtyard at the National Art School, Quilty disarms me with his warm and welcoming presence despite the obvious emotion he displays as we start discussing his latest exhibition.

On the war path… Ben Quilty

Quilty was commissioned as an official war artist by the Australian War Memorial to document the experiences of Australian servicemen and women and spent a month in Afghanistan back in 2011. The resulting exhibition After Afghanistan has quickly become the most hotly debated of his career. Interestingly, he was officially given the Australian Defence Force (ADF) stamp of approval but, perhaps ironically so, it has stirred up quite a few emotional responses since it’s opening last month. The 21 studio paintings – in Quilty’s signature oil on linen – and 16 sketches reveal a lot more about the human face of war than the ADF is perhaps willing to admit.

We’ve been speaking for only a few minutes but I can already see the incredible effect this collection of work has had on the artist. He speaks with intense emotion, his eyes are wide and concentrated and just as captivating as his words.

“It was dark and sinister and overwhelming,” says Quilty of his time in Kandahar.

“The thing I wasn’t prepared for was the constant threat and rockets landing inside the basin, that was horrifying.”

But Quilty’s exhibition isn’t one that celebrates the war hero in a traditional sense, rather, it focuses on the intense physicality of the soldiers and the emotional and psychological consequences of war.

“They carry with them an emotional experience that is almost physical and I wanted to record that emotional weight,” says Quilty.

Emotive… Troy Park, after Afghanistan

Works like Trooper M, after Afghanistan and Air Commander John Oddie and after Afghanistan no. 2 are not portraits of the traditional heroic nude, but images imbued with the lasting experience of war. The faces in the impressive canvases are frightened and hollow and the bodies stripped bear appearing fragile and contorted without the protection of armour or a uniform.

Quilty spent 12 months creating the works in his studio in the NSW southern highlands where he invited the troopers he met in Afghanistan to sit for him upon their return from deployment.

“It was very confronting, particularly watching these guys fall apart and unravel. There’s a sense of team morale while the troops are in Afghanistan but when they return to their green, safe, first world Australia that’s when they fall apart and that’s the classic time when post-traumatic stress hits.

At work… Quilty in his studio

“They have nightmares, they become very violent, they often drag their partners out of bed and hold them on the ground and scream for cover and I’ve heard that from many young guys who are dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I’ve had their wives and girlfriends in tears in my studio talking about their experience being married to these people.”

This is an overwhelming part of a largely untold story.

“Three guys have been diagnosed since I started working with them and most are going outside of the ADFA to find their own private specialists to help them and at the moment the ADFA isn’t making things easy for them.”

Quilty explains subjects like Trooper M are part of the Special Operations Task Group and are therefore classified under protected identity status.

“They are fighting a war every single day and they are engaging with enemies, risking their lives and dealing with high enemy casualities. There is constant death around them, extreme pressure and because of their status, they’re not allowed to talk about their experiences, which is doing them a big disservice.

“The stories [Trooper M] told me about Afghanistan, the triggers to his post traumatic stress, and the experiences he’s had are like nothing I’ve ever heard in my life. And most of them have these stories.”

Throughout the painting process, Quilty says he wanted to provide a vehicle for his subjects to tell their stories, confront their fears, and shed a light on the darkness so many are suffering – often in silence and with little help.

Vulnerable… Captain Kate Porter, after Afghanistan

“I found the commission so much more important than my career and in the end the work that I made is not my opinion of who they are, it’s the truth about how they feel, what they are confronting. It’s about their future and their past,” he explains.

Australian soldiers, sailors and a number of air force personnel have come to the National Art School to view the exhibition and have expressed their gratitude to the artist for telling a story that no one else would.

“The arts are crucially important to a healthy society. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, I know what I’ve achieved with this exhibition and how cathartic it has been, on a personal level, for the guys I’ve worked with,” says Quilty.

Yet, in a nation obsessed with sporting heroes and the pursuit of physical excellence, the arts seem to fall to the wayside.

“The underfunding and lack of respect for the arts in this country makes me very sad,” says Quilty, his voice raised a few decibels.

“The arts isn’t just about painting; it’s about film, theatre and literature – these are so important and make up the real fibre and substance of a community.”

In fact, his exhibition is on show at the National Art School in East Sydney because the Australian War Memorial in Canberra doesn’t have an exhibition space.

“The Australian War Memorial has one of the biggest collections in Australia containing some of the most profoundly important work about war, death, sadness and hope, and yet, no exhibition space. In the past they probably thought their collection was worth a lot of money but not really important to their audience.

“I hope I’ve proved them wrong.”

 After Afghanistan will tour New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Canberra until May 2015.

www.awm.gov.au/exhibitions

www.benquilty.com

]]> http://www.lunchmag.com/after-afghanistan-when-the-war-begins/feed/ 0 http://www.lunchmag.com/two-temple-place-architecture-art-and-food/ http://www.lunchmag.com/two-temple-place-architecture-art-and-food/#comments Wed, 27 Mar 2013 00:12:18 +0000 jonathan http://www.lunchmag.com/?p=8463 Amy Hughes

Hold on to your hat here. It’s crazy and you won’t know where to look first!

Elegantly sandwiched between the sombre, legal, august Inner Temple and the renowned University of London, number two Temple Place is a triumph of architecture and Gothic Disney.

Exquisite… Two Temple Place

An unsettling, architectural gem of a building, it is a clutter of wood paneling, pictures and paranoia.  So visually overpowering that if it weren’t for the immediate mugging by fabulous Mediterranean and Cornish aromas, you could easily miss lunch, altogether.

William Waldorf Astor, the dizzyingly wealthy creator of New York City’s Waldorf Astoria, built this Thames side, neo-Gothic, late Victorian mansion, (its that and more), in 1895, for £250,000; probably £25million at today’s prices.  It’s rumoured he believed his children would be safer here, from the threat of kidnapping.  With the touch of a button, it’s said, Astor could bar and lock all windows and doors.

And there are plenty of doors. The first one prepares you for what London’s evening newspaper called an “entertaining, camp, joyful and funny” building.

Two romantic cherubs, each holding a telephone, celebrate the then new age of telecommunication. There are carvings of characters from The Three Musketeers, 54 others from history and fiction, Pocahontas, Bismarck, and, probably for some good reason, Marie Antoinette. The Last of the Mohicans is there too, Rip Van Winkle with his dog, and 82 characters from Shakespeare.  To top out the restored, fake Elizabethan stonework there’s a Golden weather vane representing the Santa Maria in which Columbus discovered America. The Astor’s symbolic connection across the ‘pond’ is relentless.

All that and you still haven’t seen the pictures.

But not quite yet… pause here, follow your nose and sample the stupendous salads, good bread or a Cornish pasty. For me though their ‘take’ on a prosaic Egg and Watercress on Poilane rye was second to none.  Mint tea with real mint made me want to hug somebody.

Classic… Forbes’ A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach, 1885

Ok, now you can see the pictures.  They’ve only recently started to stage exhibitions and this one is the most significant grouping of Cornish art, outside Cornwall, in recent times.

‘Amongst Heroes: the artist in working Cornwall’, is a cornucopia of fish, fishermen, their boats and the sea.

Mostly not great art, and very much late Victorian to early Edwardian taste, these works are seldom seen, much of it tucked away in private collections or in museum storage.

There’s a massive Stanhope Forbes, ‘A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach’ which was done, we’re told, ‘as it happened’. There’s the chaotic but triumphant ‘trawling of pilchards’, painted actually on the sea from a neighboring boat. Everywhere are ruddy-faced seafarers in dozens of painterly works and drawings.  There’s even, rather oddly, a fragile Cornish oyster-fishing boat.  There must have been many drownings.  But for me the most thrilling picture is a small, 1930’s Christopher Wood fishing boat; clear and clean, a lovingly painted work from arguably the finest, certainly the most tragic, of the Cornish school.

Two Temple Place is worthy of half an hour of your life, even stripped of the paintings.  And, because this is not a ‘great’ collection, if you haven’t had enough of the very best, all is not lost. A short walk away is London’s greatest gallery, The Courtauld, home of some of the world’s most perfect art treasures. It’s currently staging a small, but perfectly formed two-room exhibit of Picasso works, all produced in 1901.

There’s been much talk about the disappointing, rambling Manet exhibit at the Royal Academy stuffed with lots of filler and few captivating pictures.  This one’s a no-brainer, save a few quid, and get a two-fer, combining the Courtauld with Two Temple Place.  Or, after such a splendid battering of art, you could just retreat to the patio behind the University and sit and watch the Thames.

www.twotempleplace.org

www.courtauld.ac.uk

One of China's leading fashion photographers, Chen Man, will showcase her unique vision at Bangkok’s Metropolitan by COMO hotel in just over a month.

Contemporary... Chen Man

The exhibition, taking place from April 25th to May 31st 2013, will be on display in a pop-up gallery space within the hotel’s iconic Met Bar.

Artworks will include several pieces from her Bad Head series, which uses waste materials in the post-production process to drive the concept of environmentally friendly fashion.

“With the complex use of waste materials carefully constructed directly onto the models' form, the meaning is constructed by injecting the materials directly into the creative process,” says Man.

The show will display nine lightbox images and two printed works in the Met Bar along with six prints in one the hotel’s Penthouse Suites.

A graduate of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, Chen Man is China’s leading fashion photographer whose distinctive vision of feminine beauty and power has placed her among the image-makers of choice for luxury brands like Celine, Versace, Chanel, MAC and Mercedes.

Arty... the Met Bar

Her work, considered defining of modern China, has been exhibited at the Salon National d’Art Contemporain at the Espace Cardin in Paris and Ullens Center of Contemporary Art in Beijing.

Man’s upcoming exhibition has inspired a special Chen Man Afternoon Tea at the Met Bar, including a refreshing iced lychee, ginger and silver moon tea; pickled cucumber, shiitake mushroom and lily bud steamed buns; and bamboo, red bean and sesame cupcakes.

Guests staying in the Chen Man Penthouse Suite will also receive a signed book by Chen Man.

comohotels.com

Lauren Arena

With piracy costing the global economy upwards of $10 billion a year it might be time to consider engaging and killing pirates on sight according to a world leading defence analyst.

Executive Director at the Australian Defence Association, Neil James says piracy was only crushed in the 19th century because pirates were killed and becoming a pirate was like signing a death sentence.

"International rights do-gooders have essentially created more pirates and recreated a very serious international problem.

Out of control... Somali pirates

James was commenting in response to maritime security company Typhon's announcement that they will attempt to tackle the spread of piracy across the Indian Ocean with the world’s first private navy in almost 200 years. 

Typhon's offering is a tailor-made navy escort service to the commercial market, allowing ship operators to safely cross the Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. Armed vessels, including a 10,000-ton mother ship and high speed armoured patrol boats, will be led by a former Royal Navy commodore along with 240 former marines and sailors as part of Typhon’s integrated protection model.

James, says this modern twist on a Letter of Marque is only a quick fix. 

“It’s purely a case of the commercial market filling a vacuum because the United Nations have their arms tied,” says James.

“A private security convoy is a reactive measure, they’re operating as a guard force and can't proactively engage with pirate vessels in order to address the problem and really make a difference in the long term.”

The company’s CEO, Anthony Sharp, says, “The areas we will protect are too vast for current naval resources to monitor effectively and this will be an even bigger issue when Operation Atlanta comes to an end”.

Winding down... Operation Atlanta

“With millions paid out in ransoms to pirates and much more money lost by businesses in fuel costs avoiding pirates, it is important that businesses are granted a safer passage with their cargo through dangerous waters.”

But safe passage doesn't come cheap. A private navy escort will cost between $5000 and $10,000 dollars per day.

Under current United Nations Security Council (UNSC) laws a person engaged in piracy must be taken into custody to undergo a fair criminal trial before being charged. According to James, this is at the heart of the problem.

He suggests Somali pirates have become more flexible, adaptable and better organised and have more modern weapons and communications. Western naval analysts also say they are extending their range to the Oman sea.

“Pirates are operating across enormous distances and Somalia has become a 20th century Tortuga,” says James.

Piracy is spreading rapidly from its Somali roots across the Indian Ocean as far as the Gulf of Guinea, Bangladesh and Indonesia, yet the EU naval presence in the Gulf of Aden is due to end in 2014.James says the UNSC needs to revise its laws in order to stamp out piracy for good, but doubts whether the necessary changes will ever occur.

Humble beginnings... Typhon's fleet

“An international agreement would require a pirate atrocity to take place in order to concentrate international minds on the issue,” he says.

Typhon is set to escort its first convoy of oil tankers and bulk carriers in April, but there's still a lot of work to be done before then.

The first of Typhon’s intended fleet of 10 ships, a 130-foot container vessel, is currently being retrofitted in Abu Dhabi and the crew of ex-Royal Marines and sailors is yet to be hired.

To-date the company has acquired three container vessels, only one of which is expected to be ready in time for the inaugural voyage in April, while Sharp and his management team attempt to finalise an insurance deal with Lloyd's of London. 

Amy Hughes

It’s easy to see where America’s greatest illustrator took inspiration from as we pull into Stockbridge, a small, New England town in the Berkshires. Norman Rockwell, considered by many America’s most popular artist of the 20th century, made his home here in 1953. He became so attached to the community, he established a trust while he was still alive, ensuring his works would be left to the Stockbridge Historical Society, who later created the Norman Rockwell Museum.

Worth it... Norman Rockwell Museum

For starters, Rockwell has an interesting story. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his “vivid and affectionate portraits of our country.” Born in 1894, Rockwell always knew he wanted to be an artist. He studied art at the National Academy of Design and was already being commissioned to paint Christmas cards by the age of 16. As a teenager, he became art director of Boy’s Life, the Boy Scouts’ official magazine. 

Rockwell went on to produce work for Life magazine and other publications before painting his first cover for The Saturday Evening Post at just 22 years old. He would go on to paint more than 320 covers, all of which are on display at the museum. The weekly magazine covered current affairs, and Rockwell’s lavish covers were clever illustrations of topical themes making both the magazine and the artist wildly popular.

Legendary... Norman Rockwell

What makes the Rockwell museum so accessible is both its subject matter (which is sometimes challenging, as well as humorous, and often plainly pleasing), and its layout. Descriptive panels weave interesting back stories about each picture, rather than posit what Rockwell may have been trying to convey.

There’s something to identify with in most pictures, whether it’s the young boy cringing at the site of a doctor about to deliver a jab, or a warm scene of a bountiful Thanksgiving table where no one is fighting (okay, maybe not identifiable, but certainly idyllic), these pictures are visions of regular people.

Identifiable... Freedom from Want, 1943

The museum also works hard to stay current with rotating exhibits. It’s no secret galleries have to rely on a few tricks to pull people in these days, but the Rockwell museum remains the most popular in the region. It’s packed, in fact. Many have come for the Heroes & Villains exhibit exploring the art of Alex Ross, the prolific comic book artist responsible for Superman, Captain Marvel and other favourites. Why? Because Ross, like so many American artists, was heavily influenced and inspired by Rockwell. The PR man at the museum gives me a wink and explains it’s “a bit of a stretch”. But I disagree.

Rockwell is the real deal; an American icon, and it’s fascinating to see the impact of his work on modern artists. Further, let’s be honest, it’s an exhibit that runs over Christmas and February vacation, and if it lures kids into the museum, which it does, then I think it’s a grand idea. Rockwell took a fun approach to chronicling life in 20th century America, and it shows at the museum. There’s nothing stuffy about it, in fact, if we had more time, we’d sit and stare for a good long while, and one of us is definitely NOT a museum person.
 

www.nrm.org